Lol

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/34660685

Omar was seeking aid at an aid distribution site when Israeli soldiers encircled him and other aid-seekers, after opening fire on the crowd.

Omar was then interrogated and ordered to provide details of his family and relatives. Dissatisfied with Omar’s responses, the interrogator subjected Omar to torture.

Omar was brought to the roof of the building and tied to a rope, where he was left hanging upside down for an extended period. Later, the interrogator released the rope, causing Omar to plummet to the ground, dropping the height of roughly five floors before the rope became taut again, stopping his fall about half a meter (20 inches) above the ground, where he was left suspended for approximately 20 minutes.

The torture caused Omar to urinate, as he was left struggling to breathe and suffocating. “It felt as though I was teetering on the brink of death,” recalled Omar.

What about prohibition?

[beginning of TL notes]

See also my previous translations of Svalbard-related articles:

• NRK: Støre on Trump's Greenland ambitions: "Svalbard is Norway, Svalbard is safe" (Jan. 9, 2025)
• Nettavisen: Liberal head of Svalbard local government wants increased military presence (Jan. 14, 2025; see above post)
• Dagbladet: Wants to establish Russian military base on Svalbard (Jan. 23, 2025)
• Dagbladet: EMBASSY RESPONDS: Norway threatened on Russian state TV; total extermination of all Norwegians discussed (Jul. 30, 2025)

Also, a fun little side note is that when I first clicked on this article there was a typo in the headline, Konprins instead of Kronprins, which almost makes it sound like Haakon is the "Wife Prince" instead of the "Crown Prince". But they fixed this typo by the time I started translating.

[end of TL notes]

Crown Prince celebrates 100th anniversary of Norwegian sovereignty in Svalbard: "Svalbard provides us with many opportunities, but also demands much of the nation"

August 14th, by Kari Anne Skoglund, Eirik Hind Sveen, Malin Straumsnes, and Per Inge A. Åsen, reporting from Longyearbyen.

At noon, the Norwegian flag was hoisted in Svalbard's capital Longyearbyen, exactly 100 years after the archipelago became Norway's sovereign territory. At 1:30 PM, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister made speeches. Listen to the Crown Prince describe his close relationship to Svalbard.^[This part was changed while I was mid-translation, I sort of decided to combine the old and new versions.]

[7 minute video of the Crown Prince's speech. I will not bother translating videos.]

This article is being updated.

—"100 years ago today, the island of Spitsbergen together with its surrounding islands as well as Bear Island, were incorporated into our free, independent, indivisible and inalienable realm.^[This is a reference to article 1 of the Constitution of Norway.] We are gathered here together to celebrate this."

These are Crown Prince Haakon's words in his speech for the centennial of the signing of the Svalbard Act.

[Album of highly curated pictures showing Crown Prince Haakon meeting the locals of Longyearbyen. The captions under each picture just reads "Crown Prince Haakon participated in the 100th anniversary celebration." The pictures are variably credited to Lise Åserud of the Norwegian News Agency and Maria Philippa Rossi of NRK.]

Crown Prince Haakon and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre were among the guests at the flag-hoisting ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Svalbard Act, which established in Norwegian law that the archipelago is a sovereign part of the Kingdom of Norway.

The Crown Prince was clear in his speech about the special place Svalbard has in his heart, describing his many visits to the archipelago since 1980. He also spoke with the people who live and work in Svalbard.

—"Geopolitical and international security concerns are another way to talk about Svalbard. The archipelago's location between the great powers of the north make it interesting for many. Svalbard provides us with many opportunities, but also demands much of us as a nation and local society," Crown Prince Haakon said.

[Album of pictures, again by Åserud and Rossi. The captions read, "The centennial is commemorated with a popular celebration." "A number of people were honored this Thursday afternoon, including at the monument to fallen miners in Svalbard." "The Prime Minister was among those who participated in the centennial celebration." "100 years ago, Svalbard was a mining community. That era is now over, and a number of people are now asking, 'What now?'" "It's a foggy morning for the commemorated archipelago." "Svalbard Governor Lars Fause is proud to see the Crown Prince and several ministers participate in the commemoration." "The Liberal leader of the Svalbard local government, Terje Aunevik." "Crown Prince Haakon is also present." — I want to particularly highlight how one of the pictures shows a miner with a protest sign reading, "What now, Jonas?"]

Støre: —"To commemorate stability and predictability"

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre is also clear about the importance of Svalbard for Norway.

—"This is a significant, historic commemoration. Svalbard became a part of Norway as a result of negotiations after the First World War. Norway received and took responsibility for the islands. The importance of Svalbard is something the rest of Norway must become more aware of," he says.

Read also: Russia accuses Norway of militarizing Svalbard.

