Saturday, April 19, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

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Unicef: Babies in Gaza freeze to death

Published 9 January 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Israel's invasion has hit the children of Gaza very hard.

The UN children’s rights organization UNICEF warns that at least 74 Palestinian children have been killed in Israeli attacks in the first week of the year alone.

Meanwhile, the winter cold is taking its toll on the vulnerable tent camps, and it is reported that at least eight babies have died of hypothermia in a short time.

Unicef reports that children have been killed in night attacks in Gaza City, Khan Younis and Al Mawasi, among other places. The latter is classified as a “safe zone” – yet it was bombed and at least five children died.

– For the children of Gaza, the new year has brought more death and suffering from attacks, deprivation, and increasing exposure to the cold. A ceasefire is long overdue. Too many children have been killed or lost loved ones in a tragic start to the new year, said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell in a press release.

The continued lack of basic shelter and roofs combined with winter temperatures also pose serious threats to Gaza’s children.

With over a million children living in makeshift tents and many families displaced over the past 15 months, children are at extreme risk. Since December 26, eight infants and newborns have been reported to have died from hypothermia a major threat to young children who are not yet able to regulate their body temperature.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza has spiralled out of control. The number of trucks with aid entering Gaza remains woefully insufficient to meet the most basic needs of families. Civil order has largely collapsed inside Gaza, with the looting of humanitarian goods“, the organization notes.

“A matter of life and death”

The vast majority of hospitals have been partially or completely destroyed and those still in operation are overloaded. UNICEF points out that civilian infrastructure has collapsed and families no longer have access to food, clean water, sanitation and health care.

The Kamal Adwan Hospital, which was the last functioning health facility in northern Gaza focusing on childhood diseases, is no longer functional after the Israeli military raided the building.

– The dire sanitary situation, and now the winter weather put the lives of all children in Gaza at risk. Newborns and children with medical conditions are especially vulnerable. The parties to the conflict and the international community must act urgently to end the violence, alleviate suffering, and ensure that all hostages, especially the two remaining children, are released, said Russell.

The UN agency also calls for an immediate end to attacks on civilians, humanitarian workers and civilian infrastructure and for aid workers to regain “unhindered access” to Gaza.

The delivery of aid and supplies is a matter of life or death for children in Gaza“, it concludes.

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US shuts down Biden’s censorship agency

Donald Trump's USA

Published yesterday 9:57
– By Editorial Staff
Members of the Trump administration have long expressed concerns about how freedom of expression is being restricted and curtailed in various ways.

The United States has now officially shut down an agency that, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was used by the Biden administration to systematically censor US citizens with uncomfortable views.

The Global Engagement Center (GEC) was established in 2016 within the US Department of State, with a mission to “recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation”.

In December, the center was renamed Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI), but on Wednesday, Marco Rubio announced that it had been permanently shut down.

– Under the previous administration, this office, which cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year, spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving, Rubio said.

– This is antithetical to the very principles we should be upholding and inconceivable it was taking place in America.

In an interview published Wednesday with conservative activist Mike Benz, Rubio explained that the GEC was initially intended as a tool to combat extremist propaganda from groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, but that the operation later began “going after individual American voices”.

– We ended government-sponsored censorship in the United States through the State Department, he declared.

“Worst offender in US government censorship”

Rubio added that the Biden administration had supported groups that “literally tagging and labeling voices in American politics – Ben Shapiro, The Federalist, others – tagging them as foreign agents”.

The GEC had an annual budget of $61 million and employed about 120 people. In December, Republican members of Congress refused to provide continued funding for the unit.

President Donald Trump and his supporters have long accused Democrats of using government institutions to silence conservative views online. In 2023, tech billionaire Elon Musk also criticized the GEC, calling it “worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation” and “a threat to our democracy”.

Journalist Matt Taibbi also accused the center of trying to suppress discussions on COVID-19 under the pretext of fighting “Russian personas and proxies”.

Already last year, a group of Republican members of Congress harshly criticized the GEC in a letter to then Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The letter accused the Center of bias in favor of “American progressives” and of trying to silence opinions that were “deemed politically inconvenient or disagreeable”.

Reports: The White House demands UK abolish hate speech laws

Published 17 April 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Donald Trump's administration is reportedly very concerned about the repression of dissent in the UK.

According to reports in The Independent, Donald Trump’s administration is demanding that the United Kingdom abolish the law on incitement to racial hatred as a condition for the conclusion of a new trade agreement between the two countries.

The demand, which is linked to Vice President JD Vance’s view of freedom of expression as fundamental to democracy, has reportedly met with resistance from the UK government.

