The US has bombed two reservoirs in Sirik, Iran, leaving over 20,000 people without access to fresh drinking water.

The strikes heavily damaged both reservoirs, which supply the Bemani and Kouhestak areas of Sirik town.

20,000 people in Iran’s Hormozgan province are now without drinking water after strikes reportedly destroyed water infrastructure in Sirik.

Two concrete storage tanks, 500 and 2,000 cubic meters, plus all mechanical installations supplying Kohstak city and 10 surrounding… pic.twitter.com/lpFSHT24ra

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 10, 2026

Advertisement

Trump’s army illegally bombed around 20 sites, including the southern cities of Jask, Sirik, Goruk, Bandar Abbas and on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.

This was supposedly ‘retaliation’ for Iran downing a US Apache Helicopter, which was patrolling the Strait of Hormuz. A US official said an Iranian drone collided with the Apache, causing it to crash.

Several US airstrikes were reported on the coastal cities of Sirik, Qeshm, Minab & Bandar Abbas.

In my opinion, this looks like a disproportionate attack, considering the Apache was violating Iranian airspace and the ceasefire. Iran will defo respond. https://t.co/aQOteTnPNr pic.twitter.com/vYe2Wpforw

— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) June 9, 2026

Advertisement

But of course, the US was already striking targets near the Strait of Hormuz, and Israel never stopped bombing Lebanon, meaning Iran’s shooting down of the helicopter was merely self-defence.

Trump also said that Iran had:

taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!

In response, Iran hit US targets across Gulf countries, including Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait.

IRGC launched a retaliation attack around 2h30, targeting:

U.S. Fifth Fleet Base, Bahrain

Advertisement

U.S. Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, Jordan, F-35 Hangars and the command control center.

They also shot down an MQ-9 Reaper.

Drones & Ballistic Missiles were launched. https://t.co/t2n3cZJOxT pic.twitter.com/J04M3tQqo6

— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) June 10, 2026

Advertisement

Iran face more war crimes from unaccountable US

Obviously, targeting civilian infrastructure such as reservoirs and water distribution centres is a war crime.

More war crimes against humanity and civilians by Israel & the United States https://t.co/3f0Iaw8rel

— Name (@NNAAM3E) June 10, 2026

The Geneva Conventions [1949] state that:

2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.

But when has international law ever stopped the US?

Why the hell you target civilians and civilian infrastructure? This is a war crime any you Bas*dards know ithttps://t.co/TlakrVRtyL

— Majef F. (@RezaFroehlich) June 10, 2026

A local water company told Iranian state television that the destruction of the reservoirs had created a “major problem” for the region’s water supply network, as it had insufficient groundwater to replace the damaged reservoirs. It added:

Unfortunately, following this attack, 20,000 residents of the region have lost access to safe drinking water, and with temperatures ranging between 45 (113 degrees Fahrenheit) and 50 degrees Celsius, conditions have become extremely difficult and critical for local inhabitants.

Make no mistake – the US knows exactly what it’s doing, hitting vital water supplies during the hottest part of the year.

This is very bad. Water equals life in that part of the world. https://t.co/wU9T85GncG

— Clare K (@AucklandIsland) June 10, 2026

Advertisement

Of course, Iran would now be completely justified in hitting water plants that US troops or Israel rely on – seen as though Trump is fighting Netanyahu’s illegal battles for him.

Congratulations. Trump just justified Iran hitting all water desalination plants in the region to include ISRAEL’s.

— Mr. Gerald Wayne (@geraldwayne) June 10, 2026

Once again, this is US and Israeli colonialism on full display. What is even the point in international law anymore? Trump and Netanyahu get away with bombing schools, hospitals, and apartment blocks without a single consequence. So why would they think twice before bombing freshwater facilities?

The bottom line is, they don’t care about the lives of Iranians. And taking away access to fresh drinking water in 45-degree heat is just another tool to try to force Iran into submission.

Featured image via Tasnim News /X

By HG

Source link

In an interview with BBC Radio Manchester, Andy Burnham has made his thoughts clear on the topic of irregular migration. And by ‘clear’, we once again mean ‘less clear’.

