Hackney’s Green Party-led Council has voted to end its 58-year-old twin-city agreement with Haifa, a port city that “Israel” violently captured in 1948.

Councillors have upheld the vote as a commitment in their May 2026 local elections manifesto. They have pledged to end the twinning arrangement at “the earliest possible opportunity,” the details of which are under consideration.

The decision follows years of pressure by Palestine solidarity activists. The decades-long campaign involved a broad coalition of groups. These included the Greens, Stop the War, Hackney Independent Socialist Collective, and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). The campaign gathered steam in 2024. At the time, a public petition calling out Israel’s repeated war crimes in Gaza and the occupation of the occupied West Bank received 4,000 signatures.

Tonight all the Green councillors voted to start the process of ending Hackney's twinning with Haifa. All the Labour councillors voted against. The Council will now: set up an all-party committee, consult residents, consult Haifa's Mayor & carry out an Equality Impact Assessment.

— Heather Mendick (@helensclegel) July 28, 2026

“At odds with our anti-racist values”

Hackney Council describes itself as an “actively anti-racist and human rights-respecting local authority,” and says “international partnerships remain relevant and reflect the shared values [of Hackney residents].” Councillor Sam Mathys, responsible for managing the twinning relationship has previously said that:

We want civic partnerships that are about fostering peace, justice, and equality […] For decades, we have witnessed human rights abuses committed by the State of Israel against the Palestinian people, which has escalated to a horrifying and unprecedented scale over the past years.

Raising similar points, Hackney mayor, Zoe Garbett said:

Given the ongoing humanitarian crisis, and the gravity of the UN Commission of Inquiry Reports concluding Israel has committed genocide, maintaining a civic connection with what is widely recognised [as] a military port city is fundamentally at odds with our anti-racist values.”

The city that houses Elbit Systems

Haifa is promoted as a progressive, left-wing model of coexistence — the very rationale used to justify the Twin City agreement six decades ago. However, this isn’t the case. Haifa is one of three Palestinian coastal cities Israel has been occupying since 1948. It is also the site of the first Palestinian ghetto post-Nakba.

Since then, Haifa has functioned as a major logistical hub for seaborne military shipments. It hosts Israel’s main naval base and the headquarters of Elbit Systems Global. Elbit is the occupation’s largest privately owned arms manufacturer, and produces 85 percent of the Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) land-based equipment and drones.

One might wonder how we got here? In 1948, 95 percent of Haifa’s indigenous Palestinian population were violently expelled by Zionist Haganah militiamen. Those Palestinians who survived the exterminationist campaign today face unparalleled discrimination across housing, employment, education and politics, and much more.

A survey published in May 2025 found that 82 percent of Jewish Israeli citizens supported the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. They also supported wanton killings of Gazans by the IOF. According to Orly Noy, former chair of B’Tselem, it will take “decades of rehabilitation” for Israeli society to rectify and undo these views.

Defenders of “Israel”

The decision, as is to be expected, has ruffled the feathers of Labour party members and affiliates. In 2024, the de-twinning was formally presented to the council. At the time, Labour councillor Michael Desmond described it as an “appalling, abusive tirade,” and defended the agreement as one which promotes:

cultural values, religious freedom, tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

Labour councillor for Hoxton West, Ben Lucas said his party could not support the paper “in all good conscience.” He told the Greens they were punishing the “Israelis” for the actions of their government.

Conservative party councillor Simche Steinberger has also criticised the de-twinning decision. He cited medical exchanges between Hackney’s Homerton University Hospital and Haifa’s Rambam Hospital. At the debate, he said:

It’s probably the only twinning which actually does something because I remember a few years ago where the doctors from Haifa Hospital were here in Homerton teaching them what to do.

A license to kill

Rambam is the biggest Israeli hospital in northern Israel, situated 30 miles from the Lebanese border. For the past three decades there has been “medical cooperation” between these two hospitals. But this is not the type of medical cooperation you might expect, because Ramdam hospital also works closely with the IOF.

Ramdam not only treats tens of thousands of injured IOF, it also trains IOF doctors to treat soldiers who have killed and maimed civilians. This enables the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The IOF act with total impunity in both the West Bank and Gaza. They detain children, steal Palestinian land, control movement, raid homes, and prevent access of emergency services to the injured. They protect illegal armed settlers, and kill and maim innocent civilians.

Is this the culture of tolerance defenders of Israel have in mind when excusing the genocidal and racist conduct of the colonial-settler project?

Second class citizens

Sussan Rassoulie, a key proponent of the campaign and the leader of the 2024 petition, says there are multiple reasons why Hackney should not be twinned with Haifa. She underlines the second class treatment of Palestinians from Haifa and other cities in and outside of the West Bank. In addition, citing Israel’s 2018  Basic Law, Rassoulie reminds us that the occupation:

recently enacted, explicitly racist death penalty law, passed by the Knesset, also applies in Haifa.

