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Human Rights Watch also says Israel’s war on Gaza has included ‘acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes’. At least 23,469 Palestinians have been killed and 59,604 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7 [AFP] 11 Jan 2024 Save articles to read later and create your own reading list. The killing of civilians in Gaza is at a scale unprecedented in recent history, monitoring groups have said, as Israel continues to pound the besieged coastal enclave more than three months into the war. Britain-based charity Oxfam said on Thursday that the daily death toll of Palestinians in Israel’s war on Gaza surpasses that of any other major conflict in the 21st century, while survivors remain at high risk due to hunger, diseases and cold, as well as ongoing Israeli bombardments. “Israel’s military is killing Palestinians at an average rate of 250 people a day, which massively exceeds the daily death toll of any other major conflict of recent years,” Oxfam said in a statement. For comparison, the charity provided a list of average deaths per day in other conflicts since the turn of the century: 96.5 in Syria, 51.6 in Sudan, 50.8 in Iraq, 43.9 in Ukraine, 23.8 in Afghanistan, and 15.8 in Yemen. Oxfam said the crisis is further compounded by Israel’s restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, where only 10 percent of weekly food aid that is needed gets in. This poses a serious risk of starvation for those who survive the relentless bombardment, it said. Also on Thursday, United States-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) released its World Report 2024, which said civilians in Gaza have been “targeted, attacked, abused, and killed over the past year at a scale unprecedented in the recent history of Israel and Palestine”. ‘War crimes’ At least 23,469 Palestinians have been killed and 59,604 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. In the most recent 24-hour reporting period, Israeli forces carried out 10 mass killings in the Gaza Strip, causing 112 deaths and 194 injuries, the ministry added. About 7,000 people remain missing under the rubble and are presumed dead. “The heinous crimes carried out by Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups since October 7 are the abhorrent legacy of decades-long impunity for unlawful attacks and Israel’s systematic repression of Palestinians,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at HRW. “How many more civilians must suffer or be killed as a result of war crimes before countries supplying weapons pull the plug and otherwise take action to end these atrocities?” he asked. This comes as South Africa on Thursday presented its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, accusing the country of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza, a charge that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected as “hypocrisy and lies”. In its report, HRW noted that Israel’s war on Gaza has included “acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes and include the use of starvation as a method of warfare”, including cutting off essential services such as water and electricity and blocking the entry of most critical humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, HRW said during the first eight months of 2023, incidents of settler violence against Palestinians and their property reached the highest daily average since the United Nations started recording this data in 2006. At least 3,291 Palestinians were held in administrative detention without charge or trial, according to Israel Prison Service figures. “Israeli authorities’ repression of Palestinians, undertaken as part of a policy to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians, amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution,” HRW said. ‘Gaza is different from space’ Experts in mapping damage during wartime have also found that the war in Gaza now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history. According to an analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data by the CUNY Graduate Center and Oregon State University, the war has killed more civilians than the US-led coalition did in its three-year campaign against ISIL (ISIS). The offensive has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II, researchers found, according to a report by The Associated Press. Israel’s offensive has likely either damaged or destroyed more than two-thirds of all structures in northern Gaza and a quarter of buildings in the southern area of Khan Younis, according to satellite data collected by the research group. That includes tens of thousands of homes as well as schools, hospitals, mosques and stores. UN monitors have said that about 70 percent of school buildings across Gaza have been damaged. “Gaza is now a different colour from space. It’s a different texture,” said Corey Scher of the CUNY Graduate Center, who has worked to map destruction across several war zones. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/11/gaza-daily-deaths-exceed-all-other-major-conflicts-in-21st-century-oxfam

