… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Author: dizzy

  • International campaign demands the resumption of ICRC’s visits to political detainees in Israeli jails

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

    Protest at ICRC building in Gaza in support of Palestinian political prisoners in 2024. Photo: AA

    The Israeli occupation authorities have banned the international organization from visiting political detainees held in its prisons since October 7, 2023, which many say reflects Israel’s collective punishment policy.

    A press conference was held in front of the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Al-Bireh city, in the central occupied West Bank on Tuesday, February 10.

    The event was organized as part of an international campaign to gather one million signatures demanding that the ICRC resume its visits to Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.

    A number of press conferences were held in parallel in nine other cities across the world, including Beirut, Gaza, Cairo, Rabat, Tunis, Brussels and Paris in coincidence with the one held in Al-Bireh.

    It is worth mentioning that Israel has banned the international organization from visiting the prisoners since October 7, 2023.

    The political detainees held by Israel have also been deprived of family visits, and their lawyers have rarely been able to meet them for 28 months, amid continuously deteriorating humanitarian conditions inside the prisons.

    The brutal crackdown against the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement pre-dates the genocide in Gaza, but began in January 2023, by Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

    Read more: The Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement: the struggle behind bars

    Israel has misused the presence of the ICRC in the occupied territories to whitewash its crimes, says Qadura Fares

    During the conference, former head of the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, Qadura Fares, highlighted the key role that the ICRC has played in safeguarding various humanitarian issues internationally and inside occupied Palestine, including the prisoners’ issue.

    “We know that the ICRC operates in accordance with international conventions, and in a way that is consistent with its mission as an international humanitarian organization. We are not asking the ICRC to do anything beyond its capacity, but to exert pressure on Israel through the appropriate international legal channels,” Fares noted.

    “Nobody can expect Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu or Smotrich as racist fascist leaders to reconsider their decisions and permit the visits to the prisoners again on their own,” the prominent Palestinian political leader added.

    Fares emphasized that this goal will be reached only with pressure being exerted on the Israeli authorities in order to cancel the arbitrary measures against the prisoners.

    He also affirmed that the ICRC is able to exert such pressure, but it opted to work “within the limits of the authorization given to it by the Israeli occupation government.”

    Fares further pointed out that Israel is misusing the presence of the ICRC and other international organizations in the occupied territories to whitewash its image, by showing that these international bodies are allowed to operate there, while their jurisdiction is extremely restricted and confined by the unlawful Israeli regulations.

    The prisoners’ issue is a concern of people of conscience worldwide

    Meanwhile, director of the Center for the Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights (Hurryyat), Helmi Al-Araj, asserted that the fact that the campaign has been launched from many cities around the world, including European cities “provides a conclusive evidence that the segregation of the detainees in ghetto-like prisons led to an uprising by the people of conscience all over the globe to support them.”

    “This once again proves that all the peoples who struggle for freedom worldwide consider the issue of the Palestinian prisoners, in particular, and the Palestinian cause, in general, their own cause,” Al-Araj maintained. 

    For his part, Palestinian political activist, freedom fighter, and former prisoner in Israeli jails, Omar Assaf, indicated that Lebanese and Syrian nationals have also been held in Israeli prisons, while the majority of the prisoners detained by Israel are Palestinians.

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

  • 300 million on the streets in a historic national strike in India

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    Original article by Abdul Rahman republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license. See the original article for embedded content.

    The strike was called jointly by the worker unions and farmers groups to demand the withdrawal of the anti-people policies, such as the four new labor codes and the recently signed trade deals with the US and the EU.

    The strike was called jointly by the worker unions and farmers groups to demand the withdrawal of the anti-people policies, such as the four new labor codes and the recently signed trade deals with the US and the EU

    300 million workers, farmers, students, and professionals from various fields took to the streets across India on Thursday, February 12, in defense of their rights and to denounce the policies of the ultra-right-wing government in the country.

    Workers went on strike shutting down thousands of coal fields, refineries, factories, banking, and transportation in remote corners of the country, heeding the call of the Central Trade Unions (CTUs), a joint platform of major trade unions in India, including the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), and the Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS), among others.

