Rechercher : star wars

London Arms Fair 2023: Why They All Love Wars
▻https://the-spark.net/np1188601.html

This article comes from the October 13 issue, #147 of Workers Fight, the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in England.

King Bufallo - Dead Star
▻https://kingbuffalo.bandcamp.com/track/red-star-pt-2-radio-edit

Built with the backs of the destitute
The monolith stands wicked and red
Its cold black eyes gaze down shrouded in obsidian

Reaping the blood of the innocent
The obelisk demands a sacrifice
The times come for the shackled ones
To bring the tower, down down down

It’s getting late for the demagogues
Dispensing misery to the populous
Bellowing screams shout enough is enough

No more blood for the opulent
Damnation to the citadel
Nothing to lose but the weight of the chains
Burn the castle, down down down

#space_rock

Post-9/11 wars have contributed to some 4.5 million deaths, report suggests
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq

The full death toll of violence in the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, let alone of the broader global war on terrorism, remains difficult to determine. But it has long been surpassed by an even larger and more opaque figure: the indirect count of people who have died as a result of post-9/11 conflicts’ far-reaching ripple effects, such as ensuing waves of violence, hunger, the devastation of public services and the spread of disease.

Brown University researchers, in a report released Monday, draw on U.N. data and expert analyses to attempt to calculate the minimum number of excess deaths attributable to the war on terrorism, across conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen — impacts “so vast and complex that” ultimately, “they are unquantifiable,” the researchers acknowledge.

The accounting, so far as it can be measured, puts the toll at 4.5 million to 4.6 million — a figure that continues to mount as the effects of conflict reverberate. Of those fatalities, the report estimates, some 3.6 million to 3.7 million were “‘indirect deaths” caused by the deterioration of economic, environmental, psychological and health conditions.

Scoop : Marine Corps 3-star general advising Israeli military on Gaza ground operation
▻https://www.axios.com/2023/10/23/israel-gaza-war-marine-general-ground-operation

The Biden administration recently sent a Marine three-star general and several other U.S. military officers to Israel to help advise the Israeli military’s leadership in its operation in Gaza, according to two U.S. officials and two Israeli officials briefed on the issue.

Why it matters: The move reflects the Biden administration’s deep involvement in the war in Gaza and how much visibility it has in Israel’s military planning.

’ER’ star claims Hamas would behead LGBTQ+ community: ’Heads played with [like] a soccer ball’
▻https://abc45.com/news/nation-world/er-star-claims-hamas-would-behead-lgbtq-community-heads-played-with-like-a-so

Actress Julianna Margulies claimed last week that members of the LGBTQ+ community would be decapitated if they encountered terrorist organization Hamas.

[…]

“It’s those kids who are spewing this antisemitic hate that have no idea if they stepped foot in an Islamic country,” Margulies said. “These people who want us to call them they/them or whatever they want us to call them ... It’s those people that will be the first people beheaded and their heads played with a soccer ball. Like a soccer ball on the field.”

[…]
“The Jews were the ones that walked side by side with the Blacks to fight for their rights. And now the Black community isn’t embracing us and saying we stand with you the way you stood with us?” the star of “The Good Wife” said. "Jews died for their cause. Where’s the history lesson in that? Who’s teaching these kids?”

„Sie sind scheiße“ : „Secret Invasion“-Star nimmt beliebtes Marvel-Team auseinander
▻https://www.kino.de/serie/secret-invasion/news/sie-sind-scheisse-secret-invasion-star-nimmt-beliebtes-marvel-team-auseinander

https://crops.giga.de/00/9e/16/cb3a78c8695ce6bdcd9c486b9c_YyAyNjUxeDE0OTErMysxNDQ3AnJlIDk2MCA1NDADMGVjYWM5ZWQ5ODk=.jpg

6.7.2023 Eileen Melzer, - „Secret Invasion“-Schauspieler Ben Mendelsohn war nicht zurückhaltend, seine Meinung über ein fantastisches Marvel-Quartett freiheraus kundzutun. Um welches Team es sich dabei handelt und wer laut Mendelsohn der beste Charakter im Marvel Cinematic Universe sei, erfahrt ihr hier.