The degree to which he was unclear is obvious in the fact that people are saying he agrees with Nigel Farage despite the fact that he also called for the creation of “safe routes”:

BREAKING | Burnham says he "agrees" with Farage on migration, pledging to detain + deport refugees

"We need to make greater use of detention … I do agree with what Farage is saying", said Burnham, adding Britain needs to "get back to a sense of order”

Advertisement

(Via @NovaraMedia) pic.twitter.com/WzYbaV3FZp

— Stats for Lefties (@LeftieStats) June 10, 2026

The UK desperately needs to introduce safe routes, as we’ve argued for some time. In now-trademark fashion, however, Burnham has given us just as much to worry about as to hope for.

Burnham bluster

Firstly, we should cover what safe routes are. As Amnesty explained:

A ‘safe and legal route’ to the UK means a journey that is formally approved by the UK Government. That generally means that Home Office immigration rules permit the journey without a visa; or the journey is made with a visa granted for the purpose of making it.

Amnesty additionally lays out the following four ‘truths’:

• TRUTH 1: The Government allows nobody to make a claim for asylum in the UK unless they are physically present in the UK
• TRUTH 2: It is impossible to come to the UK for the purpose of seeking asylum in any way permitted by the Government’s immigration rules
• TRUTH 3: The Government makes almost no safe and legal route available to any refugee other than someone from Ukraine
• TRUTH 4: Seeking asylum from persecution is lawful – refugees don’t need anyone’s permission to do so

Refugees can’t claim asylum until they get here, but they also can’t come here to claim asylum (not unless they’re Ukrainian, anyway). In other words, the UK is using its geographical nature as an island get out of our international responsibilities to protect displaced and persecuted people.

Will Burnham fix this?

As usual, we have no idea what he has planned. And as we’ve covered elsewhere:

• Burnham is silent on wealth taxes – not a promising sign from potential PM.
• Andy Burnham’s role with Iain Duncan Smith’s think tank just shows he’s more of the same.
• Burnham WON’T back proportional representation this parliament.
• Shapeshifting Burnham ditches trans rights to panic-grab Reform votes.
• Burnham slammed for saying he won’t renationalise Thames Water.

‘I do agree with Nigel Farage’

Getting to the interview itself, the following section is what people are reacting to (emphasis added):

What I am calling for is the reform of these Home Office contracts. I do agree with what [Nigel] Farage is saying. What we’ve got to do is get back to a sense of order.

There should be safe routes for people. What people don’t want to see is the chaos of the small boat crossings. I think the government is getting some order back into the system but there is definitely more to be done.

Advertisement

It’s not wrong to state that the introduction of safe routes would help end “the chaos of small boat crossings”. As the Green Party wrote in a policy paper on the matter:

If safe routes existed, people would take them. Instead, we have taken away their ability to arrive within permissible routes and thus force them to take more and more dangerous routes. Not only are we causing these risks and ensuring the growth of smuggling networks

The problem with what Burnham said is that the collection of sentences he wrangled together don’t make sense in proximity to one another.

He says ‘I agree with Farage’, and then he says ‘we’ve got get a sense of order’, and then he says ‘there should be safe routes’. This is confusing, because Farage definitely isn’t calling for the creation of safe routes. And if we’re being real, Farage loves the status quo of small boats, because he’s able to capitalise on it politically.

Really, then, who is Burnham trying to appeal to?

Left-wing voters will rightfully recoil at ‘I agree with Nigel Farage’. Some right-wing voters might nod along, but they won’t be nodding when the right-wing commentators start explaining what ‘safe routes’ are. At this point, these voters don’t want anyone coming here – safely or not.

A politician can present a moral and rational case for migration and asylum, or they can fearmonger. Burnham seems to be doing both.

‘Increased detention’

This is the other bit that people are taking Burnham to task over:

It’s this thing about control, isn’t it? It feels like the country isn’t functioning properly, running things properly and the small boats issue completely speaks to that. People want it to be dealt with. We do need to go further.

We need to make greater use of detention so that people who have got no basis for a claim are not actually admitted into the country.

Advertisement

Burnham apparently wants to create safe routes, which would mean asylum seekers are able to enter the country legally. He also wants to detain more asylum seekers – specifically the ones who continue to enter the country irregularly.

So how is he doing the maths on this?

Is he predicting that after we create safe routes, this will immediately be followed by an even greater influx of asylum seekers, and that said asylum seekers will opt to cross by boat despite the existence of safe routes?

