Wow poor salmon, poor animals

Quote:More than 1m farmed salmon die at supplier to leading UK retailers

Mowi Scotland, which supplies Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s, blames a rise in sea temperatures for the deaths, while campaigners say expanding farms will make things worse

More than a million dead fish, the biggest mass die-off of farmed salmon in Scotland in a decade, have been recorded at a farm belonging to the UK’s largest supplier.

The deaths at two adjacent Mowi Scotland sites in Loch Seaforth on the Outer Hebrides – licensed as one farm by the Scottish government – rose to just over a million during the year-and-a-half production cycle that it usually takes to raise a salmon in seawater, and which in this case began in spring 2023. Mowi supplies salmon to retailers including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and Ocado. Many of its farms, including those in the Hebrides, are certified under the RSPCA Assured label, which guarantees higher animal welfare standards.

The data, analysed from government statistics by Scotland’s Coastal Communities Network (CCN), which exists to protect Scotland’s coastal and marine environments, and NGO Free Salmon, is “deeply concerning”, said John Aitchison, speaking on behalf of CCN’s 30 member groups. Mass deaths of farmed salmon are a growing problem, he said, and can in some cases be an indicator of poor welfare.

At the end of last year, when mortality in Scotland’s farms hit record levels, Chris Packham called for a halt to the expansion of the Scottish salmon farming industry. Despite this, salmon remains the UK’s second most popular fish (after tuna), with sales in the year to June worth £1.3bn.

“This is the first time since 2014 [when regular reporting began] that more than a million farmed salmon deaths have been reported at a single farm site in one production cycle,” said Aitchison. “We expect to see more salmon deaths in Scotland because farms are becoming even larger.”

Meanwhile, activist group Animal Rising filmed salmon at Seaforth during the same production cycle in which the million deaths occurred, with the video appearing to show sick fish with patches of raw, descaled flesh, scraped mouths and swollen or burst eyeballs.

Mowi Scotland confirmed the death total of 1.05 million fish, which it said was a combined figure for two sites, Seaforth and Noster.

Ben Hadfield, Mowi Scotland’s chief operating officer, rejected any suggestions mass mortality is a sign of poor welfare and said the deaths were due to an unprecedented rise in sea temperatures which resulted in jellyfish blooms, a problem blighting Scottish production. Jellyfish stings to salmons’ eyes, skin and gills risk health problems and death. “[Any] suggestion that this is caused by bad farming, fixation with profits [or] overstocking is … very false and misleading,” Hadfield said.

Salmon mortality at Mowi Scotland has fallen by two-thirds this year due to normalisation of temperatures, the company said.

Of the Animal Rising footage, Hadfield said it was selective. “What the video shows is fish with eye damage after, you would think, jellyfish stings or wounds that are healing after jellyfish blooms. It does not show the majority of the population.”

Much of the salmon sold in UK supermarkets comes with the RSPCA Assured label. Last month, the RSPCA suspended three Scottish salmon farming sites from the scheme after the release of covert video footage by an animal rights group that showed alleged breaches of welfare regulations.

‘Unacceptable greenwashing’: Scottish farmed salmon should not be labelled organic, say charities
Read more
An RSPCA Assured spokesperson said it had removed Fiunary salmon farm, owned by Scottish Sea Farms, from the scheme, while Mowi’s Loch Alsh and Bakkafrost’s Ardcastle were sanctioned and are receiving extra, unannounced inspections. After this, Scottish Sea Farms and Bakkafrost told the news website West Coast Today they had taken immediate remedial action at the affected sites, while Mowi said it was carrying out its own internal investigation and that the Loch Alsh site was not currently supplying any of its customers.

In the case of the one million salmon deaths at Mowi’s Loch Seaforth sites, neither the video nor the record deaths have threatened Mowi’s higher welfare label, an RSPCA Assured spokesperson told the Guardian, because jellyfish-linked disease outbreaks and “other waterborne insults” were beyond the supplier’s control.

Quote:Why is Ukraine’s army facing a desertion crisis?
Thousands of men have abandoned their posts, blaming poor conditions on the front lines and open-ended service.

More Ukrainian soldiers have deserted the army this year than ever since the onset of a war that analysts say has seen both sides make gains and report losses.
Prosecutions for desertion from Ukraine’s army are thought to have hit at least 30,000 – quite possibly much more – already this year. This is several times the number in 2022, the year the war began when citizens and foreigners voluntarily poured into the military to push Russia back.