#cinéma #super-héros #vengeurs #Avengers

‘No safe place’: Jenin’s Freedom Theatre raided, daubed with Star of David | Israel-Palestine conflict | Al Jazeera
▻https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/12/20/no-safe-place-jenins-freedom-theatre-raided-daubed-with-star-of-david

https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/WhatsApp-Image-2023-12-17-at-22.04.32-1-1-1702997553.jpeg?resize=1200%2C675

The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, a popular symbol of peace and hope in the occupied West Bank, has been raided, vandalised and painted with Israeli religious and political symbols.

In a film screening room inside the theatre, the Star of David has been daubed on the wall with spray paint while graffiti also depicting the Star of David and a menorah (a Hanukkah candle holder) has been scrawled on the outside wall.

The Israeli military raid on the theatre took place on the night of December 12 and the early hours of December 13. Its two directors were arrested that night and the next morning. One of them, Ahmed Tobasi, was released after 14 hours, but the other, Mostafa Sheta, remains in detention. He is believed to have been taken to the Megiddo military prison in northern Israel, Tobasi said.

This is not the first time the community landmark has come under attack.

The theatre has stood as a symbol of hope for residents of Jenin ever since it was first founded as the Stone Theatre in 1987 after the first Intifada by Arna Mer-Khamis, an Israeli peace activist who died in 1995.

Mer-Khamis was a lifelong supporter of the rights of Palestinians, especially children. With her theatre, she hoped to offer children a space for healing and to empower women through the theatre and arts.

The first building housing the theatre was destroyed in 2002 by Israeli forces during the second Intifada. In 2006, Juliano Mer-Khamis, Arna’s son by her Palestinian Christian husband, Saliba Khamis, reopened the theatre on a new site in Jenin, and it doubled as a community centre.

Not everyone was a fan, however. In 2009, an unidentified person threw two Molotov cocktails at the theatre while it was empty. Juliano was shot dead by a masked attacker in Jenin in 2011 at the age of 52. His killing was never solved.

Sur la chasse aux sorcières à Hollywood : A Fired ‘Scream’ Star, Clients Booted From Agencies and a Secret Tom Cruise Meeting : Inside Hollywood’s Divide Over Israel
▻https://variety.com/2023/film/news/hollywood-divide-over-israel-melissa-barrera-1235804452

Across town, the agency’s fiercest rival, CAA, was dealing with a crisis. Maha Dakhil, one of its top agents, had ignited a firestorm with her Instagram posts, including one that said, “What’s more heartbreaking than witnessing genocide? Witnessing the denial that genocide is happening.” In response, Dakhil was relieved of her duties as co-chief the motion pictures department, though she was allowed to remain an agent. It didn’t hurt that her most important client, Tom Cruise, made it known to CAA that he was backing her. Cruise met with Dakhil at her CAA office on Nov. 15. A knowledgeable source says he took the rare step of going in person to show support for his embattled agent.

Bannon, le magnat chinois et le virus : comment ils créèrent une star des médias de droite [novembre 2020]
▻https://www.nytimes.com/fr/2020/11/27/business/media/bannon-chine-coronavirus-medias.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/11/22/business/00china-misinfo1-copyFR/merlin_180093015_62e28924-d399-4ae2-8460-83a8326d0865-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=600

Au départ, la Dre Li-Meng Yan souhaitait garder l’anonymat. C’était la mi-janvier, et la jeune femme, chercheuse à Hong Kong, avait commencé à entendre des rumeurs au sujet de l’émergence en Chine continentale d’un virus nouveau et dangereux, dont le gouvernement minimisait l’importance. Craignant pour sa sécurité personnelle et sa carrière, elle contacta son animateur de chaîne YouTube préféré, connu pour ses critiques du régime chinois.

