The Houthis (Ansar Allah) in Yemen released video footage of the attack on the Liberia-flagged oil tanker Chios Lion in the Red Sea.

from thefreeonline on 19 July ’24 on Telegram t.me/thefreeonline

The next time you read "damaging it", you know what it means https://t.co/lXv2gtkEBN pic.twitter.com/KK6WUSt9Up

— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) July 16, 2024

The vessel was attacked with an uncrewed suicide boat two days earlier because its owners violated the Houthis’ blockade on Israel and continued to ship goods to the country.

Houthi Heroes

The US/UK sponsored Israeli state has so far massacred 38,000 people, mainly children and women in an ongoing Genocide revenge for the Oct 7th breakout and abductions from the Gaza ‘open air prison’. That’s the count of the local health system, but an authoritative survey by LANCET puts the number at up to 200,000 Palestinians now dead.

The Houthis spent 9 years developing their missile technology in underground bunkers while being attacked by Saudi colonists with US backing. Now they are part blocking the Red Sea and Israeli ports “until Israel STOPS THE GAZA SLAUGHTER”, and this despite constant retaliation bombing attacks by the US and proxies.

The latest of hundreds of videos published by Houthis shows a powerful explosion resulting from the ‘uncrewed suicide boat’ detonating into the left side of the oil tanker. It is worth noting that the boat was blurred in the footage, apparently to hide its characteristics and specifications.

“The [Yemeni] armed forces affirm that their operations will continue and will increase … as long as the Zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip is ongoing,” the Houthis warned in the video.

Both the Joint Maritime Information Center, which is overseen by the United States Navy, and the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which is a detachment of the Royal Navy, confirmed that the Chios Lion sustained damage in the attack.

19 July 2024..Houthis break the Israeli Iron Dome defense with a drone attack near US Embassy office in Tel Aviv– Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for the blast. The group’s spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said the “significant military operation” was conducted with a new drone capable of “bypassing the enemy’s interception systems.”

Since last November, the Houthis have attacked dozens of vessels affiliated with Israel or owned by the U.S. and the UK in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea in response to the Israeli war and siege on Gaza..

The Houthis also claim to have developed their own hypersonic missiles, and are awaiting the imminent arrival of the aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt to replace the USS Eisenhower which they accused of ‘fleeing’ last month after their attacks.

The higher speed hypersonics, up to X20 Sound Speed, now deployed by Russia and China, make aircraft carriers obsolescent with their ‘unstoppable’ missiles.

In addition, the group launched dozens of drones and missiles at the southernmost Israeli city of Eilat and shot down six American-made combat drones over Yemen and nearby waters.

The U.S. and the UK have carried out hundreds of strikes against Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen since January in an attempt to deter the group and degrade its offensive capabilities, but to no avail.

Campaigners receive longest ever sentences for non-violent protest after being convicted of conspiracy to cause public nuisance

from thefreeonline on 19th July 24 by Damien Gayle at Just Stop Oil /on Telegram: t.me/thefreeonline )

Thu 18 Jul 2024 18.47 CESTFirst published on Thu 18 Jul 2024 16.37 CEST

Five supporters of the Just Stop Oil climate campaign who conspired to cause gridlock on London’s orbital motorway have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms by a judge who told them they had “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic”.

Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin were found guilty last week of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for coordinating direct action protests on the M25 over four days in November 2022.

Hallam received a five-year sentence on Thursday, while the other four were each sentenced to four years.

The sentences are thought to be the longest sentences ever given in the UK for non-violent protest, exceeding those given to the Just Stop Oil protesters Morgan Trowland (three years) and Marcus Decker (two years and seven months) for scaling the Dartford Crossing.

All five had spoken on a Zoom call trying to recruit potential volunteers for the actions, which involved activists climbing gantries at strategic points on the London orbital motorway.

On the call, Hallam said they intended to cause “the biggest disruption in British modern history” in an effort to force the government to meet Just Stop Oil’s core demand, an end to new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.