Those found guilty are given between five and 12 years in prison. However, some defectors say that is a better option than facing what might be an endless, undefined period on the battlefield.
Desertion has become so common that Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, took the unprecedented step of decriminalising first-time attempts to flee the army on August 20, 2024, as long as those caught agree to return to duty.
Here’s why analysts say more men are leaving the army and why it is not just a problem for Ukraine:

According to the Kyiv Post, it is believed that about 60,000 people have been facing criminal charges for fleeing their posts since the war started. The Ukrainian daily cited documents from the prosecutor general, with almost half of those cases initiated this year.
However, British daily The Times also cited figures from the prosecutor general which, it said, showed some 51,000 criminal cases were initiated for desertion and abandonment of a military unit between January and September of this year. El Pais newspaper cited a closer figure of 45,543 desertions between January and August this year, which it said was data from the Prosecutor General’s Office which had been leaked to the Ukrainian press.
All these figures are much higher than the 22,000 criminal charges filed for the same offence in 2023 and just 9,000 cases in 2022.
It is unclear if those fleeing the army are mostly conscripts, or if some who earlier volunteered are also abandoning their posts. Volunteers who are not Ukrainian are allowed to withdraw from the army after six months of fighting.
However, for Ukrainian conscripts – that is, those mandated to join the fighting by a general mobilisation law that has been in force since March 2022 – conscription is for life. There is no time limit placed on it.
Why are so many soldiers deserting?
Low morale caused by exhaustion is the main reason.
Soldiers complain of having to grind through for days on end under heavy fire without a pause because there is no one to relieve them. Those on the front lines have told the media that they have gone from battle to battle with little rest since Russia’s invasion in 2022.
Troops are allowed to take 10 days off twice a year, but manpower shortages sometimes delay even those vacations. Soldiers and their families are pushing for breaks that range between a month’s vacation and a three-year rotation.
One soldier placed under investigation for desertion – Serhii Hnezdilov, who is also a journalist – told The Times newspaper in the UK: “At least in prison you know when you will be able to leave.” He was arrested after writing about his decision to leave the army on Facebook in protest against conditions in the army.

What condition is the army in?

It is not clear how many men Ukraine has lost in the war, but analysts say they might be in the tens of thousands. Western estimates put it at 80,000 soldiers.
Experts say the rising number of desertion cases comes as Ukraine faces a shortage of soldiers on the battlefield – a problem it is trying to solve by forcefully mobilising fighters.
As few as five to seven Ukrainian soldiers are having to face some 30 soldiers from the Russian side in some cases, Simon Schlegel, an analyst with the Crisis Group, told Radio Free Europe, a Prague-based publication.

Analysts estimate there are about one million military personnel in the Ukrainian army compared with some 2.4 million on the Russian side, but neither country publishes those figures. Ukrainian army commanders put the ratio of Russian versus Ukrainian combatants at 10 to 1.

Insufficient manpower is an old problem for Ukraine, even before the start of the war and despite early enthusiasm to join the military right after the invasion, analyst Keir Giles of the United Kingdom’s Chatham House think tank told Al Jazeera.
“Ukraine has been grappling with this for a long time,” he said, adding that the low numbers could also be fuelling further desertions. “There’s exhaustion, there’s shell shock … The initial flush of excitement about the war has worn off, and some people have started to realise that this is for the long haul.”
Alongside the mental and physical fatigue that many soldiers are suffering from prolonged periods at the front line, the Ukrainian army has to deal with inadequate weaponry and ammunition as well.

Despite some wins, including a major incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August, Ukrainian troops have often found themselves on the back foot in the nearly 32-month-long war with Russia.
Crucially, soldiers say they are poorly armed and complain of having the enemy in sight, watching them advance, and being unable to fire because they have no ammunition, according to accounts from soldiers reported by CNN. Many said they felt guilt for not being able to provide infantry units with adequate cover. Commanders have also told journalists that they have been forced to watch men from entire units die in the war because of the weapons shortage.
Speaking in the United States Congress during a testimony on April 10, General Christopher Cavoli, head of US European Command, described Russia’s five-to-one advantage in artillery shells, predicting that would soon grow to 10 to one.
Why is the army in such a poor state?
Ukrainian officials blame Western allies – the European Union and the US – for being too slow to provide military aid. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly urged Washington, with Congress split on the issue of allocating more aid to Ukraine, to speedily deliver promised funds to allow the country to buy more artillery shells and air defence systems.