Quelques jours plus tard, l’animateur en question [Wang Dinggang, alias Lu De] annonçait à ses 100 000 abonnés que le coronavirus avait été volontairement disséminé par le Parti communiste chinois. Il ne pouvait pas nommer le lanceur d’alerte, disait-il, parce que les autorités risquaient de faire “disparaître” cette personne.

En septembre, la Dre Yan avait renoncé à toute prudence. Elle est apparue sur la chaîne américaine Fox News pour affirmer, sans preuve et devant des millions de téléspectateurs, que le coronavirus était une arme biologique développée par la Chine.

Du jour au lendemain, elle devint la coqueluche des médias de droite. Les principaux conseillers du président américain Donald Trump et les experts conservateurs la qualifiaient d’héroïne. Presque aussi rapidement, son interview a été signalée sur les réseaux sociaux comme contenant des “fausses informations”. Des scientifiques ont par ailleurs rejeté les conclusions de ses recherches en disant qu’il s’agissait d’une polémique déguisée en pseudoscience.

Son ascension est le produit de la collaboration entre deux groupes distincts, mais dont l’alliance ne cesse de se renforcer, et qui colportent la désinformation : un pan restreint mais actif de la diaspora chinoise, d’une part, et la très influente extrême droite américaine, de l’autre.

Les deux groupes ont vu dans la pandémie l’occasion de promouvoir leurs objectifs. Pour ceux de la diaspora chinoise qui veulent faire tomber le régime chinois, les affirmations infondées de la Dre Yan étaient d’excellents leviers pour parvenir à leurs fins. Quant aux conservateurs américains, ils y ont vu le moyen d’exploiter un sentiment antichinois en pleine croissance et de détourner l’attention de la mauvaise gestion de la pandémie par l’administration Trump.

[...] Le parcours de Li-Meng Yan a été soigneusement orchestré par Guo Wengui, un milliardaire chinois qui a fui son pays, et Stephen K. Bannon, un ancien conseiller de Donald Trump.

Les deux hommes ont fait venir la jeune femme par avion aux États-Unis, lui ont fourni un logement sur place, l’ont formée à la prise de parole devant les caméras et aidée à obtenir des interviews avec des animateurs conservateurs populaires comme Tucker Carlson et Lou Dobbs, qui ont des émissions sur Fox News.

[...] Dès l’arrivée de la Dre Yan aux États-Unis, M. Bannon, M. Guo et leurs alliés entreprirent de la relooker en une lanceuse d’alerte qui passerait bien auprès du public américain.

Ils l’installèrent dans un “endroit sûr” à l’extérieur de la ville de New York et engagèrent des avocats, dit M. Bannon. L’anglais n’étant pas sa langue maternelle, ils ont recruté un coach média. Comme la Dr Yan l’a elle-même raconté plus tard, l’ancien conseiller de Donald Trump lui a également demandé d’écrire une série d’articles résumant ses prétendues preuves.

“Assurez-vous de pouvoir démontrer tout cela logiquement”, se rappelle lui avoir dit M. Bannon.

M. Bannon et M. Guo cherchent ouvertement, depuis des années, à provoquer la chute du Parti communiste chinois.

Guo Wengui, qui est aussi connu sous le nom de Miles Kwok, était un magnat de l’immobilier en Chine, bien introduit auprès de hauts responsables du Parti, avant de fuir le pays il y a environ cinq ans à la suite d’allégations de corruption. Depuis, il se désigne lui-même comme un combattant de la liberté, mais beaucoup sont sceptiques quant à ses motivations réelles.

Steve Bannon, qui a patrouillé sur la mer de Chine méridionale lorsqu’il était jeune officier de la marine, s’intéresse depuis longtemps à la Chine. Pendant son séjour à la Maison-Blanche, il a conseillé à M. Trump d’adopter une approche ferme envers le pays, qu’il décrit comme “la plus grande menace existentielle à laquelle les États-Unis ont jamais fait face”.

