Yes! @Bellingham?

No @FaLcO?

No @WHAT IS GOING ON?

VOTED✔️

Yes @xBale36?

The country’s 13 million dogs create a lot of mess that’s hard to dispose of, dangerous and harmful to the environment A Yorkshire terrier. The numbers of dogs in the UK has almost doubled since 2011. Photograph: Liliboas/Getty Images An unlikely folk hero has emerged in the Venice beach area of Los Angeles. Their identity is unknown, but their po[CENSORED]rity is down to their homemade flags on cocktail sticks stuck into piles of dog faeces with messages like “Lazy. Pick. Up. Your. Dog. Poo”. The message is going down well. “I’m a big fan,” said one local. “No one wants to see a dog poop everywhere.” These are the exact tactics that were used in Britain back in the 1980s, when dog faeces on the streets first began to be seen as unacceptable. Campaigners stuck little flags with similar messages aimed at getting dog poo off streets and public play areas. In many ways it was a successful campaign. There’s now widespread consciousness of the dangers to children of toxocara disease caused by accidentally ingesting excrement via their hands. And there are very few who would put up a public defence that a faeces-littered pavement is a sign of the healthy freedom of its citizens. But in spite of reaching this level of public awareness, we still have an escalating problem of dog mess. Not only does the problem in public places still exist, but some of the strategies for disposing of it have spawned a whole set of new problems: bagged-up mess left lying about on the streets, overflowing bins or, even more maddeningly, bags of faeces hanging on trees. Such piles have far from disappeared from our streets, parks, nature reserves and beaches. There remains a hard core of refuseniks, like the elderly gent who walks his dog in our street after dark and never “scoops the poop”. Meanwhile, many unbagged heaps are the gift of dog walkers who conveniently “miss” the event, either because they’re walking too many dogs at the same time or they’re immersed in conversations or on phones. I’m sceptical about how genuine these oversights are. More likely, these are the soft-core refuseniks who know they ought to pick up but can’t be bothered. On the occasions I’ve pointed this out to the owners, I’ve been met with responses that range from outright aggression to a half-hearted search in an area from which the dog is long departed and whose offering cannot immediately be found. Part of the problem is the sheer number of dogs. There are now an estimated 13 million in the UK. The numbers have pretty much doubled since 2011 when there were 7.6 million. That means an awful lot of faeces and, probably even more serious than what’s left on the streets, there is the problem that there are no environmentally harmless ways of disposing of “waste” from all those dogs. Most waste bags are not truly biodegradable and, while compostable bags are available, there is currently no real way of safely composting dog waste. It cannot be added to domestic compost without extensive supervision. Nor can it be disposed of down toilets as there is a real risk of diseases entering the drinking system this way. The vast majority goes, via public bins, to landfill where it will eventually anaerobically degrade creating methane gas. As for the impact of dogs on the wider environment, some have suggested that due to their meat-based diet and its effect on agricultural production, the average dog creates the equivalent CO2 emissions over its lifetime as a medium-sized SUV. Dog owners don’t want to have conversations about the difficulties dogs can create for society or the environment more widely. It’s always other “bad” owners who are responsible – for dog mess, for delinquent dogs, for irresponsible disposal of dog bags. But as a non-dog owner, I do wonder why there isn’t more collective responsibility? Why, for example, don’t dog owners occasionally pick up the mess which someone else’s dog has left? And why is there not more support for the return of the dog licence? If that was restored at the cost of say £100 a year, it would at least make a significant contribution to the public purse. Importantly, it would recognise that dogs do have an impact in our shared social space. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/25/how-about-charging-dog-owners-100-for-a-licence-to-cover-the-costs-of-poo

One of our favorite pickups tests the faithful by ditching V-8s for powerful twin-turbo inline-sixes. Traditionalism, in the car business, is often a euphemism for corporate penury. "Our buyers are very traditionalist," a car company will say, by way of explaining its continued deployment of some Bronze Age technology that should've been jettisoned decades before. Sometimes, there's a kernel of truth in there—certain Porsche fans still mistrust the dark magic of water-cooled engines—but more often the company in question simply amortized research and development costs long ago and is thus happy to keep furnishing leaf springs or drum brakes or hit-and-miss engines to its supposedly traditionalist buyers. Ram doesn't play that game, as evidenced by the 2025 Ram 1500 and its quiver of new engines, none of which is a V-8. That's right: The company that sent Jon Reep to stardom with the question "That thing got a Hemi?" no longer offers Hemis in its new pickup. What it does offer is a furious twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six, and we suspect that 540 horsepower will make its own argument to the pickup faithful. Out with the Hemi, long live the Hurricane. New Hurricane Six in Two Strengths Yes, the new 3.0-liter has a cool name, because Stellantis is not going to give an engine some bland alphanumeric moniker when it can invoke a terror-inducing natural disaster. In the Ram 1500, the Hurricane comes in two flavors, with the middle-of-the-lineup engine making 420 horsepower and 469 pound-feet of torque, improving on the 2024 truck's 5.7-liter V-8 by 25 horsepower and 59 pound-feet. That alone is a worthy upgrade, but there's also a high-output version that cranks out 540 horsepower and 521 pound-feet. The ZF-sourced eight-speed automatic returns, sending power to a stronger rear axle designed to cope with the Hurricanes' mountain of torque. Both engines get a closed-deck block and a forged steel crankshaft, with the high-output employing forged aluminum pistons as well. There are two turbochargers, each fed by three cylinders and enjoying its own exhaust plumbing—true