Russia Says 133 Killed in Fiery Attack on Concert Hall Near Moscow

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Original article by COMMON DREAMS STAFF republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Emergency services vehicles are seen outside the burning Crocus City Hall following the shooting incident in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow, on March 22, 2024.
 (Photo: Stringer/AFP via Getty Images.

While the attack comes over two years into Russia’s war on Ukraine, an adviser for the Ukrainian president said the neighboring nation “certainly has nothing to do with the shooting/explosions in the Crocus City Hall.”

UPDATE:

Russia’s Investigative Committee announced Saturday that the death toll has increased to 133 and said in a statement that “unfortunately, the number of victims could increase.”

Eleven people were detained, including four who were directly involved in the attack, according to a statement from the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB.

EARLIER:

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack in which at least dozens of people were killed and wounded when individuals reportedly armed with automatic weapons opened fire at Crocus City Hall, a concert venue in suburban Moscow, Russia.

“According to preliminary data, as a result of the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall building 40 people were killed and over 100 were injured,” Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement reported by TASS.

Citing eyewitnesses, the Russian news agency reported that the group of unidentified men “armed with assault rifles went on a shooting spree in the lobby and then inside the concert hall just before a concert by the rock band Picnic.”

As The Moscow Timesdetailed:

According to a journalist who was at Crocus City Hall during the attack, a grenade or an incendiary bomb was thrown after the shooting broke out and caused a fire.

“People in the hall were lying down on the floor to escape from the shooting, lying between 15 and 20 minutes, after which they began to crawl out. Many managed to get out,” the unnamed journalist was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

The attack comes on the heels of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s contested reelection and over two years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has received weapons support from around the world, including the United States.

In a lengthy social media post, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that “Ukraine certainly has nothing to do with the shooting/explosions in the Crocus City Hall.”

“There is not the slightest doubt that the events in the Moscow suburbs will contribute to a sharp increase in military propaganda, accelerated militarization, expanded mobilization, and, ultimately, the scaling up of the war,” Podolyak added. “And also to justify manifest genocidal strikes against the civilian population of Ukraine.”

According toThe Guardian, John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, told reporters that “there’s no indication at this time that Ukraine, or Ukrainians were involved in the shooting… We’re taking a look at it, but I would disabuse you at this early hour of any connection to Ukraine.”

Asked whether the attack signals cracks in Putin’s regime, Kirby said that “there are people in Moscow and in Russia that object to the way Mr. Putin is governing the country, but I don’t think we, at this early hour, can make a link between the shopping mall attack and political motivations. I think… we just need more time and we need to learn more information.”

Original article by COMMON DREAMS STAFF republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

dizzy: Responsibility has been claimed by IS. Really? Knowledgable terrorism analysts recognise IS as the made for television BS terrorist group.

Continue ReadingRussia Says 133 Killed in Fiery Attack on Concert Hall Near Moscow

Glitchy blog

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DDT1 test card
DDT1 test card

I have been trying to address a few glitches affecting this blog. I am aware of issues but it may be a matter of impaired performance until I eventually fix it.

19/3/24 Not had any faults for a while. I’ve been trying to fix i but think that it may be thanks to that reclusive character my secret secretary. Thanks to my Secret Secretary and all the others who help me.

Continue ReadingGlitchy blog

Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle slammed for not calling Diane Abbott at PMQs after Frank Hester row

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/speaker-sir-lindsay-hoyle-slammed-for-not-calling-diane-abbott-at-pmqs-after-frank-hester-row/

“What was Lindsay Hoyle thinking?”

The Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has been criticised after failing to call Diane Abbott at PMQs, despite the MP having racist remarks made about her by the Tory party’s biggest donor, a topic which dominated this week’s session.

Labour leader Keir Starmer and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak clashed in the Commons over racism within the Tory party, after the Guardian revealed that the Conservative party’s biggest donor, Frank Hester, had said that said Diane Abbott made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”.

The Guardian revealed that Hester made the comments during a business meeting in 2019.

He is reported to have said: “It’s like trying not to be racist but you see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re just like … you just want to hate all black women because she’s there.

“And I don’t hate all black women at all, but I think she should be shot.”

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/speaker-sir-lindsay-hoyle-slammed-for-not-calling-diane-abbott-at-pmqs-after-frank-hester-row/

Continue ReadingSpeaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle slammed for not calling Diane Abbott at PMQs after Frank Hester row

High levels of PFAS forever chemicals found flowing into River Mersey – new study

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Heavy industry and dense urban populations both contribute to high levels of effluent containing toxic forever chemicals that don’t biodegrade.
Shaun Jeffers/Shutterstock

Patrick Byrne, Liverpool John Moores University

Huge volumes of toxic and cancer-causing forever chemicals are flowing into the River Mersey in north-west England. With a busy, industrialised skyline and both Manchester and Liverpool nearby, it’s the second-most populated river catchment in the UK after the Thames.