[...] En la personne de Li-Meng Yan, les deux hommes ont trouvé pour leur campagne un visage idéal.

Elle a révélé son identité pour la première fois le 10 juillet lors d’une interview de 13 minutes sur le site web de Fox News. Elle y affirmait que le gouvernement chinois avait dissimulé des preuves de la transmission du virus entre humains. Sans preuve aucune, elle accusait des professeurs de l’Université de Hong Kong d’avoir participé aux manœuvres visant à étouffer l’affaire. (L’établissement a rapidement démenti ses accusations, les qualifiant de “ouï-dire”.)

“Si je suis venue aux États-Unis, c’est pour livrer la vérité sur la Covid-19”, disait-elle.

À dessein, elle ne faisait aucune mention de M. Guo ou de M. Bannon.

Dans sa propre émission, M. Guo raconte avoir dit à la Dre Yan : “Ne parle pas de Bannon, ne parle pas de Guo Wengui. Si tu parles de nous, les Américains d’extrême gauche t’attaqueront et diront que tu poursuis des objectifs politiques.”

Après la première interview sur Fox News, la Dre Yan entrepris une vaste tournée des médias de droite où elle abordait les sujets chers aux conservateurs. Elle a affirmé qu’elle prenait de l’hydroxychloroquine pour se protéger du virus, même si la FDA, l’agence américaine chargée d’autoriser la vente de médicaments, avait averti que le médicament n’était pas efficace. Elle a laissé entendre que l’Organisation mondiale de la santé avait contribué à dissimuler l’ampleur de l’épidémie.

Computing, You Have Blood on Your Hands! | Moshe Y. Vardi (ACM)
▻https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2024/1/278892-computing-you-have-blood-on-your-hands/fulltext

It is time for all computing professionals to accept responsibility for computing’s current state. To use Star Wars metaphors, we once considered computing as the “Rebels,” but it turns out that computing is the “Empire.” Admitting we have a problem is a necessary first step toward addressing the problems computing has created.

Mexico: To “Transform” Mexican Society Today — Class Struggle #116
▻https://the-spark.net/csart1165.html

– Spain’s North American Colonies
– The First “Transformation”: The Wars of “Independence,” 1810–1821
– The Second “Transformation”: “Reformation,” or the Reform Wars, 1857–1867
– The Third “Transformation”: The Mexican “Revolution” and Its Aftermath, 1910–1940
– Bourgeois Development in the Shadow of Imperialism
– And in Imperialism’s Direct Glare
– The Force Exists That Could “Transform” Mexico

Asteroid Will Cover Betelgeuse, May Reveal Its Visible Surface - Sky & Telescope - Sky & Telescope
▻https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/asteroid-will-cover-betelgeuse-may-reveal-its-visible-surface

Imagine your favorite constellation without one of its brightest stars. For a brief moment on December 12th, this may happen to Orion, at least for viewers in a narrow stretch from central Asia and southern Europe to Florida and Mexico. Around 1:17 UTC (8:17 p.m. EST December 11th), the main-belt asteroid 319 Leona will pass in front of Betelgeuse, the red star at Orion’s shoulder, and block its light for a few seconds.

An occultation of a 1st-magnitude star is rare — such an event is visible from Earth only every few decades — but watching one can give astronomers valuable scientific information. By precisely timing the duration of the occultation from many sites simultaneously, they can refine their knowledge of the size and shape of the asteroid. They may even be able to map Betelgeuse’s strangely large convective cells, by which the star brightens and darkens for months at a time. Betelgeuse is the 10th brightest star in our skies (+0.5 magnitude), so observers need only modest equipment to participate.

A Bigger War Is on the Horizon — The Spark #1191
▻https://the-spark.net/np_11911001.html

What follows is the editorial that appeared on the front of all SPARK’s workplace newsletters, during the week of November 14, 2023.

