Wheat before harvest in Hampshire, England on Aug. 3, 2013. Neil Howard / Flickr
In England, wet weather brought on by climate change has led to the second-worst harvest on record, affecting everything from wine grapes to wheat.
As The Guardian reported, a longer stretch of cold, wet weather from fall to early summer has led to wine grape harvests that are down by 33% to 75%, depending on the region. According to World Weather Attribution, rain in the UK from late 2023 into early 2024 was 20% more intense because of climate change.
For 2024, the UK Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) found that the wheat harvest in England was around 10 million metric tons, which was down 22% compared to the 2023 harvest. The decline reflects both a decrease in the wheat yield and the area that was used for wheat farming.
Other major crops also saw declines, with a decrease of 26% in barley harvested in the winter (although the spring harvest of barley saw a 41% increase). Oilseed rape production declined significantly, yielding 687,000 metric tons in 2024, a 33% decline compared to 2023.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Commenting on Labour’s first 100 days in office, Green Party Co-Leader Carla Denyer MP said:
“The collapse in Starmer’s popularity since taking office has been remarkable. It was clear to me during the election campaign that voters across the country wanted change. After 14 years of Tory failure, they expected Labour to deliver it. The public’s sense of disappointment is palpable.
“Instead, we have a government aligned with Tory austerity. The two-child benefit cap and the scrapping of the Winter Fuel Payment for millions of pensioners are both examples of how this government’s default has been to make the most vulnerable in our society pay. The ‘black hole in our finances’ should, and could, be solved by asking the wealthiest to pay just a fraction more. Instead, Labour seems content with letting the poorest bear the brunt.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. We are one of the richest countries in the world, yet deeply unequal. The Chancellor has hinted that she is willing to borrow more to invest in much-needed infrastructure, which is welcome. But we also need to address the source of everyday revenue spending.
“The last fourteen years have seen the rich get richer, with the top fifth now owning a third of the country’s wealth. It’s only fair that those with the broadest shoulders should now pay a bit more to help our NHS, rebalance society, and improve living standards for everyone. A wealth tax, alongside other changes to the tax system, could deliver this.
“We as a country, and particularly the Labour government, face a political choice. Will they tax more fairly to properly invest in our crumbling frontline services, or will they continue to oversee managed decline and austerity economics? The Greens will, every day, keep pushing for them to properly invest in Britain.”
Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.
Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan (left) pushes back on CNN anchor Kate Bolduan’s (center) description of the Gaza genocide as a “humanitarian crisis” during an October 7, 2024 interview. (Photo: CNN screen grab)
“History books will be written on this and countries will have to reckon—media agencies will have to reckon—with their major role in the genocide,” said Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan.
Human rights advocates on Friday highlighted a rare instance in which a U.S. corporate media outlet allowed a pro-Palestinian voice to set the record straight about Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Earlier this week, CNN “News Central” aired a panel segment on the anniversary of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and Israel’s retaliatory war. Anchor Kate Bolduan noted that around 1,200 people were killed during the Hamas attack—although she did not say that at least some of them were slain by Israeli forces in “friendly fire” incidents and under the Hannibal Directive—and that 250 others were kidnapped.
Bolduan also acknowledged that nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed and another 2 million displaced by Israeli forces, calling the situation in Gaza a “desperate humanitarian crisis.”
“A humanitarian crisis is what you deal with when you have a hurricane, what you deal with when you have an earthquake.”
The anchor asked panel participant Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan—an American pediatric intensive care physician who volunteered for two weeks at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip—for her thoughts on the matter.
“In all honesty, a humanitarian crisis is what you deal with when you have a hurricane, what you deal with when you have an earthquake,” Haj-Hassan replied. “This is not a humanitarian crisis.”
“Kate, and I’m going to say it very clearly for your viewers to hear, this is genocide,” the doctor stressed.
