Germany and UK to sign ‘historic’ defence pact – Sunday Times
RT | October 20, 2024
The UK and Germany will sign a bilateral defense agreement this week, paving the way for both nations to step up their military drills near Russia’s borders, The Sunday Times has reported.
Under the terms of the deal, Britain and Germany will cooperate on arms procurement and development, with the agreement serving as a “first step” for a larger deal between the UK and EU next year, the British newspaper reported.
The pact “is expected to enable British and German forces to conduct joint military exercises on NATO’s eastern border with Russia, most probably in Estonia and Lithuania,” The Times noted, without offering further explanation.
Britain and Germany already take part in NATO exercises, such as this year’s ‘Steadfast Defender’ drills. Conducted near Russia’s western borders, ‘Steadfast Defender’ involved 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO states, and was perceived in Moscow as open preparation for “a potential armed clash with Russia.”
In addition to these multilateral exercises, Germany already takes part in smaller-scale bilateral exercises, such as Germany’s ‘Grand Quadriga’ drills with Lithuania earlier this year, and its ‘Baltic Tiger’ maneuvers with Estonia in 2022. The Times’ article suggests that Britain could join these exercises once the new deal is signed.
British Defense Secretary John Healey told the newspaper that the deal is modeled on the 2010 Lancaster House agreement between the UK and France. Under this agreement, Britain and France pledge to create a joint expeditionary force to take part in military drills, to collaborate on developing drones and submarine technology, and to share nuclear-weapons data with each other.
During a two-day NATO summit in Brussels this week, Healey also announced that British troops stationed in Estonia will receive new drone warfare equipment and training, and that the UK will work with Germany, France, Poland and Italy to create new long-range missiles for Ukraine.
Genocidal Jewish chaplains at UK universities
Press TV – October 20, 2024
The British Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has announced a £7 million procurement process for anti-semitism training in schools, colleges and universities, where she claims there’s been a huge increase in anti-semitic incidents.
However, the statistics on which she’s relying have been provided by the Community Security Trust (CST), which has links to Israel’s overseas spy agency, Mossad.
The British government has announced that its response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine is that it will spend £7 million on tackling anti-semitism in education.
Meanwhile, the government has failed to earmark any money at all to tackle the epidemic of anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic racism whipped up by the Zionist movement.
َ£500,000 of the £7 million funding has been awarded to the University Jewish Chaplaincy, or UJC, for ‘welfare support’ for Jewish students in universities.
But what is the UJC, a kindly Jewish religious organization devoted to the welfare and spiritual needs of their students?
Unfortunately not, in fact, it’s a fully signed up Zionist organization with direct links to illegal settlements and to the genocidal occupation forces.
The UJC is a charity that is also a member of the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, JLC.
One of the directors of the UJC, Yuri Goldberg, was appointed a director of the JLC in August 2024.
Both groups are advocates of the genocidal ideology of Zionism, but perhaps the UJC is best known for its chaplain at Leeds University who was involved in the genocide in Gaza as a member of the occupation forces.
In October 2023 it emerged that he had been circulating videos of himself to Jewish students in Israeli occupation forces uniform, claiming: “No one could deny that Israel is dealing with this war with the utmost morality and good ethics”.
“What Israel is trying to do is destroy the evil, which is the most moral thing possible.”
It seems unlikely that this was conducive to the welfare of Jewish students at Leeds or elsewhere.
Zechariah Deutsch and his wife, Nava, the chaplaincy couple, had both trained for two years at Ohr Torah Stone’s Straus-Amiel Institute.
The Institute is located in Migdal Oz in the Gush Etzion settlement block in the West Bank. Ohr Torah Stone is an educational Zionist venture founded by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin in New York. He later became a settler colonist.
In November 2023, the president of Ohr Torah Stone, Riskin’s successor, Rabbi Kenneth Brander, visited the Zionist Northern Front. He was asked by the company commander to write a message to our enemies on one of the rockets used to retaliate to their attacks. In indelible black marker Brander wrote “To fulfill the mitzvah and mission of obliterating Amalek”.
Ohr Torah Stone is, in other words, a genocidal propaganda and indoctrination operation.