Or is he planning to introduce so few safe routes that small boat crossings happen regardless?

Here we go again

As ever with Burnham, it seems like he’s trying to give everyone what they want. In other words, he’s doing radical centrism.

It’s similar to when he hints at nationalisation, but then you read his actual words, and you notice he’s promising “stronger public control” of private utilities – not public ownership.

We do hope he expands the UK’s available safe routes, anyway. We just don’t know which Burnham will show up if he becomes prime minister.

Maybe we need a safe route for the left-leaning version of Burnham to enter Downing Street?

Featured image via Anthony Devlin (Getty Images) / Anthony Devlin (Getty Images) / Carl Court (Getty Images)

By Willem Moore

Source link

When FIFA decided to expand the World Cup to 48 teams for the first time in history, it seemed like a new victory for the idea of inclusivity that the world’s most popular sport has long championed.

More countries will get the chance to appear on football’s biggest stage. Continents that previously suffered from a lack of places will find themselves more widely represented and new fans will live the long-awaited World Cup dream.

But ahead of the 2026 edition, a striking paradox has emerged that is making itself felt with increasing force. whilst the tournament’s doors have opened wider to national teams, they seem narrower than ever for many fans.

World Cup of the People to World Cup of the Market

For many decades, the World Cup has been more than just a football tournament; it has been a global event where cultures and peoples come together in the stands before the pitch. Fans from all over the world have been an integral part of the tournament’s identity, creating the colours, chants and stories that remain in the memory longer than some of the matches themselves.

But the upcoming edition reflects a different reality. With the growing reliance on luxury hospitality packages, variable ticket pricing and rising travel and accommodation costs, many are wondering whether the tournament is gradually shifting from a global festival for the masses to a sporting and commercial product aimed more at those who can afford its exorbitant costs.

The tournament has expanded in sporting terms, but it has become more selective economically.

More teams but less fans able to attend

From a sporting perspective, the 48-team format represents an unprecedented historic step. The tournament will see a greater number of nations, players and fans from different continents taking part, thereby boosting the game’s global reach.

However, the picture looks different off the pitch.

A fan dreaming of following their national team in North America faces not only the cost of the ticket, but a whole range of expenses, starting with flights and extending to hotels, transport, food, insurance and other travel requirements.

And herein lies the greatest paradox in the history of the modern tournament: whilst qualifying for the World Cup has become easier for national teams, it has become more difficult for many fans.

Let’s compare Qatar 2022 and Russia 2018

At World Cup Russia 2018, fans benefited from relatively lower accommodation and travel costs compared to major Western markets.

In Qatar, in 2022, despite the widespread controversy that preceded the tournament, the country’s compact geography allowed fans to attend more than one match a day and significantly reduced the cost of domestic travel.

As for the 2026 World Cup, the picture is completely different.

The tournament will be held across 16 cities in the US, Canada and Mexico, with huge distances between  some stadiums. Fans may find themselves having to fly more than once just to follow a single team during the group stage.

Thus, the problem is not just the ticket price but the cost of the entire World Cup experience.

Tickets and costs…’A dream that turns into a budget’

At the 2026 World Cup, tickets are no longer the only obstacle facing fans; they have become part of a complex pricing system that makes getting into the stands a real financial challenge.

Reports suggest that ticket prices in some categories have risen significantly compared to previous tournaments, with a variable pricing system in place that makes major matches more expensive as demand increases.

However, the biggest burden lies not in the ticket price alone but in the ‘full experience’ of the World Cup. Fans will face a series of mounting costs: hotels in cities that are among the most expensive in the world during peak season, domestic flights between geographically distant cities, and high daily expenses due to differences in the cost of living.

When these factors are combined, a trip to watch the tournament could turn into a financial undertaking beyond the means of many of the traditional fans who have shaped the history of the World Cup.

Most expensive and resource-intensive tournament

The 2026 World Cup is likely to be the largest in terms of expenditure, logistics and environmental emissions.

With the number of matches increased to 104 and the number of host cities rising to 16 across three different countries, the tournament will see unprecedented travel by teams, fans, media and sponsors.

This massive expansion has prompted a number of environmental studies to warn that the 2026 tournament could have the highest carbon footprint in World Cup history, at a time when global sporting bodies are championing sustainability and environmental conservation.

Thus, the expansion of sport is shifting from an organisational achievement to a source of both economic and environmental controversy.