On April 24 this year, the US passed a bill after a delay of almost a year, granting a $61bn aid package largely meant for Ukraine. Military aid deliveries to the country as part of the package included vehicles, Stinger air defence munitions, ammunition for high-mobility artillery rocket systems and antitank munitions.
In a statement on April 29, Zelenskyy thanked the US government and said the support had “started arriving” but reiterated a need for speedier help.
“The speed of deliveries means stabilising the front,” Zelenskyy said.

European countries collectively delivered 118.2 billion euros ($128.2bn) to Ukraine between April 2022 and September 2024, while the US has delivered 84.7 billion euros ($91.9bn), according to data from the Germany-based Kiel Institute. Analysts say the upcoming US election that could see former President Donald 

Trump return to the White House is causing more uncertainty for Ukraine. Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut US funding to the country and many of his Republican Party members back him on the topic.
Are conscription laws fuelling desertions?

Ukraine’s martial law, which entered into force at the start of the war, mandates young men to join the military.
Zelenskyy’s government says the army needs to enlist 500,000 out of about 3.7 million men of fighting age who are eligible for service.
Since the president signed a renewed mobilisation law in April 2024, men between the ages of 25 and 60 are now eligible. Previously, the range was 27 to 60.

The updated law obliges men of fighting age to update their information with the authorities and tightens punishments for draft dodging, with fines increased from about $13 to $215 and violators facing several days in detention.

Some criticise the conscription decree as a whole for its seeming rigidity: there are no legal ways to leave the military as a conscript, unless under special circumstances such as raising a minor or a child with a disability or caring for a spouse with a disability or severe sickness.

Debates around drafting ages are also raging: some factions want to keep more young men at home to run the economy. Others, especially those in the military, say more active men are needed on the battlefield.
Under Ukraine’s martial law, men are first drafted into military service in readiness for mobilisation or “call-up” when they actually go to fight.

President Zelenskyy faced some pressure before agreeing to sign the April law, reducing the drafting age to 25, according to Ukrainian media, amid calls to lower the drafting age to 20 or 18.
Videos on social media show men from the Ukrainian army raiding bars and restaurants and forcefully dragging young men away if they refuse to be drafted under the new law. The decree requires eligible men, at home or abroad, to register and carry their drafting papers on them at all times.
Elena Davlikanova, a professor at Ukraine’s Sumy State University (SSU), says the age debate fails to focus on the real reasons why people do not want to sign up.
“It is the lack of weapons and munitions that is the major stopper from mobilisation,” Davlikanova told Al Jazeera. “It would have been way cheaper to supply enough air defence systems on time than plan Ukraine’s reconstruction, the cost of which is close to half a trillion US dollars,” she added, referring to the estimated cost of rebuilding the devastated country.

Is there any way to avoid conscription?

Not officially. Martial law means those in the drafting age groups and categories are not allowed to leave the country. However, hundreds of young men have fled to neighbouring countries fearing conscription. Some have risked the freezing waters of the Tysa River, on the border with Romania, to get away, and many have drowned, according to Ukraine’s border patrol, which did not give specific numbers.
Those caught trying to leave the country are often fined and then released.

Is Russia facing the same problem?

Manpower and weaponry problems are also putting pressure on the Russian side, experts say. However, there are still more Russian soldiers than Ukrainian at the moment, and Russia has taken about 19 percent of Ukraine’s territory since the war started.
“We have to keep this context in mind when we talk about Ukraine because we don’t see what’s happening on the other end – Russia has years and years of practice keeping its information about losses secret,” Giles said.
Russian men aged between 18 and 30 are eligible to be drafted for a year. At present, conscripts are supposed to be legally exempt from combat if they do not have at least four months of training, although this is not happening in practice, analysts say.
Since the war started, Russian courts have tried some 8,000 cases of violations involving military personnel, more than 80 percent being desertions, according to Russian media outlet Mediazona.
Earlier this year, however, Ukrainian military intelligence reported that 18,000 soldiers in Russia’s southern military district had deserted.
The main reasons some give are a fear of getting wounded – or worse, dying – in a war that has no end in sight. By May, at least 500,000 Russian soldiers had either died or been wounded since the war began, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence.
Alex Gatopoulos, Al Jazeera’s defence editor, noted that while Russia’s troop numbers might be bigger, “they’re not necessarily better”. The country is just catching up with Ukraine’s effective drone strategy, but Russian troops have lost an “exceptionally high number of tanks to Ukrainian attacks” as well as troops, he said.
“For Russia, the only path to a military victory is through attrition and the use of its larger armed forces to grind down the smaller Ukrainian army,” Gatopoulos said, referring to a “meat grinder” strategy that sees Russia push soldiers to the front lines despite high death tolls.
Russia has tried to entice men to join the army. Authorities in August quadrupled a one-time payment for enlistment since August. Soldiers who sign up now receive nearly 1 million roubles ($11,500) – almost 23 times the average monthly pay of about $500.
However, there is still little enthusiasm for joining up, analyst Kseniya Kirillova wrote in a paper for the US-based Center for European Policy Analysis.
“Russia’s regions only achieved 50-60 percent of their recruitment targets in 2023 … some recruitment offices are now focusing on coercing conscripts,” Kirillova noted.

