By SAMY MAGDY and MARIAM DAGGA Updated 9:15 PM EDT, July 26, 2025

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her 5-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born.

On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid.

The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest

By SAMY MAGDY and MARIAM DAGGA Updated 9:15 PM EDT, July 26, 2025

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her 5-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born.

On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid.

The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest.

The girl had weighed over 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) when she was born, her mother said. When she died, she weighed less than 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds).

A doctor said it was a case of “severe, severe starvation.”

By SAMY MAGDY and MARIAM DAGGA Updated 9:15 PM EDT, July 26, 2025

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her 5-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born.

On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid.

The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest.

Don't know what we would do without you

By SAMY MAGDY and MARIAM DAGGA Updated 9:15 PM EDT, July 26, 2025

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her 5-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born.

On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid.

The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest.

🔥 The Word Is Spreading, It’s Time to Act 🔥

On August 30th, just before Congress returns to session, people across the country are taking to the streets. We’re showing up at representatives’ offices, federal courthouses, and public spaces near you.

🤨 Why? Because Congress bailed. Because the pressure is working. Because the Epstein files are still sealed, and the truth is still buried.

🙅🏼‍♂️ We’re not playing politics. Left, right, it doesn’t matter. This is about justice. This is about children. This is about stopping a network of abusers protected by power and money.

👊🏽 Release the Epstein Files. Stop the Pedophiles.

☎️ In the days leading up to the protest, call your representatives. Flood their lines. Demand they take action. Demand answers. Demand accountability. Be relentless.

We don’t stop until the truth is out.

Originally Posted By u/Abject_You1560 At 2025-07-26 08:57:38 PM | Source

By SAMY MAGDY and MARIAM DAGGA Updated 9:15 PM EDT, July 26, 2025

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her 5-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born.

On a sunny street in shattered Gaza, the bundle containing Zainab Abu Halib represented the latest death from starvation after 21 months of war and Israeli restrictions on aid.

The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/44844533

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5669661

updated as of yesterday (July 21): based on a statistical model developed by a prestigious medical journal called The Lancet, Israel has killed roughly 434,800 people in Gaza since the country’s military started to attack the territory on 8 October 2023. That’s 20.7% of Gaza’s entire pre-conflict population dead. Over half are women and children.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/44844533

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5669661

updated as of yesterday (July 21): based on a statistical model developed by a prestigious medical journal called The Lancet, Israel has killed roughly 434,800 people in Gaza since the country’s military started to attack the territory on 8 October 2023. That’s 20.7% of Gaza’s entire pre-conflict population dead. Over half are women and children.

Originally Posted By u/Extra_Place_1955 At 2025-07-26 10:36:40 PM | Source

from s03e01 of 'Ozzy and Jack's World Detour'

Comments

Wellington (AFP) – New Zealand sheep farmers are fighting to stop the loss of pasture to fast-spreading pine plantations, which earn government subsidies to soak up carbon emissions.

Concern over the scale of the farm-to-forest switch led the government to impose a moratorium in December on any new conversions not already in the pipeline.

But farmers say forestry companies are flouting the clampdown.

Last month, farmers launched a "Save our Sheep" campaign to reverse the loss of productive farmland.

Sheep numbers have plummeted to around 23 million, down from a peak of around 70 million in the 1980s, according to official figures.

Falling wool prices and rising milk and beef costs initially drove the decline, but the emissions trading since 2008 has added to the strain.

The government is now investigating potential breaches of its moratorium by forestry companies, which have been buying up farmland as recently as June.

Federated Farmers -- a lobby group for rural communities -- submitted to the government "a list of properties we believe have been sold for carbon forestry" since the halt, a spokesman said.

The federation is concerned about the sale of more than 15,200 hectares (37,600 acres) of farmland, he told AFP.

Dean Rabbidge, who runs a farm outside the Southland town of Wyndham, said some of the newly purchased farms had already been planted with pine trees.

"They're just ploughing on ahead, effectively giving the middle finger to the government announcement," Rabbidge told AFP.

The moratorium had created a "gold rush", he said.

"It's criminal what's happening."

Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay said the government would change the law by October because it had become more profitable to plant pine forests than to farm sheep.

"The law will include clarity on what qualifies as legitimate evidence of a pre-December investment and enable any specific cases to be properly assessed," McClay said.

"Anyone who has bought land since December 4, 2024, irrespective of whether they also had trees or not, will not be able to register this land into the emissions trading scheme."

Rural New Zealand once abounded with rolling pastures, rickety wire fences hemming in millions of sheep chewing on the green grass.

But Rabbidge said those days were gone.

"You won't see anything now," he said. "You're just driving through long pine tree tunnels -- shaded, wet, and damp."

New Zealand is one of the rare countries to allow 100 percent of carbon emissions to be offset by forestry.

"We're not anti planting trees," sheep farmer Ben Fraser told AFP.