How the government imagines it will increase the welfare of Jewish students by giving money to genocidal Zionist extremists is unclear.
University Jewish Chaplaincy, links to illegal settlements and Israeli Occupation Forces
Leeds University is again the subject of outrage as the new chaplaincy couple are withdrawn from campus after shocking anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic posts were found on social media. The posts, mostly made by Sonia Pariente, included her view that Israeli lives were more valuable than those of Palestinians, referred to Palestinian women wearing black bags and to the Arabs of darkness.
“After October 7th I don’t differentiate between Hamas and so called Palestinians”, she wrote going on to say that “for the next 10 to 20 years, the Palestinian people will pay the bill that Hamas set today, and this bill will be paid in blood.”
Under pressure from pro-Palestine groups, the University Jewish Chaplaincy sacked them and removed their internet profile page.
The University Jewish Chaplaincy operates as a charity in the UK. It provides Jewish chaplains to universities up and down the country. Our investigations reveal that many have direct connections to illegal settlement and the occupation forces.
There are currently 17 individuals appointed in the UK, six couples and five individuals.
At Bristol, Asaf and Atara Forges are said to come from Israel, though both trained in the Straus Emil Institute of Ohr Torah Stone. This is the Gush Etzion settlement block run by an openly genocidal organization.
The Glasgow and Edinburgh chaplain, Eliran, trained at a yeshiva that is also run by Torah stone and included service in the occupation forces. His wife, Ayala Shabo, is from the illegal settlement of Efrat and attended Shalem College, in the occupied territory.
The chaplain at Nottingham, Uriya Dvir, attended two Yeshivas for a total of six years. Both were in illegal settlements. The Yeshivas combined Torah study and service in the occupation forces.
Rabbi Fishel Cohen at Birmingham is part of the genocidal Chabad cult, which believes it is justified to kill Palestinian children.
Unsurprisingly, the UJC is funded by a slew of hardline genocidal Zionists such as the convicted fraudster and founder of the Community Security Trust, Gerald Ronson, property developer David Dangoor, whose money is channeled via the Exilarch’s Foundation.
It also donates to the Islamophobic Henry Jackson society as does the Wolfson family, which owns the retailer ‘NEXT’.
The family has donated to Islamophobic think tanks, including Policy Exchange, and the Jerusalem Foundation which is directly involved in ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
The University Jewish Chaplaincy is a charity so these connections must raise questions about its ability to provide public benefit as required by law.
Police escalate the British state’s war on independent journalism
By Jonathan Cook | October 18, 2024
The UK government and police – the British state – made clear today they are waging a war of intimidation against the country’s independent journalists in a desperate attempt to silence them.
Ten Metropolitan police officers made a dawn raid on the home of investigative journalist Asa Winstanley and seized his electronic devices under the UK’s draconian Terrorism Act. A letter from the Met indicates that the associate editor of the Electronic Intifada is being investigated by the force for “encouraging terrorism”.
The raid isn’t about terrorism – except the UK government’s. It’s about scaring us into staying silent on Britain’s collusion in Israel’s genocide.
Winstanley is the latest – and most high profile – independent journalist to be targeted by counter-terrorism police in recent weeks. Earlier, Richard Medhurst was arrested at Heathrow airport on returning to the UK from a trip abroad. Then Sarah Wilkinson was arrested and her home ransacked.
Winstanley has repeatedly embarrassed the British establishment by exposing its covert and deep ties to Israel and its collusion with the Israeli lobby.
In his book Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn, Winstanley exposed in shocking detail how antisemitism was weaponised against the former Labour leader.
The book would have made uncomfortable reading for his successor, Sir Keir Starmer, now Britain’s prime minister, because it documents his role in the smear campaign.
While in opposition, Starmer’s Labour party threatened to expel Winstanley as a member – he resigned in protest instead – and have made legal threats against him.
As the Electronic Intifada website notes: “Now that Labour is the UK’s ruling party, it has the potential to use the apparatus of the state against those it views as its own – or Israel’s – political enemies.”
There is precisely no reason for police to raid Winstanley’s home or seize his electronic devices. The preposterous accusation of “encouraging terrorism” clearly relates to his online work, which is fully in the public domain.