"This is not a humanitarian crisis, Kate, and I'm going to say it very clearly for your viewers to hear: This is genocide […] Media agencies will have reckon with their major role in the genocide." — Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan to CNN pic.twitter.com/PTVSe0lOFY
When 70% of the population that are killed are women and children, when the population is starved of food, of water, of medicine, when you have attacks, repeated attacks on all the hospitals, the clinics, the aid distribution sites, the humanitarian aid agencies that tried to help, more [United Nations] workers have been killed in Gaza than in U.N.’s history. When you have over 900 families that have been exterminated, that have been taken off of the civil registry, killed, when you have over 17,000 children that have lost one or both parents, when you have bakeries, aid distribution sites, churches, mosques, schools, and in the last three days—in the last 24 hours in fact—a hospital today that was bombed, as you just reported, the hospital where I personally was working, and I can tell you, they are working every second of every day to try and sustain life.
“And so it’s really hard to hear it over and over and over again, framed in the way that it’s being framed in the media, which, frankly, Kate, is very misleading,” Haj-Hassan said. “It is very misleading. Three hundred and sixty-five days of this. Death tolls that are so far outdated we have… no idea how many people are killed.”
“But I am… genuinely afraid about what we’re going to find out when the dust settles. History books will be written on this,” she added. “And countries will have to reckon—media agencies will have to reckon—with their major role in the genocide of an entire population and in the destruction of humanitarian law and rule of order.”
Some observers noted the absence of voices like Haj-Hassan’s in U.S. mainstream media coverage of Gaza, which is overwhelmingly pro-Israel and almost never airs the word “genocide”—even as Israel is on trial for the crime at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The New York Times, for example, ordered journalists covering the war in Gaza to eschew terms including “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and even “occupied territory,” even though Israel has indisputably occupied Palestine for over half a century and the ICJ recently ruled that the Israeli occupation is a crime of apartheid that must end immediately.
“The media may be forgiven for missing a carefully hidden story. For missing some details,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft executive vice president Trita Parsi said Friday on social media. “But when a genocide is there for everyone to see and you help conceal it, forgiveness is not in the cards.”
Another social media user offered mild praise for Bolduan—who has been criticized by Israel supporters for previous interviews in which Palestine defenders accused Israel of genocide—writing that the anchor “didn’t seem happy” to hear what Haj-Hassan was saying.
“Hard to say whether it was because the truth is so horrible or because CNN doesn’t want to report that truth—but she did let her say it,” the user said of Bolduan.
Allegations of Israeli genocide remain highly contentious—even taboo—in the United States, which provides the key Mideast ally with tens of billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover including multiple vetoes of United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions that were overwhelmingly supported by other countries.
In the United States, Palestinians, Palestinian Americans, and human rights groups are asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to revisit a lawsuit they filed accusing President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin of complicity in the Gaza genocide.
In July, a three-judge panel of the federal court dismissed the lawsuit, in which the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California previously found that “the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law,” but dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds.
Rescue workers search for victims at the site of Thursday’s Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, October 11, 2024
A NEW attack by Israeli forces on UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon received swift and widespread condemnation today.
The Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the attack had targeted a watchtower of a Sri Lankan battalion in Naqoura that is part of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil).
The day before, 22 people were killed and dozens wounded in the deadliest Israeli air strike on central Beirut so far.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported today that artillery shelling from an Israeli Merkava tank had wounded some of the Sri Lankan soldiers.
Speaking at a news conference in Beirut, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati described the attack as a “crime.”
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres described Israel’s action as “intolerable” and said it “cannot be repeated.”
Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer during his talks with Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte in Downing Street, in London, October 10, 2024
LABOUR and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s approval ratings are still nosediving as the government marks 100 days in office tomorrow.
New Ipsos polling reveals Sir Keir’s net popularity has fallen to a record low of minus 26 points — worse than Reform leader Nigel Farage.
Rachel Reeves was doing even worse at minus 30 points with four in nine saying she is doing a bad job as Chancellor.
Experts blamed No 10 “turf wars,” scandals over ministerial freebies and cutting pensioner benefits as the Labour Party’s net popularity also plummeted 13.5 points to minus 21 points since the general election.
Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.