Quote:I have previously written about Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, calling it “the most successful military raid of this century.”

I have described the Hamas action as a military operation, while Israel and its allies have called it a terrorist action on the scale of what transpired against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

“The difference between the two terms,” I noted,
is night and day — by labeling the events of October 7 as acts of terrorism, Israel transfers blame for the huge losses away from its military, security, and intelligence services, and onto Hamas. If Israel were, however, to acknowledge that what Hamas did was in fact a raid — a military operation — then the competency of the Israeli military, security, and intelligence services would be called into question, as would the political leadership responsible for overseeing and directing their operations.

Terrorism employs strategies that seek victory through attrition and intimidation — to wear an enemy down and create a sense of helplessness on the part of the enemy. Terrorists by nature avoid decisive existential conflict, but rather pursue asymmetrical battle which pits their strengths against the weaknesses of their enemies.

The war that has gripped the Levant since Oct. 7, 2023, is not your traditional anti-terrorism operation. The Hamas-Israeli conflict has morphed into a conflict between Israel and the so-called axis of resistance involving Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansarullah (the Houthi of Yemen), the Popular Mobilization Forces, i.e. militias of Iraq, Syria and Iran. It is a regional war in every way, shape, or form that must be assessed as such.

The Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz noted in his classic work, On War, that “war is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.”

From a purely military perspective, the Hamas raid on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, was a relatively minor engagement, involving a few thousand combatants from each side. 
As a global geopolitical event, however, it has no contemporary counterpart.

The Hamas raid triggered a number of varied responses, some of which were by design, such as luring the Israeli Defense Forces into Gaza, where they would become trapped in a forever war they could not win, triggering the dual Israeli doctrines governing military response to hostage taking of the “Hannibal Doctrine” and the Israeli practice of collective punishment, the “Dahiya Doctrine.” 

Both of these doctrines put the IDF on display to the world as the antithesis of the “world’s most moral military” by exposing the murderous intent ingrained into the DNA of the IDF, a propensity for violence against innocents which defines the Israeli way of war and, by extension, the Israeli nation.
Prior to Oct. 7, 2023, Israel was able to disguise its true character to the outside world, convincing all but a handful of activists that its actions in targeting “terrorists” were proportional and humane. 
Today the world knows Israel as the genocidal apartheid state it really is.
The consequences of this new global enlightenment are manifest. 

Changing the ‘Face of the Middle East’
President Joe Biden, on Sept. 9, 2023, during the G20 summit in India, announced a major policy initiative, the India-Middle East-European Economic Corridor, or IMEC, a proposed rail, ship, pipeline and digital cable corridor connecting Europe, the Middle East and India. 

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, commenting on Biden’s announcement, called the IMEC “a cooperation project that is the greatest in our history” that “takes us to a new era of regional and global integration and cooperation, unprecedented and unique in its scope” adding that  it “will bring to fruition a years-long vision that will change the face of the Middle East and of Israel.”

But because the world now sees Israel as a criminal enterprise, the IMEC looks for all intents and purposes to be no more — the greatest cooperation project in Israeli history that would have changed the Middle East likely will never reach fruition.

For one thing, Saudi Arabia, a key player in the scheme, having invested $20 billion in it, says it will not normalize relations with Israel, necessary for the project, until the wars end and a Palestinian state is recognized by Israel, something the Knesset voted earlier this year would never happen. 

The demise of the IMEC is just part of the $67 billion economic hit Israel has taken since the Gaza conflict began. 

Tourism is down 80 percent. The southern port of Eilat no longer functions because of the anti-shipping campaign run by the Houthi in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Workforce stability has been disrupted by the displacement of tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes because of Hamas and Hezbollah attacks as well as the mobilization of more than 300,000 reservists. All this combine to create a perfect storm of economy-killing issues, which will plague Israel so long as the current conflict continues.

