Gaza no longer habitable – UN

People in the Palestinian enclave are “desperate, hungry, and terrified,” the organization’s refugee chief has warned

Nine weeks of war have left Gaza unfit for human habitation, the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said on Thursday. With hunger rampant and UN shelters crammed to capacity, the organization demanded an immediate end to Israel’s siege of the enclave.

Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, the commissioner-general for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, described how Israel’s ground operation in Gaza has pushed more than a million refugees south to the city of Rafah.

“Rafah is the epicenter of the displacement,” Lazzarini said. “One [UN] warehouse that became a shelter is home to 30,000 people. The lucky ones have made it inside our premises. The others have absolutely nowhere to go. They live in the open, in the cold, in the mud, and under the rain. Everywhere you look is congested with makeshift shelters. Everywhere you go people are desperate, hungry, and are terrified.”

At the start of its bombing campaign in October, Israel urged residents of Gaza City – located in the north of the enclave – to migrate south for their own safety. Those who complied then had to push further south when Israeli planes began bombing the city of Khan Younis, and with Israeli ground troops now pushing into both cities, Rafah remains the only relatively safe area in the entire strip.

The influx into Rafah has quadrupled the city’s population and strained resources in what was already the poorest sector of Gaza, Lazzarini said. Israel’s near-total siege has caused shortages of food and water, and humanitarian agencies have complained that the convoys of aid trucks allowed through the Egypt-Rafah crossing cannot meet the needs of millions of people.

“Over the last few weeks we met more and more people who haven’t eaten in one, two, or three days,” Lazzarini noted, describing how trucks carrying food are often unable to make it to UN shelters and distribution points. “People are stopping aid trucks, taking the food, and eating it right away,” he added.

“Every time I go back [to Gaza], I always think it cannot get worse, but every time I see more misery, more grief, more sadness, and have the feeling that Gaza is not really a habitable place any more,” the UN official told reporters.

Hamas operatives attacked Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking roughly 240 hostages. In the nine weeks since, Israeli strikes have killed 18,787 people in Gaza and injured more than 50,000, according to figures released on Thursday by the Gaza Health Ministry. Some 135 UNRWA staff have been killed, and Israeli strikes on the agency’s schools, clinics, and offices have killed 270 people and wounded more than 1,000, Lazzarini said on Thursday. According to a UN report released on Tuesday, almost a fifth of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed during the Israeli campaign.

“What is happening in Gaza should outrage anyone,” Lazzarini stated, insisting that only an immediate lifting of the Israeli siege followed by the “uninterrupted, unconditional flow of commodities” into the strip will reverse the declining humanitarian situation.

https://www.rt.com/news/589087-gaza-not-habitable-un/

Boston mayor in hot water over segregated event

An administration official accidentally sent invitations for an “Electeds of Color Holiday Party” to all city councilors

A holiday party exclusively for nonwhite elected officials roiled Boston City Council after a staffer for Mayor Michelle Wu accidentally sent invitations to the entire membership on Tuesday.

Director of City Council relations Denise DosSantos invited all 13 members to an “Electeds of Color Holiday Party” to be held Wednesday night at the city-owned Parkman House, only to realize her mistake 15 minutes later. A subsequent email apologized “if my email may have offended or came across as so,” explaining “I did send that to everyone by accident.”

Wu, a second-generation Taiwanese-American, defended the decision to host the segregated gathering in the hours before it began, telling reporters gathered outside Parkman House, “There are several holiday parties that the entire city council and all of our elected colleagues have been invited to.”

https://www.rt.com/news/589084-boston-electeds-color-mayor-party/

Congress Approves Extension Of Warrantless Surveillance Powers Opposed By Civil Libertarians

Update(1300ET): As expected given there were only a handful of senators and House reps opposing, Congress has approved the short-term extension of the US government's warrantless surveillance powers:

Congress has approved a short-term extension of the nation’s warrantless surveillance powers, punting to the new year a decision over how to reform the law.

Included in the defense policy bill headed to the president’s desk after approval by the House on Thursday is a measure that extends Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) until mid-April.

Here's what Rep. Chip Roy of Texas had to say: "The fact of the matter is what’s being stated is it is impossible to oppose the National Defense Authorization Act because we put a pay raise in it or because we put something in there that is seemingly so important that we have to ignore the critical destruction of our civil liberties by adding FISA extension right on the top of it without doing the forms necessary to protect the American people."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ed-snowden-sounds-alarm-over-warrantless-spying-loophole-massive-886-billion-ndaa-passes

Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Dubinsky Rumored to be Summoned to Joe Biden’s Impeachment Hearings Is Violently Beaten by Unknown Assailants in Ukrainian Detention Center

With the intensification of actions around the possible impeachment of Joe Biden, the dependent Ukrainian government continued to persecute those who conducted their own investigations into his corruption cases and were not afraid to tell the world about them.

Another target was Oleksandr Dubinsky, a well-known journalist and an MP, who revealed and substantiated two crucial and sensational facts for the investigations against Biden: audio recordings of phone conversations in 2015-2016 between Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (known as “Derkach tapes”) are authentic, and behind their leak and dissemination is… the Office of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky!

In Ukraine, Dubinsky is known for being close to Volodymyr Zelensky and the head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak for many years. And it was Dubinsky who was one of the participants in the press conferences organized in 2019-2020 by another Ukrainian MP, Andriy Derkach, where sensational evidence of corruption and influence peddling by Joe Biden in Ukraine was first revealed.

However, Dubinsky’s problems did not start in 2019, but only in 2023 – just after his allegations that Ukraine’s leadership gave instructions to publish and legitimize audio recordings with the voices of Joe Biden and Petro Poroshenko. This made it obvious that the story with the tapes was not a game of foreign intelligence agencies but solely a political game of Ukrainian top officials who allowed them to be leaked and encouraged their further dissemination. As a result, the Ukrainian Themis began hastily looking for any excuse to stop his revelations.