The British state wants to insinuate through the dawn raid and confiscation of his devices that he is somehow harbouring secret or classified information, or in illicit contact with terror groups, and that incriminating evidence will be forthcoming from searches of those devices.
It won’t. If there were any real suspicion that Winstanley had such information, the police would have arrested him rather than making a public show of a 6am raid and search they knew beforehand would turn up nothing.
This isn’t about terrorism at all. It is about frightening those opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the West’s collusion in it, into silence. If the British state is going after someone like Winstanley, you are supposed to conclude, they will surely soon come for me too.
Even the name of the “counter-terrorism” raid is performative: “Operation Incessantness”. The message the state wants to send is that it will not rest till it has us all behind bars.
Don’t believe this nonsense. The police have nothing on Winstanley. Exposing information about Israel and its genocide, and the British government’s culpability, is not a crime. At least not yet.
They want you to think it is, of course. They want you scared and mute. Because every time you go out and protest, you remind the world that the British government, and their bully-boys in blue, are the real criminals – for enabling genocide.
Use of B-2 bombers against Yemen shows US panic: Yemeni source
Al Mayadeen | October 17, 2024
A senior Yemeni military source pointed out on Thursday that the use of B-2 Spirit bombers against Yemen reflects American panic over the potential loss of its aircraft in Yemeni airspace, and its fear of Yemen acquiring unexpected aerial capabilities.
Speaking to Al Mayadeen, the source stated that the British and American weapons and aircraft used to strike Yemen will not be able to neautralize the Yemeni army’s strategic capabilities, which are constantly being developed and enhanced.
“Yemen will not stop; it will continue to support Gaza and Lebanon, and the escalation will have catastrophic consequences for the Americans, the British, and their allies, and we believe they are aware of this,” the source further stressed.
The airstrikes did not target weapon depots or affect the military’s arsenal in terms of quantity and quality, with Al Mayadeen’s correspondent confirming that the aggression targeted mountains, a small communication network in Saada, and empty camps.
Additionally, the source indicated that “these strikes came after a painful blow received by the American enemy in the Red Sea, following the targeting of its commercial ships with missiles and drones that accurately hit their targets.”
US-UK aggression serves the Zionist lobby
Regarding the aggression being a means to satisfy the “Zionist lobby”, the source clarified that “the American and British failure to protect the [Israeli occupation] entity is evident, and they resort to targeting Yemen unsuccessfully. It is clear that their assessment and calculations are incorrect, and their aggression against Yemen is futile.”
Palestinian academic wins significant victory against UK university over leaked confidential details
MEMO | October 16, 2024
Prominent Palestinian academic, activist and artist Shahd Abusalama has won a significant victory and reached a settlement agreement with Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) for an undisclosed sum, including payment of 100 per cent of her legal costs. This brings an end to Dr Abusalama’s long-running legal battle in which she alleged that the university shared confidential and derogatory information about her with third parties, including politicians and the Jewish Chronicle, a community newspaper which is in crisis following the publication of fabricated stories justifying Israel’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Abusalama was born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp in the besieged Gaza Strip. In January 2022, she was appointed as a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University and, almost immediately, she faced a campaign of defamation and silencing from pro-Israel, right-wing organisations protesting against her employment. SHU subjected Dr Abusalama to multiple investigations but she was cleared of all wrongdoing in an independent report by Akua Reindorf KC. Nevertheless, the parties agreed to part ways in October 2022 in a confidential agreement.
However, according to court documents submitted on Abusalama’s behalf, between August and November 2022 SHU was preparing briefings against her to various third parties, including Members of Parliament, government ministers and the media. This information led to a damaging article published by the Jewish Chronicle on 8 November 2022, which included comments from the University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Richard Calvert, in a breach of the confidential agreement. However, the university withheld the fact that Dr Abusalama had already been exonerated by Ms Reindorf’s independent report. The Jewish Chronicle article claimed, and the university denied, that senior SHU officials had reached out to the outlet specifically to discuss Dr Abusalama’s case.
The leaked details, which included information about Dr Abusalama’s departure from SHU, were revealed in the piece alongside details of the university’s new campus in the £8 billion Brent Cross development in London.