None of England’s rivers are in good chemical health. The recent State of Our Rivers 2024 report from The Rivers Trust found that one of the most concerning groups of synthetic chemicals, per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS), contaminates almost every river in England.

Known as forever chemicals because they can take thousands of years to break down, PFAS persist in the environment and accumulate in living things. They threaten ecosystems and human health, not just in the Mersey, but in every industrialised river around the world.

My team of hydrologists and I found that levels of two cancer-causing PFAS washing off the land and into the Mersey – perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)– are among the highest in the world. Both PFOS and PFOA, now banned in most countries, were used to make many consumer and industrial products including furniture, cookware and fire-fighting foams.

Our study established that around 50% of PFOS, a type of PFAS that’s classed as probably carcinogenic, in the River Mersey was coming from supposedly clean water discharges from 44 different wastewater treatment works. PFAS are found in treated water because they are very difficult to remove using current water treatment technologies. Almost all wastewater treatment work effluents in the UK contain PFAS.

Our research highlights that we don’t really know where the remaining 50% of that PFOS is coming from. Other potential sources include runoff from airports where big amounts of fire-fighting foams are used,
agricultural land and landfills. Some PFAS could contaminate groundwater or surface waters used as drinking water.

PFAS chemicals are all around us and impossible to avoid. Found in everything from food packaging to cosmetic products, they are also used to manufacture green energy technologies like electric cars and wind turbines.

Whenever PFAS are used to make these products they end up draining into rivers, so wildlife and humans living in the river basin are exposed to them. We don’t really know the long-term implications of the current exposure levels. But these chemicals will persist. If we keep discharging them into the environment, PFAS exposure levels – and potential risk to humans – can increase through drinking water contamination and accumulation in the food chain.

Pinpointing exactly where, how and when these chemicals enter rivers is not straightforward so scientists and governments don’t really have the regulatory measures and tools to hold polluters to account.

Aerial shot of round water treatment container, gree water, spinning filters with grey infrastructure
Significant PFAS levels were found in effluent from 44 wastewater treatment plants flowing into the River Mersey.
Avigator Fortuner/Shutterstock

Dilute, disperse and detect

Since the 1850s, the Mersey has been a hub of industry, particularly for cotton manufacturing and chemical production. Most cities, including Liverpool and Manchester, have been built close to rivers and seas, partly to dilute pollution and transport it away. Out of sight, out of mind.

Today, enormous volumes of toxic waste are discharged into rivers and seas because dilution reduces chemical concentrations to extremely low or undetectable levels. But undetectable does not mean toxic chemicals are not present.

PFAS are ubiquitous. These forever chemicals have been detected almost everywhere we look, including in Antarctica, in whales and polar bears and in rainwater. Most people on Earth probably have detectable concentrations of PFAS in their blood. An estimated [97% of the US population] have PFAS in their blood, according to one study of 1,682 people.

A state of flux

Governments need to phase out PFAS from society to reduce human exposure and halt their accumulation in the environment and wildlife. The development of safer, healthier, greener alternatives is essential.

Even if the tap gets turned off immediately, the PFAS already in the environment, and in the River Mersey, will persist for thousands of years. To prevent further PFAS entering our rivers, more needs to be known about how they move into and through river systems. As part of our study, we measured this flux.

Instead of measuring a chemical’s concentration, flux is a measure of how much PFAS, for example in kilograms per year, flows off the land and out to sea. By measuring PFAS flux at multiple locations across a river basin like the Mersey, we can distinguish different sources of PFAS to the river, such as runoff from landfills, and establish how much comes from that source.

Governments and environmental regulators need more data like this to develop strategies that will prevent PFAS entering rivers. Our study not only confirmed wastewater treatment works effluents as a source of PFAS to the Mersey, we established exactly how much is coming from that source. This direct accountability is required to effectively target regulations and apply measures that make a difference.

Greater understanding of the flux and movement of PFAS in rivers and seas will help ensure better monitoring and regulation of these toxic forever chemicals – especially in hotspots like the Mersey that should be a top priority for enforcement.


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Patrick Byrne, Reader in Hydrology and Environmental Pollution, Liverpool John Moores University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingHigh levels of PFAS forever chemicals found flowing into River Mersey – new study

UNRWA Chief Accuses Netanyahu of ‘Concerted Campaign’ to Destroy Aid Agency

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East delivers a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, United States on March 4, 2024. (Photo: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The implementation of this plan is already underway with the destruction of our infrastructure across the Gaza Strip,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general.