Are World Cup stands losing their spirit?

This is perhaps the most sensitive question of all. The value of the World Cup has never lain solely in the number of matches or the scale of revenue, but in the fans who have given the tournament its unique spirit. Fans who have saved for years to make the journey, who have waved their national flags in the stands, and who have created unforgettable moments that have become part of the game’s history.

However, many fear that the stands will gradually become spaces that are less representative of the average fan and more dominated by companies, major sponsors and holders of exclusive rights.

At that point, the question will no longer be about the number of participating teams or the number of matches, but about the very identity of the tournament itself.

The paradox of the new era

The 2026 World Cup will go down in history as the biggest, most expansive and richest edition in the tournament’s history, which dates back to 1930. But it also faces questions that have never before been raised with such intensity.

Whilst FIFA has succeeded in expanding the global reach of football, it is still required to prove that this expansion does not necessarily mean excluding the fans who have built the game’s popularity across generations.

The World Cup is accessible to more countries than ever before, but the road to the stands is longer and more expensive than ever too.

And therein lies the paradox that perhaps sums up the whole story of the 2026 World Cup: a tournament that is more global on paper, but less accessible to everyone in reality.

Featured image via Luke Hales/ Getty Images

By Alaa Shamali

Source link

Labour MP Nadia Whittome has announced a motion to reject the Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) transphobic Code of Practice. Rachel Taylor MP, likewise of Labour, also gave a moving account of why she signed the motion.

Whittome and Taylor have also urged other MPs to sign the motion. To this end, trans rights campaign groups TransActual, Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, and Scottish Trans have created an email template for constituents to write to their MPs to urge them to sign.

Scottish Trans stated that, in just one week, over 1,200 people have already written to their representatives.

Transphobic code rejected

The EHRC’s draft guidance, as it currently stands, calls for service providers to exclude trans people from single-sex spaces reflecting their gender, and also often those of their sex assigned at birth. The government’s own impact assessment has acknowledged that it will likely harm trans and gender non-conforming individuals.

Whittome explained that her Early Day Motion (EDM), tabled 1 June, is:

This motion is currently the only available mechanism by which MPs can reject the EHRC’s Code of Practice; if debated and passed within the 40-day scrutiny window, it would prevent the EHRC from issuing the Code and bringing it into force. This is unfortunately unlikely, but it is important that as many MPs as possible sign the motion.

MPs already highlighted the obvious harms of the EHRC’s draft code in a parliamentary debate at the beginning of Pride month. Nevertheless, as Whittome highlighted, the government still looks highly likely to accept the guidance.

Early Day Motions have no set day for debate in Parliament. As such, most are never debated. However, EDMs do act as a mechanism to track MPs’ support for a particular cause.

The only current alternative is to allow the segregation of trans people in the UK to be enacted with apparent total support. As such, it’s crucial that trans-positive MPs (or even the transphobes who recognise that the code is unworkable) make their voices heard.

EHRC’s ‘hollow words of concern’

Regarding her decision to sign Whittome’s EDM, Rachel Taylor MP explained that:

I went into today’s Women and Equalities Committee to listen carefully to what the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) had to say about the recently tabled Code of Practice. After that session, I am deeply concerned that our national human rights body is worryingly complacent about a document that the government’s own impact assessment says puts transgender people at increased risk of harassment, violence and sexual abuse.

In particular, Taylor highlighted the EHRC chair’s “hollow words of concern” in answer to a question on trans people fleeing domestic violence. She continued:

During the session, the chair repeatedly struggled to answer questions about the glaring contradictions throughout the guidance. It is not good enough to simply defer to notions of ‘common sense’ at points where the guidance simply isn’t fit for purpose. It is blatantly obvious that the code is simply unworkable. And it is not credible to deny to enacting the Code will entrench a policing of harmful gender norms that many of us have fought so hard to overturn for many decades.

This gender policing hasn’t waited for the code to pass. Support groups have already reported that, following the Supreme Court’s ruling, gender non-conforming women have faced increased harassment in single-sex spaces.

‘The return of poisonous division’

Taylor also called out the ludicrous fact that the government’s impact assessment recognises the harm perpetrated by the code. She highlighted that the assessment:

repeatedly states that it is likely to increase community tension and conflict across our society, in an age that already feels defined by the return of poisonous division and open bigotry. The EHRC was created to be the champion of equality and tolerance, not a passive bystander to the marginalisation of vulnerable people.