“This case is fundamentally about the right to challenge Israel’s longstanding domination of the Palestinian people without fear of reprisal from those in positions of power,” explained Shahd Abusalama. “At a time when I thought I was agreeing to part ways with Sheffield Hallam University amicably, I now know that it was suppressing the report which exonerated me, and smearing me to disreputable outlets that legitimate Israel’s genocide of my people.”
The end of this case, she added, represents one less injustice to endure during a Western-backed Israeli genocide which has led to the displacement of her family, the burning of the family home and the killing, maiming and starvation of the Palestinian people.
“This victory is not just personal. It is a victory against attempts to silence advocates for justice in Palestine, including through the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, a tool designed to protect Israel rather than combat anti-Jewish bigotry. Although the University has failed to admit its wrongdoing verbally, its latest actions speak louder than its lack of words, in particular its agreement to pay my legal costs, usually only payable by an unsuccessful party. My case highlights the multifaceted racisms and structural vulnerability that Palestinians are subjected to in Britain on a daily basis. But it also highlights that if we organise collectively and fight back, we can win.”
Dr Abusalama was represented by Liana Wood at Leigh Day who instructed Michael Sprack. She was also supported by the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC). Her victory follows [release of] a court judgement this week that anti-Zionist comments are protected by equality law in the case of Professor David Miller, who was sacked from the University of Bristol after being accused of making anti-Semitic comments when, in fact, he is a staunch critic of the Zionist state of Israel, not the Jewish people.
Sacked Bristol professor case: UK judge says anti-Zionist views ‘worthy of respect’
Press TV – October 16, 2024
An employment tribunal in the UK has concluded that holding the belief that Israel’s actions against Palestinians amount to apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide are “worthy of respect in a democratic society.”
In February, a UK judge ruled in a landmark decision that David Miller, the producer of Press TV’s ‘Palestine Declassified’ show, who was fired from the University of Bristol in 2021 for anti-Zionist views, was unfairly dismissed and subjected to discrimination.
This week, the tribunal published its 120-page judgement, which sets out why Miller’s views were protected under anti-discrimination laws.
“Although many would vehemently and cogently disagree with [Miller]’s analysis of politics and history, others have the same or similar beliefs,” Judge Rohan Pirani said in the judgement.
“We find that he has established that [the criteria] have been met and that his belief amounted to a philosophical belief.”
Miller was dismissed in 2021 after accusing Israel of wanting to “impose [its] will all over the world.”
Following his dismissal, he launched employment tribunal proceedings claiming unfair dismissal, breach of contract and discrimination or victimization on grounds of religion or belief.
At his hearing, he made clear that anti-Zionism was not the same as anti-Semitism, and was not a “racist set of ideas.” He also described Gaza as an “open air prison.”
He said that Zionism was “ideologically bound to lead to the practices of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide in pursuit of territorial control and expansion.”
Zillur Rahman, who represented Miller, called it a “landmark case” which “marks a pivotal moment in the history of our country for those who believe in upholding the rights of Palestinians.”
The judgement noted that Miller had expertise on the subject of Zionism.
On the academic’s anti-Zionism beliefs, Pirani said, “We conclude that they have played a significant role in his life for many years. We are satisfied that they are genuinely held.”
“He is and was a committed anti-Zionist and his views on this topic have played a significant role in his life for many years.”
The panel said his beliefs were “worthy of respect in a democratic society, [are] not incompatible with human dignity and [do] not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.”
“[Miller]’s opposition to Zionism is not opposition to the idea of Jewish self-determination … but rather, as he defines it, to the exclusive realization of Jewish rights to self-determination within a land that is home to a very substantial non-Jewish population,” Pirani added.
The judgement was criticized in February by the London-based Union of Jewish Students (UJS), a body representing university Jewish societies and Jewish students.
“UJS believes this may set a dangerous precedent about what can be lawfully said on campus about Jewish students and the societies at the center of their social life. This will ultimately make Jewish students less safe,” it said.
THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT’S NOVICHOK TRIAL REVEALS A TOXIC SHOCK
By John Helmer | Dances With Bears | October 14, 2024
In the first day of public hearings directed by retired judge Anthony Hughes – titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley – the evidence compiled over six years by the police, secret services, CCTV records, and witnesses is that Novichok, identified as one of the world’s fastest acting nerve poisons, was sprayed on the front door-handle of Sergei Skripal’s house in order to kill him by direct contact.