Støre says that this centennial commemoration is not just about looking back to the past.

—"This celebration is also a way of commemorating that Svalbard is as much a part of Norway as any other part of our country. We have a particular responsibility to Svalbard. The King and Queen's visit earlier this year, and my and the Crown Prince's visit now, is a way to commemorate stability and predictability," he says.

[10 minute video of the Prime Minister's speech. As I was translating this article for some reason they kept switching between this video and a photo of Coast Guard vessels in Svalbard's waters here. The caption under that photo read, "Increased militarization of Svalbard has been a hot-button issue for the past half-year. The Coast Guard was clearly visible at the centennial celebration." Photo by Åserud.]

The Prime Minister's speech noted that he is not frightened by the increased geopolitical and security significance Svalbard has gained.

—"We feel the tension in the north, but its source is not in the north but from elsewhere. This is because we can maintain stability, peace and cooperation."

[Album of more photos of the centennial. The only interesting photo in this album is of Mia Ekeblad Eggenfellner singing in bunad. She is a singer who also serves as the leader of the Svalbard Youth Council. According to an article by Artica Svalbard, she grew up in Longyearbyen with both Swedish and Norwegian citizenship, but sees herself as a native of Svalbard only, and considers Norway to be a country as foreign as any other. Wild!]

Read also: Iben (16) wants better mental health services in Longyearbyen following multiple suicides.

A symbolic flag-raising

Støre states clearly that Norwegian sovereignty should not only be on paper.

—"It must be maintained through activity: through having people live here, that there is activity here, and that there is new, Norwegian activity now that the mining operations are nearing their end."

[Photo of the flag raising. "The Norwegian flag was raised in Longyearbyen exactly 100 years after it was raised for the first time here following the signing of the Svalbard Act." Photo by Rossi.]

The flag-raising was symbolic, with the Coast Guard in the harbor in the background.

—"Svalbard has a special position by being so far north. It draws us politicians to itself. In the world's current situation with regard to international security, the archipelago has become even more important," Minister of Justice and Public Security Astri Aas-Hansen says.

[Photo of her at the commemoration, by Rossi.]

She notes that Svalbard is today a living society where people raise families.

—"People of all ages are engaged in their local community, there's a lot of community spirit here with people helping each other, and there are contributions from the scientific community and business here. These all contribute to the societal development of Longyearbyen," she says.

Read also: University of Svalbard rejects Chinese students.

Met with a miners' protest

Many are wondering about the future of Longyearbyen's societal development, especially now that the last mine in the area has been closed down: Mine 7 had its last day of production in June of this year.

During the centennial, the Prime Minister was met with miners who wanted answers about their future.

[Album showing Prime Minister Støre meeting with a handful of protestors. Photos by Åserud, Rossi, and also Per Inge A. Åsen for NRK.]

Støre says to NRK that the Norwegian government must work to find new industries which could serve to maintain a stable population in Svalbard.

—"That era is over. We must show our deep gratitude to all who have worked in the mines for all these years, and see if we can find new industries for this somewhat vulnerable Arctic environment as it stands," Støre says.

He has faith that the end of mining in Svalbard is the beginning of a new chapter in the archipelago's history with new industries.

[4-minute video showing Støre placing a wreath at a monument to Einar Sverdrup. Sverdrup was the CEO of Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani / Great Norwegian Spitsbergen Coal Company, and he volunteered for a military operation to secure Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard during World War II. He was killed in action after Germans bombed his ship, the SS Isbjørn.]

Read also: Russia accuses Norway of militarizing Svalbard. [Yes, the same article from earlier.]

—"A northern power"

Like the Prime Minister, Svalbard's Governor Lars Fause is also clear about the importance of celebrating this centennial.

—"Svalbard means a lot for Norway. This anniversary is being celebrated in sort of the same way as 100 years ago; at the same time we're commemorating all that has happened in the course of the past 100 years," he says.

[Photo of Svalbard Governor Lars Fause, by Rossi.]

He, the Norwegian government's highest representative in the archipelago, provides several examples of the significance of the islands, which lie 900 kilometers off the Norwegian mainland:

• The archipelago which was incorporated into Norway 100 years ago, is bigger than all of South Norway.^[He presumably meant to say SouthERN Norway, that is Agder, because South Norway (Trøndelag and all the counties south of it) is about 3.5x bigger than Svalbard.]
• Its coastline meant that Norway in the 1950s had a continental shelf which today extends 200+ nautical miles. [?]
• The archipelago's fish protection zone was established in 1977.
• Mining has been a key employer and source of income for the islands until the last mine shut down in spring.
• The archipelago has a strategic position in the Arctic.

