New Zealand’s “Warming” Is Based On Temperature Adjustments & Artificial Airport Heat Islands
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | January 13, 2024
Graeme Hook left this comment yesterday:
Unfortunately Wayback does not have a copy of the earlier Berkeley Earth graph; if anybody can track it down, give me a shout.
However what I have found is just as interesting.
Let’s start with the current Berkeley Earth graph for New Zealand:
https://berkeleyearth.org/temperature-region/new-zealand
Since the 1880s, temperatures have risen by about 1C, up to 2020. Most of this increase has occurred since the 1950s.
This is more or less in line with the GISS chart of adjusted temperature data for Auckland Int Airport – (ignore the 2023 spike):
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_show_v4.cgi?id=NZM00093110&ds=15&dt=1
However the unadjusted data tells a completely different story; as is often the case, GISS have cooled the past, by about half a degree. In particular, there appears to have been little increase since the 1950, prior to last year:
Far from cooling the past at Auckland, GISS should be doing the opposite.
There are, apparently, two weather stations at Auckland Int Airport. This is the location of the one that GISS quote:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/homr/#ncdcstnid=30095746&tab=LOCATIONS
It’s on top of a roof of an airport building, in the middle of the airport complex. But a closer look shows it is just yards from a number of air conditioning vents:
The other station is no better, about 20m from the tarmac:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/homr/#ncdcstnid=30151541&tab=LOCATIONS
What is absolutely certain is that the airport would have looked much different in the 1950s. It started life in 1928 as a dairy field with three Gypsy Moths.
In 1965, when the first commercial flight took off, a DC8 to Sydney, it looked like this:
Over the years, of course, the airport has been massively expanded, and now handles 16 million passengers a year, now looking like this:
The so-called New Zealand temperature record, which claims to show significant warming since the 19thC, is based on heavily adjusted data and artificial,warming at airports. It has no basis at all in reality.
The Hague won’t stop us – Netanyahu
RT | January 13, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed at a press conference on Saturday not to let the genocide case being taken against his country at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stand in the way of continuing his country’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
“No one will stop us – not The Hague, not the Axis of Evil, and no one else. It is possible and necessary to continue until victory and we will do it,” he said.
While the term “Axis of Evil” was first used in a speech by then-US president George W Bush to refer to Iraq, Iran and North Korea – at the time believed to be Washington’s chief enemies equipped with “weapons of mass destruction” later shown to be almost entirely mythological – it’s not clear whether Netanyahu intended to slight Pyongyang. However, North Korean state media did argue in an editorial posted shortly after the October 7 attack by Hamas that West Jerusalem had brought the raid upon itself with its “constant criminal acts against the Palestinian people.”
Elsewhere in the speech, the Israeli leader used the term to refer to Iran, the Houthis of Yemen, Hezbollah, and Hamas itself – a loose coalition that has elsewhere been described as the “Axis of Resistance” for its opposition to US and Israeli power in the region.
Hearings into alleged genocide against Israel began earlier this week at the ICJ in The Hague in the Netherlands, with South Africa making the case that Israel has engaged in actions “intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”
West Jerusalem has countered that it is Hamas actually that is harboring genocidal intent against Israelis and argued it is justified in attempting to “eliminate” the militant group it blames for 1,200 Israeli deaths on October 7 – no matter the resulting harm to the civilian population.
Israel Defense Forces troops have since admitted they were ordered to fire on Israelis in the border kibbutzes and desert rave during the Hamas raid, raising questions about how many of the casualties were actually killed by Palestinians as opposed to IDF tank fire and airstrikes.
Venezuelan FM Condemns the US Attacks on Yemen
teleSUR – January 13, 2024
The Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil, strongly condemned the USA, United Kingdom and other countries’ attacks on Yemen, through a formal statement on his X account.
Gil emphasized that those are an illegal action that violates International Law and that only contributes to generating greater destabilization in the region.
“Venezuela insists that the only way to guarantee peace and stability in the Middle East is through the cessation of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, carried out by Israel,” reads the communique.
As well, Venezuela asks the immediate compliance with all United Nations resolutions for the establishment of a free and sovereign Palestinian State.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela join to the countries that urges the international community to exert all necessary pressure measures to reestablish international legality and justice in the area, avoiding an escalation of the conflict caused by Israeli barbarity in Palestine.