Despite a change of leadership, it remains my view that the EHRC does not seem interested in advocating for and standing up for the rights of LGBT – and particularly transgender – people. As a lifelong campaigner for equality, that is not something I can accept.

The Women and Equalities Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights refused to endorse the current EHRC chair, Mary-Ann Stephenson. Both groups warned that she lacked experience in advocacy work beyond a narrow, and distinctly transphobic, focus on women’s rights.

Taylor also reiterated Whittome’s pessimism regarding the EDM itself, deeming it a “symbolic act”. Stating that she couldn’t sit by and allow the harmful code to pass without making her voice heard, she expressed frustration that:

signing this one is the only avenue available for making my views clear in what is clearly a deeply flawed process.

‘Stand in solidarity’

However, above and beyond that frustration, Taylor recognised her duty to stand up for a marginalised community:

I believe it is incumbent on me to stand in solidarity with transgender people across the country, and particularly my transgender constituents who have told me the real fear and distress they are feeling.

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Source link

It’s Carers Week, and unsurprisingly, the Labour government couldn’t care less.

Despite this being an easy way to prove that they at least superficially give a toss, neither the DWP nor the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) have posted about the week on social media.

Carers Week ignored this year

Just one department has posted about it, and it was to remind people to fill in a consultation about enabling unpaid carers to get back into work

Millions could re-enter the workforce if better workplace protections for unpaid carers were implemented. That’s why we’re consulting on possible changes to pay and leave entitlements. Have your say: https://t.co/81dhMf7enM pic.twitter.com/dpWr86WKkQ

— Department for Business and Trade (@biztradegovuk) June 9, 2026

Advertisement

The Department for Business and Trade posted a link to a consultation on employment rights for unpaid carers and parents of seriously ill children. Whilst this would make a difference, it ignores the fact that many carers can’t work because of their caring responsibilities.

DWP penalises informal carers

It’s also deeply hypocritical that the government wants to push more carers to be cogs in the capitalist machine when they’ve penalised so many for earning what they deem to be too much.

Carers have been battling for justice from the DWP for a long time. Those running the department still refuse to take accountability.

Just days after a scathing review into the government’s handling of the Carers Allowance scandal was published, a DWP senior civil servant published a blog post blaming carers for failing to report changes.

In an internal blog post seen by the Guardian, Neil Coulling said:

Incidentally what has been missed in all the [media] coverage is that this error (and hands up we made it and we will put it right) affects only a relatively small number of cases and wasn’t the cause of the original complaint. Because at the heart of the overpayment issues in [Carers Allowance] is a failure to report changes of circumstances.

It’s almost as if said carers are too busy looking after their loved ones and trying their hardest not to get into debt that they don’t have time to spend hours doing the DWP’s job for them.

The review found that some carers contemplated suicide due to the distress of being expected to pay back thousands of pounds that they never knew they owed.

Carers described how they were expected to work to strict DWP timelines but then made to wait excruciating lengths of time for responses. In some cases, they never received a reply at all.

One carer described it as “playing a game where only the other side knows the rules”.

The review especially highlighted how much senior figures within the DWP (such as Couling) were repeatedly warned of the issues in the system yet ignored them for more than a decade.

DWP hopes carers scandal will fizzle away

In a Work and Pensions Committee hearing, Liz Sayce, who headed up the inquiry, said the DWP was minimising the problem and deflecting the blame.

When asked about Couling’s comments, she said:

What you were hoping for from senior people at that point was to really share with colleagues across the department the seriousness of this – what has been learned, what is going to be put right. Not attempt to minimise or again, place a responsibility back on the carers, as if it was their fault.

Sayce also felt that senior members of staff had attempted to brush the issue under the carpet.

I felt that sometimes there was a kind of effort to almost minimise what had gone wrong to reassure staff that they hadn’t done anything. And actually that’s the wrong thing to do. As a leader in such a circumstance what you need to do, I think, is to own the problem, explain why the system wasn’t right.

When asked by the Committee to explain itself, the DWP floundered. Peter Schofield, permanent secretary of the DWP, waffled on so much that Lib Dem Steve Darling accused him of talking “blancmange”.