    #12thFebruaryGeneralStrike a Historic Success

    The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) congratulates crores of Indian workers, agricultural workers and toiling peasantry for making the 12th February 2026 General Strike a historic success. The anger of working people against the (1/n) pic.twitter.com/jfItzhDVeg

    — AIKS (@KisanSabha) February 12, 2026 

    The workers were joined by millions of farmers and agricultural workers from across the country under the call of the Samyukta Kisan Sabha (SKM) and the All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWA), among others. The farmers and agricultural workers demonstrated at all the district headquarters and the village centers across India.

    is a warning to the ruling dispensation: Withdraw the slew of anti-people bills and acts and restore the pro-worker and pro-farmer policies. If the Modi government fails to respond adequately to the demands of the toilers of the country, it will be inviting a much longer (9/n) pic.twitter.com/UT0eVGOlqU

    — AIKS (@KisanSabha) February 12, 2026 

    In several places, workers and farmers were joined by students, women’s organizations, and other civil society groups who extended their solidarity with the strike call.

    Strikers in many areas defied attempts by factory owners and security forces to stop the strike by picketing the factory gates and marching on the streets to implement the strike. 

    https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=476&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Freel%2F2229112557619929%2F&show_text=false&width=267&t=0

    In several states, such as Kerala, Odisha, and Tripura, among others, most of the business establishments were shut in solidarity with the strike call. Demonstrations were held at government offices with thousands marching, shouting slogans, carrying banners, posters, and red flags.

    general strike in the coming days.

    Red Salute to the 12th February 2026 General Strike!

    Long Live Worker-Peasant Unity!@DrAshokDhawale
    President@VijooKrishnan
    General Secretary pic.twitter.com/UJEBYFYoIq

    — AIKS (@KisanSabha) February 12, 2026 

    In the capital, Delhi, workers held large gatherings at the state secretariat. Later they also gathered at Jantar Mantar, where the central leadership of the CTUs and the SKM made speeches calling the strike a success.

    Sudip Dutta, president of the CITU, claimed that the one day strike is just symbolic and if the Narendra Modi-led government fails to fulfill their demands it should be ready to see larger and longer strikes in the coming days as workers and farmers will not allow the government to harm their interests or sell India’s national sovereignty to the US and other foreign powers.

    https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fphoto.php%3Ffbid%3D1462121498612975%26set%3Da.544818833676584%26type%3D3&show_text=true&width=500

    Major demands

    One of the major demands of the strike was the withdrawal of the trade deals India has recently agreed to with the US and the EU. The CTUs, SKM, and left parties in India have called the deals a surrender of the country’s sovereignty and harmful to the interests of the millions of farmers in the country as they allow open access of Indian markets to foreign farm products.

    general strike in the coming days.

    Red Salute to the 12th February 2026 General Strike!

    Long Live Worker-Peasant Unity!@DrAshokDhawale
    President@VijooKrishnan
    General Secretary pic.twitter.com/UJEBYFYoIq

    — AIKS (@KisanSabha) February 12, 2026 

    Another key demand was the withdrawal of the four new labor codes brought by the Modi government despite long term opposition by the trade unions, and withdrawal of a new rural employment guarantee act called the VB GRAM G Act.

    The SKM and the AIAWU have claimed that the VB GRAM G Act actually makes the right to employment ineffective. They want the earlier MGNREGA back which was withdrawn by the government.

    general strike in the coming days.

    Red Salute to the 12th February 2026 General Strike!

    Long Live Worker-Peasant Unity!@DrAshokDhawale
    President@VijooKrishnan
    General Secretary pic.twitter.com/UJEBYFYoIq

    — AIKS (@KisanSabha) February 12, 2026 

    Farmers and workers in India have also been demanding the withdrawal of a series of laws brought by the Modi government, such as the electricity law, seed bill, and others, calling them pro-corporate and anti-people.

    Punjab Electricity Employees, Peasants and Agricultural Workers on #GeneralStrike#12thfebgeneralstrike pic.twitter.com/RDDVwL10Zo

    — CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) February 12, 2026 

    The protection of India’s secular and democratic polity was one of the major demands raised during the strike. The CTUs, the SKM and others believe that the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-government is threatening the secular and democratic nature of India by pursuing majoritarian and authoritarian actions.

    The #12FebGeneralStrike was observed across West Bengal with marches and rallies. #GeneralStrike pic.twitter.com/icu1ZfPJFD

    — CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) February 12, 2026 

    The major left parties in the country: Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation and others also supported the strike call.