The bottom line is that, left unchecked, Israel is looking at economic collapse. Investments are down, the economy is shrinking, and confidence in an economic future has evaporated. In short, Israel is no longer an ideal place to retire, raise a family, work…or live. The biblical “land flowing with milk and honey,” if it ever existed, is no more.

This is an existential problem for Israel. 

For there to be a viable “Jewish homeland,” demographics dictate there must be a discernable Jewish majority in Israel. There are just short of 10 million people living in Israel. About 7.3 million are Jews; another 2.1 million are Arabs (Druze and other non-Arab minorities comprise the reminder.) 

There are some 5.1 million Palestinians under occupation, leaving a roughly 50-50 split when looking at the combined totals between Arab and Jew. An estimated 350,000 Israelis hold dual citizenship with an EU country, while more than 200,000 hold dual citizenship with the United States. 

Likewise, many Israelis of European descent can easily apply for a passport simply by showing that either they, their parents, or even their grandparents resided in a European country. Another 1.5 million Israelis are of Russian descent, with many of those holding valid Russian passports. 

While the main reasons for maintaining this dual-citizen status are convenience and economic, many view the second passport as “an insurance policy” — a place to run to if life in Israel becomes untenable. 
Life in Israel is about to become untenable.

Escape From Israel 

Israel had already suffered from a growing emigration problem derived from dissatisfaction with the policies of the Netanyahu government — some 34,000 Israelis permanently left Israel between July and October 2023, primarily in protest over the judicial reforms being enacted by Netanyahu. 
While there was a spike in emigration immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks (some 12,300 Israelis permanently emigrated in the month following the Hamas attack), the number of permanent emigrants in 2024 was around 30,000, a drop from the previous year.

But now Israel is being bombarded on a near-daily basis by long-range drones, rockets, and missiles fired from Hezbollah, militias in Iraq, and the Houthi in Yemen. The Iranian ballistic missile attack of Oct. 1 vividly demonstrated to all Israelis the reality that there is no viable defense against these attacks. 

Moreover, if the Israel-Iran conflict continues to escalate (and Israel has promised a retaliation of immense proportions), Iran has indicated it will destroy Israel’s critical infrastructure — power plants, water desalinization plants, energy production and distribution centers — in short, Israel will cease being able to function as a modern nation state.

At that point, insurance policies will be cashed in as hundreds of thousands of Israelis holding dual passports vote with their feet. Russia has already told its citizens to leave. And if millions of other Israelis who qualify for European passports opt to exercise that option, Israel will face its ultimate nightmare — a precipitous drop in the Jewish population that skews the demographic balance decisively toward non-Jews, making moot the notion of an exclusive homeland for the Jews.
Israel is rapidly becoming unsustainable, both as a concept (the world is rapidly tiring of the genocidal reality of Zionism) and in practice (i.e., economic and demographic collapse.)

The Changing View From the US

This is the current reality of Israel — in one year’s time, it went from “changing the face of the Middle East” to being an unsustainable pariah whose only salvation is the fact that it has the continued support of the United States to prop it up militarily, economically, and diplomatically.

And herein lies the rub.

That which made Israel attractive to the United States — the strategic advantage of a pro-American Jewish enclave in a sea of Arab uncertainty — no longer holds as firmly as it previously did. The Cold War is long gone, and the geopolitical benefits accrued in the U.S.-Israeli relationship are no longer evident. 

The era of American unilateralism is fading, rapidly being replaced by a multi-polarity with a center of gravity in Moscow, Beijing and New Delhi. As the United States adapts to this new reality, it finds itself engaged in a struggle for the hearts and minds of the “global south” — the rest of the world outside the EU, NATO, and a handful of pro-Western Pacific nations. 

The moral clarity that American leadership seeks to bring to the global stage is significantly clouded over by its ongoing unquestioned support for Israel.

Israel has, in its post-Oct. 7, 2023, actions, self-identified as a genocidal state totally incompatible with any notion of international law or the basic precepts of humanity.

Even some Holocaust survivors recognize that modern-day Israel has become the living manifestation of the very evil that served as the justification for its creation — the brutally racist ideology of Nazi Germany.  
Israel is anathema for everything modern civilization stands for.
The world is gradually awakening to this reality.

So, to, is the United States. 

For the moment the pro-Israeli lobby is mounting a rear-guard action, throwing its weight behind political candidates in a desperate attempt to buy the continued support of their American benefactors.

