Police remove a campaigner taking part in a Defend Our Juries protest in support of Palestine Action outside the Home Office, London, November 24, 2025
Left MPs Jeremy Corbyn, Zarah Sultana and John McDonnell are doing the right thing in highlighting the case of the young pro-Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in British jails.
Seven prisoners associated with solidarity actions for Palestine have now been on hunger strike for several weeks. They are being locked up on remand, with their trial likely 18 months away. This is the largest co-ordinated political hunger strike since the H-Blocks in 1981.
This is the grossest travesty of justice. The whole labour movement should be demanding that these young people, who are not charged with any violence against persons, should be freed.
Guilty of nothing under the law, they should be given bail immediately. Their continued detention on remand is an act of state vindictiveness.
Should any of them come to lasting harm, it will be on the account of Justice Secretary David Lammy as well as the Prime Minister. They will not be forgiven.
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
There are many facets or aspects to Fascism: racist ideology; disregard and disdain for justice, human rights and the rule of law; what ‘Il Duce’ Benito Mussolini termed corporatism, “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
Xenophobe President Donald Trump often demonstrates racism and a disdain for due process, democracy, human rights and the law .
Deporting Venezuelans to San Salvador’s CECOT prison.
Deploying National Guard and ICE in US cities. “Everyday is Halloween.”
Murdering fishermen
Project 2025 pursues a huge corparist agenda, hugely extending deregulation for the benefit of unaccountable corporations. Trump pursued huge corporate support for his reelection particularly from the fossil fuel industry. Now he’s intending to invade Venezuela for “all that oil.”
Demented assole Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn, Flood, Baby, Flood.
When discussing Trump it is worth considering whether his obvious prejudices and limited abilities are further affected by senility. I suggest that senior officers of the wider US administration have due regard for other demands and obligations on them.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the White House in Washington, DC on December 8, 2025. (Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“It’s now taken as a given… that Trump is mulling a ground invasion of Venezuela and a dramatic expansion in his bombing campaign with no congressional authorization,” said one critic.
President Donald Trump said in an interview published Tuesday that a US land attack on Venezuela is coming and signaled that he is open to launching similar military action against Colombia and Mexico.
“We’re gonna hit ‘em on land very soon, too,” Trump toldPolitico‘s Dasha Burns, citing the pretext of stopping fentanyl from entering the United States.
Trump repeated his baseless claim that during the administration of his predecessor, the “very stupid” former President Joe Biden, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “sent us millions of people, many from prisons, many drug dealers, drug lords,” and “people in mental institutions.”
Burns then noted that most of the illicit fentanyl sold in the United States “is actually produced in Mexico,” which along with Colombia is “even more responsible” for trafficking the potent synthetic opioid into the US. She asked Trump if he would “consider doing something similar” to those countries.
“I would,” Trump replied. “Sure, I would.”
Pressed on his contradictory pardon of convicted narco-trafficking former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández while threatening war against Venezuela, Trump feigned ignorance, claiming that “I don’t know him” and asserting that “he was set up.”
Trump’s latest threat against Venezuela comes amid his deployment of warships and thousands of troops off the coast of the oil-rich South American nation, his approval of covert CIA action against Maduro’s government, and more than 20 airstrikes on boats his administration claims without evidence were smuggling drugs in the southern Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
The Trump administration’s targeting of Venezuela evokes the long history of US “gunboat diplomacy” in Latin America and continues more than a century of Washington’s meddling in Venezuelan affairs. It also marks a historic escalation of aggression, as the US has never attacked Venezuelan territory.
Officials in Venezuela and Colombia, as well as relatives of men killed in the boat bombings, contend that at least some of the victims were fishermen who were not involved in drug trafficking.
The strikes have killed at least 87 people since early September, according to administration figures—including shipwrecked survivors slain in a so-called double-tap bombing. Legal experts and some former US military officials contend that the strikes are a violation of international law, murders, war crimes, or all of these.
Critics also assert that the boat strikes violate the War Powers Act, which requires the president to report any military action to Congress within 48 hours and mandates that lawmakers must approve troop deployments after 60 days. The Trump administration argues that it is not bound by the War Powers Resolution, citing as precedent the Obama administration’s highly questionable claim of immunity from the law when the US attacked Libya in 2011.