Some 63 percent of Taiwan’s people identify as Taiwanese even as Beijing claims the island, but it might not affect Saturday’s vote. Taiwanese say defining where they are from should not be controversial [Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP] Taipei, Taiwan Taiwan’s more than 19 million eligible voters will cast their ballots on Saturday for the island’s next leaders and lawmakers amid domestic economic challenges and China’s continued threats against the self-ruled island. There are three candidates in the running for the top job: William Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s current vice president who represents the ruling Beijing-sceptic Democratic Progressive Party (DPP); New Taipei mayor Hou Yu-ih of the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT); and ex-Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je of the newer Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). Many in Taiwan face skyrocketing housing prices and stagnating wages, but beyond the economic issues that are key to elections everywhere, people on the island must also contend with a more existential question – that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants to take control of the island, by force if necessary. In the run-up to the polls, it has sent military aircraft and balloons around the island while its officials have urged voters to make the “right choice”. Brian Hioe, founding editor of Taiwan-focused magazine New Bloom, notes that while not the only factor, “the largest issue in Taiwanese presidential elections traditionally is the decision between independence and unification”. Protesters in Taiwan dress up to depict authoritarian China, which has tried to influence the outcome of Saturday’s election with military threats, diplomatic pressure, fake news and financial inducements [Ng Han Guan/AP Photo] Beijing insists Taiwan is part of China, but in recent years, the people of Taiwan, many of whom have grown up in one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies and known nothing else, have become increasingly assertive about their own sense of identity. According to National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center, 62.8 percent of people identified as Taiwanese as of June 2023, while 30.5 percent said they were both Taiwanese and Chinese, and only 2.5 percent identified as Chinese. ‘Our identity is being eradicated’ Aurora Chang, now 24, long questioned her identity and sense of belonging because “I knew that I was Taiwanese but also felt that I wasn’t solely just Taiwanese – but didn’t know what the other things were”. At the end of her first year as an undergraduate, however, she came to a decision. “Being Taiwanese was really a conscious choice that I made,” she told Al Jazeera, referring to her epiphany. “I wanted to connect more to my roots and to understand what it meant and to feel my connection with the land and my family and my history,” she said. “Our identity is actively being eradicated by a power much larger and much more international influence than us,” she added. According to Taiwan’s Central Election Commission, more than 30 percent of voters are aged between 20 and 39. Hioe, who is also a non-resident fellow at the University of Nottingham’s Taiwan studies programme, notes that “identity concerns are certainly part of what sets Taiwanese young people apart from other Asian youths – in that most youth do not face an existential threat to their national identity”. Chen Yi An, a 27-year-old medical worker from Taipei, is also proud to call herself Taiwanese. “Taiwan is the place I grew up, the land that raised me. I am Taiwanese,” she said, adding that the way she defines where is from “should not be controversial”. But not all young Taiwanese are so rooted in their sense of identity, and some do see themselves as Chinese. Ting-yi Zheng, a 27-year-old student from Tainan, Taiwan’s historical city, has lived in China for seven years and is currently studying for a doctoral degree in Beijing. China has increased political, military and economic pressure on Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen was first elected president in 2016. She cannot run for a third term [Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP] He told Al Jazeera he had no plan to return home to vote. Last time around he backed KMT candidate Han Kuo-yu, but now he worries about the state of Taipei’s ties with Beijing and the effect on the island’s economy. China has raised political, economic and military pressure on Taiwan ever since Tsai Ing-wen was first elected president in 2016, despite her early offer of talks. Zheng says he does not want the island to go to war with Beijing. “I hope the two sides of the Taiwan Strait can be peacefully unified,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that both peoples needed to know each other more. Liz Li, now 27, says she learned at school that Taiwan was an “independent country” but says she came to have doubts after doing more of her own reading. “The older you get, the more news and history you see, and you will think to yourself: Are we really a country?” Li said, referring to the international community’s understanding of Taiwan’s state as “a country but not a country”. Whatever her thoughts on identity, however, it will not be what motivates her decision at the ballot box. Values