Thoughts of the Day 11 December 2024
Keir Starmer is still totting up the air miles, expect he’s got enough for a pension by now FFS.
I can’t help thinking that he’s getting desperate going to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus where all the spy flights supporting Israel’s Gaza genocide fly from.
On a different topic, I’d like to thank my anonymous benefactor for my gifts. I got a jumper and a huge box of chocolates from Amazon – I somehow doubt that they were from Jeff Bezos. I don’t expect presents from anyone but anonymous is the rule if you do. Years ago I wouldn’t have spirits in the house because I was scared that I would drink them all. I’m very glad that I’ve overcome that and don’t often drink much, seem to have that issue with chocolate now. 11.35pm GMT Forgot to say that I’m also quite happy with pre-owned ;) X
Reeves orders 5% cuts across all government departments in ‘efficiency drive’
CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves has ordered 5 per cent cuts across government departments in an “efficiency drive” that resembles austerity.
Announcing the spending review, Ms Reeves said: “I have no doubt that we can find efficiency savings within government spending of 5 per cent and I’m determined to do so.”
She said the cuts would be secured by cracking down on waste and focusing on the five “milestone” policies Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer outlined in his government relaunch last week.
Those were boosting living standards, building more homes, cutting NHS waiting lists, ensuring children are ready for school and raising military spending to 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product.
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The 5 per cent reductions are to be achieved over three years, the Treasury said, adding that the Chancellor will “work with departments to prioritise spending that supports the milestones to deliver the plan,” indicating that areas not a “milestone,” such as welfare, will be squeezed.
Ms Reeves denied that her move replicated a similar announcement by her predecessor George Osborne at the height of Tory austerity.
Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said: “Labour call their 5 per cent cuts across government departments ‘efficiency savings.’ We call it what it is: cuts to services.
“This amounts to the continuation of the same damaging, unpopular and unnecessary policy that has so devastated our country over many years.”
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Read the complete, original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/reeves-orders-5-cuts-across-all-government-departments-in-efficiency-drive
Gaza Ministry Says 50 Killed in a Day as Israel Bombs Flour Line, Hospital, and Refugee Camps
Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
“We demand international protection for hospitals, patients, and medical staff,” said the Gaza Ministry of Health.
The death toll from Israel’s 14-month assault on the Gaza Strip hit at least 44,758 on Monday, with 50 people killed in the past 24 hours alone, as Israeli forces bombed refugee camps, a flour distribution line, and a hospital, according to reporters and officials in the Palestinian enclave.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said a bombing at the Indonesian Hospital north of Gaza City wounded six patients—who are now among more than 106,000 Palestinians injured since Israel began its retaliation for last year’s Hamas-led attack.
“We demand international protection for hospitals, patients, and medical staff,” the ministry said in a statement reported by The Associated Press—which noted that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed Sunday evening it was unaware of any attack on the hospital “in the last three to four hours.”
A nurse shared footage from the hospital with Drop Site News, which circulated the material on social media:
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According to Al Jazeera, “Overnight, an Israeli attack in the southern city of Rafah also killed 10 people while they had lined up to buy flour.”
Israel, which faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, has been accused of starving Gaza’s 2.3 million residents by refusing to allow enough humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.
Reporting from central Deir al-Balah, Al Jazeera‘s Hani Mahmoud said that at least three people were killed in a Monday morning attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in the north that Israeli bombing and the ongoing blockade have “turned into a graveyard.”
The victims “were trying to leave their home in search of food in the vicinity of their neighborhood when they were targeted by a drone,” the journalist said. “They were killed right away. Their bodies are still in the street and nobody has the ability to get to the bombed site and remove the bodies from the street.”
The IDF announced that three soldiers were killed and 12 others were wounded Monday in fighting in Jabalia.
Mahmoud, the journalist, also said Monday that bodies were piling up outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after an Israeli bombing at the Bureij refugee camp.
“The agony keeps on unfolding here at al-Aqsa Hospital, where survivors and relatives showed up early this morning to collect the bodies from the morgue of the hospital,” he said. “At some point, the morgue of the hospital was packed with the bodies and there was not enough room for more bodies.”