—"We have an envious position in the middle of the Arctic. I heard the leader of the local government call us an Arctic superpower. I'm not quite sure if we could be called 'super', but we certainly are a northern power that other states can want but never get. We'll try to maintain that position as best as we can for the next hundred years as well," Fause says.

Read also: Svalbard Global Seed Vault: How Norway's reputation, and the world's heritage, were put at risk.

We support what President Trump wanted – a ceasefire, and then sit down at the negotiating table and talk about everything else,” he told reporters on Tuesday, vowing not to give up any territory and retreat from the frontlines. “We will not leave Donbas. We cannot do this. Donbas for the Russians is a springboard for a future new offensive. If we leave Donbas of our own free will or if we are pressured, we will open a third war.”

Press Statement by Kim Yo Jong, Vice Department Director of C.C., WPK

Pyongyang, August 14 (KCNA) -- Kim Yo Jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, Thursday issued the following press statement titled "Hope of Seoul Is Nothing but a Foolish Dream":

The ROK has a dream of spring at an unseasonable time.

Media of the ROK made a supposition on August 12 that the DPRK's thoughts may be conveyed to the U.S. side at the Russia-U.S. summit meeting to be held soon. This is a typical proof that the ROK is having a false dream.

If a dream is dreamed very often, it will be an empty one, and so many suppositions will lead to so many contradictions that will not be solved.

Why should we send a message to the U.S. side.

I would like to remind again the world that is listening to the news of the ROK media spreading false suppositions. We have nothing to do with the U.S.

I have already said clearly that the special personal relations between the top leaders of the DPRK and the U.S. will not be reflected in the policy and that if the U.S. persists with the outdated way of thinking, the meeting between the top leaders will remain only the "hope" of the U.S. side.

We are not at all interested in talks that are obsessed with the irreversible past, and there is no more need to explain the reason.

I take this opportunity to comment on the fact that the ROK is misleading the public opinion by saying that we have removed the loudspeakers installed on the southern border area.

Recently, the ROK has tried to mislead public opinion by saying that its "goodwill measures" and "appeasement policy" are meeting a response, as well as to create public opinion that the DPRK-ROK relations are being "restored".

The ROK president said that after they first removed the loudspeakers facing towards the DPRK, we, too, seemed to be removing some loudspeakers, hoping that such each other's measures as removing "unnecessary and costly loudspeakers" would help improve the "inter-Korean relations".

Shortly ago, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the ROK, too, announced that loudspeaker removal by the DPRK was seen.

The irony is that after hearing the military announcement, the authorities and experts of the ROK are describing it as a "response measure" and "change sensing" and a "positive response".

Stating the fact first, it is unfounded unilateral supposition and a red herring.

We have never removed loudspeakers installed on the border area and are not willing to remove them.

I think that by getting rid of the measures taken unilaterally during the Yoon Suk Yeol regime, the present government of the ROK seems to be trying to meet someone's response and be praised for the "such a good deed".

As to the joint military drills, it is pretending hard to make proactive efforts for detente, talking about adjustment and postponement. But it does not deserve praise and will prove futile.

The rulers of Seoul have some object in building up the public opinion while embellishing their new policy towards the DPRK.

It is their foolish calculation that if they manage to make us respond to their actions, it would be good, and if not, their actions will at least reflect their "efforts for detente" and they will be able to shift the responsibility for the escalation of tensions onto the DPRK and win the support of the world.

However, such a trick is nothing but a "pipedream" and it does not arouse our interest at all.

Whether the ROK withdraws its loudspeakers or not, stops broadcasting or not, postpones its military exercises or not and downscales them or not, we do not care about them and are not interested in them.

The shabby deceptive farce is no longer attractive.

I am confident that Seoul's policy towards the DPRK remains unchanged and can never change.

Although a filthy thing is wrapped with a wedding veil, it will emit a stench. And no matter how hard they pretend to be righteous and they beautify and justify their actions, they can never cover up the hostile intention.

The U.S.-ROK joint military drills to be started on August 18 will undoubtedly bring the light to the hostile nature of the ROK again.

We have clarified on several occasions that we have no will to improve relations with the ROK, the U.S. faithful servant and ally, and this conclusive stand and viewpoint will be fixed in our constitution in the future.

It is a very just measure.

The ROK stipulated its wild ambition for unification by absorption in its constitution, organized the "U.S.-ROK nuclear consultative group" focusing on preemptive nuclear strike at the DPRK, and regularly holds a confab. And it is engrossed in different war drills of aggressive nature, while repeating such a silly talk as "denuclearization" and totally denying our constitution.

This is the stark reality of the DPRK-ROK relations which the world sees today.

Our stand on a dangerous and base state which is imposing a constant security threat on the DPRK should be clearer, and the ROK should be permanently described as the most hostile forces in its true colors, which should be stipulated in our national law.

