SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENTS

Israeli attack on Rafah tent camp kills 45, prompts global outcry

Reuters | AFP Published May 27, 2024 

Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp area housing internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. — AFP

Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video on May 26, 2024. — Reuters

A Palestinian child, wounded in an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced people, is assisted at a hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 26, 2024, in this screen grab from a video obtained by Reuters.

An Israeli airstrike triggered a massive blaze killing 45 people in a tent camp in the Gaza city of Rafah, officials said on Monday, prompting an outcry from global leaders who urged the implementation of a World Court ruling to halt Israel’s assault.

“There are 249 others who were wounded,” the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.

Mohammad al-Mughayyir, a senior official at the civil defence agency, told AFP: “We saw charred bodies and dismembered limbs … We also saw cases of amputations, wounded children, women and the elderly.”

He said that rescue efforts were facing major challenges. “There is a fuel shortage … there are roads that have been destroyed, which hinders the movement of civil defence vehicles in these targeted areas,” Mughayyir said. “There is also a shortage of water to extinguish fires.”

Israel has kept up operations in Rafah despite a ruling by the top UN court on Friday ordering it to immediately halt its military operations in the overcrowded city, once claimed by Israel to be a safe zone.

The attack took place in the Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood, where thousands were sheltering after Israeli forces began a ground offensive in the east of Rafah over two weeks ago.

More than half of the dead were women, children, and elderly people, health officials in Gaza said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise as more people caught in the blaze were in critical condition with severe burns.

Palestinians search for food among burnt debris in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced people, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 27, 2024. — Reuters

The International Committee of the Red Cross said its field hospital in Rafah was receiving an influx of casualties, and that other hospitals also were taking in a large number of patients.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri described the attack in Rafah as a “massacre”, holding the United States responsible for aiding Israel with weapons and money.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military claimed its air force struck a Hamas compound in Rafah and that the strike was carried out with “precise ammunition and on the basis of precise intelligence.”

It said it took out Hamas’ chief of staff for the West Bank and another senior official behind deadly attacks on Israelis. “The IDF is aware of reports indicating that as a result of the strike and fire that was ignited several civilians in the area were harmed. The incident is under review.”

Israel’s top military prosecutor, however, called the air strike “very grave” and said an investigation was under way.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “outraged” over Israel’s latest attacks. “These operations must stop. There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians,” he said on X.



Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock and the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the International Court of Justice ruling must be respected.

“International humanitarian law applies for all, also for Israel’s conduct of the war,” Baerbock said.



Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was “horrified” by the attack, adding that the “deadly event” showed once again that nowhere was safe in Gaza.





Burnt tents, charred belongings

In scenes grimly familiar from a conflict in its eighth month, Palestinian families rushed to hospitals to prepare their dead for burial after the strike late on Sunday night set tents and rickety shelters ablaze.

Palestinians look at the damages after a fire at the site of an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced people, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 27, 2024. — Reuters


Women wept and men held prayers beside bodies in shrouds.

“The whole world is witnessing Rafah getting burnt up by Israel and no one is doing anything to stop it,” Bassam, a Rafah resident, said via a chat app, of the strike in an area of western Rafah that had been designated a safe zone.

“The air strikes burnt the tents, the tents are melting and the people’s bodies are also melting,” said one of the residents who arrived at the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah.

By daylight, the camp was a smoking wreckage of tents, twisted metal and charred belongings.

Sitting beside bodies of his relatives, Abed Mohammed Al-Attar said Israel lied when it told residents they would be safe in Rafah’s western areas. His brother, sister-in-law and several other relatives were killed in the blaze.

“The army is a liar. There is no security in Gaza. There is no security, not for a child, an elderly man, or a woman. Here he (my brother) is with his wife, they were martyred,” he said.

“What have they done to deserve this? Their children have been orphaned.”

Israeli tanks continued to bombard eastern and central areas of the city in southern Gaza on Monday, killing eight, local health officials said.

A Palestinian child, wounded in an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced people, sits at a hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 26. — Reuters

Earlier on Sunday, the Israeli military said eight projectiles were identified crossing from the area of Rafah, the southern tip of the Gaza Strip. A number of the projectiles were intercepted, it said. There were no reports of casualties.

In a statement on its Telegram channel, the Hamas al-Qassam Brigades said the rockets were launched in response to “Zionist massacres against civilians”.

Rafah is located about 100 kilometres south of Tel Aviv. Israel says it wants to root out Hamas fighters allegedly holed up in Rafah and rescue hostages it says are being held in the area, but its assault has worsened the plight of civilians and caused an international outcry.

Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said the rockets fired from Rafah “prove that the [Israel Defense Forces] must operate in every place Hamas still operates from”.

Itamar Ben Gvir, a hardline public security minister who is not part of Israel’s war cabinet, urged the army to hit Rafah harder. “Rafah with full force,” he posted on X.

Nearly 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, Gaza’s health ministry says. Israel launched the operation after Hamas attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Smoke rises from a fire in Gaza near the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from Israel on May 26, 2024. — Reuters

Fighting also continued in the northern Gaza area of Jabaliya, the scene of intense combat earlier in the conflict.

During one raid, the military said it found a weapons storage site with dozens of rocket parts and weapons at a school. It denied Hamas statements that Palestinian fighters had abducted an Israeli soldier.

Hamas media said an Israeli airstrike on a house in a neighbourhood near Jabaliya killed 10 people and wounded others.
Truce talks

Efforts to agree a halt to the fighting and return more than 120 hostages have been blocked for weeks but there were some signs of movement this weekend following meetings between Israeli and US intelligence officials and Qatar’s prime minister.

An official with knowledge of the matter said a decision had been taken to resume the talks this week based on new proposals from Egyptian and Qatari mediators, and with “active US involvement.”

However, a Hamas official played down the report, telling Reuters: “It is not true.”