to live by Li dreams of buying her own home on the island, but prices are so high she is thinking of working overseas – getting a job as a UX designer in Japan or the United States – so she can earn and save enough money to make it a reality. She thinks that as Taiwan grapples with economic issues such as affordable housing, it needs new ideas and an alternative to the two parties – the DPP and KMT – that have dominated politics since democratisation. Li plans to vote for the TPP’s Ko for the sake of “who will give us a better and more stable life.” Ko has attracted support from many similarly disillusioned young people who are attracted by his outsider status, and for whom economic issues are more of a concern than the rumbling from across the Taiwan Strait. “The thing about China is that it is an existing problem for us,” she said, explaining that she did not think it was an issue where ordinary people could have much impact, unlike the economy. Chiaoning Su, associate professor in the Department of Communication, Journalism and Public Relations at Oakland University in the US, told Al Jazeera that Taiwanese identity was “a process of knowing who we are not”, which was “being defined by our way of life, value, democracy [and] freedom of speech” and the contrast with the authoritarian government in Beijing. For Chang, those values, including “gender equality” and “views on queer rights” with the island the first in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage, underpin her identity and make her proud of being Taiwanese. They are also why she plans to vote for Lai, a man Beijing has labelled a “separatist”. Lai said earlier this week, he wanted to maintain Taiwan’s status quo as de facto independent. “Being somebody who believes in the maintenance of Taiwanese independence, there is a very clear choice here,” Chang said. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/12/a-country-but-not-a-country-taiwan-prepares-to-vote-in-chinas-shadow

Music title: Daddy Yankee - Dura (Video Oficial) Signer: Daddy Yankee Release date: 2018 - Jan - 19 Official YouTube link:

Nick movie: Abigail Time: Universal Pictures Netflix / Amazon / HBO: N/A Duration of the movie: 2min - 46sec. Trailer:

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Cole Palmer, who missed some great chances, and Thiago Silva look on forlornly as Chelsea’s defeat unfolds in front of them. Photograph: Lee Smith/Action Images/Reuters Sportblog Chelsea Pochettino unable to build Chelsea team from an incoherent mess Blue-sky thinking has informed player recruitment at Stamford Bridge, leaving the manager short of trusted lieutenants or Chelsea, the club that blew a billion, the Carabao Cup has appreciated to a value beyond its usual worth. A winner’s pot of just £100,000 and a Europa Conference League playoff spot are part of an underwhelming package but even Chelsea’s current ownership must recognise there is more to football than mere money. Beating Newcastle in the quarter‑final had been celebrated in a fashion rarely viewed in Chelsea’s post-Abramovich times. Perhaps something could be rescued from a second successive wreck of a season, though for that to happen, another second-leg rescue mission at Stamford Bridge is now required. After the Riverside, Middlesbrough’s hopes of returning to the final of the competition they won in 2004 cannot be dismissed. Neither can the fecklessness of the current Chelsea. A club where trophies once arrived as a matter of course have entered the type of drought and self-doubt for which their fans previously mocked rivals. Nine years ago, when at Tottenham, reaching the League Cup final – and losing against Chelsea – helped to gain Mauricio Pochettino admirers among initially questioning supporters. The Pochettino of old, the chest-beating mystic of White Hart Lane, is yet to show himself at Chelsea. At the Riverside, arms crossed, he was as unimpressed as the away fans who barracked his players at full-time. Perhaps experience smooths the edges, the ageing process lowers the testosterone output. This is probably a harder job, too, given the incoherence of Chelsea, where recruitment fulfils accounting principles before team-building. Who to answer to? Beyond the Spurs fans, there used only to be Daniel Levy, not a room full of sporting directors and venture capitalists, each throwing around their own bright blue‑sky thinking. In placing trust in Cole Palmer there is something of the patronage that helped to convert Harry Kane into a modern great. Such has been Palmer’s reliability that it came as a shock when he fired wide after Jonny Howson’s first-half error, even more so after Tom Glover’s goalkeeping mistake before half‑time. There was something of Kane’s doggedness in Palmer’s refusal to hide thereafter but this is a player in his first full season as a first-team pro. He is permitted a dip when others have never risen to any sort of prominence. Djordje Petrovic makes a save from Middlesbrough’s Emmanuel Latte Lath as Axel Disasi slides in desperately. