Australian Censor Chief Rejects Claims Digital Duty of Care Will Drive Censorship
Australia is asking platforms to police harm without first agreeing on what harm means
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | November 12, 2026
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has dismissed as “a stretch” the criticism that the Digital Duty of Care bill would force companies to censor too much online content.
Inman Grant, who will be the one to write the “guidance” that the law would task her office with providing to tech platforms, said that she hasn’t seen any indication of “over-censorship” over the past two years.
“I haven’t seen any indication, particularly over the past two years, that companies are over-censoring,” Inman Grant told the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee on Tuesday, on the second day of hearings into the proposed legislation.
Inman Grant thinks that most cases of excessive removals of content happen because automated “moderation” is done without subsequent human review – but she didn’t go into why companies are using this method.
However, it is well known that it is the cheapest and most efficient way for them to comply with the ever-growing number of censorship laws and rules imposed by governments around the world.
Inman Grant’s comments came as a response to criticism that the bill would result in exactly the type of censorship she says is not happening now. On the contrary, she said, “Companies today are trying to show the maximum amount of material, no matter how harmful or hurtful it is.”
Her general counsel Richard Fleming was even more direct: “Over-blocking and over-compliance certainly isn’t what we see.”
The previous day, TikTok’s Jessika Lofstedt told the committee that the bill would replace “certainty with ambiguity and with subjectivity” and result in over-moderation of “contentious” material by platforms trying to avoid penalties.
The Digital Duty of Care bill has already passed the House and the government wants it to be adopted by the end of the year. If it becomes law, it would fine social media up to A$109 million.
The bill also seeks to replace industry codes with eSafety guidance, and Inman Grant is unhappy that this would not be binding, and suggested ministerial directions approved by parliament instead.
Inman Grant told the committee, “We do want to have our cake and eat it too.” She also explained that if the codes were written by a regulator – as opposed to industry – “it’s going to be stronger than the codes that the industry put forward.”
In a response to criticism that the bill does not define what constitutes harmful content, Inman Grant said she was open to narrowing it down, if lawmakers think the current proposal is too broad.
Meanwhile, Sydney Anglican Bishop Michael Stead has warned that the bill’s failure to define harmful content and conduct could leave it up to the government of the day to decide – and target people of faith.
He said that the church’s teaching that men are heads of the household, as well as the Sydney Diocese not ordaining women as priests, could be interpreted by critics as promoting gendered violence and taken offline.
“It ought to matter to all Australians that we uphold the principle of freedom of religion, even if you’re a non-religious person,” he said.
Inman Grant’s response was to say that eSafety has millions of “high-risk, high-harm” targets every day, and that the office would not focus on churches or businesses. However, she didn’t explain how the law would prevent that from happening.
The Coalition has said it will oppose the bill because of fears it will result in more censorship, while the Greens want it to include even heavier fines, as well as the right to sue social media companies – which would lead to even more content being removed before a case even reaches court.
The bill doesn’t define what is harmful content, and who will make that decision? Inman Grant’s office and the government of the day.
The promise that the law won’t be used to go after churches? Just that – a promise, and not a limit written into the law.
Spanish public prosecutor backs US demand to extradite pro-Palestine philanthropist Fergie Chambers
The Cradle | November 11, 2026
The Spanish Public Prosecutor’s Office submitted a filing on 10 November supporting Washington’s request to extradite pro-Palestine activist Fergie Chambers.
The prosecutor’s office echoed US claims that Chambers made cash transfers with the goal of “promoting illicit” and “violent” activities that “benefit” the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
It has also recommended concluding the investigative proceedings and granting the extradition, according to a written submission obtained by Europa Press.
Chambers is currently in pretrial detention at Aranjuez prison in the Spanish capital, Madrid. Spanish authorities arrested him in Ibiza in July 2026.
The US Department of Justice is accusing Chambers of “transporting, transmitting or transferring” funds “with the intention of promoting” the “provision of material support or resources to foreign terrorist organizations.”
He is also accused of “riots” against Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems.
Washington says he supported the Unity of Fields organization, formerly known as Palestine Action US, the US branch of the UK-based anti-Israel group.
Earlier this year, its assets in the US were frozen due to its affiliation with Palestine Action, which was proscribed as a “terrorist organization” in the UK.
The Spanish Public Prosecutor’s office and US authorities say Chambers helped the organization by supplying “padlocks, chains and flexible cables” used in a “raid” on an Elbit branch in New Hampshire in 2023.
Chambers, also accused of money laundering, was arrested in Spain after US President Donald Trump requested his extradition in July. Spanish authorities did not notify his lawyers.
The Spanish Council of Ministers permitted the extradition request to proceed in September.
Chambers, a communist and philanthropist who has opposed the genocide in Gaza, was born James Cox Chambers. He has stepped down as heir to his family’s media company, Cox Enterprises.
He referred to his relatives as “enemies of the people” after Cox Enterprises donated millions to the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center – known by activists as “Cop City” and linked to pro-Israel advocacy groups via shared donors.