Netanyahu’s war cabinet would discuss the new proposals, his office said.

A second Hamas official, Izzat El-Reshiq, said the group had not received anything from the mediators on new dates for resuming talks as had been reported by Israeli media.

Reshiq restated Hamas’s demands, which include: “Ending the aggression completely and permanently, in all of Gaza Strip, not only Rafah”.

While Israel is seeking the return of hostages, Netanyahu has repeatedly said the onslaught will not end until Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, is eliminated.
Aid trucks enter Gaza

Israel has faced calls to get more aid into Gaza after more than seven months of offensive that has caused widespread destruction and hunger in the enclave.

Khaled Zayed of the Egyptian Red Crescent told Reuters 200 trucks of aid, including four fuel trucks, were expected to enter Gaza on Sunday through Kerem Shalom.

It follows an agreement between US President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Friday to temporarily send aid via the Kerem Shalom crossing, bypassing the Rafah crossing that has been blocked for weeks.

Egypt’s state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV shared a video on social media platform X, showing what it said were aid trucks as they entered Kerem Shalom, which before the conflict was the main commercial crossing station between Israel, Egypt and Gaza.

The Rafah crossing has been shut for almost three weeks, since Israel took control of the Palestinian side of the crossing as it stepped up its offensive.

Egypt has been increasingly alarmed at the prospect of large numbers of Palestinians entering its territory from Gaza and has refused to open its side of the Rafah crossing.

Israel has said it is not restricting aid flows and has opened up new crossing points in the north as well as cooperating with the United States, which has built a temporary floating pier for aid deliveries.

 

Artificial geysers can compensate for our mineral shortages

by Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Take a close look at these seabed minerals! Green copper minerals are seen here

 precipitated in a sectioned sulphide sample, retrieved from a scientific cruise conducted 

by the Norwegian Offshore Directorate across the Mohns Ridge in 2020.

 Credit: Øystein Leiknes Nag/Norwegian Offshore Directorate

By imitating nature, it may be possible to recover seabed minerals by extracting hot water from the Earth's crust. We can harvest green energy and be sensitive to the environment—all at the same time.

Seabed minerals: Here's something you probably don't know. The copper found in the Norwegian mines at Røros and Løkken, and which once made the country very wealthy, was formed from smoking "chimneys" on the ocean floor.

In the Earth's remote past, this copper was carried up through the crust by seawater that had originally been drawn downwards into the scorching depths. If we humans can learn to imitate part of this process, it may be possible to apply it to sensitively recover a variety of minerals from the oceans offshore Norway.

At SINTEF, we believe that seabed minerals should only be recovered if we can develop methods that minimize any negative environmental impacts. We are now in the process of identifying one such method.

Or, in other words, of obtaining the "building blocks" being called for by the green transition. At the same time, we can obtain valuable geothermal heat that we can convert into emissions-free energy.

From the scorching depths to the deck of a platform

In the heated debate currently raging about seabed minerals, now fueled once again by WWF's recent notification to sue the Norwegian state, many people have expressed their fear of negative ecological consequences resulting from the exploitation of these resources.

At SINTEF, we believe that seabed minerals should only be recovered if we can develop methods that minimize any negative environmental impacts. We are now in the process of identifying one such method.

Our idea is to transport the mineral-rich water and bypass the process of precipitation on the seabed, recovering the minerals directly from the scorching depths in the Earth's crust from where they originate. Extraction will take place on the deck of an offshore platform.

Water heated by molten rock

Below the sea surface, some distance from land, there are several locations where so-called black smoker geysers eject mineral-rich waters brought up from the depths of the crust.

This phenomenon is the result of water first having been drawn down into fractures in the volcanic rocks of the seabed and then all the way down into the mantle, which is the layer of molten rock lying beneath the crust. Here, the water is subject to intense heat and is able to take up particles of metals and minerals. These are exactly the materials we need to make our batteries, wind turbines and electric vehicle engines.

Then, the mineral-rich water rises from the mantle, through the crust, and up to the seabed, where it is ejected from the black smoker geysers.

Electricity from steam

At SINTEF, we are working on the idea of imitating part of this process by constructing artificial geysers. Firstly, by drilling wells for sending seawater down into the mantle—and then others for transporting the mineral-rich water back to the surface.

This water will be transported in pipes up to platforms where the particles will be separated.

The pressure at the Earth's surface will cause the water to boil. Our idea is to use the steam to generate electricity, which will then be sent onshore. The revenues from selling the electricity will be used to pay for parts of the mineral recovery process.

Discovered in the 1970s

SINTEF has been here before—demonstrating that imitating nature can be a very fruitful venture. Specifically, that the properties of underwater shales are ideal for dealing with abandoned oil wells.

The phenomenon that we are seeking to imitate today—these "black smokers" on the seabed—was discovered in the 1970s in an area of the Pacific Ocean at the boundary between two tectonic plates.

Many underwater geysers of this type have been identified on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in Norwegian waters. These are locations where molten magma still occurs close to the seabed. Some of them are probably still active today.

Sulfide minerals

The smoker chimneys are made up of particles that are precipitated when the hot, mineral-rich water is ejected from the geysers into the cold seawater. Other fractions of the ejected mass of particles have sunk to the seabed, forming great mounds of gravel at the base of the chimneys.

As time passes, many of the chimneys stop ejecting. They seal up and die, tipping over onto the "piles of gravel."

These gravel piles represent the biggest and most concentrated occurrences of sulfide minerals on the seabed. The sulfide family is one of the two main groups of seabed minerals known from Norwegian oceans.

Key metals

According to the Norwegian Offshore Directorate, the natural geysers have deposited minerals containing key metals such as zinc, cobalt, nickel, vanadium, tungsten and silver. Not to mention copper, which occurs in concentrations much greater than those we encounter in mines onshore.