A bipartisan bid to block the boat bombings on the grounds that they run afoul of the War Powers Act failed to muster enough votes in the Senate in October.
“Note that it’s now taken as a given—as an unremarkable and baked-in fact about our politics—that Trump is mulling a ground invasion of Venezuela and a dramatic expansion in his bombing campaign with no congressional authorization,” New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent observed Tuesday in response to the president’s remarks to Politico.
“What emerges from this interview,” he added, “is that Trump is pulling all of this—the substantive case for these bombings, the legal justification for them, the rationale for mulling a massive military escalation in the Western Hemisphere—out of his rear end.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand shake hands following talks at the G7 foreign ministers meeting on November 12, 2025. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
“The UK, Canada, and other allied nations who partner with the United States on counternarcotics efforts have ample evidence that the US is unlawfully killing people at sea,” said Human Rights Watch.
A leading human rights organization on Tuesday pushed allies of the United States to more forcefully condemn and take steps to stop President Donald Trump’s deadly boat strikes in international waters, attacks that experts have characterized as extrajudicial killings.
“The UK, Canada, and other allied nations who partner with the United States on counternarcotics efforts have ample evidence that the US is unlawfully killing people at sea,” Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said in a statement. “The rules-based international order depends on countries speaking out against violations, even when they’re committed by powerful friends.”
HRW specifically urged countries at risk of complicity to closely examine their maritime cooperation and intelligence-sharing with the Trump administration, which claims—without evidence—that every vessel targeted was involved in drug smuggling operations that posed a threat to the US.
“The UK, France, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands have significant influence in the Caribbean due to their overseas territories in the region,” the group said. “All three governments are also participants in Campaign Martillo, a multinational counternarcotics detection, monitoring, and interdiction operation that includes US Navy and Coast Guard vessels, along with military and law enforcement units from a dozen other nations, including Canada.”
“Australia and New Zealand, which are part of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence sharing community with the United States, UK, and Canada where the governments share all signals and geospatial intelligence by default, may also find themselves implicated in the strikes and should take steps to evaluate their own risks,” HRW added.
While officials from the nations named by HRW have criticized and distanced themselves from the Trump administration’s strikes, their comments have largely been vague and tepid—especially when compared to the responses of some South American leaders. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, for instance, said her country “is not involved in these US actions” and that “it is for the United States to articulate the legal basis of its actions.”
HRW also pointed to Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand’s statement that “the United States has made clear that it is using its own intelligence” to target the vessels in international waters.
“It is not sufficient to accept the US government’s assurances that it is not leveraging shared intelligence for its unlawful strikes,” said HRW. “In contrast, when asked directly about the legality of the strikes, [Ahmed] declined to address the matter, saying instead that ‘it is within the purview of US authorities to make that determination.’”
Last month, the UK reportedly suspended some intelligence sharing with the US due to the boat strikes. But US Secretary of State Marco Rubiocalled the CNN reporting a “fake story,” and the UK’s foreign secretary cited Rubio’s comment when asked about the report.
HRW said major US allies “should make public any internal legal assessments as to whether the US strikes are violating international law, use their bilateral relationships to raise concerns directly with US officials, and push for individual criminal accountability for those responsible.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
The final week of November was devastating for several South Asian countries. Communities in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand were inundated as Cyclones Ditwah and Senyar unleashed days of relentless rain. Millions were affected, more than 1,500 people lost their lives, hundreds are still missing, and damages ran into multiple millions of US dollars. Sri Lanka’s president even described it as the most challenging natural disaster the island has ever seen.
When disasters like this happen, the blame often falls on a failure in early warnings or poor preparedness. This was the case with major floods in Kerala, south India, in 2018, which devastated my hometown.
But this time, the forecasts were largely accurate; the authorities knew the storms were coming, yet the devastation was still immense.
So, if the forecasts were good enough, why were the impacts still so severe?
Weak winds, extreme rain
One emerging explanation is that these storms were not dangerous because of their winds, but because they produced unusually intense rainfall.