The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees told the U.N. General Assembly on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies are intentionally trying to decimate the critical aid body as mass starvation looms in the Gaza Strip.

“UNRWA is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations, and ultimately end them,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general. “Part of this campaign involves inundating donors with misinformation designed to foster distrust and tarnish the reputation of the agency. More blatant, is the Israeli prime minister openly stating that UNRWA will not be part of post-war Gaza.”

“The implementation of this plan is already underway with the destruction of our infrastructure across the Gaza Strip,” he continued. “Attempts to evict UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem, and from a nearby vocational training center for Palestine refugee youth, are underway. Draft legislation in the Israeli Knesset seeks to prohibit outright any activity by UNRWA on Israeli territory.”

The UNRWA, the most important aid agency operating in Gaza, has long been a target of the Israeli government. But attacks on UNRWA have escalated since October 7, with Israeli forces killing more than 150 of the agency’s employees during its war on Gaza and accusing a small number of the body’s staffers of taking part in the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel.

The Israeli government has not provided any evidence to support its claims, but the allegations alone led more than a dozen countries—including the United States—to suspend aid to UNRWA, putting its operations in Gaza and across the Middle East at risk of total collapse.

Last month, the U.S. Senate passed legislation that would prohibit any U.S. funding for UNRWA.

On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed—again, without providing evidence—that 450 of UNRWA’s 30,000 employees are “military operatives in terror groups in Gaza.”

Lazzarini noted Monday that he swiftly terminated agency staffers accused of playing a role in the October 7 attack and that an independent probe into Israel’s accusations was launched by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services.

“Despite these prompt and decisive actions, and the unsubstantiated nature of the allegations, 16 countries have paused their funding, totaling $450 million,” said Lazzarini, thanking the countries that maintained or boosted their funding as the agency faced a potentially existential threat. The European Union has also agreed to partially restore funding.

“Thanks to them, the agency, which is the backbone of humanitarian assistance in Gaza, can continue operating and remains a lifeline for Palestine refugees across the region,” he said. “But for how long? It is hard to say. We are functioning hand-to-mouth. Without additional funding, we will be in uncharted territory—with serious implications for global peace and security.”

“I shudder to think of what will still be revealed about the horrors that have taken place in this narrow strip of land.”

Lazzarini said conditions on the ground in Gaza are “impossible to adequately describe” as Israel continues its bombing campaign and blockade, which have prevented badly needed aid from reaching large swaths of the territory.

“Doctors are amputating the limbs of injured children without anesthetic. Hunger is everywhere. A man-made famine is looming,” said Lazzarini. “Babies—just a few months old—are dying of malnutrition and dehydration. I shudder to think of what will still be revealed about the horrors that have taken place in this narrow strip of land.”

Ahead of Lazzarini’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly, a coalition of aid organizations issued a joint statement warning that if “funding suspensions are not reversed, the risk of a complete collapse of the already restricted humanitarian response resulting in preventable loss of lives in Gaza becomes even more likely.”

“Over 1 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering in UNRWA facilities across Gaza,” the groups said. “UNRWA’s 13,000 staff in Gaza far outstrip the collective capacity of the rest of the humanitarian sector in the territory. Their role in the facilitation and delivery of lifesaving humanitarian aid at scale in this crisis has been heroic. UNRWA’s supply of vital shelter, food, and basic services like sanitation, as well as the use of infrastructure by other aid organizations, is irreplaceable.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingUNRWA Chief Accuses Netanyahu of ‘Concerted Campaign’ to Destroy Aid Agency

The different standards applied to Antisemitism and Islamaphobia in contemporary UK racist discourse

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Lee Anderson and Rishi Sunak. Anderson makes more antisemitic remarks to highlight the double standard of antisemitism and Islamaphobia. Sadik Khan's remarks coming soon ;)
Lee Anderson and Rishi Sunak. Anderson makes more antisemitic remarks to highlight the double standard of antisemitism and Islamaphobia. Sadik Khan’s remarks coming soon ;)
Parody remarks attributed to Sadiq Khan highlights the double standard applied to Antisemitism and Islamaphobia.
Parody remarks attributed to Sadiq Khan highlights the double standard applied to Antisemitism and Islamaphobia.
Continue ReadingThe different standards applied to Antisemitism and Islamaphobia in contemporary UK racist discourse

Weather v climate: how to make sense of an unusual cold snap while the world is hotter than ever

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Neven S. Fučkar, University of St Andrews

Earlier this year, the UK’s weather and climate service, the Met Office, announced average global temperatures in 2023 were 1.46°C above pre-industrial levels. This made it the hottest year on record, 0.17°C higher than the previous record in 2016.