Our idea assumes that humans will succeed in drilling wells that can withstand the temperatures they will encounter close to bodies of molten rock. Experts are already working on this problem..

"Our concept will not be put into practice tomorrow, but it may not be too far into the future either. The timing will depend on the efforts that we are prepared to put into developing the idea. We still need more data about the subsurface, combined with some smart technological innovations.

Supply security for the green transition

If our idea succeeds, this will help the European Parliament, the Norwegian government and everyone else who is looking to safeguard supply security for the green transition.

We have great faith that our concept represents a sensitive and realistic approach to minerals recovery, and are looking forward to continuing with its development.

Provided by Norwegian University of Science and Technology 

Norway greenlights deep-sea mining exploration

‘Swamp Creature!’: Trump Gets Shouted Down as He Begs for Libertarian Nomination

Mini Racker
Sat, May 25, 2024


It was clear from the start that this year’s Libertarian convention would not be a staid affair.

Going into the weekend, the Washington Hilton was stocked with shrink-wrapped packs of Blood of Tyrants’ Liquid Freedom Energy Tea. More than one attendee appeared to be smoking indoors. The drinks were flowing and the crowd was chanting, booing, and hollering through speeches left and right. Punches even flew. And that was all before former President Donald Trump took the stage in front of hundreds on Saturday.

When that moment came, the former president was met with a sound he was not accustomed to: boos. They broke out as soon as he appeared, and never died down, marking one of the most negative receptions Trump has ever received.

“A lot of people ask why I came to speak at this Libertarian convention,” Trump said as he began his remarks. “And, you know, it’s an interesting question, isn’t it? But we’re gonna have a lot of fun.”

It soon became clear that Trump most certainly was not having fun. Try as he might to sell himself as an ally to Libertarians, the crowd was not buying it. Whenever the former president’s supporters began chanting, Libertarians shouted them down. When Trump talked about the government crushing citizens’ rights, an audience member screamed, “You crushed my rights!” When he accused President Joe Biden of enacting censorship and persecution, someone else cried, “So do you!” Shouts of “Swamp creature!” and “Fuck you!” peppered his remarks.

Soon enough, he appeared to downright beg them to go easy on him: “Right now, in this election, we need your help. We need your support,” he said, prompting a chorus of boos.

“Combine with us in a partnership, we’re asking that of the Libertarians, we must work together,” he pleaded, again eliciting angry shouts.

There were more boos when Trump urged the Libertarian Party to nominate him as its candidate. But the former president soldiered on.

“Now I think you should nominate me, or at least vote for me, and we should win together,” he said. “Only do that if you want to win,” he said. “If you want to lose, don’t do that.”

Perhaps sensing he should bargain with the crowd he had so far failed to win over, he then said: “I’m committing to you tonight, that I will put a Libertarian in my Cabinet, and also Libertarians in senior posts.”

This weekend’s convention was the first since the right-wing Mises Caucus seized control of the party at its Reno convention in 2022. The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported on the Caucus’ hard-right approach, which has at times included anti-trans, antisemitic, and racist sentiments, as well as its ties to Trumpworld. But in the days ahead of the speech, the party’s decision to allow Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, to headline the Libertarian convention was a major point of contention, and on Saturday, the disagreement broke out into heated conflict.

Members of the Libertarian Party gather for the party's national convention at the Washington Hilton on May 25, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesMore

“I think it was a bad idea,” Virginia Libertarian activist Marta Howard told The Daily Beast ahead of the speech. “Not all publicity is good publicity. The rest of the world is going to think, ‘Oh, it’s because they’re right-leaning.’ Whatever they think of Libertarians, they’re just going to think it’s another flavor of Republicans.”

Libertarian National Committee chair Angela McArdle told the Washington Post in early May that Trump’s appearance would help draw attention and attendance, an argument that resonated with some.

“I was originally not happy about it, just because of the optics of the Republican candidate for president coming to where Libertarians pick their candidate,” Blake Rogers, a Mises-aligned alternate who had driven his motorcycle up from Georgia told The Daily Beast. “But a lot of people have made a lot of really good points about it in terms of it being a lot of publicity that we wouldn’t ordinarily get otherwise.”

Still, it was clear that many were not sold on the MAGA-fied convention. While red-hatted Trump supporters lined up outside the ballroom ahead of the former president’s speech, one woman hurried by, her middle finger up, singing “Fuck Donald Trump.”

Many of the Trump supporters were the first inside and quickly took over the rows closest to the stage. But McArdle soon took the stage and requested they move so Libertarian convention delegates could sit up front, threatening to call security if they didn’t.

The formal program began with Mises Caucus-backed presidential candidate Michael Rectenwald roasting Trump and his leadership of Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to develop the COVID-19 vaccine. “None of us are great fans of Donald Trump,” he said, provoking boos from the middle of the room, where McArdle had relegated most of the Trump supporters.

When Trump chants broke out, Libertarians in the front rows turned around to respond, with some screaming expletives about the former president.

“We are not a bunch of college leftist sissies, so be respectful,” comedian Dave Smith, a Mises Caucus member, warned, earning cheers all around.

As the crowd waited for Trump to appear, supporters in the audience could be heard fretting that there needed to be more of them. A man with a “MAGA=Socialist” sign stood on a chair in the middle of the audience and was soon surrounded by Trump devotees screaming in his face. Others carried signs proclaiming “Stop Trump Vote Lars,” referring to Lars Mapstead, another Libertarian presidential candidate. A chant of “We want Trump!” was quickly overpowered by one demanding to “End the Fed!”

“We should not be fighting each other,” Trump said soon after he took the stage. “Joe Biden gets back in, there will be no more liberty for anyone in our country.”

Trump did sometimes earn cheers from the crowd, including when he talked about ending wars, pardoning Jan. 6 protesters, protecting cryptocurrency, denying money to schools with vaccine or mask mandates, and defunding diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The most applause came when he promised to commute the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, who has been imprisoned for operating a website that sold illegal goods.

