bannork

Despair in Gaza as Israeli aid blockade creates crisis ‘unmatched in severity’ Many people the Observer spoke to said they are now more afraid of famine than airstrikes. “Many times, I have had to give up my share of food for my son because of the severe shortages. It is the hunger that will kill me – a slow death,” said Hikmat al-Masri, a 44-year-old university lecturer from Beit Lahia in north Gaza.

The Israeli military continued to conduct dozens of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip over the Jewish weekend from Friday evening to Saturday evening. The air force carried out around 150 attacks on "terrorists and terror infrastructure" over the period, the military said on Saturday. Over the past seven days, 300 targets have been attacked in the fight against the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, and since the resumption of hostilities on March 18, more than 1,400 targets have been hit from the air, the military said further. The Israeli military typically does not provide information on the number of civilian casualties resulting from its operations. Israel intensifies operations in Gaza Strip with dozens of airstrikes

'Complete meltdown': Top Pentagon staffers fired as 'chaos' engulfs Hegseth’s inner circle Politico reported Friday that three senior Pentagon officials have now been fired as part of the leak investigation: Hegseth senior advisor Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll — who was Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg's chief of staff — have all been officially terminated. Additional firings may be announced soon. According to CBS senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs, "at least one uniformed Pentagon official" was also fired in addition to Hegseth's top aides.

The Trump administration on Thursday announced new fees on Chinese-built and Chinese-owned ships docking at U.S. ports. The fees are part of a broader effort to weaken China's dominance in shipbuilding and maritime transport, after U.S. trade officials concluded that China’s shipbuilding sector benefited from unfair competitive advantages. Chinese-run ships will face charges of $50 per net ton on each trip to the United States beginning in mid-October. That will increase to $140 in three years. Additionally, even non-Chinese carriers using ships built by that country face fees of $18 initially, and that, too, will rise. "Because Chinese ships make up a large and growing share of the global fleet, carriers will invariably pass on the costs to customers," the Wall Street Journal warned, "None of this industrial policy is likely to make American shipbuilding great again. Like the tariffs, they will be a deadweight on the U.S. economy." 'Deadweight on the economy': WSJ's conservative editors warn Trump 'whacking' Americans

In Sevastopol, a mass evacuation of the families of senior officers of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is being reported. They are urgently leaving the Crimean Peninsula, according to the Telegram channel of the partisan movement ATESH. Agents of the resistance movement have revealed that almost all families of senior officers of the Russian Black Sea Fleet have urgently left the occupied Crimea. "Currently, panic is observed in the units of the Russian Black Sea Fleet – according to our information, in early April, a directive from 'superiors' was issued regarding the implementation of additional security measures at military sites on the peninsula," reports the ATESH movement. It is also noted that covert patrols by reservists from BARS in civilian clothes are being conducted in the bays of Sevastopol, and there is an increase in security as well as attempts to hide military equipment. "Additionally, all leave for the Russian army has been canceled," the partisans emphasize. Representatives of the movement suggest that the Russian forces may have started implementing Ukraine's directive regarding the termination of the agreement on the presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. Also, in mid-March, ATESH reported that Russia is hiding ships in the bays of Sevastopol, fearing strikes from the Ukrainian Defence Forces. Russian officers' families flee en masse from occupied Crimea - ATESH

Russia violated its energy ceasefire with Ukraine more than 30 times since both nations agreed to the deal according to comments made by a spokesperson from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on April 16th. Tykhyi was speaking at a briefing and revealed that in the 24 hours Russia had violated the energy infrastructure ceasefire three times, damaging transformers in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions. However, despite the 30-day ceasefire deal going into effect, Russia launched several attacks that hit energy infrastructure in the weeks that followed, including attacks on the Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kherson regions. Russia violated its ceasefire with Ukraine 30 times in less than a month

The US will not hinder Ukraine’s obligations related to its European Union accession process in the upcoming US-Ukraine mineral deal, according to a 'Memorandum of Intent' seen by Euronews. According to the one-page document, signed by Ukraine's first deputy prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko and US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent on Thursday evening, a key round of negotiations is set to take place in Washington between 21 and 26 April. “The United States respects Ukraine's intention to avoid conflicts in the drafting of the agreement with Ukraine's obligations under European Union accession or agreements with international financial institutions and other official creditors,” the document says. Leaked: US won’t block Ukraine’s EU path in mineral deal talks

A cyberattack of unprecedented scale has rocked the Kremlin. The international hacker collective Anonymous says it launched the operation and calls it one of their largest ever. According to reports, 10 terabytes of highly sensitive data have been exposed in the breach. Anonymous posted a statement on X: “To defend Ukraine, Anonymous has leaked 10TB of data on all companies operating in Russia, Kremlin assets in the West, pro-Russian officials, Donald Trump, and more.” The leaked data reportedly includes information on Kremlin financial assets, foreign business links, and connections to former U.S. President Donald Trump. This latest leak is being described as one of the biggest cyberattacks of the Russia-Ukraine war, with the potential for global political fallout. Massive Cyberattack Hits Putin’s Presidential Palace

You said Hamas doesn't distinguish between civilians and their own terrorists in body counts. Yet the article states the attack on the southern city of Khan Younis, resulted in at least 16 deaths, most of them women and children. So are you saying these women and children were terrorists?