three-inch dual exhaust, all the way back. The standard Hurricane makes 22.4 psi of peak boost, while the high-output's turbos huff 28.0 psi into the intake manifold. To address an obvious question here: Yes, you'll need to run premium fuel to hit those published power numbers. Both engines will run fine on 87 octane but will generate power figures that Ram representatives defined as "less." (Fuel economy is still to be determined, but Ram hopes for an improvement over the V-8.) To assuage worries that the wee six is overmatched for truck duty, Ram showed a video of the engine undergoing the company's most diabolical dyno test, in which the throttle is pinned while the entire engine is tossed around violently in a motorized cradle. If you somehow get your truck on the track at Millennium Force at Cedar Point, oil starvation will be the least of your worries. The Hurricane, in one strength or the other, is available on every trim, and there are plenty of those. As before, the Tradesman is the value-oriented work truck, and the carryover 305-hp 3.6-liter V-6 is standard. But the standard-output Hurricane is optional, as it is on the next trim level up the ladder, the Big Horn/Lonestar. From there, the off-road-oriented Rebel and the fancier Laramie are both exclusively powered by the 420-hp Hurricane, while the Limited, Limited Longhorn, and Tungsten—the new flagship model—are graced with the 540-hp version. That's a lot of bandwidth in a single lineup, from a $42,000 work truck to an $89,000 luxury chariot. If you opt for a base-model truck, the 2025 model isn't a wild departure from the 2024. Most of the body panels carry over, save for a subtle front- and rear-end restyling that brings standard LED headlights. But a Tungsten is like a different truck entirely, with its BMW M3–shaming engine, hands-free driver assist, 24-way power seats with massage, and 23-speaker Klipsch sound system. Come to think of it, the Tungsten not only makes more power than an M3 Competition, but it costs more too. Whatever the ceiling is on the half-ton truck market's appetite for decadence, Ram thinks we haven't found it yet. Driving the 2025 Ram As for the question of whether the V-8 will be missed: Yes, the 702-hp supercharged one in the TRX deserves its own national holiday. But anyone accustomed to the naturally aspirated 5.7-liter will find the standard-output Hurricane a marked upgrade and the high-output one on another level entirely. There might not be a huge difference in 60-mph times between the old 395-hp Hemi and the 420-hp six, but that wall of torque makes the Hurricane feel much stronger in around-town driving (it also shrugged off some light off-roading that included a few steep climbs). And it sounds great, as most inline-sixes do, issuing a throaty burr from those dual pipes. And for those who mourn the V-8 rumble, we'd note that the Hemi engaged its cylinder deactivation system whenever it could, and in that mode it sounded like a goat that fell down a well. The Hurricane always sounds pretty good. And in the Tungsten, it's tire-smoking strong. Perhaps the high-output six won't allow the upcoming Ram RHO off-roader to match the outgoing TRX's 3.7-second 60-mph time, but it ought to hang a lead on the 450-hp 3.5-liter Ford F-150 Raptor, which hits 60 in 5.2 seconds. In the Tungsten, the silken six aligns nicely with the upscale gestalt of the fanciest Ram, remaining mostly hushed unless wide-open throttle is called for. Mostly, it remains a complementary player, letting the new cabin hog all the attention. New Tungsten Interior And on a Tungsten, there's a lot to take in. A 14.5-inch central touchscreen is paired with a 10.3-inch passenger-side screen that allows the front seat passenger to watch a movie (or cue up functions from the main screen, like navigation) without the driver being able to see it. The seats have so many adjustments that the headrests alone are four-way adjustable. The massage function, when set to "rock climb," is so vigorous that you might find the herringbone pattern of the leather embossed on your back an hour after a drive. (This is the first time in recent memory that a drive impression was literal.) There are dual wireless phone chargers, and that Klipsch sound system will rock your skull with a 12-inch subwoofer. Out back in the bed—this is a truck, remember?—an inverter delivers 1800 watts of power to two outlets. Active lane management, adaptive cruise control, and blind-spot monitoring with cross-path detection and adaptive emergency braking are standard across the board, and evasive steer assist is available (and standard on Tungsten). The active lane management isn't a hands-free system, but it uses a capacitive sensor to detect the driver's hand touching the wheel rather than a torque sensor that requires constant nudging as proof of life—finally, a use of capacitive sensors that we don't hate! There's also that fully hands-free highway driver assist system, and while it's not as shrewd as GM's Super Cruise, it should be useful on major highways. Which are also the only places that it's enabled, as yet. All told, the 2025 Ram falls somewhere between a mid-cycle refresh and a thorough overhaul. At the 2025 truck's Texas debut, Ram also had two other models on display, the plug-in-hybrid Ramcharger and the electric Ram 1500 Rev. Both of those will soon be in showrooms, ready to make a truck with a gasoline inline-six look downright traditional. https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a46860235/2025-ram-1500-pickup-drive/

