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The UN Human Rights Council passed its first ever resolution on Thursday 4 April over tackling discrimination against intersex people, despite opposition from several countries to the terminology used. The resolution passed in the 47-member council with 24 votes in favour, none against and 23 abstentions.

read more: https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-news/2024/04/04/intersex-people-un-resolution/

For months, Israel has been forcing Palestinians in northern Gaza to starve on a tiny fraction of their regular daily calorie needs, a report finds as experts warn of an unprecedented widespread famine across the region.

A new Oxfam analysis has found that, since January, people in northern Gaza have had access to less than 12 percent of the 2,100 calories they need per day on average. This is equivalent to an average of only 245 calories per day — fewer calories than are in a can of fava beans, or about a single cup of cooked rice.

“Before the war, we were in good health and had strong bodies,” one mother who is trapped in northern Gaza told Oxfam. “Now, looking at my children and myself, we have lost so much weight since we do not eat any proper food, we are trying to eat whatever we find — edible wild plants or herbs daily just to survive.”

The lack of food is being caused by Israel’s blockade of all forms of humanitarian aid into Gaza, which is only expected to get worse in coming weeks. Israel has informed the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) that it will no longer allow any food shipments into northern Gaza. Meanwhile, after Israel bombed a convoy of international food aid workers with World Central Kitchen earlier this week, killing seven of them, a number of other food aid groups have announced that they are stopping their efforts in Gaza because of the high risk of being killed by Israeli forces.

This downturn in food aid shipments comes as international food insecurity researchers have warned that half of the population of Gaza, or about 1.1 million people, are at imminent risk of famine, with the entire population already facing a food crisis. Israel’s famine campaign in Gaza has no precedent in modern times in terms of speed and severity, experts have repeatedly warned, and dozens of children have already starved to death as Israel’s genocide goes on.

read more: https://truthout.org/articles/palestinians-in-northern-gaza-only-have-access-to-245-calories-a-day/

Swiss federal ministers are giving up their free annual ski passes worth around $4,000.

Switzerland recently voted in favor of a referendum for greater social welfare that was opposed by the majority right-wing coalition government, which warned against the roughly $5 billion cost.

Social media posts noted that government officials received perks like $200,000 pensions and, notably, free ski lift passes for Swiss slopes every year.

read more: https://www.semafor.com/article/04/03/2024/swiss-federal-ministers-are-giving-up-their-free-ski-passes

HO CHI MINH CITY, Apr 3 2024 (IPS) - In recent months, several European representatives embarked on trade missions to Vietnam. German President Steinmeier visited Hanoi in January. The Netherlands sent Prime Minister Mark Rutte, with the Dutch royal couple, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima, soon to follow suit. Notably, the Netherlands stands as the most significant European investor in Vietnam.

Additionally, official delegations from the US and China have engaged in discussions with Vietnam regarding economic cooperation.

According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment, the country attracted nearly US$36.61 billion of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in 2023, marking a notable increase of over 32 percent compared to the previous year.

What factors contribute to this success? Vietnam, having emerged from a tumultuous history that included a war with the United States until the 1970s and continuing under communist leadership, has made significant strides. European entrepreneurs share their experiences in this thriving Southeast Asian nation.

read more: https://www.ipsnews.net/2024/04/tensions-china-drive-investors-towards-vietnam/

Landfills are the third-biggest source of U.S. methane emissions. But leaks of the potent greenhouse gas are often undetected due to monitoring blindspots.

A landfill is a place of perpetual motion, where mountains of garbage rise in days and crews race to contain the influx of ever more trash. Amid the commotion, an invisible gas often escapes unnoticed, warming the planet and harming our health: methane.

Last week, the climate-data sleuths at Carbon Mapper published a study in Science that shows U.S. landfills emit methane at levels at least 40 percent higher than previously reported to the Environmental Protection Agency. At more than half of the hundreds of garbage dumps surveyed — in the largest assessment yet of such emissions — most of the pollution flowed from leaks, creating concentrated plumes. The researchers found these super-emitting points can persist for months or even years, and account for almost 90 percent of all measured methane from the landfills. Tackling these hotspots could be a huge stride toward lowering emission rates, but blindspots in current monitoring protocols mean they often evade detection.

