Is inflation the key metric for winning the general election? – politicalbetting.com

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

A Met spokesperson said: “Youth Demand have stated an intention to ‘shut down’ London over the month of April using tactics including ‘swarming’ and roadblocks.

“While we absolutely recognise the importance of the right to protest, we have a responsibility to intervene to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality.

“On Thursday, officers raided a Youth Demand planning meeting where those in attendance were plotting their April action.

“Six people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.”

The force confirmed that a number of houses were also raided on Thursday and Friday as part of the same operation.

Youth Demand said the meeting was intended to be “an opportunity to share plans for non-violence civil resistance actions” and alleged that one of those arrested is a journalist.

The group has made anti-Israel demands central to its messaging, calling for the UK government to cut all trade with Israel and accusing it of enabling genocide. It also wants the state to raise money from “the super-rich and fossil fuel elite” to pay damages for the effects of fossil fuel burning.

A Youth Demand spokesperson said: “It’s clear that the government sees Youth Demand as a threat. They know that we are right.

“The government is facilitating genocide. Thousands of us are horrified.

“We will not be silenced. Young people all over the country are coming together to shut London down day after day throughout April.”

The group’s tactics have previously drawn criticism, including from within the Jewish community. In April last year, three activists hung a banner and laid rows of children’s shoes outside the home of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Lenorah Ward, 21, Zosia Lewis, 23, and Daniel Formentin, 24, were each handed suspended prison sentences over the stunt.

More arrests followed in July when Youth Demand announced plans to disrupt the State Opening of Parliament.

Despite the latest police intervention, the group is promoting another “welcome talk” in Brighton on Monday evening.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/youth-activists-arrested-over-plan-to-shut-down-london-in-anti-israel-campaign/

I do wonder what crime was broken by flying a banner and leaving shoes on the pavement. Littering?

Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 covers the harassment of a person at their home address if a police officer suspects it is causing alarm or distress to the occupant.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx77ljll077o

Three people have been found guilty of public order offences after a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside Sir Keir Starmer's house.

Leonorah Ward, 21, from Leeds; Zosia Lewis, 23, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and Daniel Formentin, 24, also from Leeds, were also found guilty of breaching court bail, but had denied all the charges.

It would be helpful if the press routinely told us which crime had been broken when reporting a trial. Even that report just calls it "public order offences". I also don't see how the above would cause "alarm or distress" to Sir Keir but his family probably see it differently. Maybe we need a better method of protecting the pavement outside his home.

Stereodog said:

Taz said:

Roger said:

MattW said:

TimS said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Stuartinromford said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

StillWaters said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Foxy said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house

It was a meeting of the group "Youth Demand" who rented a room at the Meeting House. They are protesting for a boycott of Israel and for climate action.

https://youthdemand.org/

And this as well

https://x.com/c_kletzer/status/1905888893737590924?
t=0ax4E2LsJ9FxEAZG7gXwuA&s=19

According to radio 4 they sent 80 emails in a 6 month period (basically one every 2 working days) having been banned from the school premises after challenging the appointment process for the head teacher and “casting aspersions” on the chair of the governors.

While the police may have been heavy handed it does seem like there could potentially be a case to answer on harassment

It's all a bit ‘hurty words’. One email every two days? I get more spam from LinkedIn than that. If you don't like particular emails then block them, don't read them. And the same advice to footballers and MPs.

Depends a bit what was in those emails. The bit we've been told is parents-with-media-connections questioning the way the new head was appointed. Without knowing the rest of the story, we can't tell whether the entirety of the messages was hurty words or worse.

And a school blocking emails from a parent is a plan with many drawbacks. If each of those emails needed a considered reply, that's going to take more management time than a primary school has going spare.

It seems the parents were a nuisance. However, if the content of the emails was abusive, defamatory or in any other way illegal, that would have been mentioned in the complaint and the investigation.

The fact the police dropped the investigation and concluded there was no case to answer suggests there’s nothing much there.

He’s an acquaintance of a friend so I’ll ask my friend to dig for a bit more on this.

To my ear on the Twitter vid he's a credible interviewee.

https://x.com/timesradio/status/1905693691416883419

By his account the arresting and interviewing officers had nothing more than a sketchy written complaint, and no evidence of the alleged crimes whatsoever.

Interesting. Just a finger in the air I didn't like him or trust him and found for the school with costs!! Just a few clues which everyone reads in different ways.....

Why ?

From the reporting this seems to be little more than the school getting annoyed at pushy parents and using the Police against them. There was no crime and no evidence of a crime.

Absolutely. I work in a job where I have to deal with vexatious or abusive emails on a daily basis. With the time wasting ones (my most long running one is from someone who wants his claim to the throne acknowledged) I eventually tell the person that their emails will be read but not answered unless there is something material to add to their case. In the past week I have been called a scumbag and a "leach hanging off the public teat" (I rather liked that one). The only email I've ever reported to the police is one where the sender said they were going to stand outside a government department and start stabbing people.

Stereodog said:

JosiasJessop said:

MattW said:

TimS said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Stuartinromford said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

StillWaters said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Foxy said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house

It was a meeting of the group "Youth Demand" who rented a room at the Meeting House. They are protesting for a boycott of Israel and for climate action.

https://youthdemand.org/

And this as well

https://x.com/c_kletzer/status/1905888893737590924?
t=0ax4E2LsJ9FxEAZG7gXwuA&s=19

According to radio 4 they sent 80 emails in a 6 month period (basically one every 2 working days) having been banned from the school premises after challenging the appointment process for the head teacher and “casting aspersions” on the chair of the governors.

While the police may have been heavy handed it does seem like there could potentially be a case to answer on harassment

It's all a bit ‘hurty words’. One email every two days? I get more spam from LinkedIn than that. If you don't like particular emails then block them, don't read them. And the same advice to footballers and MPs.

Depends a bit what was in those emails. The bit we've been told is parents-with-media-connections questioning the way the new head was appointed. Without knowing the rest of the story, we can't tell whether the entirety of the messages was hurty words or worse.

And a school blocking emails from a parent is a plan with many drawbacks. If each of those emails needed a considered reply, that's going to take more management time than a primary school has going spare.

It seems the parents were a nuisance. However, if the content of the emails was abusive, defamatory or in any other way illegal, that would have been mentioned in the complaint and the investigation.

The fact the police dropped the investigation and concluded there was no case to answer suggests there’s nothing much there.

He’s an acquaintance of a friend so I’ll ask my friend to dig for a bit more on this.

To my ear on the Twitter vid he's a credible interviewee.

https://x.com/timesradio/status/1905693691416883419

By his account the arresting and interviewing officers had nothing more than a sketchy written complaint, and no evidence of the alleged crimes whatsoever.

IMV if there was anything that could be construed as a threat against the school, or its staff, then it blooming well should be investigated. Even something like: "the head should be shot!", which might just be hyperbole, should provoke questioning. Those questions may well lead to no further action, but ignoring that sort of thing might lead to disaster in other situations, where someone says something that proves not to be hyperbole.

The police can face difficult decisions in cases like this. Much depends on what exactly was said in the emails, and I'm unsure the parents might be the most impartial 'witnesses', and you'd need to see the full chain of comments, not just the ones they choose to show. ...