Ireland 31-7 Wales Champions run in four tries to secure bonus point No sign of any letup. Ireland did not have to be at their best to beat Wales comfortably. The bonus point was not secured until the last play of the game, but you almost had to remind yourself that it had not been. This dismantling of a brave Wales team was total. Now for England at Twickenham. Let us not reach for too many cliches, but that one about men and boys does spring to mind. Wales are hard and flexible, but do not possess anywhere near the firepower they were up against here. It was something of an achievement to turn around just 17-0 down. And then they tore into the second half. They needed a penalty try for their only points, scored just after the break, but Ireland did not like what the visitors were doing at that stage. Dafydd Jenkins leads his Wales team off past Ireland after the game. No one really imagined a second-half comeback like Wales’s against Scotland in round one was on the cards. Sure enough, Ireland, having also suffered a yellow card, played their way out of the hole to secure the maximum points. That we are describing a 10-point lead as “a hole” says something about the dominance of this team. For more than half an hour the flow was almost entirely one way. Not until the last minutes of the first half did Wales manage to reach the Irish 22. They were duly hounded into mistakes. There seemed nowhere for Wales to turn. If they were not repelling wave after wave of green shirts, which they did remarkably well in the early exchanges, they were enduring a fearful pounding at the set piece. Ireland would not play at less than a hundred miles an hour, the ball rarely anywhere other than on Irish fingertips, Tadhg Furlong doing that fly-half thing he loves so well, as happy flipping passes off either hand as he is demolishing opposition looseheads. Wales were quite unlucky to concede the first points, a penalty converted by Jack Crowley after Nick Tompkins ended up around James Lowe’s neck as the latter charged forwards with a posse of mates behind him. But there was not much arguing with the tries that followed. Having put Wales through a non-stop defensive set for 20 minutes or so, Ireland resorted to more old-fashioned methods for their first try. Another fearsome pummelling at scrum-time was rewarded with a penalty, sent to the corner. Dan Sheehan, another front-row forward who might as well be a back, finished the subsequent lineout and drive. Try number two came from another penalty to the corner – Wales conceded a flood of them during the onslaught. After some meaty drives brought Ireland to the brink, Calvin Nash was given a go on the right. He was stopped somehow but wasted no time looping round to the left, where his deft hands put Lowe over in the corner after more fingertip passing from everyone else. Crowley converted from the touchline – obviously – to give Ireland a 17-0 lead but the bombardment felt more relentless than that. James Lowe touches down Ireland’s second try. Photograph: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images Wales were finally offered a couple of penalties in those five minutes before the break, both of which they sent to the corner too. No joy. They seemed to be running into brick walls. The mistakes followed inevitably. But 17-0 down is nothing to these boys. Ireland in Dublin is not Scotland at home, where Wales recovered by scoring 26 points from 27-0 down, but Wales came out of the traps in a mood all the same. They won a penalty, another sent to the corner, and Tadhg Beirne conceded a penalty try and a yellow card by swimming up the side of the advancing maul. Ireland spent most of the next 10 minutes playing more fingertip rugby, this as much to run down the clock as to make inroads into the Welsh defence. But now it was they who struggled to shake off the referee’s attention. Wales went for the corner three times, but Beirne returned for the third attacking lineout, which Ireland turned over. The threat was more or less defused. Ireland were far from precise, but they bossed the next 20 minutes, until their match-securing try. Bundee Aki reckoned he had it, going over between the posts after yet more sweeping attacks, but Robbie Henshaw had knocked on in the buildup. No matter, Ireland had their third 15 minutes from time. Welsh hands in the ruck during another onslaught set Ireland up in the corner. Aki drove, so too did Jack Conan, before Crowley sent Ciarán Frawley, enjoying his first start, through a huge gap to the line. In the last 10 minutes, Ireland suffered their second yellow card. They did the same as last time – got their hands on the ball and came at Wales, only this time they very definitely had try-scoring on their mind. Beirne it was who proved one last charging Irishman too many. Ireland had their bonus point. Another assignment ticked off. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/feb/24/ireland-wales-six-nations-match-report

Isabella Tree, author of Wilding and architect behind the wilding project at her home on the Knepp estate. 19 July 2021 Picture by Jack Hill/The Times and Sunday Times. Photograph: Jack Hill/The Times Biodiversity campaigner Isabella Tree says wild areas work ‘hand in glove’ with food production as her Sussex estate boasts return of endangered species The Knepp estate in West Sussex is home to the first white stork born in the wild in Britain for over 600 years. It’s a place where endangered bats, turtle doves and nightingales are thriving, where “officially extinct” large tortoiseshell butterflies are breeding and where tens of thousands of people visit each year to experience “a story of hope” about the resilience of nature in the face of the global climate emergency. There have been many exciting changes at Knepp since 2018, when Isabella Tree wrote Wilding, her award-winning book about rewilding an unprofitable 3,500-acre arable and dairy farm. Now she has written a captivating illustrated book, Wilding: How to Bring Wildlife Back – An Illustrated Guide, updating her readers about extraordinary developments at Knepp and offering practical advice about rewilding their own spaces, however small. Jays: One of Angela Harding’s illustrations from Wilding: How to Bring Wildlife Back – An Illustrated Guide. Photograph: Angela Harding “We’re living in a world of eco-anxiety and most of us, I guess, stick our heads in the sand because these problems are so enormous,” says Tree. “How is one individual going to make a difference to climate meltdown and biodiversity? ‘It’s impossible,’ you think. Then you come to Knepp and you see what nature has done, how it’s rebounded in 20 or so years. It really is such a story of hope that I think people find it quite galvanising. It restores your energy and your belief that you can do something.” The book, out on 7 March and is aimed at older children (aged 9+) and adults, explains how and why Tree and her husband, Charlie Burrell, sold off their dairy cows and farm machinery in 2000. They stopped ploughing and spraying fertilisers and pesticides, pulled up their barbed wire fences, smashed their Victorian land drains, quit clearing their ditches – and “simply let things go”. “We wanted to work with nature for a change, rather than fighting against it all the time,” writes Tree. Exquisite illustrations by the printmaker and fine artist Angela Harding reveal how, step-by-step, wilderness and wildlife then returned to Knepp. “Nature bounces