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA Unproven players on long contracts are what Pochettino must work with. Beyond Palmer, Thiago Silva and Raheem Sterling, Pochettino struggles for the lieutenants to whom he has always turned. Injuries have been unhelpful, Christopher Nkunku, missing again, offered more in 152 minutes than most of his attacking colleagues have done all season. Reece James’s repeated issues are troubling. What might Carney Chukwuemeka have offered? But even among a fully fit squad, there would be no Adam Lallana, who hit his peak at Southampton, for example. Chelsea have no such tier of talent. Conor Gallagher could be a floppy-haired Dennis Wise type, if only club suits would stop looking at his book value. On Teesside, that incoherence was evidenced in both attack and defence. In the absence of a striker, before Armando Broja’s second-half arrival, Palmer was playing false No 9, while Silva, at 39, five years older than France’s new PM, increasingly looks an ageing man amongst boys. Levi Colwill, yet to match the standards of his Brighton loan period, was achingly guilty in the buildup to Hayden Hackney’s goal, Isaiah Jones twisting him in knots. The names of Malo Gusto and Axel Disasi engage little beyond bemusement, and as for the midfield cover provided in Hackney’s goal by Moisés Caicedo and Enzo Fernández: can £200m-plus really only buy such positional callowness? How vulnerable to counterattacks were a Chelsea team that play against such tactics in the Premier League each and every week? Boro are a reminder no club should expect to stay around forever. Nothing is confirmed. They owed Chelsea one. More than one. Chelsea had won the teams’ past nine meetings, including the May 2017 defeat at Stamford Bridge that relegated Boro when the team coach, stuck in Kings Road traffic, was late for its own funeral party. This competition, too, reminded of a different era, the 1990s when both clubs were pioneers in shipping in foreign talent but Chelsea won the 1998 League Cup to follow beating Boro in the 1997 FA Cup final. This was a meeting on a far more uneven levels. Michael Carrick was left without 13 first-team players once Emmanuel Latte Lath had limped off. The loss of Alex Bangura to a hamstring problem made it 14. Give or take Steven Gerrard’s Saudi adventures at Al-Ettifaq, the former anchor midfielder is the remaining member of England’s 2006 World Cup squad, the one‑time golden generation, to be in frontline football management. Unlike a Gerrard, Lampard or a Rooney, he is no celebrity appointment and despite his team’s setbacks this season there is faith in his coaching abilities. The chairman, Steve Gibson, who has underpinned the club’s various rises and falls since 1986, knows a talented coach when sees one. Carrick’s team responded admirably, wonderfully to their early setbacks. Pochettino would recognise it is easier to know the qualities of each player when there aren’t so many of them. Teams can only play above themselves once they have been built with football in mind. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/jan/09/pochettino-unable-to-build-chelsea-team-from-an-incoherent-mess

Until I was 25, I’d lived in the same house, on the same street. But after a shaky start in Shakespeare’s county, I got a bicycle, learned to drive and wrote a novel I began to ride along the canals of the River Leam and into the neighbouring towns of Warwick and Kenilworth, names I recognised from Elizabeth Bennet’s fateful tour towards Pemberley.’ Photograph: GordonBellPhotography/Getty Images/iStockphoto My big move Australian lifestyle My big move: I’d lived in western Sydney my entire life – but I found myself in the UK’s ‘happiest place’ Until I was 25, I’d lived in the same house, on the same street. But after a shaky start in Shakespeare’s county, I got a bicycle, learned to drive and wrote a novel Find more essential summer reading Zeynab Gamieldien Tue 9 Jan 2024 14.00 GMT 8 “I thought you’d look like someone from Home and Away.” The cheerful woman greeted me in the lobby. I didn’t look anything like a Summer Bay resident in my suit, blue hijab and heels coated with dirt from my walk up the gravel driveway. I was frazzled and only just on time. Foolishly, I’d assumed that my non-driving urban lifestyle could still be supplemented with ride-sharing. I did not yet appreciate that there were none going to the village of Leek Wootton. The taxi driver had dropped me at the back of the enormous grounds, and eventually I found my way to a stone-fronted mansion. It looked more like the Downton Abbey estate than a venue for a job interview. As I was introduced to my future colleagues, I was struck by their friendly curiosity about how I’d found myself here. I didn’t blame them; I was wondering the very same thing. ‘I didn’t look anything like a Summer Bay resident’: Zeynab Gamieldien at Compton Verney estate in Warwickshire in 2020 Up until the age of 25, I’d lived in the same house on the same street. I’d been lucky enough to travel extensively, but I’d always returned to the familiar comforts of home. Getting married and moving out of home was my first big move, but when my husband was offered his dream job shortly thereafter, we made the decision in 2017 to relocate to a town in the English Midlands with the charming name of Royal Leamington Spa. The well-trodden path of the Australian working holiday in London was not for us. Although the city was just down the M40, it seemed a world away