Fresh off winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is eyeing up the Nobel Literature Prize. In aid of that, she concocted the following narrative:
This Bloomberg conversation with Venezuelaâs Maria Corina Machado is full of wild claims. Aside from what we already posted earlier (her insistence that Hamas is hiding in Venezuela) â
†Asked whether Trumpâs interest in Venezuela stems from his claims about Venezuelan⊠pic.twitter.com/gL7z4rXkM7
If you’re a casual follower of the news, you likely know two things about Venezuela:
America doesn’t like their government.
They have a shit tonne of oil.
If you’ve thought about it for two seconds, you’ve no doubt concluded these things are connected.
Venezuela are once again back in the Western news cycle because Trump has been threatening military action against them. Now, add to that the fact that the Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize. As a result, she’s giving interviews and teaching us all so much about her country.
Nobel Peace Prize winner and Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado welcomes U.S. airstrikes on Venezuela and the extrajudicial killing of Venezuelans at sea, insisting the strikes âare about saving lives.â Speaking to Bloombergâs Mishal Husain, she also claims that Hamas, the Palestinian armed resistance group, is now located in Venezuela.
Hamas are in Caracas?
The Venezuelan capital?
Aren’t Hamas… otherwise engaged?
When Hamas still had hostages the hasbarists would say “release the hostages” to justify Israeli massacres. Now that the hostages are released they say Israel should do more massacres because there’s no risk of hurting the hostages. https://t.co/GeUgmjdv3Jpic.twitter.com/a9Nn7diGBh
Machado claimed Hezbollah are there too â Hezbollah being the paramilitary wing of a Lebanese political party. This is surprising, we must admit, because Hezbollah also have a lot going on:
Israel just carried out an airstrike on a car in a residential neighborhood in Lebanon, violating Security Council resolution SCR 1701, ceasefire agreement, and international law with absolutely no consequences
The Nobel Peace Prize winner openly backs U.S. military escalation against Venezuela, including land strikes if necessary, calling escalation âthe only way to force Maduro to understand that itâs time to go.â
This Nobel prize winner loves the smell of peace in the morning.
Rinse and repeat
Once again, Western powers have thrown their support behind a freak in their efforts to steal wealth and resources from a developing nation.
A new Israel poll from Israeli Channel 12 has revealed that most Israelis donât believe their own government is in charge of the ongoing assault on Gaza â they think Washington is.
The survey, carried out by the Madgam Research Institute, found that 67% of Israelis say the United States is the main decision-maker in the war, despite the so-called ceasefire that came into effect on 10 October 2025. Only 24% think Tel Aviv is leading operations, while the remaining 9% were undecided.
Israel poll: âAmerican tutelageâ
The Israel poll showed that 69% of Israelis believe their country is under âAmerican tutelageâ â with nearly a quarter âstrongly agreeingâ with that description. Just 8% had no opinion.
In other words, the majority of Israelis appear to accept that their supposedly sovereign government is taking orders from Washington â a striking admission as Israel continues its genocidal campaign in Gaza.
Fears of another political assassination
The survey also found widespread anxiety over the potential for political violence. Two-thirds of respondents said they fear a repeat of the 1995 assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by right-wing extremist Yigal Amir. The timing of the poll â just before the 30th anniversary of Rabinâs murder during a peace rally â makes that fear all the more telling.
The Haredi conscription row
The poll also touched on the escalating battle over the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription law. More than half of respondents (51%) supported stripping voting rights from religious people who refuse military service, compared with 42% opposed.
The Haredim have been protesting ever since the Supreme Courtâs June 2024 ruling ordering them to enlist and ending state funding for yeshivas that refuse to comply. Meanwhile, the opposition accuses Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to push through new legislation that would exempt the Haredim altogether â a move aimed at winning back the religious parties that quit his coalition but are now waiting to return once the exemption passes.
On Friday, Gazaâs Government Media Office released a report exposing the grim reality behind the so-called ceasefire. Between 10 and 31 October, only a fraction of the promised humanitarian aid has been allowed into the besieged Strip â a clear sign that Israel is still throttling Gazaâs lifeline.
Gaza aid
According to the report, a total of 3,203 trucks entered Gaza during that period â just 24% of the agreed daily quantity. Of these, 639 were commercial trucks and 2,564 carried humanitarian aid, including 84 trucks of diesel and 31 carrying cooking gas.
The daily average of trucks entering Gaza was 145, far below the 600 per day stipulated in the ceasefire terms. When it comes to fuel â the resource most vital for hospitals, bakeries, and water stations â the situation is even worse. Israel allowed in only 115 of the 1,100 agreed fuel trucks â barely 10% of what it promised.
The report emphasised that this delay demonstrates the continuation of a policy of deliberate restriction and disruption of vital energy supplies, holding the occupation responsible for the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where more than 2.4 million people are suffering. Hospitals teeter on the brink of collapse, and famine looms just one blocked flour truck away.
The statement places full responsibility on the Israeli occupation for the worsening humanitarian catastrophe, calling it an intentional continuation of collective punishment under the guise of âsecurity control.â
The Government Media Office urged the international community â and particularly the guarantor states of the ceasefire, including the United States â to intervene immediately and compel Israel to allow unrestricted humanitarian access. Anything less, it said, would make those governments complicit in Gazaâs ongoing suffocation.
Because Elon Musk has all but eliminated moderation on Twitter, people can be as racist as they like on there. This means there are now thousands of low-level influencers who are desperately vying for attention by out racism-ing one another. Predictably, as a result, this has led to the return of blackface:
While we’re no theologians, we can say with 100% certainty that everyone who wrote or appeared in the Bible would think this woman is an absolute waste of life, from God right down to the Serpent.
So we got this fucking asshole in blackface and Lilly fucking Gaddis, never to be outdone, also doing blackface but adding some extra spice with a full blown heil hitler, proudly. What the fuck are doing that these bitches feel so fucking comfortable? https://t.co/I7pPM6EIFkpic.twitter.com/7aOSmcrkHW
This is probably a very funny joke if you’re thick as shit.
Irish poster Ciara suggested Blighe is trying to reach an American audience, because the ‘Irish parliament’ is actually called the ‘Oireachtas’.
“Irish parliament”. See this is what I mean when I say these freaks tweet this kind of stuff with a specific international audience in mind https://t.co/fO9k5BrM8S
â EMPATHCHAN, THE RUTHLESS DICTATOR (@Emp4thchan) October 31, 2025
Grimly, people have accused ‘Empathchan’ of much worse than blackface, although there isn’t any substantial reporting on that, because she’s a Z-list internet try-hard.
If you enjoy wasting your time, you can look her up on Twitter.
We guarantee you’ll regret doing so.
Brittany Venti
A more confusing example of this phenomenon is Brittany Venti, who’s a long-time shit-poster with ties to the far right:
We say ‘more confusing’, because Venti is herself mixed race. This is probably why she had to try harder than Gaddis by throwing additional stereotypes into the mix. Not to be outdone, she also did some Hitler stuff:
My costume wasnât just random -it has lore and built up of drama with the black community especially over the past month.
It is quite literally on brand for me to do black face as it is a continuation of a running satirical bit about how the black community is extremely racist to mulattos for their skin color.
Itâs just really funny how Iâm not âAllowedâ to do black face, YET theyâre âAllowedâ to harass mulattos for being a quote âblack mom biracialâ calling me every name in the book and even insulting my dead parents.
But itâs the end of the world if I make fun of it or say âNiggaâ -despite being black.
One user online described Gaddis and Venti as ‘pick me’s’, which is a term for women who seek to impress men by putting down other women:
â đđ«đąđŠđđ„đđźđŹ (@ImperiumFirst) November 1, 2025
In Venti’s case, it comes across like she’s a pick me at the expense of other non-whites rather than women.
Desperation
Are people really this desperate for attention?
Ordinarily, we’d never recommend that people use ChatGPT as a friend substitute, but AI psychosis couldn’t make these people any weirder. We don’t want to go overboard and suggest it might make them normal, but still â it might at least keep them off the public internet.
Featured image via Twitter (where else would you see this shit?)
It has been more than two weeks since world leaders gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh and declared, once again, that the path to peace in the Middle East had been found. As with previous such declarations, the Palestinians, the people who must live that peace, were left out.
Today, Israel holds the fragile ceasefire hostage while the world is fixated on the search for the remaining bodies of its dead captives.
There is no talk of the Palestinian right to search for and honour their own dead, to mourn publicly the loss.
The idea of reconstruction is dangled before the residents of Gaza. Those who call for it from abroad seem to envision just clearing rubble, pouring concrete, and rehabilitating infrastructure.
There is no talk of rebuilding people — restoring their institutions, dignity, and sense of belonging.
But this is what Palestinians need. True reconstruction must focus on the people of Gaza and it must begin not with cement but with the restoration of classrooms and learning.
It must begin with young people who have survived the unthinkable and still dare to dream. Without them — without Palestinian educators and students at the centre — no rebuilding effort can endure.
Reconstruction without exclusion The plans for governance and reconstruction of Gaza currently circulating are excluding those Palestinians most affected by the genocide. Many aspects of these plans are designed to control rather than empower — to install new overseers instead of nurturing local leadership.
They prioritise Israelâs security over Palestinian wellbeing and self-determination.
We have seen what such exclusion leads to in the Palestinian context: dependency, frustration and despair.
As scholars who have worked for years alongside Palestinian academics and students, we have also seen the central role education plays in Palestinian society.
That is why we believe that reconstruction has to start with education, including higher education. And that process has to include and be led by the Palestinians themselves. Palestinian educators, academics and students have already demonstrated they have the strength to persevere and rebuild.
Gazaâs universities, for example, have been models of resilience. Even as their campuses were razed to the ground, professors and scholars continued to teach and research in makeshift shelters, tents, and public squares — sustaining international partnerships and giving purpose to the most vital part of society: young people.
In Gaza, universities are not only places of study; they are sanctuaries of thought, compassion, solidarity and continuity — the fragile infrastructure of imagination.
Without them, who will train the doctors, nurses, teachers, architects, lawyers, and engineers that Gaza needs? Who will provide safe spaces for dialogue, reflection, and decision-making — the foundations of any functioning society?
We know that there can be no viable future for Palestinians without strong educational and cultural institutions that rebuild confidence, restore dignity and sustain hope.
Solidarity, not paternalism Over the past two years, something remarkable has happened. University campuses across the world — from the United States to South Africa, from Europe to Latin America — have become sites of moral awakening.
Students and professors have stood together against the genocide in Gaza, demanding an end to the war and calling for justice and accountability. Their sit-ins, vigils and encampments have reminded us that universities are not only places of learning but crucibles of conscience.
This global uprising within education was not merely symbolic; it was a reassertion of what scholarship is about. When students risk disciplinary action to defend life and dignity, they remind us that knowledge divorced from humanity is meaningless.
The solidarity they have demonstrated must set the tone for how institutions of higher education approach engagement with and the rebuilding of Gazaâs universities.
The worldâs universities must listen, collaborate and commit for the long term. They can build partnerships with Gazaâs institutions, share expertise, support research and help reconstruct the intellectual infrastructure of a society. Fellowships, joint projects, remote teaching and open digital resources are small steps that can make a vast difference.
Initiatives like those of Friends of Palestinian Universities (formally Fobzu), the University of Glasgow and HBKUâs summits, and the Qatar Foundationâs Education Above All already show what sustained cooperation can achieve. Now that spirit of solidarity must expand — grounded in respect and dignity and guided by Palestinian leaders.
The global academic community has a moral duty to stand with Gaza, but solidarity must not slide into paternalism. Reconstruction should not be a charitable gesture; it should be an act of justice.
The Palestinian higher education sector does not need a Western blueprint or a consultantâs template. It needs partnerships that listen and respond, that build capacity on Palestinian terms.
It needs trusted relationships for the long term.
Research that saves lives Reconstruction is never just technical; it is moral. A new political ecology must grow from within Gaza itself, shaped by experience rather than imported models. The slow, generational work of education is the only path that can lead out from the endless cycles of destruction.
The challenges ahead demand scientific, medical and legal ingenuity. For example, asbestos from destroyed buildings now contaminates Gazaâs air, threatening an epidemic of lung cancer.
That danger alone requires urgent research collaboration and knowledge-sharing. It needs time to think and consider, conferences, meetings, exchanges of scholarships — the lifeblood of normal scholarly activity.
Then there is the chaos of property ownership and inheritance in a place that has been bulldozed by a genocidal army. Lawyers and social scientists will be needed to address this crisis and restore ownership, resolve disputes and document destruction for future justice.
There are also the myriad war crimes perpetrated against the Palestinian people. Forensic archaeologists, linguists, psychologists and journalists will help people process grief, preserve memory and articulate loss in their own words.
Every discipline has a role to play. Education ties them together, transforming knowledge into survival — and survival into hope.
Preserving memory As Gaza tries to move on from the genocide, it must also have space to mourn and preserve memory, for peace without truth becomes amnesia. There can be no renewal without grief, no reconciliation without naming loss.