back, if you let it, wherever it can.” Tree with one of her oaks on the Knepp estate. Photograph: Charlie Burrell Some of the rarest creatures in Britain have now made Knepp their home, including kingfishers, hazel dormice, scarce chaser dragonflies and purple emperor butterflies. The river has returned to its natural course and the soil is now storing as much carbon per hectare as a 25-year-old plantation of trees does, according to recent tests. “That’s really exciting, because rewilding has been seen as fantastic for wildlife and recovering biodiversity, but people say it doesn’t answer the problem of climate change. We can say now, categorically, it does. That, actually, you can restore your soils by allowing an area to rewild – and just the soils alone will be the same as a carbon storage in a plantation.” This comparison is important, Tree says, because putting trees in the ground with a spade is not good for biodiversity. “What you’re creating as a single generational plantation with standing trees is a closed canopy woodland, which is very species poor.” By contrast, Knepp has wetland, scrubland, mature trees and deadwood, as well as mycorrhizal fungi and root systems under the ground. “All of that is way more significant for storing carbon than just planting trees.” Yet, in 2000, Knepp was merely an “unpromising piece of land underneath the Gatwick stacking system”. “If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.” The release two years ago of a pair of breeding beavers was particularly important: last year, they had two kits, the first to be born in the wild in Sussex for centuries. “Seeing what the beavers have done during all these storms and floods is astonishing – they’re holding back probably four or five acres of standing water and helping to prevent flooding downstream.” During the 2022 heatwave, the beavers’ dams created something similar to a “little emerald oasis in the middle of an African savannah”, which is now “heaving with life”. Tree says: “It’s absurd we still have to have beavers under licence in enclosed pens in England, when they’re living free in Scotland and on the continent. Everyone knows how powerful they are for cleaning polluted water and restoring biodiversity.” She and Burrell have been campaigning to “get beavers back in England” for 15 years: “We’re so risk averse in the UK, while the planet is in meltdown. We’ve got to get braver and start reintroducing the keystone species that are crucial to restoring nature.” Beavers by Angela Harding from Isabella Tree’s new book. Photograph: Angela Harding Wild-living beavers were recently given protected status in England, but farmers are concerned that reintroducing the native species – which was hunted to extinction in the 16th century –will threaten their crops or livestock, for example by redirecting rivers and flooding agricultural land. Similarly, critics of rewilding argue that the government’s decision to offer farmers incentives to rewild their land, in order to restore 741,000 acres of wildlife habitats in England by 2042, is putting food security at risk, when the UK is already heavily reliant on global food supply chains. “People say we can’t rewild everywhere – how are we going to produce food? That’s the big pushback we’re getting against nature, certainly from the National Farmers’ Union,” says Tree. While she accepts that not everywhere can be rewilded – “we will always need land for food production” – she thinks that it can protect crops and provide farmers with a “life-support system” they desperately need. “We cannot carry on ploughing and using chemicals and artificial fertiliser. We know the pollution that causes, we know we’re losing our soils. So, for the long-term security of food production itself, we’ve got to shift to regenerative agriculture. But also we need to have rewilded areas around our food production to provide the dung beetles, the pollinating insects, the pest control, the clean water, the water storage and the buffers against extreme weather events.” Surrounding agricultural land with wild land is the only sustainable way forward. “Rewilding works hand in glove with food production. We can have both,” she says. “We’ve got the space for both.” Wilding: How to Bring Wildlife Back – An Illustrated Guide by Isabella Tree and illustrated by Angela Harding will be published by Macmillan on 7 March https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/25/rewilding-climate-change-biodiversity-isabella-tree-nature-planet-farming

Prominent painter Sliman Mansour says that peace is possible when each one of us is considered a human being and ‘has the same rights’. Homeland, painted by Sliman Mansour in 2010, Sliman Mansour shows the dehumanisation and confinement faced by Palestinians at checkpoints [Courtesy of Sliman Mansour] I first encountered Sliman Mansour, whose paintings portray the daily and historical struggles of the Palestinian people, last year at Art Cairo in the pharaonic enormity of the Grand Egyptian Museum. The event brought together some of the most acclaimed painters, photographers, graffiti artists, and other creatives from across the Middle East. Mansour, who has famously helped to shape the contemporary art of Palestine for over half a century, was participating in a discussion about censorship and violence against artists and journalists. At that time, Mansour’s panel was considering the issue of future attacks on artists through the lens of those that had already occurred. Initially soft-spoken, his tone became fiery in response to another panellist who suggested that artists should toe the line in response to governmental censorship because one could not produce art if imprisoned or dead. This was unacceptable to Mansour, who asserted that it was the job of the artist to create art honestly regardless of the consequences. When I spoke with Mansour almost exactly one year later in January 2024, for Palestinians the matter was once again no longer historical or hypothetical, but all too present: The number of journalists and artists killed was continuing to skyrocket amid the latest eruption of violence. “I’m sad and angry,” Mansour told me when I asked him about the high rate of journalist casualties. “But it fits the thinking of the Israelis. For them, the narrative is very important. And who tells the narrative — it should be them only, because that’s the truth for them. Anybody who speaks another narrative should be put in prison. Or now they are killed.” Mansour spoke