from the region best-known as “Shakespeare’s county” by virtue of being the bard’s birthplace. It was a lot for a girl from western Sydney to take in, even if the town had been ranked the happiest place to live in the UK just that year. While my husband plunged into his new job, I busied myself with the logistics of setting up our new life. I struggled with the central heating, calling the electricity company to tell them it was faulty, only for the technician to come in, laugh and switch it on instantly. I took daily walks past the Royal Pump Rooms, a former spa bath where 18th-century gentry flocked to “take to the waters”. I applied for jobs and battled through feelings of shame when I tried to create a bank account and was refused as an unemployed foreigner. Trying to cheer me up, my husband bought me a bicycle, and I began to ride along the canals of the River Leam and into the neighbouring towns of Warwick and Kenilworth, names I recognised from Elizabeth Bennet’s fateful tour towards Pemberley. By the time I’d found a job, winter was setting in. I’d visited London in the winter twice before, but I had certainly never encountered the dreaded Beast from the East. My Australian coats proved to be grossly inadequate. As I shivered at the bus stop, slipping and sliding on the slushy aftermath of yet another snowfall, I resolved to get my driving licence and to make some friends. In my fragile state, both seemed impossible tasks. I studied the giant octopus-like roundabout at the edge of town, trying to understand how its many tentacles operated. My new colleagues were invariably kind and welcoming, offering lifts and endless cups of tea, but there was no one I even vaguely recognised from my former life. As the long winter finally turned to spring, I too began to emerge from the fog of isolation. I breathed in the crisp air on my daily bicycle commute, past a flock of baby lambs grazing on lush fields, ending near a medieval castle originally built by William the Conqueror. Instead of focusing on all the things I could no longer access, I decided to throw myself into the new things I could: jousting displays at the local castles, stately home tours and strolling the cobblestone streets on my lunch breaks. I began to fall in love with not just Leamington’s Regency architecture, manicured gardens and charming cafes, but also its less obvious grit and community spirit. Jephson Gardens, Leamington Spa during the winter of 2017. Photograph: Zeynab Gamieldien ‘I breathed in the crisp air on my daily bicycle commute, past a flock of baby lambs grazing on lush fields, ending near a medieval castle originally built by William the Conqueror’: Warwick Castle in 2019. Photograph: Zeynab Gamieldien Occasionally, something jarred. I had never felt especially Australian in Australia, but I certainly did here when my references and jokes failed to land. I was also far more visible in towns and villages than I would’ve been in London. In those moments, I felt like a curiosity, a hijab-wearing woman with a markedly antipodean accent. But for the most part I was thrillingly anonymous and accepted just as I was. I began to see that while the stability of my life in Sydney had been nurturing, it had also made me complacent, reliant on people and context to define my sense of self. Here, I was forced to examine who I was when all of those structures were removed. As the months turned to years I got my driving licence; travelled across England and beyond, solo and accompanied; wrote a novel and met incredible people. Slowly, I felt myself becoming more confident in an identity untethered to any place and intrinsically my own. After three years, when our time in Leamington came to an end, I brought that identity back with me, along with a lifetime of memories of castles, winding country lanes and Shakespearean costumes. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/my-big-move-id-lived-in-western-sydney-my-entire-life-but-i-found-myself-in-the-uks-happiest-place

One thousand units will be produced. What will set them apart? Alex KiersteinWriterManufacturerPhotographerJan 9, 2024 AleThe Dodge Durango's Hemi V-8 engine is dead … almost. And while it's still around (for the rest of 2024, we mean), Dodge intends to milk as much as it can out of the long-running and potent configuration with a series of Last Call models like those released for the Challenger and Charger. The first is the SRT 392 AlcHEMI … which, despite its pun-esque name and the Demon 170's heavily promoted, ethanol-swilling powertrain, has nothing to do with alcohol. Instead, the SRT 392 AlcHEMI relies on the steadfast (and potent) 475 ponies and 470 lb-ft of twist produced by its 6.4-liter Hemi. No horsepower alchemy here, just the same ol' same ol'. (It's plenty. The blown motors get all the attention but the Durango SRT 392 is legitimately quick, and it sounds great.) In place of additional go, the AlcHEMI is mainly show. There are a host of yellow accents to compliment the four main exterior colors (Diamond Black, Destroyer Gray. Vapor Gray, and White Knuckle—250 of each will be available) applied to the brake calipers, fender decals, exterior stripes, and interior accent stitching. The 20x10 inch wheels and exhaust tips are dipped in black paint, and the grille and lift gate badges are darkened as well. If you want one, Dodge is sprinkling these AlcHEMI editions around to dealers that did well on their January sales targets. But you won't need to call around and quiz the new car sales managers about their performance; instead, you can use the Dodge Horsepower Locator to identify a nearby dealer who'll be getting one of these Last Call Durangos starting in May of 2024. The AlcHEMI appearance package will add $3,595 to the bottom line of a Durango SRT 392 Premium. https://www.motortrend.com/news/2024-dodge-durango-srt-392-last-call-alchemi/