But on the whole, the audience wasn’t having it. Even the night before, the anti-Trump resistance was out in full force. When Trump surrogate Vivek Ramaswamy appeared to warm up the crowd and debate the party’s vice presidential nominee, he was booed for so much as mentioning Trump’s name.

“Who’s going to be the President? It’s either going to be the Democratic nominee or the Republican nominee,” Ramaswamy said, sparking audible protests. “I mean, come on! Look, I invite you to dream on.”

Plenty of attendees seemed happy to keep dreaming. An earlier speech by third party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had earned a much warmer reception, with frequent cheers and standing ovations. Many of his best-received lines had been ones slamming the former president.

“I’m curious to know how President Trump is going to defend his attacks on the Constitution when I meet him on the debating stage,” Kennedy said, earning roars from the crowd.

Kennedy told the convention Friday he had challenged Trump to a debate at the Libertarian convention, but that the former president had declined.

In comments to The Daily Beast, Trump campaign adviser Brian Hughes called Kennedy an “ultra-leftist” who “called the NRA a terror group.” Jason Miller, senior Trump campaign adviser, said Trump’s “America First agenda is the one that shares many of the Libertarian voters’ concerns, and he is the only candidate who can defeat Joe Biden and put an end to Biden’s assault on our Constitution, our freedoms, and our God-given rights.”

Team Trump is hoping not to lose too many voters to third-party candidates like Kennedy, whose constituency overlaps with that of the former president. In a close race with Biden, where polls consistently find the two men within a few points of each other, whether Trump earns Libertarians’ votes could be a deciding factor.

“The Libertarian Party can make a big difference,” Trump promised the crowd Saturday, saying he would be “a true friend to Libertarians in the White House” before being booed again.

Minutes after Trump left the stage, McArdle announced a press conference with the Libertarian Party’s actual candidates. The first, Chase Oliver, ribbed Trump.

“Isn’t it nice to have a Libertarian on stage at the Libertarian convention?” he asked. “We just had a neocon war criminal on our stage a few minutes ago."

The response was quieter than it had been when Trump was speaking. Most of the crowd had already left.

The Daily Beast



Trump, accustomed to friendly crowds, confronts repeated booing during Libertarian convention speech

Sat, May 25, 2024 



WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump was booed repeatedly while addressing the Libertarian Party National Convention on Saturday night, with many in the crowd shouting insults and decrying him for things like his COVID-19 policies, running up towering federal deficits and lying about his political record.

When he took the stage, many jeered while some supporters clad in “Make America Great” hats and T-shirts cheered and chanted “USA! USA!” It was a rare moment of Trump coming face-to-face with open detractors, which is highly unusual for someone accustomed to staging rallies in front of ever-adoring crowds.

Libertarians, who prioritize small government and individual freedoms, are often skeptical of the former president, and his invitation to address the convention has divided the party. Trump tried to make light of that by referring to the four criminal indictments against him and joking, “If I wasn’t a Libertarian before, I sure as hell am a Libertarian now.”

Trump tried to praise “fierce champions of freedom in this room” and called President Joe Biden a “tyrant” and the “worst president in the history of the United States,” prompting some in the audience to scream back: “That’s you.”

As the insults continued, Trump eventually hit back, saying “you don't want to win” and suggesting that some Libertarians want to “keep getting your 3% every four years.”

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson won about 3% of the national vote in 2016, but nominee Jo Jorgensen got only a bit more than 1% during 2020’s close contest.

Libertarians will pick their White House nominee during their convention, which wraps on Sunday. Trump’s appearance also gave him a chance to court voters who might otherwise support independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who gave his own Libertarian convention speech on Friday.

Polls have shown for months that most voters do not want a 2020 rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden. That dynamic could potentially boost support for an alternative like the Libertarian nominee or Kennedy, whose candidacy has allies of Biden and Trump concerned that he could be a spoiler.

Despite the raucous atmosphere, Trump continued to press on with his speech, saying he’d come “to extend a hand of friendship” in common opposition to Biden. That prompted a chant of “We want Trump!” from supporters, but more cries of “End the Fed!” — a common refrain from Libertarians who oppose the Federal Reserve. One person who held up a sign reading “No wannabe dictators!” was dragged away by security.

Trump tried to win over the crowd by pledging to include a Libertarian in his Cabinet, but many in the crowd hissed in disbelief. The former president did get a big cheer when he promised to commute the life sentence of the convicted founder of the drug-selling website Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, and potentially release him on time served.

That was designed to energize Libertarian activists who believe government investigators overreached in building their case against Silk Road, and who generally oppose criminal drug policies more broadly. Ulbricht’s case was much-discussed during the Libertarian convention, and many of the hundreds in the crowd for Trump’s speech hoisted “Free Ross” signs and chanted the phrase as he spoke.

Despite those promises, many in the crowd remained antagonistic. One of the candidates vying for the Libertarian presidential nomination, Michael Rectenwald, declared from the stage before the former president arrived that “none of us are great fans of Donald Trump.” After his speech, Rectenwald and other Libertarian White House hopefuls took the stage to scoff at Trump and his speech.

Those for and against Trump even clashed over seating arraignments. About two hours before the former president's arrival, Libertarian organizers asked Trump supporters in the crowd to vacate the first four rows. They wanted convention delegates — many of whom said they’d traveled from around the country and bought expensive tickets to the proceedings — could sit close enough to hear the speech.

Many of the original seat occupants moved, but organizers eventually brought in more seats to calm things down.

The Libertarian split over Trump was reflected by Peter Goettler, president and chief executive of the libertarian Cato Institute, who suggested in a Washington Post column that the former president’s appearance violated the gathering’s core values and that “the political party pretending to be libertarian has transitioned to a different identity.”