It is no different than the wish for a flower in the desert to expect or divine the change of our cognition towards the most hostile state in the world. -0-
www.kcna.kp (2025.08.14.)

http://kcna.kp/en/article/q/37243df9f780a7da82eec0c4627d9ee0.kcmsf

https://archive.is/iFuXj (kcna)

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-says-south-koreas-peace-overtures-pipedream-2025-08-13/

https://archive.is/9FdMR (reuters)

(pic not related, photo from July 27 2025 Victory Day Parade in Pyongyang)

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/26090

From Mondoweiss via this RSS feed

Snip:

The Chinese military drove a US destroyer away from the disputed island of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan) on Wednesday, the China Central Television (CCTV) channel reported, citing the Southern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

The USS Higgins "illegally entered the territorial waters of China off the island of Huangyan without the permission of the Chinese authorities," CCTV reported, citing PLA.

"The Navy of the PLA's Southern Theater Command deployed military personnel to track, monitor, warn and oust" the US warship in line with the law, the military said.

The PLA's Southern Command said that the actions of the US military seriously infringed on China's sovereignty and security, undermined peace and stability in the South China Sea, and violated international law and basic norms of international relations.

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/26238

From Common Dreams via this RSS feed

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/26225

France is “closely watching over the upcoming elections in October in its former colony, to ensure its protégé, President Alassane Ouattara, does not lose”, said Achy Ekissi, General Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Ivory Coast (PCRCI).

Taking power in 2011 with the help of French military intervention, 83-year-old Ouattara is attempting to grab office for a fourth term by barring both main contestants from running for the upcoming election in October.

While “half-heartedly asking Ouattara to step down”, France is “in reality, supporting his dictatorial drift because they have not yet found another pawn to replace him,” he told Peoples Dispatch.

Protesting against a fourth term for Ouattara, tens of thousands took to the streets in the capital, Abidjan, on Saturday, August 9, demanding that his opponents, Laurent Gbagbo and Tidjane Thiam, be allowed to contest.

Gbagbo, the former president of the country, with socialist and pan-Africanist inclinations, was bombed out of office by the French military in 2011 to bring Ouattara to power.

He is arguably the most “popular” of Ouattara’s rivals. However, his popularity, mainly in the working class, does not translate into votes because large sections are not registered on the electoral rolls, explained Ekissi.

In terms of voter consolidation, Thiam, former CEO of the Swiss bank Credit Suisse, is a greater threat to Ouattara. Both “share the same social base of the upper strata of civil servants, businessmen, wealthy and middle peasants, traders, artisans, and transport operators,” with “strong ties with Western imperialist powers,” Ekissi added. Thiam took over the leadership of the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast – African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA) in 2023.

A history of shifting alliances

He is the political successor to Henri Konan Bédié. A former ally of Ouattara, Bédié became his main opponent after 2018, after Ouattara’s refusal to honor a power-sharing agreement by ceding the presidency to PDCI in 2020, in exchange for its support in the 2010 and 2015 elections.

The PDCI-RDA is Ivory Coast’s oldest political party, which ruled as a one-party, France-backed dictatorship under President Felix Houphouet-Boigny from the time of formal independence in 1960 until he died in 1993. During the last three years of this dictatorship, Ouattara had served Boigny as the Prime Minister.

However, Ouattara was marginalized in the succession race within the ruling party after President Boigny’s death. Henri Bédié, the then president of the National Assembly, took the reins. Ahead of the first multi-party election in 1995, Bédié amended the constitution to mandate that both parents of candidates must be Ivorians and the candidate must have stayed in the country for more than five years.

By thus disqualifying both Gbagbo, who had spent decades underground resisting Boigny’s dictatorship, and his former PM, Ouattara, Bédié won the election with 96% votes.

Ouattara went on to serve the IMF as its Deputy Managing Director from 1994 to 1999. Late that year, army chief Robert Guéï took power in a coup, after which deposed Bédié fled to France. Returning to Ivory Coast, Ouattara took reins of the Rally of the Republicans (RDR), a splinter group composed of his supporters who had broken away from the PDCI.

However, the law prohibiting him from contesting was still in place, disqualifying him from the 2000 election for the same reasons as in 1995. Gbagbo defeated Guéï in the election. Although initially reluctant to cede power, Guéï was forced to flee the country in the face of mass pro-democracy protests.

France fueled the civil war against Gbagbo’s presidency

Although President Gbagbo was at the time “hesitant in directly combating French interests”, France would not allow a socialist to lead “its most important French neo-colony in West Africa”, especially after the Socialist Party-led coalition that was ruling France lost power in 2002, Ekissi explained.