Hundreds of animals have died in Kenyan wildlife preserves during East Africa’s worst drought in decades. An elephant that was killed by Kenya Wildlife Service rangers after it killed a woman as it was looking for water and food amid the drought, lies in Loolkuniyani, Samburu County. [Brian Inganga/AP Photo] 7 Nov 2022 Hundreds of animals, including elephants and endangered Grevy’s zebras, have died in Kenyan wildlife preserves during East Africa’s worst drought in decades, according to a report released Friday. The Kenya Wildlife Service and other bodies counted the deaths of 512 wildebeests, 381 common zebras, 205 elephants, 51 buffalos, 49 Grevy’s zebras and 12 giraffes in the past nine months, the report states. Parts of Kenya have experienced little to no rain over four consecutive seasons in the past two years, which seriously impacted people and animals, including livestock. Elephants, for example, drink 240 litres (63.40 gallons) of water per day, according to Jim Justus Nyamu, executive director of the Elephant Neighbours Center. Some of the worst-affected ecosystems are in some of Kenya’s most-visited national parks, reserves and conservancies, including the Amboseli, Laikipia-Samburu and Tsavo areas, according to the report’s authors. They called for an urgent aerial census of wildlife in Amboseli to get a better idea of the drought’s impact on wild animals as well as the immediate provision of water and salt licks in the three most impacted regions and increasing the amounts of hay and forage provided for Grevy’s zebras in northern regions. The Kenya Wildlife Service and the Kenyan government have since made increased efforts to mitigate the crisis. A Grevy's zebra, the world's rarest species that only exists in the northern part of Kenya and Ethiopia, looks on, amid ongoing drought in Samburu National Reserve. [Fredrik Lerneryd/AFP] The carcass of a waterbuck in Samburu National Reserve. [Fredrik Lerneryd/AFP] Buffalos feed on grass brought by a ranger in Samburu National Reserve. [Brian Inganga/AP Photos] A man looks at a young hippopotamus in a small pool of water near Buffalo Springs National Reserve, Isiolo county. [Fredrik Lerneryd/AFP] Members of the Grevy's Zebra Trust and a wildlife veterinarian observe the carcass of a Grevy's zebra near Buffalo Springs National Reserve. [Fredrik Lerneryd/AFP] The intense drought in the region has led to a high number of casualties among Grevy zebras. [Fredrik Lerneryd/AFP] A member of the Grevy's Zebra Trust places hay for a herd of Grevy Zebras in Buffalo Springs National Reserve. [Fredrik Lerneryd/AFP] The worst-affected ecosystems are in some of Kenya's most-visited national parks, reserves and conservancies, including the Amboseli, Laikipia-Samburu and Tsavo areas, according to the report's authors. [Fredrik Lerneryd/AFP] https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2022/11/7/photos-drought-kills-hundreds-of-animals-in-kenyan-wildlife-preserves

No injuries or damage reported in what the US military said was the 26th attack by the Yemen-based group since November 19. A Houthi fighter on the Galaxy Leader cargo ship [Houthi Military Media/Handout via Reuters] 10 Jan 2024 The United States military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) has said it shot down 18 drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels over the southern Red Sea, the armed group’s 26th attack on international shipping lanes in the last seven weeks. Working with forces from the United Kingdom, CENTCOM said two anti-ship cruise missiles and one anti-ship ballistic missile were also brought down. “Iranian-backed Huthis launched a complex attack of Iranian designed one-way attack UAVs… anti-ship cruise missiles, and an anti-ship ballistic missile from Huthi-controlled areas of Yemen into the Southern Red Sea,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Wednesday. The attack was the 26th by the Houthis on shipping lanes in the Red Sea since November 19 when it hijacked the Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier that was on its way from Turkey to India. The Iran-aligned group said it began the attacks in protest at Israel’s war on Gaza. CENTCOM said fighter jets from the Dwight D Eisenhower aircraft carrier and four destroyers, including one from the UK, took part in the operation. No injuries or damage were reported. The US last month formed an international maritime coalition to deal with the attacks, which have prompted some shipping lines to take the longer sea route around southern Africa and avoid the Red Sea altogether. The Houthis have said they will continue their attacks until Israel halts the conflict in Gaza. CENTCOM