Trump’s campaign noted that Biden didn't attend the Libertarian convention himself, and argued that the former president's doing so was part of an ongoing effort to reach would-be supporters in places that are not heavily Republican — including the former president’s rally Thursday in the Bronx during a pause in his New York hush money trial.

The Libertarian ticket will try to draw support from disaffected Republicans as well as people on the left. Such voters could also gravitate toward Kennedy.

Trump didn't dwell on Kennedy on Saturday night. But, after previously praising him and once considering him for a commission on vaccination safety, the former president has gone on the attack against Kennedy. He suggested on social media that a vote for Kennedy would be a “wasted protest vote” and that he would “even take Biden over Junior.”

The former president, while in office, referred to the COVID-19 vaccine as “one of the greatest miracles in the history of modern-day medicine.” He’s since accused Kennedy of being a “fake” opponent of vaccines.

In his speech at the Libertarian convention, Kennedy accused Trump and Biden of trampling on personal liberties in response to the pandemic. Trump bowed to pressure from public health officials and shut down businesses, Kennedy said, while Biden was wrong to mandate vaccines for millions of workers.

For his part, Biden has promoted winning the endorsement of many high-profile members of the Kennedy family, in an attempt to marginalize their relative’s candidacy.

Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for Biden’s reelection campaign, slammed Trump and top Republicans for opposing access to abortion and supporting limits on civil society, saying in a statement Saturday, that “freedom isn’t free in Trump’s Republican Party and this weekend will be just one more reminder of that.”

Will Weissert, The Associated Press

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

How stores use TikTok to sell 

e-cigarettes to children

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS USA

A new paper in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press, shows that advertising and sales of vaping products is common on TikTok, the video sharing platform popular among teenagers. Users pushing these items often use hashtags like #puffbundles to disguise vaping products by including things like lip gloss and candy in the packages for sale.

Despite smoking rates reaching an all-time low in the United States, public health professionals are concerned about adolescent use of electronic cigarettes. In 2023 some 4.7 million (17%) middle school and high school students reported using e-cigarettes. Public health advocates are concerned that adolescents are at risk of becoming addicted to nicotine through these products and may transition to combustible cigarettes. Although several countries have raised the minimum legal sales age of e-cigarettes to 21, rates of youth and young adult e-cigarette use remain high worldwide, creating speculation about how young adults manage to purchase vaping products.

Social media may play a key component. In 2023 63% of people between 13 and 17 reported using TikTok, the popular is a short-form video hosting service. This study sought to examine TikTok content regarding the sale and distribution of e-cigarettes.

In September 2023 researchers here scraped 475 English language TikTok videos posted between July 1, 2022 and August 31, 2023 using a TikTok application programming interface. The investigators identified popular hashtags related to e-cigarettes, including #puffbarss, #geekbar, #elfbar. They then narrowed the hashtags to those specific to online sales of e-cigarettes (hashtags included #discreetshipping, #puffbundle, #hiddennic).

Overall, the researchers found that 50.4% of the videos studies advertised popular vaping brands and 45% included cannabis products. Some 28.6% of products advertised were described as “bundled,” 8.7% indicated that the products were “hidden,” and 6% specified international shipping was possible. Videos directed customers to other social media platforms—most often (57.5%) Instagram—to use services including Telegram to purchase electronic nicotine products.

The study indicated that vendors, either individuals or businesses, often evade local, state, or national legal restrictions on sales and advertising of vaping products to minors by creating what TikTok uses tag as #puffbundles or #vapebundles. These bundles often include other innocuous products (including candy, fake eyelashes, and lip gloss), so the packages do not appear to be vaping products at all. This explains young adults are purchasing e-cigarettes despite minimum legal sales age and flavor restriction laws.

Among videos posted about selling vaping products on TikTok, almost half (45.2%) advertised that they did not require age verification of the buyer. No video indicated customers needed to provide identification for purchase or acceptance of the mailed package of vaping products.

“Parents should be aware that children may be receiving e-cigarette products through the mail. These self-proclaimed small businesses are targeting youth by advertising that they don’t check for identification,” said the paper’s lead author, Page Dobbs. “If your child receives a bundle of candy or beauty products in the mail, check inside the packaging or inside the scrunchie with a zipper. Also, policymakers and enforcement agencies should be aware that these products are being shipped internationally, meaning people are circumventing tobacco laws in multiple countries.”

The paper, “#Discreetshipping: Selling E-cigarettes on TikTok,” is available (on May 23rd) at https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntae081.

To request a copy of the study, please contact:
Daniel Luzer 
daniel.luzer@oup.com

---

JOURNAL

Nicotine & Tobacco Research

DOI

10.1093/ntr/ntae081 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Content analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Discreetshipping: Selling E-cigarettes on TikTok

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-May-2024

 Psychedelic drug-induced hyperconnectivity in the brain helps clarify altered subjective experiences

A first of its kind imaging study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging provides insights into how the brain works on psychedelic drugs and their potential use to treat psychiatric disorders

HEY MAN AM I IN YOUR HEAD OR ARE YOU IN MINE?!

ELSEVIER

 

IMAGE: 

A NEW STUDY FINDS A PATTERN OF PSILOCYBIN-INDUCED DYNAMIC HYPERCONNECTIVITY IN THE BRAIN, WHICH IS LINKED TO OCEANIC BOUNDLESSNESS.

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CREDIT: BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY: COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROIMAGING

Philadelphia, May 23, 2024 – A new study shows that the use of psilocybin, a compound found in the widely known “magic mushrooms,” initiates a pattern of hyperconnectivity in the brain linked to the ego-modifying effects and feelings of oceanic boundlessness. The findings, appearing in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier, help explain the so-called mystical experiences people report during the use of psychedelics and are pertinent to the psychotherapeutic applications of psychedelic drugs to treat psychiatric disorders such as depression.