“It’s a very hard problem to get totally right without any leaks at any place,” said Daniel Cusworth, an atmospheric chemist and project scientist for Carbon Mapper, a nonprofit that provides data to inform greenhouse gas reduction efforts. Sometimes Cusworth conducts aerial surveys of landfills and is relieved to find nothing. ​“And then other times, you know, I’ll see a massive billowing plume that’s three kilometers long.”

read more: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/emissions-reduction/us-landfills-emit-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought

The Israeli army is making heavy use of an artificial intelligence (AI) system that mass-generates assassination targets in Gaza in order to reach certain thresholds of killing of Palestinians every day, a new explosive report finds. This AI generated information is used by the military to kill targets as soon as they step into their homes, all but ensuring “collateral” deaths of non-targets and families.

According to a sprawling investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call, the AI system, called “Lavender,” has created as many as 37,000 Palestinian targets since October 7, using information like visual characteristics, cellular phone activity, social networks, and more, in order to mark Palestinians as supposed Hamas operatives.

Sources said that the goal of the technology isn’t accuracy, but to automatically generate as many targets as possible for the military to kill, with little to no oversight by humans to determine the legitimacy of the targets. Officers were under pressure by military higher-ups to approve as many targets as possible; if there were days where there were fewer targets, sources said higher-ups would press officers to produce more.

“In a day without targets [whose feature rating was sufficient to authorize a strike], we attacked at a lower threshold. We were constantly being pressured: ‘Bring us more targets.’ They really shouted at us. We finished [killing] our targets very quickly,” one source, identified only as B., told +972 and Local Call.

“One day, totally of my own accord, I added something like 1,200 new targets to the [tracking] system, because the number of attacks [we were conducting] decreased,” said another anonymized source. “That made sense to me. In retrospect, it seems like a serious decision I made. And such decisions were not made at high levels.”

read more: https://truthout.org/articles/report-israeli-army-uses-ai-to-produce-palestinian-targets-for-assassination/

NEW YORK (AP) — Inmates in New York are suing the state corrections department over the decision to lock down prisons during next Monday’s total solar eclipse.

The suit filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York argues that the April 8 lockdown violates inmates’ constitutional rights to practice their faiths by preventing them from taking part in a religiously significant event.

The plaintiffs are six men with varying religious backgrounds who are incarcerated at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Woodbourne. They include a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-Day Adventist and two practitioners of Santeria, as well as an atheist.

“A solar eclipse is a rare, natural phenomenon with great religious significance to many,” the complaint reads, noting that Bible passages describe an eclipse-like phenomenon during Jesus’ crucifixion while sacred Islamic works describes a similar event when the Prophet Muhammad’s son died.

read more: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/new-york-inmates-are-suing-to-watch-the-solar-eclipse-after-state-orders-prisons-locked-down

According to Haaretz, the “underreported announcement” came after “pressure from members of the far-left France Unbowed party,” as well as the release of “various unverified videos” on social media platforms which show Israeli soldiers “engaged in illegal acts against prisoners of war.”

France’s Foreign Ministry announced “its intention to pursue legal action” against French nationals serving in the Israeli army who may be complicit in war crimes being committed in the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The paper said that the “underreported announcement” last month came after “pressure from members of the far-left France Unbowed party,” as well as the release of “various unverified videos” on social media platforms which show Israeli soldiers “engaged in illegal acts against prisoners of war.”

In one video, soldiers are seen surrounding blindfolded detainees, all wearing white overalls, and whose hands are tied behind their backs.

The person filming is heard insulting the detainees in French, saying: “Did you see those motherf*****s, my nephew, those sons of removed?”

He then laughs and continues, “Look, he’s pissed himself. I’ll show you his back. You’ll laugh – they tortured him to make him talk. Did you see his back?”