Even if something needs investigation it doesn't need six police officers going to the house and trying to take them out in handcuffs. Whatever these people have done it should be immediately apparent to the school that they're not a terrorist cell

OldKingCole said:

Morning All!
Intelligence from Bangkok, courtesy of my son, who phoned half an hour of so ago.
Everything seems back to normal now, apart from in the area of the collapsed building. His daughter's school was disrupted; lessons stopped and as city transport was in a mess, it took his two daughters ages to get home. Suvarnabhumi, the main Bangkok Airport was briefly closed and he was half an hour late leaving Taiwan. One of his daughters has texted Mrs C to say that some of her friends who live in apartment blocks have cracked walls but no-one seems to be moving out, at least at the moment.

OldKingCole said:

Stereodog said:

Taz said:

Roger said:

MattW said:

TimS said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Stuartinromford said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

StillWaters said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Foxy said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house

It was a meeting of the group "Youth Demand" who rented a room at the Meeting House. They are protesting for a boycott of Israel and for climate action.

https://youthdemand.org/

And this as well

https://x.com/c_kletzer/status/1905888893737590924?
t=0ax4E2LsJ9FxEAZG7gXwuA&s=19

According to radio 4 they sent 80 emails in a 6 month period (basically one every 2 working days) having been banned from the school premises after challenging the appointment process for the head teacher and “casting aspersions” on the chair of the governors.

While the police may have been heavy handed it does seem like there could potentially be a case to answer on harassment

It's all a bit ‘hurty words’. One email every two days? I get more spam from LinkedIn than that. If you don't like particular emails then block them, don't read them. And the same advice to footballers and MPs.

Depends a bit what was in those emails. The bit we've been told is parents-with-media-connections questioning the way the new head was appointed. Without knowing the rest of the story, we can't tell whether the entirety of the messages was hurty words or worse.

And a school blocking emails from a parent is a plan with many drawbacks. If each of those emails needed a considered reply, that's going to take more management time than a primary school has going spare.

It seems the parents were a nuisance. However, if the content of the emails was abusive, defamatory or in any other way illegal, that would have been mentioned in the complaint and the investigation.

The fact the police dropped the investigation and concluded there was no case to answer suggests there’s nothing much there.

He’s an acquaintance of a friend so I’ll ask my friend to dig for a bit more on this.

To my ear on the Twitter vid he's a credible interviewee.

https://x.com/timesradio/status/1905693691416883419

By his account the arresting and interviewing officers had nothing more than a sketchy written complaint, and no evidence of the alleged crimes whatsoever.

Interesting. Just a finger in the air I didn't like him or trust him and found for the school with costs!! Just a few clues which everyone reads in different ways.....

Why ?

From the reporting this seems to be little more than the school getting annoyed at pushy parents and using the Police against them. There was no crime and no evidence of a crime.

Absolutely. I work in a job where I have to deal with vexatious or abusive emails on a daily basis. With the time wasting ones (my most long running one is from someone who wants his claim to the throne acknowledged) I eventually tell the person that their emails will be read but not answered unless there is something material to add to their case. In the past week I have been called a scumbag and a "leach hanging off the public teat" (I rather liked that one). The only email I've ever reported to the police is one where the sender said they were going to stand outside a government department and start stabbing people.

'Leech' is spelled thus in this context.
With a job like that, if you didn't laugh, you'd cry. Sympathies.

JohnLilburne said:

ydoethur said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

A Met spokesperson said: “Youth Demand have stated an intention to ‘shut down’ London over the month of April using tactics including ‘swarming’ and roadblocks.

“While we absolutely recognise the importance of the right to protest, we have a responsibility to intervene to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality.

“On Thursday, officers raided a Youth Demand planning meeting where those in attendance were plotting their April action.

“Six people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.”

The force confirmed that a number of houses were also raided on Thursday and Friday as part of the same operation.

Youth Demand said the meeting was intended to be “an opportunity to share plans for non-violence civil resistance actions” and alleged that one of those arrested is a journalist.

The group has made anti-Israel demands central to its messaging, calling for the UK government to cut all trade with Israel and accusing it of enabling genocide. It also wants the state to raise money from “the super-rich and fossil fuel elite” to pay damages for the effects of fossil fuel burning.

A Youth Demand spokesperson said: “It’s clear that the government sees Youth Demand as a threat. They know that we are right.

“The government is facilitating genocide. Thousands of us are horrified.

“We will not be silenced. Young people all over the country are coming together to shut London down day after day throughout April.”

The group’s tactics have previously drawn criticism, including from within the Jewish community. In April last year, three activists hung a banner and laid rows of children’s shoes outside the home of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Lenorah Ward, 21, Zosia Lewis, 23, and Daniel Formentin, 24, were each handed suspended prison sentences over the stunt.

More arrests followed in July when Youth Demand announced plans to disrupt the State Opening of Parliament.

Despite the latest police intervention, the group is promoting another “welcome talk” in Brighton on Monday evening.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/youth-activists-arrested-over-plan-to-shut-down-london-in-anti-israel-campaign/

I do wonder what crime was broken by flying a banner and leaving shoes on the pavement. Littering?

Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 covers the harassment of a person at their home address if a police officer suspects it is causing alarm or distress to the occupant.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx77ljll077o

Three people have been found guilty of public order offences after a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside Sir Keir Starmer's house.

Leonorah Ward, 21, from Leeds; Zosia Lewis, 23, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and Daniel Formentin, 24, also from Leeds, were also found guilty of breaching court bail, but had denied all the charges.

It would be helpful if the press routinely told us which crime had been broken when reporting a trial. Even that report just calls it "public order offences". I also don't see how the above would cause "alarm or distress" to Sir Keir but his family probably see it differently. Maybe we need a better method of protecting the pavement outside his home.

It might be worth remembering that Starmer's wife and children are Jewish.

We are not told what was on the banner, so we can't make our own judgment about whether it was offensive or not. Presumably it didn't pass the test for anti-semitism or they would have been charged with a hate crime. Protesting against the actions of a sovereign state should not be a crime.

Mexicanpete said:

...

Scott_xP said:

WTAF???

@NOELreports

🇺🇸 Fox News host Jesse Watters: “We don’t need friends. If we have to burn some bridges with Denmark to take Greenland, so be it. We’re big boys. We dropped bombs on Japan, and now they’re our ally. America isn’t handcuffed by history.”

https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1905927108712386791

He is quite possibly the World's biggest w*nker.

I actually quite enjoy his spinning Trump Emperor's New Clothes madness into a positive, whilst at the same time sneering at those who just see an orange man naked except for a diaper.

Nigelb said:

Things might get a bit pear shaped in the US pharma industry.

Peter Marks pushed out of FDA by RFK Jr.

As much as I’ve been critical of some of his approval decisions, Marks’ forced exit spells doom for the FDA.

This is bad, folks. Really bad.

Biotech and pharma are about to enter the darkest of places.
https://x.com/adamfeuerstein/status/1905794129277210997

Feuerstein is a pretty shrewd industry journalist.