Darling said:

You’ve given me a lot of blancmange that I’m finding difficult to nail to the ceiling what clear evidence of management change is there, and I’m concerned that you’re not able to give me any.

Laughably, Schofield’s response claimed the DWP always fixed its mistakes.

We’ve got a great track record of putting things right when things go wrong. This is a department that when it knows we have to get things right we put it right.

DWP works exactly how the government wants

And despite all this, the DWP is still chasing carers over supposedly unpaid bills. The Canary reported the situation is so bad that another inquiry could be looming.

However, as we pointed out, the DWP is doing exactly what the government told it to.

Repeatedly, successive governments have tasked the DWP with reducing benefits payments and rooting out largely imaginary ‘fraud’. They don’t get to feign shock that the DWP is hounding innocent people. That’s the department’s whole job – the same disgraceful job the government tasked them with.

At the end of the day, no amount of sanctimonious nothing sentiments from the government will make up for the fact that they enable a department whose primary focus is to hound vulnerable people and instead of supporting them, work to actively make their lives worse.

Featured image via Naomi Baker/ Getty Images

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

Source link

A conference held by a US-Israel lobby group has laughed uproariously at the memory of an Israeli terrorist attack that killed and maimed thousands, including children.

US politician calls not shaking Netanyahu’s hand ‘wild’

Lobby-funded senator, John Fetterman, was speaking to the American Jewish Committee, a hardcore Zionist, pro-genocide group.

He told listeners that the idea of someone not shaking the hand of wanted war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, was “wild”.

But blowing up kids and old people? “I love it.” (Cue hilarity from the AJC audience.)

Zionism is racism. Israel is terrorism.

Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/ Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

Source link

Activists occupied the Gherkin’s foyer in protest against insurance company Swiss Re’s refusal to rule out liquefied natural gas projects in the Coral Triangle on international Coral Triangle Day.

Protesters chanted: “Protect our oceans, protect our future!” and “Swiss Re, you can’t hide, don’t insure this ecocide!” The Coral Triangle spans much of South East Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste.

When the protesters tried to deliver a letter to Swiss Re, they were refused. Security guards man-handled young people and dragged a scientist participating in the protest to the revolving door, where he lay between the panels blocking the entrance. City of London Police attended but made no arrests.

Protect the Coral Triangle

Lily, 17, a student from Generation 1.5, said:

We are demanding Swiss Re rules out the insuring of new oil and gas projects in the Coral Triangle. Our futures depend on scaling down fossil fuels, not more expansion, and biodiverse regions like the Coral Triangle have to be protected.

Insurers have the power to stop extractive and destructive projects like this by withdrawing support, but they need to be willing to act.

The protest follows an open letter from over 70 organisations, calling on insurance companies to:

• Rule out insuring gas expansion into the Coral Triangle.
• Exclude fossil gas projects in high-biodiversity and protected areas.
• Stop insuring fossil gas expansion globally.
• Support a just and secure energy transition.
• Respect human rights and Indigenous sovereignty as a condition of insurance coverage.

The Coral Triangle is home to 76% of the world’s coral species, critical tuna spawning grounds and vast mangrove carbon sinks. It supports over 360 million people’s livelihoods. Fossil fuel expansion there would increase threats of oil spills and pollution.

This could devastate critical coral reef ecosystems that are essential for global food security, water security and geopolitical stability, according to the UK government’s report on ecosystems collapse and national security threats.

Shana Sullivan, a PhD student and spokesperson for the student protest group No New Workers, added:

As students we pledge to boycott careers in any such insurance or financial companies that prop up the fossil fuel or arms industries, while calling on our peers to do the same, building pressure on the insurance sector to withdraw their support for extractive, ecocidal and imperialist projects wiping out communities and accelerating climate breakdown.

Insurance sector is worried

Already the insurance sector is showing alarm at student opposition to destructive underwriting practices. Just 13% of students say they’ll ever consider a career in insurance, a historic low. Student protests will “send shivers through the insurance sector”, according to Emerging Risks trade commentary.

No New Workers is a youth-led grassroots campaign targeting the industries enabling new fossil fuels and weapons of war. Students, graduates and young people are promising no new workers for these industries until they divest from ecocide and genocide.

Generation 1.5 is a youth climate justice action group. It aims to build a community of young people willing to organise and take action to make our voices and the ones of marginalised and oppressed groups heard, and to educate about the root causes and injustices surrounding the climate crisis.