Please post some links showing women and children are acting as terrorists in Gaza

For anyone interested in finding about more regarding the minerals in Ukraine, I urge them to read the following article: How Ukraine’s 2.5-bn-year-old rock deposit became central to helping stop Russia Ukraine has deposits containing 22 of 34 critical minerals identified by the European Union as essential for energy security. This positions Ukraine among the world’s most resource-rich nations. Lithium is used in electronics the world over: electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels and energy storage systems all require lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements which Ukraine has in abundance. The price of lithium has surged from US$1,500 (£1,164) per ton in the 1990s to around $20,000 per ton in recent years. Demand is expected to increase nearly 40-fold by 2040. Apart from lithium, Ukraine has significant deposits of rutile, iron ore, titanium, manganese ore, uranium, plus deposits of rare earth elements, including neodymium and dysprosium.

The thing is would US companies go trooping over the Ukraine countryside if the war was still on? Some say companies wouldn't want to invest all that money in digging and extraction unless the war was clearly over.

Afghanistan too.

Please update. I don't think women and children are generally terrorists. Hamas is hard line Islamic, women are subjugated to household roles from what I've read.

A wave of Israeli airstrikes on encampments for displaced Palestinians has killed at least 40 people across Gaza, as Hamas officials said consultations on response to Israel truce offer “almost complete”. Civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said two Israeli missiles hit several tents in the al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, resulting in at least 16 deaths, most of them women and children, and 23 others were wounded. .Aid supplies including food, fuel, water and medicine have been blocked by Israel from entering Gaza since 2 March, The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said on Wednesday that Gaza was becoming a “mass grave for Palestinians”. AFP, AP and Reuters contributed to this report. Wave of Israeli airstrikes kill at least 40 across Gaza, says civil defence agency | Palestinian territories | The Guardian

Surely the greatest talker of horse manure in American presidential history.

He could be arrested for online bullying, worldwide.

No, the courts have the prerogative to determine what is free speech and acceptable in a given society. The government can make laws passing Parliament/ Congress but the final judge on that is the courts, otherwise authorianism/ dictatorship takes over. Trump, of course, doesn't even bother with Congress, just issues executive orders. He needs cutting down to size.

The man who consistently claimed he could stop the war within 24 hours of coming to power. PARIS (Reuters) - The United States will stop trying to broker a Russia-Ukraine peace deal within days unless there are clear signs that a deal can be done, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday. Rubio, speaking in Paris after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders, said that President Donald Trump was still interested in a deal but had many other priorities around the world and was willing to move on unless there are signs of progress. US ready to abandon efforts to broker Russia-Ukraine peace deal, Rubio says

Below are quotes from prominent Republicans picked out by long time Republican pollster Sarah Longwell in a thread posted to X on Wednesday. She explains, "Because Republicans believed the IRS under Obama was targeting conservative groups, there are tons of clips of R elected officials passionately arguing that the government targeting the tax exempt status of groups because of their political beliefs is un-American and illegal. FYI." 1. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) proclaimed that the IRS targeting political adversaries is "as wrong as things can be in this country." 2. Vice President JD Vance, at the time not in political office, told Fox News' Laura Ingraham, "This is about whether we have functional constitutional government in this country. If the IRS can go after you because of what you think or what you believe or what you do, we'd no longer live in a free country.“ 3. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), "I can also assure you that were this a Republican president, a Republican Attorney General, and a Republican IRS that were targeting Democrats, I at least would speak out just as vigorously against it because if we are going to respect rule of law, the apparatus of the federal government cannot and should not be used as a partisan tool to bludgeon your enemies." 4. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who, when he was serving as the senator for Florida, had a similar message. "Great news folks. @SecRubio will not stand for the federal government or its agencies targeting institutions or organizations because of their political beliefs. That’s third-world stuff that can’t be allowed to happen here.'' 'I would speak out vigorously!' Republicans who once decried IRS weaponization now silent Oh, how the lambs are silent now!

This Chinese export got through Chinese diplomat Zhang Zhishen shared an image of Leavitt wearing the dress on X/Twitter along with screenshots from Weibo of users discussing it as it was recognised by one of the factory’s employees. Alongside the images, they wrote: “Accusing China is business. Buying China is life. Zhang Zhisheng 张志昇 @salahzhang

Go on Jerry, let it all out

On Wednesday Fox Business correspondent Charlie Gasparino said that the Trump administration had put itself in a "difficult, self-inflicted spot" because they "decided to shoot first at the world, and then focus on China while now asking the same trading partners we p---ed off to help us triangulate a common foe." "And it was so avoidable. The damage China has done to free trade is enormous; it's a command control economy, a militaristic super power that obviously uses our public markets and openness to further its gains. You can't say that about Canada and the EU or Israel ....... a little common sense shows that we have backed ourselves into a negotiating corner." 'Weakness' in Trump's economic strategy 'may soon be exposed': Fox Business correspondent Hubris, arrogance, ignorance and narcissism, a fatal combination when a bull is in a china shop.

The dying coal town that reveals Trump’s lies about reviving mining If we’re still surprised by the disinformation spoken by Donald Trump, some of the responsibility should sit with us. The US President has consistently made claims that may sound believable, but on inspection have little basis in fact – and one of his assertions last week, about reviving America’s dying coal industry, felt especially cynical, dishonest and dangerous. For decades, the US produced most of its electricity from coal-fired plants, reaching a peak in 2007. The White House said some plants would be able to “comply with a less stringent version of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule for two years, instead of the more onerous version put in place by the Biden administration”. The dying coal town that reveals Trump’s lies about reviving mining MOD Edited due to text being spun with seperate text from other sources not just the link shown and no clear distinction which is which. @bannork