Mexicanpete said:

Do we all think that whatever the topic header and domestic strife in the UK every PB thread circa 1935 would quickly move to discussing Hitler insanity?

JohnLilburne said:

ydoethur said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

A Met spokesperson said: “Youth Demand have stated an intention to ‘shut down’ London over the month of April using tactics including ‘swarming’ and roadblocks.

“While we absolutely recognise the importance of the right to protest, we have a responsibility to intervene to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality.

“On Thursday, officers raided a Youth Demand planning meeting where those in attendance were plotting their April action.

“Six people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.”

The force confirmed that a number of houses were also raided on Thursday and Friday as part of the same operation.

Youth Demand said the meeting was intended to be “an opportunity to share plans for non-violence civil resistance actions” and alleged that one of those arrested is a journalist.

The group has made anti-Israel demands central to its messaging, calling for the UK government to cut all trade with Israel and accusing it of enabling genocide. It also wants the state to raise money from “the super-rich and fossil fuel elite” to pay damages for the effects of fossil fuel burning.

A Youth Demand spokesperson said: “It’s clear that the government sees Youth Demand as a threat. They know that we are right.

“The government is facilitating genocide. Thousands of us are horrified.

“We will not be silenced. Young people all over the country are coming together to shut London down day after day throughout April.”

The group’s tactics have previously drawn criticism, including from within the Jewish community. In April last year, three activists hung a banner and laid rows of children’s shoes outside the home of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Lenorah Ward, 21, Zosia Lewis, 23, and Daniel Formentin, 24, were each handed suspended prison sentences over the stunt.

More arrests followed in July when Youth Demand announced plans to disrupt the State Opening of Parliament.

Despite the latest police intervention, the group is promoting another “welcome talk” in Brighton on Monday evening.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/youth-activists-arrested-over-plan-to-shut-down-london-in-anti-israel-campaign/

I do wonder what crime was broken by flying a banner and leaving shoes on the pavement. Littering?

Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 covers the harassment of a person at their home address if a police officer suspects it is causing alarm or distress to the occupant.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx77ljll077o

Three people have been found guilty of public order offences after a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside Sir Keir Starmer's house.

Leonorah Ward, 21, from Leeds; Zosia Lewis, 23, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and Daniel Formentin, 24, also from Leeds, were also found guilty of breaching court bail, but had denied all the charges.

It would be helpful if the press routinely told us which crime had been broken when reporting a trial. Even that report just calls it "public order offences". I also don't see how the above would cause "alarm or distress" to Sir Keir but his family probably see it differently. Maybe we need a better method of protecting the pavement outside his home.

It might be worth remembering that Starmer's wife and children are Jewish.

We are not told what was on the banner, so we can't make our own judgment about whether it was offensive or not. Presumably it didn't pass the test for anti-semitism or they would have been charged with a hate crime. Protesting against the actions of a sovereign state should not be a crime.

Daveyboy1961 said:

OldKingCole said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

OldKingCole said:

Morning All!
Intelligence from Bangkok, courtesy of my son, who phoned half an hour of so ago.
Everything seems back to normal now, apart from in the area of the collapsed building. His daughter's school was disrupted; lessons stopped and as city transport was in a mess, it took his two daughters ages to get home. Suvarnabhumi, the main Bangkok Airport was briefly closed and he was half an hour late leaving Taiwan. One of his daughters has texted Mrs C to say that some of her friends who live in apartment blocks have cracked walls but no-one seems to be moving out, at least at the moment.

Do we know how long it took for the tremors to go from Mandalay to Bangkok?

I ask because the Sky News reporter was stirring up trouble about Bangkok not receiving a warning..

Sorry I had to edit spelling..

I don't, and I haven't seen anything which might give a clue.

Which spelling? And we both missed something else 'hour of so ago'!

Bangcock

OldKingCole said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

OldKingCole said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

OldKingCole said:

Morning All!
Intelligence from Bangkok, courtesy of my son, who phoned half an hour of so ago.
Everything seems back to normal now, apart from in the area of the collapsed building. His daughter's school was disrupted; lessons stopped and as city transport was in a mess, it took his two daughters ages to get home. Suvarnabhumi, the main Bangkok Airport was briefly closed and he was half an hour late leaving Taiwan. One of his daughters has texted Mrs C to say that some of her friends who live in apartment blocks have cracked walls but no-one seems to be moving out, at least at the moment.

Do we know how long it took for the tremors to go from Mandalay to Bangkok?

I ask because the Sky News reporter was stirring up trouble about Bangkok not receiving a warning..

Sorry I had to edit spelling..

I don't, and I haven't seen anything which might give a clue.

Which spelling? And we both missed something else 'hour of so ago'!

Bangcock

Freudian, but I can't see where I did it.

ydoethur said:

Mexicanpete said:

Do we all think that whatever the topic header and domestic strife in the UK every PB thread circa 1935 would quickly move to discussing Hitler insanity?

Hitler wasn't directly threatening British security in 1935, or at least, didn't appear to be. Regardless of his campaigns of mass murder and racial intimidation it is unlikely most people had him on the radar as a serious threat. He even failed in his first attempt at seizing Austria in 1934.

The parallel with 1936 after the reoccupation of the Rhineland and the forming of the Rome-Berlin axis would be closer.

Taz said:

Roger said:

MattW said:

TimS said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Stuartinromford said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

StillWaters said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Foxy said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house

It was a meeting of the group "Youth Demand" who rented a room at the Meeting House. They are protesting for a boycott of Israel and for climate action.

https://youthdemand.org/

And this as well

https://x.com/c_kletzer/status/1905888893737590924?
t=0ax4E2LsJ9FxEAZG7gXwuA&s=19

According to radio 4 they sent 80 emails in a 6 month period (basically one every 2 working days) having been banned from the school premises after challenging the appointment process for the head teacher and “casting aspersions” on the chair of the governors.

While the police may have been heavy handed it does seem like there could potentially be a case to answer on harassment

It's all a bit ‘hurty words’. One email every two days? I get more spam from LinkedIn than that. If you don't like particular emails then block them, don't read them. And the same advice to footballers and MPs.

Depends a bit what was in those emails. The bit we've been told is parents-with-media-connections questioning the way the new head was appointed. Without knowing the rest of the story, we can't tell whether the entirety of the messages was hurty words or worse.

And a school blocking emails from a parent is a plan with many drawbacks. If each of those emails needed a considered reply, that's going to take more management time than a primary school has going spare.

It seems the parents were a nuisance. However, if the content of the emails was abusive, defamatory or in any other way illegal, that would have been mentioned in the complaint and the investigation.

The fact the police dropped the investigation and concluded there was no case to answer suggests there’s nothing much there.

He’s an acquaintance of a friend so I’ll ask my friend to dig for a bit more on this.

To my ear on the Twitter vid he's a credible interviewee.

https://x.com/timesradio/status/1905693691416883419

By his account the arresting and interviewing officers had nothing more than a sketchy written complaint, and no evidence of the alleged crimes whatsoever.

Interesting. Just a finger in the air I didn't like him or trust him and found for the school with costs!! Just a few clues which everyone reads in different ways.....

Why ?