“As each of them touched the front door-handle on the way out of the house, that they were poisoned with Novichok,” reported the judge’s chief counsel, Andrew O’Connor KC. “It was this door handle that was the source or, in their [police] term, the ground zero of the Novichok contamination”, (O’Connor page 19, line 13, page 24, line 6).
In the official narrative, it then took at least two and a half hours to act on the alleged Russian assassination targets, Sergei and Yulia Skripal, as they sat on a bench in the centre of Salisbury town after drinking at a local pub and then eating at a restaurant. That was between 1:30 pm and 4 pm on March 4, 2018. Between the prosecution’s alleged murder weapon and the attempted murder, 120 to 150 minutes had elapsed. Click to follow — O’Connor page 20-21.
This contrasts with the official narrative of the Novichok poisoning of Dawn Sturgess on June 30, 2018, that between contact with the poison and her fatal heart attack the elapsed interval was “between about 9.30 and 10 o’clock that morning” — less than 30 minutes. Follow at https://docs.google.com/viewer?docex=1&url=https://dsiweb-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/Transcript-14-October-2024.pdf, line 24.
The evidence of the two assassins – Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov — charged with attempted murder of the Skripals includes “plentiful evidence of their movements and actions and we will review it in detail during the coming hearings. The evidence is complex and of course the detail matters. For today’s purposes, I propose simply to outline the effect of the CCTV evidence regarding Petrov and Boshirov’s movements in the course of their two visits to Salisbury.”
In the summary presented to Hughes’ courtroom for the first time of CCTV imagery, there is no evidence at all that the assassins came close to the Skripal house, neither on their first walking tour of the town on March 3, nor on the following fateful day, March 4.
“Of course the detail matters” – but there is no fresh evidence of how close or how far the alleged assassins came to the Skripal house. All that is now alleged in the photographic and map displays presented during the hearing is that “both Petrov and Boshirov and the Skripals are in very much the same area at very much the same time. One has to aim off course because two of them are on foot and then there’s the car. But it does seem at least possible that Boshirov and Petrov may even have been in the vicinity of Sergei Skripal’s house at the time that the Skripals were leaving.”
For the inquiry team and its police and government sources, O’Connor admitted the CCTV evidence for the allegation that Boshirov and Petrov sprayed their poison on the Skripal door-handle is missing. “They were then lost from the view of CCTV cameras for 31 minutes before they re-emerged at the junction of the High Street and Bridge Street — that’s the blue marking to the right that you can see there – and walked back towards the station. You will hear evidence, sir, as to where they might have been and what they might have done during that 31-minute period.”
The closest the official evidence against the Russians can place them to the Skripal door-handle is at a street roundabout where Wilton Road and Devizes Road intersect.
The roundabout is at lower right of the map – source: https://dsiweb-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/
According to the map scale, the distance from the roundabout to the Skripal house is about 700 metres as the crow flies. To reach it on foot is a distance of about 1 kilometre.
“It is about half a mile from the roundabout, is Christie Miller Road where Sergei Skripal’s house was located.” O’Connor said; click to read at page 43, line 3. Half a mile, or 800 metres, is beyond the range of all known lethal poison spray technologies, even Russian.
To connect the assassins to their murder act the summary British evidence is revealed in four phrases – “at least possible”, “may even have been”, “might have been”, and “might have done”. By the British legal and courtroom standards of “beyond reasonable doubt” and “balance of probabilities”, these admissions reveal the trial of the Russian Novichok is based on speculation which a judge would be required to order the jury to disregard as inadmissible.
The counsel to the Inquiry then read out a Russian Embassy statement: “‘It has never been explained how it was possible for the Skripals to lose consciousness simultaneously several hours after coming into contact with the nerve agent, despite them being persons of different age, gender and body constitution.’ Then again in the final paragraph: ‘It has never been explained why not a single person providing first aid and further medical assistance to the Skripals ever developed any signs or symptoms of nerve agent poisoning, even if the nature of the poisoning was not known at least for two days.’”