with me via Zoom from his home in Jerusalem, with the end to the violence nowhere in sight. He smiled amicably throughout our talk, but his eyes were sad and he seemed somewhat tired. When I asked him about the atmosphere in Jerusalem, he considered the question for a few long moments, then shrugged. “It’s very tense,” he said, “but there’s no physical threat [in Jerusalem]. It’s only tense because of the war and so on.” That “and so on” was doing a lot of heavy lifting. A lifetime of artistic resistance Seventy-seven-year-old Sliman Mansour has spent half a century expressing the perseverance and resistance of the Palestinians through his painting. Born in rural Birzeit before spending his formative years in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, his youth was marked by what he saw as the active erasure of Palestinian identity; various elements of Palestinian culture, such as the flag and even its colours, were repressed or outright banned. In 1973 he co-founded the League of Palestinian Artists, which brought a new sense of political urgency to the art of Palestine. Since then his singular style — which fuses elements of realism, abstract expressionism, and Surrealism — has given rise to some of the most powerfully emotive images to emerge from the movement’s cultural opposition to oppression. Mansour’s most recognisable works speak directly to the plight of Palestinians. In Rituals Under Occupation, a sea of forlorn people carry a cross, the pillar of which is a Palestinian flag that stretches off into the horizon. In Perseverance and Hope, a trio in traditional Palestinian dress looks up at a dove, their hands bound behind their backs, the backdrop a collage of terrible calamity. And of course, there’s Camel of Hardship, one of Mansour’s earliest works to find widespread acclaim, which portrays a man staggering forward with the burden of Jerusalem on his back. Rituals Under Occupation by Sliman Mansour [Courtesy of Sliman Mansour] The persistence of ‘sumud’ There is an almost pastoral stoicism to Mansour’s work that implores contemplation rather than cries out for attention. These paintings are some of the most internationally recognised works to present a concept known as sumud, a Palestinian concept that has also been captured by artists and writers such as Ismail Shammouth, Mahmoud Darwish, Issam Badr and many others. “The meaning of it in English is steadfastness,” explained Mansour. “For me, sumud is to not forget who we are and to fight all the time for our liberation. Not to give in to the demands of Israel — that if we want to live in this land, we have to live like a second-class people. That is mainly what Israel wants of us — to accept that they are the rulers of this land. Sumud, for me, means that I don’t agree with that. And I will fight that. That — in short — is the meaning of sumud.” And in the case of Mansour’s art, that fight is characterised by existence rather than violence. His painting, Memory of Places, for example, shows a man dressed in traditional Palestinian garb standing before a painting of an olive grove. The destruction of Palestinian olive groves on the part of Israeli settlers has been a fierce point of contention in recent years, and Mansour’s meta-portrayal of such a grove — which we presume has been destroyed, for the old man is standing before a painting rather than actual trees — insists that the view consider the obliteration of Palestinian identity. “A painting shouldn’t be full of force and bloody violence. If I paint just a beautiful landscape or people working in the field, it’s part of the sumud thinking.” From the River to the Sea is a 2021 painting by Sliman Mansour [Courtesy of Sliman Mansour] Red, green, black, and white In the 1980s, Mansour was among the artists who began using what is today a well-known symbol of the Palestinian movement — the watermelon — after Israel passed legislation censoring political art. “They gave us rules like that we should not paint in certain colours,” said Mansour. “That we should not paint in red, green, black, and white. This rule was published in newspapers and everywhere, including in Israel.” According to Mansour, when Israeli authorities asserted the colour ban, painter Issam Badr asked if the colours could still be used to paint flowers. No, said an officer, flowers were forbidden. Nothing in red, green, and black. Not even a watermelon. “They wanted to fight the notion of a Palestinian identity,” explained Mansour. “Because our existence here, for them, is ‘antisemitic’. That we exist, only. It’s not what we do — just our existence here is something that they hate. It does not fit their narrative about Israel. What are these people doing here? We came to a land that should be empty. So our existence here is something that makes them angry. Existence as workers — that we work for them in the fields or in factories and so on — that’s okay. But existence, existence as a national identity, as Palestinians — that’s what makes them mad. “And that’s the reason they forbid us to paint in these colours. Because these colours are the colours of the Palestinian flag and the flag is a symbol of the people.” Because the colours of a watermelon tested the bounds of the ban, it became a symbol of resistance among artists and is now commonly displayed at pro-Palestinian protests and by supporters online. Peace, by Sliman Mansour, was created with mud and wood. [Courtesy of Sliman Mansour] When I told Mansour that the idea of banning colours from a painter made about as much sense as banning a musician from playing certain notes, he nodded, adding that painting against the ban could also have very real consequences. “In 1982 to ’84, many artists painted everything in red, green, black, and white,” he said. “A landscape, a portrait — anything. And in 1984, an artist from Gaza painted the Palestinian flag and they put him in prison for six months. His name is Fathi Ghabin. He’s now in Gaza running away from the bombs and so on, but he spent six months imprisoned in ‘84.” Mansour recalls that the ban even inspired a number of Israeli artists to back their Palestinian counterparts by collaborating on exhibitions held throughout the early 1980s. “A group of Israeli left-wing artists came to Ramallah to support us and we became friends with many of them and we started making exhibitions,” explained Mansour, “and always the main title of the exhibition was, Down with the Occupation, and, For a Two-State Solution, and things like