After a series of rather frivolous accusations in the summer, which did not stop Dubinsky’s public activities, on November 13, the Ukrainian authorities accused him of participation in a Russian agent network. And just as unexpectedly, the official reason was Dubinsky’s participation in the mentioned press conferences that took place four years earlier.

Late at night on November 13, Dubinsky was sent to a pre-trial detention center. It is noteworthy that on the previous day, he invited his audience to think about how the audio recordings of the conversations, which were conducted through the most secure special communications, could have unexpectedly gone beyond the Presidential Office and eventually reached one of the investigators of corruption in Ukraine, which turned out to be MP Andriy Derkach (who was not afraid to publicize them later).

Dubinsky also suggested to pay attention to the fact that such a leak took place during Zelensky’s presidency, just at the moment when he wanted to settle scores with Petro Poroshenko.

In Ukraine, they say that Dubinsky’s unwillingness to “keep quiet” coincided with the release of fresh presidential ratings in the U.S. (unfavorable for Biden) and the appearance of new accusations against the U.S. president (accounts of receiving funds and summoning his son and brother to the Oversight Committee), which clearly worsened the mood of the Ukrainian authorities.

Moreover, the emergence of rumors that Oleksandr Dubinsky, as well as Andriy Derkach, Andriy Telizhenko, and Viktor Shokin, might be invited to Joe Biden’s impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives could provoke another attack on Dubinsky.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/12/ukrainian-mp-oleksandr-dubinsky-rumored-be-summoned-bidens/

US ‘most likely’ blew up Nord Stream – Putin

Washington or its allies are the probable culprits in the sabotage of the Russian gas pipelines, the president has claimed

The bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines was most likely carried out by the US or someone acting on its orders, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Thursday.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines each comprised two separate channels linking Russia and Germany. Three out of the four lines were destroyed in a series of explosions near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022, severing Germany’s direct energy ties to Russia and leaving its gas-dependent economy reliant on more expensive American liquefied natural gas.

Commenting on the issue during his marathon Q&A event with the media and general public on Thursday, Putin pointed out that the EU itself is at fault for any gas supply problems it is facing.

“Strangely enough, they tried to blame it [shortages] on us, claiming that we are not selling something,” the Russian leader stated. “This is complete nonsense, because it was not us who closed the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline in Poland, the second branch of the pipeline through the territory of Ukraine, it was Ukraine who did it. We didn’t blow up Nord Stream 1 and partly Nord Stream 2. This was done, most likely, by the Americans or someone at their instruction.”

Putin noted that one of the Nord Stream 1 pipelines is in working condition, but Germany is resisting the resumption of gas supplies. Russian energy giant Gazprom is a reliable partner and fulfills all its contractual obligations, the president stressed.

Investigations into the Nord Stream sabotage have so far failed to definitively identify the culprit. Some have claimed that the attack was orchestrated by Kiev, while others have pointed the finger at the US.

American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed that US President Joe Biden ordered the CIA to blow up the pipelines. Citing sources in the intelligence community, Hersh alleged that CIA divers working with the Norwegian Navy had planted remotely-triggered bombs on the connectors last summer, using a NATO exercise in the region as cover.

Putin said in March that he “fully agrees” with Hersh’s conclusions, and that the US benefited from the attack due to its position as a competing gas supplier to Europe.

https://www.rt.com/business/589066-putin-nord-stream-gas-pipelines-us/

Breathing contributes to global warming – study

Methane and nitrous oxide found in human exhalations are worse for the environment than carbon dioxide, scientists say

Human breathing contributes to global warming, according to a study published Wednesday in PLoS One. The authors argued that human respiration’s contribution to climate change has been underestimated and merits further study.

After measuring the gas composition in the exhaled breaths of 328 study participants, the researchers concluded human breath comprises 0.05% of the UK’s methane emissions and 0.1% of its nitrous oxide. Both of those gasses “have a much higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide,” the study notes.

“Exhaled human breath can contain small, elevated concentrations of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), both of which contribute to global warming,” the researchers, led by atmospheric physicist Nicholas Cowan of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, wrote. “We would urge caution in the assumption that emissions from humans are negligible.”

While Cowan explained that “CO2 contribution in human breath to climate change is essentially zero” because plants absorb nearly all the carbon dioxide humans breathe out, the other two gasses are left in the atmosphere. Methane traps 80 times the amount of heat as carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere, though this potency decreases over time.

A detailed analysis of test subjects’ diets failed to yield any indication that meat eaters produced more of either gas. While all test subjects exhaled nitrous oxide, only 31% exhaled methane. These individuals, referred to as “methane producers” in the paper, were more likely to be female and over 30 years of age, though the researchers were unable to determine why this was the case.

The study authors cautioned that their research only looked at breath and called for further research into the total picture of human gas emissions, insisting it could reveal more about the “impacts of an aging population and shifting diets” on the planet.

In recent years, environmental campaigners have focused on methane emissions from cows, whose herbivorous diet is broken down by methane-producing bacteria in their multiple stomachs. Policymakers’ focus on the resulting methane-tainted belches and farts have been the subject of much parody from climate change skeptics.

The UK has legally committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990. Residents have been strongly encouraged to reduce meat consumption in order to achieve this goal, with some estimates placing the share of global greenhouse gas emissions from raising livestock for meat at 15%. However, the researchers behind Wednesday’s study pointed out that shifting to a high-fiber vegetarian diet could potentially cause more methane and nitrous oxide emissions, a phenomenon they called “pollution swapping.”

https://www.rt.com/news/589091-human-breathing-global-warming-study/