From the reporting this seems to be little more than the school getting annoyed at pushy parents and using the Police against them. There was no crime and no evidence of a crime.

Foxy said:

StillWaters said:

Foxy said:

MattW said:

Eabhal said:

Foxy said:

Malmesbury said:

Foxy said:

StillWaters said:

Foxy said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house

It was a meeting of the group "Youth Demand" who rented a room at the Meeting House. They are protesting for a boycott of Israel and for climate action.

https://youthdemand.org/

They are the ones who are “planning to shut down London… for a month straight”, right?

In direct violation of the “just stop oil” legislation?

Sounds like they were arrested while planning a crime rather than exercising their free speech.

And they weren’t Quakers about their worship, they had just rented a meeting room.

Yes, planning a protest is now a crime. Unless of course you are a farmer worried about tax.

Planning a protest in concert with the local authorities and police to meet established guidelines for organised protest in one thing

Planning to obstruct or damage infrastructure is another.

I speak as one who helped plan protests (of the former type) when at university. Generally for causes I opposed.

*I think it was Wellington who said that any damn fool could get 10,000 people into Hyde Park. But it would take a general to get them out, again.

Only protests that the police and government approve of.

What sort of right to protest is that?

If protesters commit crimes of criminal damage then arrest them. Not for thought crime.

Trump's state visit is going to cause massive issues for the government in this regard. The security required for an unpopular US President will mean the "guidelines" will prohibit demonstrations across a whole swathe of central of London.

The new law mean the police can prohibit a protest if it's too noisy - does that include trying to drown out the US national anthem? This is the real free speech issue in the UK right now.

The Trumpski protest I want to see is 2 miles of onlookers down both sides of the road with a wave of moons following Mr Trump as his motorcade passes by.

Not one to try in Scotland, though. They'd pull in 8365 policemen from somewhere for a moon.

Planning such a protest makes you liable to arrest.

Only protests that the government and police approve of are now legal.

You are eliding concepts to mislead

The government and the police don’t care about the *subject* of the protest

They do care about ensuring the correct safety and other procedures are followed including pre-notification.

That is a reasonable balance between the rights of the uninvolved citizen and the right
to protest.

It’s just a different form of not having the right to shout “fire” in a crossed theatre

I think the government do care about the subject of protests, and enforce the law unequally.

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

JohnLilburne said:

ydoethur said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

A Met spokesperson said: “Youth Demand have stated an intention to ‘shut down’ London over the month of April using tactics including ‘swarming’ and roadblocks.

“While we absolutely recognise the importance of the right to protest, we have a responsibility to intervene to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality.

“On Thursday, officers raided a Youth Demand planning meeting where those in attendance were plotting their April action.

“Six people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.”

The force confirmed that a number of houses were also raided on Thursday and Friday as part of the same operation.

Youth Demand said the meeting was intended to be “an opportunity to share plans for non-violence civil resistance actions” and alleged that one of those arrested is a journalist.

The group has made anti-Israel demands central to its messaging, calling for the UK government to cut all trade with Israel and accusing it of enabling genocide. It also wants the state to raise money from “the super-rich and fossil fuel elite” to pay damages for the effects of fossil fuel burning.

A Youth Demand spokesperson said: “It’s clear that the government sees Youth Demand as a threat. They know that we are right.

“The government is facilitating genocide. Thousands of us are horrified.

“We will not be silenced. Young people all over the country are coming together to shut London down day after day throughout April.”

The group’s tactics have previously drawn criticism, including from within the Jewish community. In April last year, three activists hung a banner and laid rows of children’s shoes outside the home of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Lenorah Ward, 21, Zosia Lewis, 23, and Daniel Formentin, 24, were each handed suspended prison sentences over the stunt.

More arrests followed in July when Youth Demand announced plans to disrupt the State Opening of Parliament.

Despite the latest police intervention, the group is promoting another “welcome talk” in Brighton on Monday evening.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/youth-activists-arrested-over-plan-to-shut-down-london-in-anti-israel-campaign/

I do wonder what crime was broken by flying a banner and leaving shoes on the pavement. Littering?

Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 covers the harassment of a person at their home address if a police officer suspects it is causing alarm or distress to the occupant.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx77ljll077o

Three people have been found guilty of public order offences after a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside Sir Keir Starmer's house.

Leonorah Ward, 21, from Leeds; Zosia Lewis, 23, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and Daniel Formentin, 24, also from Leeds, were also found guilty of breaching court bail, but had denied all the charges.

It would be helpful if the press routinely told us which crime had been broken when reporting a trial. Even that report just calls it "public order offences". I also don't see how the above would cause "alarm or distress" to Sir Keir but his family probably see it differently. Maybe we need a better method of protecting the pavement outside his home.

It might be worth remembering that Starmer's wife and children are Jewish.

We are not told what was on the banner, so we can't make our own judgment about whether it was offensive or not. Presumably it didn't pass the test for anti-semitism or they would have been charged with a hate crime. Protesting against the actions of a sovereign state should not be a crime.

a banner outside the London property that read, “Starmer stop the killing”, surrounded by red handprints

Here I admit I didn't scroll down far enough, although that banner is clearly not offensive

williamglenn said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

JohnLilburne said:

ydoethur said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

A Met spokesperson said: “Youth Demand have stated an intention to ‘shut down’ London over the month of April using tactics including ‘swarming’ and roadblocks.

“While we absolutely recognise the importance of the right to protest, we have a responsibility to intervene to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality.

“On Thursday, officers raided a Youth Demand planning meeting where those in attendance were plotting their April action.

“Six people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.”

The force confirmed that a number of houses were also raided on Thursday and Friday as part of the same operation.

Youth Demand said the meeting was intended to be “an opportunity to share plans for non-violence civil resistance actions” and alleged that one of those arrested is a journalist.

The group has made anti-Israel demands central to its messaging, calling for the UK government to cut all trade with Israel and accusing it of enabling genocide. It also wants the state to raise money from “the super-rich and fossil fuel elite” to pay damages for the effects of fossil fuel burning.

A Youth Demand spokesperson said: “It’s clear that the government sees Youth Demand as a threat. They know that we are right.

“The government is facilitating genocide. Thousands of us are horrified.

“We will not be silenced. Young people all over the country are coming together to shut London down day after day throughout April.”

The group’s tactics have previously drawn criticism, including from within the Jewish community. In April last year, three activists hung a banner and laid rows of children’s shoes outside the home of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Lenorah Ward, 21, Zosia Lewis, 23, and Daniel Formentin, 24, were each handed suspended prison sentences over the stunt.

More arrests followed in July when Youth Demand announced plans to disrupt the State Opening of Parliament.

Despite the latest police intervention, the group is promoting another “welcome talk” in Brighton on Monday evening.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/youth-activists-arrested-over-plan-to-shut-down-london-in-anti-israel-campaign/

I do wonder what crime was broken by flying a banner and leaving shoes on the pavement. Littering?

Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 covers the harassment of a person at their home address if a police officer suspects it is causing alarm or distress to the occupant.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx77ljll077o

Three people have been found guilty of public order offences after a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside Sir Keir Starmer's house.