that. I understand the feelings of the Israeli artists who came to support us at that time. They were very embarrassed. They told us very frankly that they were embarrassed.” The dangers of contradicting the narrative There has been a historically high number of journalists killed in the latest war on Gaza, along with scores of writers, poets, and other artists. Mansour asserts that this is all part of an effort on the part of Israel to not only diminish Palestinian culture but eliminate threats to an enforced narrative. “The whole idea of Israel is narrative,” said Mansour. “It’s a story, and they are building over that — stories, stories — and they want to keep these stories alive, and they hate anybody who tells another story. So that’s why they hate writers and poets and people who speak another side of the story. And now the journalists.” And he’s quick to point out that the current violence is far from the first instance, and that these wordsmiths have faced even greater retaliation than the painters both today and in the past. Mansour noted the assassination of author and politician Ghassan Kanafani, who along with his niece was killed by a car bomb in 1972, with the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad claiming responsibility. “They were afraid of artists who dealt with the mass media, newspapers, and so on,” Mansour recalled. “ A visual artist was not such a great threat to them. They were angry with the people who wrote.” Palestinian refugee school children sit by a wall painting featuring Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, assassinated in 1972, in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the outskirts of Bethlehem on January 4, 2001 [File: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters] The struggle for humanity It is no secret that there is a stark narrative divide dominating the question of Palestine and Israel. When I asked Mansour how we can overcome this division, he said that it must start with the basic recognition of human rights. “If they accept our existence then there is another way of connection. If Israelis respect our existence here and accept it, then it would be much easier to talk to each other and to make a bridge between these narratives. “We have to decide first that everybody has the same rights here. We have to come to some kind of agreement.” How, I wondered, can that be achieved? “It’s a big question,” Mansour said, “But at the end, I think our fight is to rehumanise ourselves. There is a kind of dehumanisation of the Palestinian people — that these people, the Palestinians, are not fully human beings. They are less than human beings, so they don’t deserve full rights and so we can take the land and we can kill them. The formula is very clear. “I think the people of the world should understand that we don’t fight because we like to fight. We hate to fight, even. But we have to. It’s like a cage that we are put in, and we have to get out of that cage. It’s a trap and history put us in this trap, starting from the big wars. England, France, and all these imperialist states wanted to create a state here, and they write the history. Because history is written by the victorious, and we Palestinians are lost in this formula. “Then the United States took over from France and Britain as the big imperialist country. So it’s a big game and we Palestinians feel very small. We are not strong enough to fight this fight. Big powers stand in our way — we need the support of ordinary people in the world.” Three Cities Against the Wall, an exhibition that protested the separation wall construction by Israel in the occupied territories of Palestine, was held simultaneously in Ramallah, Tel Aviv and New York City in November 2005. Mansour helped to organise the event in Palestine [Courtesy of Sliman Mansour] The ultimate aim When it comes to the US, I asked Mansour what he wanted Americans to know about the situation, when their government has been supporting Israel militarily, financially, diplomatically and in shaping its narrative. “This is the big problem because the United States is the main factor here. And if they change their policy, everything could be changed here. But there is a policy of keeping the American people uninformed. You keep them in the dark all the time. And the Americans I know tend to think that the United States is the world. So they don’t care about anything else. But for us, this is a big problem. This attitude of theirs is killing us.” And if Americans do recognise their complacency and push for a change of policy, what does Mansour hope will be the outcome? “The future is peace. Peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Maybe starting with the two-state solution with the help of Egypt and Jordan. I personally don’t care how, I just want peace. I’ve been living all my life in this turmoil and slaughter and it’s too much for the people in it. Everybody wants a break. But I’m sure at the end it will be one state that people are living in with equal rights. I think this is the main objective for every wise human being, whether they are Israeli or Palestinian. This is the only way we can live on this land. “I have feelings about Jaffa, about Haifa, about Acre, about the sea, and I wouldn’t live in a country where I couldn’t visit these places. And I’m sure the Jews have feelings about the sea and many places in — they call it Judea and Samaria — in the West Bank, and so on. We Palestinians understand that here there were Jews before. We don’t deny their existence as they do our existence.” Despite the violence of Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7 and the brutal Israeli invasion of Gaza that followed, Mansour holds on to that hope for peace and equality. “I’m not Hamas. Hamas came yesterday and I’ve been here for many years. Hamas came because of the occupation. And my friends and the Palestinian people — they are very peaceful. They hate fighting. They hate war. It’s not that we love to make wars. We hate it and would love to live as normal human beings — in peace. That’s our ultimate aim.” So what is the artist to do in times of conflict or war, I asked him. He’s been at it for 50 years, capturing the spirit of Palestinian struggle and sumud. “In my case,” he replied, “I think I’m siding with the right side of history and I’m doing my best in my ability to show that. I don’t think there is a formula for what artists should do. But they should be truthful with their feelings, and they should feel with other people. I can easily go and work in my studio and forget about anything else and make flowers and nice girls and make exhibitions and sell and so on. But that’s not how I am built. And artists should not do that. They should be more active in their society. “I believe in art as a social instrument, not as decoration for wealthy people’s houses.” The artist, Sliman Mansour, in 1992 [Courtesy of Sliman Mansour] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/2/25/our-fight-is-to-rehumanise-ourselves-a-palestinian-painter-speaks-out