Chambers has donated over $1 million in aid to the Gaza Strip.
Indian captain of Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker faces 10-year jail term in UK
RT | November 11, 2026
The Indian captain of an oil tanker is facing up to ten years behind bars in the UK after being detained for allegedly breaching Western sanctions on Russia, in a case that has drawn fierce criticism from international seafaring unions.
Ajay Pant was commanding the MV Smyrtos when the British authorities intercepted the vessel in international waters and detained him in June.
The Smyrtos has been branded a so-called ‘shadow fleet’ tanker, so named for transporting crude oil and petroleum products from Iran and Russia in defiance of unilateral Western sanctions against them. China, India, and the rest of the Global South, as well as Russia, have argued that the sanctions are illegal because they have not been approved by the United Nations Security Council.
Pant’s appeal will be heard on Thursday. His earlier bail plea was denied because the UK court claimed he could receive Russian help to abscond or flee.
The 38-year-old father-of-two is from the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, and is the primary caregiver of his elderly parents. His wife, Ritu, has publicly advocated for his release and called him a “scapegoat.” She has pointed out that the vessel’s owners are responsible for cargo and routing decisions. Pant was also the only individual charged by the UK authorities.
The owner of the vessel is Hong Kong-based Zhao Yao Shipping, SeaTrade Maritime News reported. Chennai-based Vika Line Marine Services is its international safety manager.
Most of the ship’s 24-member crew had returned to their home countries by August, news reports say, while some are still on the Smyrtos, which is anchored off the coast of Weymouth and Portland in Dorset, England.
India said on Tuesday it has stepped up diplomatic efforts to help Pant.
“We have been in touch with the lawyers of Captain Pant as well as his family,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said. “The High Commission has paid several visits to Captain Pant to check on his well-being. We have also facilitated the visit of his family members, his wife in particular.”
The vessel has been under EU and UK sanctions since October 2025. It was flying the Cameroon flag when it departed Russia with its cargo, but the African nation removed the vessel from its national ship registry a few days before its interception.
The UK authorities claim that when a vessel is considered stateless, Britain has a right to exercise powers under its domestic legislation.
Experts and the Seafarers Union, however, say the detention of the captain of a ship in international waters creates a worrying precedent. They point out that this is the first time that a European nation has held a ship captain on such charges.
“Seafarers will often not know that their ship might be carrying sanctioned oil, and that they’re potentially open to getting caught up in a geopolitical conflict,” Steve Yandell, coordinator of the seafarers’ section of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, was quoted as saying by AFP.
The Forward Seamen’s Union of India has demanded a faster trial. “It is a minimum requirement of the international unions that there should be a fast trial court for such cases, when a foreign seafarer is detained in a third country,” FSUI official Manoj Yadav said. A trial that could last four weeks has been reportedly scheduled for December 15.
The development is especially concerning for India, which has an estimated 320,000 seafarers working on ships across the globe.
German CDU MPs Seek Climate “Misinformation” List
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | November 10, 2026
In Germany, five members of the Baden-Württemberg state parliament from the CDU have formally asked the state government to consider setting up a public list of people who spread what the authorities decide to consider as climate “misinformation.”
The MPs, who belong to the Christian Democratic Union, have signed a motion that asks the government to look into the feasibility of creating such a list, and to make it “publicly accessible.”
The motion, signed by Peter Hauk, a former state consumer protection minister, and four other MPs, and received by the parliament on November 3, says that the state’s Consumer Commission first came up with the idea.
The quotes from the document, and other cited sources, are our translations from German.
The five MPs – Hauk, and his party colleagues Rathgeb, Dr. Schwarz, Dr. Rapp, and Herzog – are asking the government to consider whether it makes sense to set up the list, and if so, what steps it would take to do so.
The motion was filed on October 27, and is justified by the need to stop what is considered to be “climate misinformation.”
The MPs do not propose the idea, but rather say that the Consumer Commission, which Apollo News describes as an independent advisory body that counsels the state government on consumer policy, made the recommendation on October 6.
The commission’s recommendation reads: “Comparable to a lobby register, persons and organizations that have repeatedly spread false information about climate change should be listed, with traceable documentation.”
Such a database, the statement continues, should be “easily accessible to consumers and continuously updated by an independent institution.”
“Such a database could present people with their statements and positions, flag misinformation in them and set them against the correct information, including sources.”
In other words, a public file on named individuals and their opinions, kept by an institution that is not elected by anyone.
As for who would qualify to be put on such a list, the commission says that denying climate change is no longer the main trend, but that “Measures to curb climate change are ineffective or harmful (denial of the effectiveness of political measures)” is.
In fact, the commission says, “Instead of denying the existence of man-made climate change, the effectiveness of countermeasures and the credibility of scientists are questioned, and even the harmfulness of climate policy measures is asserted.”
This means that simply arguing that a climate policy is ineffective, or that it has too high a cost, could land someone on the list.
What’s more, intent does not matter, the commission says, as “For consumer protection, however, this distinction is irrelevant.”