For the time being, O’Conner told his judge, “So we will carefully explore all the issues that have been raised with the witnesses who are called to give evidence in the coming weeks.”
Follow the hearings in their improbable detail at the Sturgess Inquiry website.
For the only book of the case evidence tested at the British legal standards, click here.
Doctors win libel case against British tabloid
Malcolm Kendrick MD and Zoë Harcombe PhD win libel case
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | October 13, 2024
In a David and Goliath battle, two doctors have won a libel case against a British tabloid and journalist Barney Calman, in what the judge described as “the most significant piece of defamation litigation” he had seen in a very long time.
The UK’s High Court found that Calman and his publishers, Associated Newspapers Ltd, had falsely accused Malcolm Kendrick MD and Zoë Harcombe PhD of deliberately making false statements about statin drugs and putting many people at risk of heart attacks and strokes, with far graver consequences than the MMR scandal.
Further, Calman’s article inappropriately branded the two doctors as dishonest brokers, who were focused on the business of selling books that downplay the role of cholesterol in heart disease.
Barney Calman, journalist at Associated Newspapers Ltd
Calman and his publishers refused to apologise, remove or alter the offending articles which were published in March 2019, so Kendrick and Harcombe sued for libel arguing the articles “caused serious harm” to their reputations.
Calman and his publishers claimed the articles were “honest opinion” published in the public interest, and therefore protected under the Defamation Act 2013. But Justice Matthew Nicklin denied them a public interest defence in June 2024. (See previous coverage)
Since then, the publishers decided not to appeal the decision.
Today, the Mail Online issued an apology to Kendrick and Harcombe, conceding that the allegations it printed were “untrue and ought not to have been published.”
It added, “We are happy to set the record straight, and apologise to Dr Harcombe and Dr Kendrick for the distress caused. We will not repeat the allegations and have agreed to pay substantial damages and costs.”
In response to the announcement, Dr Zoë Harcombe said, “I’m delighted to say it’s finally over. Malcolm and I are so grateful to those who made this possible – especially our legal team Claire & Dominic at Carter-Ruck and Adrienne & Godwin at 5RB.”
The offending articles have been removed from the website. The case serves as a stark warning to journalists who use their platform to try and discredit those who challenge orthodoxy.
See the full apology (below).
If Green Energy Is the Future, Bring a Fire Extinguisher
Lithium batteries keep bursting into flames
By Steve Goreham | Climate Depot | October 7, 2024
Alternative energy is exploding—literally. Lithium battery fires are breaking out on highways and in factories, home garages and storage rooms. The rise in these fires is caused by government efforts to force the adoption of “green” energy.
Lithium batteries have high energy density, making them valuable for phones and portable appliances. But when they catch fire, they burn with high heat and can even blow up. That’s why airlines prohibit lithium batteries in checked baggage.
On June 24 a battery factory in Hwaseong, South Korea, caught fire, triggering explosions and killing 22 workers. Experts estimate that most were killed by toxic gases emitted by the burning batteries.
Scotland has suffered two major fires in battery-recycling centers this year. On April 8 a large fire broke out at Fenix Battery Recycling in Kilwinning. More than 40 firefighters and personnel from six different stations responded to the blaze, which burned for several days. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service urged nearby residents to remain indoors with windows closed as long as two days after the fire started.
On June 23 a large fire broke out at the battery-recycling facility of WEEE Solutions in Glasgow. Eyewitnesses reported explosions, noises like gunshots, “steel flying everywhere” and a huge plume of black smoke. Ten fire trucks were needed, and the blaze lasted four days.
E-bike battery fires are a leading cause of fires in New York City, causing 270 blazes last year and killing 18 people. These have become a serious problem in Australia, Canada and other nations as well. E-bicyclists often store their bikes in first-floor storerooms, where they can self-ignite and destroy the buildings. Even high-quality batteries are prone to self-ignition after damage or when connected to a faulty charging system.
Lithium batteries have been used for the past 30 years in phones and small appliances. But the introduction of electric cars led to a massive increase in battery size—and potential destructiveness. On Aug. 19 a Tesla semi truck crashed into trees along Interstate 80 in California. The crash ignited the truck’s large lithium battery. Firefighters required 50,000 gallons of water to extinguish the flames, and the highway was closed for 15 hours. The California Advanced Clean Fleets regulation passed last year requires all new semi trucks to be zero-emissions vehicles by 2036, which in practice means electric trucks with batteries prone to fire.