The concept of oceanic boundlessness refers to a sense of unity, blissfulness, insightfulness, and spiritual experience often associated with psychedelic sessions.

In one of the first brain imaging studies in psychedelic research, investigators found a specific association between the experiential, psychedelic state and whole-brain dynamic connectivity changes. While previous research has shown increases in static global brain connectivity under psychedelics, the current study shows that this state of hyperconnectivity is dynamic (changing over time) and its transition rate coincides with the feeling of oceanic boundlessness, a hallmark dimension of the psychedelic state.

Lead investigator Johannes G. Ramaekers, PhD, Department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, says, "Psilocybin has been one of the most studied psychedelics, possibly due to its potential contribution in treating different disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, death-related anxiety, depression, treatment-resistant depression, major depressive disorder, terminal cancer-associated anxiety, demoralization, smoking, and alcohol and tobacco addiction. What was not fully understood is what brain activity is associated with these profound experiences."

Psilocybin generates profound alterations both at the brain and the experiential level. The brain's tendency to enter a hyperconnected-hyperarousal pattern under psilocybin represents the potential to entertain variant mental perspectives. The findings of the new study illuminate the intricate interplay between brain dynamics and subjective experience under psilocybin, providing insights into the neurophysiology and neuro-experiential qualities of the psychedelic state.

Dr. Ramaekers adds, "Taken together, averaged and dynamic connectivity analyses suggest that psilocybin alters brain function such that the overall neurobiological pattern becomes functionally more connected, more fluid, and less modular."

Previously acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were analyzed for two groups of people; one group of 22 individuals received a single dose of psilocybin, the other 27 participants received a placebo. During the drug's peak effects, participants who received psilocybin reported substantial phenomenological changes compared to placebo. Also, brain connectivity analysis showed that a pattern characterized by global region-to-region connectivity was re-appearing across the acquisition time in the psilocybin group, potentially accounting for the variant mental associations that participants experience.

Moreover, this hyperconnected pattern was linked to oceanic boundlessness and unity, which indicates an important mapping between brain dynamics and subjective experience, pointing towards “egotropic effects” (vs hallucinergic) of the drug.

PhD candidate and co-author of the paper Larry Fort, University of Liège, emphasizes: “Psychedelic drugs like psilocybin are often referred to as hallucinogens both scientifically and colloquially. As such, we expected that the hallucinatory dimensions of experience would correlate the highest with psilocybin’s hyperconnected pattern. However, hallucinatory experience had a strong, but weaker correlation with this pattern than ego-modifying experiences. This led us to formulate the term ‘egotropic’ to draw attention to these ego-modifying effects as important, perhaps even more so than their hallucinogenic counterparts.”

Editor-in-Chief of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging Cameron S. Carter, MD, University of California Irvine, comments, “This study uses readily available resting state fMRI images acquired after psilocybin ingestion to provide new insights into the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the subjective and clinical effects of the drug. It sets the stage for future studies using other psychedelic agents to examine whether the dynamic connectivity effects reflect a general mechanism for the therapeutic effects of these compounds.

Lead investigator Athena Demertzi, PhD, Physiology of Cognition, GIGA-CRC In Vivo Imaging Center, University of Liège, adds, "We were pleasantly surprised to learn that the brain pattern of hyperconnected regions was further characterized by lower global signal amplitude, which works as a proxy to heightened cortical arousal. So far, this is the first time that such approximation of arousal levels using fMRI was attempted in psychedelic research. This might be an important correlation as we move towards a full characterization of brain states under psychedelics."

She concludes, "Given the resurgence in research regarding the psychotherapeutic applications of psychedelic drugs, our results are pertinent to understanding how subjective experience under psychedelics influences beneficial clinical outcomes. Is the effect driven by ego-dissolution? By hallucinations? As such, our work exemplifies how the strong inter-relatedness between egotropic effects of moderate dose psilocybin and its hyperconnected brain pattern can inform clinical focus on specific aspects of phenomenology, such as ego-dissolutions. With this information, healthcare professionals may learn how to best engineer psychedelic therapy sessions to produce the best clinical outcomes."

 

 

 

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JOURNAL

Biological Psychiatry Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging

DOI

10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.04.001 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Imaging analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Dynamic Functional Hyperconnectivity after Psilocybin Intake Is Primarily Associated with Oceanic Boundlessness

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Apr-2024

COI STATEMENT

The authors’ affiliations and disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article. Cameron S. Carter, MD, is Chair of the Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available at http://www.biologicalpsychiatrycnni.org/bpsc-editorial-disclosures.

Jewish Students Opposing Gaza Genocide, a Powerful Counter to Antisemitism

Biden, Megadonors, and Media stir antisemitism by equating Israel with Jewry

by John V. Walsh Posted onMay 23, 2024

The many Jewish students in the campus encampments, along with other Jews protesting the Gaza phase of the Palestinian Genocide, deserve the highest praise for many reasons.  One reason is that by their deeds they are countering what might otherwise turn into a wave of antisemitism.

The portrait of the encampments in much of the mass media and at Congressional hearings is a seething cauldron of anti-Jewish hatred and bigotry.  Joe Biden has joined the chorus, labelling the students’ actions to oppose Israel’s genocide as “antisemitic protests”! This charge is false amounting to a smear of the protests and an easy way to dismiss the them.  And it is dangerous because it de-legitimizes a movement that may help to stop a genocide.  But it is dangerous in another respect, for it increases the possibility of a real wave of antisemitic backlash.