After a brief cease-fire, Israel has resumed the war in Gaza. Hamas terrorists had killed over 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians. Then the Israeli government unleashed their terror campaign, firing missiles and dropping bombs on hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings in Gaza, killing over 13,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. At the same time, Israel has exchanged fire with Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

The U.S. government is in this war. The U.S. has armed Israel to the teeth with military aid. The U.S. uses Israel as its policeman in the region, to ensure access to Middle East oil and profits for U.S. corporations. The U.S. sent two naval task forces and Marines to join all the other U.S. navy, air force and special forces in the region. Within days, the U.S. forces had engaged in fighting with militias in Syria and Iraq. The situation in the Middle East is a tinderbox that could explode into a wider war.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine continues. That war is now almost two years old. More than one hundred thousand have died, soldiers and civilians, Ukrainians and Russians. The U.S. is also in this war, backing Ukraine to weaken Russia. The U.S. and its NATO allies supply the weapons to Ukraine. The Ukrainians supply the deaths.

Other regional wars continue around the world. There is a war in Afghanistan, a legacy of the U.S. invasion in 2001. When U.S. forces left Afghanistan after 20 years, they left behind chaos and destruction and the seeds of another war. There is a war in Yemen that has gone on for a decade. Over a million people have died. Wars also continue today in Myanmar, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia. Behind the scenes of most of these wars are the major world powers, including the U.S.

In the last 10 years, the number of wars around the world has gone up by 70%. According to the United Nations, today the number of wars worldwide is the highest since World War Two. The wars we see today are very much like the regional wars that led directly to World War Two and World War One. That is something we can’t ignore. We can’t put our heads in the sand. We have to see what is coming. The warning signs of another world war are there. Today, the U.S. government is steadily increasing its military budget. Many other governments are doing the same. What are they preparing for, if not for war, a bigger war than the ones being fought today, a world war. World War One killed about 22 million people, half of them civilians. World War Two killed 85 million people—3% of the entire world’s population. Much of Europe, Russia and Japan was destroyed.

That is the future that we may be facing today. And if there is another world war, people here will not escape it. The U.S. is the world’s biggest economic and military power. The U.S. government is already directly or indirectly involved in most of the wars going on around the world today. If there is another world war, this country will be right in the middle of it. There will be no escape.

But why do we even have wars in the first place? World wars come from the competition between capitalists for more profits. Capitalists from every country fight over the world’s resources and the profits produced by workers’ labor. They use their own governments to go against the capitalists of other countries. If they can’t settle things peacefully, then they are ready and willing to go to war to gain their advantage. The longer capitalism has gone on, the more deadly their wars have been. The wars of the 20th century were the most murderous in human history. A third world war would be even worse.

But we do not have to accept this kind of future. The ordinary people, the working people of the world, have no reason to go to war. We have no reason to kill each other. Working people can live together in peace.

To change our future, we will have to get rid of the system that produces war. The working class has every reason to do that. The working class has the power to do that. The working class of the world has the power to build a better society, free from those barbarians and war-mongers who are leading humanity to the brink of destruction.

IDF Reports 1,593 Wounded Since October 7, but Hospital Data Is Much Higher

Ido Efrati and Yaniv Kubovich | Dec 10, 2023 10:03 pm IST
▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-10/ty-article/.premium/idf-reports-1-593-wounded-since-october-7-but-hospital-data-is-much-higher/0000018c-552d-df4b-a78e-d52f47ac0000

Unlike past conflicts and wars, the Israeli army withheld reports of wounded soldiers and their condition. The army released the information after Haaretz reported it is refusing to do so

Ce que la fraude révèle du système universitaire
▻https://academia.hypotheses.org/51806

Academia accueille la réflexion d’un chercheur en neurosciences computationnelles, qui revient sur l’affaire Gino-Ariely, du nom de cette professeure star du « Harvard Business School », convaincue de manquements à l’intégrité scientifique. Chercheuse, comme Ariely en “économisme comportemental”, elle assure … Continuer la lecture →

Le chanteur et acteur Idan Amedi grièvement blessé à Gaza - The Times of Israël
▻https://fr.timesofisrael.com/le-chanteur-et-acteur-idan-amedi-grievement-blesse-a-gaza

https://static.timesofisrael.com/fr/uploads/2024/01/bScreenshot-2024-01-08-at-1.24.19-PM.jpg

Le chanteur et acteur Idan Amedi grièvement blessé à Gaza
Le père de la star de la série « Fauda » a confirmé les blessures, mais a affirmé que ses jours n’étaient pas en danger

De la fiction à la réalité...