Automakers have contended with lithium-battery fires for more than a decade. Alfa Romeo, BMW, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Porsche, Tesla and other manufacturers have recalled millions of EVs because of battery-fire problems. Batteries can self-ignite while the vehicle is in motion, when connected to a charger, or even when sitting in a parking lot. EVs prone to self-ignition have been banned from parking lots in China, South Korea and across the U.S.
On Aug. 24 a fire broke out in the parking lot of EV manufacturer Rivian in Normal, Ill. More than 50 vehicles were destroyed. The same plant also reportedly suffered three other battery fires in the last year and three more in 2021-22.
On July 26 a truck containing several large lithium batteries ignited after a crash on Interstate 15 near Baker, Calif. The road was shut down for 44 hours as firefighters worked to put out the blaze. Hundreds of motorists were stranded in the desert in 100-degree heat. Ambulances and medical teams with fuel and water were dispatched to the site to help stranded motorists.
How are governments responding to the rash of battery fires? They are doubling down, promoting the use of even larger high-density lithium batteries as part of their efforts to phase out coal, oil and natural gas in favor of wind and solar energy.
Grid-scale batteries are viewed as the solution to wind and solar intermittency. They store excess electricity when wind and solar output is high and release it when wind and solar output is low. The number of grid battery fires is growing, and grid batteries are hundreds of times the size of EV batteries.
Hungarian FM reveals he saw the peace treaty ready to sign between Ukraine and Russia. Here’s why it was never signed.
Remix News | October 10, 2024
In a new interview with Hungarian newspaper Mandiner, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó reveals that he actually saw the finished peace treaty that would have ended the war between Ukraine and Russia. He said that all that was missing were the signatures of the two warring parties. He explains why peace never came, laying the blame firmly on the West.
At the end of March, beginning of April 2022, an agreement was almost reached at the peace talks, known as the Istanbul agreements.
“I saw the document that was almost signed, and which, according to the realities of the time, would have ended the war. What happened? The Westerners came and told the Ukrainians to keep fighting, no agreement should be accepted,” said Hungary’s foreign minister.
The decision to prolong the war, which was backed by the West, has had profound global implications and led to hundreds of thousands of deaths across Russia and Ukraine, along with a catastrophic effect on Ukraine’s birth rate and demographic outlook. It has also fueled inflation and economic certainty across Europe.
Szijjártó noted that although the goal of the EU leaders was to bring Russia to its knees at the beginning of 2022, this has not happened to date. He notes that people are dying on the frontlines every day, while the parties have not come any closer to peace.
According to David Arahamiya, the leader of Ukraine’s ruling party, Ukraine was ready to sign the document when Western leaders saw a draft of the negotiations. The Ukrainian politician said then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson allegedly worked hard to nix the potential peace agreement.
Szijjártó says Hungary backs the China-Brazil peace plan and noted that only three countries, Hungary, France and Switzerland, were invited to the inaugural meeting of the Friends of Peace group organized by them.
Why is the ‘liberal’ media peddling the vilest genocide apologism?
A phalanx of the UK’s most influential journalists brought this odious article to print, decrying as a ‘blood libel’ the reporting of Israel’s killing of thousands of children in Gaza
By Jonathan Cook | October 6, 2024
I can’t put this strongly enough. Howard Jacobson’s article in today’s Observer newspaper may be one the vilest pieces of journalism published in Britain in living memory, arguing that any reporting of Israel’s documented slaughter of many thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza is a “blood libel” and antisemitic. It is pure genocide apologism.
But far worse is the fact that the Guardian Media Group signed off his column. This isn’t the work of one Zionist loon. A whole army of journalists brought it to print.
And note: Jacobson, odious as he is, isn’t responsible for the choice of photo. That is entirely down to the Observer newsroom.
I worked at both the Guardian and the Observer, its Sunday sister paper, for many years. The comment editor, the photo editor, the revise sub-editor, the Observer’s chief editor and all the section heads would have approved not only Jacobson’s text but that photo too.
