From the construction industry to the tourism sector, Greek employers cannot find the staff they need. The government's solution: longer working hours. A new law enables employers to implement a six-day work week...
If you want ground-level impressions, you might find this blog pretty interesting.
The following are a series of social media interactions with an American serving in a volunteer, unpaid capacity on the front line in Ukraine.
Q. Who are the other team members?
A. The team consists of five individuals:
Chris (American, team leader)
UV (American)
Carlos (Colombian)
Ian (British)
Antin (Ukrainian)
There’s been 3-4 other team members that have come and gone, and at times a drone operator has been temporarily attached.
Q. How does the team operate?
A. The team typically receives a mission order and then goes into 1-2 days of planning. The mission can last up to two weeks, but is typically just over a week in length. The team has been pulled out early at least once when Russian forces boxed them in and left them with no room to maneuver.
Usually UV will return from a mission, rest and eat, and then start recording his thoughts in a long DM. He and I talk about it, and then he will usually talk to several other people as a means of unwinding. All of this interaction goes into the blog.
Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1982, which saw the Jewish state withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula that it had captured from Egypt in 1967.
Israel then opened the Rafah crossing, which it controlled until it withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Between then and Hamas’ takeover of Gaza in 2007, the crossing was controlled by the European Union, which worked closely with Egyptian officials.
Between 2005 and 2007, some 450,000 passengers used the crossing with an average of about 1,500 people per day.
The Rafah crossing has since been tightly controlled, with limited access and lengthy bureaucratic and security processes required of Palestinians wishing to cross into Egypt.
Travelers require an exit permit from Hamas and an entry permit from Egypt
That's true, I was addressing the claim that Egypt lost control of the crossing after their peace deal with Israel.
Israel and Egypt currently share control of the crossing. And until recently, Egypt refused to reopen the crossing. So it's not accurate to imply that Egypt has no say in what happens, or that Biden's intervention was irrelevant.
Yes, the US said from the beginning that the pier would not be able to supply Gaza by itself. That's why resuming supply from Egypt is significant.
Pre-invasion, only 500 trucks went into Gaza per day. If the US can provide 150, that's 30% of the pre-invasion total. It doesn't solve the problem, but it does ameliorate it.
The U.S. Agency for International Development told The Associated Press that a total of 41 trucks loaded with aid from the more than $320 million pier have reached humanitarian organizations in Gaza.
So even according to your quotes, food is reaching Gazans. As of Thursday, 1.2 million pounds of aid have been delivered to the pier of which two thirds has been distributed to Gazans.
And even before the pier was built, the US said it could not supply Gaza by itself. The US is trying to ameliorate the problem, not solve it single-handedly. That's why it's important that Egypt agreed to open their crossing.
Both sides can restrict a border crossing. This is true of all border crossings, not just the one with Egypt.
So for example Canada could block movement of any or all people or goods through its border with the US, if for some reason it wanted to. The US could do the same. The UK could block the EU, and the EU could block the UK. Ukraine has restricted movement of Ukrainian men through its border with Poland, and Poland at some point restricted the movement of Ukrainian grain. And so on.
Israel and Egypt currently share control of the crossing. And until recently, Egypt refused to reopen the crossing. So it's not accurate to imply that Egypt has no say in what happens, or that Biden's intervention was irrelevant.
Israel seized the Gazan side of the crossing from Hamas. That means the crossing used to be shared by Egypt and Hamas, and now it's shared by Egypt and Israel.
This is not a "treaty violation". The 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access was between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, not Israel and Egypt. The PA, not Hamas, was authorized to administer the Gazan side of the crossing on behalf of Israel, provided they were supervised by the EU. Hamas has no rights at all under this agreement.
Egypt may prefer its old partner to its new one, but ultimately it has zero say over who administers the Gazan side of the crossing.
At no point did anyone take Egypt's side of the crossing away from Egypt. And since crossing requires permission from both sides, Egypt can control what goes through the crossing now just as it did before.
His overall polling hasn't changed much since September, so I doubt Israel is moving the needle. If anything he's polling slightly better than before the invasion of Gaza.
Gravity at the event horizon is inversely related to the mass of the black hole. So for a supermassive black hole, gravity at the event horizon can be weak. But you still can't escape because it's too large.
Imagine light trying to escape the Earth's gravity. Its path is slightly deviated by the Earth, then it gets far enough away that the Earth has little further effect.
Now suppose at that distance, it still experienced the same gravity. So the trajectory of light is deviated a little more. It keeps moving farther away but gravity barely changes, even at huge distances. Eventually all those little deviations add up and it's going back where it came from. Light can't escape. It's a black hole.