Featured image supplied

By The Canary

Source link

In this scene, John Swinney is portrayed by Stewie Griffin, and the membership of the SNP is portrayed by Brian Griffin.

?

We’re not sure any words are needed after that, but what the heck.

Because it’s really, really difficult to overstate the blind idiot gullibility of the 40% of the SNP’s one-time members who still HAVEN’T quit the party since the revelations about the stolen fundraiser money.

Advertisement

(Let’s stop calling it “missing”, because there’s no mystery about where it is – the SNP have now openly told us that they stole it and spent it on the exact thing they swore blind they WOULDN’T spend it on.)

?

But it’s all fine, Swinney insists, because there’s been a “governance review” and new rules that will stop it from happening again. And indeed there was, in 2024, and indeed it did promise to make some vague unspecified changes.

But of course, the immediate problem with that is that we know the SNP doesn’t give a damn about following its own rules.

Advertisement

It was in the rules in 2021 that the party’s National Executive Committee, under the auspices of its National Treasurer and its Finance & Audit Committee, had to be allowed to see the books in order to prevent Peter Murrell embezzling hundreds of thousands of pounds.

But when the Treasurer and the Committee tried to exercise their rights in order to do their legal duties they were refused by Murrell, and when members of the NEC tried to alert Nicola Sturgeon to this breach of the rules she angrily insisted her husband wasn’t up to anything and that the treasurer and the committee members should simply shut up, leaving those with any conscience or integrity forced to resign.

?

The 2024 Governance Review actually made the leader’s power far MORE absolute over the party, chiefly by effectively removing any way they can be challenged, so absolutely nothing would prevent the same thing happening again. If an SNP CEO is on the fiddle and its leader is determined to cover up for them, the NEC – even assuming there’s anyone on it with a spine, which is unlikely – is toothless.

Advertisement

So THAT’S been going well since 2023.

But we don’t even need to make any such deductions or assumptions to know that the 2024 Governance & Transparency Review (to give it its full irony-laden title) is cobblers.

On the GTR screenshot above we deliberately left in the next item, which categorically states that “membership numbers will be reported twice a year”. That rule, however, has been simply ignored since Swinney took over the leadership. The most recent published SNP membership figures date from 1 June 2025, more than a year ago.

(They weren’t actually released until last August, in the party’s annual accounts.)

Advertisement

The rule hasn’t been changed since 2024, just ignored by Swinney. And yet still the remaining diehards cling to the leadership’s every lie as gospel.

Everything’s fine, you see, because you’ll probably get a receipt for a raffle ticket. And the complicity of the previous leadership in Peter Murrell’s crimes, and the current leadership’s admission that it stole donors’ money, are apparently less important and pressing issues than controls on vape shops.

Now, it’s fair to say that anyone dumb enough to still be in the SNP probably deserves to be robbed at every step. “If we do everything the same, all the outcomes will be different” is the line that the leadership has taken on independence strategy, and – as Swinney points out in the video above – the loyal rump of the membership swallowed that, so why would they question anything else?

But everyone else who donated to the “ringfenced” fundraisers, only to see their money used to prop up a zombie party that is now the main obstacle to independence, would still like to see justice, and however much John Swinney (and Nicola Sturgeon) might wish otherwise, that story still has a long way left to run.

Advertisement

Because at the end of the day, there’s just too big a river of effluent on the floor for even the hungry gullets of the eternally stupid to choke down.

Source link

According to the Guardian’s Jessica Elgot, voters in Makerfield are baffled by a decision from the Reform candidate. The candidate in question is Robert Kenyon, and the decision he made is to not apologise for the comments he made online:

Voters who had noticed Kenyon’s online comments (almost everyone was aware) were slightly baffled he hadn’t apologised. Feel a difference here between “never back down” attitude of online debate versus what people expect in real life.

— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) June 9, 2026

Kenyon has a track record of derogatory comments

When it comes to Kenyon’s online comments, there are many which may have caused offence. As the Canary has reported, these comments include the following on women’s rights:

I’d hazard a guess that the majority [of abortions] are for vanity purposes like unwanted pregnancies.

On the question of whether this makes him a sexist, the answer is Kenyon doesn’t care, because he’s also said:

I’m sexist, sorry I am.

