I know is not a news, but we all need some laughs. Have a good day.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21333233

Brett Wilkins
Oct 11, 2024

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21334163

Sharif Abdel Kouddous
Oct 09, 2024

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21333843

Drop Site News
Oct 10, 2024

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21326770

From - The Picture Show
Photo Stories From NPR

October 8, 20247:28 AM ET
By Ayman Oghanna

Unlike the United States' publicly documented military aid to Ukraine, it was impossible to get the full details of what the U.S. has shipped Israel since last Oct. 7, so the $17.9 billion for the year is a partial figure, the researchers said.

They cited Biden administration "efforts to hide the full amounts of aid and types of systems through bureaucratic maneuvering."

The government of Nicaragua has stated that it is breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel over the ongoing genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 42,000 people, more than half of them women and children.

Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo announced the move to state media on Friday.

The Central American nation’s Congress had, earlier in the day, passed a resolution requesting Nicaragua take action to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the Gaza war.

The conflict, the Nicaraguan government said, now also “extends against Lebanon and gravely threatens Syria, Yemen and Iran.”

Murillo, who is President Daniel Ortega’s wife, said her husband instructed the government to sever diplomatic relations with the “fascist” and “genocidal” Tel Aviv regime.

The engines rev, the guitars thrum and a gruff narrator lays out why the vehicle occupying the driveway is more than just a machine. “A truck is a tool,” he says, “but a Ram – a Ram is life.”

So begins an advert for the Ram 1500, a pickup truck slightly bigger than the Panzer I tanks of Nazi Germany and almost as heavy. It is growing in popularity in Europe, with the number of Rams arriving on the continent up 20% in 2023 from the year before, according to registration data from the European Environment Agency. Road safety and environmental campaigners in the UK and Europe are aghast as the latest, most extreme cases of North American car bloat – giant pickup trucks – are increasingly crossing the Atlantic.

“Europe should ban the Ram,” said Dudley Curtis from the European Transport Safety Council. “This type of vehicle is excessively heavy, tall and powerful, making it lethal in collisions with normal-sized vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists.”

https://archive.is/Sf1mb

Zelenskiy has been meeting allies in Europe this week to present a "victory plan" to end the war while also pressing to use long-range weapons that can strike deeper into Russian territory.

The details of his plan have not been divulged publicly. A U.S. official has previously described it as a repackaged request for more weapons and a lifting of restrictions on the use of long-range missiles.

A European diplomatic source also said that there appeared to be nothing especially new in the victory plan.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21294172

Julia Conley
Oct 11, 2024

https://archive.is/KSsn0

A United Nations inquiry said Thursday it found Israel carried out a concerted policy of destroying Gaza's health care system in the Gaza war, actions amounting to both war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination.

"Children, in particular, have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system," said Pillay, whose report will be presented to the U.N. General Assembly on Oct. 30.

Israel says that Gaza's militants operate from the cover of built-up populated areas including private homes, schools and hospitals and that it will strike them wherever they emerge, while also trying to avoid harming civilians.

Hamas denies hiding militants, weapons and command posts among civilians.

According to Ishiba, an Asian version of NATO, "must ensure deterrence against the nuclear alliance of China, Russia, and North Korea. The Asian version of NATO must also specifically consider America's sharing of nuclear weapons or the introduction of nuclear weapons into the region."

The move to giving Japan access to nuclear weapons is opposed by a large majority of the population, with a reported 75 percent wanting Japan to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

In order to bring about a Pacific Treaty Organization similar to NATO, Ishiba hopes to introduce major changes allowing further militarization of Japan. A first step would be to introduce a military charter, a “Basic Law on National Security” that Ishiba describes as “one of the pillars of my foreign and national security policy.”

Such a law would legalize military use of public and private facilities and resources under a ‘state of emergency’, expand military capacities further than what the current legislation permits. ‘National emergency’ legislation was created when Ishiba was the Defence Agency Minister in 2003 and, for the first time, enabled the government to give the US military access to Japanese non-military facilities in a ‘state of emergency,’ under which people’s constitutional rights, including the freedom of assembly, privacy, and even private property rights to lands and ports, are suspended. It seems reasonable to assume that the Basic Law on National Security would further restrict civil liberties and support authoritarian leaderships.

Israel has detained American Grayzone journalist Jeremy Loffredo while he was on assignment in Israel.

According to social media posts, Loffredo was detained on Tuesday along with four other journalists who were “beaten, blindfolded, and taken to an Israeli military base.” They also had their phones confiscated. Loffredo remains in custody, while the others, including Andrey X, were released 11 hours later.

Loffredo’s last video posted on X reported the damage caused by the Iranian missile strikes on Israel’s military sites on 1 October. Social media users believe this is the reason for his detention as no local news organisations have covered the damage from the attack.