But geopolitical reality dictates that the United States, in the end, will not commit suicide on behalf of an Israeli state that has lost all moral legitimacy in the eyes of most of the world. 

There are economic consequences attached to American support for Israel, especially in the increased gravitational pull of the BRICS forum, whose growing list of members and those who are seeking membership reads as a who’s who of nations fundamentally opposed to the Israeli state.
The deepening social and economic crisis in America today will create a new political reality where American leaders will be compelled by electoral realities to address problems which manifest on American soil. 
The day when Congress can allocate billions of dollars without question to oversees wars, including those involving Israel, is coming to an end. 

Political operative James Carville’s famous adage, “It’s the economy, stupid” resonates as strongly today as it did when he penned it back in 1992. To survive economically, America will have to adjust its domestic and international priorities, requiring conformity not only with the will of the American people, but a new, law-based international order which largely rejects the ongoing Israeli genocide. 
Apart from die-hard Zionists who will hold out in the unelected “establishment” of government civil service, academia, and mass media, Americans will gravitate toward a new policy reality where unquestioned support for Israel is no longer accepted.
This will be the final straw for Israel. 

The perfect storm of global rejection of genocide, sustained resistance on the part of the Iranian-led “axis of resistance,” economic collapse and realignment of American priorities will result in the nullification of Israel as a viable political entity. The timeline for this nullification is dictated by the pace of collapse of Israeli society — it could happen in a year, or it could unfold over the course of the next decade.
But it will happen.
The end of Israel.

And it all began on Oct. 7, 2023 — the day that changed the world.

Quote:Over 100 Ukrainian drones downed in Russia overnight – MOD
Four firefighters have been injured in an attack on Nizhny Novgorod Region, the local governor has said
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Russian forces destroyed more than 100 Ukrainian drones attempting to target facilities in several regions overnight, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Sunday.

The military thwarted “an attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack using an aircraft-type UAV against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation,” the ministry said.
Air defenses intercepted or destroyed 110 UAVs, 43 of which were taken down over the Kursk Region near the border, where fighting has been raging since early August.

Another 27 were destroyed over Lipetsk Region, 18 over Oryol Region, and eight over Nizhny Novgorod Region. Seven and six UAVs, respectively, were destroyed over the Belgorod and Bryansk Regions, and one was downed over Moscow Region.
Nizhny Novgorod Region Governor Gleb Nikitin said the local attack targeted an industrial zone outside region’s main city, located 800 km from the frontline. Citing preliminary data, he said four firefighters suffered minor shrapnel wounds.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said a Ukrainian drone, which was flying towards the Russian capital, was downed to the southeast of the city, but that no casualties or destruction have been reported. 
Ukraine routinely launches drone attacks deep into Russia, with raids targeting energy facilities and other civilian structures.

Quote: Russian UAV operators using ramming tactics against Ukrainian drones

The hunt for Ukrainian ‘Baba Yaga’ bomber drones continues round the clock, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said

A Russian FPV-drone ramming a heavy Ukrainian attack UAV.
The Russian military has been successfully using ramming tactics to deal with large Ukrainian attack drones, the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.
On Saturday, it published a clip showing two drones of the ‘Baba Yaga’ class, operated by Kiev’s forces, being eliminated by smaller Russian unmanned aerial vehicles.
"FPV-drone crews are on duty around the clock in the skies above Kharkov Region, working to identify enemy attack UAVs,” the ministry said.

The Russian forces are implementing a “seek and destroy” strategy against the Ukrainian drones, it added.
Named after a witch-like character from Slavic folklore, the 'Baba Yaga' hexacopters are former agricultural UAVs converted into attack drones by Ukraine. The devices are known for their large size – some reportedly have a wingspan of up to 3 meters – and ability to carry payloads of up to 50kg.

’Baba Yaga’ UAVs are relatively slow, while their rotors emit a loud noise as they travel. However, they remain a difficult target as their autonomous flight capability makes them highly resistant to electronic warfare.

Ale dzisiaj piekny wschod slonca  

Haha, move your ass lazy brits on the doll! :-P

or stop eating so much junk! :P

Quote:Weight loss jabs are not a “quick fix” and the health secretary’s plan to use them to help people get back to work could backfire, experts have warned.

Wes Streeting announced a real-world trial of the medication’s impact on worklessness this week, saying that “widening waistbands” were placing a burden on the NHS. He suggested that as well as bringing benefits to the health service, the jabs could help people get back into employment.

But scientists have said deploying the medications specifically for that purpose would carry serious logistical and ethical problems.