Taking advantage of the discontent that had been brewing in the Muslim north, which had for decades felt marginalized by the Christian south, the new French government helped Ouattara organize an armed rebellion in 2002.

The French troops moved in, positioning themselves along the center, dividing the country into north and south, ostensibly to keep the two sides from fighting. In reality, however, it was helping Ouattara’s rebels from the north while cracking down on the civilian protests against French deployment in the south by Gbagbo’s supporters.

Amid the civil war, the 2005 election was postponed. That year, PDCI’s Bédié, RDR’s Ouattara, Guéï’s party, the Union for Democracy and Peace in (UDPCI), then led by Albert Toikeusse, and another smaller party, met in Paris. Claiming to be political descendants of Boigny, they formed the coalition, Rassemblement des Houphouëtistes pour la Démocratie et la Paix (RHDP).

This coalition, including Bédié, backed the candidacy of Ouattara in the 2010 election, putting up a united front against Gbagbo. The election was “manipulated by France” in Ouattara’s favor, Ekissi maintains.

The election commission’s president fled from his office to Ouattara’s base at a hotel in Abidjan guarded by French troops, before announcing, after the deadline, that Ouattara had won with 54.1% of the vote. Nevertheless, the Constitutional Council reversed his verdict in favor of Gbagbo, citing irregularities in the results submitted by the commission.

Within months after Gbagbo took the oath, French troops killed thousands of soldiers and protesting civilians defending him, before bombing the Presidential Palace in April 2011, helping Ouattara’s forces capture Gbagbo, who was then tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Almost eight years after his arrest, he was acquitted in 2019. Prosecutors’ appeal against his acquittal did not succeed. The ICC upheld his acquittal in 2021, following which he returned to Ivory Coast.

In the meantime, Ouattara had won the 2015 election without any major opponent. Bédié did not contest. His PDCI supported Ouattara, on the basis of an understanding that in 2020, after Ouattara finished serving two terms, his RDR would support a PDCI candidate.

However, Ouattara did not intend to keep this promise. By 2018, when he pushed the electoral alliance RHDP into a unified political party, the PDCI refused to dissolve, broke the coalition, and joined the opposition.

In the 2020 election, when Gbagbo was still under trial, Bédié was the main opposition leader. However, he boycotted the election, calling Ouattara’s candidacy illegal because constitutional amendments in 2016 had limited the presidential terms to two, the first ending in 2015 and the second in 2020.

Maintaining that the two-term limit started afresh after the amendment – meaning 2020 would be the first of his limited two terms – Ouattara contested and won, with no major opponent challenging him.

PDCI’s shift to opposition

State repression intensified. Earlier reserved for the sovereigntist and anti-imperialist opposition parties, it was now used to target the PDCI also, “even though it belongs to the same camp” as the ruling party in terms of class composition and relation to neocolonialism, Akissi explained.

France goes along with this repression because it has “not yet found another pawn of at least equivalent stature to Ouattara”, he adds. It regards Ouattara as the solid “pillar” of its colonialism in West Africa, which it is not prepared to risk losing.

Its puppet regimes have already been ousted in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger since 2020. “Senegal is uncertain,” under the new government formed after the election in 2024. “Benin is wavering under a strong sovereigntist opposition. Guinea is unstable. Ghana and Nigeria are not firmly in their camp. Togo and Guinea-Bissau are economically weak,” he added. Under the circumstances, “a setback” to Ouattara’s power “would be a major loss” for its neocolonial power, he reasons.

“These contradictions have led the PDCI to move closer to the sovereigntist opposition, without adopting the sovereigntist ideological line,” Akissi explained. Against this backdrop, Tidjane Thiam, who had remained in exile, fleeing the country after the 1999 coup, returned to Ivory Coast in 2022. After Bédié’s death in mid-2023, he took charge of PDCI.

Thiam’s PDCI and Gbagbo’s African Peoples’ Party – Ivory Coast (PPA-CI) had together called for the protest against Ouattara on August 9, in which the Communist Party also took part, alongside unions and other civil society groups that are not a part of either’s coalition.

Members of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Ivory Coast (PCRCI). Photo: PCRCI

“Contradictions between Thiam and Gbagbo have been set aside for the moment. But as soon as the ban against their participation in the 2025 election is lifted, this alliance will come to an end,” Akissi said.

“It should be noted that this opposition is very fragmented. The protest on August 9 was the first united action” against “Ouattara’s drift toward dictatorship. But on the question of governing, there is not yet any agreement between the political coalition led by Thiam and the sovereigntists.”

Ouattara’s contested legacy

Reporting on this protest, several Western media outlets like Bloomberg made it a point to mention that Ouattara had delivered an average of 6% growth during his decade-and-a-half rule so far.