The overall expansion of North Field from 77mtpa currently to 142mtpa by 2030 represents an 85 percent increase in production. Qatar is one of the world's top LNG producers alongside the US, Australia and Russia [File: AP Photo] Qatar has announced new plans to expand output from the world’s biggest natural gas field, saying it will boost capacity to 142 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) before 2030. The new North Field expansion, named North Field West, will add a further 16 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year to existing expansion plans, Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi said at a news conference on Sunday. “Recent studies have shown that the North Field contains huge additional gas quantities estimated at 240 trillion cubic feet, which raises the state of Qatar’s gas reserves from 1,760 [trillion cubic feet] to more than 2,000 trillion cubic feet,” said al-Kaabi, who also heads the state-owned company QatarEnergy. These results “will enable us to begin developing a new LNG project from the North Field’s western sector with a production capacity of about 16 million tonnes per annum”, he said. This will bring Qatar’s production capacity to 142 million tonnes once “the new expansion is completed before the end of this decade” – a nearly 85 percent rise from current production levels, al-Kaabi added. The QatarEnergy chief said the firm will “immediately commence” with engineering works to ensure the expansion is completed on time. Qatar is one of the world’s top LNG producers alongside the United States, Australia and Russia. Asian countries led by China, Japan and South Korea have been the main market for Qatari gas, but demand has also grown from European countries since Russia’s war on Ukraine threw supplies into doubt. The latest expansion plans follow a flurry of announcements for long-term Qatari gas supply deals. Earlier this month, Qatar said it would supply 7.5mtpa of LNG for 20 years to India’s Petronet, with the first deliveries expected from May 2028. At the end of January, QatarEnergy announced a deal with US-based Excelerate Energy to supply Bangladesh with 1.5mtpa of LNG for 15 years. Last year, Qatar signed LNG deals with China’s Sinopec, France’s Total, Britain’s Shell and Italy’s Eni. Global price collapse Competition for LNG has ramped up since the start of the war in Ukraine, with Europe, in particular, requiring a large quantity to help replace Russian pipeline gas that used to make up almost 40 percent of the continent’s imports. The Qatari announcement came as the US gas prices trade near an all-time low if adjusted to inflation after a decade of meteoric rises in output which made the US one of the top oil and gas exporters. Prices of gas in Europe also fell steeply despite a drop in Russian supplies after the US and Qatar helped replace lost volumes. Despite the price drop, all leading gas producers, including the US, Australia and Russia, want to increase output betting on further demand growth and worries that their gas might not be needed decades from now if the energy transition makes green energy cheaper. The latest expansion may not be the last for the Gulf energy giant as al-Kaabi said appraisal of Qatari gas reservoirs would continue and production would be further expanded if there is a market need. On partnerships for the new trains, al-Kaabi said QatarEnergy will go ahead and begin the engineering phase of this project on its own without seeking partners and then take a decision on partnerships later. The North Field is part of the world’s largest gas field, which Qatar shares with Iran, which calls its share South Pars. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/25/qatar-announces-new-gas-output-boost-with-mega-field-expansion

Music title: Fave - Belong To You Signer: Fave Release date: 2024/01/26 Official YouTube link:

Nick movie: ICE AGE Time: Hollywood English Collection Netflix / Amazon / HBO: N/A Duration of the movie: 82Mins Trailer:

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The car that wowed the crowds at Le Mans wowed us at VIR. Lap Time: 2:26.7 Class: LLPRO In case you missed it, the NASCAR Next Gen Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, or G56 Camaro for short, is the stock car that raced alongside hybrid prototypes at Le Mans. Its naturally aspirated 5.8-liter V-8 won the hearts of the crowd and showcased the uniquely American motorsports series on an international stage. Hendrick Motorsports manufactured and managed the project, from which two cars were made: the development car seen here and the one that did 285 laps of the 8.5-mile Circuit de la Sarthe last June. We thought our Lightning Lap pitch would land in a spam folder, but Rick Hendrick not only read our email, he agreed to bring the car out and even let us drive it. The instructions were clear: Don't crash Mr. H's car. And the way his eye twinkles when he talks about the G56 project, it may be his all-time favorite car. He loves to watch it run, so much so that he flew in on his helicopter from his home in Charlotte, North Carolina. MICHAEL SIMARI AND MARC URBANO|CAR AND DRIVER Our sighting laps (because there is no way to go for time in a handful of laps in an unfamiliar race car) were enough to grasp that this car is rad in the most NASCAR way. It's loud. It's fast. It's big—almost as wide as a pickup, over 10 inches longer than a Corvette—but it's Bernese Mountain Dog, lovably big. The seating position is a bit lower and a bit more reclined than in a modern Cup car. Visibility over the long hood is fair, but the deep cockpit of the G56 car turns VIR's limited-sight areas—braking and entry into *****, the sequence after Spiral, and Roller Coaster to a degree—into blind events. Even lapping gingerly, the 700-ish-hp V-8 makes enough power to drive off corners with some yaw. The steering is ultra-quick and plutonium-238 reactive. It took a couple of laps to