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Pistol

Best of the Web: How Israeli forces trapped and killed ravers at the Nova Festival

victims
New evidence points to Israeli security forces, not Hamas, for causing the most fatalities at the music festival - civilian deaths that were then utilized to justify Tel Aviv's Gaza genocide.

Israeli officials allege that Hamas carried out a pre-mediated and carefully executed massacre of 364 Israeli civilians at the Nova music festival near Gaza on 7 October as part of the Palestinian resistance's Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. They claim that Hamas and other Palestinians had hours to murder Israeli partygoers before the army reached the scene.

However, new details have emerged showing that Israel's Border Police was deployed at the Nova site before Hamas stumbled on the festival, causing the eruption of a major battle.

While some ravers were indeed killed by the Palestinian resistance - whether by intent or in the chaos of battle - the evidence now suggests that the majority of civilian deaths were likely inflicted by Israeli forces themselves.

This was due to the overwhelming firepower employed by occupation forces - including from Apache attack helicopters - and because Tel Aviv issued the controversial Hannibal Directive to prevent Hamas from taking Israeli party-goers as captives.

Comment: Hannibal Directive, Israel on mark: four minutes and counting...


Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Toddlers gang-raped in Texas mall bathroom, co-worker of mother arrested


Comment: Scumbags.


Arthur Hector Fernandez
Arthur Hector Fernandez, 29, is accused of leading a gang of pedophiles who filmed themselves raping two toddlers in a Texas mall bathroom
Two toddlers were gang-raped in a shopping center bathroom while their mothers believed their alleged pedophile co-worker was looking after them.

Arthur Hector Fernandez, 29, a shop worker at the Galleria mall in Houston, is accused of being the ringleader of at least seven men who abused the infants.

He then allegedly posted four videos he filmed of the horrific abuse of the two-year-old boys on evil corners of the dark web for fellow pedophiles.

Comment: Hell is fast becoming empty: A news report:




Cardboard Box

Best of the Web: US government debt biggest threat to global economy - Russian NGO

The burden is unsustainable and could destabilize the financial system, Roscongress has warned
USCap
© Chansak JoeUS Capitol, Washington DC
US government debt and Washington's budget deficit present the biggest threats to the global economy this year, Russian government agency Roscongress has warned.

The $34 trillion owed by Washington is mathematically impossible to pay off, Roscongress has claimed in a report it published on Wednesday. The agency based its estimate on the current ratio between the size of the debt, the rate at which it is growing, and budget revenues.

"The excessive debt was accumulated at low rates but needs to be refinanced at high rates that limit economic activity and reduce cash flow. In the medium term, the servicing of US debt will cost $1 trillion a year," reads the report, titled 'Key Events - 2024. Geoeconomics. Forecasts. Major risks'.

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: US & UK launch strikes on Yemen, Houthis warn Red Sea blockade will expand to include ships of any country that attacks - UPDATES

yemen houthi
The Houthi military helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea in November. Joint US and British forces shot down 18 drones and three missiles launched by the Houthis late Tuesday, in what was described as their biggest attack so far in solidarity with Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza
The US and the UK are ready to carry out airstrikes against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as early as tonight - after both countries warned there could be consequences if ships are continually targeted in the Red Sea.

Joint US and British forces shot down 18 drones and three missiles launched by the Houthis late Tuesday, in what was described as their biggest attack so far in solidarity with Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Antony Blinken warned of 'consequences' if the Houthi do not stop attacking ships in the Red Sea, and called on Iran to end their support for the rebels.

Comment: UPDATE: Friday 12th January @ 00:40 GMT

Air Space Forces Magazine reports:
American and British aircraft and warships launched cruise missiles and airstrikes against multiple targets in Houthi-controlled Yemen on Jan. 11, in response to continuing attacks on commercial shipping, a U.S. official said.

"Tonight, a multinational force, including the US military conducted strikes in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. We will have more details to share soon share soon," a defense official added.

The strikes were aimed at more than a dozen targets.
Footage of the strikes:




Alleged footage of Yemen responding:


President Biden was, unsurprisingly, unavailable to make a live statement, choosing to issue a press release instead, and US commentators have taken to the mainstream media to voice their concern:



See also: Iran warns it could cut off Mediterranean Sea as France, Spain and Italy pull out of Red Sea Op - Israeli vessel hit off India's coast


A few thoughts on the US and UK's plans to imminently bomb Yemen in retaliation for Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, which the Houthis have struck to pressure Israel to cease its slaughter in Gaza.

First of all, the UN resolution that condemns the Houthis does not authorize the use of force, though it acknowledges the right of self-defense for the countries whose vessels have been attacked.

Secondly, if the objective is to stop Houthi attacks without escalating matters toward a full war, then bombing them has proven quite inefficient in the past. Just ask the the Saudis.