Every ruined home, every vanished family deserves to be documented, acknowledged and remembered as part of Gazaâs history, not erased in the name of expedience. Through this difficult process, new methodologies of care will inevitably come into being. The acts of remembering are a cornerstone of justice.
Education can help here, too — through literature, art, history, and faith — by giving form to sorrow and turning it into the soil from which resilience grows. Here, the fragile and devasted landscape of Gaza, the more-than-human-world can also be healed through education, and only then we will have on the land once again, âall that makes life worth livingâ, to use a verse from Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
Rebuilding Gaza will, of course, require cranes and engineers. But more than that, it will require teachers, students and scholars who know how to learn and how to practise skilfully. The work of peace begins not with cement mixers but with curiosity, compassion and courage.
Even amid the rubble, and the ashlaaâ, the strewn body parts of the staff and students we have lost to the violence, Gazaâs universities remain alive. They are the keepers of its memory and the makers of its future — the proof that learning itself is an act of resistance, and that education is and must remain the first step towards sustainable peace.
Sultan Barakat is professor in public policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, honorary professor at the University of York, and a member of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute ICMD Expert Reference Group. Alison Phipps is UNESCO Chair for refugee integration through education, languages and arts at the University of Glasgow. This article was first published by Al Jazeera.
Today marks 108 years since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and New Zealand pro-Palestinian protest groups have condemned this infamous date in rallies across the country.
“Britain promised a land that wasnât theirs to give,” said Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair Maher Nazzal.
“That single act of colonial arrogance set in motion more than a century of displacement, occupation, and suffering for the Palestinian people.
“Itâs time for the world, including Aotearoa New Zealand, to stand firmly for justice, equality, and the right of Palestinians to live free on their land.”
Reporting on the Auckland rally and march yesterday, Bruce King said Janfrie Wakim, a longtime stalwart of pro-Palestine activism in Aotearoa New Zealand, had criticised the Balfour Declaration that had promised Palestine as a Jewish state.
‘Mendacious, deceitful’
She quoted the late British journalist and Middle East expert Robert Fisk calling it “the most mendacious, deceitful and hypocritical document in British history”.
Opposition Labour MP and shadow attorney-general Vanushi Walters outlined discussions over sanctions legislation against Israel in preparation for the party winning next year’s general election.
The opposition Labour Party currently leads in most opinion polls.
The infamous Balfour Declaration by Britain’s Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour in a letter to Lord Rothschild on 2 November 1917. Image: MN screenshot APR
This week, the rebel RSF (Rapid Support Forces) fighters that the UAE is accused of backing overran the city of El Fasher, capital of Darfur in Sudan, and carried out massacres of civilians, reports the United Nations.
Al Jazeera reports the Balfour Declaration (Balfour’s “promise” in Arabic) turned the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine into a reality when Britain publicly pledged to establish âa national home for the Jewish peopleâ there.
The pledge is generally viewed as one of the main catalysts of the Nakba — the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 â and the brutality that the emerging Zionist state of Israel inflicted on the Palestinian people.
It is regarded as one of the most controversial and criticised documents in the modern history of the Arab world and has puzzled historians for decades.
November 5 marks the day that has been set aside to acknowledge Parihaka and the courageous and peaceful resistance of the people against the armed militia that invaded their village in 1881.
This year, Parihaka will be the focus of an international conference held in New Plymouth NgÄ Motu on November 5 – 8.
This is the first time that an IPRA conference has been held in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the first time it has had the theme of “Indigenous peacebuilding”.
The conference will begin with a pĆwhiri and hÄngÄ« at Ćwae Marae, the traditional home of the Te Atiawa iwi, one of the Taranaki tribes that has a close association with Parihaka.
Tribal leaders such as Wharehoka Wano, Ruakere Hond, Puna-Wano Bryant, and Tonga Karena from Parihaka will be among the welcoming speakers at the marae.
Other keynote speakers for the conference will include Rosa Moiwend, an independent researcher and human rights activist from West Papua; Professor Asmi Wood, who works on constitutional rights for Aboriginal people; Akilah Jaramoji, a Caribbean Human Rights Activist; Bettina Washington, a Wampanoag Elder working with Indigenous Sharing Circles; Vivian Camacho with her knowledge of ancestral Indigenous health practices in Boliva and Professor Kevin Clements from the Toda Institute.
Throughout the five-day conference, academic papers will be presented related to both Indigenous and general issues on peace and conflict.
Some of those deal with resistance by women through the music of steelpan in Trinidad and Tobago; collaborative Indigenous research from Turtle Island and the Philippines towards building peace; disarmament and peace education in Aotearoa; cultural violence experienced by minority women in Thailand; permaculture and peace in Myanmar; resistance and peacebuilding of Kankaumo Indigenous people in Colombia; intercultural dialogue for peace in Nigeria; Aboriginal Australian and Tsalagi principles of balance and harmony; the resistance of Roma people through art; auto-ethnographical poetry by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities around the world; and community-led peacebuilding in Melanesia.
Plenary panels include nuclear justice and African negotiations of peace and social justice through non-violent pathways.
Professor Kelli Te MaihÄroa (Waitaha, NgÄti RÄrua Ätiawa, Taranaki, Tainui Waikato) of the Otago Polytechnic Te Kura Matatini ki Ćtakou, is the co-general secretariate for Asia Pacific Peace Research Association and co-chair of the IPRA conference, along with Professor Matt Mayer who is co-secretary-general of IPRA.
At this point, you don’t need to say more than that to make people cringe, and yet we will say more, because Musk has once again outdone himself:
Elon Musk on the “I bought this before Elon went crazy” bumper stickers that some people put on their Teslas:
“There should be an addendum to the bumper sticker that’s like, ‘I bought this car before Elon turned crazy. Actually, now I realize he’s not crazy, and I’ve seen the⊠pic.twitter.com/16IFmI7tw7
The video above comes from his latest conversation with Joe Rogan. That conversation goes a little like this:
Elon Musk:I was a hero of the left, it’s fair to say.
Joe Rogan:It was a thing. If you drove a Tesla, it showed that you were environmentally conscious, and you were on the right side.
Elon Musk:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’m still the same human. I didn’t, like, have a brain transplant between, you know, since, in like three years ago, you know.
While Musk hasn’t had a brain transplant, his political positions are wildly at odds with how he presented himself a few years ago. For instance, although he still thinks of himself as a ‘centrist’, he supports far-right activists like Tommy Robinson:
Elon Musk claims he is a ‘centrist’ after endorsing far-right criminal Tommy Robinson et al. Another billionaire that just chats shit 24/7.
Another thing to note is that while Musk has the same brain, that brain clearly isn’t doing so well. This is easy to see when you compare older interviews to videos from this year:
We don’t know, but it’s certainly evidence he’s not half the man he used to be.
The interview continued as follows:
Joe Rogan:That’s my favourite bumper sticker that people put on Teslas now: ‘I bought this before Elon went crazy’.
After some waffle, Musk demonstrated his inability to string a sentence together:
Elon Musk:But the bumper sticker should read, there should be an addendum to the bumper sticker. It’s like, I bought this car before Elon turned crazy. Actually, now I realise he’s not crazy, and I’ve seen the light.Â
Elon, you literally did a fucking Nazi salute â what light do you think people are seeing?
Elon Musk lets his full shadow slip, throwing up a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration. Media branding it an “odd gesture”. Be serious, that’s a full on Sieg Heil. pic.twitter.com/vlmQiZ8zTR
Elon Musk, who did a Nazi salute and support the far-right AFD and Tommy Robinson, wants people to believe that he’s a centrist. He also moans about people calling him a nazi. pic.twitter.com/JfrohYFVul
Gestures aside, he also ran the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) â an endeavour, which resulted in abject failure. Despite this very public humiliation, Reform want to import DOGE to the UK:
Your reminder that DOGE was an absolute flopâŠ
It was supposed to slash waste, but instead it gutted aid, ballooned debt, Musk waved a chainsaw about and then buggered off.
After he left office, Musk was literally the “least popular public figure in America“. He hasn’t done anything to reverse that, but he probably thinks otherwise because he’s holed up on Twitter â his very own Hitler bunker â a website which is algorithmically designed to promote people who suck up to him:
The Fox News article is still live despite people screaming ‘THIS ISN’T REAL’ at them. In the piece, Alba Cuebas-Fantauzzi writes:
SNAP beneficiaries have expressed outrage on social media over the government shutdown that could affect their grocery benefits starting next month, and some are even threatening to ransack stores if food stamp payments donât go through starting Nov. 1.
“It is the taxpayerâs responsibility to take care of my kids,” one emotional mother said in a video posted online. “It is the taxpayer’s job to pay for my kids to eat and for my kids to be taken care of.”
The same woman also complained about how none of her TikTok followers had sent her money, warning she would block anyone who viewed her videos without sending cash.
“Because of the government shutdown, now I canât get my SNAPs for next month,” another user shared on social media.
The user went on to ask how she was supposed to feed her seven children.
“I have seven different baby daddies and none of âem no good for me,” she said.
Is Fox News going to retract the story about a Black woman with seven children by seven different men needing her SNAP funding? The story about the woman is AI generated, designed to enrage viewers. Fox needs to vet videos they find on TikTok before they use them.
The videos mostly feature Black women who are speaking as if they’re in a racist cartoon from the 1920s. As the Fox article notes, one of those reacting to the videos is right-wing commentator Brett Cooper:
In the video above, TikToker Jeremy Carrasco says:
This is AI. Here’s how we know and why it matters.
It’s made by Impossible_ASMR1, who – after eight failed slop posts and a three-month break – decided that Sora could finally make their dream content – videos of black women trying to use [Electronic Benefit Transfer] in places it’s not accepted.
True creativity unleashed by AI.
The shutdown created an opportunity to have them yell at the camera, but it’s not until the whole family’s back there, that the full racist stereotype is fulfilled. This is rage bait, and will get angry commenters who – when they learn it’s AI – will say, ‘oh, but it’s true anyway’. Which of course it’s not, and that’s cope for being played.
They were so played they didn’t notice the kid missing half an arm while the other kids are frozen in place for no reason, and these down here are warping together. They were too focused on this fake AI person cramming in a script that they used three other times for their other fake AI people.
Content that is either generated or modified with the help of AI – images, audio or video files (for example deepfakes) – need to be clearly labelled as AI generated so that users are aware when they come across such content.
The problem is, what happens when they donât?
While there are no perfect solutions, Fox News can and should pay people to check that the content they’re reporting on is real. After all, if they can afford to settle a $750m defamation lawsuit, they can afford to do basic fact checking.
In September, Donald Trump and his health secretary RFK Jr announced that Tylenol (a.k.a. paracetamol) causes autism. The claim was incredibly dubious from the get-go, with critics pointing out that there was no real evidence. Now, RFK Jr. has admitted his rank incompetence by announcing what we all knew a month ago:
HOLY COW: In a humiliating reversal, RFK Jr. walks back his Tylenol autism claim – now saying data is only âsuggestiveâ and ânot sufficient to say it definitely causes autism.â
the Trump administrationâs wild claims are already being debunked, with the makers of Tylenol sounding furious. Kenvue, the company that makes Tylenol, strongly disputed the White Houseâs claims in a statement:
“Acetaminophen is the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women as needed throughout their entire pregnancy.”
It continued:
“We believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism. We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned with the health risk this poses for expecting mothers.”
Drug companies are far from the most trustworthy bunch, they’re nowhere near as dubious as RFK Jr. As such. It was no surprise to see him stating the following:
The causative association between Tylenol given in pregnancy and the perinatal period is not sufficient to say it definitely causes autism, but it is very suggestive. And it’s suggestive in animal studies and core blood studies and observational studies from nation to nation. And so there should be a cautious approach to it.
And that’s why our message to patients, to mothers, to people who are pregnant, and to the mothers of young children is to consult your physician. And we have asked physicians to minimise the use to one that’s absolutely necessary.
He might have to backtrack from âvery suggestiveâ next month too, since thatâs still a dubious claim.
That aside, people reacted as you’d expect:
It is hard to overstate just how irresponsible RFK Jr and his minions (Oz, Makary, Prasad) are⊠pic.twitter.com/hbh25ZxX8z
BOOMâRFK Jr forced to backtrack and now admits no sufficient evidence that Tylenol (acetaminophen/paracetamol) definitively causes autism. How many mothers and fetuses/infants suffered through a fever because of him? Remember pregnancy FEVERS cause miscarriages/birth defects!! pic.twitter.com/Q3WlMMXosF
A day before RFK Jr. backtracked, the state of Texas launched a lawsuit against Kenvue on the grounds that they were deceiving customers by not declaring the risk of autism. Before this, it was speculated that Kenvue would take legal action against the White House given the hit to its shares. As such, people now believe RFK Jr. has received word that Kenvue could be set to make a move:
While this is just speculation, it’s increasingly hard to see how Kenvue can avoid taking some sort of action.