The document also concedes that, “Some information is neither clearly true nor clearly false (for example subjective assessments of opinion or issues on which there is no scientific consensus).”
It also says, “The goal of regulation must therefore not be to ban opinions.”
It continues to recommend that a public list of people who express those opinions should be kept, and that it should be “easily accessible.”
The idea of the database is not the only recommendation that the MPs are asking the government to consider. The commission’s recommendations also include social media platforms deleting bots, and ensuring that “no posts containing false information end up in the networks’ feeds.”
Chatbots should be treated the same way: “Classification and sanctioning of the output of false information about climate change by chatbots as a prohibited AI practice,” the commission said, and added that the federal network regulator “should sanction providers of chatbots that spread false information about climate change accordingly.”
The MPs first ask if the government “intends to implement the recommendations” of the commission. The justification of the motion says that false information about climate change can “impair the acceptance of effective climate protection measures.”
This is not the first time that the CDU has been in the news for wanting to restrict speech and impose more government regulation of the internet. In February, the party’s branch in Schleswig-Holstein pushed for a real-name requirement on the internet, and said that freedom of expression needed what they called “Leitplanken” (guardrails) – i.e., state-imposed boundaries.
In September, CDU leader and Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, “Please, nobody come to me with free speech. This has nothing more to do with free speech.”
A public register of people who hold certain views on climate policy, or any policy for that matter, is simply a blacklist, regardless of what it is called.
Psywar no more? 77th Brigade’s sudden death
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | November 10, 2026
In January 2015, the British Army launched 77th Brigade with much fanfare. The new psyops force was openly advertised by mainstream news outlets as a shadow battalion of “Twitter troops… shaping behaviours through the use of dynamic narratives” on social media. After a decade of controversy over the unit’s potentially illegal deployment in domestic and international information spaces however, as of this April, 77th Brigade “no longer exists.” Yet, London’s wider clandestine psychological warfare crusade dangerously endures in unseen ways.
77th Brigade’s sudden death was not advertised in any way by the British Army, but serendipitously discovered by a Freedom of Information researcher. Further digging revealed the unit was formally folded into the military’s shadowy Headquarters Land Special Operations Force. Launched in December 2023, it combines special forces operations, reconnaissance-strike capabilities, and digital and information warfare components, arrayed against so-called “hostile states”. It is unclear whether 77th Brigade operates just as before, albeit under a new, less tarnished collective banner.
Either way, Britain’s longstanding, aggressive commitment to information and psychological warfare dominance has not dimmed. In January 2010, the Ministry of Defence published an extraordinary document mapping “Global Strategic Trends” that would shape London’s defence, foreign, intelligence and security approaches for decades to come. With eerie foresight, the appraisal concluded over the next 30 years Britain and the wider West would lose global hegemonic dominance, “as the strategic balance of military power shifts away from the US to a more multipolar distribution.”
The MOD understood how in turn, London’s ability to “coerce” adversaries “to change their behaviour” via military force faced substantial deterioration, if not outright extinction. It thus befell Britain to “place considerable emphasis and dependence on the psychological rather than just the physical.” The document predicted impending technological innovation would “enable the development of extensive social networks that in turn will multiply opportunities for those seeking to achieve influence through the distribution of recorded images.”
“Imagery, combined with simple, fluid narratives, can shape both local and global perceptions,” the MOD approvingly added. As such, “information and intelligence gathering systems will be required to provide knowledge about people’s perceptions, beliefs and opinions, and how they can be influenced.” The appraisal declared “influence” would be attained by Britain “when the behaviour of the target audience changes through the coordination of all levers of power including military action, words and images”:
“Knowledge will empower and enable, even when the physical contest cannot be won… Influence will not just be about messages or media, but how the combination of word and deed are portrayed, interpreted and understood through the lens of culture, history, religion and tradition. Speed of response is likely to be vital and first impressions will count. Notions such as winning and victory are likely to be of little relevance if an adversary can remain credible in the battlespace of ideas.”
‘Deception Techniques’
The MOD forecast provided a clear blueprint for 77th Brigade’s formation, among many other interrelated cloak-and-dagger British military and intelligence psyops initiatives. More generally, it planted psychological warfare squarely at the heart of London’s policy agenda in all matters domestic and foreign. Spy agency propaganda specialists were and remain duly embedded within every state institution, to advise on the effective use of covert and overt methods of “influence”, “persuasion” and “behaviour change”. Every government communications effort large and small since has relied upon these techniques.
In many cases, these approaches were honed on literal battlefields against adversaries including ISIS and Russia. Their redeployment in a domestic, civilian context was undergirded by a seismic shift in British military and intelligence doctrine. In 2020, a since-memoryholed Army handbook on “information manoeuvre” ominously declared “conflict in the information age” had “removed the traditional distinction between home and away.” In the process, a supposed “grey zone between peace and war” now prevailed. 77th Brigade was said to be “notably” pivotal to this new approach.