extinguish the cold-brakes warning (carbon-carbon rotors need heat to work properly), and while trying to explore grip levels, we locked the rears on the uphill going into Spiral and slid to a stop. Our man was only the sixth person to drive the car, and we hope the sixth to spin it. Back in the pits, we consult with Jordan Taylor. The 10-year IMSA veteran didn't race the car in France but did a lot of its development. He has good taste, calling VIR one of his favorite tracks in the world, and he admitted that he locked the brakes in the same spot, so we think this consultation was all he needed to change his setup for the final attempt at a flying lap. MICHAEL SIMARI AND MARC URBANO|CAR AND DRIVER He still locked the rears going into Turn 1, resulting in a low 1.19 g's of lateral acceleration there. The rest of the lap was clean, particularly on the Full Course corners he knows. Taylor marches up the Climbing Esses like the rest of the world is crawling, averaging 158.5 mph, more than 20 mph faster than any street car we've lapped and nearly 6 mph faster than Subaru's Airslayer. He trumps the Subie's minimum speeds by 6.7 mph in the difficult Turn 3, 6.1 in the off-camber Turn 10, and 4.2 in Hog Pen. Who says stock cars can't turn right? Taylor's 2:26.7 fell short of the Airslayer's best time, but we'd bet that with a little more sim work, he could match the Subaru's lap time if given another shot. We hope the effort expended to make a stock car run fast for 24 hours doesn't stop. An all-NASCAR endurance race might be more fun than that 24-hour race in France. https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a46594920/garage-56-chevrolet-camaro-zl1-lightning-lap-2024/

Russo 3 61, Clinton 19, Mead 37 89, Carter 70, Daly 90+3; Kirchberger 30 88 Grace Clinton scores on her full England debut Alessia Russo gets England off to a flying start against Austria in the third minute. Photograph: Fran Santiago/The FA/Getty Images England’s fresh start, as they prepare to get their Euro 2025 qualifying campaign under way in April, kicked off in style as Sarina Wiegman tried out a number of players who have sat on the fringes of a squad that has moved from tournament to tournament with little room for experimentation. “Very happy with Grace [Clinton], she scored a goal which is very nice for her,” said Wiegman. “She plays like a natural. She picks up the things we talk about very quickly. She takes things on board and just goes out there and plays.” Jenni Hermoso (left) celebrates with Salma Paralluelo after opening the scoring for Spain Spain reach Olympics with Women’s Nations League win over Netherlands Read more If the Lionesses have enjoyed the luxuries of a seafront Marbella hotel this week, arriving at the Estadio Nuevo Mirador was a more humbling experience. Around 950 fans had made the trip to Algeciras, about an hour’s drive south of Marbella, and were treated to a downpour that saw many retreat from the uncovered stand long before the end of the first half, while the covered stand opposite remained mostly empty. The Lionesses’ decision to play Austria in a friendly at a ground so difficult to get to – and more akin to stadiums they were forced into pre-professionalism – was an odd one. Wiegman’s side brought style and flair to the drab surroundings though and Alessia Russo’s goal in the third minute ensured the fans saw at least one Euro 2022 winner on the scoresheet. The Arsenal forward spun and found her clubmate Beth Mead. Her shot was parried by Manuela Zinsberger but Russo was there to turn in. There were four changes to the team which had put six past Scotland in December but failed to progress to the Nations League finals and earn Olympic qualification. One was enforced late on, with Fran Kirby withdrawn as a precaution after the warm-up with an aggravation of her knee injury. Ella Toone replaced her, while Hannah Hampton started in goal. Maya Le Tissier began the game at right-back in place of Lucy Bronze and the Manchester United midfielder Grace Clinton, who is on loan at Tottenham, was handed her debut. She went close to scoring in the 16th minute, hitting a left-footed effort off the inside of the crossbar. She would only have to wait three minutes for a dream scenario though, as she artfully headed in Lauren Hemp’s cross from the left. Grace Clinton, on her debut, celebrates her first England goal with Maya Le Tissier. Photograph: Naomi Baker/The FA/Getty Images Austria were poor, looking a shadow of the side that really tested England in the opening game of Euro 22 at Old Trafford, but Wiegman’s side also made them look bad. Despite England’s dominance, Austria exposed a weakness from set pieces to pull one back, Virginia Kirchberger heading in from a corner on her 99th appearance. The Lionesses picked up where they left off though, restoring their two-goal lead before the break, Mead powering her shot home after cutting inside. Wiegman made two half-time changes, intent on taking advantage of this friendly to experiment. “We have the opportunity to play these friendlies, see many players, lots that we saw today, many new combinations. We have another on Tuesday, which will be tough against Italy,” she said. Lotte Wubben-Moy entered the fray in place of Alex Greenwood, while Lauren James, who was involved in five of England’s nine goals across their two December games, replaced Hemp. Just past the hour mark, Russo grabbed her second, firing home from inside the box. There were three more changes almost immediately after that, with Russo replaced by Rachel Daly and Jess Park and Carter coming on. Carter added to England’s goal tally within seven minutes of stepping on to the pitch, a slick backheel bamboozling Zinsberger. Kirchberger provided another headed goal from a corner to show England exactly where the defensive gaps are – though they are missing their first-choice centre-back pairing Leah Williamson and Millie Bright. However, a minute later James raced clear and hit a low shot off the bottom of the post that Mead powered in on the rebound. The substitute Daly added a seventh, sprinting free through the middle before powering a venomous strike past Zinsberger. Job done, new combinations tested, there were a lot of positives from England’s first game of 2024 – how they deal with set pieces and stiffer opposition are questions that can be answered at a later date. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/23/alessia-russo-and-mead-at-the-double-in-lionesses-7-2-mauling-of-austria