Other FMs, like the Russian and the Cuban, also condemned the military attacks by the US & NATO allies in Yemen. They considered that such acts encourage genocide in Gaza and reiterated their call for an immediate cease-fire in the Palestinian enclave.
Remembering Tom Hurndall

A Poster in memory of British peace activist Thomas Hurndall on January 16, 2004 in Rafah refugee camp, Gaza Strip. [Abid Katib/Getty Images]
MEMO | January 13, 2024
On this day in 2004, British photography student Tom Hurndall died in a hospital in London, having never regained consciousness after being shot in the head by an Israeli sniper nine months earlier while volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Gaza Strip.
What: Death of Tom Hurndall
Where: London
When: 13 January, 2004
Who was Tom Hurndall?
Born on 27 November 1981, in London, Tom Hurndall was a photography student at Manchester Metropolitan University, ISM volunteer and an activist against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. His photographs and journal entries capture the often distressing and occasionally inspiring moments he witnessed and lived through while staying with local families in Iraq, in a Jordanian refugee camp, and in the Gaza Strip.
In early 2003, Hurndall joined the anti-war movement against the Iraq invasion, relocating there before moving to Jordan to contribute to medical aid for Iraqi refugees. It was during this time that he discovered the ISM, an organisation advocating non-violent protest against the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
What happened?
On 6 April, 2003, Tom moved to Rafah in the Gaza Strip, hoping to document the oppressive living conditions of the Palestinians. His journals reflect a dramatic change in tone upon his arrival in Palestine as he began emailing images of the Israel Defence Forces and Palestinians back to his family. “No one could say I wasn’t seeing what needs to be seen now,” he wrote.
He even noted the death of 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, who had been crushed to death on 16 March 2003 by an Israeli armoured bulldozer while trying to stop a Palestinian home from being destroyed. “I wonder how few or many people heard it on the news and just counted it as another death, just another number…”
On 11 April, Hurndall, along with fellow ISM activists, aimed to set up a peace tent on a road in Rafah to impede IDF tank patrols. It was then that Israeli snipers began shooting. As they sought cover, the young man noticed a group of children in the line of the fire. Some had run for cover, but three children stood paralysed with fear.
“He sprinted to where the children were, picked one up and carried her to safety. When he went to collect a second child, he was shot in the head by an IDF soldier, Taysir Al-Hayb.”
Bleeding on the ground, less than a week after his move to Palestine, Tom Hurndall was unarmed when he was shot, wearing a bright orange jacket identifying him as an international volunteer (as was Rachel Corrie when she was killed), and was plainly visible to Israeli sniper towers. According to other ISM activists, “There was no shooting or resistance coming from the Palestinian side at all.”
It was reported that an ambulance came very quickly to where Hurndall lay, about two minutes after the shooting. However, it was then delayed by the Israelis for up to two hours.
What happened next?
Hurndall was taken to a hospital in Rafah, where he was declared to be clinically dead. Transferred by the IDF to a hospital in Beersheba, he was kept on a ventilator and operated on. From there he was flown six weeks later to the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in London. The brain damage was irreversible and, after nine months in a persistent vegetative state, he died on 13 January, 2004. He was 22 years old.
Meanwhile, the IDF’s initial “routine internal inquiry” claimed that Hurndall was “accidentally shot in the crossfire” and implied that his ISM group served as “human shields”. However, this account was contested by witnesses, who insisted that he was struck by a rifle bullet while attempting to protect Palestinian children, rather than being caught in any crossfire.
The Hurndall family applied pressure on the Israeli and British governments, prompting the then British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to order an additional investigation in October 2003.
Eventually, in 2005, sniper Al-Hayb was convicted of manslaughter by an Israeli court and sentenced to eight years in prison, of which he served six and a half years, it being declared that he “no longer poses any danger.” During his trial, the soldier claimed that a policy of shooting unarmed civilians was in place at the time.
“On the very street where Tom was shot, two children had been shot just days before,” said human rights activist Raphael Cohen, who was with Tom Hurndall on the day that he was shot. “This is why he and the rest of the group went to that spot, to protest against the shooting of children as they played outside their homes. There has never been any investigation into the shootings of those children.” Indeed, the killing of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and police, and illegal settlers, rarely leads to convictions.