An anonymous source close to the US administration told The Independent that Trump is “obsessed by the fall of Western civilisation” and that the president is deeply concerned that free speech is being undermined in the UK.

The source claims that the White House wants the Labour government to withdraw hate speech laws, including those targeting LGBTQ groups or various ethnic minorities, in order for a deal to be reached.

– No free speech, no deal. It is as simple as that, the source told the newspaper.

Britons arrested for social media posts

Vance, who is leading the negotiations from the US side, has previously expressed optimism about a new agreement:

– I think there’s a good chance that, yes, we’ll come to a great agreement that’s in the best interest of both countries, he said in an interview with UnHerd.

The UK authorities’ crackdown on ‘opinion criminals’ has long been seen as a major problem by people close to Trump.

The president’s adviser, Elon Musk, has been one of the most vocal critics and has repeatedly highlighted the fact that British authorities arrest people for posts they make on social media.

During Keir Starmer’s first visit to the White House, Vance also warned that freedom of expression was under attack, pointing to how US tech companies are being forced into unacceptable censorship by new European laws introduced under the pretext of protecting citizens from “cyber hate”.

An elite afraid of its own people

The Nordic Times has previously reported how Vance during the security conference in Munich also attacked the European establishment politicians.

– I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be, quote, “hateful content”

Mr. Vance also touched on Sweden’s verdict against the murdered Iraqi Quran burner Salwan Momika’s colleague who was convicted of participating in the actions.

– As the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, grant, and I’m quoting, ‘a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief’.

UK Supreme Court: Womanhood is something one is born into

The LGBT lobby

Published 17 April 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Many British women consider the court's decision a great victory.

The UK Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the term “woman” in the country’s equality legislation refers to biological sex and nothing else.

The ruling rejects the Scottish Government’s interpretation, which included trans women in the definition and quotas for biological men who have “changed sex” as women in the workplace.

A panel of five judges, led by Justice Patrick Hodge, ruled that the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

The ruling means, among other things, that transgender people should not be counted as women for the purposes of the Equality Act’s quotas although the court was careful to emphasize that they should continue to be protected from discrimination on the basis of their gender identity.

The case stems from a 2018 Scottish law requiring public authorities in Scotland to have at least 50% women on their boards. According to the Scottish Government’s interpretation, trans women were included in this quota. However, the women’s rights group For Women Scotland (FWS) disputed this, arguing that the definition of woman cannot be extended beyond biological sex.

“Refers to reality –  not to paperwork”

An early court ruling in 2022 was appealed to the Supreme Court, which has now agreed with FWS.

Maya Forstater of the group Sex Matters considers the ruling a “great victory”:

– The court has given us the right answer: the protected characteristic of sex – male and female – refers to reality, not to paperwork, she says.

FWS director Trina Budge previously warned that a broader interpretation of gender risks filling quotas with “50% men, and 50% men with certificates”, which would undermine the purpose of the law.

Supported by J.K. Rowling

The group also highlighted that transgender access to women’s toilets, women’s prisons and women’s wards in hospitals can have very negative consequences and create insecurity.

FWS lawyer Aidan O’Neill argued during the trial that gender must be understood in law as a “expression of one’s bodily reality. It is an immutable biological state”.

For Women Scotland has received support from well-known author J.K. Rowling, who has reportedly donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the group. Rowling has long argued in the past that it is unreasonable for trans women’s rights to be at the expense of biological women.

However, not everyone is applauding the ruling on the contrary, the human rights organization Amnesty International is highly critical and claims that transgender people now risk having their human rights violated.

US tightens visa controls – social media to be scrutinized

Published 16 April 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Anyone who has expressed support for any of Israel's enemies is expected to be denied entry to the United States.

The U.S. will begin denying visas based on the content of applicants’ social media – including posts, shares, and messages that express support for what are considered anti-Semitic messages, for example.

The country’s immigration agency, USCIS, will begin reviewing social media for all immigrants applying for lawful permanent residence, work authorization, visas, as well as foreign students and people affiliated with educational institutions.

What will be looked for are, for example, posts or messages supporting groups labeled terrorist in the United States, such as Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthi movement in Yemen. Anti-Semitic messages are also included and will constitute “negative factors” when deciding on a visa or residence permit.

– There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here, said Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at DHS, in a press release.

The proposal has raised concerns among immigration and free speech advocates because it could also affect people already in the country legally not just those applying for entry. Critics also point out that it is unclear how “anti-Semitism”, for example, should be defined, and there is concern that virtually all criticism of Israel will be rejected.

According to AP News, social media monitoring by immigration authorities has been going on for over a decade, starting under the Obama administration and expanding during Donald Trump’s first term.

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