From RFK Jr’s position, even if they don’t sue him, the Texas legal case will potentially lead to a verdict in which it’s confirmed paracetamol doesn’t cause autism. Should this happen, it would be a no-brainer to go after RFK Jr. next â especially if it’s a few years down the line and they no longer have to worry about backlash from Trump.
Who could have guessed RFK Jr. has no capacity to think before he acts?
RFK Jr. swims in DC’s sewage-tainted Rock Creek with his grandchildren despite a National Park Service bacteria warning. pic.twitter.com/3MpVf1AqYU
â Molly Ploofkins (@Mollyploofkins) May 13, 2025
The Director General of Gazaâs Ministry of Health, Munir al-Barsh, said that the bodies of the 30 martyrs received by the ministry on Friday were âthe most difficult and most damagedâ of all those recently handed over by the Israeli occupation. In Gaza, bodies are a common sight â but this was different.
In a press statement on Saturday, al-Barsh explained that Israeli forces delivered most of the bodies in a state of near-complete decomposition, while others were nothing but bones. Many had lost their facial features entirely â the result, he said, of torture and long burial under the sand.
He added that the occupation âtortured and executed the owners of these bodies, then buried them and later exhumed them for handover,â which caused the melting and severe disfigurement of their tissues.
Al-Barsh noted that some bodies still wore torn clothes and shoes â details that may help families identify their loved ones, despite the near impossibility of the task. Many bore visible signs of gunfire, brutal abuse, and even being run over by tanks.
He confirmed that the Ministry of Health would follow its usual procedures in such cases, allowing the families of the martyrs to view and attempt to identify the bodies before burial.
The health official revealed that of the 255 bodies received since the ceasefire agreement took effect, families have been able to identify only 75 martyrs. Authorities have already buried the remaining 120 unidentified victims
On Friday, the Israeli occupation army handed over the bodies of 30 martyrs as part of the fifth batch of the exchange deal with the Palestinian resistance â still without providing any official list of names.
More than a quarter of Australia’s National Press Club sponsors are part of the global arms industry or working on its behalf. Michelle Fahy reports.
ANALYSIS:By Michelle Fahy
The National Press Club of Australia lists 81 corporate sponsors on its website. Of those, 10 are multinational weapons manufacturers or military services corporations, and another eleven provide services to the arms industry, including consultants KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY.
They include the worldâs two biggest weapons makers, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon (RTX); British giant BAE Systems; Franceâs largest weapons-maker, Thales; and US weapons corporation Leidos — all of which are in the global top 20.
BAE Systems, which is the largest contractor to the Department of Defence, received $2 billion from Australian taxpayers last year.
In 2023, those five corporations alone were responsible for almost a quarter of total weapons sales ($973 billion) by the worldâs top 100 weapons companies that year.
Last year, UN experts named Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, RTX (Raytheon) and eight other multinationals in a statement, warning them that they risked being found in violation of international law for their continued supply of weapons, parts, components and ammunition to Israeli forces.
The experts called on the corporations to immediately end weapons transfers to Israel.
None has done so.
Another of the clubâs sponsors, Thales, is being investigated by four countries for widespread criminal activity in three separate corruption probes. In a fourth, long-running corruption case in South Africa, the countryâs former president, Jacob Zuma, is now in court, alongside Thales, being tried on 16 charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering in connection with arms deals his government did with Thales.
Global expert Andrew Feinstein has documented his extensive research into the arms industry. He told Undue Influence that wherever the arms trade operates, it âincreases corruption and undermines democracy, good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, while, ironically, making us less safeâ.
Undue Influence asked the Press Clubâs CEO, Maurice Reilly, what written policies or guidelines were in place that addressed the suitability and selection of corporations proposing to become Press Club sponsors.
Reilly responded: âThe board are informed monthly about . . . proposals and have the right to refuse any application.â
National Press Club The National Press Club, established by journalists in 1963, is an iconic Australian institution. It is best known for its weekly luncheon addresses, televised on the ABC, covering issues of national importance, after which the speaker is questioned by journalists.
The clubâs board has 10 directors led by Tom Connell, political host and reporter at Sky News, who was elected president in February following the resignation of the ABCâs Laura Tingle.
The other board members are current and former mainstream media journalists, as well as at least two board members who have jobs that involve lobbying.
Long-term board member Steve Lewis works as a senior adviser for lobbying firm SEC Newgate, which itself is a Press Club sponsor and also has as clients the Press Clubâs two largest sponsors: Westpac and Telstra.
SEC Newgate has previously acted for several Press Club sponsors, including Serco (one of the arms industry multinationals listed below), BHP, Macquarie Bank, Tattarang, and Spirits & Cocktails Australia Inc.
Gemma Daley joined the board a year ago, having started with Ai Group as its head of media and government affairs four months earlier. Daley had worked for Nationalsâ leader David Littleproud, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former treasurer Joe Hockey, and, before that, for media outlets The Financial Review and Bloomberg.
Ai Group has a significant defence focus and promotes itself as âthe peak national representative body for the Australian defence industryâ. The group has established a Defence Council and, in 2017, appointed a former assistant secretary of the Defence Department, Kate Louis, to lead it.
The co-chairs of its Defence Council are senior arms industry executives. One of them, Paul Chase, is CEO of Leidos Australia, a Press Club sponsor.
Conflicts of interest Undue Influence asked Daley for comment on several aspects related to her position on the board, including whether she has had to declare any conflicts of interest to date. She responded: âThanks for the inquiry. I have forwarded this through to Maurice Reilly. Have a good day.â
Given the potential for conflicts of interest to arise, as happens on any board, Undue Influence had already asked the Press Club CEO what written policies or guidelines existed to ensure the appropriate management of conflicts of interest by board members and staff. Reilly responded:
âThe club has a directorsâ conflict register which is updated when required. Each meeting, board members and management are asked if they have conflicts of interest with the meeting agenda. We have a standard corporate practice that where a director has a conflict on an agenda item they excuse themselves from the meeting and take no [part] in any discussion or any decision.â
MWM is neither alleging nor implying inappropriate or illegal behaviour by anyone named in this article.
Selling access While Reilly declined to disclose the clubâs sponsorship arrangements with Westpac and Telstra, citing âcommercial in confidenceâ reasons, The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this year that Westpac paid $3 million in 2015 to replace NAB as the Press Clubâs principal sponsor.
The SMH article, âWestpac centre stage at post-budget bashâ, on Treasurer Jim Chalmersâ National Press Club address in the Great Hall of Parliament House in late March, added:
â(Westpac) . . . gets more than its moneyâs worth in terms of access. New-ish chief executive Anthony Miller got the most coveted seat in the house, between Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese . . . Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles were also on the front tables.
âWestpac occupied prime real estate in the Great Hall, with guests on its tables including Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet boss Glyn Davis, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Housing Minister Clare OâNeil and Labor national secretary and campaign mastermind Paul EricksonâŠ
âCommunications Minister Michelle Rowland was on the Telstra table.â
Reilly told Undue Influence that all the other corporate sponsors pay $25,000 a year, with a few paying extra as partners in the clubâs journalism awards.
The 21 arms industry and related sponsors, therefore, contribute an annual $525,000 to the Press Clubâs coffers. This is 23 percent of the $2.26 million revenue it earns from âmembership, sponsorship and broadcastingâ, the clubâs largest revenue line for the 2024 financial year.
âThe National Press Club of Australia proudly partners with organisations that share our commitment to quality, independent journalism,â says the clubâs website.
Acclaimed journalist and Middle East expert Chris Hedges . . . the National Press Club cancelled a planned speech by him, reportedly under pressure. Image: The Chris Hedges Report
Sponsors may not be granted a right to speak, but they are sometimes invited to speak, with their status as sponsors not always disclosed to audiences.
When the clubâs second largest sponsor, Telstra, spoke on September 10, both Club president Tom Connell and Telstra CEO Vicki Brady noted the corporationâs longstanding sponsorship.
Compare this with two addresses given by $25,000 corporate sponsors — Kurt Campbell (former US deputy secretary of state, now co-founder and chair of The Asia Group), who gave an address on September 7; and Mike Johnson, CEO of Australian Industry and Defence Network (AIDN), who gave an address on October 15. Neither the Press Club nor the speakers disclosed the companiesâ sponsorship of the Press Club.
The club also promotes additional benefits of corporate sponsorship, including âBrand association with inclusion on our prestigious âCorporate Partnersâ board and recognition on the National Press Club of Australia websiteâ.
The club also promises corporate sponsors that they will receive âpriority seating and brand positioningâ at its weekly luncheon addresses.
Profiting from genocide In July, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, issued a report explaining how the corporate sector had become complicit with the State of Israel in conducting the genocide.
Albanese highlighted Lockheed Martin and the F-35 programme, which has 1650 companies worldwide in its supply chain. More than 75 of those companies are Australian.
Her report also noted that arms-making multinationals depend on legal, auditing and consulting firms to facilitate export and import transactions to supply Israel with weapons.
Four of the worldâs largest accounting, audit and consulting firms — all of which have arms industry corporations as clients — are sponsors of the Press Club: KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY. Until recently, PwC counted among them.
EY (Ernst & Young) has been Lockheed Martinâs auditor since 1994. EY is also one of two auditors used by Thales, and has been for 22 years. Deloitte has been BAE Systemsâ auditor since 2018. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) — a Press Club sponsor until 2024 — has been Raytheonâs auditor since 1947.
Lockheed Martinâs supply to Israel of F-16 and F-35 fighter jets and C-130 Hercules transport planes, and their parts and components, along with Hellfire missiles and other munitions, has directly facilitated Israelâs genocide.
Raytheonâs (RTX) supply of guided missiles, bombs, and other advanced weaponry and defence systems, like the Iron Dome interceptors, also directly supports Israelâs military capability.
In England, BAE Systems builds the rear fuselage of every F-35, with the horizontal and vertical tails and other crucial components manufactured in its UK and Australian facilities. It also supplies the Israeli military with munitions, missile launching kits and armoured vehicles, while BAE technologies are integrated into Israelâs drones and warships.
Thales supplies Israelâs military with vital components, including drone transponders. Australian Zomi Frankcom and her World Central Kitchen colleagues were murdered by an Israeli Hermes drone, which contained Thalesâ transponders. Yet, echoing Australia, France claims its military exports to Israel are non-lethal.
Michelle Fahy is an independent Australian writer and researcher, specialising in the examination of connections between the weapons industry and government. She writes for various independent publications and on Substack on Undueinfluence.substack.com  This article was first published on Undueinfluence and Michael West Media and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.
More than a quarter of Australia’s National Press Club sponsors are part of the global arms industry or working on its behalf. Michelle Fahy reports.
ANALYSIS:By Michelle Fahy
The National Press Club of Australia lists 81 corporate sponsors on its website. Of those, 10 are multinational weapons manufacturers or military services corporations, and another eleven provide services to the arms industry, including consultants KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY.
They include the worldâs two biggest weapons makers, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon (RTX); British giant BAE Systems; Franceâs largest weapons-maker, Thales; and US weapons corporation Leidos — all of which are in the global top 20.
BAE Systems, which is the largest contractor to the Department of Defence, received $2 billion from Australian taxpayers last year.
In 2023, those five corporations alone were responsible for almost a quarter of total weapons sales ($973 billion) by the worldâs top 100 weapons companies that year.
Last year, UN experts named Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, RTX (Raytheon) and eight other multinationals in a statement, warning them that they risked being found in violation of international law for their continued supply of weapons, parts, components and ammunition to Israeli forces.
The experts called on the corporations to immediately end weapons transfers to Israel.
None has done so.
Another of the clubâs sponsors, Thales, is being investigated by four countries for widespread criminal activity in three separate corruption probes. In a fourth, long-running corruption case in South Africa, the countryâs former president, Jacob Zuma, is now in court, alongside Thales, being tried on 16 charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering in connection with arms deals his government did with Thales.
Global expert Andrew Feinstein has documented his extensive research into the arms industry. He told Undue Influence that wherever the arms trade operates, it âincreases corruption and undermines democracy, good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, while, ironically, making us less safeâ.
Undue Influence asked the Press Clubâs CEO, Maurice Reilly, what written policies or guidelines were in place that addressed the suitability and selection of corporations proposing to become Press Club sponsors.
Reilly responded: âThe board are informed monthly about . . . proposals and have the right to refuse any application.â
National Press Club The National Press Club, established by journalists in 1963, is an iconic Australian institution. It is best known for its weekly luncheon addresses, televised on the ABC, covering issues of national importance, after which the speaker is questioned by journalists.
The clubâs board has 10 directors led by Tom Connell, political host and reporter at Sky News, who was elected president in February following the resignation of the ABCâs Laura Tingle.
The other board members are current and former mainstream media journalists, as well as at least two board members who have jobs that involve lobbying.
