Tag: Publicity

Israel

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Israel accepts bridging proposal for Gaza ceasefire

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that Israel has accepted a proposal to bridge differences holding up a cease-fire and hostage release in Gaza, and he called on Hamas to do the same, without saying whether concerns cited by the militant group had been addressed.

Netanyahu has never accepted a proposal that he knew he wasn’t going to break. A “bridging proposal” is about as clear as once declaring Israel was “just mowing the lawn” and not breaking any truce. America and Israel need not just a vague announcement but a specific course of action. Blinken seems more like a Netanyahu puppet than a “tour de force” mediator &/or negotiator.

What is a “bridging proposal”? How is it to be executed? If it’s anything like the “Pier Proposal” the Americans put forward to allow Netanyahu’s war to proceed while aid was being delivered. Well, we know how well that went down.

What about Israel’s Moral High Ground? “We let the aid trucks into Gaza” but kept the Gazans moving to prevent any distribution. Then blamed the NGO volunteers who they routinely killed. If Gazans even tried they too were shot at along with the starving people queued.

So what we are seeing is more Hasbara. Propaganda for both Israel and America’s sake rather than reality. Reality was the a hostage exchange in November 2023. It made Netanyahu and Israel look so bad they have never offered another “bridge to peace” since. This one you can be assured is built on sand. Why on earth would Hamas accept it?

Hamas — designated by the Australian government as a terrorist group — has said it is losing faith in the US as a mediator, accusing American negotiators of siding with Israel as it makes new demands that the militant group rejects.

What we are witnessing is the greatest “Conflict of Interest” with America acting as the principal negotiator while supplying arms to Israel for the duration of this war.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Israel accepts bridging proposal for Gaza ceasefire

Fossil Fuel Industry

Oil giant Shell makes world-first big battery investment in Melbourne

Oil giant Shell has given the green light to a big battery project in Cranbourne, its first investment in a grid-scale battery anywhere in the world.

Promoting the Fossil Fuel Industry as if it was Green and operating in the interests of the planet is The Age’s business model. Rather it knows as does Shell to stay ahead of the energy market it needs to transition or appear to be transitioning to some degree. In Africa and elsewhere Shell is known to be one of the world’s biggest destroyers and polluters of the natural world. So needless to say this minor battery investment will get an immense amount of publicity. BP is also known to be one of the largest investors in solar energy. However, like many of the worst industries, an investment in notable deeds is part of their business model.

Do we even know what percentage that investment entails in their overall business strategy? Or what percentage it entails in reparation of their historic ransacking of the planet? When for 75-plus years they were aware of the damage being done in promoting fossil fuel as the most efficient form of energy.

(Note the trumpeting headline and then read the actual pissant reality of the project)

Once fully operational, the 200-megawatt, 400-megawatt-hour battery system will have the storage capacity to power the equivalent of 80,000 homes across Victoria for an hour during periods of peak demand.

British energy major Shell has selected a suburb in south-eastern Melbourne as the location for its first direct investment in a big battery project anywhere in the world.

Source: Oil giant Shell makes world-first big battery investment in Melbourne

USA

‘US Is Now Allied With al-Qaeda in Yemen’: AP Reveals American-Backed Saudi Coalition Forged Deals With AQAP Fighters

A man walks on rubble of a building destroyed in airstrikes carried out by warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition hours after the UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths departed Sana’a on June 06, 2018 in Sana’a, Yemen.

As the United States continues to fuel Yemen’s worsening humanitarian crisis, and boast that it’s targeting al Qaeda in the impoverished nation (AQAP) with airstrikes, new reporting reveals that the U.S.- and U.K-backed Saudi coalition waging a bombing campaign there is recruiting al Qaeda fighters to join its ranks, and paying off the extremists to leave areas.

The militants were guaranteed a safe route out and allowed to keep weapons and cash looted from the city—up to $100 million by some estimates—according to five sources, including military, security, and government officials. […]

Coalition-backed forces moved in two days later, announcing that hundreds of militants were killed and hailing the capture as “part of joint international efforts to defeat the terrorist organizations in Yemen.”

via ‘US Is Now Allied With al-Qaeda in Yemen’: AP Reveals American-Backed Saudi Coalition Forged Deals With AQAP Fighters