However, shortly after that announcement, the Met Office also forecast a multi-day blast of cold Arctic air bringing sub-zero temperatures, snow and ice to many parts of the UK. When the cold snap arrived, temperatures dropped to -14°C in the Scottish Highlands and -11°C even in England.

Ten days later, a village in the Scottish Highlands reached a balmy 19.9°C, the warmest January temperature ever recorded anywhere in the UK – by a full degree Celsius. That might seem more in keeping with the global warming trend. Yet just ten days on from that record warmth, much of the UK has again been hit by unusually cold and snowy weather.

It’s not just the UK. This winter, record-low temperatures have been observed right across Canada, the US and China.

This might seem confusing. Why are the weather and the climate producing such opposing signs? The reason is that they refer to atmospheric characteristics on substantially different timescales.

You cannot sense the climate

I do not think there is a person on Earth who can truly experience a “global annual average” of temperature. No one really knows what a degree of extra warmth over a century feels like, especially given temperatures might vary by 10°C between day and night in the UK, for example, or by 20°C and more between a hot summer day and a cold winter night.

This means we usually have a hard time feeling or recalling seasonal averages and how they change with passing years. We can spot climate changes in environmental shifts like receding glaciers or early flowering plants, and we can track changes with instruments. But it remains very hard to “feel” climate change.

In contrast, we feel and much better remember the weather on daily and weekly timescales – particularly extreme weather like a cold snap, heatwave or strong storm.

Hot one day, cold the next

Weather phenomena are very rapid and variable compared with climate properties that are defined and changing on longer time scales. The weather might be hot one day and cold the next, but an annual mean climate cannot suddenly slide from warm to cold.

The climate is essentially an accumulation of weather across a considerable amount of time. For example, weather information might refer to the local temperature at noon or 4pm, the daily minimum, average or maximum temperatures, or the weekly average. Whereas climate is much longer term.

Climate information might refer to, for example, average temperatures over a month, or averages over seasonal (three-month) periods, years or decades. In climate analysis, we usually look for anomalies with respect to the “baseline” – a longer-term average of perhaps 30 or 50 years of data.

The line wiggles upwards

Two graphs
Left: global annual mean carbon dioxide (black curve) and air temperature (red curve) since 1850. Right: Average temperatures over central England in summer (red curve) and winter (curve). Temperatures relative to 1850–1900 average.
Neven Fuckar / Data: Met Office HadCRUT5 and HadCET

We can use more than a century of data to spot patterns, such as the close relationship in the left graph (above) between global atmospheric CO₂ and near-surface temperatures. There are, of course, some variations of around 0.1°C or so – the wiggles in the red line – as the climate does not change perfectly smoothly. That’s why 2016 was exceptionally hot, and the years after were slightly cooler.

These variations become more pronounced when we zoom in and examine a smaller regional area or shorter time units. For example, the right-hand graph above shows data from the Central England Temperature (HadCET) record, the world’s longest-running instrumental temperature record which began in 1659. This graph, which shows both winter and summer mean temperatures for central England, picks up more substantial variability over the same period from 1850 by both measures – on the order of 1°C. The internal variability of these seasonal means in essence drowns out long-term climate change at this regional scale before 1960s.

Looking at the right-hand graph alone – 174 years of data – you’d struggle to spot recent climate change. But zoom out to the global annual mean data in the left graph, and the long-term trend becomes clear.

We can zoom in even further to look at daily winter weather variability in the English county of Oxfordshire (HadUK-Grid). The histograms below show daily minimum temperatures (the left panels 2.a and 2.c) and daily mean temperatures (the right panels 2.b and 2.d) from two distinct 21-year periods.

Four histograms of winter (December-January-February: DJF) daily minimum and mean temperatures in Oxfordshire
How winters are changing in Oxfordshire.
Neven Fuckar / Data: Met Office HadUK-Grid

They show that the chances of experiencing sub-zero weather is still significant even in the more recent 2002-2022 period. However, the “tail” of daily minimum temperatures to the left of the mean is thinner, so extreme cold temperatures are less common. The average daily minimum of 0.59°C (the number in blue) has increased by about 1°C to 1.6°C in the more recent period, while the daily mean increased by 1.29°C – both increases are greater than global warming over this time.

These are signs that Oxfordshire is warming over the long term, and its winters are warming slightly faster than the world as a whole. Global climate change makes high temperature extremes more likely, even in winter. It does not forbid winter cold snaps, but it does reduce their likelihood.


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Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

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Neven S. Fučkar, Senior Researcher, School of Geography and the Environmen, University of Oxford, and Lecturer, School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingWeather v climate: how to make sense of an unusual cold snap while the world is hotter than ever