Police officers on the M25 after an activist put a Just Stop Oil banner on the gantry during the motorway protest in November 2022. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Hehir admitted there was a scientific and social consensus that human-made climate breakdown was happening and action should be taken to avert it. “I acknowledge that at least some of the concerns motivating you are, at least to some extent, shared by many,” he said.

“But the plain fact is that each of you has some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic. You have appointed yourselves as the sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change, bound neither by the principles of democracy nor the rule of law.

“And your fanaticism makes you entirely heedless of the rights of your fellow citizens. You have taken it upon yourselves to decide that your fellow citizens must suffer disruption and harm, and how much disruption and harm they must suffer, simply so that you may parade your views.”

Although all of the defendants ended the trial representing themselves, three of them – Hallam, Shaw and Whittaker De Abreu – instructed counsel to speak on their behalf in mitigation.

Roger Hallam, who has been jailed for five years. Photograph: Ollie Millington/Getty Images

Each barrister sought unsuccessfully to persuade the judge that lengthy sentences could be avoided. Francesca Cociani, for Shaw, said the likelihood of his reoffending was lowered by the fact that the new Labour government had essentially met Just Stop Oil’s core demand by ending North Sea oil and gas exploration.

Gethin, who offered her own comments in mitigation, said: “I want to remind the court once more that my reasons for taking action were not beliefs or opinions. Earth’s life-support systems are breaking down due to human activities, whether we believe it or not.

“These are not beliefs or opinions and feeling strongly that this is wrong is greatly understandable, I would argue. I deeply regret that this action was necessary … I maintain that it was necessary and I stand by my actions as the most effective option available to me.”

Supporters of the defendants expressed outrage at the sentences, which came after a two-week trial in which the judge denied them any of the defences in law for causing a public nuisance.

Hehir ruled that the jury should not take into account evidence about climate breakdown, which the defendants wanted to point to as the key motivation behind their actions, and which they said provided them with a reasonable excuse for them.

Michel Forst, the UN’s special rapporteur on environmental defenders, who attended part of the trial, issued a statement at its conclusion.

“Today is a dark day for peaceful environmental protest” in the UK, he said. “This sentence should shock the conscience of any member of the public. It should also put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom.

“Rulings like today’s set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest but any form of peaceful protest that may, at one point or another, not align with the interests of the government of the day.”

Greenpeace UK’s programme director, Amy Cameron, said: “What sort of country locks people away for years for planning a peaceful demonstration, let alone for talking about it on a Zoom call?

We’re giving a free hand to the polluting elite robbing us of a habitable planet while jailing those who’re trying to stop them – it makes no sense.

“These sentences are not a one-off anomaly but the culmination of years of repressive legislation, overblown government rhetoric and a concerted assault on the right of juries to deliberate according to their conscience. It’s part of the mess the Labour government has inherited from its predecessor and they must fix it by giving back to people the right to protest that’s been slowly being taken away from them.”

Separately on Thursday, three airports were granted high court injunctions against fossil fuel and environmental activists protesting at their sites. Leeds Bradford airport, London Luton airport and Newcastle international airport were given injunctions banning protesters from trespassing or causing a nuisance.

Sudanese refugees in Chad. Over 10 million people have been forcibly displaced in over a year of war in Sudan. Photo: Wikimedia commons Famine looms in Sudan, forcing people to flee to neighboring countries, while talks between warring parties and a UN envoy are still under way in Geneva Reposted from Peoples Dispatch The governments of […]

15 Arab and African countries sound the alarm on the risks of famine in Sudan / by Aseel Saleh

the carbon dioxide already in our atmosphere will continue to warm the planet for hundreds of years.

Worst Case Consequence of the Long Atmospheric Residence Time of CO2

After the Trump shooting, outright denunciations of political violence ignore the violent foundations of the political order

Rejecting liberal reconciliation

Afterword from page 439 of The Free, free pdf Download HERE

from thefreeonline on 18 July 2024 (on Telegram: https://t.me/thefreeonline)

Some years ago I met a man called Diego Camacho (pen name Abel Paz) who wrote the classic biography ‘Durruti: The People Armed’, and a dozen more great books and films in castilian Spanish.