Wegovy, which contains the drug semaglutide, is already being prescribed on the NHS for obesity, however this is not yet the case for Mounjaro, which contains tirzepatide. There have also been concerns about worldwide shortages, although the NHS is thought to have enough.

While the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has said Wegovy should only be prescribed through specialist weight loss services, it has suggested Mounjaro could be prescribed by GPs.

Experts have welcomed the recognition of obesity as a health issue that affects quality of life, and are excited about the potential of these drugs. But they say serious problems could arise should the medications be used to specifically tackle unemployment.

“Streeting is correct in saying that for some people their weight will be a burden to their ability to work, and for people who have significant levels of obesity, it is almost certain that their biology has led them to that weight. Providing people with proven, effective medications to help them lose weight may lead to them being able to enter the workforce,” said Dr Simon Cork, senior lecturer in physiology at Anglia Ruskin University. “But this is not a quick-fix solution.”

One major issue, he said, is that access is already hugely problematic. While he said that specialist services are the best approach to maximise results and ensure patient safety, overwhelming demand has already resulted in some trusts pausing all referrals to obesity services.

“The whole system is designed to bottleneck patients through the pipeline and reduce access to specialist services, but alternative provisions through primary care risk the NHS wasting money on partially effective medications and risks patient health,” he added, noting a complete overhaul of the system is needed.

Cork added that, should unemployed people end up being prioritised for the medications, one possibility is that people will quit their jobs, noting patients have been known to put on weight to become eligible for bariatric surgery.

“People will do things to get access to help because they’re desperate,” he said.

Some have also raised ethical concerns should access to weight loss medications be linked to employment potential, not least as people may not be in work because of caring responsibilities.

“In my view, let’s treat everyone who needs to be treated,” said Prof Giles Yeo, an expert in obesity at the University of Cambridge. “If we segment society into whether or not you have economic value, and hence whether or not I would treat you, where does that lead us to?”

Yeo added that it is also important people have the right to refuse medications.

“I think these drugs are effective and powerful, I think they’re a tool which should be used appropriately. I think not enough people are getting it at the moment and they should be, and the people who need to [have them] should be getting them,” he said. “We should not be blackmailing people into taking the drugs if they don’t wish to take it.”

And then there are fears that focusing on weight loss jabs risks distracting from preventing obesity. “People already suffering from obesity need help to manage their weight loss journey,” said Cork. “However, altering the environment which has led to the obesity crisis also needs to happen.”

Yeo agreed. “The drugs treat a disease, they don’t prevent a disease,” he said. “I don’t want [the government] to use [these medications] as an excuse not to make the hard policy decisions.”

Streeting’s comments came alongside the announcement of a new five-year study by Health Innovation Manchester and the pharma company Lilly, which is set to explore whether the drugs can not only bring clinical benefits but also have a health economic impact, including changing participants’ employment status.

“For many people, these jabs will be life-changing, help them get back to work, and ease the demands on our NHS,” he wrote in an opinion piece for the Daily Telegraph this week.

Quote:Payments such as universal credit linked to previous September’s figure, meaning a rise of just 1.7% in April

Last month’s surprise fall in UK inflation lands with bad timing for millions of people who receive state benefits linked to the figure, who can now expect their payments to rise by just 1.7% next April.

A number of benefits, including universal credit, are increased each tax year in line with the cost of living figure for the previous September.

The decline in the annual price growth figure in September, driven by falling air fares and transport costs, disguised larger increases in some categories, including food and drink, which recorded inflation of 1.8%.

The Resolution Foundation thinktank said the 1.7% figure would mean that a typical low-income family, with two children, on universal credit would receive an increase of £253 in their annual payment from next April.

It said the fall in the headline rate was likely to be temporary as previous falls in energy prices dropped out of the 12-month inflation calculation, and suggested inflation could increase again in October to 2.2%. If that higher figure were used, the same family would be £74 better off as the annual increase would be £327.

By contrast, state pensioners are protected by the triple lock, which stipulates that their annual increase in payments is in line with whichever is highest of earnings, inflation or 2.5%. Next year, the rise will be in line with wages, meaning an increase of 4.1% in April – adding £473 a year to the full state pension.

Lalitha Try, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “This temporary [inflation] fall is badly timed for millions of low- to middle-income families as it will result in a lower increase in their benefits next year. A more timely measure of benefit uprating would deliver a cash gain to a low-income family with kids of around £74 next year. The government needs to address the age divide in benefits which has left working-age support fall further behind rising wages and living standards.”