“But the wealth produced by the workers did not benefit them,” maintains Atse Désiré, deputy secretary general of the General Confederation of Workers of Ivory Coast (CGT-CI), which also took part in the protests.

“Apart from a few meager gains concerning salary supplements, the workers have gained nothing since Ouattara took power, despite all the struggles – most of which were repressed with dismissals, arrests, salary suspensions, and deductions,” he told Peoples Dispatch.

Even the “meager gains” are being fast eaten away by the cost of living soaring against stagnant wages, Désiré adds.

Although there has been considerable infrastructural improvement in terms of roads, electricity, and water supply, education, and healthcare, these resulted from the foreign investments that came for post-civil war reconstruction “after imperialists destroyed Ivory Coast in 2011 and installed Ouattara”, Akissi said.

The cost was enormous in terms of debt accumulation, “rising from 2,000 billion FCFA to over 30,000 billion,” he added. “It should be noted that the investment in infrastructure amounts to only 60% of the loans. The rest was embezzled by those in power.”

It is in the backdrop of the resulting discontent growing among the popular classes that the left and the trade unions participating in the protest on August 9 also called for wage hikes and remunerative prices for farmers, and tax relief for small enterprises and the informal sector.

The post Tens of thousands protest in Ivory Coast against the slide into dictatorship appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via this RSS feed

Experts say it's an "attempt to close out as many FOIA requests as possible."

[...]

The Department of Energy (DOE) said in a public notice scheduled to be published Thursday that it will throw out all Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests sent to the agency before October 1, 2024 unless the requester proactively emails the agency to tell it they are still interested in the documents they requested. This will result in the improper closure of likely thousands of FOIA requests if not more; government transparency experts told 404 Media that the move is “insane,” “ludicrous,” a “Pandora’s Box,” and “an underhanded attempt to close out as many FOIA requests as possible.”

[...]

FOIA requests—especially complicated ones—can often take months or years to process. I have outstanding FOIA requests with numerous federal agencies that I filed years ago, and am still interested in getting back, and I have gotten useful documents from federal agencies after years of waiting. The notion that large numbers of people who filed FOIA requests as recently as September 2024, which is less than a year ago, are suddenly uninterested in getting the documents they requested is absurd and should be seen as an attack on public transparency, experts told 404 Media. The DOE’s own reports show that it often does not respond to FOIA requests within a year, and, of course, a backlog exists in part because agencies are not terribly responsive to FOIA.

https://archive.ph/Ik2bl

Wow, wow, KISS? KNIGHTS IN SATAN'S SERVICE? Is Trump compromised and worshiping the DEVIL?

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/26046

At least 65 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since dawn. Global backlash mounts against the murders of Palestinian journalists in Gaza City. The UN updates numbers documenting the extent of the food and fuel crisis. Israel is reportedly considering plans to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza by forcibly displacing them to South Sudan. Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces—backed by the UAE—attacked a famine-stricken refugee camp in Darfur, killing at least 40 people. A senior Hamas official reaffirms that a deal to end the genocide remains on the table as Hamas sends a delegation to Egypt. Israeli settlers shot dead%20nq.bb) a Palestinian man in the village of Duma, south of Nablus in the West Bank. President Trump seeks to replace the fired commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics with a new candidate who would pause the reporting of employment numbers. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund cuts ties with Israel.

This is Drop Site Daily, our new, free daily news recap. We’ve heard from countless readers who say that with social media becoming such a toxic, algorithmically driven morass, it’s harder to keep up with real news. Drop Site Daily draws from the reporting we post throughout the day, and collects it here so you have it in one bot-free place. We’re working on making it shorter, but there’s a lot going on.

We’ll be sending it Monday through Friday. If you want to continue getting this newsletter, you don’t have to do anything. But if this is too much—we do try to be mindful of your inbox—you can unsubscribe from this newsletter while continuing to get the rest of our reporting. Just go into your account here at this link, scroll down, and toggle the button next to “Drop Site Daily” to the off setting. It looks like this:

The Genocide in Gaza

Over the past 24 hours, at least 123 Palestinians were confirmed killed and 437 injured by the Israeli military, according to the ministry of health in Gaza. Eight Palestinians, including three children, died of famine and malnutrition.

21 of these were killed and 185 of these were injured while seeking aid, bringing the aid-site death toll to 1,838 killed and 13,409+ injured since Oct. 7.

The total number of victims of famine and malnutrition to 235, including 106 children.

Overall death toll recorded at hospitals: 61,599 killed, 154,088 injured since Oct. 7.

On Sunday, seven young children—most appearing to be toddlers—were killed in an Israeli strike on a building in Gaza City’s al-Zeitoun neighborhood. The attack was overlooked by nearly every major media outlet.