This graph of all cyclonic storms over the north Indian Ocean since 2001 shows Ditwah and Senyar weren’t particularly windy. (Wind speed measured in knots. 1 knot is about 1.15 mph or 1.85 kph) Ligin Joseph (data: IBTrACS), CC BY-SA
Consider Cyclone Ditwah. Its peak winds were around 75 km/h (47 mph). That’s windy, but nothing special. In the UK, it would be classified merely as a “gale” rather than a “storm”. It was far weaker than the 220 km/h winds of the powerful 1978 cyclone that also struck Sri Lanka. Yet Ditwah still caused massive devastation.
What explains this apparent contradiction? It’s too early to say definitively, but climate change is likely a part of the story. Even when storms are not especially strong in wind terms, the amount of rain they carry is increasing.
A warmer atmosphere holds more water
A well established meteorological rule helps explain why. For every degree of global warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture.
As the planet warms, the air above us becomes a larger reservoir, waiting to dump more water on us. When storms form, they can tap into this expanded supply, often in extremely short bursts. Even if wind speeds are modest, the rainfall alone can be catastrophic.
The oceans matter even more
Warming oceans play an even more powerful role, as cyclones draw their energy from warm ocean waters. Satellite data from late November shows just how warm the eastern Indian Ocean was, with large areas more than 1°C above normal during Ditwah and Senyar.
In the days before the cyclones formed (20–24 November), the oceans were even warmer than usual, creating conditions that could have fuelled and intensified the rainfall. Ligin Joseph (Data: OISST; track positions are approximate), CC BY-SA
Such warm anomalies are no longer unusual. The oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases, and long-term observations show a clear upward trend in ocean temperatures.
That doesn’t necessarily mean cyclones are becoming more frequent – their formation still depends on other ingredients, such as low wind shear (small differences in wind speed and direction with height) and the right atmospheric structure.
What warmer oceans do change, however, is the amount of energy available to any storm that does manage to form. When the ocean is warmer, cyclones have more fuel and evaporation increases, loading the atmosphere with moisture that can fall as intense rain once a storm develops. Even weak cyclones can therefore hold exceptional amounts of rain.
Evaporation averaged for 26–27 November. Ditwah especially travelled over warm waters supplying large amounts of moisture to the atmosphere. Ligin Joseph (Data: ERA5), CC BY-SA
The winds near the surface help this process along. As they move across the ocean, they sweep away the moisture-filled air just above the water and replace it with drier air, allowing evaporation to continue. Put together, warmer oceans, higher evaporation, and an atmosphere that can store more moisture, these factors can significantly intensify the rainfall associated with cyclones.
Coastline hugging makes flooding worse
Local geography amplified these effects. Both Ditwah and Senyar formed unusually close to land and travelled along the coastline for an extended period. This meant they stayed over warm waters long enough to continuously draw moisture, but remained close enough to land to dump that moisture as intense rainfall almost immediately.
Cyclone Ditwah, in particular, moved slowly as it approached Sri Lanka. Slow-moving storms can be especially dangerous as they repeatedly dump rain over the same area. Even if winds are weak, this combination of warm seas, coastal proximity and slow forward speed can be devastating.
A new threat
These storms suggest that climate change – especially ocean warming – is reshaping the risks posed by cyclones. The most dangerous storms may no longer simply be the ones with the strongest winds, but also the ones with the most moisture.
Forecasting systems, including new AI-powered weather models, are getting better at predicting cyclone tracks and wind speeds. Yet rainfall-driven flooding remains far harder to forecast. As oceans continue to warm, governments and disaster agencies will need to prepare for storms that may be weak in wind but extreme in rain.
These insights are based on preliminary analysis and emerging scientific understanding. More detailed peer-reviewed studies will be needed to pinpoint exactly why Ditwah and Senyar produced such extreme rainfall. But the pattern that is emerging – weak cyclones delivering outsized floods in a warming world – must not be ignored.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Police remove a campaigner taking part in a Defend Our Juries protest in support of Palestine Action outside the Home Office, London, November 24, 2025