I agree, and I found it interesting that Israeli leaders were not accused of genocide or anything to do with their bombing campaign. Instead, it was the specific war crime of causing starvation due to their interference with humanitarian aid and food delivery. Kind of provides additional context for the US decision to build a floating pier off the Gaza coast.
No, genocide is an Article 6 charge. The ICC is perfectly willing to use that term, and in fact has explicitly charged Omar al Bashir with genocide under Article 6.
In contrast, Netanyahu and Hamas leaders are accused under Articles 7 and 8. These articles respectively cover "Crimes against humanity" and "War crimes", but they do not include genocide.
Both Netanyahu and Hamas leaders are accused of "crimes against humanity of murder and extermination" under Article 7.
Netanyahu is also accused of "intentionally using starvation of civilians" under Article 8, whereas Hamas leaders are also accused of "rape and other forms of sexual violence" under Article 8.
There are currently no charges based on the Israeli bombing campaign, but the ICC says this is "actively being investigated."
I'm neither pro-Israel nor pro-Hamas, but I believe the correct answer is "same as in every other war".
In other words, the maximum rate of Gazan casualties you will accept depends on the maximum rate of Axis casualties you would have accepted in WW2. That might be zero or it might be fairly high.
I didn't say it was acceptable. It is no more acceptable than civilian deaths in Germany, Japan, or Chechnya.
People are often more concerned about the rate of deaths because Gaza is relatively small. But if you really are counting how many and not the rate, then the vast majority of wars were worse than Gaza. The number of civilian deaths in Dresden alone is comparable to those in Gaza. Over 150,000 civilians have died in Iraq.
And as I said, some people find one civilian death to be unacceptable, others are willing to accept more than one. I've never met anyone who is willing to accept "any amount".
Interesting that you keep saying 'civilian death' and not 'child.' Seems like we're talking about two very different things.
Maybe so. But personally, I believe that all civilian deaths are equally tragic whether of a child, an old man, or a mother. In fact, I would object if someone said "X dead women is acceptable, but X dead children is unacceptable", because personally I believe that whatever X you choose should be age-independent. YMMV
In fairness, there really was a Russian officer who had to decide whether to launch nukes during the Cuban missile crisis. Except he was told that WW3 had actually started.
He still refused to launch, probably saving humanity in the process.
Amit Soussana, an Israeli lawyer, was abducted from her home on Oct. 7, beaten and dragged into Gaza by at least 10 men, some armed. Several days into her captivity, she said, her guard began asking about her sex life.
Around Oct. 24, the guard, who called himself Muhammad, attacked her, she said. Early that morning, she said, Muhammad unlocked her chain and left her in the bathroom. After she undressed and began washing herself in the bathtub, Muhammad returned and stood in the doorway, holding a pistol.
He dragged her at gunpoint back to the child’s bedroom, a room covered in images of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, she recalled. “Then he, with the gun pointed at me, forced me to commit a sexual act on him,” Ms. Soussana said.
Greece introduces the six-day work week ( www.dw.com )
From the construction industry to the tourism sector, Greek employers cannot find the staff they need. The government's solution: longer working hours. A new law enables employers to implement a six-day work week...
“What happens if a Russian fighter jet is shot down by a Western weapon in Russian airspace?” answered by Chair of the Defense Committee of the German Bundestag, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann ( www.reddit.com )
A contract soldier of the Russian Armed Forces recorded a video about the situation during the attack on Volchansk - out of 100 people, 12 survived. ( streamable.com )
https://t.me/pravdaGerashchenko_en/32639...
After call with Biden, Egyptian president agrees to restore aid flow to Gaza ( www.jns.org )
(May 24, 2024 / JNS)...
US and UK to back Israel over ICJ ruling after blurring their Rafah red lines ( www.theguardian.com )
Is there a temperature so hot that relativistic effects are noticeable?
EXCLUSIVE: ICC seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes over October 7 attack and Gaza war | CNN ( edition.cnn.com )
UN says 800,000 people have fled Rafah as Israel kills dozens in Gaza ( www.aljazeera.com )
The Kremlin announces nuclear weapons drills on Putin's orders ( www.euronews.com )
The move comes after an acrimonious exchange with senior Western officials, labelled by Moscow as 'provocative threats'....
Journalism Professors: NYT Risks Credibility With Inaction on Oct. 7 Article ( truthout.org )
Reports have found that the claims in the paper’s “Screams Without Words” article are questionable, if not fabricated....
The environmental cost of China's addiction to cement ( www.bbc.com )
The use of concrete exploded to fuel China's rise. Now the costs of this weighty material are being counted....
Hamas rejects Israel's ceasefire response, sticks to main demands ( www.reuters.com )