said US forces shot down a drone launched from Yemen over the weekend, while Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of US naval forces in the Middle East, said the Houthis had launched an explosives-laden sea drone into shipping lanes last week – the first time they had used such a weapon in the current conflict. The Houthis say they are targeting Israeli-linked vessels but Cooper said dozens of countries have connections to ships that have been attacked. At the time of its hijack, the Galaxy Leader – although ultimately owned by a firm linked to an Israeli businessman – was being operated by the Japanese shipping line NYK and most of its 25-strong multinational crew were from the Philippines. Other vessels have had no discernible links to Israel. The United Nations Security Council in New York is set to vote on January 10 on a draft resolution put forward by the US that condemns the attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea, and demands the immediate end to such actions as well as the release of the Galaxy Leader and its crew. Japan’s UN envoy Yamazaki Kazuyuki told a security council briefing last week that Japan was “outraged by the armed seizure and continued holding” of the Galaxy Leader and its crew. “We see no reason to tolerate such an injustice, and strongly demand the release of the Galaxy Leader and its crew immediately and unconditionally,” he said. The war in Gaza erupted on October 7 when armed group Hamas carried out a shock cross-border attack and killed 1,139 people in Israel. At least 23,210 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its assault hours later. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/10/us-uk-forces-shoot-down-21-drones-and-missiles-fired-by-houthis

‘Polar Wolf’ colony is among the harshest in Russia’s prison system, whose inmates have been convicted for grave crimes. Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny [File: Pavel Golovkin/AP] 10 Jan 2024 Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny says he has been isolated in a small punishment cell for an alleged minor breach at a remote prison colony north of the Arctic Circle. “I got seven days in SHIZO,” Navalny said, referring to the punishment cell where he has to serve a week. Prison officials accused him of refusing to “introduce himself in line with protocol”, the Kremlin critic posted on Tuesday on X, with his account routinely updated via his allies. Navalny was recently tracked to the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp in the Yamal-Nenets region, about 1,900km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow, after he went missing in early December. The “special regime” or “Polar Wolf” colony is among the harshest in Russia’s prison system, located in a place with severe winters. Most inmates have been convicted of grave crimes. Kharp is about 100km (60 miles) from Vorkuta, whose coalmines were part of the Soviet gulag camp system. In his typical sardonic tone, Navalny said, the temperature of his prison yard walks had “never been colder” than -32 degrees Celsius (-25 degrees Fahrenheit), adding that “even at that temperature you can walk for more than half an hour, but only if you have time to grow a new nose, ears, and fingers”. This marks the 24th time in SHIZO for the opponent of President Vladimir Putin. His allies say Navalny has spent a total of 273 days under such conditions. “The idea that Putin is satisfied with the fact that he put me in a hut in the far north and that I am no longer being tortured in SHIZO was not only cowardly but also naive,” he posted. He shared a photo of the small space in his cell where he takes his daily walks: “11 steps from the wall and 3 to the wall — not much to walk, but at least there’s something, so I go for a walk.” Navalny has been imprisoned since January 2021 when he returned to Moscow after recovering in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Before he was arrested, he led massive campaigns against corruption and organised major anti-Kremlin protests. Jailed on charges of extremism, he saw his sentence extended to 19 years in 2023. From his cramped and freezing cell, Navalny mentioned a scene in the 2015 film, The Revenant, in which Leonardo DiCaprio shelters in the carcass of a horse. “I don’t think that would have worked here. A dead horse would freeze in 15 minutes,” Navalny said. “We need an elephant here, a hot elephant, a fried one.” “But where am I going to get a hot, roasted elephant in Yamal, especially at 6:30 in the morning? So I will continue to freeze,” he posted. Navalny’s chief strategist, Leonid Volkov, posted on X recently: “It is almost impossible to get to this colony; it is almost impossible to even send letters there. This is the highest possible level of isolation from the world.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/10/putin-critic-navalny-says-hes-in-punishment-cell-at-russian-arctic-prison

Music title: Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit (Official Music Video) Signer: Nirvana Release date: 2009/06/17 Official YouTube link:

Nick movie: Body Problem Time: Netflix Netflix / Amazon / HBO: Netflix Duration of the movie: 2mins - 35sec Trailer:

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