As “wars continue to be won in people’s minds,” the internet was cemented as “an integral part of the 21st century battlefield” – a “virtual dimension”. Previously, British Army psychological warfare techniques were “focused almost solely on ‘the enemy’.” However, “with operations now a global spectator sport in an increasingly interconnected world, there are many more audiences to consider.” The “digital playing field” was judged “a powerful way to shape people’s perceptions and behaviour.”
In this new “grey zone”, average citizens the world over were firmly in London’s military psychological warfare crosshairs. The Army’s 2021 Strategic Operating Concept commenced by stating, “the pervasiveness of information and the pace of technological change are transforming the character of warfare.” The document echoed the “information manoeuvre” handbook’s disquieting perspective. Namely, “old distinctions between ‘peace’ and ‘war’, between ‘public’ and ‘private’, between ‘foreign’ and ‘domestic’ and between ‘state’ and ‘non-state’ are increasingly out of date”:
“The triumph of the narrative increasingly determines defeat or victory…hence the importance of information operations. They can be used to support conventional military operations and those utilising proxies and deniable paramilitary forces, military coercion, offensive cyber operations, and of course lawfare. Established techniques, such as assassination, deception, economic coercion, espionage, theft of intellectual property and subversion gain potency through the clever use of cyber, digitised information and social media. Psychological insights into how these channels can be manipulated enhance their effectiveness.”
Conveniently, “the pace of technological change and the blurring of ‘peace’ and ‘war’” meant the British Army’s “legal, ethical and moral framework” required updating, to permit London’s psyops warriors to covertly “influence target audiences’ attitudes, beliefs and behaviours” more effectively. By this point, “deception techniques” – “measures designed to mislead adversaries” – had been absolutely fundamental to MOD information operations for several years. Official literature openly refers to “information [being] used to create deception or as ‘camouflage and concealment’,” while training an “unblinking eye” on target audiences.
‘Behavioural Change’
77th Brigade’s malign meddling during the COVID19 pandemic provides a disturbing snapshot of how the unit surveilled and harassed domestic British audiences. 77th Brigade’s centrality to the government’s COVID19 response was revealed by then-Army chief Nick Carter in April 2020. The battalion was said to be “helping to quash rumours from misinformation, but also to counter disinformation.” Subsequent investigations exposed how 77th Brigade deployed a militia of real, fake, and automated social media accounts to disseminate and amplify state messaging, while discrediting dissenters.
A 77th Brigade whistleblower has confirmed “helping root out foreign state misinformation on social media” was a cynical smokescreen, abetting the unit’s brazen circumvention of British law restricting domestic military information operations. In fact, “people expressing dissatisfaction with the UK Government’s action against Covid,” including lockdowns, vaccine mandates and passports, were 77th Brigade’s true prey. The whistleblower emphasised London’s concern was “domestic perception, not national security,” while identifying “levers for compliance with controversial government policies”:
“To skirt the legal difficulties of a military unit monitoring domestic dissent, the view was that unless a profile explicitly stated their real name and nationality, they could be a foreign agent and were fair game. But it is quite obvious that our activities resulted in the monitoring of the UK population… These posts did not contain information that was untrue or coordinated.”
Amply underlining how a veritable psychological war was waged on unsuspecting citizens by 77th Brigade throughout the pandemic, an online profile of a unit veteran notes their work “countering dis- and misinformation during the COVID19 crisis” seamlessly followed “a tour to [sic] the Middle East,” where they “successfully implemented behavioural change strategies against ISIS.” Adversaries in their firing line were average people who stepped out of line not just on COVID19, but a variety of issues, including NATO.
The 77th Brigade whistleblower believed the unit’s domestic psychological warfare and spying operations were “undemocratic, wrong, and should not be allowed to happen again.” There is no indication lessons were learned from the debacle – and every reason to believe comparable campaigns were waged in other Western countries during the pandemic. Leaked documents related to British intelligence black propaganda operation Integrity Initiative refer to the Dutch, Norwegian and Spanish defence ministries receiving secret training from the unit.
This tutelage was conducted under a cloak-and-dagger Foreign Office program formally concerned with “tracking and exposing Russian malign influence and disinformation.” 77th Brigade was heavily inspired in these regards by the Lithuanian Elves, a Vilnius-based volunteer collective ostensibly formed to battle “trolls” and “fake news” emanating from Moscow. As this journalist has exposed, the Elves are covertly managed by Lithuania’s MOD, and engage in offensive cyber operations designed to demonise Russia, Russians, and their supposed sympathisers online. This includes perverse conflation of Communism with Nazism.
Much-hyped in the Western media as a model for states and societies to follow in the name of fighting “disinformation”, the Lithuanian Elves were an early example of how online spaces globally became polluted with rabid, ever-ratcheting anti-Russia sentiment in the years leading up to the Ukraine proxy war’s eruption. 77th Brigade, launched almost simultaneously, was another. The unit’s April reorganisation reinforces how its founding raison d’etre was laying the foundations, and shaping the online theatre, for future conflict with Moscow.