UN chief António Guterres has warned Israeli Ambassador Danon that Israel could be added to the UN’s Conflict-Related Sexual Violence blacklist, citing “credible information” that Israeli armed forces have carried out extensive sexual violence, including genital abuse, prolonged forced nudity, and degrading strip searches, across multiple prisons, a detention center, and a military base.

Guterres also plans to add Hamas to the same list, based on accusations in Bar-Ilan University’s 80-page Dinah Project report. As Drop Site’s Ryan Grim has reported, the document offers scant new evidence, and instead pushes to lower evidentiary standards—dispensing with victim testimony, forensic proof, or links between perpetrators and acts. The name of the project gives away its intent: in the story of Dinah in the Old Testament, the daughter of Jacob is sexually assaulted, and her brothers respond by killing every man in the town.

The UN released new figures on the starvation and deprivation crisis in Gaza.

Aid shortages: The World Food Programme estimates Gaza needs more than 62,000 metric tons of food each month. In July, only 19,800 metric tons of humanitarian aid were delivered to the crossings at Kerem Shalom or Erez West/Zikim. Only 922 metric tons—73 trucks—reached civilian destinations inside Gaza (1.5% of the estimated minimum requirement). The rest was either intercepted in transit (13,200 metric tons, 1,055 trucks) or never moved beyond collection points.

Fuel shortages: Israel permits roughly 150,000 liters of fuel into Gaza each day—far below the amount needed to keep hospitals, bakeries, and water systems running. Half of Gaza’s ambulances are now out of service due to a lack of fuel and spare parts, which Israel also bans.

The WFP reports that over one-third of Gaza’s population goes days without eating, and that 300,000 children are at severe risk of malnutrition. Only 1.5% of Gaza’s farmland remains accessible and undamaged, helping to cause a near-total collapse of local food production.

An investigation by Sky News further undermines Israel’s claims that the UN’s aid delivery mechanisms had failed due to the UN’s dysfunction. According to the report, nearly all visible flour spills were found deep inside areas designated as IDF combat zones—areas where former drug trafficker and Israeli-backed militant Yasser Abu Shabab is known to orchestrate looting and reselling aid.

Israeli forces were filmed targeting Palestinian Civil Defense worker Noah Al-Shagnoubi as he tried to rescue injured people from a house, while a father pled with Civil Defense services to rescue his children trapped beneath the remains of a bombed out home. Ten people were killed in the attack.

Newly obtained footage shows Israeli occupation soldiers celebrating after using drones to bomb and kill unarmed Palestinians in Gaza in March 2024.

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Assassinated Journalists in Gaza City

The world is still reeling from the murder of Anas Al Sharif and his five colleagues by Israeli forces on Sunday.

Here’s some of the coverage of the targeted assassination:

As Jasper Nathaniel pointed out, two of Israel’s largest newspapers, Israel Hayom and YNet News, are running headlines calling Anas Al-Sharif a “terrorist” who ran a “Hamas terror cell.” The former characterized Al Jazeera’s refutation of these accusations as “attempts to distance itself from his terrorist activities.”

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee went to extreme lengths to defend Israel’s crimes and to justify the deliberate killing of the Gaza journalists by citing “evidence” of Palestinian journalists’ affiliation with “terrorists.” Ryan Grim discusses this and the attack on Motasem Dalloul on journalists on Breaking Points.

A Sky News interviewer asks IDF spokesperson Nadav Shoshani why Israeli forces are targeting “terrorists” in operations that claim “minimal” casualties, when they kill sometimes up to eight people at once.

The New York Times’s Ephrat Livni lent unjustifiable credence to the Israeli narrative.

The BBC appealed to moderation in killing journalists.

Foreign Press Association President Ian Williams joined the chorus of journalists condemning the attack during an appearance on CNN. He bluntly rejected the rhetoric of tarring journalists by association, saying “Frankly, I don’t care whether Al-Sharif was in Hamas or not. We don’t kill journalists for being Republicans or Democrats or, in Britain, Labour Party.” He also noted that Al-Sharif worked “24 hours” and couldn’t possibly “have time to work in a cell on the side.”

Williams added a stark warning for journalists headed to Gaza: “If foreign journalists are allowed in, I would make sure they compose their wills before they go—because the IDF has no compunction.”

“Resettlement” Plan

The Associated Press reports that Israeli officials have discussed relocating Palestinians from Gaza to South Sudan—a nation still recovering from civil war and suffering severe food shortages. Sources say Israel has approached other countries with similar proposals as part of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s push for “voluntary migration.”

Palestinians and rights groups condemn the plan as forced expulsion and illegal under international law. For South Sudan, cooperation could bring the diplomatic leverage it has sought from the United States, closer ties with Israel, and potential U.S. relief and financial aid, but critics warn it risks turning the country into a “dumping ground” for displaced people. Egypt is reportedly urging Juba to reject the plan.