Leonorah Ward, 21, from Leeds; Zosia Lewis, 23, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and Daniel Formentin, 24, also from Leeds, were also found guilty of breaching court bail, but had denied all the charges.

It would be helpful if the press routinely told us which crime had been broken when reporting a trial. Even that report just calls it "public order offences". I also don't see how the above would cause "alarm or distress" to Sir Keir but his family probably see it differently. Maybe we need a better method of protecting the pavement outside his home.

It might be worth remembering that Starmer's wife and children are Jewish.

We are not told what was on the banner, so we can't make our own judgment about whether it was offensive or not. Presumably it didn't pass the test for anti-semitism or they would have been charged with a hate crime. Protesting against the actions of a sovereign state should not be a crime.

a banner outside the London property that read, “Starmer stop the killing”, surrounded by red handprints

Here I admit I didn't scroll down far enough, although that banner is clearly not offensive

Not offensive to suggest that Starmer has blood on his hands?

Daveyboy1961 said:

OldKingCole said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

OldKingCole said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

OldKingCole said:

Morning All!
Intelligence from Bangkok, courtesy of my son, who phoned half an hour of so ago.
Everything seems back to normal now, apart from in the area of the collapsed building. His daughter's school was disrupted; lessons stopped and as city transport was in a mess, it took his two daughters ages to get home. Suvarnabhumi, the main Bangkok Airport was briefly closed and he was half an hour late leaving Taiwan. One of his daughters has texted Mrs C to say that some of her friends who live in apartment blocks have cracked walls but no-one seems to be moving out, at least at the moment.

Do we know how long it took for the tremors to go from Mandalay to Bangkok?

I ask because the Sky News reporter was stirring up trouble about Bangkok not receiving a warning..

Sorry I had to edit spelling..

I don't, and I haven't seen anything which might give a clue.

Which spelling? And we both missed something else 'hour of so ago'!

Bangcock

Freudian, but I can't see where I did it.

No, it was my spelling mistake. I wouldn't dream of editing other people's posts.

kjh said:

I guess it is different things for different people. I have certainly heard it said that people who are bullied sometimes become bullies as a consequence, but is it true? I would anticipate it should have the opposite effect.

I was never bullied so I don't know, but as a child I was hit by my father for being naughty and swore I would never do that to my children. I put it down to it being more common in those days (50s & 60s), although since then I have found out that it didn't happen to others of my age and unlike others I was never punished at school, whereas many of my friends were (cane, slipper, ruler, etc), so I couldn't have been that awful as a kid.

Roger said:

Scott_xP said:

WTAF???

@NOELreports

🇺🇸 Fox News host Jesse Watters: “We don’t need friends. If we have to burn some bridges with Denmark to take Greenland, so be it. We’re big boys. We dropped bombs on Japan, and now they’re our ally. America isn’t handcuffed by history.”

https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1905927108712386791

Time to batten down the hatches. If our principal ally has gone rogue we neen a new one. China or the EU. I'd prefer either to Trump's America

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

A Met spokesperson said: “Youth Demand have stated an intention to ‘shut down’ London over the month of April using tactics including ‘swarming’ and roadblocks.

“While we absolutely recognise the importance of the right to protest, we have a responsibility to intervene to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality.

“On Thursday, officers raided a Youth Demand planning meeting where those in attendance were plotting their April action.

“Six people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.”

The force confirmed that a number of houses were also raided on Thursday and Friday as part of the same operation.

Youth Demand said the meeting was intended to be “an opportunity to share plans for non-violence civil resistance actions” and alleged that one of those arrested is a journalist.

The group has made anti-Israel demands central to its messaging, calling for the UK government to cut all trade with Israel and accusing it of enabling genocide. It also wants the state to raise money from “the super-rich and fossil fuel elite” to pay damages for the effects of fossil fuel burning.

A Youth Demand spokesperson said: “It’s clear that the government sees Youth Demand as a threat. They know that we are right.

“The government is facilitating genocide. Thousands of us are horrified.

“We will not be silenced. Young people all over the country are coming together to shut London down day after day throughout April.”

The group’s tactics have previously drawn criticism, including from within the Jewish community. In April last year, three activists hung a banner and laid rows of children’s shoes outside the home of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Lenorah Ward, 21, Zosia Lewis, 23, and Daniel Formentin, 24, were each handed suspended prison sentences over the stunt.

More arrests followed in July when Youth Demand announced plans to disrupt the State Opening of Parliament.

Despite the latest police intervention, the group is promoting another “welcome talk” in Brighton on Monday evening.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/youth-activists-arrested-over-plan-to-shut-down-london-in-anti-israel-campaign/

I do wonder what crime was broken by flying a banner and leaving shoes on the pavement. Littering?

Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 covers the harassment of a person at their home address if a police officer suspects it is causing alarm or distress to the occupant.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx77ljll077o

Three people have been found guilty of public order offences after a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside Sir Keir Starmer's house.

Leonorah Ward, 21, from Leeds; Zosia
Lewis, 23, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and Daniel Formentin, 24, also from Leeds, were also found guilty of breaching court bail, but had denied all the charges.

It would be helpful if the press routinely told us which crime had been broken when reporting a trial. Even that report just calls it "public order offences". I also don't see how the above would cause "alarm or distress" to Sir Keir but his family probably see it differently. Maybe we need a better method of protecting the pavement outside his home.

Mexicanpete said:

williamglenn said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

JohnLilburne said:

ydoethur said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

JohnLilburne said:

kamski said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

A Met spokesperson said: “Youth Demand have stated an intention to ‘shut down’ London over the month of April using tactics including ‘swarming’ and roadblocks.

“While we absolutely recognise the importance of the right to protest, we have a responsibility to intervene to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality.

“On Thursday, officers raided a Youth Demand planning meeting where those in attendance were plotting their April action.

“Six people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.”

The force confirmed that a number of houses were also raided on Thursday and Friday as part of the same operation.

Youth Demand said the meeting was intended to be “an opportunity to share plans for non-violence civil resistance actions” and alleged that one of those arrested is a journalist.

The group has made anti-Israel demands central to its messaging, calling for the UK government to cut all trade with Israel and accusing it of enabling genocide. It also wants the state to raise money from “the super-rich and fossil fuel elite” to pay damages for the effects of fossil fuel burning.

A Youth Demand spokesperson said: “It’s clear that the government sees Youth Demand as a threat. They know that we are right.

“The government is facilitating genocide. Thousands of us are horrified.

“We will not be silenced. Young people all over the country are coming together to shut London down day after day throughout April.”

The group’s tactics have previously drawn criticism, including from within the Jewish community. In April last year, three activists hung a banner and laid rows of children’s shoes outside the home of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Lenorah Ward, 21, Zosia Lewis, 23, and Daniel Formentin, 24, were each handed suspended prison sentences over the stunt.

More arrests followed in July when Youth Demand announced plans to disrupt the State Opening of Parliament.

Despite the latest police intervention, the group is promoting another “welcome talk” in Brighton on Monday evening.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/youth-activists-arrested-over-plan-to-shut-down-london-in-anti-israel-campaign/

I do wonder what crime was broken by flying a banner and leaving shoes on the pavement. Littering?

Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 covers the harassment of a person at their home address if a police officer suspects it is causing alarm or distress to the occupant.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx77ljll077o

Three people have been found guilty of public order offences after a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside Sir Keir Starmer's house.

Leonorah Ward, 21, from Leeds; Zosia Lewis, 23, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and Daniel Formentin, 24, also from Leeds, were also found guilty of breaching court bail, but had denied all the charges.

It would be helpful if the press routinely told us which crime had been broken when reporting a trial. Even that report just calls it "public order offences". I also don't see how the above would cause "alarm or distress" to Sir Keir but his family probably see it differently. Maybe we need a better method of protecting the pavement outside his home.

It might be worth remembering that Starmer's wife and children are Jewish.

We are not told what was on the banner, so we can't make our own judgment about whether it was offensive or not. Presumably it didn't pass the test for anti-semitism or they would have been charged with a hate crime. Protesting against the actions of a sovereign state should not be a crime.

a banner outside the London property that read, “Starmer stop the killing”, surrounded by red handprints

Here I admit I didn't scroll down far enough, although that banner is clearly not offensive

Not offensive to suggest that Starmer has blood on his hands?

50,000 dead Gazans might endorse that message.

No smoke, no fire and Jonathan Ashworth would still be an MP if the message didn't resonate.

TimS said:

Nigelb said:

Things might get a bit pear shaped in the US pharma industry.

Peter Marks pushed out of FDA by RFK Jr.

As much as I’ve been critical of some of his approval decisions, Marks’ forced exit spells doom for the FDA.

This is bad, folks. Really bad.

Biotech and pharma are about to enter the darkest of places.
https://x.com/adamfeuerstein/status/1905794129277210997

Feuerstein is a pretty shrewd industry journalist.

Time for some well targeted UK R&D grants.

Nigelb said:

ydoethur said:

Roger said:

Scott_xP said:

WTAF???

@NOELreports

🇺🇸 Fox News host Jesse Watters: “We don’t need friends. If we have to burn some bridges with Denmark to take Greenland, so be it. We’re big boys. We dropped bombs on Japan, and now they’re our ally. America isn’t handcuffed by history.”

https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1905927108712386791

Time to batten down the hatches. If our principal ally has gone rogue we neen a new one. China or the EU. I'd prefer either to Trump's America

You can't despise Trump more than I do, but to suggest what America under Trump is doing is as bad as what China is doing to the Uighers and Tibetans, or indeed the people of Hong Kong, is simply nonsensical. Cosying up to China to distance ourselves from America would be like trying to bargain with a rattlesnake to take on an enormous blundering elephant.

We can't disengage from either, obviously, and will continue to deal with both.
It's rather that our relationship with the US is being rapidly redefined, and the end state is unclear.

TimS said:

Just looked at the partial solar eclipse. Through 2 pairs of sunglasses, which probably wasn’t enough to spare me irreparable long term retinal damage, but hey ho.

Taz said:

This, from Reform, is utterly cringe.

https://x.com/accidentalp/status/1905883994937319567?s=61

Stereodog said:

OldKingCole said:

Stereodog said:

Taz said:

Roger said:

MattW said:

TimS said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Stuartinromford said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

StillWaters said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Foxy said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house

It was a meeting of the group "Youth Demand" who rented a room at the Meeting House. They are protesting for a boycott of Israel and for climate action.

https://youthdemand.org/

And this as well

https://x.com/c_kletzer/status/1905888893737590924?
t=0ax4E2LsJ9FxEAZG7gXwuA&s=19

According to radio 4 they sent 80 emails in a 6 month period (basically one every 2 working days) having been banned from the school premises after challenging the appointment process for the head teacher and “casting aspersions” on the chair of the governors.

While the police may have been heavy handed it does seem like there could potentially be a case to answer on harassment

It's all a bit ‘hurty words’. One email every two days? I get more spam from LinkedIn than that. If you don't like particular emails then block them, don't read them. And the same advice to footballers and MPs.

Depends a bit what was in those emails. The bit we've been told is parents-with-media-connections questioning the way the new head was appointed. Without knowing the rest of the story, we can't tell whether the entirety of the messages was hurty words or worse.

And a school blocking emails from a parent is a plan with many drawbacks. If each of those emails needed a considered reply, that's going to take more management time than a primary school has going spare.

It seems the parents were a nuisance. However, if the content of the emails was abusive, defamatory or in any other way illegal, that would have been mentioned in the complaint and the investigation.

The fact the police dropped the investigation and concluded there was no case to answer suggests there’s nothing much there.

He’s an acquaintance of a friend so I’ll ask my friend to dig for a bit more on this.

To my ear on the Twitter vid he's a credible interviewee.

https://x.com/timesradio/status/1905693691416883419

By his account the arresting and interviewing officers had nothing more than a sketchy written complaint, and no evidence of the alleged crimes whatsoever.

Interesting. Just a finger in the air I didn't like him or trust him and found for the school with costs!! Just a few clues which everyone reads in different ways.....

Why ?

From the reporting this seems to be little more than the school getting annoyed at pushy parents and using the Police against them. There was no crime and no evidence of a crime.

Absolutely. I work in a job where I have to deal with vexatious or abusive emails on a daily basis. With the time wasting ones (my most long running one is from someone who wants his claim to the throne acknowledged) I eventually tell the person that their emails will be read but not answered unless there is something material to add to their case. In the past week I have been called a scumbag and a "leach hanging off the public teat" (I rather liked that one). The only email I've ever reported to the police is one where the sender said they were going to stand outside a government department and start stabbing people.

'Leech' is spelled thus in this context.
With a job like that, if you didn't laugh, you'd cry. Sympathies.

It was a direct quote 😉. It sounds snobbish but doing a public facing job doesn't give you a good impression of the education system.

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Just looked at the partial solar eclipse. Through 2 pairs of sunglasses, which probably wasn’t enough to spare me irreparable long term retinal damage, but hey ho.

Clear view here but not very impressive.

TimS said:

Nigelb said:

Things might get a bit pear shaped in the US pharma industry.

Peter Marks pushed out of FDA by RFK Jr.

As much as I’ve been critical of some of his approval decisions, Marks’ forced exit spells doom for the FDA.

This is bad, folks. Really bad.

Biotech and pharma are about to enter the darkest of places.
https://x.com/adamfeuerstein/status/1905794129277210997

Feuerstein is a pretty shrewd industry journalist.

Time for some well targeted UK R&D grants.

TimS said:

rottenborough said:

TimS said:

Nigelb said:

Things might get a bit pear shaped in the US pharma industry.

Peter Marks pushed out of FDA by RFK Jr.

As much as I’ve been critical of some of his approval decisions, Marks’ forced exit spells doom for the FDA.

This is bad, folks. Really bad.

Biotech and pharma are about to enter the darkest of places.
https://x.com/adamfeuerstein/status/1905794129277210997

Feuerstein is a pretty shrewd industry journalist.

Time for some well targeted UK R&D grants.

Yep. Huge growth opportunity and we already have strong pharma R&D.