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Citing the Palestinian news agency Wafa, Middle East Eye reported that “two children lost their lives, and others were injured on Monday, during Israeli shelling of al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip.”
The updates followed a Hamas delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya leaving Cairo Sunday evening after meeting with Egypt’s general intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Hassan Rashad, to discuss a potential cease-fire in Gaza.
Israeli media reported Sunday that unnamed political sources claimed Hamas and Israel are close to reaching a “small” deal that would involve a two-month cease-fire; the release of prisoners who are elderly, women, wounded, and sick; and the IDF’s withdrawal from parts of Gaza.
Neither Hamas nor mediators Egypt and Qatar have commented on the reporting—which came over a week into an Israeli cease-fire with the Lebanese group Hezbollah that Israel has repeatedly violated since it took effect late last month.
In neighboring Syria, the government of President Bashar al-Assad collapsed over the weekend as he fled and rebels took control of the capital. Israel seized more of the country’s Golan Heights, which it has illegally occupied for decades, and the United States—which arms the IDF—launched airstrikes on over 75 Islamic State targets in Syria.
Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
US Bombs Over 75 Targets in Syria After Assad Falls
Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“The Western press are waxing lyrical about the new Syria being born—but not a word on the U.S. and Israeli bombs falling from the sky,” said Yanis Varoufakis.A-10 ground attack aircraft
U.S. military forces launched dozens of airstrikes on more than 75 Islamic State targets in Syria on Sunday after the fall of longtime Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid ongoing Israeli and Turkish attacks on the war-torn Middle Eastern nation.
According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), warplanes including B-52 bombers, F-15 fighters, and A-10 ground attack aircraft “conducted dozens of precision airstrikes targeting known ISIS camps and operatives in central Syria.”
CENTCOM called the strikes “part of the ongoing mission to disrupt, degrade, and defeat ISIS in order to prevent the terrorist group from conducting external operations and to ensure that ISIS does not seek to take advantage of the current situation to reconstitute in central Syria.”
The U.S., “together with allies and partners in the region, will continue to carry out operations to degrade ISIS operational capabilities even during this dynamic period in Syria,” CENTCOM added.
“The Biden administration ordering ongoing airstrikes is a disappointing sign that they have no intent on reversing their deadly policy of interventionism.”
Responding Monday to the latest attacks on Syria by U.S. forces, Danaka Katovich, national co-director of the peace group CodePink, told Common Dreams: “We condemn the U.S. airstrikes in Syria. The U.S. has sowed chaos in Syria and the entire region for years and the Biden administration ordering ongoing airstrikes is a disappointing sign that they have no intent on reversing their deadly policy of interventionism.”
U.S. and coalition forces have killed and maimed at least tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis during the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations as part of the anti-ISIS campaign and wider so-called War on Terror.
Commenting on the dearth of coverage of the strikes by the corporate media, prominent Greek leftist Yanis Varoufakis said on social media that “the Western press are waxing lyrical about the new Syria being born—but not a word on the U.S. and Israeli bombs falling from the sky.”
“Is there no bottom to the moral void of the Western press?” he added.
Sunday’s U.S. strikes came as al-Assad and relatives fled to Russia—where they have been granted asylum—amid the fall of the capital, Damascus, to rebel forces.
Also on Sunday, Israeli forces seized more territory in Syria’s Golan Heights and ordered residents of five villages to “stay home and not go out until further notice” if they want to remain safe. Israel conquered the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 and has unlawfully occupied it ever since. In 1981, Israel illegally annexed the occupied lands.
“We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border,” right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—said in a video posted on social media.
Numerous Israelis celebrated the seizure on social media, while others cautioned against boasting about what is almost certainly an illegal conquest.
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Meanwhile in northern Syria, Turkish airstrikes in support of Syrian National Army rebels—who are battling U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters in and around the Kurdish-controlled city of Manbij—reportedly killed numerous civilians along with dozens of militants.
In what it called a “horrific massacre,” the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday that 11 civilians from the same family, including women and six children, were killed in a Turkish drone strike on the SDF-controlled village of Al-Mustariha in northern Raqqa Governate.
Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).