September’s inflation figure has also increased market bets that the Bank of England will cut interest rates again to 4.75% when it meets next month, which would be good news for borrowers but would be likely to lead to a cut in savings rates.

Why ukrainians? Why not africans/pakistanis? huh?

Quote:The EU must take into account its limited resources when deciding what to do with the millions of Ukrainians living as refugees in the bloc, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said.
There are currently around 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees living in the EU. Back in June, the European Commission extended temporary protection status for these asylum seekers until March 2026, guaranteeing them residence, work permits, welfare benefits, and access to healthcare and education until that date.
“We should urgently reflect together on the way forward,” von der Leyen wrote to EU leaders on Monday, stressing that whatever system is put in place after March 2026 should respect “Ukraine’s own needs” and “the limits on our resources.”
“Based on that reflection, the Commission will be able to present proposals” aimed at “managing the situation as long as necessary,” she added.

Von der Leyen’s letter also called for a bloc-wide tightening of immigration rules and border security, including the construction of “return hubs” outside the EU to hold non-Ukrainian migrants whose asylum claims are rejected. The letter came after a string of right-wing victories in regional, national, and European elections this summer, and after a group of 17 member states called on Brussels to allow them to carry out more deportations.

Meanwhile, individual member states are slashing benefits for Ukrainian refugees. In Ireland, where Ukrainians now account for 2% of the population, the government recently cut welfare payments for the refugees in state-provided accommodation from €232 ($253) per week to €39 ($42.55). Irish Minister of State James Browne said last year that Ireland’s generous benefits had caused a “significant increase in secondary movements” of Ukrainians to Ireland from other EU countries.
Ireland is also considering abolishing its program of free housing for Ukrainians next year, the Irish Times reported last week.
As of June 2024, Germany has received almost 1.2 million Ukrainians, making the country their top destination in the EU. With record numbers of migrants arriving from Africa and the Middle East too, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned last month that state and federal resources had been “almost exhausted” dealing with the influx.
In August, another EU member state, Hungary, announced that refugees coming from areas of Ukraine deemed by Budapest to be unaffected by the conflict would no longer be entitled to free accommodation, with exceptions made for vulnerable individuals.

Quote:Hungary could block EU sanctions on Russia if the union’s policies jeopardize its own energy security, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has warned. Budapest will only permit the imposition of restrictions if they retain current exemptions on Russian energy supplies, he said.
The EU prohibited the transport of Russian crude oil by sea in December 2022 as part of its large-scale sanctions campaign against Moscow over the Ukraine conflict. However, landlocked Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic insisted on being granted waivers from the measure due to the lack of alternative supply sources.
“The sanctions are being reviewed in a cycle of six months usually, and as long as the sanctions are on, these exemptions must stay there, because otherwise we would veto the sanctions,” Szijjarto said in an interview with RIA Novosti, published on Tuesday. He emphasized that, for Hungary, the question of sourcing energy from Russia is not a political issue, but a matter of energy security.
Szijjarto recalled that, apart from targeting Russian oil with sanctions, Brussels has also set a goal of abandoning Russian gas by 2028 as part of its REPowerEU plan. He slammed the plan as an “absolutely irrational,” politically motivated decision.

“This approach has nothing to do with physics, with economic competitiveness… with the green transition. This is purely a political commitment, and making political commitments in the field of energy simply doesn’t make sense,” he said, accusing the EU of taking a “dogmatic ideological approach” which is a “no go” for Hungary.
“You replace a source of energy in two cases – number one is if you are unsatisfied with cooperation… two – if you have a better offer… So why would we change an already existing source of energy based on reliable cooperation to something uncertain which on top of that is more expensive?” Szijjarto argued, referring to the EU’s attempts to source supplies in alternative markets, such as the Middle East and the US.
Hungary’s imports of oil from Russia were put in jeopardy earlier this year after Kiev halted the transit of crude supplied by Russian energy giant Lukoil via the Druzhba pipeline, citing sanctions on the company. Budapest slammed the move as “blackmail” over its refusal to cut ties with Russia. It appealed to the European Commission to intervene, but was refused on the grounds that Kiev’s move does not affect the bloc’s energy security. The situation has still not been resolved.

Hungary relies on Russia for roughly 70% of its crude imports, with Lukoil accounting for nearly half of that figure. However, it also receives oil from other Russian companies, such as Rosneft and Tatneft, which have not been sanctioned and continue to pump the commodity through Druzhba.