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Our guest is the Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent 30 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. She is the recipient of the 2024 Columbia Journalism Award, and on Wednesday she addressed the graduating class of the Columbia Journalism School in New York City. Hass discusses the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, why journalists should “resist the normalization of evil and injustice,” Israel’s recent censorship of Al Jazeera, its maintenance of a strict apartheid system, its complete rejection of the prospect of Palestinian statehood and more. “Israel took Palestinian life, liberty and freedom as hostage for the past 75 years,” says Hass. “You go to Tel Aviv, you think you are in New York or you are in London — and 40, 50 kilometers away, Palestinians live in cages.” We also play an excerpt from the student and faculty-led “People’s Graduation” held Thursday at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in response to Columbia University’s crackdown on student protest, which culminated in the administration’s cancellation of university-wide commencement. Centering Palestinian solidarity, the People’s Graduation featured speakers including the Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi, who praised the work of student journalists. While “our institutions have failed us these past seven months, … we listened to your radio stations if we wanted the truth,” she said.

The imprisoned PKK leader has urged for resistance against Isis militants in Syria.

Mr Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence on a prison island near Istanbul, issued the call to arms through his lawyer Mazlum Dinc.

“I call on all Kurdish people to start an all-out resistance against this high-intensity war,” he declared.

“Not only the people of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) but also all people in the north (Turkey) and other parts of Kurdistan should act accordingly.”

The Isis offensive against the northern Syrian city of Kobane, defended by the YPG Kurdish local self-defence forces, has driven 130,000 refugees to seek safety in Turkey in the last few days.

[...]

QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The upcoming Turkish elections on May 14, especially if they yield an opposition victory, will be “a rare opportunity” for the US to broker a Turkish-Kurdish peace, argues a new report by the New Lines Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

According to the report’s authors, the US’ main policy failure in bringing about a lasting peace between the Turkish government and Kurdish groups in Syria and Turkey has been the separation of these issues into different arenas.

The report argues that the Turkish oppression of Kurds domestically and the 40-year insurgency waged by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as Turkish attacks against Kurdish-majority in north Syria and its autonomous administration (AANES) are related. If the US wishes to bring about a lasting peace, it will have to broker a comprehensive settlement that addresses all arenas.

[...]

A realistic understanding of their costs and risks is critical.

What are SMRs?

1. SMRs are not more economical than large reactors.

2. SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than large light-water reactors.

3. SMRs will not reduce the problem of what to do with radioactive waste.

4. SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power for facilities, such as data centers, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production.

5. SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors.

[Edit: If people have links that contradict any the above, could you please share in the comment section?]

Nuclear power leaves a long and toxic legacy.

Mr Ruskell said: “There is nothing safe, secure or green about nuclear energy, and many people across Scotland will be dismayed and angry to hear that the Secretary of State is seeking to open a new reactor in Scotland.

“Aside from the brazen entitlement and the message this sends, it ignores that people in Scotland have long rejected nuclear energy. I hope that all progressive parties will unite in condemning this environment wrecking overreach.

“A new reactor would not only be unsafe, it would be extremely costly and would leave a toxic legacy for centuries. It would also distract from the vital work we need to do to boost clean, green and renewable energy.

“That is why I hope all progressive parties can rule out any return to nuclear power once Torness has been decommissioned.

“The Hinkley point shambles has exposed the UK government’s total inability to deliver nuclear programmes on budget or on time. We would be far better investing in the huge abundance of renewable resources that we already have here in Scotland.”

An exhibition in the West Bank attempts both to capture and counteract the erasure of Palestinian life and culture in Gaza, even as its artists are killed.

“This is Not an Exhibition,” which runs until August, showcases some 300 artworks by Gazan artists. Walking around the hall is something of a sensory overload, pulling visitors between visual and auditory stimuli. Paintings crowd around each other in no particular order on the museum’s darkened indigo walls, evoking the chaos of the ravaged Palestinian art scene in Gaza.

Companies are becoming ever craftier in their efforts to pose as more climate-friendly than they are

The name of the ruse: a taxonomy of greenwashing

Mechanism

• Misleading information
• Attention deflection
• Attention reduction (absolute)
• Attention reduction (peer-overshadowed)
• Attention timing

Classic application

• Misleading claims made by firms themselves
• Greenshifting of blame on to demanding consumers
• Limited disclosure of worthy ambitions
• Decent disclosure but substandard vis à vis peers
• Delayed disclosure

Sophisticated application

• Greenlabelling by third parties, which certify firms’ performance
• Greenlighting of good-news case studies
• Fuller disclosure, but with greenhushing of details
• Greencrowding: substandard disclosure en masse
• Greenrinsing: headline-grabbing targets get gradually diluted

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Google layoffs in 2023 affected about 6% of the company's global workforce, or about 12,000 people, starting in January.

Google's layoffs aren't necessarily a signal that the company isn't doing well. The company's market cap has nearly quadrupled since 2015, reaching $1.7 trillion.

That toll is more than three times the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank in 2022.

Israelis have now killed at least 502 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 7.

The latest killings came on Thursday when three youths – Mohamed Youssef Nasr Allah, 27, Ayman Ahmed Mubarak, 26, and Hossam Emad Deabes, 22 – were killed by Israeli forces raiding Tulkarm.

More than 230 Palestinians were killed during Israeli raids, while at least 20 are reported to have been killed by settlers from illegal settlements and outposts. [...]

Google promised to keep data from the phone calls private.

Altogether, 14 journalists from seven countries analysed the most up-to-date EU figures and created an interactive map of Europe’s aquifers. The conclusion is that our water is disappearing and what remains is facing near-irreversible pollution. Over 15% of the aquifers mapped are in poor condition — dangerously overexploited, contaminated or both. This figure represents 26% of the aquifers by surface area. And the worst affected are important crop-producing countries, like Spain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

But the picture is incomplete. The EU requires all member states and Iceland and Norway to give data on the state of their aquifers. Out of these 29 countries, 16 submitted full, publicly accessible data, with Germany’s and Portugal’s only partially accessible. Eleven countries are not included in the map at all [...]

...The RNC did not say if the officers were injured or what kind of cheese was used.