What on earth did they all imagine that “illustrative” photo of a blood-smeared doll suggested?
- That the many thousands of children blown to pieces by Israeli bombs are a fiction.
- That all the children decomposing under rubble are made up.
- That all the unidentified children buried in Gaza’s sands are a lie.
- That all the children dying of epidemics like polio or starving to death from Israel’s aid blockade are an invention.
That any single journalist imagined for a moment that this was an acceptable article or photo in the midst of a genocide is astounding enough.
But that a whole phalanx of the most influential and “liberal” journalists in the country backed it without a second thought tells us something about the depraved culture that passes for journalism in the western establishment media.
These elite journalists are completely divorced from reality. They have no moral core, they live and work as fanatical ideologues for western supremacism. They are as racist as their forebears who cheerled Britain’s subjugation and colonisation of the rest of the globe.
There is no hope of ever having a healthy world as long as these war-mongers and genocide apologists are allowed to remain in charge of shaping our consciousness.
Featured Video
Midazolam and morphine deaths
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Evidence for the German Euthanasia Program Compared to the Holocaust
NS Euthanasia Propaganda Poster, around 1938. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
By John Wear | Inconvenient History | August 31, 2017
I have been asked the question: Why do you think the German euthanasia program happened during World War II, but not the Holocaust? This article will show that the evidence for the German euthanasia program is overwhelming, while the evidence to support the Holocaust story is severely lacking. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- What’s Ukraine Really After by Striking Russia’s Marketplace Warehouses?
- Greece approves purchase of $4bn Israeli air defense system
- Prevent the Great War
- No route around Hormuz: Why West Asia’s pipeline alternatives fall short
- The Iran war may go down as the US’ worst ever defeat
- US-Saudi nuclear pantomime is with eye on Iran
- Ex-Indian envoy: US showed ‘scant regard’ for India in attack on Iranian frigate
- IRGC finishes off Amazon data center, says US fatalities in hundreds
- Col Douglas Macgregor: Iran May Seize Kuwait ON THE GROUND
- US Army turns to older PAC-2 Patriot missiles as war against Iran drains stockpiles
- If Americans Knew
- US House passes $1.15 trillion military bill expanding Israel cooperation
- Gaza teeters on the edge of famine (again) – Daily Update
- ISRAELI MEDIA: ‘An Inferno’: Gazans Face Sweltering Conditions in Tent Camps for Third Summer in a Row
- Israel’s Coordinated Campaign to Propagandize Conservatives in America
- The Israeli Spy Behind PragerU’s Plan to Rewrite American Education To Indoctrinate Children
- The President of the World Jewish Congress just sent a warning to every Potential AMERICA FIRST Candidate wishing to run for U.S. Congress
- Life in displacement tents under Gaza’s summer sun is “an inferno” – Daily Update
- Israel targets X users, right-wing media with $2 million ad push
- ‘Our role is to hold on’: Palestinian artists in Israel after October 7
- ‘My Father Is a Hero’: Detained Palestinian Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s Son Speaks to Zeteo
- No Tricks Zone
- Greenland’s Ice Sheet Was Supposed To Be Rapidly Melting Away. It Hasn’t Been.
- Global Temperature Trend Has Cooled Over The Past 6500 Years, Scientists Have Found
- Wind Energy Means Going Back To The Middle Ages, Says German Professor Horst-Joachim Lüdecke
- New Study: A 40-Fold Increase In Earth’s Main Greenhouse Gas Contributes To Cooling The Ocean
- New Study Highlights The ‘Dominant Role’ Of Aerosol/Cloud Interactions In Shaping Climate
- Munich’s First-Ever Green Party Mayor Declares First Ever City Water Use Restrictions… Fines Up to 50,000 €!
- Experimental Lab Research: The Climate Sensitivity To A 400-Fold Increase In CO2 Is 0.1°C
- Fatal Snobbery: In France, It’s Better To Die From A Heatwave Than To Do As Americans
- New Study: NASA’s Models Wildly Underestimate The Capacity Of Clouds To Alter Solar Radiation
- Polar Freezeover: Western Arctic Early July Sea Ice Exceeds 1980s Average
Aletho News 