Good morning.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, has vowed to teach the UN a lesson after the organisation’s secretary general, António Guterres, said in a speech that the “appalling attacks” by Hamas against Israel on 7 October that killed 1,400 people could not justify the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people”.
Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire, saying the attack on Israel did not happen “in a vacuum” and followed “56 years of suffocating occupation” for the Palestinian people by Israel.
Erdan has called on Guterres to resign, and said Israel had refused a visa for the undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths.
Israel further intensified airstrikes on Gaza on Tuesday, launching 400 over the past day – including on the south, where it had told civilians to evacuate. The Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, said Israeli airstrikes killed hundreds of people over the past day, mostly women and children. It said it had received 1,550 reports of missing people, including 870 children. The claim could not be independently verified.
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, a rival of Hamas, denounced inaction by the UN security council. “The ongoing massacres being deliberately and systematically and savagely perpetrated by Israel – the occupying power against the Palestinian civilian population under illegal occupation – must be stopped. It is our collective human duty to stop them,” he said.
Meanwhile, the US and Russia put forward rival plans at the UN to help Palestinian civilians. While both countries seek UN security council resolutions to address shortages of food, water, medical supplies and electricity in Gaza, the US, which opposes a ceasefire, has called only for pauses to allow aid to enter.
Hospitals in Gaza are ceasing to function because they are running out of water and fuel for generators, while being overwhelmed by huge numbers of casualties and civilians seeking shelter from Israeli bombing.
Israel has dropped leaflets in Gaza offering rewards and protection for information in its latest effort to free more than 200 people seized during the terrorist attacks on 7 October.
Republicans put forth their fourth nomination this month for House speaker
The Louisiana congressman Mike Johnson was nominated on Tuesday to lead the US House of Representatives – the fourth Republican this month to win the party’s nomination for the speaker’s chair. There has been no speaker of the House since a small faction of party rebels ousted Kevin McCarthy on 3 October.
Johnson’s nomination came hours after Tom Emmer, the No 3 House Republican, secured the nomination only to withdraw later after opposition from the party’s right flank.
In other news …
Fossil fuel companies spent millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign donations to state lawmakers who sponsored anti-protest laws – laws that shield about 60% of US gas and oil operations from protest and civil disobedience.
Amid financial strain, Hollywood actors mark 100 days on strike and find renewed resolution in their fight against the studios.
China is willing to cooperate with the US, said leader Xi Jinping, raising hopes of a meeting with Joe Biden this year.
Japan’s top court has ruled that a legal clause requiring sterilisation surgery for those wanting to legally change their gender is unconstitutional.
Scientists have discovered why 350 endangered elephants dropped dead in Botswana’s Okavango delta in 2020, tying the mysterious event to a bacterial infection that has not previously been linked to elephant deaths.
Stat of the day: Nearly one in four Americans believe political violence is justified to ‘save’ the US
Support for political violence has increased over the past two years, according to the 14th annual American Values Survey, with about 23% of those questioned agreeing that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save” the US. Despite Joe Biden’s efforts to ease tensions, that proportion is up from 15% in 2021.
Don’t miss this: the ghost town of Tunisia
The population of Diyar al Hajjaj in Tunisia has halved in less than two years as its young people try again and again to cross the sea to Europe. About 15,500 Tunisians reached the Italian coast in 2022, making the nationality the second-most represented among asylum seekers in Italy. “Even when you work, your salary is nothing,” one man told the Guardian. “We have no future here. If you work in Europe, you have your rights. Here, nothing. Tunisia is a country of corruption. In Europe, there is a healthcare system, and it’s clean. To do an X-ray in Tunisia, you need to sell your house.”
… or this: the carrot wars of Cayama Valley
Two of the world’s largest carrot producers, Bolthouse Farms and Grimmway Farms, have filed a lawsuit requesting that a court decides just how much water the neighboring small farmers and cattle ranchers of California’s Cuyama Valley can use. If they do not appear in court, these valley residents on the frontline of a national groundwater depletion problem could lose their right to pump for ever.
Climate check: the irreversible risk tipping points of the climate crisis
UN researchers are warning that humanity is moving dangerously close to irreversible risk tipping points that would drastically damage our ability to cope with disasters such as flooding. Risk tipping points differ from climate tipping points, such as the collapse of the Amazon rainforest. Risk tipping points are more directly connected to people’s lives through complex social and ecological systems, while climate tipping points are large-scale changes driven by human-caused global heating. Some of these risk tipping points include the withdrawal of home insurance from flood-hit areas and the drying up of the groundwater that is vital for ensuring food supplies.
Last Thing: Lederhosen in the Amazon
Pozuzo village in Peru boasts of being the “only Austro-German colony in the world” – where Austrians from Tirol and Germans from Bavaria settled in the 19th century. The president at the time, Ramón Castilla, had valued the Austro-German agricultural practices and negotiated with the German baron Damian Schütz von Holzhausen to create a European colony in the Peruvian jungle.
Today, the descendants of those Austrian and German emigrants celebrate their unique history at Pozuzofest, an extravaganza of traditional dances, music, German craft beer, sausages and schnitzel.
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