Some heroically optimistic Trump economic upsides for Europe:

- cheap avocados and tequila from Mexico, strong bread flour, maple syrup and heavy crude from Canada
- brain drain of academics from US universities (and more pertinently a slowdown in the brain drain to US universities)
- increased capital investment from Canadian multinationals and their huge pension funds into European assets
- growing European defence industry
- Lower oil prices, and suppressed inflation if USD weakens and US demand softens

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Stereodog said:

OldKingCole said:

Stereodog said:

Taz said:

Roger said:

MattW said:

TimS said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Stuartinromford said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

StillWaters said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Foxy said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house

It was a meeting of the group "Youth Demand" who rented a room at the Meeting House. They are protesting for a boycott of Israel and for climate action.

https://youthdemand.org/

And this as well

https://x.com/c_kletzer/status/1905888893737590924?
t=0ax4E2LsJ9FxEAZG7gXwuA&s=19

According to radio 4 they sent 80 emails in a 6 month period (basically one every 2 working days) having been banned from the school premises after challenging the appointment process for the head teacher and “casting aspersions” on the chair of the governors.

While the police may have been heavy handed it does seem like there could potentially be a case to answer on harassment

It's all a bit ‘hurty words’. One email every two days? I get more spam from LinkedIn than that. If you don't like particular emails then block them, don't read them. And the same advice to footballers and MPs.

Depends a bit what was in those emails. The bit we've been told is parents-with-media-connections questioning the way the new head was appointed. Without knowing the rest of the story, we can't tell whether the entirety of the messages was hurty words or worse.

And a school blocking emails from a parent is a plan with many drawbacks. If each of those emails needed a considered reply, that's going to take more management time than a primary school has going spare.

It seems the parents were a nuisance. However, if the content of the emails was abusive, defamatory or in any other way illegal, that would have been mentioned in the complaint and the investigation.

The fact the police dropped the investigation and concluded there was no case to answer suggests there’s nothing much there.

He’s an acquaintance of a friend so I’ll ask my friend to dig for a bit more on this.

To my ear on the Twitter vid he's a credible interviewee.

https://x.com/timesradio/status/1905693691416883419

By his account the arresting and interviewing officers had nothing more than a sketchy written complaint, and no evidence of the alleged crimes whatsoever.

Interesting. Just a finger in the air I didn't like him or trust him and found for the school with costs!! Just a few clues which everyone reads in different ways.....

Why ?

From the reporting this seems to be little more than the school getting annoyed at pushy parents and using the Police against them. There was no crime and no evidence of a crime.

Absolutely. I work in a job where I have to deal with vexatious or abusive emails on a daily basis. With the time wasting ones (my most long running one is from someone who wants his claim to the throne acknowledged) I eventually tell the person that their emails will be read but not answered unless there is something material to add to their case. In the past week I have been called a scumbag and a "leach hanging off the public teat" (I rather liked that one). The only email I've ever reported to the police is one where the sender said they were going to stand outside a government department and start stabbing people.

'Leech' is spelled thus in this context.
With a job like that, if you didn't laugh, you'd cry. Sympathies.

It was a direct quote 😉. It sounds snobbish but doing a public facing job doesn't give you a good impression of the education system.

Old Viz joke: EdSec Michael Gove complained that 90 per cent of emails he received misspelled the word ‘bellend’.

Luckyguy1983 said:

DavidL said:

TimS said:

There is good inflation and bad inflation. That which comes from increased incomes and overheating demand, and that which comes from higher global commodity prices.

The former can be uncomfortable for economists but not bad for working age voters, and quite handy for inter generational equity. The latter - which we had a bout of in 2022 and 23 - is bad for everyone.

We could do with some wage and service sector inflation. It would help to correct the massive wealth transfers of the last decade from working to retired people, encourage business investment in automation, and encourage consumer spending.

Bring back boom and bust!

Rachel's on it. Especially the latter.

Is this some kind of a bust?

DavidL said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Just looked at the partial solar eclipse. Through 2 pairs of sunglasses, which probably wasn’t enough to spare me irreparable long term retinal damage, but hey ho.

Clear view here but not very impressive.

Very overcast and dull here. Like the rest of the time tbh.

ydoethur said:

Roger said:

Scott_xP said:

WTAF???

@NOELreports

🇺🇸 Fox News host Jesse Watters: “We don’t need friends. If we have to burn some bridges with Denmark to take Greenland, so be it. We’re big boys. We dropped bombs on Japan, and now they’re our ally. America isn’t handcuffed by history.”

https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1905927108712386791

Time to batten down the hatches. If our principal ally has gone rogue we neen a new one. China or the EU. I'd prefer either to Trump's America

You can't despise Trump more than I do, but to suggest what America under Trump is doing is as bad as what China is doing to the Uighers and Tibetans, or indeed the people of Hong Kong, is simply nonsensical. Cosying up to China to distance ourselves from America would be like trying to bargain with a rattlesnake to take on an enormous blundering elephant.

StillWaters said:

OldKingCole said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

OldKingCole said:

Morning All!
Intelligence from Bangkok, courtesy of my son, who phoned half an hour of so ago.
Everything seems back to normal now, apart from in the area of the collapsed building. His daughter's school was disrupted; lessons stopped and as city transport was in a mess, it took his two daughters ages to get home. Suvarnabhumi, the main Bangkok Airport was briefly closed and he was half an hour late leaving Taiwan. One of his daughters has texted Mrs C to say that some of her friends who live in apartment blocks have cracked walls but no-one seems to be moving out, at least at the moment.

Do we know how long it took for the tremors to go from Mandalay to Bangkok?

I ask because the Sky News reporter was stirring up trouble about Bangkok not receiving a warning..

Sorry I had to edit spelling..

I don't, and I haven't seen anything which might give a clue.

Which spelling? And we
both missed something else 'hour of so ago'!

Google tells me that P waves travel at 4-8km/s

I think someone said that Bangkok was 600 miles from Mandalay (say 1000 km).

So 2 - 4 minutes - not getting a warning to the public in time is understandable

DavidL said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

DavidL said:

TimS said:

There is good inflation and bad inflation. That which comes from increased incomes and overheating demand, and that which comes from higher global commodity prices.

The former can be uncomfortable for economists but not bad for working age voters, and quite handy for inter generational equity. The latter - which we had a bout of in 2022 and 23 - is bad for everyone.

We could do with some wage and service sector inflation. It would help to correct the massive wealth transfers of the last decade from working to retired people, encourage business investment in automation, and encourage consumer spending.

Bring back boom and bust!

Rachel's on it. Especially the latter.

Is this some kind of a bust?

Not quite yet but I am a lot more pessimistic than her friends in the OBR. It might even start in America this time.

rottenborough said:

TimS said:

rottenborough said:

TimS said:

Nigelb said:

Things might get a bit pear shaped in the US pharma industry.

Peter Marks pushed out of FDA by RFK Jr.

As much as I’ve been critical of some of his approval decisions, Marks’ forced exit spells doom for the FDA.

This is bad, folks. Really bad.

Biotech and pharma are about to enter the darkest of places.
https://x.com/adamfeuerstein/status/1905794129277210997

Feuerstein is a pretty shrewd industry journalist.

Time for some well targeted UK R&D grants.