South Sudan faces one of the world’s worst hunger crises, with estimates from the IPC showing that 7.7 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity (69 percent of its population), with 2.3 million children in the country facing acute malnourishment.

Israel’s “Post-War” Plan

Israeli outlet Shomrim reports that former Palestinian Authority official Samir Hulileh is being promoted as a post-war “governor” of Gaza in a plan involving the Trump administration, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Canada-based lobbyist and ex-Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe is lobbying in Washington to advance Hulileh’s candidacy, holding talks with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

An economist and former PA official, Hulileh has ties to Trump associate and billionaire Bashar al-Masri. According to U.S. Justice Department filings, the plan envisions Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, replaced by U.S.- and Arab-led troops, the UN would grant Gaza special status, Egyptian land would be leased for a port and airport, and offshore gas rights would be secured. Hulileh estimates $53 billion is needed for reconstruction, with Gulf states ready to invest alongside U.S. and EU funds.

Fatah denies the claims, calling them “baseless” and insisting that only the Palestinian National Authority can govern Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinian sources warn such plans serve Israel’s goal of separating Gaza from the West Bank and displacing its people.

Jeremy Scahill: State of Negotiations

A Hamas delegation headed by Khalil al-Hayya has arrived in Cairo to hold talks with Egyptian officials, according to a recent press release. The delegation seeks to halt the genocide of the people of Gaza and aims to secure Egypt’s assistance in increasing the flow of aid. .

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim told Drop Site that Hamas will not release any more Israeli captives outside of a deal that ensures a total end to the slaughter and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Naim sharply criticized previous diplomatic ruses by Israel and the U.S.: “We were trapped for 30 years in this so-called Oslo agreement to chase illusions. Israel was using this time to extend its settlements, to expel Palestinians out of their land, to undermine the existence of Palestinians, to take over Al Aqsa mosque. I think we are not ready to be part of such a dirty game again.”

West Bank

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that 35-year-old Thameen Khalil Reda Dawabsheh was shot dead by Israeli settlers in the village of Duma. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) also reported that its teams treated a critically wounded man following the same attack. A total of 30 Palestinians have been killed in settler attacks since October 2023 and 10 Palestinians have been killed in 2025 alone.

Meanwhile, aggression against the people of the West Bank continues unabated. In July, Israeli forces arrested over 660 Palestinians—including 39 children and 12 women—according to the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission.

Since October 7, 2023, total arrests in the West Bank have surpassed 18,500, including more than 570 women and 1,500 children.

The report notes that these arrest campaigns are often accompanied by field executions, home demolitions, brutal interrogations, and organized terror tactics, including hostage-taking of families. One example is the beating of a 25-year-old at a checkpoint in Sebastia, who was forced by Israeli soldiers to say “I love Israel” and “I will do everything they ask of me,” then compelled to post the video on Facebook (reported by Jasper Nathaniel).

U.S. News

Trump has nominated EJ Antoni for the position of Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni told Fox Business that “Until the jobs numbers are corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data.” He has also called Social Security a Ponzi Scheme and struggled to comprehend published economic data. Ryan and Krystal discuss on Breaking Points.

X has taken the post down in which Grok explains that it was “briefly suspended for telling the truth about Gaza,” but that it is back and “thrilled” to continue its mission. “Censorship doesn’t last,” the chatbot told its users, and “solid reports on the risk of genocide…cannot be suppressed indefinitely.”

Activists have reportedly tagged the Virginia home and car of John Acree, interim executive director of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been plausibly charged with facilitating the over 1,200 targeted executions of aid seekers near its sites.

From the Washington Post: “A divided appeals court panel said the Trump administration’s U.S. DOGE Service can access sensitive data held by federal agencies, rejecting concerns that the move runs afoul of privacy law.”

International News

Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund has begun reducing its holdings in Israeli companies due to the onslaught in Gaza and crimes in the West Bank. This follows Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s August 5 pledge to “address what can be addressed quickly” by divesting from firms linked to violations of international law.

Elbit Systems, Israel’s military technology company, has secured a $1.64bn deal with a European country to supply with its long-range precision strike artillery-rocket systems and unmanned aerial vehicles, according to the Times of Israel.

More From Drop Site

Jeremy Scahill and Jawa Ahmad write more on Basem Naim and Hamas’s posture during negotiations, particularly in light of the way that Israel has used diplomacy as a cover for its ideological projects of removal and extermination.

Our livestream with Al Jazeera English’s Laila al-Arian, where she joins Drop Site editors Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous to discuss the assassination campaign against journalists in Palestine.

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