According to the Telegraph, Hurndall’s sister Sophie said that her family wasn’t informed by the Israeli authorities about Al-Hayb’s release. Instead, the news was delivered by the British foreign office.
“We have not had time to regroup or work out what is going on. We have barely had time to process the news and we all feel angry and shocked,” she said, adding that they had long feared such a thing would happen. “We have had to deal with cover ups and lies and a total lack of accountability throughout – and this is in line with that. It’s symptomatic.”
She added that the family was not so much angry about Hayb’s actions, but rather the IDF’s and Israeli authorities’ casual attitude when it comes to harming Palestinian civilians. “To be honest, it’s about the system. Not the man himself. This man who shot Tom was the same age as him. He is both the victim and the killer. He is part of a system that proactively encourages soldiers to target [Palestinian] civilians.”
The soldier’s early release, she added, sent a message to Israeli soldiers that they can act with impunity. “So many innocent people were killed in so many horrific ways. They just don’t seem to care about anyone.”
Tom Hurndall’s sister expressed her anger at and disappointment in her own government and Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair. “It’s incredibly sad. One of the things that happened to me since my brother was killed is that I have lost faith in humanity. I cannot believe that people can do such things, and that my own government can sit by and keep quiet.”
The Hurndall family, especially Tom’s mother Jocelyn and Sophie, continue to be active in the Palestine solidarity movement, along with his close friends. His contribution to the cause has been honoured through conferences, a film and a book.
UNSC has not authorized force against Yemen; China urges all parties concerned to abide by international law
Global Times | January 13, 2024
China opposes any forcible transfer of the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip, and all measures must be taken to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe and make a cease-fire the most urgent task of the moment, China’s permanent representative to the UN Zhang Jun said during a UN Security Council conference on Friday local time.
An immediate ceasefire has become the overwhelming call of the international community, but a permanent member of UN Security Council (UNSC) has vetoed the consensus reached by the UNSC in this regard on various grounds, which is a blatant defiance of international fairness, justice and the authority of UNSC, Zhang said.
The UNSC failed to adopt a draft resolution on December 8, 2023 that would have demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza due to a veto cast by the US. Many countries expressed disappointment over the US veto of the Gaza-related draft.
It is a blatant double standard for some people to talk about the protection of human rights and the prevention of genocide while pretending to be deaf and dumb, covering up and diverting attention from the tragic situation in Gaza, Zhang remarked, “We must remove all interference and take vigorous action to quell the war, save lives and restore peace.”
In addition, Zhang stressed that that any forcible transfer of the Palestinian people must be firmly rejected.
Over the past three months, millions of Palestinian people have been forced to relocate repeatedly and were under constant threat to their lives, said Zhang, noting that China is gravely concerned about the “voluntary emigration” of Gaza people, which has been advocated by some Israeli politicians.
The horrific idea of displacing two million people from Gaza and turning it into a “safe zone” devoid of human habitation, if implemented, would constitute a grave crime under international law and completely destroy prospects for the “Two-State solution,” Zhang remarked.
The Chinese envoy called for all measures to be taken to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.
Zhang said it was totally unacceptable for Israel to accuse the UN of not having the will and capacity to provide humanitarian relief when it was clear that Israel was accountable for the continued bombing and striking in Gaza and setting obstacles to the entry of humanitarian supplies.
He urged Israel to immediately cease its indiscriminate military attacks and destruction of Gaza.
UNSC resolutions 2712 and 2720 must be fully implemented, and Israel must fulfil its obligations as the occupying party to guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers and provide full cooperation with humanitarian relief efforts, Zhang said.
The envoy reiterated that a ceasefire must be implemented with the utmost urgency. “Only a ceasefire can prevent greater civilian casualties and humanitarian disasters and create conditions for the early release of all hostages; only a ceasefire can prevent the complete destruction of the basis of the Two-State solution; and only a ceasefire can prevent the entire Middle East region from being drawn into a catastrophe.”
Regarding the recent attacks launched by US and UK on Yemen against the Houthi rebels, which targeted Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea, Zhang expressed concerns about the spillover effects of the Gaza crisis.