    The CITU and the SKM thanked millions for participating in the strike on Thursday, calling it “historic”. They mentioned the large-scale participation of workers from unorganized sectors and peasants and cautioned the government to listen to their demands. 

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

  • “Worse to come” in Sudan as famine spreads and war continues

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

    UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Monday gave an update to the Human Rights Council on the situation in El Fasher, Sudan. Photo: screenshot

    As the war grinds on well past 1,000 days, famine grips more and more areas in what is already the country with high levels of hunger

    “We can only expect worse to come” in Sudan if the war is not stopped, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned the Human Rights Council on February 9, as famine conditions expand in the country facing the highest levels of hunger in the world.

    Apart from Gaza, which has been suffering Israel’s genocidal war since October 2023, there are only two officially declared ongoing famines in the world – both in this North African country, in the throes of a civil war raging for nearly three years.

    One of them is in South Kordofan State’s capital, Kadugli, gripped by famine since last September, following a prolonged siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fighting its former ally, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), since April 2023.​

    Also besieged further north was the state’s second largest city, Dilling, where hunger levels “are likely similar to Kadugli, but cannot be classified due to insufficient reliable data – a result of restricted humanitarian access and ongoing hostilities,” the UN had said.

    Siege broken, but relief may be “temporary” 

    Earlier, on February 3, the SAF announced it had broken the siege on Kadugli, days after making a similar advance, taking control of the supply routes to Dilling in late January, reconnecting the two cities to North Kordofan.​

    With the markets re-supplied, prices of essential food items in Kadugli have dropped to a fraction of what they had surged to under siege, Sudan Tribune reported on February 8.​

    However, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) had cautioned in its report on February 5 that the relief for its residents may only be “temporary”. It warned of the possibility “that Famine will persist through May in the absence of a ceasefire and sustained humanitarian access. It is expected that the towns will remain heavily contested, and the risk is high that renewed siege-like conditions will be re-established between February and May.”​

    Drone attacks on food trucks amid famine

    Türk also highlighted this volatility in his briefing to the Human Rights Council on February 9. Although the SAF and its allied armed groups have broken the siege on these cities, “drone strikes by both sides continue, resulting in dozens of civilian deaths and injuries,” he added.​

    Two days before, on February 7, the RSF had killed at least 24 people (including eight children, among them infants) with a drone strike on a humanitarian convoy transporting residents fleeing the fighting in South Kordofan State’s Dubeiker area to North Kordofan in the city of Rahad.​

    A day earlier, one was killed and many more wounded in the drone attack on a convoy of the World Food Program (WFP), en route to supplying aid to the displaced people sheltering in North Kordofan’s capital, El Obeid.​

    Building earthen walls around El Obeid, the SAF is holding out against the RSF to defend this strategic city enroute to the national capital, Khartoum, from the Darfur region in western Sudan. The RSF has taken control over most of this region after overrunning North Darfur State’s capital, El Fasher, also in the throes of famine since last September.​

    “Mass atrocities committed in Darfur may repeat Kordofan”: warns the UN

    After laying a siege for over 500 days and starving the residents of this last major city in the five states of Darfur holding against the RSF, the paramilitary overran its defenses in late October. Barely two months later, satellite imagery analysis by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) had confirmed that the city had been depopulated by the RSF after likely killing tens of thousands of its residents.​

    “My Office sounded the alarm about the risk of mass atrocities in the besieged city of El Fasher for more than a year,” Türk added in his briefing, regretting, “The threat was clear, but warnings were not heeded.” He went on to warn, “I am extremely concerned that these violations and abuses may be repeated in the Kordofan region,” which has become the center of fighting since the fall of El Fasher.​

    Famine-conditions spread in Darfur

    An estimated 127,000 people have managed to escape El Fasher and its surrounding areas, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). A large number of them fled toward the Chadian border, sheltering in northwestern reaches of Darfur in towns like Um Baru and Kernoi, and further west in the border town of El Tine, where militias allied with the SAF and local self-defense groups are still holding fort against the RSF.​

    Read more: The war in Sudan is “between two wings of a comprador parasitic capitalist class”

    With this influx increasing the strain on the limited resources of these remote towns, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) data released on February 6 confirmed that hunger levels, already classified as “catastrophic”, have exceeded the “famine” threshold. Over half of all children in Um Baru, and 34% in Kernoi, are suffering acute malnutrition.  