While Kenyon technically said “sorry” here, he’s steadfastly refused to apologise since.

Kenyon also said:

Reproductive rights? Women’s rights? They can dress it up all they want, they are deciding to kill a baby inside the womb…What they mean is they want to shag anyone they want and if they get caught they get a second chance and treat it [sic] as a secondary last chance form of contraception. They ain’t kidding anyone.

Kenyon sells himself as a straight talker, but really he’s just another Billy big-bollocks who wants to import Yank-style Christo-fascist politics to the UK.

Oh, and he’s also a coward because while it’s true he won’t apologise for his words, he won’t stand by them either.

He literally went for ‘how can I hate women, when my mum was a woman?’ https://t.co/6oTZDGwRKh

— Willem Moore (@willem_moore_uk) June 4, 2026

Honestly, it’s a bit odd that he’s a plumber given how much time he’s spent sitting on fences in regard to his own opinions.

Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon on #BBCQuestionTime:

Audience: “I’d rather have a career politician than a plumber who’s a sexist.”

“You described yourself as a sexist.”

Kenyon: “Allegedly.”

Then refuses to apologise to Carol Vorderman after agreeing in 2021 that a creep wanting… pic.twitter.com/gtDR4WqgtC

Advertisement

— King (@King0243_PJC) June 5, 2026

How is this any different to the careerist politicians who refuse to answer questions? The careerist politicians Reform is supposedly here to replace?

On the the Vorderman comments, the Guardian reported:

In 2021, Kenyon responded to a social media post about [Carol] Vorderman in which another user wrote: “My god I’d love to smell and lick your arsehole”, by saying: “He’s only saying what we’re all thinking”.

You’d think this would be an easy one to apologise for, but Kenyon flat-out refused to do so. Adding insult to injury, he attacked Vorderman for speaking out, saying:

There’s been a lot of noise about this indirect, sort of vulgar tweet that I’ve made, but I’ve not heard much about Carol’s thoughts on Labour not having the grooming gangs inquiry last year or what she thinks about biological males being allowed into single sex spaces.

Kenyon also claimed women “can’t drive“, which is ironic in the sense that he’s driving women to not vote for him.

It doesn’t end with sexism either.

Rob Kenyon has still not apologised for his homophobic or sexist comments.#Makerfield pic.twitter.com/zg91qJf7eT

— Reform Party UK Exposed (@reformexposed) June 9, 2026

The more they see of him, the less they want

Elgot also observed the following:

Spent Monday in parts of Ashton and Orrell where Labour are targeting around 16% still undecided voters in Makerfield by-election.

Some observations

– Many who voted Reform only weeks ago are prepared to vote for Burnham. There is a *big* gender divide and QT was a big factor

Advertisement

— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) June 9, 2026

Many of the clips above are from Kenyon’s Question Time appearance. It was there that he was asked to apologise for his past sexism, and it was there that he refused to do so.

Following Kenyon’s appearance, the Canary‘s Maddison Wheeldon wrote:

Rather than recognising why people took issue with the Reform candidate’s remarks or offering any meaningful apology, Kenyon has chosen to dispute the criticism itself. That approach has only deepened concerns about his dangerous judgment.

When someone seeks influence and authority, their willingness to listen to criticism and reflect on their mistakes matters just as much as the views they express.

Given all this, it’s unsurprising women don’t see Reform as having their interests in mind. What’s disappointing is that many men seemingly don’t care.

As the vast majority of these men were no doubt born of woman, this puts to bed the idea that lads can’t be sexist if they have mothers.

Featured image via Christopher Furlong/ Getty Images

By Willem Moore

Source link

The US has bombed 20 locations in Iran after it shot down an ‘Apache’ helicopter set up for electronic warfare in the Hormuz Strait.

Trump has pulled in the AH-64 Apache from American facilities worldwide for use in attacks on Iran.

US surveillance and attack

The US military had originally claimed that a technical fault caused the crash. The helicopter’s crew survived and was picked up from the sea.

The ‘Longbow’ variant of the apache is set up for surveillance and for support of special forces. Former US special forces officer, Lt Col Antony Aguilar, described it as hard to shoot down and said that similar aircraft had been used a week earlier to attack Iranian civilian vessels.

Trump attacked Iran for successfully defending itself and has described the escalated aggression as “defensive”.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Source link