In June 2025, the 2021 Integrated Operating Concept was withdrawn, having been judged to be no longer relevant. The time had come for the British Army’s information warriors to step out of the “grey zone”, and fight a fully-fledged kinetic conflict against Moscow. 77th Brigade made all-out war with Russia a fait accompli with devastating effect, but the unit has proven singularly unable to compel average citizens to voluntarily fight. Such are the pratfalls of “dependence on the psychological rather than just the physical.”
Rhode Island Staffer Could Be Reinstated After Firing Over Ceasefire Post
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | November 9, 2026
A federal judge has ruled that the office of Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee violated the First Amendment when it fired a staffer over a post he made on X.
Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted Miguel Sanchez, who worked in the governor’s office in constituent services, partial summary judgment in the case. The ruling also denied qualified immunity to two of McKee’s aides.
Sanchez was fired on October 27, 2023, but the court decision means he may now be reinstated and receive damages.
Sanchez, who is a member of the Providence City Council and was first elected in January 2023, worked in the governor’s office since May 2021.
The post that got him fired was made off-duty on October 22, 2023, from the account he uses as a councilman. In it, Sanchez said, “prov did not disappoint…yesterday, I marched with thousands of people calling for an immediate ceasefire and a [sic] end to the occupation,” and included a video of the march in Providence.
Some staff in the governor’s office thought rally participants had chanted “from the river to the sea.” But the court said that “nothing suggests that Mr. Sanchez adopted or repeated that phrase nor is there evidence to suggest he endorsed that chant, or is in favor of violence.”
Nevertheless, the governor’s staff wanted him to delete the post, and when he refused, he was given the choice to either resign or be fired.
The reason for the firing, as the officials put it, was “the disruption in the office” caused by the post, as well as “the likelihood of continued disruption if the post were left up.”
The court found that this was not a valid reason, noting that the right to speak on public matters “is not lost when an individual chooses to work for the government.”
As for the “disruption,” the office received one inquiry from the Providence Journal, three emails, and two phone calls from the public, and a state legislator asked an aide about the post in an elevator. In addition, NBC 10 and a radio host each inquired about it. But the judge said that this did not amount to much, and that one of the governor’s aides, Joseph Almond, testified that the number of inquiries was “not a lot” and that they “did not interfere with the operation of the office.”
The governor’s office also spends most of its time responding to current events and media inquiries – some 85%, according to the court – and one aide said that “it’s just part of the job of being a governor.”
The real disruption came after Sanchez was fired, as at least 17 reporters inquired about it, 11 outlets reported about it, and by November 2, the office had received 63 emails and 38 phone calls about the firing.
As the judge noted, “The alleged distraction caused by his post pales in comparison to the inquiries after the firing.”
The court also dismissed the claim that the post could have caused future disruption as a “speculative argument”, and noted that Sanchez had no policy-making or spokesperson role in the governor’s office.
Sanchez’s legal fees were covered by X, attorney Gene Schaerr confirmed to local TV station WJAR, adding that it was not Elon Musk personally who paid, but X, through a program the company set up in August 2023.
At the time, Musk announced on the platform, “If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill. No limit. Please let us know.”
The same pattern of behavior of government employers occurred in May when it was revealed that Florida’s wildlife agency had paid biologist Brittney Brown $485,000 after firing her over a post about Charlie Kirk.
The agency had claimed that it had received hundreds of complaints and that Brown’s post had caused a “major operational disruption” – but during discovery it was revealed that the true number was “approximately 50 complaints, not hundreds.”
In both cases, employees were fired for lawful political speech, and their employers then tried to justify the decision by claiming that it caused a huge number of complaints and disruption – but failed to prove it.
It’s unclear why governments and their agencies keep using the same flawed arguments to try to justify their violations of the First Amendment – but it’s also unclear why it has to take a social media company to pay for a person’s legal representation in order for their rights to be recognized.
Zelensky’s Critics Vanish Into Ukrainian Secret Prisons – Source
Sputnik – 09.11.2026
Critics of Zelensky end up at secret torture sites, which Ukraine uses as a tool of reprisal, a source in the resistance movement in Odessa told Sputnik.
“It’s a case of ‘one hand washes the other’ – those who disagree with Zelensky’s regime and critics of Ukrainian law enforcers end up in these prisons. In fact, for this criticism they are reported, and the person is taken to this institution under unclear circumstances. For the authorities, they play the role of cleaners. These prisons are needed by the authorities, which is why they exist and why no one touches them,” a member of the Odessa resistance said.
One example is a Ukrainian torture site called the “Library” that had been discovered near Mariupol, the source said.
“Why aren’t criminal cases opened? Who in their right mind in today’s Ukraine would open a case against, say, ‘Azov’? Whoever opens one will end up in that prison themselves,” the person said.
Secret torture sites have existed in Ukraine since 2014— a fact Russian authorities have repeatedly highlighted. The issue struck a chord with Ukrainians on Monday, when a crowd gathered outside a house in a Kiev suburb where people were reportedly being held and beaten in the basement.