Let’s begin with the slaughter of Gazans which is simply the latest phase of a long slow genocide of the Palestinian people which began with the Nakba of 1948, the forced expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes accompanied by a campaign of terror and atrocities.   The Nakba and the ethnic  cleansing of Palestinians from historic Palestine, aka Greater Israel, over the following 76 years, have largely been hidden from view.  In contrast, as has been widely remarked, the present massacre in Gaza is highly visible over alternative media on the internet.  The more than 35, 000 deaths, the majority of them women and children, and the bombed-out, smoking rubble that once was cities, schools, mosques, churches, hospitals and homes and even cemeteries are there for all the world to see.

The Biden administration has provided the weaponry for this genocide.  And since US taxpayers are footing the bill for the bombs, US citizens have the right and responsibility to raise their voices in opposition.  And the students have led the way in doing just that.

Those who oppose the protests, whether Congresspersons, pundits, AIPAC or Joe Biden tell us that the protests are antisemitic.  What is their justification for this label?  Because, they say, Israel and Jewry are one and the same, and to condemn Israel’s policies and actions is to condemn all Jews.   Declaring that anti-Zionism amounts to antisemitism is another way of saying the same thing.  But this equation of Jews and Israel is not only false,  it will come back to bite.  Why? Because the acceptance of this false equation can easily lead to blaming all Jews for the atrocities committed by the state of Israel.  And this in turn can generate a great deal of hatred of Jews in the world.  Have those who equate Jewry and Israel understood this?  Do they care that their view can lead to a wave of antisemitism?  Do those in Congress who spout this view in public hearings know the consequences of what they are doing?  Does Genocide Joe have a clue about it?

Jewish organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow and others are participants in the protests and are often among the leaders.  Senior US government officials from the Interior Department and the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency who are Jewish have resigned in protest over the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s genocide.  And both cited their Jewish heritage as reasons for so doing.  And there are certainly many more who feel the same way but, for any number of reasons, do not resign. In the face of this, how is it possible to say that opposition to the Biden administration’s policies is antisemitic?

When we see the Zionist government of Israel carry out genocide in full view of the entire world, we must conclude that the government of Israel cares less about Jews than it does about the Zionist project.  And that may well be the most decisive refutation of the equation between Israel and Jewry.

Finally, those who cry antisemitism when there is none  and use the charge for their immediate political purposes, cheapen the suffering caused by real antisemitism.   And like the boy that cries wolf, they render warnings of the real thing impotent when it comes along.

Author: John V. Walsh

John V. Walsh writes about issues of war, peace, empire, and health care for Antiwar.com, Consortium News, DissidentVoice.org, The Unz Review, and other outlets. Now living in the East Bay, he was until recently Professor of Physiology and Cellular Neuroscience at a Massachusetts Medical School. John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com View all posts by John V. Walsh

Sir Ed Davey: The leader hoping to end the Lib Dem wilderness years



Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey (Joe Giddens/PA)

By Gavin Cordon, PA

Today 


Doggedly determined Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has spent much of his life struggling to overcome setbacks and adversity.


Having risen to become a cabinet minister in David Cameron’s Conservative-Lib Dem coalition, he suffered the humiliation of losing his Commons seat when his party suffered a near wipeout in the 2015 general election.

His first attempt at the party leadership ended in defeat when he was well-beaten by Jo Swinson – by a majority of almost two to one – in the 2019 contest to succeed Sir Vince Cable.




(PA Graphics)

More recently his efforts to lift the Lib Dems out of the political doldrums, where they have languished for most of the last decade, have been hit by disclosures over his role as minister amid the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

From early childhood Sir Ed became accustomed to adversity, losing his father when he was just four, followed by the death of his mother from cancer when he was 15.

Along with his two brothers, he found himself thrust into the role of unpaid carer during her final illness – a role he was to repeat first for his grandmother and then, years later, with his wife Emily when their first child John was born severely disabled.




Sir Ed Davey on the campaign trail (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Difficulties at home, however, did not stop him excelling academically, becoming head boy at the fee-paying Nottingham High School and winning a place at Jesus College, Oxford, where he got a first in philosophy, politics and economics.

Having worked for the Lib Dems as an economics researcher, at the age of 31 he entered Parliament at the first attempt, taking the Tory-held seat of Surbiton at the 1997 general election.

He later admitted his victory, by a margin of just 56 votes, had come as something of a shock and that he had been banking on another five years as a management consultant before committing to a full-time career in politics.

At Westminster, he was associated with the “Orange Book” group of Lib Dems – including future leader Sir Nick Clegg – who argued for an economically liberal, free market approach to dealing with social problems, to the consternation of some on the left of the party.




Sir Ed Davey with then-Lib Dem leader Sir Nick Clegg (Steve Parsons/PA)

He was an outspoken critic of what he described as the “nanny state” policies of the Labour government to ban all smoking in pubs and to impose new restrictions on gambling machines.


More widely he made a mark tabling the clause which repealed Section 28 – the Thatcher-era law banning the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools.

Having held a series of frontbench posts under Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell, he was given the foreign affairs brief by Sir Nick when he became leader in 2007.

His argumentative streak surfaced when he was suspended from the Commons for a day for contesting a ruling by the Speaker excluding a Lib Dem motion calling for a referendum on the UK staying in the EU (which they supported).

When the Lib Dems joined the Conservatives in forming a coalition following the 2010 general election, he entered government in the relatively lowly position of a junior business minister.

However when fellow Lib Dem Chris Huhne was forced to resign for illegally dodging speeding points, Sir Ed was promoted to the cabinet as energy and climate change secretary.



Sir Ed Davey celebrates the Lib Dem by-election victory in the Tory ‘blue wall’ seat of Chesham and Amersham (Steve Parsons/PA)

In that role, he championed the expansion of both renewables and nuclear to reduce carbon emissions as well as foreign investment in the UK energy sector by countries such as China.

He was so vigorous in his support for deregulation and energy market liberalisation that even one Tory minister complained that he was “a bit right wing for me”.

When, in the 2015 general election, the Lib Dems paid the price for their support for the Conservatives – losing all but eight of their seats – Sir Ed was among the high-profile casualties.