"There are areas of land that should be retired, that aren't necessarily productive."

But the trading scheme had driven an excessive loss of sheep pastures to forestry, he said.

"That's the issue here."

Fraser, who farms near the North Island town of Ohakune, said he had seen an exodus of people from the district in recent years.

"Since 2018, there've been 17 farms converted to forestry," he said.

"That's about 18,000 hectares gone. So you're looking at about 180,000 sheep gone out of the district, plus lambs."

The loss of sheep impacted the region.

"If the farms thrive, then the towns thrive because people come in and spend their money," he said.

"You've got farm suppliers, your fertiliser guys, your supermarkets, your butchers, all of that stuff struggling.

"The local schools now have less kids in them. The people who stayed are now isolated, surrounded by pine trees."

Rabbidge said the same was happening in Southland.

"This whole thing is just so short-sighted," Rabbidge said.

"Businesses here are forecasting anywhere between a 10 and 15 percent revenue reduction for the next financial year, and that's all on the back of properties that have sold or have been planted out in pine trees," he said.

"Think of all the shearers, the contractors, the transporters, the farm supply stores, the workers, the community centres, the schools, rugby clubs. Everything is affected by this."

Government figures from 2023 show agriculture accounted for more than half of New Zealand's total greenhouse gas emissions.

But farmers argue they have been working hard to reduce emissions, down more than 30 percent since the 1990s.

"I could put a leg of lamb on a plate in London with a lower emissions profile, transport included, than a British farmer," Rabbidge said.

"We just use our natural resources. We're not housing animals indoors and carting feed in and manure out.

"Everything's done outside and done at low cost, low and moderate intensity."

Maybe I'll do an edit tomorrow. So today you get the official one.

An internal U.S. government analysis found no evidence of systematic theft by the Palestinian militant group Hamas of U.S.-funded humanitarian supplies, challenging the main rationale that Israel and the U.S. give for backing a new armed private aid operation.

The analysis, which has not been previously reported, was conducted by a bureau within the U.S. Agency for International Development and completed in late June. It examined 156 incidents of theft or loss of U.S.-funded supplies reported by U.S. aid partner organizations between October 2023 and this May.

It found "no reports alleging Hamas" benefited from U.S.-funded supplies, according to a slide presentation of the findings seen by Reuters.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson disputed the findings, saying there is video evidence of Hamas looting aid, but provided no such videos.

https://mastodon.social/@VeroniqueB99/114921719563911042

Credit: @VeroniqueB99@mastodon.social

Edit: found the Reuters report this is based on: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/frustration-gaza-alarm-drove-macron-go-it-alone-palestine-recognition-2025-07-26/

A California-based company with ties to billionaire investor and Trump ally Peter Thiel announced plans Friday to build America’s first U.S.-owned, privately developed facility to enrich uranium in far western Kentucky.

This business development follows a series of executive orders from President Donald Trump that have aimed to bolster nuclear energy development in the U.S.

https://archive.ph/6N9zk

Bogotá (AFP) – Colombian authorities said Saturday that Ecuador had deported about 600 Colombian prisoners via a land border crossing, after Bogota protested the action came without prior agreement.

In 2024, Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa announced his intention to deport Colombian inmates to ease overcrowding in the country's prisons. Small groups were transferred starting in April.

But Colombian President Gustavo Petro opposed the move, saying that a joint plan was needed to safeguard the prisoners' rights.

"In the morning, 603 people arrived, 60 women and 543 men, and we completed the reception of them" at the Rumichaca border crossing in Carchi province, Colombia's acting foreign minister Rosa Villavicencio said.

Authorities on both sides of the border had previously reported conflicting figures for the number of prisoners deported.

The inmates, wearing orange uniforms, waited in line to reenter their home country under the watchful eye of Ecuadoran police and military personnel.

Early in the day, some in shorts and t-shirts did exercises while waiting for their turn to cross the border in the chilly Andean air, saying "We want to cross, we want to cross."

On Friday, the government in Bogota lodged a formal complaint with Quito, saying such a move without prior agreement was a violation of international law and an "unfriendly gesture."

A source in the Carchi governor's office who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity said the mass deportation began on Friday, and the 870 inmates slated at the time for expulsion represented about 60 percent of all Colombians in Ecuador's prisons.

Juan Morales, an official in the Colombian town of Ipiales, said that authorities had to scramble to handle the influx of people, because Ecuador had not informed them of the deportations.

Ecuador's foreign ministry said Saturday that Bogota was told about the plan on July 8.

The mayor of the border town of Ipiales, Amilcar Pantoja, told the media on Friday that prisoners without pending legal cases in Colombia would be released.

Drug trafficking gangs operating in Ecuador -- some involving Colombian criminals -- have turned the country into one of the most violent in Latin America.

The homicide rate has jumped from six per 100,000 people in 2018 to 38 in 2024, among the highest in the region.