Long-term board member Steve Lewis works as a senior adviser for lobbying firm SEC Newgate, which itself is a Press Club sponsor and also has as clients the Press Clubâs two largest sponsors: Westpac and Telstra.
SEC Newgate has previously acted for several Press Club sponsors, including Serco (one of the arms industry multinationals listed below), BHP, Macquarie Bank, Tattarang, and Spirits & Cocktails Australia Inc.
Gemma Daley joined the board a year ago, having started with Ai Group as its head of media and government affairs four months earlier. Daley had worked for Nationalsâ leader David Littleproud, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former treasurer Joe Hockey, and, before that, for media outlets The Financial Review and Bloomberg.
Ai Group has a significant defence focus and promotes itself as âthe peak national representative body for the Australian defence industryâ. The group has established a Defence Council and, in 2017, appointed a former assistant secretary of the Defence Department, Kate Louis, to lead it.
The co-chairs of its Defence Council are senior arms industry executives. One of them, Paul Chase, is CEO of Leidos Australia, a Press Club sponsor.
Conflicts of interest Undue Influence asked Daley for comment on several aspects related to her position on the board, including whether she has had to declare any conflicts of interest to date. She responded: âThanks for the inquiry. I have forwarded this through to Maurice Reilly. Have a good day.â
Given the potential for conflicts of interest to arise, as happens on any board, Undue Influence had already asked the Press Club CEO what written policies or guidelines existed to ensure the appropriate management of conflicts of interest by board members and staff. Reilly responded:
âThe club has a directorsâ conflict register which is updated when required. Each meeting, board members and management are asked if they have conflicts of interest with the meeting agenda. We have a standard corporate practice that where a director has a conflict on an agenda item they excuse themselves from the meeting and take no [part] in any discussion or any decision.â
MWM is neither alleging nor implying inappropriate or illegal behaviour by anyone named in this article.
Selling access While Reilly declined to disclose the clubâs sponsorship arrangements with Westpac and Telstra, citing âcommercial in confidenceâ reasons, The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this year that Westpac paid $3 million in 2015 to replace NAB as the Press Clubâs principal sponsor.
The SMH article, âWestpac centre stage at post-budget bashâ, on Treasurer Jim Chalmersâ National Press Club address in the Great Hall of Parliament House in late March, added:
â(Westpac) . . . gets more than its moneyâs worth in terms of access. New-ish chief executive Anthony Miller got the most coveted seat in the house, between Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese . . . Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles were also on the front tables.
âWestpac occupied prime real estate in the Great Hall, with guests on its tables including Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet boss Glyn Davis, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Housing Minister Clare OâNeil and Labor national secretary and campaign mastermind Paul EricksonâŠ
âCommunications Minister Michelle Rowland was on the Telstra table.â
Reilly told Undue Influence that all the other corporate sponsors pay $25,000 a year, with a few paying extra as partners in the clubâs journalism awards.
The 21 arms industry and related sponsors, therefore, contribute an annual $525,000 to the Press Clubâs coffers. This is 23 percent of the $2.26 million revenue it earns from âmembership, sponsorship and broadcastingâ, the clubâs largest revenue line for the 2024 financial year.
âThe National Press Club of Australia proudly partners with organisations that share our commitment to quality, independent journalism,â says the clubâs website.
Acclaimed journalist and Middle East expert Chris Hedges . . . the National Press Club cancelled a planned speech by him, reportedly under pressure. Image: The Chris Hedges Report
Sponsors may not be granted a right to speak, but they are sometimes invited to speak, with their status as sponsors not always disclosed to audiences.
When the clubâs second largest sponsor, Telstra, spoke on September 10, both Club president Tom Connell and Telstra CEO Vicki Brady noted the corporationâs longstanding sponsorship.
Compare this with two addresses given by $25,000 corporate sponsors — Kurt Campbell (former US deputy secretary of state, now co-founder and chair of The Asia Group), who gave an address on September 7; and Mike Johnson, CEO of Australian Industry and Defence Network (AIDN), who gave an address on October 15. Neither the Press Club nor the speakers disclosed the companiesâ sponsorship of the Press Club.
The club also promotes additional benefits of corporate sponsorship, including âBrand association with inclusion on our prestigious âCorporate Partnersâ board and recognition on the National Press Club of Australia websiteâ.
The club also promises corporate sponsors that they will receive âpriority seating and brand positioningâ at its weekly luncheon addresses.
Profiting from genocide In July, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, issued a report explaining how the corporate sector had become complicit with the State of Israel in conducting the genocide.
Albanese highlighted Lockheed Martin and the F-35 programme, which has 1650 companies worldwide in its supply chain. More than 75 of those companies are Australian.
Her report also noted that arms-making multinationals depend on legal, auditing and consulting firms to facilitate export and import transactions to supply Israel with weapons.
Four of the worldâs largest accounting, audit and consulting firms — all of which have arms industry corporations as clients — are sponsors of the Press Club: KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY. Until recently, PwC counted among them.
EY (Ernst & Young) has been Lockheed Martinâs auditor since 1994. EY is also one of two auditors used by Thales, and has been for 22 years. Deloitte has been BAE Systemsâ auditor since 2018. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) — a Press Club sponsor until 2024 — has been Raytheonâs auditor since 1947.
Lockheed Martinâs supply to Israel of F-16 and F-35 fighter jets and C-130 Hercules transport planes, and their parts and components, along with Hellfire missiles and other munitions, has directly facilitated Israelâs genocide.
Raytheonâs (RTX) supply of guided missiles, bombs, and other advanced weaponry and defence systems, like the Iron Dome interceptors, also directly supports Israelâs military capability.
In England, BAE Systems builds the rear fuselage of every F-35, with the horizontal and vertical tails and other crucial components manufactured in its UK and Australian facilities. It also supplies the Israeli military with munitions, missile launching kits and armoured vehicles, while BAE technologies are integrated into Israelâs drones and warships.
Thales supplies Israelâs military with vital components, including drone transponders. Australian Zomi Frankcom and her World Central Kitchen colleagues were murdered by an Israeli Hermes drone, which contained Thalesâ transponders. Yet, echoing Australia, France claims its military exports to Israel are non-lethal.
Michelle Fahy is an independent Australian writer and researcher, specialising in the examination of connections between the weapons industry and government. She writes for various independent publications and on Substack on Undueinfluence.substack.com  This article was first published on Undueinfluence and Michael West Media and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin todayâs Democracy Now! show looking at US-China relations and President Trumpâs threat to resume nuclear weapons testing.
President Trump and President Xi Jinping met in South Korea and agreed to a one-year trade truce, but the trade deal was overshadowed by Trumpâs announcement that the US would resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.
Just before his meeting with Xi, Trump wrote on Truth Social: âBecause of other countries testing programmes, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.â
AMY GOODMAN: Itâs unclear what President Trump was referring to. Russia and China have not tested a nuclear weapon in decades; North Korea last tested one in 2017. Trump spoke briefly with reporters after his meeting with Xi, flying back to the United States.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It had to do with others. They seem to all be nuclear testing.
REPORTER 1: Russia?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We donât do testing, and weâve halted it years â many years ago.
But with others doing testing, I think itâs appropriate that we do also.
REPORTER 1: Did Israel â did Israel â
REPORTER 2: Any details around the testing, sir? Like where, when?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will be â itâll be announced. You know, we have test sites. Itâll be announced.
AMY GOODMAN: Trumpâs threat to resume nuclear tests comes just months before the last major nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia expires. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, expires February of next year.
We go right now to Dr Ira Helfand. Heâs an expert on the medical consequences of nuclear war, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. He also serves on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign. Heâs today joining us from Winnipeg, Canada, where heâs speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.
Dr Helfand, welcome back to Democracy Now! You must have been shocked last night when, just before the certainly globally touted meeting between Trump and Xi, Trump sent out on social media that heâs going to begin testing nuclear weapons, comparing it, saying that we have to test them on an equal basis, referring to countries like Russia and China.
Can you explain what he is talking about? They, like the United States, havenât tested nuclear weapons in decades.
DR IRA HELFAND: Good morning, Amy.
Actually, I canât explain what heâs talking about, because it doesnât make any sense. As you pointed out, Russia and China have not tested nuclear weapons for decades. And I think the most important thing right now is that the White House has got to clarify what President Trump is talking about.
If we really are going to resume explosive nuclear testing, this is an extraordinarily destabilising decision, and one which will increase even more the already great danger that we have of stumbling into a nuclear conflict. But they need to clarify this, because, as you pointed out, the statement doesnât make sense in terms of whatâs actually happening in the world.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr Helfand, what would these tests entail, were this to actually occur the way that Trump has said?
DR IRA HELFAND: Well, again, itâs not clear what heâs talking about. If heâs â if he is speaking about resuming explosive nuclear testing, presumably this would not be in the atmosphere, which is prohibited by a treaty which the United States did sign and ratify in 1963, but it would be underground nuclear explosions. And the principal danger there, I think, is political.
This will undoubtedly trigger response by other countries that have nuclear weapons, and dramatically accelerate the already very dangerous arms race that the world finds itself in today.
The one, perhaps, value of this statement is that it helps to draw attention to the fact that the nuclear problem has not gone away, as so many of us would like to believe. We are facing the gravest danger of nuclear war that has existed on the planet since the end of the Cold War, and possibly worse than it was during the Cold War.
And this comes at a time when the best science we have shows that even a very limited nuclear war, one that might take place between India and Pakistan, has the potential to trigger a global famine that could kill a quarter of the human race in two years.
We have to recognise that reality, and we need to change our nuclear policy so that it is no longer based on the idea that nuclear weapons make us safe, but that it recognises the fact that nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to our safety.
And for citizens in the United States in particular, I think this means doing things like are advocated by the Back from the Brink campaign, calling on the United States to stop this tit-for-tat exchange of threats with our nuclear adversaries and to enter into negotiations with all eight of the nuclear-armed states for a verifiable, enforceable agreement that will allow them to eliminate their nuclear arsenals according to an agreed-upon timetable, and so they can all join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at some point when they have completed this task.
This idea is dismissed sometimes as being unrealistic. I think whatâs unrealistic is the belief that we can continue to maintain these enormous nuclear arsenals and expect that nothing is going to go wrong.
Weâve been lucky over and over again. This year alone, five of the nine countries which have nuclear weapons have been engaged in active military conflict. India and Pakistan were fighting each other. That could easily have escalated into a nuclear war between them, which could have had devastating consequences for the entire planet.
And we keep dodging bullets, and we keep acting as though thatâs going to keep happening. It isnât. Our luck is going to run out at some point, and we have to recognise that. We have to recognise the only way to guarantee our safety is to get rid of these weapons once and for all.
President Trump’s post announcing the U.S. would resume nuclear testing featured some inaccuracies, and introduced quite a bit of uncertainty. https://t.co/wRbnOxuaBU
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr Helfand, before we conclude, just about the timing of Trumpâs comment, which came just days after Russia said it had successfully tested a nuclear-armed missile, which it said could penetrate US defences.
Do you think Trump was responding to that, without perhaps understanding that there was a difference between that and carrying out explosive nuclear tests?
DR IRA HELFAND: Itâs certainly possible, and the timing suggests that may be whatâs happening. But again, the White House needs to clarify this statement, because, as it stands, it was an explicit instruction to begin testing at the test sites, which suggests nuclear explosive testing.
I suspect that is not what the president meant, but at this point, who knows?
AMY GOODMAN: Right. It was nuclear-capable, not nuclear-armed. And finally, I mean, heâs talking about doing this immediately, instructing what he called the War Department, the Department of War.
Isnât the Energy Department in charge of the nuclear stockpile? And arenât scores of nuclear scientists now furloughed during the government shutdown? Who is maintaining this very dangerous stockpile?
DR IRA HELFAND: That was another striking inconsistency in that statement. It is not the Pentagon, which he referred to as the Department of War, that would be conducting nuclear testing if it recurs. It is, Amy, as you suggested, itâs the Department of Energy that is responsible for this activity.
So, again, another area in which the statement is just confusing, puzzling and needs clarification. And I think, you know, this is a really urgent matter, because, as it stands, the statement itself is destabilising.
It raises tension. It creates further problems. And we donât need that anymore. We need to â
AMY GOODMAN: And opens the door for other countries, is that right, to test nuclear weapons?
DR IRA HELFAND: Well, absolutely. And that would be â you know, there would be absolutely nothing the US could do that would more undermine our security at this point with regards to nuclear weapons than to resume testing. It would give a green light to many other countries to resume testing, as well, and lead to markedly increased instability in the global situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr Ira Helfand, we thank you so much for being with us, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, won the Nobel Peace Prize, PSR, in 1985, serving on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign, joining us, interestingly, from Winnipeg, Canada, where he is speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin todayâs Democracy Now! show looking at US-China relations and President Trumpâs threat to resume nuclear weapons testing.
President Trump and President Xi Jinping met in South Korea and agreed to a one-year trade truce, but the trade deal was overshadowed by Trumpâs announcement that the US would resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.
