leicsmac

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgq0gy82wjo Gaza has become worse than hell on earth, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross has told the BBC. In an interview at the ICRC's headquarters in Geneva, the organisation's president Mirjana Spoljaric said "humanity is failing" as it watched the horrors of the Gaza war. Speaking in a room close to a case displaying the ICRC's three Nobel Peace Prizes, I asked Ms Spoljaric about remarks she made in April, that Gaza was "hell on earth", and if anything had happened since to change her mind. "It has become worse… We cannot continue to watch what is happening. It's surpassing any acceptable, legal, moral, and humane standard. The level of destruction, the level of suffering. "More importantly, the fact that we are watching a people entirely stripped of its human dignity. It should really shock our collective conscience." Powerful words, powerful interview.

Nah, just throwing out a barb regarding the Beebs fact-checking and adjusting stories as new factual information comes in. Height of hypocrisy of course, seeing as this administration has a lot of form on both not bothering to fact check and then doubling down when they're shown to be wrong.

Yes. And that's why either they win, or there is a reckoning - for the people that act like this and the people like this administration who enable and embolden them.

Trump's press lackey not happy that the Beeb aren't being utterly sycophantic to them in the same way a lot of other areas of the media - American and otherwise - are, then.

Jon has it about right from one perspective, but also... 71 countries still criminalise LGBT relationships. 11 of them carry a potential death penalty for it. And that's just the criminally institutionalised discrimination, the everyday civil discrimination where LGBT folks have trouble obtaining healthcare, housing and work without being discriminated against is much more prevalent in many more places. Hell, the "gay panic" defence is still a viable defence for killing someone in some places. A prominent gay actor was shot dead for simply being that way in the US the other day (see the cvnts thread), and the case of Brianna Ghey shows such hate crimes happen in the UK too (thankfully, not as often). Progress is being made compared even to a decade or two ago, but there's still a way to go and yes, the discrimination is still rife even if a lot of folks either can't see it or pretend not to. Of course, if we're talking about the UK only then the issues aren't as bad as the majority of other places, but this discourse and Pride itself has never been just about one country. WRT it being a whole month rather than a day, I think that can be put down as the matter still being ongoing and requiring of attention as rights for LGBT people are still apparently a matter of debate for much, much more people than the other groups mentioned here.

Seriously, how do you reason with people whose ideology involves not only wanting you dead because of who you are, but taking pleasure in inflicting both that and physical and mental suffering beforehand? And how do you reason with those people when they are in number and highly motivated?

It would be easier if it was just the homegrown bigots to deal with, wouldn't it? Unfortunately there seems to be quite a few of those about at the present time.

The Chinese are having the role of world science research leader handed to them pretty much by default. They must be absolutely pissing themselves laughing.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/01/us-veterans-affairs-agency-doctors-scientists-research Senior officials at the US Department of Veterans Affairs have ordered that VA physicians and scientists not publish in medical journals or speak with the public without first seeking clearance from political appointees of Donald Trump, the Guardian has learned. ...the fresh Germany c.1936 hell is this?

Sigfredo Alvarez Ceja. (If what happened here is what looks like what happened here.)

Also, Sarwar really should be taking legal action against Farage for slander.

Latest on this: Lee Jae-myung set to win more or less decisively, if exit polls are accurate. Good news.

That's a fair point. Hopefully it won't be the case.

If you're referring to the US, then Jon has it (mostly) right above. (The "mostly" being that the Trump administration wouldn't kill her, but rather do a lot to make her wish she were dead, if they were so inclined.) If you're referring to the Chinese (or specifically their leadership), there's no reason whatsoever to suggest what Jiang-Xiǎojiě said here would not fit with their current goals and so annoy them

In other news, the Korean elections are today after the last nationalist got rightfully thrown out on his ear for doing nationalist things. (Something other places in the world could learn from there.) Foreign policy obviously high on the agenda, but that the country came very close to veering back into a dictatorship last December and a possible age demographic crisis are also big issues.

On the above: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c787xv2xy1zo A Chinese Harvard graduate's speech calling for unity in a divided world, delivered days after the US vowed to "aggressively" revoke Chinese students' visas, has sparked mixed reactions in the US and her home country. "We don't rise by proving each other wrong. We rise by refusing to let one another go," Jiang Yurong said on Thursday, the same day a US federal judge blocked the Trump administration's ban on foreign students at Harvard. ...."If we still believe in a shared future, let us not forget: those we label as enemies - they, too, are human. In seeing their humanity, we find our own," said Ms Jiang, who spent her final two years of school at Cardiff Sixth Form College in Wales before going to Duke University in the US for her undergraduate degree. That's the kind of sentiment required for our species going forward.

And, once again, the above isn't just for the sake of "being nicer" or for its own moral sake. It's a matter of necessity.

Absolutely. That being said, the very best players have had pretty good streaks at Slams when even though the other guy was having the game of his life, they still found a way. TBH I think that's why Murray deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as Fed, Nadal and Djoko despite not winning nearly so many major tournaments - it most often, if not almost always, took one of them to eliminate him rather than a lower ranked player.

Deecent enough. But if he's to aspire to Murray level or higher (as opposed to Henman level which, to the credit of Draper, he's more or less already reached(, more learning and more consistency is clearly called for.

Missed opportunity for Draper, sadly. Hopefully he gets more adept at dealing with unorthodox lower ranked opposition, because if he wants that Slam he'll need that as a matter of necessity.

Wouldn't really be surprising. How exactly do you deal with that in Whitehall when you're almost certain the US President is a compromised Russian asset, I wonder?

Seven hells, my dog just went berserk. Goodness only knows why.

A fair bit more empathy would certainly be a good thing, necessary even, because the lack of it results in the exact outcome you say here. Sadly, I fear that fleeing such ideology would at best only buy someone a little time, as it will have consequences felt worldwide and by everyone and everything.

More detail on this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev47ze8vp3o Multiple people have been injured after a man shouting "free Palestine" tossed Molotov cocktails at a gathering in support of Israeli hostages in Colorado, authorities say. Police said eight people - aged 52 to 88 - were injured in the attack at the Pearl Street Mall, a popular outdoor space in Boulder, about 30 miles (48km) from Denver. The FBI called it a suspected terror attack and said the suspect used a makeshift flamethrower, Molotov cocktails and other incendiary devices. Footage of the attack shows the suspect, who was shirtless, screaming at the group and had what appears to be Molotov cocktails in each hand when he was arrested. The attack unfolded during a weekly scheduled demonstration put on by Run for Their Lives, a pro-Israeli group that holds walks in the outdoor pedestrian mall in solidarity with Israeli hostages in Gaza. It always seems that the number of ideologues on both sides that are caught in the cycle of violence is far outmatched by the number of those who are innocent in the matter and in all likelihood have no big grievance with the other side, doesn't it?

It's entirely possible, but I don't think it's a good idea to write off hundreds of millions of lives (minimum) as essentially doomed just yet. NB. I've seen the "do-nothing because it might make my life a little less comfortable" crowd move their justification from "there is no climate change so why bother?" to "oh dear, too late, why bother?" in a heartbeat before.