Photo by Harun via Pexels
Welcome back to this bi-weekly installment of What Just Happened?!, a semi-comical digest of the most important news from the UK, US and the World. Look out for us every now and again, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
The US
What the Fact?
Nick Clegg’s departure from Meta (see our previous January 3rd WJH issue and the story entitled: “On Conservatism and Oligarchism”) where the previous British Liberal Democrats leader had headed up an oversight board proves to have indeed been a harbinger for the voice of reason leaving the company; this is apparent as Meta decides to drop fact checkers, once again shirking responsibility for the content presented on Facebook and Instagram. Goodbye British-inspired ideas of civilized discourse, hello American unregulated media the likes of which allows Alex Jones to say amazingly harmful things and not be locked up for being a menace to the public.
Los Angeles Ablaze
LA saw the most destructive fires in its history with dozens of lives lost and tens of thousands of structures destroyed. Cars were bulldozed off the roads after being abandoned on evacuation routes and firefighting crews had difficulties generating the required water pressure to tackle the fires fanned by high winds (water from swimming pools was used in some cases). Firefighters have been shutting off gas mains at damaged properties as seen in this video from NBC with an open flame being extinguished after burning away in the ruins of a home.
Winds reached speeds of 80 mph and the Eaton Fire and Palisades fires burned for days at 0% containment, meaning the fire crews and emergency services had not been able to establish anything of an effective perimeter of firebreaks around the blaze. Canadian “water bombers” assisted in the efforts to save lives and homes. Much of Southern California was also covered in an eerie pinkish hue as fire retardant has been used to help protect lives and properties. The US Forest service has a mandatory ban on dropping fire retardant on sensitive environmental areas and a non-profit organization (Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics) composed of previous Forest Service workers (nationalforestadvocates.org) issued a lawsuit in 2022 arguing that Federal clean water laws had been breached by dropping fire retardants (which are alleged to not be very effective in preventing or mitigating fires and to kill fish).
The World
The Ceasefire the Oligarchs Didn’t Want
With almost 50,000 Palestinians killed since the beginning of the current “war” (where typical language would suggest more of a guerilla insurgency in Gaza, and Israeli invasions of neighbouring countries, including Lebanon and Syria) a desperately needed and long overdue ceasefire seems to finally be arriving. A component of the politically embattled Israeli PM’s (Netenyahu’s) government has been ideologically opposed to a ceasefire throughout the whole grim series of war crimes and atrocities.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s minister of National Security since 2022, is an ultra-nationalist and far right leader of the Otzma Yehudit party that inherits a good deal of the ideology of the outlawed Kach party which was founded by Meir Kahane, built upon on a racist ideology known as Kahanism. Kahanism was outlawed in Israel and designated a terrorist organization by the Israeli government in 1994 following one of their adherents murdering dozens of praying Muslims in the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre. The US also dubbed the Kahanists a Specially Designated Terrorist Group (SDTG) in 2004, before removing them from that list in 2022 after determining it to not be an “active” group.
The Internet
Somewhere, Under the Sea
Finnish authorities have seized a UAE registered and Russian linked “dark fleet” tanker, the Eagle S, that is reasonably suspected of dragged it’s anchor along the seabed in a deliberate effort to damage telecommunications infrastructure, an effort that succeeded. The ship was also “loaded with spy equipment”, believed to be for the benefit of the Russians, when it was intercepted on Christmas Day of 2024. This comes on the heels of various similar incidents in recent months, cataloged well here by Reuters.
“The registered owner of Eagle S is a single-ship structure that purports to have an office in the business centre of a luxury hotel in Dubai”
Source: Lloyds List
On Collective Oligarchism
Joe Biden offered some reflections on his way out of the Chief Executive office of the United States; specifically he warned against America’s apparent Oligarchy. To those of us who’ve read George Orwell’s 1984 and are familiar with the book within the book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, it’s not outlandish to observe a degree of oligarchism in the US historically. The concerning developments recently revolve around an unelected advisor to the US president who controls a social media platform that boasts a huge user base and extremely troubling content.
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What Just Happened? 