Just before his meeting with Xi, Trump wrote on Truth Social: âBecause of other countries testing programmes, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.â
AMY GOODMAN: Itâs unclear what President Trump was referring to. Russia and China have not tested a nuclear weapon in decades; North Korea last tested one in 2017. Trump spoke briefly with reporters after his meeting with Xi, flying back to the United States.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It had to do with others. They seem to all be nuclear testing.
REPORTER 1: Russia?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We donât do testing, and weâve halted it years â many years ago.
But with others doing testing, I think itâs appropriate that we do also.
REPORTER 1: Did Israel â did Israel â
REPORTER 2: Any details around the testing, sir? Like where, when?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We will be â itâll be announced. You know, we have test sites. Itâll be announced.
AMY GOODMAN: Trumpâs threat to resume nuclear tests comes just months before the last major nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia expires. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, expires February of next year.
We go right now to Dr Ira Helfand. Heâs an expert on the medical consequences of nuclear war, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. He also serves on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign. Heâs today joining us from Winnipeg, Canada, where heâs speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.
Dr Helfand, welcome back to Democracy Now! You must have been shocked last night when, just before the certainly globally touted meeting between Trump and Xi, Trump sent out on social media that heâs going to begin testing nuclear weapons, comparing it, saying that we have to test them on an equal basis, referring to countries like Russia and China.
Can you explain what he is talking about? They, like the United States, havenât tested nuclear weapons in decades.
DR IRA HELFAND: Good morning, Amy.
Actually, I canât explain what heâs talking about, because it doesnât make any sense. As you pointed out, Russia and China have not tested nuclear weapons for decades. And I think the most important thing right now is that the White House has got to clarify what President Trump is talking about.
If we really are going to resume explosive nuclear testing, this is an extraordinarily destabilising decision, and one which will increase even more the already great danger that we have of stumbling into a nuclear conflict. But they need to clarify this, because, as you pointed out, the statement doesnât make sense in terms of whatâs actually happening in the world.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr Helfand, what would these tests entail, were this to actually occur the way that Trump has said?
DR IRA HELFAND: Well, again, itâs not clear what heâs talking about. If heâs â if he is speaking about resuming explosive nuclear testing, presumably this would not be in the atmosphere, which is prohibited by a treaty which the United States did sign and ratify in 1963, but it would be underground nuclear explosions. And the principal danger there, I think, is political.
This will undoubtedly trigger response by other countries that have nuclear weapons, and dramatically accelerate the already very dangerous arms race that the world finds itself in today.
The one, perhaps, value of this statement is that it helps to draw attention to the fact that the nuclear problem has not gone away, as so many of us would like to believe. We are facing the gravest danger of nuclear war that has existed on the planet since the end of the Cold War, and possibly worse than it was during the Cold War.
And this comes at a time when the best science we have shows that even a very limited nuclear war, one that might take place between India and Pakistan, has the potential to trigger a global famine that could kill a quarter of the human race in two years.
We have to recognise that reality, and we need to change our nuclear policy so that it is no longer based on the idea that nuclear weapons make us safe, but that it recognises the fact that nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to our safety.
And for citizens in the United States in particular, I think this means doing things like are advocated by the Back from the Brink campaign, calling on the United States to stop this tit-for-tat exchange of threats with our nuclear adversaries and to enter into negotiations with all eight of the nuclear-armed states for a verifiable, enforceable agreement that will allow them to eliminate their nuclear arsenals according to an agreed-upon timetable, and so they can all join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at some point when they have completed this task.
This idea is dismissed sometimes as being unrealistic. I think whatâs unrealistic is the belief that we can continue to maintain these enormous nuclear arsenals and expect that nothing is going to go wrong.
Weâve been lucky over and over again. This year alone, five of the nine countries which have nuclear weapons have been engaged in active military conflict. India and Pakistan were fighting each other. That could easily have escalated into a nuclear war between them, which could have had devastating consequences for the entire planet.
And we keep dodging bullets, and we keep acting as though thatâs going to keep happening. It isnât. Our luck is going to run out at some point, and we have to recognise that. We have to recognise the only way to guarantee our safety is to get rid of these weapons once and for all.
President Trump’s post announcing the U.S. would resume nuclear testing featured some inaccuracies, and introduced quite a bit of uncertainty. https://t.co/wRbnOxuaBU
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr Helfand, before we conclude, just about the timing of Trumpâs comment, which came just days after Russia said it had successfully tested a nuclear-armed missile, which it said could penetrate US defences.
Do you think Trump was responding to that, without perhaps understanding that there was a difference between that and carrying out explosive nuclear tests?
DR IRA HELFAND: Itâs certainly possible, and the timing suggests that may be whatâs happening. But again, the White House needs to clarify this statement, because, as it stands, it was an explicit instruction to begin testing at the test sites, which suggests nuclear explosive testing.
I suspect that is not what the president meant, but at this point, who knows?
AMY GOODMAN: Right. It was nuclear-capable, not nuclear-armed. And finally, I mean, heâs talking about doing this immediately, instructing what he called the War Department, the Department of War.
Isnât the Energy Department in charge of the nuclear stockpile? And arenât scores of nuclear scientists now furloughed during the government shutdown? Who is maintaining this very dangerous stockpile?
DR IRA HELFAND: That was another striking inconsistency in that statement. It is not the Pentagon, which he referred to as the Department of War, that would be conducting nuclear testing if it recurs. It is, Amy, as you suggested, itâs the Department of Energy that is responsible for this activity.
So, again, another area in which the statement is just confusing, puzzling and needs clarification. And I think, you know, this is a really urgent matter, because, as it stands, the statement itself is destabilising.
It raises tension. It creates further problems. And we donât need that anymore. We need to â
AMY GOODMAN: And opens the door for other countries, is that right, to test nuclear weapons?
DR IRA HELFAND: Well, absolutely. And that would be â you know, there would be absolutely nothing the US could do that would more undermine our security at this point with regards to nuclear weapons than to resume testing. It would give a green light to many other countries to resume testing, as well, and lead to markedly increased instability in the global situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr Ira Helfand, we thank you so much for being with us, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, won the Nobel Peace Prize, PSR, in 1985, serving on the steering committee of the Back from the Brink campaign, joining us, interestingly, from Winnipeg, Canada, where he is speaking at the 5th Youth Nuclear Peace Summit.
A feature story authored by a student journalist highlighting the harm plastic pollution poses to human health in Fiji — with risks expected to rise significantly if robust action is not taken soon — has won the Online category of the 2024 Vision Pasifika Media Awards — Cleaner Pacific.
Launched during the 7th Pacific Media Summit by Niueâs Prime Minister, Dalton Tagelagi, the awards celebrate excellence in environmental news reporting across the Pacific Island region.
The theme, Cleaner Pacific, spotlights the urgent need to tackle plastic pollution, one of the triple planetary crises threatening the planet, alongside climate change and biodiversity loss.
A story titled Managing Solid Waste in Gizo, a tough task, by award-winning Solomon Islands journalist, Moffat Mamu, of the Solomon Star, and also a USP graduate, won the Print category.
Coverage of the Vatuwaqa Rugby Clubâs efforts to keep their community clean, by Fijian journalist Joeli Tikomaimaleya of Fiji TV, picked up the Television category.
Wansolwara’s Niko Ratumaimuri . . . winner of the Student category of the Vision Pasifika Media Awards.
The 2024 Vision Pasifika Media Awards is a partnership facilitated by SPREP with the Australian government through support for Pacific engagement in the INC on plastic pollution and the Pacific Ocean Litter Project (POLP), Office of the Pacific Ocean Commissioner (OPOC) and the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA).
SPREP Director-General Sefanaia Nawadra said: âWe are drowning under a sea of waste! The Pacific media is critical in ensuring we in the Pacific understand the challenges of waste and pollution and share ways we can work towards its effective management.
“Many of our waste issues originate from outside our region and our Pacific media must help our countries advocate for global action on waste especially plastic.”
On 26 October, the city of El Fasher in southern Sudan fell to the Rapid Support Force (RSF). The RSF reportedly began massacring civilians immediately after taking control. The death toll included nearly 500 patients at the local hospital. But in the press coverage that followed, some dimensions of the war in Sudan were suspiciously absent.
Many countries have a stake in Sudan. Its former colonial ruler, Britain, whose military equipment has appeared on the battlefield, is just one. UAE is centrally involved, arming the RSF and fuelling the war. But much less remarked upon is the role of Israel. It seems one genocide isn’t enough for the pariah state.
In a podcast interview on 12 June (at around 49 minutes in), Sudan expert Joshua Craze shed some light on this:
I remember being in a room last April with a very senior member of the US [Biden] administration in DC and he said to me, ‘Joshua, you have made a category error. You think Sudan is in Africa. Sudan is not in Africa, my friend. Sudan is in the Gulf.
The official went on to confirm that US policy in the region centres Israel’s relationship with UAE:
When we go to see the Emirates, what number on our to-do list do you think Sudan is? It is not on our to-do list. What we have to do is keep the Emirates onside with Israel and onside against Iran.
…as part of a deal in which the Trump Administration removed Sudanâs designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, Sudan agreed to join the Abraham Accords. General Abdel Fattah al Burhan, head of Sudanâs sovereignty council and de facto head of state, met with Netanyahu in Kampala, Uganda.
The Kampala deal was brokered by UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed. It resulted in Sudan freezing Hamas assets. There had also been talks about relocating Hamas leaders to Sudan as part of a peace deal. This form of exile was flatly rejected by Hamas.
Burhan’s deputy, against whom he is now fighting a war, also has ties to Israel:
General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, known as “Hemedti” also had close ties with Israel. He developed close relations with the UAE, renting out his Rapid Support Force (RSF) units to fight as mercenaries in Yemen, whereby he also established strong links with Israelâs Mossad.
When war broke out in Sudan in 2023, Israel already had connections with both men and their forces:
The [Israeli] Foreign Ministry leaned towards al-Burhan and the SAF, Mossad towards the RSF.
In this sense, Israel has a stake in â and influence over â both sides in the civil war which has killed tens of thousands and displaced 12-14 million people.
And this is part of a broader Israeli strategy in regards to Africa and the Middle East.
Sudan: Israel’s regional influence
Israel also seeks to increase its scope for economic activity in the region and build intelligence links which it can wield against exiled Palestinian militant groups in North Africa.
Israel has a strategic interest in normalising relations with Sudan, as the Sudanese Red Sea coast is essential from a security and economic perspective.
Sudan represents the heart of Africa, with deep extensions into the African continent thanks to its location, large geographical area and expansive borders.
He said backing particular groups in the region was a way of counter-balancing the hostility that many countries around Israel feel towards it. This was in line with what is know as the “periphery doctrine”. Backing RSF is an example of this strategy being applied.
And Israel also hopes that normalising relations would help curb the smuggling of arms into Gaza from Sudan. Previously, Israel has conducted air strikes against smugglers.
RSF are anti-Islamist
RSF have cut a bloody swathe across southern Sudan which echoes the march of ISIS across Iraq and in the mid-2010s. As Joshua Craze explained in April 2025:
Hemedtiâs war machine is predicated on continual expansion. Since the RSF offers its recruits licence to loot and raid in lieu of wages, absent fresh targets, its forces have a tendency to disperse. In every city it captures, the RSF has employed the same playbook: destroy state institutions, plunder humanitarian resources, raze civilian property.
Perhaps it is this which has led far-right commentators like Tommy Robinson to brand them as ‘Islamist’. However, this is not correct. The truth is much more complicated.
Shady Ibrahim explained, while Islamists have foothold in the Sudanese army “the RSF aligns most closely with Israelâs strategic interests and national goals”.
It has vowed to combat âradical Islamistsâ and recently removed the word âal-Qudsâ (Arabic for âJerusalemâ) from its logo.
Not for the first-time, the western far-right is conflating ‘Muslim’ with ‘Islamist’. Robinson, of course, is currently in Israel.
Colonial nexus
Sudan sits at the meeting point of colonial interests. And the people of Sudan’s wellbeing is clearly less important than these power games. At least to the people playing them. It may not be widely understood that Israel is a key player in the country, but the “little Ulster in the desert” â as the British called their Zionist settler-state â is exactly that.
Neither RSF nor the SAF are squeaky clean institutions. But it is hard to see how the war could have been prosecuted with the ferocity we’ve seen without the active involvement of the UAE and Israel. The charge levelled against RSF is genocide. And as bombing continues in Gaza, it seems like genocide is something Israel just can’t get enough of.
Palestinian officials have accused Israel of using the issue of captive bodies in the Gaza Strip as a pretext to violate the ceasefire and prolong its military presence in the devastated territory.
The officials said Israel was exploiting the matter to justify new attacks, stop aid entering the territory, and delay the reopening of the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
The ceasefire, which came into effect on October 10, was meant to allow humanitarian relief and a gradual return to calm. Instead, Israel has carried out repeated airstrikes and tightened restrictions on aid deliveries.
Overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, the Israeli army launched dozens of raids on Gaza City. At least 100 Palestinians were killed and many more wounded.
The Israeli army claimed the attacks were in response to delays in handing over Israeli remains and to the killing of a soldier by a sniper in Rafah, which is under full Israeli control.
Hamas said this week that it had recovered two additional Israeli bodies — one in Khan Younis and another in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Its armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, delayed handing them over because Israel âbreached the agreementâ with new airstrikes on Gaza.
Despite limited Egyptian equipment entering the Gaza Strip to help with recovery efforts, Israel continues to block the entry of heavy machinery and specialist teams.
11 bodies remain lost
With the two bodies newly recovered, Hamas said 11 remain lost in Gaza. Israeli officials admit they lack information on about five of them, meaning they may not be located soon.
Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas in Gaza, said finding the remaining bodies was extremely difficult. Vast destruction and the deaths of fighters who had guarded captives had made recovery operations almost impossible.
At least 10,000 Palestinian bodies are believed to be buried under the rubble.
Since the truce began, Palestinian factions have handed over 20 living Israeli captives and about 15 bodies. Some were killed by Israeli strikes during the war; others died on 7 October 2023, at the start of the conflict.
Ahmad al-Tanani, director of the Arab Centre for Research and Strategic Studies, said Israel created the very conditions that now make recovery so difficult.
“This has become a political pretext to sustain a state of no war, no peace and to block the second phase of President Donald Trumpâs plan,” he told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
He said not all the bodies were held by Hamas. “They are divided among different factions, and some of those who knew their locations were killed in the war,” he explained.
Al-Tanani added that some Israeli captives were likely killed by the Israeli armyâs bombing of sites that held captives.
Israel blocks equipment
“Israel refuses to allow the equipment and technical teams that could help,” he said. “The factions in Gaza have offered every guarantee and even broadcasted recovery attempts live to prove good faith.”
He accused Israel of spreading “a false narrative that the resistance is manipulating the issue” to justify continuing its assault and maintaining constant tension in Gaza. This, he said, gave the Israeli army “freedom of movement” and weakened Egyptian mediation efforts aimed at stabilising governance in the Strip.
Tel Aviv, he added, was working to block any path toward a new political reality or a reorganisation of Palestinian leadership.
Israeli affairs analyst Firas Yaghi said Israel was using the bodies as “a political card” to stop progress toward the next stage of Trumpâs plan, which calls for a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and renewed political talks.
“Netanyahu is using the issue to justify Israelâs continued military presence deep inside Gaza under the pretext of searching for the missing,” Yaghi told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
Gaza’s changed landscape
He said Israeli intelligence “knows that some bodies were lost under the rubble due to intense bombardment that changed Gazaâs landscape completely”.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, he noted, had warned against letting the issue block the ceasefire. But “the current government prefers to exploit it for domestic political gain”.
Yaghi also criticised the United States for what he described as a weak position.
“Trumpâs administration and its allies are giving Netanyahu wide freedom of action,” he said. “They ignore repeated ceasefire violations and the ongoing closure of Rafah.”
“If Washington decided to apply real pressure,” Yaghi added, “the plan could still move forward regardless of the handover of bodies. But for now, the US does not want to weaken Netanyahu”.
On 29 October, the New York Times reported on a ‘service campus’ in the state of Utah. This so-called ‘campus‘ will house up to 1,300 homeless people, with many housed against their will. The plan closely aligns with plans set out by Donald Trump, and this begs a question: given that the president clearly doesn’t care about homeless people, what’s in it for him?
As of right now, it looks like it’s a favour to wealthy supporters and corporate interests.
The new facility will provide homeless people with an option besides jail, and as the Times reported:
the facility will also hold hundreds of mentally ill homeless people under court-ordered civil commitment and the effort will include an âaccountability centerâ for those with addictions.
Conveniently, the plan draws attention away from the reasons why homelessness is increasingly rife in the US.
Using the heft of the US empire to elevate other countries instead of wilfully impoverishing them (and as a result reducing the number of people who feel like they have no better option than to migrate to America).
Trump isn’t going to solve these problems; he’s going to make them worse.
As such, the approach he’s taking to homelessness is an ethos of ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
No beds, no chance
The Utah facility will sit on the outskirts of Salt Lake City. Some are criticising the location, although there is an argument that this is the best place for a rehab facility, with one homeless man telling the Times:
How do you stay clean when youâre surrounded by people youâve been dirty with?
The question is whether it’s a serious attempt at drug rehabilitation, or whether it’s what people suspect – an effort to ‘warehouse’ a homeless population that rich people see as unsightly.
Speaking on this, the Times reported:
âIâm super anxious about it,â said Jen Plumb, a physician and Democratic state senator who calls the promise of high-quality medical care âpie in the sky.â
Utah already has a severe shortage of psychiatric beds, she noted. The legislature is unlikely to fund hundreds of new beds, she said, and even if it did, there is no work force to staff them.
Without enormous new spending, she said, the center could function less as a treatment facility than âa prison or a warehouse.â
As New Orleans prepared for this yearâs Super Bowl, state police moved more than 120 people from downtown to a distant warehouse hastily converted for three months into a shelter.
San Diego enforces a camping ban punishable by arrest while designating two tent sites with a total of 800 beds as an alternative to the street. But a recent lawsuit faults the sites for âinhumaneâ conditions, including rats, mold, and risks of fires and floods.
In Las Vegas, a $200 million homeless campus is under construction, with half of the money coming from the casino industry amid concerns that homelessness depresses tourism. It promises 900 beds across 26 acres with intensive services, and coincides with new prohibitions on sleeping in public, punishable by up to 10 days in jail.
You’ll notice things are happening because corporate interests are willing it to.
overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems
As Tufts note:
Current estimates indicate that there are approximately 2.3 million people incarcerated in the United States, with an additional 4.5 million people on probation or parole. The US has the worldâs highest incarceration rate and, despite representing under 5% of the global population, the US holds almost 20% of the global prison population
There’s a very good reason for maintaining such high incarceration rates if you’re a capitalist, and that reason is profit.
In 2023, the American prison system had an estimated turnover of $74bn, which ‘eclipsed the GDP of 133 nations’ according to SmartAsset. They added:
What is perhaps most unsettling about this fun fact is that it is the American taxpayer who foots the bill and is increasingly padding the pockets of publicly traded corporations like Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group.
Clearly corporations will seek to profit from the incarcerated homeless population.
After all, they’re already making bank on homeless people already.
Battery farming humanity
Clearing homeless camps has proven lucrative for businesses. In 2024, the Guardian reported that private firms in California had made $100m clearing these camps, which was a ‘dramatic expansion’ compared to the early 2020s.
10 years earlier in 2014, Vice reported that opportunistic developers were making huge profits providing housing in New York:
At Freedom House on West 95th St, the city pays more than $3,000 per month in some cases for rooms and services that residents say are inadequate. Housing Solutions USA, a non-profit with ties to notorious former slumlords, also lists this address as their location. Photo by Ben Hattem.
In late 2013, then-comptroller John Liu called on the city to stop housing people in Aguilaâs facilities after uncovering accounting problems and unsafe and unsanitary practices at their shelters. In August this year, DHS awarded the company another $15 million contract.
The city could have saved significant amounts over the years by owning and operating its own facilities. Instead, by 2021, New York had spent $3.5bn on private options which were “poorly maintained and unsafe“.
Dystopian
If warehousing homeless people becomes the norm, an industry will form around these facilities. Once that industry exists, there will be an incentive for these companies to expand, and the only way that can happen is if the homeless population grows. This will unleash hundreds of well-paid lobbyists whose mission is to ensure politicians don’t back policies which reduce poverty.
In other words, the Homelessness Industrial Complex is coming.
In what was the first airstrike by the Israeli regime in the occupied West Bank in nine months, three Palestinians were killed Tuesday morning, October 28.
âIsraelâsâ security forces used a combination of bullets and bombardment to carry out the killings, which took place in the village of Kafr Qud, west of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank. Afterward, they sent in military reinforcements and surrounded nearby farmland. Israeli media reported that snipers killed two men in a cave, while another man was killed when an airstrike hit a vehicle. The resulting explosion set fire to surrounding farmland and olive trees.
Israelâs first West Bank airstrike in nine months
The IOF, which took away the bodies of the martyred Palestinians, said it had targeted âa terrorist cell that had planned an attack and was linked to a terrorist network based in the Jenin refugee camp.â
The victims, all in their 20s, were named as Abdullah Mohammed Omar Jalamneh, Qais Ibrahim Mohammed Albaytawi, and Ahmed Azmi Aref Nasharti.
Defence Minister Israel Katz praised the targeted killings, warning that âany attempt by terrorist organisations to rebuild their infrastructure in Judea and Samaria will be crushed with an iron fist.â
In a statement, Hamas said:
This crime represents the bloody policy of occupation and its dangerous escalation in the West Bank â a desperate attempt to subjugate our people and break their will, which will never be achieved no matter the brutality of the occupation.
Since January 2025, there has been a major military offensive against Palestinian refugee camps in both Jenin and Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, forcibly displacing 40,000 Palestinians from their homes. Moreover, these raids are part of wider IOF operations in the occupied West Bank, which have escalated dramatically since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza and serve as collective punishment of the Palestinian population. Violent settler attacks have also intensified to unprecedented levels since October 2023.
Generative AI companies like OpenAI have attracted criticism for using the work of creatives to power their slop machines. This could come to an end, however, if the lawsuits filed against them prove successful:
Judge rules George R.R. Martin and other authors can sue OpenAI for copyright infringement
âą Said ChatGPT generated 'Game of Thrones' content similar enough to infringe copyright
As Hollywood Reporter pointed out, it’s been nearly three years since the first AI copyright case went live. Many of these lawsuits are complex and groundbreaking, with the potential to set legal precedent for decades to come. Among them is a lawsuit from a group of authors which includes Game of Thrones’ George R.R. Martin.
Journalist Winston Cho wrote of the case:
In total, the plaintiffs are advancing three different arguments: The first is that the training of AI models on copyrighted books constitutes infringement, a common theory that most creators brought when the first wave of lawsuits were filed; the other relates to a newer argument over the practice of pirating books from shadow libraries that werenât used for training; and the last is that answers generated by ChatGPT are substantially similar to the books theyâre trained on.
In the latest development, a judge has confirmed that arguments two and three can be considered separately. In other words, the plaintiffs have three distinct arguments against OpenAI, meaning three different shots at winning.
Slop merchants
OpenAI recently released the video generation app Sora 2. Upon its release, one of the most popular videos depicted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stealing artwork from Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki:
Lmao, Sam Altman stealing art from Miyazaki in the Studio Ghibli HQ.
People widely regard Miyazaki as one of the greatest creative minds to have ever lived; Altman is something less than that:
Reminder that Sam Altman’s sister Ann filed a lawsuit against him over him raping her for years starting when she was 3 years old. https://t.co/fg3DyKzwm0
Another unresolved matter is whether the billions of investment money Altman has attracted will ever pay off, with many describing generative AI as a ‘bubble’ (i.e. its stock is obscenely over-inflated in comparison to the value it generates):
According to Harvard Economist Jason Furman when you remove data centers and ai, Americaâs growth is .01%.
Itâs a bubble.
Itâs going to burst.
And it will bring our economy to its knees. pic.twitter.com/noUG4X0uaC
The AI bubble is four times worse than the subprime mortgage one that lead to the 2008 Great Recession https://t.co/1gJhuay4sN
â Secular Talk (KyleKulinskiShow@bsky.social) (@KyleKulinski) October 26, 2025
Altman himself is among those who described it as a bubble:
See the narrative shift:
2 weeks ago: AGI is coming.
1 week ago: Chat GPT-5 is not AGI, it’s a flop.
This week: We’re in an AI bubble.
Altman is prepping his big bailout buddies – Microsoft & the US Govt – for the AI bubble burst that his terrible GPT-5 tech set in motion. pic.twitter.com/uCkj1auAVT
Authors technically can sue fan fiction writers, but they usually don’t unless they try to monetise their work. There’s actually a recent case in which an author was selling copies of a self-penned Lord of the Rings sequel only for the Tolkien estate to successfully sue them. This is how one solicitor described the victory:
This is an important success for the Tolkien Estate, which will not permit unauthorised authors and publishers to monetise JRR Tolkien’s much-loved works in this way.
This case involved a serious infringement of The Lord of the Rings copyright, undertaken on a commercial basis, and the estate hopes that the award of a permanent injunction and attorneys’ fees will be sufficient to dissuade others who may have similar intentions.
Seemingly, then – by the AI defender’s logic – authors can sue OpenAI.
Elon Musk has once again suggested civil war is imminent in the UK. Given that Musk is a social media baron who has the power to control the flow of information, some have accused him of abusing his position to push a political narrative. Others have accused Musk of ‘demanding’ a civil war.
Regardless of your stance, it certainly seems like the sort of thing a government should be taking notice of.
