Climate activist defaces Monet painting in Paris

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/01/climate-activist-defaces-monet-painting-in-paris

Woman from Riposte Alimentaire arrested after sticking poster on impressionist painter’s Coquelicots

A climate activist has been arrested for sticking an adhesive poster on a Monet painting at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to draw attention to global heating, a police source said.

The action by the woman, a member of Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) – a group of environmental activists and defenders of sustainable food production – was seen in a video posted on X, placing a blood-red poster over Coquelicots (Poppies) by the French impressionist painter Claude Monet.

In the video she said of the poster covering Monet’s art that “this nightmarish image awaits us if no alternative is put in place”.skip past newsletter promotion

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/01/climate-activist-defaces-monet-painting-in-paris

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Trade convoys ‘squeezing out’ Gaza aid, humanitarian organisations say

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/03/trade-convoys-squeezing-out-gaza-aid-humanitarian-organisations-say

UN says aid shipments fell by two-thirds during May but number of trucks entering Gaza rose

Aid shipments into southern Gaza are being squeezed out by commercial convoys, humanitarian organisations say, at a time when Israel’s military push into Rafah has choked off supply routes critical to feeding hundreds of thousands of people.

Deliveries of food, medicine and other aid into Gaza fell by two-thirds after Israel began its ground operation on 7 May, UN figures show. But overall the number of trucks entering Gaza rose in May compared with April, according to Israeli officials.

Part of the reason for the stark difference in accounts of what supplies reached the strip is a rise in commercial shipments.

In May, the Israeli military lifted a ban on the sale of food to Gaza from Israel and the occupied West Bank, Reuters reported last week. Traders got the green light to resume buying fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy and other goods.

Inside Gaza, residents say there is more food in markets, but prices are many times higher than prewar levels, and after months of fighting and displacement few people can afford to buy much.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/03/trade-convoys-squeezing-out-gaza-aid-humanitarian-organisations-say

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Claudia Sheinbaum is the next president of Mexico

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Original article by Zoe Alexandra republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Claudia Sheinbaum at her campaign launch.

The progressive leader is making history as the first woman president in North America and has vowed to follow in the footsteps of her colleague President López Obrador in building an anti-neoliberal economic development model

Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum won the presidential election in Mexico on June 2, making her the first female president of Mexico. The scientist, public servant, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and longtime activist ran with the “Let’s Continue Making History” Coalition composed of the Movement for National Regeneration (MORENA), the Labor Party (PT), and the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico. With 58% of the votes (according to INE quick count at 1:25 am (UTC-6)), Sheinbaum defeated Xóchitl Gálvez Ruíz who was the candidate of the right-wing Force and Heart for Mexico Coalition of PRI-PAN-PRD. Jorge Álvarez Máynez came in third with around 10% of the total vote share.

Sheinbaum addressed thousands of supporters in the Zocalo in the center of Mexico City to celebrate her victory. “I feel excited and thankful, for the recognition that you have given to the Fourth Transformation of public life of Mexico. Here as we have always done, I promise to not let you down. Today, the people of Mexico have made possible the continuity and advance of the Fourth Transformation, and also for the first time in 200 years, we women have arrived to the presidency of the Republic!”

Earlier in a press conference, Sheinbaum also announced that MORENA had achieved a majority in the Chamber of Deputies and was set to also win a majority in the Senate. Clara Brugada, the former mayor of Iztapalapa, won the race for head of government of Mexico City.

Sheinbaum’s party MORENA had announced her victory in a press conference about an hour and a half after polls had closed and all major exit polls projected her victory with a 2:1 margin, which they characterized as an irreversible trend. The President of MORENA, Mario Delgado, had stated: “Today sovereignty, independence, and democracy have also triumphed. The people have shown that they will not be deceived, not with hate campaigns nor with lies. The votes defeated the bots!”