The detainees are seen being taken off the back of a truck, and the footage also shows the detainee’s scarred back.

read more: https://www.palestinechronicle.com/france-intends-legal-action-against-french-israeli-soldiers-complicit-in-gaza-war-crimes-report/

The Northwest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, is the only for-profit detention center in the state and one of the largest immigrant detention centers in the Western U.S. Also known as the Northwest Detention Center, its documented history of human rights violations includes withholding medical care and excessive use of solitary confinement. On March 7, Charles Leo Daniel, an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago with a history of mental illness, committed suicide there after spending more than three years in solitary confinement. Since then, multiple detainees have attempted suicide, and more than 200 others went on a hunger strike in solidarity.

The Northwest Detention Center is not unique: There are nearly 40,000 people in more than 200 immigrant jails and detention centers in the United States, and many of them have a record of neglect and abuse.

For the past 10 years, La Resistencia Northwest, a grassroots activist group, has organized alongside detainees to protest conditions at the center, demanding medical care, clean clothes, and adequate and unspoiled food. Ultimately, the group hopes to shut down the center and end deportations. La Resistencia has set up a protest camp there to demand a prompt independent investigation into Daniel’s death.

High Country News interviewed two members of La Resistencia’s leadership team about what motivates them to keep advocating for those detained.

read more: https://www.hcn.org/articles/meet-the-women-fighting-to-end-detention-and-deportation-in-washington/

In February 1939, more than 20,000 Americans filled Madison Square Garden for an event billed as a “Pro-American Rally.” Images of George Washington hung alongside swastikas, underlining the organizers' belief that Nazism was entirely consistent with American ideals.

NAZI TOWN, USA tells the largely unknown story of the German American Bund, an organization of Nazi sympathizers on American soil.

YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=g9HmV_-EE8g

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The broadcast, however, comes just days after a pair of National Institute of Health studies determined that dozens of U.S. government employees who had experienced the condition presented no consistent evidence of brain injury.

Instead, the report concluded that symptoms were likely caused by “preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors,” among other things.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the White House, and the FBI all reiterated to 60 Minutes in statements Sunday evening that investigating these incidents, which they refer to as anomalous health incidents (AHIs), remains a top priority for officials across the federal government.

read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/60-minutes-links-havana-syndrome-victim-to-alleged-russian-spy

Far-right Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán has claimed that his refusal to help Ukraine is a “pro-peace position.” Yet Hungary is also the only EU state that openly backs an Israeli attack on Rafah — showing the hypocrisy of Orbán’s supposed pacifism.

F | or almost two years, European Union (EU) leaders have chided Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán for his willingness to block critical aid to Ukraine. The divide between Hungary and the EU has only grown since the Financial Times reported that Brussels was ready to hit Hungary’s economy if Orbán vetoed another aid package for Kyiv. In domestic propaganda, Orbán’s support for Vladimir Putin is framed as a sensible “pro-peace” position. Yet the apocalyptic destruction of Gaza proves what a farce this supposed stance really is. Hungary is the only EU member state that hasn’t called on Israel to halt its planned ground offensive in Rafah.

It seems like Orbán is content with the indiscriminate bombing of refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances, residential buildings, schools, universities, libraries, and religious sites, so long as the victims are Palestinians. Orbán has, indeed, repeatedly called for a cease-fire in Ukraine but refused to call for one in Gaza. At the United Nations, Hungary consistently votes “No” to resolutions protecting civilians in Gaza and calling for a cease-fire — one of a handful of states to take this line.

Across Europe, millions of people are protesting against Israel, and human rights organizations warn that Israel may be committing war crimes and genocide. The October 7 attacks cannot possibly justify such Israeli retaliation, which has now killed well over 30,000 people. Yet Orbán’s support for Benjamin Netanyahu is steadfast. After the latest International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling and desperate warnings by human rights experts, even Western states are toning down earlier uncritical support for Israel. But Hungary doesn’t seem to be qualifying its support for Tel Aviv just yet.

It’s an indefensible moral failure. Shamefully, it’s one shared by both Orbán’s government and the mainstream opposition.

read more: https://jacobin.com/2024/03/orban-israel-rafah-ukraine-hypocrisy/