Zhang said at a UNSC emergency conference on the Red Sea situation on the same day that the UNSC has never authorized any country to use force against Yemen. The military action taken by the related countries runs counter to the UN resolution 2722, which the Security Council has just adopted.
The envoy warned that the Middle East region is on the brink of extreme danger, and what should be avoided now is reckless military adventurism. He added that what is needed most of all is calm and restraint to prevent further expansion of the conflict.
China urges all parties concerned, especially the influential powers, to abide by the Charter of the UN and international law, adhere to the direction of dialogue and consultation, and make practical efforts to maintain peace and stability in the Red Sea and the Middle East region, Zhang said.
The US carried out further strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday night a day after launching a coordinated multi-nation attack on nearly 30 Houthi locations.
US Not Ready for War of Attrition in the Red Sea – Analyst
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 13.01.2024
Further bombing of Houthi positions in Yemen may prove ineffective, Russian military analyst Andrei Martyanov told Sputnik.
US and British forces carried out a spate of air strikes on over 60 targets at 16 Houthi militant locations in northern Yemen on Thursday and Friday nights, reportedly retaliation for the militants’ attacks against ships in the Red Sea since November.
The Ansar Allah movement has already pledged that the two Western powers will pay a “high price” for the strikes, which came as part of the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea.
With the operation showing no sign of progress, it seems that the US is not ready for a war of attrition in the Red Sea and is headed for an embarrassing debacle in the area, Russian military analyst Andrei Martyanov told Sputnik.
He said that US destroyers deployed to the Red Sea “might have a very good radar, but if you send towards them a bunch of drones, eventually they’re going to run out of missiles.”
“The most insulting in this case, so to speak, the rubbing salt in the wound, will be the fact the Houthis just probably will be sending $5,000-6,000 drones that will prod you to expend your $1.5-2 million air defense missile, if not more, in terms of costs,” Martyanov said.
According to him, if America “has some destroyer, let alone aircraft carrier, hit by some kind of the explosive device or drone, it will have not just technical problems, it will be a political issue in the United States.”
“One of the most shocking revelations for people might be the fact that while the US definitely has ‘sophisticated’ weapons, they are not necessarily that effective. For example, it is a well known fact that their air defenses will not be effective against modern anti-ship cruise missiles, especially the salvo, which is a [large] number of missiles arranged in a specific way when they are launched,” the analyst pointed out.
When asked about further escalation of the situation in the Red Sea, Martyanov suggested that Americans may “move their couple of carrier battle groups away from the shore and start, basically, running those bombing runs and start bombing and shooting at whatever they will find in northern Yemen.”
“As a result, obviously, it will create another outcry. This might work not so well, but at least they will say, ‘you see, we didn’t lose anybody.’ They will declare the victory and leave,” the analyst argued.
Finally, he remained skeptical about the US putting boots on the ground in northern Yemen, arguing that such a move would be “very problematic.”
“President Joe Biden doesn’t need coffins coming into the United States, covered in the Stars and Stripes. That could be pretty damaging to the already basically shaky US administration,” the analyst concluded.
Is China hatching a sinister plot regarding the Israel-Gaza war?

Gaza Strip. © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP
By Timur Fomenko | RT | January 13, 2024
A recent Foreign Affairs article purports to expose “China’s game in Gaza,” accusing Beijing of “Exploiting Israel’s War to Win Over the Global South.”
The author alleges that “in calling for a two-state solution, refusing to condemn Hamas, and making symbolic efforts to support a ceasefire, [China] has taken advantage of global anti-Israeli sentiment in a bid to elevate its own standing in the Global South.”
This argument is interesting, because it is premised on the logic that the war on Gaza can end quickly if Beijing simply supports the US position, which the article claims is “to reconcile public support for Israel with private pressure to more carefully target its attacks in Gaza and to be more open to a political settlement with the Palestinians.” So let’s get this right, it’s the US that wants to end this conflict fairly and China is exacerbating it and therefore is at fault?
This kind of analysis is farfetched at best and outright dishonest at worst, and overall an insult to every observer’s intelligence. It really shows the lengths to which the mainstream cycle of journalists and think-tankers will go in order to not place any blame on Israel whatsoever, but to scapegoat third parties who do not in fact have a hand in the conflict. China has always taken a neutral position on the Israel-Palestine issue, though it recognizes the State of Palestine’s sovereign existence, and therefore advocates a two-state solution.