The National Electoral Institute (INE) began to release results of the quick count at 8:00 pm (Mexico City time). Just before midnight on Sunday, the Council President of the National Electoral Institute (INE), Guadalupe Taddei Zavala, released a message to announce that based on the preliminary results of the rapid count, Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum is set to win the presidency with a wide margin over right-wing candidate Xóchitl Gálvez. She added that between 58.9-61.7% of the electorate had participated in Sunday’s local and federal elections.

Tensions had begun to rise in the period after voting when conservative candidate Gálvez Ruiz, instead of accepting her overwhelming defeat, confirmed in the exit polls and the preliminary results of INE, called on her supporters to remain vigilant and suggested she is in fact be the winner. She then published a series of tweets, echoing the same messages of “vigilance” and wrote, “They want you to go to bed thinking that they beat you. They lie like always.” Analysts had been alerting to a situation wherein Gálvez would “cry fraud” and attempt to undermine the results of the election in light of her predictable defeat.

However, this narrative was quickly debunked after the official results confirmed the landslide victory of the MORENA candidate. When Sheinbaum announced her victory, she confirmed that Gálvez had called to congratulate her moments earlier.

Claudia Sheinbaum vows to continue making history

Sheinbaum will be the first woman president of Mexico and North America, and has vowed to continue the project of the “Fourth Transformation” inaugurated by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, led by the principle of “Mexican Humanism”. The anti-neoliberal socio economic project has had enormous success across Mexico in raising the standard of living for the majorities in the country through the increase in minimum wage, expanded social and economic programs to increase access to key rights of education, housing, healthcare, and more. AMLO will finish his term in office with a 80% approval rating, according to Gallup polls.

Sheinbaum spoke about the importance of the 4T project in an interview with Peoples Dispatch and BreakThrough News in April 2023, “states have to give the rights to the people. What do we think is a right? Education, health, a home, pension for all the elders. We also believe in strategic areas of the economy such as energy. The state has to be part of this, especially electricity, oil and mainly and now lithium…it’s important and it’s going to be very important in the future…You cannot have private investment measured only by GDP or international investment. You have to measure investment, public and private, in wealth for the people. And that’s the big difference with neoliberalism that believed that everything was going to be solved by the market.”

Mexico’s northern neighbor, the United States, is its most important trading partner. During AMLO’s six-year term, he managed to maintain a mostly amicable relationship with both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but also did not shy away from holding his ground on key issues. For example, as president, AMLO was one of the strongest voices on topics which directly contradict US policy such as the US blockade of Cuba, the imprisonment and persecution of Julian Assange, and the subordination of the region to corporate and imperialist interests. AMLO was also a driving figure in reinvigorating spaces of regional integration and served as pro-tempore president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). How Sheinbaum relates to her northern neighbor and the rest of the region will be a defining feature of her presidency.

Original article by Zoe Alexandra republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

18/6/24 Apologies that I made a mistake when I first posted this article.

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Swinney considers U turn on new oil and gas licences

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I’ve been expecting the SNP to abandon their green commitments and here it is … SNP’s Swinney describing fossil fuels as sustainable and calling for abandoning the transition to help the transition from fossil fuels. That pretty impressive twisted thinking Swinney.

URI removed

First Minister John Swinney is considering dropping Nicola Sturgeon’s opposition to new oil and gas licences (Image: PA)

7/9/24 This content removed following DMCA takedown notices initiated from the Scotsman claiming copyright infringement. I disagree with them – i.e. I don’t accept that I’m infringing the Scotsman’s copyright – and they look to be produced by a simple automated routine without human supervision or intervention i.e. a stupid bot. I’m disappointed that my website host accepts these notices without question, has redirected some articles as a result and threatened further restrictions.

I have successfully defended one article that the Scotsman was claiming copyright to. That copyright is clearly owned by the letter’s authors. That’s the standard of competence I’m up against.

Scotsmen poncing about. Sporran, haggis, gear …


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