As consolation, he accepted a knighthood.

His return, however, was swift, regaining his seat – which had been redrawn as Kingston and Surbiton – in the 2017 election on another otherwise disappointing night for the Lib Dems.

He chose not to run in the ensuing leadership contest, citing family reasons, but following the resignation of Sir Vince two years later he threw his hat in the ring only to lose out to Ms Swinson.


When she too quit following the Lib Dems’ “high-speed car crash” of a campaign in the 2019 general election, Sir Ed was by far the most experienced contender to succeed her, beating Layla Moran by a similar margin to that by which he had been defeated in the previous contest.

He has benefited from the turmoil which has engulfed the Conservative Party, with the Lib Dems notching up an impressive series of by-election victories in hitherto safe Tory “blue wall” constituencies.




Sir Ed Davey (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

He suffered a knockback however when he was criticised by Alan Bates, who led the campaign for justice for sub-postmasters wrongly convicted in the Horizon scandal, for initially refusing to meet him when he was business minister with responsibility for postal affairs.

The disclosure led to calls from Tory MPs for the Lib Dem leader – who has never been slow in calling for others to quit – to stand down and to hand back his knighthood.

The Lib Dems insist it is unfair for him to be singled out in this way, arguing that he was only one of a series of postal ministers, from all three main parties, to hold office over the course of the scandal.

Sir Ed himself has apologised for failing to see through the Post Office’s “lies” but complained that he, like other ministers, was deceived “on an industrial scale”.

With his eyes set firmly on restoring the Lib Dems as a serious political force at Westminster, he will be hoping such controversies do not dent his chances.

Election means early test for Swinney weeks after becoming First Minister




The general election will mark an early electoral test for John Swinney – who only returned as SNP leader earlier in May (Andrew Milligan/PA)
By Katrine Bussey, PA Scotland Political EditorToday at 10:30





Labour seems to be the party best placed to make gains in Scotland in the general election.


New SNP leader and First Minister John Swinney has vowed to work to get his party into a winning position, but pollsters have warned he faces a “major uphill task”.

The Westminster election will therefore mark an early test for Mr Swinney – who only took over as leader of his party earlier this month, returning for a second shot at the job.




(PA Graphics)

The SNP has for so long been the dominant force in politics north of the border, but a recent YouGov poll put Labour, led in Scotland by Anas Sarwar, 10 points ahead.

In the last general election in December 2019, Scots returned just one Labour MP – down from seven – with Ian Murray holding on to his Edinburgh South seat.

Since then, support for Labour has been on the rise, with the research by YouGov earlier in May putting the party’s share of the vote in Scotland at 39% – up five points from its April poll.

Analysis suggests that could see Labour, which currently has two Scottish MPs, win 35 seats north of the border.

Labour’s hopes of electoral success under Anas Sarwar, right, were boosted when Michael Shanks won the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election in October (Jane Barlow/PA)

With support for the SNP said to be down to 29%, its tally of MPs could fall to 11.

That would represent a massive drop in representation at Westminster for the party, which at the peak of its success won all but three of the constituencies north of the border.

That was the result in 2015, when the SNP swept the board in Scotland, winning 56 of the 59 seats up for grabs, leaving Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Tories with just a single MP each.

Their electoral dominance has continued in Scotland since then – though subsequent election results have seen the party fail to achieve such stratospheric success.


John Swinney, right, only became First Minister earlier this month (PA)

In the December 2019 election, the SNP won 48 of the Scottish 59 seats, however defections and the loss of the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat in a by-election mean it currently has 43 MPs.

Labour won Rutherglen with a swing of just over 20% from the SNP, boosting the party’s hopes it can once again send a significant number of Scottish MPs to Westminster.

Boundary changes mean that when Scots go to the polls, they will elect 57 MPs, down from 59.

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems also believe they can make gains in Scotland at the SNP’s expense.

In 2019, the Lib Dems won just four seats in Scotland, with then UK leader Jo Swinson losing her Dunbartonshire East constituency to the SNP.


But under the leadership of Sir Ed Davey at UK level and Alex Cole-Hamilton in Scotland, the party is targeting success again, focusing efforts on local councillor Susan Murray’s bid to win the Mid Dunbartonshire seat.

Liberal Democrats also hope they can gain from the SNP in the Highlands, with the party seeking success in the Lochaber, Skye and Wester Ross seat – an area previously represented by former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy before he lost his seat to Ian Blackford of the SNP in 2015.



Pollsters have warned Nicola Sturgeon ‘and everything her time in power is now associated with will continue to hang over’ the SNP (PA)

Mr Blackford is one of a number of prominent SNP MPs who are quitting the Commons, with current SNP Westminster deputy leader Mhairi Black stepping down, along with former SNP depute leader Stewart Hosie and Philippa Whitford, who has served as the party’s health spokeswoman.

Earlier this month, Chris Hopkins, political research director at pollsters Savanta, warned of the “major uphill task” Mr Swinney faces going into the election.

Mr Hopkins said: “While our research suggests that the SNP continues to have a solid base, they’re likely to fall quite far from the 43 seats they currently hold at the next general election, as things stand.


“Even if Swinney can begin to turn things around, the spectre of Sturgeon and everything her time in power is now associated with will continue to hang over the party and hamper any recovery.”

Humza Yousaf, who stepped down as first minister and SNP leader earlier in May, had already cited the Police Scotland investigation into the party’s finances as one reason why the SNP lost the Rutherglen by-election in October last year.

Since then Ms Sturgeon’s record as first minister has come under further scrutiny, with confirmation that she deleted WhatsApp messages during the Covid pandemic, sparking criticism.

With the election also taking place during the school holidays – most schools in Scotland finish for the summer at the end of June – parties will also be concerned about the impact this could have on voter turnout.