The Ukrainian authorities are trying to intimidate the population: a medic who arrived at the secret prison, an ambulance driver, and another woman have already been arrested, and other protest participants are being sought.
Over 16,000 hectares of farms, forests burnt in Israeli offensive on southern Lebanon, says minister
Press TV · November 7, 2026
Lebanese Environment Minister Tamara el-Zein says Israeli assaults have scorched more than 16,000 hectares of farmland and forest between October 2023 and September 2026, citing the deployment of phosphorus shells and other munitions banned by international law.
In a statement marking the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict on Friday, Zein highlighted that Israeli forces utilized 1,800 tons of explosives in three demolitions in southern Lebanon.
She detailed the environmental devastation resulting from these attacks, which included fires in agricultural and forested areas, harm to nature reserves, and the loss faced by farmers whose crops and means of living were obliterated.
Furthermore, she pointed out that the demolitions significantly transformed the landscapes of the targeted regions.
“Who will take responsibility for this destruction, and who will ensure that the Lebanese are not abandoned to cope with its repercussions and the costs of remediation?” Zein questioned.
The minister cautioned that the environmental repercussions might endure over time, and emphasized the necessity for monitoring contamination as well as the effects of leftover munitions on soil, water resources, and agricultural output.
Zein shared findings from a Lebanese Environment Ministry report that analyzed three demolitions executed by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
The report indicated that around 80 tons of explosives were deployed in Majdal Zoun in the Tyre district, 700 tons near Beaufort Castle in the Nabatieh district, and 1,100 tons at Ali al-Taher Hill in the same district.
Zein noted that the explosions produced shockwaves comparable to earthquakes measuring 3.1, 3.8, and 4.2 on the Richter scale, respectively, while underscoring that the effects reach far beyond immediate environmental harm, influencing the daily lives and livelihoods of residents.
The minister urged the international community and the United Nations to “assist Lebanon in addressing the environmental damage and hold Israel accountable for its actions.”
She also called for the creation of an independent and effective accountability mechanism to ensure that those responsible for environmental harm are held accountable and required to pay for remediation and compensation.
This comes amid a larger context of ongoing Israeli aggression against Lebanon, with airstrikes, drone attacks, and artillery bombardments targeting the country almost daily.
Israeli forces opened fire near Lebanese farmers harvesting olives and detained a resident during an incursion into Deir Mimas in southern Lebanon on Friday, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported.
The incidents, reported between early Friday and afternoon, affected the districts of Marjayoun, Nabatieh, Bint Jbeil and Tyre.
Hezbollah launched military operations against Israel on March 2 in response to the US-Israeli aggression against Iran, repeated Israeli violations of the 2024 ceasefire, and Israel’s continued occupation of Lebanese territory in the south.
Since then, despite months of negotiations, Israel has continued its military offensive against Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported on Thursday that Israeli strikes since March 2 have resulted in 4,390 fatalities and 12,429 injuries.
Israel continues to occupy parts of southern Lebanon, including long-held positions as well as territories taken during the 2023-2024 war, where Israeli ground troops moved approximately 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) into Lebanese territory.
Kafr Qasim at 70: The massacre Israel still hasn’t owned up to
Israeli soldiers conduct a military raid in the Old City of Nablus, northern West Bank, Palestine on November 1, 2026. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]
By Dr Mustafa Fetouri | MEMO | November 6, 2026
Israel almost always promises to investigate allegations of misconduct by its military, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), which it often portrays as the most moral army in the world. Yet such investigations rarely lead to meaningful accountability, particularly in major cases involving the killing of civilians. They can drag on for months, sometimes years, and when conclusions are eventually announced; they tend to produce one of two outcomes: either no criminal wrongdoing is established, or responsibility is attributed to an individual soldier, usually a low-ranking one, while the commanders and the wider chain of command are spared. A minor disciplinary measure follows, and the case is effectively closed.
This pattern is not new. It is deeply rooted in the history of Israel’s establishment and how it conducts itself. More importantly, it helps reinforce an image Israel has carefully cultivated since its creation: that of a tiny but highly modern and democratic country, where the rule of law is supreme and justice is not merely a principle embedded in the state’s legal culture but a way of life, surrounded by a sea of “savages” determined to destroy it.
Last week marked 70 years since Israel committed one of its most notorious massacres of Palestinian citizens, in the small Palestinian village of Kafr Qasim, in central what is now Israel, east of Tel Aviv. Unlike hundreds of Palestinian villages depopulated and erased from the map following Israel’s establishment in 1948, Kafr Qasim survived and retains its name. It is now a Palestinian Arab town, with a memorial to the victims erected in 1976 and a museum preserving the memory of the massacre. On the evening of 29th October 1956, as Israel launched its invasion of Egypt alongside Britain and France, Israeli Border Police officers stopped groups of Palestinian villagers returning home after a day’s work in the fields, quarries and elsewhere outside the village. They had committed no offence and had no knowledge of what was happening: they were unaware that the Israeli military had suddenly imposed a curfew. Earlier that afternoon, the normal curfew time of 10 pm had been brought forward to 5 pm, with the village’s local leadership receiving only half an hour’s notice. The returning workers were given no warning or opportunity to explain their ignorance. Instead, the Border Police opened fire on them at close range. Within an hour, 47 people had been killed in Kafr Qasim alone, including women and children. The massacre is commonly commemorated as the killing of 49 Palestinians, although a more comprehensive archival accounting by the Israeli research institute Akevot puts the total at 51 lives, including two people killed in neighbouring villages, an unborn child and an elderly man who died several hours after the shootings.