[La vie électrique] Nvrmr
▻https://www.radiopanik.org/emissions/la-vie-electrique/nvrmr

https://www.radiopanik.org/media/cache/7e/19/7e19758049c11ef9ba0c61c094927ab9.jpg

Aujourd’hui, on parle de séries télévisées :

The Fall of the house of Usher, de Mike Flanagan Ahsoka, de Dave Filoni

Programmation musicale :

Sauveur Mallia - Star Odyssey Alain Pierre - Nacht Shift Ryuichi Sakamoto - Paradise Lost Thandi Ntuli - Sunset (in California)

▻https://www.radiopanik.org/media/sounds/la-vie-electrique/nvrmr_16686__1.mp3

Human Rights Watch sur X :
▻https://twitter.com/hrw/status/1694824157534388641

Human Rights Watch went to the Texas-Mexico border to see Operation Lone Star, Texas’ border deterrence program, in action.

We witnessed horrific human rights abuses.

▻https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1694824008972124160/vid/720x1280/_IVqxJ1uZVKlxBjy.mp4?tag=16

#états-unis #leadership #migrants « #nos_valeurs »

Isaac Deutscher
▻https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Deutscher

Regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Deutscher wrote the following allegory: “A man once jumped from the top floor of a burning house in which many members of his family had already perished. He managed to save his life; but as he was falling he hit a person standing down below and broke that person’s legs and arms. The jumping man had no choice; yet to the man with the broken limbs he was the cause of his misfortune. If both behaved rationally, they would not become enemies. The man who escaped from the blazing house, having recovered, would have tried to help and console the other sufferer; and the latter might have realized that he was the victim of circumstances over which neither of them had control. But look what happens when these people behave irrationally. The injured man blames the other for his misery and swears to make him pay for it. The other, afraid of the crippled man’s revenge, insults him, kicks him, and beats him up whenever they meet. The kicked man again swears revenge and is again punched and punished. The bitter enmity, so fortuitous at first, hardens and comes to overshadow the whole existence of both men and to poison their minds.”

Deutscher wrote the following passages in “The Israeli Arab War, June 1967” (1967):

“Still we must exercise our judgment and must not allow it to be clouded by emotions and memories, however deep or haunting. We should not allow even invocations of Auschwitz to blackmail us into supporting the wrong cause.” (Quoted in Prophets Outcast, p. 184, Nation Books, 2004.)

“To justify or condone Israel’s wars against the Arabs is to render Israel a very bad service indeed and to harm its own long-term interest. Israel’s security, let me repeat, was not enhanced by the wars of 1956 and 1967; it was undermined and compromised by them. The ’friends of Israel’ have in fact abetted Israel in a ruinous course.” (Quoted in Prophets Outcast, p. 184, Nation Books, 2004.)

#Israel #Palestine

A Strike Leader Rises : “Just Watched Fran Drescher Chew the #AMPTP’s Face Off” | Vanity Fair
▻https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/07/a-labor-leader-rises-just-watched-fran-drescher-chew-the-amptps-face-off

The president of SAG-AFTRA worried some members during negotiations with the studios, but the former Nanny star just proved her mettle.

Pour accompagner cette image qu’on trouve sur les Internets...

https://stockage.framapiaf.org/framapiaf/cache/media_attachments/files/110/744/111/617/368/835/original/28c8ae1d4e7e466f.jpeg