In conversation with the Canary, Rassoulie has this to say:

Hackney Palestine Solidarity Campaign welcomes Tuesday evening’s decision if it marks the start of a swift process to end a twinning relationship with Israel’s third largest city and principal military port. We hope that a move by Hackney’s now Green-led administration will encourage campaigners in other local authorities that may still have twinning relationships with cities or towns in a state engaged in a genocidal war in Gaza and pursuing a brutal policy of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Time to Isolate “Israel”

Various other towns and cities in England are also twinned with the Zionist state. Newcastle and Portsmouth are also twinned with Haifa in Northern “Israel,” while Bournemouth is twinned with the resort of Netanya. The borough of Barnet is twinned with the Tel Aviv neighbourhood of Ramat Gan. Meanwhile, the borough of Elstree and Borehamwood in Hertfordshire is twinned with the central town of Shoham.

It is time all ties with the genocidal state of “Israel” were broken, and the Israeli occupation is isolated on the world stage. They only help to legitimise and normalise its horrendous crimes against the Palestinians.

Hackney Council says it will now set up an all-party committee, consult residents, and carry out an Equality Impact Assessment. It has given Haifa’s mayor until 5 October to respond to the decision.

Featured image via the Canary

By Charlie Jaay

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A Seattle game studio is collaborating with NASA to create a new educational video game that challenges players to plan, collaborate, and invent their way to building a virtual lunar colony.

Moonbase Y, currently under development at August Interactive, is a cooperative, exploration-focused online video game that puts players ages 13 and older in the role of the architects and engineers of a mission to return humanity to the moon. Step one is leaving Earth’s atmosphere, while step two is successfully landing on the lunar surface.

Once they’re actually on the moon, Moonbase Y players can craft items, research technologies, build their own virtual colony, and use all the usual collaborative tools found in online building games, all in a game that’s built on source images and data provided directly by NASA. To succeed, they’ll need to come up with their own solutions for the real-world problems that will confront an off-world settlement.

“There’s a whole generation of kids who may very well live and work on the moon,” said Sarah Kneller, August Interactive’s chief experience officer. “It’s imminent.”

Kneller describes Moonbase Y as a way to “not only let people imagine the future, but give them the tools to help create it.” It’s one thing to learn about the sciences and technologies required to construct a lunar colony, but it’s a better educational experience to actually let someone do it themselves.

As a video game, Moonbase Y can be summarized as a crafting-focused collaborative RPG that’s using up-to-date real scientific data. Any and every solution that players will have to come up with to build their colony in Moonbase Y is something that could at least theoretically work under real-world conditions.

According to August Interactive’s CEO Kristin Wood, NASA’s current goal is to have an inhabited lunar base by 2040, as a first step toward a crewed expedition to Mars. In order to do so, Wood said, “there are approximately 187 technologies that will need to be created.”

Moonbase Y isn’t an attempt to crowdsource those solutions. Instead, it’s an educational game that’s made to let players work on specific necessary skills in a collaborative environment.

“We want a 13-year-old to understand they don’t have to be a rocket scientist [to contribute],” Kneller said. “They can say, ‘There is something I’m good at that matters.’” Wherever someone’s talents lie, from hard sciences to soft skills, they could be a part of a project like this. No one is irrelevant.

That’s part of Moonbase Y’s deliberately hopeful tone. From the ground up, the game is being built as a deliberate act of optimism. While it’s possible for a player’s colony to fail, that’s part of the learning process. You can always start again, and this time you’re a little smarter for having had the experience. This is a tough job, but that’s part of the fun.

“As entertainers, it’s really easy to sell the terrifying outcome… this mental model that the future is bleak,” Kneller said. As a result, Moonbase Y is purposefully swinging hard in the other direction.

Kneller used to work for Valve Software in Bellevue, Wash., where she spent more than a decade as an executive producer for Dota 2’s esports circuit. She left the company in 2023 to co-found August Interactive.

Other team members at August include Wood, a former CIA officer turned tech entrepreneur; CRO Mike Ambinder, a former research scientist for Valve who specializes in experimental psychology as it applies to game design; and creative director Jon Pierre Yousef, a Florida-based artist who’s contributed to franchises such as Fortnite and Call of Duty.

In addition to Moonbase Y, August Interactive released its first professional project on July 21. Spire is a “performance intelligence layer” that analyzes users’ style of play in competitive video games and gives players tips on how to improve. The idea behind Spire is to smooth out the onboarding process for multiplayer games like Rocket League or Dota 2, in order to make them more accessible for new players.

Moonbase Y is currently in production at August Interactive, with no stated release window.