The massacre was not the result of a spontaneous confrontation but an intentional mass killing of innocent civilians.
The commanding officer, Colonel Issachar Shadmi, commander of the Israeli army’s 17th Brigade, had ordered the curfew ordered the Border Police officers to enforce the curfew against anyone found outside after 5 pm. The instruction was followed to the letter, and the result was the mass murder of dozens of Palestinian civilians. In an attempt to contain the political damage and protect its image, Israel established a commission of inquiry, followed by the prosecution of 11 Border Police officers. Eight were convicted in October 1958, including battalion commander Major Shmuel Malinki and Lieutenant Gavriel Dahan, who were sentenced to 17 and 15 years respectively. Three others were acquitted. But the convictions did not translate into lasting punishment. Appeals, sentence reductions, presidential commutations and early releases progressively dismantled the original sentences. By March 1960, less than two years after convictions, all eight were free,
Shadmi himself was tried separately, acquitted of murder and convicted only of abuse of authority for imposing the curfew without authorisation. His punishment was among the most shameful in the history of justice: a reprimand and a fine of just ten Israeli prutot, equivalent at the time to approximately half a US cent!
The man at the top of the chain of command escaped a murder conviction, while those who carried out the killings served only a fraction of their original sentences. Ask Israel today about Kafr Qasim and the likely answer would be: of course it was a crime, and those responsible were punished under the law! In details it might add that: it investigated, prosecuted and convicted those responsible. But such an answer deliberately ignores what happened after the verdicts: practically the entire process and its outcome were a joke by any judicial standards.
The same pattern of shambolic accountability continues to this day. A BBC Verify investigation published on 15th October 2026 provides compelling evidence of how little has changed over the last 70 years. The investigation examined more than 60,000 published reports and identified 300 separate incidents in which the Israeli military had said it was investigating allegations of killing or injuring people during Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Israel since 7th October 2023. Of these, the IDF announced the outcome of only 28 cases, while the status of another 18 remained unclear. The remaining 254 had no publicly available outcome. At least one person was reportedly killed in more than 200 of these incidents, and some investigations dated back to late 2023. As is usually the case, despite repeated requests, the IDF failed to provide transparent updates on the status of these investigations, either to the BBC or to anyone else. The idea is the same: say a great deal but reveal very little of substance, in order to continue controlling the damage and safeguarding the illusionary image of the “most moral army in the world”, while continuing to commit all kinds of crimes against largely innocent civilians, including more than 20,000 children, in the Gaza genocide alone.
And again, the Israeli criminal military maintained that it took allegations seriously. But this is precisely the problem: announcing an investigation is not the same as completing one, and completing one is not the same as holding those responsible accountable. The IDF’s strategy appears to be based on a simple calculation: announce an investigation, allow it to disappear into the bureaucratic maze, and wait for public attention to fade. As time passes, people either forget or become overwhelmed by the growing number of new crimes committed and new investigations announced. Since so little of substance ever emerges from Israeli investigations into alleged crimes by its forces, few people take these repeated promises of accountability by Israel’s deeply hypocritical judicial system seriously.
Seventy years after Kafr Qasim, the central question remains the same: how many investigations, inquiries and official promises of accountability must pass before those responsible for killing Palestinian civilians actually face justice?
LAPD Pilot Will Track Vehicles In San Fernando Valley
The safeguards are department policy, which means the department can also change them.
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | November 5, 2026
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) will go ahead with its plan to install Axon license plate readers on city streetlights in the west San Fernando Valley.
The Los Angeles City Council voted on October 27 to try to stop the move, but the vote fell one short of the ten needed to veto the Police Commission’s September 22 decision. The Los Angeles Times writes that the pilot, which will cover parts of Council District 3, such as Encino, Woodland Hills, and Tarzana, is now expected to launch “in the near future.”
The cameras are attached to the top of streetlights and draw power from them. According to the LAPD’s own slides, the system captures a vehicle and its plate image “along with the date, time, location, and certain vehicle characteristics” – and it does this for every car, not just those suspected of any crime.
“Never has the city had so much information on our residents where we can see what they’re doing and where they’re at,” Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez said, adding that before the new project is rolled out, the city should first conduct an independent audit of how data collected so far has been used, and put in place more stringent rules on the use of license plate readers.
“We should take the time to make sure that we have thorough, thoughtful protections laid out before we install our cameras,” Soto-Martinez said.
Another councilor, Eunisses Hernandez, noted that the promise of oversight and accountability had been made before, but that the policies to back it up were still lacking.