    ​”Many other conflict-affected or inaccessible areas may also be facing similarly catastrophic conditions; however, the full extent remains unknown due to limited access and uncertainty over how rapidly conditions are deteriorating,” the IPC report added.

    ​With millions suffering malnutrition across Sudan, especially in Darfur and Kordofan regions, Action Against Hunger has warned that “more than 375,000 people are at real risk of starvation.”

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

  • We can move beyond the capitalist model and save the climate – here are the first three steps

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    Jason Hickel and Yanis Varoufakis

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2026/feb/12/capitalist-model-climate-growth-capitalism-species-humanity

    ‘Capitalism cares about our species’ prospects as much as a wolf cares about the lamb’s.’ Photograph: Minerva Studio/Alamy

    Capitalism cares about our species’ prospects as much as a wolf cares about a lamb’s. But democratise our economy and a better world is within our grasp

    We have an urgent responsibility. Our existing economic system is incapable of addressing the social and ecological crises we face in the 21st century. When we look around we see an extraordinary paradox. On the one hand, we have access to remarkable new technologies and a collective capacity to produce more food, more stuff than we need or that the planet can afford. Yet at the same time, millions of people suffer in conditions of severe deprivation.

    What explains this paradox? Capitalism. By capitalism we do not mean markets, trade and entrepreneurship, which have been around for thousands of years before the rise of capitalism. By capitalism we mean something very odd and very specific: an economic system that boils down to a dictatorship run by the tiny minority who control capital – the big banks, the major corporations and the 1% who own the majority of investible assets. Even if we live in a democracy and have a choice in our political system, our choices never seem to change the economic system. Capitalists are the ones who determine what to produce, how to use our labour and who gets to benefit. The rest of us – the people who are actually doing the production – do not get a say.

    And for capital, the purpose of production is not primarily to meet human needs or to achieve social progress, much less to deliver on any ecological goals. The purpose is to maximise and accumulate profit. That is the overriding objective. This is the capitalist law of value. And to maximise profits, capital requires perpetual growth – ever increasing aggregate production, regardless of whether it is necessary or harmful.

    …

    We urgently need to overcome the capitalist law of value and democratise our economy, so that we can organise production around urgent social and ecological priorities. After all, we are the producers of the goods, the services, the technologies. It is our labour and our planet’s resources that are at stake. And so we must claim the right to decide what is produced, how, and for what purpose.

    …

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2026/feb/12/capitalist-model-climate-growth-capitalism-species-humanity

    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.
    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.
    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.
    Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
    Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.

  • Elon Musk posted about race almost every day in January

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    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk-posts-january-white-supremacists

    Elon Musk speaks during the World Economic Forum in Davos on 22 January 2026. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

    Many social media posts by Tesla CEO on his platform are indiscernible from those of white supremacists, say experts

    Elon Musk’s longtime fixation on a white racial majority is intensifying. The richest man in the world posted about how the white race was under threat, made allusions to race science or promoted anti-immigrant conspiracy content on 26 out of 31 days in January, according to the Guardian’s analysis of his social media output. The posts, made on his platform X, reflect a renewed embrace of what extremism experts describe as white supremacist material.

    “Whites are a rapidly dying minority,” Musk said on 22 January, a short time before taking the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, while reposting an Irish anti-immigrant influencer’s video about demographic change.

    Musk’s posts included him repeatedly claiming white people face systemic discrimination, endorsing the conspiracy that there is an ongoing genocide against white people in countries around the world and promoting a claim that white people would be “slaughtered” by non-whites if they become a demographic minority.

    “If you stripped Elon Musk’s name off of these things and showed them to me, I would think that this was a white supremacist,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Extremism, who reviewed a selection of the posts.

    …

    Musk’s posts repeatedly echoed prominent white supremacist narratives and ideologies, said William Braniff, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security’s office for prevention of terrorism and extremism. Several of Musk’s posts included what Braniff described as “textbook examples” of white supremacist conspiracy theories such as “the great replacement” – a belief that liberal elites or Jewish people are conspiring to use immigration to replace white populations.

    …

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk-posts-january-white-supremacists

    A parody ‘Tesla – The Swasticar’ advert posted at a London bus stop. Photograph: People vs Elon
    A parody ‘Tesla – The Swasticar’ advert posted at a London bus stop. Photograph: People vs Elon
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.