However, the situation really doesn’t need China at all in order to ferment an anti-Israeli and anti-US backlash across the Global South. The US and its allies have managed to do that all by themselves. China’s rhetoric on the issue has been inconsequential and certainly hardly provocative.
First of all, the Foreign Affairs article takes the misleading State Department position that the US is some kind of honest broker and mediator in the Israel-Palestine conflict that just wants the two sides to make up and get along. This is an absolute lie. All the US has offered is unconditional, uncritical and blanket support to Israel which Benjamin Netanyahu has calculated allows him to do whatever he wants, effectively consequence-free. Will the US actually sanction Israel? Will the US condemn Israel at the UN? Will the US stop arming Israel? Absolutely not, and he knows this, therefore anything Washington might claim in regards to sparing civilians or talking about a ceasefire is hollow because it is not backed up by any substance. Israel is allowed to do whatever it sees fit, because placing any restraints on it is domestically politically untenable in the US, as well as in allied countries such as the UK.
Therefore, even if it wanted to, how could China possibly end the conflict, let alone be responsible for it? It is the scenes of unprecedented, Western-backed slaughter and carnage in Gaza that are provoking outrage in the Global South, and the reality that Israel is a law unto itself. This backlash is entirely and exclusively Western-generated and there is no conspiracy nor agenda by China as a neutral player to exploit it. In fact, if China were serious, it would be actively whipping up anti-Israeli sentiment, but it is not doing so because Beijing for the most part is restrained and has little to say on third-party issues.
Rather, China’s alignment with the Global South is a historic trend given Beijing itself is a part of the Global South from the days of its revolutionary heritage, the common experience of colonialism, and therefore the desire to sustain sovereignty and independence from Western domination. This forms a common position with the states of the Middle East, Africa and Latin America on Palestine, with the latter being the most prominent example of Western-led colonial oppression in the world. The situation in Gaza is a Western-backed injustice and set of atrocities, which in turn reveals the double standards of these countries who purport to be the champions of freedom and human rights.
In this case, China doesn’t need to say anything regarding Gaza to inflame the Global South because the situation really is quite self-explanatory. The US is costing itself support throughout the Global South by showing that it is an enabler of genocide through the unconditional political and military backing it grants the Israeli state, yet here in Foreign Affairs we have the lopsided rendition that really it’s just all China’s fault, as usual.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Complains About X Reinstating Censored Accounts
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | January 12, 2024
Without considering the possibility that there were perhaps too many of them to begin with – Australia’s eSafety Commissioner is complaining in a new report that X, since the Musk takeover, has fired too many “safety and public policy personnel.”
Another complaint from the commissioner’s “transparency report” is about previously censored accounts getting reinstated on the platform.
The sum of the new policy, according to this Australian office – a government agency that’s “independent (but) supported by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)” – is that X is now less capable of “tackling online hate.”
It is no wonder that these accusations are made by eSafety, considering that it has been given powers to deal with what’s described as “cyberbullying, image-based abuse, and illegal and harmful online content.”
Basing the report on information obtained from X, eSafety writes that 80 percent of “safety engineers” have been let go since October 2022 (the same figure applies to global public policy staff). Moderators working for X have fared somewhat better – still, over 50 percent of them have been fired.
Considering that these employees were doing more than simply moderating – there have been many confirmed and very controversial cases on clear censorship against content and accounts – free speech supporters are likely fine to learn these precise numbers for the first time.
However, the Australian eSafety is not, taking a negative stance toward the developments and warning that they have “implications for Australian users.”
Commissioner Julie Inman Grant is quoted in the report as saying that, “It’s almost inevitable that any social media platform will become more toxic and less safe for users if you combine significant reductions to safety and local public policy personnel with thousands of account reinstatements of previously banned users.”
About that last point – we now know that the number of banned accounts that have been allowed back on X is at this point in excess of 6,100. But, the Australian office is not even sure if these figures concern X’s operations globally or just in Australia – although eSafety “understands” the latter to be the case, and draws this understanding from media saying earlier that a total of more than 62,000 accounts have been reinstated.
The commissioner is also displeased with the fact that X did not find it necessary to place “additional scrutiny” on these accounts – banned under previous ownership, and its policies.