Moreover, bombing them very likely will escalate matters, which means that not only will the attacks not be stopped, but the broader war that Biden seeks to prevent will likely become a reality.

Indeed, if the objective is to stop them, a ceasefire in Gaza is far more likely to succeed. The Houthis have declared that they will stop if Israel stops, and during the 6 days there was a ceasefire (in November), there was only one attack in the Red Sea that can be attributed to the Houthis.

A ceasefire would also pacify tensions in Iraq/Syria vis-a-vis the US, not to mention win the release of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

The question then is why the US and the UK are so adamant about rejecting the policy that is most likely to succeed and instead pursuing the policy that is the most likely to escalate matters even further?

This shows, once more, that for every day that there is no ceasefire in Gaza, we will move closer and closer to the war spreading and the US once again fighting a war of choice in the Middle East.//


'The press room in The Hague watches a video shown to the judges by a South African team in the adjacent courtroom, in which Israeli soldiers dance and sing for the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.'








Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Ecuador 'at war' with drug gangs, says president as violence continues

soldiers
© Agencia Press South/Getty ImagesSoldiers on guard in Quito as the violence has left the city streets almost deserted.
Daniel Noboa designates nearly two dozen gangs as terrorist groups after wave of violence across country...

Ecuador's president, Daniel Noboa, said on Wednesday that his country was "at war" with drug gangs who are holding more than 130 prison staff hostage and who briefly captured a TV station live on air, in a wave of violence that has left city streets deserted.

At least 10 people have been killed, including police officers, in the attacks.

In images that went around the world, gunmen stormed a TV station during a live broadcast on Tuesday before being captured by police special forces.

Videos posted on social media showed a gruesome series of other attacks including car bombs, the murder of police officers in the street, the apparent lynching of prison guards and attempted takeovers of hospitals and a university in Guayaquil. The Ecuadorian police confirmed two officers had been killed.

Comment: See also:


Attention

Best of the Web: UK life expectancy crashes to lowest level since 2010, Maternity deaths highest in 20 years, following lockdowns & vaccine roll out

iceland vaccination site
FILE: Queue for Covid injections in Iceland.
Life expectancy in the UK has fallen for both males and females, with the reduction driven mainly by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

A boy born between 2020 and 2022 is expected to live until he is 78.6 years old, while a girl born in that period is expected to live for 82.6 years, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

This compares to children born between 2017 and 2019, with life expectancy having fallen by 38 weeks from 79.3 years for males born in that period and by 23 weeks from 83.0 years for females.

Comment: ITV also reports that, shockingly, maternity deaths are the highest in 20 years, and this comes amidst data showing that, during and following lockdowns, birth rates across the West have either remained stagnant or fallen.

Meanwhile STDs are soaring. Notably, pregnant women were recommended to get injected and there were unusual spikes in miscarriages and infant deaths during, and following, lockdowns:
The number of women dying during pregnancy or soon after childbirth has reached its highest level in almost 20 years, according to data from a major UK study.

Experts said the figures raise "further concern" about maternity services and called for matters such as pre-pregnancy health and personalised care to be "prioritised as a matter of urgency".

MBRRACE-UK, which conducts surveillance and investigates the causes of maternal deaths, stillbirths and infant deaths as part of the national Maternal, Newborn and Infant clinical Outcome Review Programme (MNI-CORP), said there were 13.41 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies reported from 2020 to 2022.

Excluding deaths from Covid-19 - which was the second most common cause - the maternal death rate for the period was 11.54 per 100,000.


It's highly unlikely that Covid-19 caused many, if any, of those deaths.


This is up from 8.79 per 100,000 in 2017 to 2019.

The main cause of death in women who died during pregnancy or within six weeks of their pregnancy ending was thrombosis and thromboembolism, or blood clots in the veins.

Heart disease and deaths related to poor mental health were also common.


Considering the findings described by doctors and coroners regarding the life threatening clotting issues caused by the injections, that finding is damning.


The figures were released ahead of the publication of the 2024 Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care report.

The 2023 report, which was published in October, "identified clear examples of maternity systems under pressure", according to Professor Marian Knight, director of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit and MBRRACE-UK maternal reporting lead.

She added that the latest "increase in maternal mortality raises further concern".

"Ensuring pre-pregnancy health, including tackling conditions such as overweight and obesity, as well as critical actions to work towards more inclusive and personalised care, need to be prioritised as a matter of urgency now more than ever," Professor Knight said.

The maternal death rate among black women decreased slightly compared to 2019 to 2021, although black women remained three times more likely to die compared to white women.
[...]