“We were told that there will be oversight and that there will be accountability,” she said, warning that the pilot would “expand the surveillance infrastructure that could put those same families at risk.”
Instead of addressing these issues, the LAPD has produced new guidelines for the use of license plate readers.
The guidelines, issued on October 16 by Chief Jim McDonnell, include cutting the time data stays searchable from two years to 90 days, and limiting the number of officers who can access it to 4,000, who will first have to get approval from their supervisor, undergo online training, and pass a test.
The purpose of using the data is also to be limited to criminal investigations, missing persons, and other “serious public safety matters,” while searches based solely on First Amendment activity will not be allowed.
Cmdr. Randy Goddard explained that the system generates an alert, and that “under department policy it is not probable cause.”
The new rules also suspend direct access to the data for outside agencies, but the LAPD will continue to share it with them on a case-by-case basis, providing the request is made on the agency’s letterhead. The list of those who will continue to have access includes the police in Torrance and Glendale, as well as the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
No new agreements will be made during the pilot, said Chief Information Officer Dean Gialamas, who described the guidelines as “a considerably more restrictive and accountable operating model.” He also said that “many of these safeguards are already being implemented.”
The LAPD also promises that no fixed cameras will be installed within 200 feet of clinics whose main purpose is reproductive or gender-affirming care.
Councilmember Soto-Martinez is not convinced, and specifically criticized the large number of officers who will have access to the data, saying, “I don’t like that there’s 4,000 people without an analysis whether they deserve to keep having (access to ALPR data) or not.”
The guidelines are not a law, but rules written by the department, which means they can also be rewritten by the department.
While the retention of data has been cut to 90 days, this is still more than ten times the default period that Flock, the previous vendor, now recommends.
The company recently said, “We are updating our recommendation and default to a 7-day retention,” and a federal judge in Oklahoma has described license plate readers as “a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance” that lets police “indiscriminately and passively catalog your whereabouts over an extended period of time.”
The judge made the statement in a ruling in a case that involved only a month’s worth of data, while the LAPD plans to keep it for three times that.
In July, the Police Commission suspended the LAPD’s use of Flock after the department’s own inspector general found that officers had improperly investigated 161 people whose vehicles were wrongly flagged as stolen.
The bigger picture is that in September the Police Commission approved a 10-year, $235 million contract with Axon that includes more than 1,600 patrol-car cameras equipped with plate readers. Axon CEO Rick Smith told investors that agencies want to “convert from existing license plate readers to us.”
Hamid Khan of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition said, “It’s not about just one license plate reader; it’s part of a much bigger system.”
It’s a system the city seems to be committed to, having dropped one vendor over privacy concerns only to sign up with another. And the fact that the council could not muster the necessary 10 votes to stop the latest plan means that the safeguards will be those promised by the police department itself – in other words, the fox will be in charge of the henhouse.
Ukrainian general accused of protecting crime bosses
RT | November 5, 2026
A general in Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has been accused of protecting violent career criminals in exchange for a share of the proceeds from their numerous illicit enterprises.
The latest corruption scandal in Kiev erupted after the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) announced on Wednesday that it had uncovered an extensive network linking senior law enforcement officials in Vladimir Zelensky’s government to organized crime.
An hour-long video released by the agency to detail its findings includes graphic footage of a man being assaulted in the street and another victim, bound and gagged, being brutally beaten with fists and a hammer.
Those and other violent crimes were allegedly facilitated by an SBU general identified by Ukrainian media as Sergey Duka. According to NABU, the suspect summoned SBU commandos when anti-corruption investigators arrived at his residence with a search warrant on Wednesday morning. He threatened to open fire on detectives, the agency said.
Duka allegedly played a central role in a sprawling bribery network, with several SBU officers alone receiving more than $3 million in cryptocurrency payments between October 2025 and April 2026. NABU also identified suspected accomplices within the National Police and Prosecutor General’s Office.
The alleged crime bosses enjoyed such extensive protection that they openly discussed establishing contacts with two serving government ministers who they considered bribing. They also reportedly contemplated carrying out a disfiguring acid attack against a prominent investigative journalist.
According to NABU, the bribe money came from a wide range of criminal enterprises, including Ukraine’s notorious fraudulent call centers, illegal drug trafficking, counterfeiting of euro banknotes, and kidnappings for ransom.
Investigators alleged that corrupt law enforcement officers directly facilitated the abductions by giving criminals real-time access to government surveillance systems and databases, allowing them to identify, locate, and kidnap their targets, safe from interruptions by police.
Watch RT’s report to learn more.
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Only a Beginning… Charles Malik’s vision of an emergent Pax Judaica
By David Miller | Tracking Power | November 12, 2026
In August 1949, three months after Israel joined the United Nations, Lebanon’s envoy in Washington sent his government a long report. Charles Malik, no firebrand, had signed the UN Charter and helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. His Report on the Present Situation lay largely unread until Dar An-Nahar printed it in 2002. … continue
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