Daily Archives: 21 December 2024

Netanyahu to skip Auschwitz liberation ceremony fearing arrest

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https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241221-netanyahu-to-skip-auschwitz-liberation-ceremony-fearing-arrest

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a press conference in Tel Aviv on July 13, 2024 [NIR ELIAS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not participate in the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz for fear of being arrested following the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

The warrant was issued on charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the war on Gaza, according to reports by Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita on Friday.

The newspaper quoted Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, who is organising the ceremony scheduled to be held on 27 January, saying that his country is committed to respecting the decision of the ICC in The Hague.

The ceremony commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz is expected to be attended by many world leaders. The Polish newspaper predicts Israel will be represented by its Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, but Israeli media quoted Israeli officials saying that Education Minister Yoav Kisch will represent Israel in the ceremony.

The Polish newspaper reported that Israel did not request Netanyahu’s participation in the ceremony and that the Israelis knew how Warsaw would react if Netanyahu arrived in Poland.

READ: Israel: Soldiers admit killing civilians in Gaza, classifying them as ‘terrorists’

Israeli President Isaac Herzog is not expected to participate in the ceremony. His predecessor, Reuven Rivlin, participated in the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

On 21 November, the ICC issued two international arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, including starving Palestinians.

Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Lithuania and Slovenia have all confirmed they will arrest Netanyahu if he enters their territory, and outgoing Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo asserted: “There can be no double standards.”

Leaders from several countries are expected to attend the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Spanish King Felipe VI, British King Charles, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok.

Poland has invited US President-elect Donald Trump to the ceremony, but he is expected to be represented by his vice president, JD Vance, or his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the Polish newspaper reported.

BLOG: The EU continues to protect Israel and its genocide of the Palestinians

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Continue ReadingNetanyahu to skip Auschwitz liberation ceremony fearing arrest

Jeremy Corbyn: The facts about a planet facing climate disaster are clear. Why won’t this Labour government face them?

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/20/planet-climate-disaster-labour-government

A wildfire near Povoa de Montemuro, Portugal, 18 September 2024. Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters

Labour seems gripped by a form of denialism. The danger is real and incremental change won’t avert it

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If our political leaders acted out of humanity, the plight of others would be enough to motivate them into action. In the absence of empathy, perhaps we need to be more direct: the climate crisis is coming for you, because it is coming for us all.

Without urgent action, “once-in-a-generation” events – the flooding of New York subways, the typhoon-like winds sucking people out of their apartments in China, the forest fires – will become the new routine of daily life. Politicians abandoned the goal to stop climate breakdown many years ago. We have a much more basic demand: to stop climate breakdown entering a new phase of existential disaster.

That means avoiding certain “tipping points” that would put humanity on an irreversible path to catastrophe. The collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, for example, would disrupt the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and west Africa. Permafrost thaw would generate an irreversible release of carbon dioxide. And the loss of the Greenland ice sheet would result in disastrous runaway melting.

Few politicians deny that human-made global heating is real. Instead, our government peddles a different – more insidious – kind of denialism. One that moves away from a disbelief in the climate crisis, and toward a belief that incremental change can fix it.

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This government is not just failing to stand up to fossil fuel giants. It is failing to confront the economic system that empowers them. The richest 1% are responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%, yet our government still refuses to bring in wealth taxes to reduce inequality. Unless the government has the courage to rewrite the rules of our ecocidal economy, its climate targets will soon become yet another broken promise.

A planet cannot be cooled by warm words; we need fundamental change, now. A Green New Deal would invest in publicly owned renewable energy and water. It would create millions of green jobs. It would promote sustainable farming based on the principles of agroecology. And it would kickstart an economy based on human need, not corporate greed.

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The whole article is at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/20/planet-climate-disaster-labour-government. I’ve been registered for some time, unsure what’s needed to get access. Perhaps the Guardian can provide easier access?

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Continue ReadingJeremy Corbyn: The facts about a planet facing climate disaster are clear. Why won’t this Labour government face them?

Record number of protesters will be in UK prisons this Christmas

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/20/record-number-of-protesters-will-be-in-uk-prisons-this-christmas

A Just Stop Oil protester on the M25 in 2022. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Forty people, aged 22 to 58, incarcerated for direct actions on climate and Gaza actions amid crackdown on dissent

A record number of people who have taken part in protests will be in prison in the UK this Christmas, raising concern about the ongoing crackdown on dissent.

Forty people, aged from 22 to 58, will be behind bars on Christmas Day for planning or taking part in a variety of protests relating to the climate crisis or the war in Gaza. Several of them are facing years in prison after courts handed down the most severe sentences on record for direct action protests.

Jodie Beck, a policy and campaigns officer at the civil rights group Liberty, said the number of protesters in prison and the severity of their sentences was “a damning reflection of the state of democracy” in the country.

“We should all be able to stand up for what we believe in without fear of lengthy prison sentences. Continuing to prosecute people for exercising their right to protest will only serve to exacerbate the crisis in our criminal justice system alongside stopping people from making their voices heard,” Beck said.

Nineteen people are in prison – 10 of them on remand – after taking part in climate protests with the campaign group Just Stop Oil. They range from five people who received multi-year sentences after being found guilty of conspiring to cause gridlock on the M25, to two young people jailed for more than 18 months for throwing tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting in the National Gallery in London.

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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/20/record-number-of-protesters-will-be-in-uk-prisons-this-christmas

Keir Starmer warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog.
Keir Starmer warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog.
Continue ReadingRecord number of protesters will be in UK prisons this Christmas