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Who’s the best duo in Hadestown? Take a guess! Eva Noblezada (Eurydice) and Reeve Carney (Orpheus) are real life husband and wife who star in an epic romance based on the greek myth.

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Company is testing a new beverage concept to extend its Refreshers platform.

The team behind Pi Network set a deadline for its next big upgrade, while Solana’s native token risks plunging to as low as $50.

Bitcoin (BTC) may also head south, but interestingly, some analysts believe such a move could actually benefit the bulls.

Pi Network’s Announcement

The Core Team has been on a tear since the start of 2026, unveiling several major ecosystem improvements. The latest was the migration to protocol version 25, which was supposed to be deployed earlier this month.

Pi Network’s team did not disclose the move on X or on its website, yet multiple users claimed that it was in effect. The project has now shifted its attention to the next protocol update (version 26), setting August 11 as the deadline.

“All Mainnet note operators must complete the upgrade before the deadline to remain connected to the network,” the post reads.

The team also shared additional details about its Pi Launchpad model. It explained that in this ecosystem, projects issue tokens as tools to acquire users for their applications and integrate those coins directly into product functionality, such as rewards, payments, access, and governance.

“Instead of being taken by the issuing project, the proceeds of Pi from their token launch go to a liquidity pool with the ecosystem token, which bootstraps a healthy liquidity foundation from the start,” the team added.

PI, which was bleeding heavily prior to the aforementioned announcements, managed to rebound and now trades at around $0.08. Still, it remains down roughly 97% from its all-time high of $3 registered last year.

SOL at Risk

Solana’s native cryptocurrency has slipped by 3% over the past week, currently trading at around $73.50. This means that it has plunged below the $73.75 mark, which the popular analyst Ali Martinez recently described as a “make-or-break” level.

He believes that a sustained close under this key zone might trigger further selling pressure and result in a collapse to $60 and even $50 in the near future.

However, not all are pessimists. X user Crypto Zenkai argued that buying SOL below $80 is like investing in Bitcoin (BTC) in 2010, while Lucky told his nearly 2 million followers that the asset’s plunge under $75 might represent a “juicy dip.”

BTC Needs to Fall?

As of press time, the primary cryptocurrency is worth approximately $63,800, a 2.5% decline on a weekly basis. And while bulls eagerly await a resurgence, Martinez claimed they should actually welcome a potential drop to $60K.

He believes that a plunge to that level would validate the formation of a classic inverse head-and-shoulders pattern that is typically seen as a precursor to a rally. The analyst opined that completing the setup, combined with a confirmed breakout above $66,500, could set the stage for a rally to a two-month high of $74K.

Not long ago, Martinez predicted that BTC’s bear market (assuming the 4-year cycle holds) may conclude between October 6 and October 16. Until then, many industry participants expect the asset’s price to plunge below $50,000 and even $40,000. The most bearish forecast came from X user BATMAN, who claimed that BTC’s recent performance mirrors that of the autumn of 2022, which was followed by a giant collapse to roughly $16,000.

The post Recent Pi Network (PI) Updates, Solana (SOL) Warning, and More: Bits Recap July 31 appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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India’s Preeti Pawar competes with Zambia’s Catherine Mwape in the Women’s 54kg Semi Final at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, Friday, July 31, 2026. (AP Photo)

Indian boxer Preeti Pawar said the process of cutting weight before an important bout is difficult because athletes cannot eat properly, but added that it also motivates her to keep moving forward after reaching the women’s 54kg final at the Commonwealth Games.Preeti became the first Indian boxer to reach the final in Glasgow after defeating Zambia’s Catherine Mwape 5-0 in the women’s 54kg semifinal on Friday. She will face Canada’s Scarlett Delgado in the gold medal bout after the Canadian defeated England’s Lauren Mackie 4-1 in the other semifinal.Speaking after the win, Preeti said, “It is a part of our training. It motivates us. It is a little tough because we are not able to eat food properly. But it motivates us that we are one step away from the final.”The 22-year-old from Bhiwani, who won a bronze medal at the Asian Games, controlled the bout from the start. She used her left straight well and repeatedly caught Mwape with counter-attacks after drawing her forward.“I am very happy that I have managed to do what I prepared for. I have to give my best tomorrow for the gold medal. I never take my opponents lightly, and always prepare in detail with my coaches. I am happy that I am able to implement those plans,” Preeti was quoted as saying by news agency PTI after her win.Mwape found it difficult to land clean punches and was beaten whenever Preeti put together combinations.The Zambian boxer received three eight counts during the first two rounds. Preeti’s control of the contest was reflected in the judges’ scorecards, with all five judges awarding her a 10-8 score in the second round.With the result almost decided, Mwape spent the final round trying to avoid Preeti’s attacks as the Indian boxer completed a comfortable 5-0 victory to move into the final.

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