An agile grinning old fellow, with a Ducados in his mouth, he complained jokingly that he never got a cent back from the English version of the Durruti book (now in 14 languages!).

I foolishly said I would try and translate something for him, but I was never able and he died in 2009..

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Diego outlived his exile, his torturers and his jailors (he spent more than 10 years in fascist death prisons) and came back again a lifetime later to live in Barcelona, where he had attended the ‘Ferrer’ anarchist Free School, Natura, as a child

He spent his time explaining what he’d seen during the Social Revolution, tirelessly inspiring new generations of youth, even touring to promote the film ‘Land and Liberty’.

But what the hell happened here in Barcelona, that hot sunny day, the 19th July 1936?

What could be so shocking, that all sides collaborated, to murder tens of thousands and gag people till today, intent on wiping all memory of those events from the face of this earth?.

I place here some paragraphs from one of Diego’s books ‘Trip to the Past’
(Viaje al Pasado, my bad translation). He was just 16 at the time, on the streets on 19th July 1936.. Revolution Day.

……….. ‘I wandered from group to group. All talk was of the rapid victory over the army (takeover attempt) in less than 12 hours of street fighting with the troops… one incident… In the blink of an eye the multitude had raised a colossal barricade across the Paralelo.’ (a main street).

‘The troops took up positions, commanded by a lieutenant, who showed little patience, and ordered his subordinates to attack the barricade without protection. Just when he began yelling the orders to attack a captain turned his weapon… and shot him dead.

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The soldiers stopped firing and began to approach us, shouting enthusiastically ‘Viva La República’… We all started fraternizing like crazy; they were stripping off uniforms and all explaining how they’d been misled by their superiors…’

page 439
‘Barcelona had been converted into a labyrinth of barricades, many strategically useless, yet meaningful, built by all the neighbours, who placed with every piled up paving stone, their longing for social and political change.’…

( My note: This was a big modern city and a beehive of social and political activity. Another takeover by the army, this time fascist controlled, was the last straw. When the CNT activists set off the factory sirens in warning, everyone finally said
‘They Shall Not Pass’, and built barricades.)

…… ‘For me the time spent at our local barricade in the Clot neighborhood was vital. Nearby the Bar Fornos had its billiard hall converted in a twinkling into a free Popular Restaurant. The Damm beer workers had left 100’s of bottles, store workers piled up hams and sausage, hotbread…’-

.. ‘Barcelona was being transformed, and so were social relations. For example… at the barricade I met Lola, a family friend who’s partner Antonio caused constant problems due to his obsessive jealousy. She was running about, being useful, surrounded by men.

Later Antonio arrived with a lorry-load of activists. I saw no hint of his usual jealousy he was delighted to see her there, only worried about their 5 year old daughter.

The lorry went through amid wild cheering for the CNT and FAI. How many more people experienced similar changes?’…

‘On the 27th July the local federation of the CNT union published a manifesto calling for the end of the General Strike, and asking people to go back to work. The generalized expropriations (workplace takeovers) were a response to the abandonment, which we found when we got there.

Most of the owners had gone, both big and small, for fear of reprisals by the (mistreated) workers. They called open Assemblies and collectivized industry… In less than36 hours the economic base passed (surprisingly ) from private to collective property. ‘-…

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That’s what happened. Instead of installing the National Catholic dictatorship the military fascists accidentally provoked a leap into future, allowing a unique, short-lived Social Revolution, light years ahead of State Communism or predator Capitalism.

Diego was there, he lived that revolution that terrified all oppressors. He’s dead now, but he inspired us too, and he’d have enjoyed being quoted in these new editions of The Free. The book is a novel first, but the settings and background explore creative updates of ‘The Idea’, in the context of resource and climate collapse.

The trick is to play it live, to peep around our daily blinkers.

Other worlds and social systems are not only possible, but are coming, pronto, like it or not….

Abel Paz (1921-2009): Memories of intensity, reflections on anarchy

Remembering Diego Camacho AKA Abel Paz.

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