Yep. Huge growth opportunity and we already have strong pharma R&D.

Some heroically optimistic Trump economic upsides for Europe:

- cheap avocados and tequila from Mexico, strong bread flour, maple syrup and heavy crude from Canada
- brain drain of academics from US universities (and more pertinently a slowdown in the brain drain to US universities)
- increased capital investment from Canadian multinationals and their huge pension funds into European assets
- growing European defence industry
- Lower oil prices, and suppressed inflation if USD weakens and US demand softens

Disney Land Paris gets surge of visitors
as no one in the right mind would travel to Florida right now.

DavidL said:

TimS said:

Nigelb said:

TimS said:

Nigelb said:

Things might get a bit pear shaped in the US pharma industry.

Peter Marks pushed out of FDA by RFK Jr.

As much as I’ve been critical of some of his approval decisions, Marks’ forced exit spells doom for the FDA.

This is bad, folks. Really bad.

Biotech and pharma are about to enter the darkest of places.
https://x.com/adamfeuerstein/status/1905794129277210997

Feuerstein is a pretty shrewd industry journalist.

Time for some well targeted UK R&D grants.

Chaos in their drugs market (our industry's biggest export earner) will hurt us too, nonetheless.

This whole US administration is potentially a disaster for Ireland. Not just potential duties on medicines, but any wider retrenchment of US FDI will massively disproportionately hit Irish GDP.

....shrug.....

Roger said:

ydoethur said:

Roger said:

Scott_xP said:

WTAF???

@NOELreports

🇺🇸 Fox News host Jesse Watters: “We don’t need friends. If we have to burn some bridges with Denmark to take Greenland, so be it. We’re big boys. We dropped bombs on Japan, and now they’re our ally. America isn’t handcuffed by history.”

https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1905927108712386791

Time to batten down the hatches. If our principal ally has gone rogue we neen a new one. China or the EU. I'd prefer either to Trump's America

You can't despise Trump more than I do, but to suggest what America under Trump is doing is as bad as what China is doing to the Uighers and Tibetans, or indeed the people of Hong Kong, is simply nonsensical. Cosying up to China to distance ourselves from America would be like trying to bargain with a rattlesnake to take on an enormous blundering elephant.

Perhaps a better analogy is a rattlesnake living quietly resting under a rock or an out of control elephant with a red hot poker shoved up its bum

Mexicanpete said:

StillWaters said:

Foxy said:

Malmesbury said:

Foxy said:

StillWaters said:

Foxy said:

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

MattW said:

Talking of ICE, masked up agents pulling a legally-in-USA PhD student off the streets. She wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticising Israel. It's getting nastier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGDVKBdq3Gw&t=179s

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, was arrested outside her off-campus apartment. Then renditioned in violation of a Court Order.
...
Khanbabai said Ozturk had valid F-1 visa status as a PhD student. She has filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for Ozturk’s release from detention.
...
“Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, petitioner shall not be moved outside the District of Massachusetts without first providing advance notice of the intended move,” wrote federal judge Indira Talwani in a three-page order to ICE on Tuesday night.
...
But shortly after the judge made that order, federal authorities transferred Ozturk to Louisiana, according to her attorney.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-26/tufts-international-graduate-student-taken-into-ice-custody

The op ed she wrote:
https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj

Land of free speech my arse.

It couldn't happen here, Oh wait:

https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social/post/3llit6dd7es2u

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Is there any more reporting on that ?
Your link provides very little detail.

https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house

It was a meeting of the group "Youth Demand" who rented a room at the Meeting House. They are protesting for a boycott of Israel and for climate action.

https://youthdemand.org/

They are the ones who are “planning to shut down London… for a month straight”, right?

In direct violation of the “just stop oil” legislation?

Sounds like they were arrested while planning a crime rather than exercising their free speech.

And they weren’t Quakers about their worship, they had just rented a meeting room.

Yes, planning a protest is now a crime. Unless of course you are a farmer worried about tax.

Planning a protest in concert with the local authorities and police to meet established guidelines for organised protest in one thing

Planning to obstruct or damage infrastructure is another.

I speak as one who helped plan protests (of the former type) when at university. Generally for causes I opposed.

*I think it was Wellington who said that any damn fool could get 10,000 people into Hyde Park. But it would take a general to get them out, again.

Only protests that the police and government approve of.

What sort of right to protest is that?

If protesters commit crimes of criminal damage then arrest them. Not for thought crime.

So if you are aware that your neighbour is planning to murder his wife you shouldn’t intervene because it’s “thought crime”?

That's a bit Minority Report isn't it? Unless he's shared his plans.

StillWaters said:

rottenborough said:

TimS said:

rottenborough said:

TimS said:

Nigelb said:

Things might get a bit pear shaped in the US pharma industry.

Peter Marks pushed out of FDA by RFK Jr.

As much as I’ve been critical of some of his approval decisions, Marks’ forced exit spells doom for the FDA.

This is bad, folks. Really bad.

Biotech and pharma are about to enter the darkest of places.
https://x.com/adamfeuerstein/status/1905794129277210997

Feuerstein is a pretty shrewd industry journalist.

Time for some well targeted UK R&D grants.

Yep. Huge growth opportunity and we already have strong pharma R&D.

Some heroically optimistic Trump economic upsides for Europe:

- cheap avocados and tequila from Mexico, strong bread flour, maple syrup and heavy crude from Canada
- brain drain of academics from US universities (and more pertinently a slowdown in the brain drain to US universities)
- increased capital investment from Canadian multinationals and their huge pension funds into European assets
- growing European defence industry
- Lower oil prices, and suppressed inflation if USD weakens and US demand softens

Disney Land Paris gets surge of visitors
as no one in the right mind would travel to Florida right now.

I have to go to California next week.

If you don’t hear from me please call the foreign office.

ydoethur said:

Leon said:

They just took us to see the “world’s oldest Koran” which is kept here in Tashkent having been brought here circuitously by various tyrants, Tamerlaines and tsars

However I grew suspicious. Is this really the oldest Koran in the world? I checked. It isn’t. The real location of the oldest piece of any known Koran is actually a mild mind boggler

Without googling does any PBer know? It’s a good pub quiz question

There was one in Serbia for a very long time, not sure if it's still there.

Leon said:

ydoethur said:

Leon said:

They just took us to see the “world’s oldest Koran” which is kept here in Tashkent having been brought here circuitously by various tyrants, Tamerlaines and tsars

However I grew suspicious. Is this really the oldest Koran in the world? I checked. It isn’t. The real location of the oldest piece of any known Koran is actually a mild mind boggler

Without googling does any PBer know? It’s a good pub quiz question

There was one in Serbia for a very long time, not sure if it's still there.

No. Weirder than that

StillWaters said:

Leon said:

They just took us to see the “world’s oldest Koran” which is kept here in Tashkent having been brought here circuitously by various tyrants, Tamerlaines and tsars

However I grew suspicious. Is this really the oldest Koran in the world? I checked. It isn’t. The real location of the oldest piece of any known Koran is actually a mild mind boggler

Without googling does any PBer know? It’s a good pub quiz question

In the museum that the Green family built? DC?