And yet:
Keir Starmer’s spokesman says they “haven’t seen” Elon Musk’s demands for a civil war on the streets of Britain.
If I was the prime minister and someone contacted me to say ‘that social media kingpin is pushing for a civil war again‘, I’d respond in one of two ways:
Looking into the claim and then presenting a response to it.
Simply keeping quiet.
Labour have chosen a third option, in which all they’ve achieved is highlighting how useless they are. Of course, they have done this before.
For clarity, here’s the offending tweet from Elon Musk:
These two foreign clowns are always so desperate to see violence on Britain’s streets. Civil war is not imminent in real life at all- they really need to take a break from social media- it’s clearly frying their brains and the ability to differentiate between the two. pic.twitter.com/1HJWEpUfB6
When you factor in his support and promotion of the British far right, it starts to look less like Musk is predicting a civil war and more like he’s attempting to shape one.
While Musk has claimed to be a ‘free speech absolutist’, he’s frequently shown himself to be anything but. As Gaby Del Valle wrote for The Verge, Musk has worked with governments to repress free speech on X. Musk has also made frequent use of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) to silence the employees / mothers of his children who may one day wish to speak out against him. It’s additionally reported that Tesla tried to use these dubiously legal agreements to muzzle their own customers.
Musk has ensured that all manner of racism is now permissible on X, with Germany having sued the platform in 2023 for failing to “moderate antisemitic content and Holocaust denial”.
People had a lot to say about Musk’s latest intervention and the Labour government’s failure to respond:
No one in Britain has guns and the left /right divide is basically conservative retirees vs everyone else, you could end the kind of civil war Musk wants with a stiff breeze https://t.co/sNCSN61TrD
Hundreds of hospital patients have been massacred by the United Arab Emirates-armed (UAE) paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, according to reports. RSF captured the Darfur city of El-Fasher this week. They were accused of carrying out widespread atrocities almost immediately.
Up to 460 patients and their companions in the city’s hospital were murdered, AP reported. The group, who are armed and backed by the UAE, also carried out door-to-door killings. Tens of thousands have been killed in the conflict and up to 14 million people may have been displaced.
One unverified claim by an open source tracker suggests the toll in the city may already be as high as 5,000:
Sudan â Journalist Ayoub Abushari: Reports that RSF commanders (naming Abdel Rahim Dagalo, Al-Hadi Idris, Al-Tahir Hajar, Sandal and allies) ordered mass eliminations in El Fasher; alleges 5,000+ victims so far, thousands more missing or taken â he vows the perpetrators will⊠pic.twitter.com/3BJ80ARSWT
Canary reporters were also on the ground in Whitehall for a Sudan solidarity demonstration on 29 October. People were calling out Keir Starmer and the Labour government’s complicity in the ongoing genocide:
BREAKING: crowds gather at Downing Street to hold Keir Starmer accountable for his complicity in ANOTHER genocide.
The UN and World Health Organisation condemned the atrocities:
All attacks on healthcare must stop immediately and unconditionally.
While the International Red Cross express sorrow at the killing of five of their workers in Darfur:
We received this news with profound shock and outrage and we condemn in the strongest possible terms this horrific and senseless act.
Al Jazeera collated images of the RSF pursuing those fleeing the city, which fell after a long and bloody siege:
Helping the displaced
Hope and Haven for Refugees Association is a charity which helps those displaced by the war. Currently, they are running a campaign calling for people to send letters and art to children displaced in Sudan:
The hope is to bring a little bit of joy; a little bit of light in all of the darkness, to let them know that we see them, we love them and we are all with them
You can follow and support them via their website. Hope And Haven’s call for action is especially pertinent for people who may not be able to get to physical protests for Sudan, or who may not be able to afford to donate money.
Executive director Sadeia Alrasheed Ali told the Canary:
Hope and Haven was born from heartbreak and hope from watching my people in Darfur and across Sudan lose everything and still find the strength to survive. We began as a small online effort to raise awareness and support displaced families, and it grew into a lifeline of community kitchens, clinics, and safe spaces run by ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
The war in Sudan has left millions without homes, food, or safety, but it has not taken away our humanity. Every meal shared, every child comforted, every story told through projects like Letters to Sudan reminds us that compassion can cross any border.
We only ask that the world does not look away. Sudanâs people need solidarity, not silence – real support that helps local communities keep each other alive until peace returns.
Outside influence
As we wrote on 29 October, the UAE is a close ally of the UK and US. Foreign weaponry – including some from the UK – has flooded into the country. RSF is the guarantor and guardian of UAE’s goldmines in the south of the country. The UAE has also normalised relations with Israel, with Israel even opening a branch of a state-owned arms firm in the Gulf state.
When Trump was clutching [UAE’s deputy ruler, Sheikh] Mansour and laughing about his “unlimited cash”, El-Fasher, the capital of Sudanâs North Darfur state, had already been under siege for over 500 days. Its people were living under famine conditions. The RSF had walled them in with earthen berms, trapping civilians in a kill box.
And judging by the scenes in El Fasher in the last few days, it is precisely this ‘kill box’ scenario which has been fully realised. Fuelled by US indifference and the UAE’s lust for gold a any cost, Sudan is looking more and more likely to become another Rwanda.
The rift between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is real. However, to understand it, one must see it for what it is — not a clash of principles, but of priorities.
Trump and the US establishment seek to expand the Abraham Accords, especially to bring Saudi Arabia on board. Tel Aviv, meanwhile, is fixated on accelerating its settlement project, beginning with annexations across large swathes of land in the West Bank.
Beneath this lies another tension. Israel wants to erase any talk of a Palestinian state, while the US, though never serious about Palestinian sovereignty, insists on keeping the illusion alive.
For Washington, that illusion is useful leverage with Arab capitals; for Israel, it is an obstacle.
Trumpâs plan even hinted at this illusion in its nineteenth clause: after certain âconditions,â a state might someday emerge. Yet annexation would shatter even that mirage.
Trump, a man known for lying, is sincere in one thing: his promise to Arab states to restrain Israel from annexing land in the West Bank. But his sincerity is tactical, not moral.
The restraint he offers is temporary, a pause meant to preserve the path toward expanding the Abraham Accords. It is not a strategic position, only a calculation.
Natural next step
Netanyahu, meanwhile, wants to force the world to accept that the West Bank is part of Israel, beyond the reach of UN resolutions or international law. For him, annexation is not a bargaining chip but the natural next step in completing the Zionist project.
Both men seek Arab submission to Israeli hegemony. Yet Washington has learned that Arab leaders, while complicit, remain wary. They fear that deepening normalisation, meant to evolve from official policy to popular acceptance, could backfire after Gazaâs devastation, Israelâs ongoing assaults, the seizure of Syrian and Lebanese land, and the aggression against Qatar.
Annexing the West Bank now, they worry, could blow up the illusion of peace that underpins normalisation itself.
For the US, that illusion is vital. The Abraham Accords are not just about recognition but about institutionalising a regional order, a military and security alliance led by Israel, with Arab acquiescence to its sovereignty over all of historic Palestine.
Netanyahu, however, sees no need for Arab consent. He believes force, not diplomacy, will impose Israelâs supremacy. His political survival depends on it: projecting strength, showing no retreat, proving that Arabs, defeated and divided, will ultimately rush to make deals with him.
And so far, he has reason to believe heâs right. The war on Gaza has not halted normalisation; no Arab state has suspended trade or energy ties.
On the contrary, cooperation, especially with the UAE, has expanded. Israeli analysts track this closely, confident that annexation may delay the process, but it will not derail it.
No Arab threats
Israel has concluded that no Arab state that normalised relations has threatened to suspend them, not even after the war of annihilation in Gaza, the incursions into Syria and Lebanon, or the demolition and settlement campaigns across the West Bank.
Still, Zionist and pro-Israel circles in Washington continue to warn the Trump administration that Netanyahuâs recklessness could destroy everything. They know Arab leaders find it difficult to deepen normalisation while Israel endangers regional stability and shows open contempt for their security concerns.
These leaders do not trust that their agreements can restrain Netanyahuâs excesses and take seriously his threats of expansion into Syria, Lebanon, and even Jordan, threats that have already begun to materialise.
Arab governments have managed, for now, to contain public sympathy for Palestinians and suppress popular opposition to ties with Israel. Yet they remain aware of the anger simmering beneath the surface, which could erupt if Israelâs aggressions continue.
It was this fear that drove pro-Israel circles in Washington to pressure the Trump administration to block, or rather, postpone, Israelâs annexation of West Bank land.
Trump was ultimately persuaded. Arab leaders had delivered the message to him directly: annexation would make normalisation politically impossible. He therefore pledged to prevent it, at least temporarily.
This exchange, Arab opposition to annexation and Trumpâs tactical response, reveal that the Arab position can still influence Washington.
US needs cooperation
The United States cannot simply threaten every Arab government or sever all aid. It needs their cooperation to secure its regional goals, and that cooperation depends on a degree of stability.
If chaos benefits Washington, popular anger can be tolerated, but if stability is the goal, unchecked Israeli aggression becomes a liability even for the United States.
Trumpâs response to the concerns of Arab leaders, especially those of Qatar, Jordan, and Egypt, revealed that they could have done more but chose not to. That, however, is another story.
What matters here is that Trump understood two key conditions for sustaining the Abraham Accords: maintaining a ceasefire and preventing Israel from annexing West Bank land.
The normalisation project aims to integrate Israel into the region and present it as an âindigenousâ state, not a colonial one that expands by uprooting the landâs original population.
This has long been Israelâs dream, but Netanyahu no longer seems concerned with appearances. He imagines himself on the verge of a sweeping historic victory.
That fantasy is not his alone; Trump shares it as well.
Trump’s ego greater
Yet Trumpâs own ego is greater. He now sees Netanyahu as an obstacle to his ambitions, a man jeopardising what Trump believes he has built and protected. Many within Zionist and pro-Israel circles agree: they want Trump to save Israel from Netanyahu.
Trumpâs anger is therefore genuine. He and his aides, backed by influential figures from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, one of the central bastions of Zionist influence in Washington, are determined not to let Netanyahu endanger both US and Israeli interests.
This rift should be used by Arab states wisely, without illusion: it will not alter Washingtonâs strategic bond with Israel. However, I am under no illusion that they will do anything.
Still, Arab states, however weak-willed, can take a minimum position, to publicly reject Israeli annexation of West Bank land and any territory from Gaza, and to reaffirm their refusal to recognise Israeli sovereignty over occupied Palestinian land.
They can at least reclaim the language of rights as a peaceful weapon: legal, diplomatic, and moral.
That weapon gains power if Arab states act by filing a case against Israel and its settlements as violations of international law. Not to defend Palestine alone, but to defend themselves.
For if they fail to act, the threat will not spare their regimes, nor the region they claim to protect.
Lamis Andoni is a Palestinian journalist, writer and academic who launched The New Arab as its editor-in-chief.
A national pro-Palestinian advocacy group has accused the New Zealand government of providing political cover and rewarding the Israeli genocide by deploying a “liaison officer” to the US-brokered peace plan for the besieged enclave.
âItâs a knee-jerk reaction for New Zealand to send in the troops to the Middle East to back Israel and the US,â said Maher Nazzal, co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).
âA liaison officer deployment is political cover to assist and reward Israel for its
genocide in Gaza. The US makes bombs and bullets for Israel to fire.
âItâs a shameful betrayal of Palestine and the Palestinian steadfastness in the face of unbelievable depravity and cruelty,â Nazzal said in a statement.
He said it was ominous that the liaison officer would be based inside a US military office in Israel.
âInstead, we should be working with the United Nations in the region. Trump plans to perpetuate the Israeli occupation under a figleaf of it being multinational. That is what we are supporting.â
âThis is more of the same complicity with the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza,” he said.
‘Joined at hip’
Nazzal said that for two years Foreign Minister Winston Peters had joined New Zealand “at the hip” to a country whose Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] was wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.â
“There have been no sanctions on Israel, but we frequently impose new sanctions on Russia and Iran,â he said.
âThe NZDF was there in Iraq and Afghanistan. The government sent the army up to the Red Sea to fight with the Americans early last year to keep Israeli sea lanes open.â
Nazzal said the government should focus on aid, ensuring Palestinians’ rights and representation, and fact-finding.
âThere should be a cross-party Parliamentary fact-finding mission assembled urgently, which could get into Gaza safely before Israel ramps up its murderous assault again.”he said.
âMPs should see for themselves, instead of signing off on a soldier whose job it is to âimplementâ the Trump plan.”
Jordan rejects US plan
The King of Jordan had recently rejected the US proposal to join in patrolling Gaza to implement Trumpâs vision.
âPalestinians have no say in the Trump plan. Trump decides who is going to
implement it. Heâs picked Tony Blair,” Nazzal said.
“When he was British Prime Minister, Blair, and US President Bush, invaded Iraq to destroy the non-existent weapons of mass destruction. More than a million Iraqis died.