Maternity and neonatal services

"The NHS has also introduced maternal medical networks and specialist centres, which are a vital step in improving the identification and management of potentially fatal medical conditions in pregnancy, wherever a woman receives care, and to ensure England continues to improve in its position as one of the safest countries in the world to give birth. [...]
A few years prior to the contrived coronavirus crisis, life expectancy was stalling, and in some cases falling for the country's poor, due to the government's austerity cuts following the financial collapse of 2008, however, it was after the lockdowns and the roll out of the experimental covid injections that life expectancy for everyone began crashing, which is actually contrary to what we were told the two brutal policies would achieve.

Data from New Zealand's whistleblower shows when the uptick in deaths began there, and which has been found to be similar across much of the West:

(2021) Study finds life expectancy of US men dropped by over TWO YEARS since lockdowns were introduced - 6 month drop recorded in other Western countries


Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Haifa missile strike by Iraqi resistance exposes how fragile Israeli regime is

north israel iraq missile strike haifa
© PressTVThe Iraqi resistance struck Haifa with a long-range cruise missile, named al-Arqab, from Iraqi territory.
In yet another significant act of solidarity with the people of Gaza, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq on Sunday struck "a vital target in occupied Haifa" with an advanced long-range cruise missile, grabbing headlines and taking the embattled regime in Tel Aviv by another surprise.

In a statement, the Iraqi resistance emphasized that the operation was carried out because of "our ongoing support for people in Gaza," who have been reeling under the Israeli aggression since Oct. 7.

The statement added that the operation was "in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and the elderly."

The Iraqi resistance, which has in recent months launched a string of attacks on US military bases in Iraq and Syria, said it will continue to hit enemy strongholds, warning that "more is yet to come".

Bullseye

Best of the Web: Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy 'Hamas mass rape' report

new york times building grayzone logo
© The Grayzone
After dismantling a New York Times front page feature alleging "a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7" by Hamas, The Grayzone is demanding answers of the paper for its journalistic malpractice.

The following was submitted to New York Times editors and lead author, Jeffrey Gettleman.

The Grayzone has identified serious issues with the credibility of key sources quoted in the New York Times' December 28 story, "Screams Without Words: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on October 7." Authored by Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz, and Adam Sella, the article purports to prove "a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7" than even Israeli authorities have been willing to allege . However, the Times report is marred by sensationalism, wild leaps of logic, and an absence of concrete evidence to support its sweeping conclusion.

The Times has come under fire from family members of Gal Abdush, the so-called "girl in the black dress" who features as Exhibit A in Gettleman and company's attempt to demonstrate a pattern of rape by Hamas on October 7. Not only have Abdush's sister and brother-in-law each denied that she was raped, the former has accused the Times of manipulating her family into participating by misleading them about their editorial angle. Though the family's comments have sparked a major uproar on social media, the Times has yet to address the serious breach of journalistic integrity that its staff is accused of committing.

TV

Best of the Web: Armed gang storms Ecuador TV studio after state of emergency declared - military deployed to 'neutralize narco-terrorist' groups

ecuador tv
Gunmen forced crew members of the TC broadcaster onto the ground
A live broadcast by Ecuadorean television station TC was interrupted by a group of armed people who forced staff to lie and sit on the floor, as shots and yelling were heard. The country's president has declared 22 gangs as terrorist organisations and said that the country is in a state of "internal armed conflict".

The people, wearing balaclavas and largely dressed in black, were seen wielding large guns and accosting huddled staffers on the live feed, which eventually cut out on Tuesday. It is unclear if any station personnel were injured.

Some of the invaders gestured at the camera and someone could be heard yelling "no police".

Comment: Check out the following account's thread for more astonishing footage of the events unfolding:








Snakes in Suits

Best of the Web: Fraud: Academic celebrity Neri Oxman plagiarized from Wikipedia, scholars, a textbook, and other sources without any attribution

Neri Oxman
© Steven Ferdman/Getty Images
Neri Oxman, a former MIT professor and celebrity within the world of academia, stole sentences and whole paragraphs from Wikipedia, other scholars, and technical documents in her academic writing, Business Insider has found.

Oxman is married to billionaire Pershing Square Capital Management founder Bill Ackman, who has been vociferously campaigning for numerous university presidents to resign over what he perceives as their mishandling of student protests related to Israel's war in Gaza. Ackman has termed plagiarism a "very serious" offense.

He used revelations unearthed by right-wing activists that Harvard president Claudine Gay had plagiarized dozens of times across the body of her academic work to underscore his calls for her resignation. Gay stepped down on Tuesday.

On Thursday, Business Insider identified four instances in which Oxman had lifted passages from other scholars' work in her doctoral dissertation, completed at MIT in 2010. Three of those were passages where she should have used quotation marks but did not, and one included language from another author without any citation. In a post on X, Oxman admitted the plagiarism, apologized, and said she would review the primary sources and request corrections as needed.