âThe New Zealand people stand with Palestine â the government stands with Israel.â
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports that Palestinians in Gaza say they are losing hope in the ceasefire after Israelâs deadliest violation yet killed more than 100 people, mostly women and children, on Wednesday.
Israelâs military carried out another deadly attack in northern Gaza last night, killing two people, despite claiming to resume the fragile ceasefire, which had already been teetering from a wave of deadly bombardment it waged the night before.
US President Donald Trump said the ceasefire was “still strong” while mediator Qatar expressed frustration but said the mediators were looking forward to the next phase of the truce.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has warned of an impending humanitarian disaster in Gaza after Israeli occupation authorities blocked shipments of life-saving medicines from entering the besieged territory for more than two years.
The agency said in a statement that thousands of wounded and sick people in Gaza are suffering from psychological trauma and chronic injuries that have changed the course of their lives, while its health centres face a severe shortage of essential medical supplies â leading to an increasing number of preventable deaths.
UNRWA: Every hour of delay costs lives
UNRWA said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that dozens of trucks loaded with vital medicines remain stranded at the crossing, awaiting permission to enter.
Lifesaving UNRWA medicines are waiting at the border, denied entry into #Gaza by the State of Israel.
As health centres face severe shortages and preventable deaths rise, every delay costs lives.
UNRWA continues to provide health care â over 15 million consultations since the⊠pic.twitter.com/e3UJnxANBm
Despite these challenges, UNRWA continues to provide health services across various areas of the Strip, with the number of medical consultations provided since the start of the war exceeding 15 million â even as its staff are working in conditions it has described as “almost impossible.”
The agency called for the immediate admission of medical and humanitarian supplies, stressing that restricting the entry of aid constitutes a serious violation of international humanitarian law and threatens the lives of thousands of civilians â especially children, the sick, and older people.
UNRWA concluded its statement by emphasising that the continued prevention of aid would lead to:
a complete collapse of the health system in Gaza,â calling on the international community to take urgent action to pressure the occupying authorities to open the crossings and allow the entry of medicines without restrictions or conditions.
UNRWAâs alarm isnât just about medicine â itâs about a world watching a preventable collapse unfold in real time, and choosing not to act.
An independent international commission of inquiry established by the United Nations has urged member states to use all available legal and diplomatic means to maintain the ceasefire in Gaza. Member states are to provide broad support for the Palestinian peopleâs right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent state according to the UN report.
UN report accuses Israel of genocide and names top officials as inciters
The commission, formed by the Human Rights Council, submitted its report on Tuesday to the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly, which deals with social, humanitarian, and human rights issues. The findings, initially published on September 16, accuse Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The report states that Israel carried out four acts that meet the definition of genocide as outlined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, with the intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. It also notes that the Israeli president, prime minister, and former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, âpublicly incitedâ the commission of this crime.
In a recorded video statement, the Chair of the Commission, Navi Pillay, stressed the need for member states to prioritise holding perpetrators of violations accountable by supporting the International Criminal Courtâs investigations and applying the principle of universal jurisdiction to pursue those implicated among their dual nationals.
Pillay added that the recent ceasefire:
may postpone the implementation of Israelâs territorial objectives in Gaza, but it has not ended the changes it has imposed on the ground.
And, Pillay noted that statements by Israeli leaders âconfirm their continued intention to impose a new demographic reality in the Gaza Strip.â
UN: Israel pursuing permanent military control and demographic fragmentation of Gaza
The Commission explained in its report that Israel has sought to impose permanent military control over Gaza, destroying civilian infrastructure and essential resources vital to the populationâs survival, while carrying out forced displacement and the geographic fragmentation of the Strip. It also noted that Israeli officials have publicly supported plans for settlement construction and the annexation of territory.
Pillay concluded by stating that the international community has both a moral and legal obligation to end these grave violations and to âensure justice and accountability for all Palestinian victims.â
A journalist from the local “Palestine” newspaper, Mohammed Al-Manirawi, and his wife were martyred in an Israeli airstrike that targeted their tent in the Al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
Al-Manirawi â not to be confused with Mohammed Al-Qrinawi, another journalist Israel assassinated back in December 2024, also along with his wife â refused to leave Gaza despite the continuous bombing, hunger and destruction.
In Gaza, journalists are not afforded the luxury of neutralityâ nor the chance of survival.
Palestinian journalist Mohammed Waheed Al-Manirawi, who devoted more than 15 years of his life to documenting the truth, was martyred on Wednesday morning along with his wife and daughter after Israeli occupation aircraft targeted their tent in the Nuseirat camp in the centre of the Gaza Strip.
He died because his voice was stronger than bullets â because his eyes remained open to a pain that the world would rather shut its eyes to.
The Gaza journalist who never left the field
Since the outbreak of the war of extermination against Gaza, Al-Manirawi remained in the field â writing, sending photos, and witnessing endless massacres.
On his last night, he returned to his familyâs tent to take them to Gaza City, but the occupationâs missiles were faster than his steps â assassinating his body and leaving behind a memory heavy with courage and resistance.
His friends said his smile never left him, even on the darkest nights. He believed that a true journalist resists with words.
He became part of a long list of journalists silenced by Israel. Their words were more than an obituary â they were a testimony to an entire era of oppression and resistance, to a generation of journalists who discovered that no protective gear could keep them safe.
The assassination of truth
Al-Manirawi’s martyrdom is not an isolated incident.
According to the Palestinian Journalistsâ Protection Centre (PJPC), more than 257 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israeli aggression â the highest toll in the world in decades.
They were not killed by accident, but because they reported what the world did not want to see.
The centre described the targeting of Al-Manirawi as a âfull-fledged war crimeâ and called for an urgent international investigation, stressing that:
The blood of journalists in Gaza will remain a testament to the world’s inability to protect the truth.
When the world remains silent
Al-Manirawiâs death is not only a loss for his family and colleagues, but also a slap in the face of a silent humanity.
The world that claims to defend press freedom watches in silence as cameras become charges and microphones become military targets.
At a time when Europeâs shores are closed to refugees, the skies over Gaza remain open to missiles that kill both words and people.
The truth cannot be buried
Mohammed al-Manirawi is gone, but his voice still echoes among the rubble of Gaza â among his colleagues who continue to work with the same conviction: journalism is not a profession for survival, but a path to truth, no matter the cost.
The blood of journalists in Gaza remains the last ink that writes the truth.
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has challenged Defence Minister Judith Collins over her “can’t be trusted” backing for controversial BlackSky Technology satellite launches and called on the Prime Minister to withdraw approval.
National co-chair John Minto today wrote to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon — who is currently in Korea for the APEC meeting — in response to what he described as a “shocking” TVNZ 1News interview with Collins last Friday that revealed the satellite launches could be used by Israel in its genocidal attacks on the besieged enclave of Gaza.
Minto asked Luxon to “overrule” Collins and end the BlackSky satellite launches
He said PSNA had requested the Prime Minister direct Collins to withdraw approval for forthcoming Rocket Lab satellite launches for BlackSky Technology from Mahia, which could be used by Israel in Gaza.
âShe went for any excuse to justify approving the launches, and the Prime Minister must rein her in.”
‘Free hand’ claim
Collins had said in the 1News report that the UN Security Council did not encourage sanctions, so she believed New Zealand had a “free hand to be militarily complicit” in Israelâs resumed genocide in Gaza, PSNA said as the ceasefire remained shaky today with Israel’s renewed attacks on the enclave.
âBut New Zealand has complained for decades about the veto powers of one country in the Security Council,” Minto said.
“Then, our government uses the very same US veto — which it opposes — to justify licensing the launch of spy satellites to target Gaza.â
Defence Minister Judith Collins warned over satellites, TVNZ’s 1News reported last Friday. Image: 1News screenshot APR
Minto said New Zealand government was ignoring the International Court of Justice(ICJ), which has directed countries to do what they could to prevent Israelâs illegal occupation from continuing.
âSigning off on delivering the technology, which the IDF [Israeli military] uses for its bombing runs on a civilian population, can hardly be interpreted as helping Israel end its occupation of Gaza.â
Minto said Collinsâ alternative excuse was that New Zealand was “not at war with Israel, so canât sanction it” was “equally nonsensical”.
âIt may come as news to the Defence Minister, but New Zealand is not at war with Iran or Russia either,” Minto said.
“Yet the government routinely imposes sanctions on both of these countries, with putting new sanctions on Iran just a few days ago.â
Israel kills 91 people
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have killed at least 91 people in Gaza overnight, including at least 24 children, according to medical sources, in violation of the US-brokered ceasefire.
Al Jazeera reports that US President Donald Trump said Israel had âhit backâ after a soldier was âtaken outâ but he claimed ânothing was going to jeopardiseâ the ceasefire, Al Jazeera reports.
A Marshall Islands lawmaker has called on Pacific legislatures to establish and strengthen their national human rights commissions to help address the region’s nuclear testing legacy.
“Our people in the Marshall Islands carry voices of our lives that are shaped by this nuclear legacy,” Senator David Anitok said during the second day of the Association of Pacific Island Legislatures (APIL) general assembly in Saipan this week.
“Decades later, our people still endure many consequences, such as cancer, displacement, environmental contamination, and the Micronesian families seeking safety and care abroad. Recent studies and lived experience [have shown] what our elders have always known-the harm is deeper, broader, and longer lasting than what the world once believed.”
Anitok said that once established, these human rights commissions must be independent, inclusive, and empowered to tackle not only the nuclear testing legacy but also issues of injustice, displacement, environmental degradation, and governance.
“Let’s stand together and build a migration network of human rights institutions that will protect our people, our lands, our oceans, our cultures, our heritages, and future generations,” he said.
“Furthermore, we call upon all of you to engage more actively with international human rights mechanisms. Together, it will help shape a future broadened in human rights, peace, and dignity.”
Marshall Islands Senator David Anitok . . . “Let’s stand together and build a migration network of human rights institutions that will protect our people . . . and future generations.” Image: RNZ Pacific/Mark Rabago
To demonstrate the Marshall Islands’ leadership on human rights, Anitok noted that the country has been elected to the UN Human Rights Council twice under President Dr Hilda Heine — an honour shared in the Pacific only once each by Australia and Tahiti.
Pohnpei Senator Shelten Neth echoed Anitok’s call, demanding justice for the Pacific’s nuclear testing victims.
“Enough is enough. Let’s stop talking the talk and let’s put our efforts together — united we stand and walk the talk.
“Spreading of the nuclear waste is not only confined to the Marshall Islands, and I’m a living witness. I can talk about this from the scientific research already completed, but many don’t want to release it to the general public.
“The contamination is spreading fast. [It’s in] Guam already, and the other nations that are closer to the RMI,” Neth said.
He then urged the United States to accept full responsibility for its nuclear testing programme in the Pacific.
“I [want to tell] Uncle Sam to honestly attend to the accountability of their wrongdoing. Inhuman, unethical, unorthodox, what you did to RMI. The nuclear testing is an injustice!” Neth declared.
Anitok and Neth’s remarks followed a presentation by Diego Valadares Vasconcelos Neto, human rights officer for Micronesia under the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who discussed how UN human rights mechanisms can support economic development, health, and welfare in the region.
Neto underscored the UN’s 80-year partnership with the Pacific and its continuing commitment to peace, human rights, and sustainable development in the wake of the Second World War and the nuclear era.
He highlighted key human rights relevant to the Pacific context:
Right to development — Economic progress must go beyond GDP growth to include social, cultural, and political inclusion;
Right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment — Ensuring access to information, public participation, and justice in environmental matters; and
Political and civil rights — Upholding participation in governance, freedom of expression and association, equality, and self-determination.
Based in Pohnpei and representing OHCHR’s regional office in Suva, Fiji, Neto outlined UN tools available to assist Pacific legislatures, including the Universal Periodic Review, special procedures (such as thematic experts on water, sanitation, and climate justice), and treaty bodies monitoring state compliance with human rights conventions.
He also urged Pacific parliaments to form permanent human rights committees, ratify more international treaties, and strengthen legislative oversight on human rights implementation.
Neto concluded by citing ongoing UN collaboration in the Marshall Islands-particularly in addressing the human rights impacts of nuclear testing and climate change-and expressed hope for continued dialogue between Pacific lawmakers and the UN Human Rights Office.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This Bloomberg conversation with Venezuelaâs Maria Corina Machado is full of wild claims. Aside from what we already posted earlier (her insistence that Hamas is hiding in Venezuela) â
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HOLY COW: In a humiliating reversal, RFK Jr. walks back his Tylenol autism claim – now saying data is only âsuggestiveâ and ânot sufficient to say it definitely causes autism.â
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Chelby 
Sudan â Journalist Ayoub Abushari: Reports that RSF commanders (naming Abdel Rahim Dagalo, Al-Hadi Idris, Al-Tahir Hajar, Sandal and allies) ordered mass eliminations in El Fasher; alleges 5,000+ victims so far, thousands more missing or taken â he vows the perpetrators will⊠
