Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Climate, Conflict, Politics, Africa. Editor https://t.co/b6HbxvlPDn (NZ) Reporting from France. https://t.co/LNVK0y9b2z #nzpol #DesertRain
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Oct 3 7 tweets 1 min read
This made me cry …. Tears streaming down my face. This is so very sad.

#Gazaunderattack
#GazaUnderFire If @realDonaldTrump chooses to join Netanyahu’s genocidal campaign if he is not obeyed …. he WILL find himself indicted in the international criminal court in The Hague.

And he will then have to make a decision on whether he is willing to remain in the U.S.
Sep 26 6 tweets 1 min read
🔴 Al Jazeera English FLASHBACK| Live via @YouTubeyoutube.com/live/gCNeDWCI0… Immediately after this speech NETANYAHU ORDERED AIR STRIKES ON LEBANON
Sep 26 5 tweets 1 min read
The best outcome of this would be if it turned into a Dunkirk result for the injured and wounded of Gaza to be taken to Europe for medical treatment. There is a lot of concern about evacuations of civilians from Gaza in the flotilla as anyone leaving may not be able to return any time soon. /2
Sep 25 9 tweets 2 min read
More and more naval vessels from Europe and the Middle East are being deployed to protect the Global Samir Flotilla as it moves slowly but surely towards Gaza where it intends to deliver aid and global attention. /1 Attacks from drones on the flotilla have resumed and Israel is presumably responsible for this. It is because of this that naval vessels from Europe are now joining the flotilla to protect their citizens rights of travel in international waters. /2
Sep 22 8 tweets 3 min read
The #Samud #GazaFlotilla is currently sailing across the Ionian Sea towards the island archipelago south east of Athens in the Western Mediterranean. Conditions appear good for this leg that departed from Sicily after leaving Tunisia. The Flotilla set off from Barcelona. Image 2/ this current leg is 860 kms roughly and lead boats in the 51 vessel flotilla are currently approaching south western Greece. You can follow the flotillas progress here >> flotilla-orpin.vercel.appImage
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Sep 21 5 tweets 1 min read
The weakness of the uk prime minister is palpable. Astonishing. Pathetic. Posting my reply again after X just quarantined my first draft by some digital voodoo
Sep 21 4 tweets 1 min read
From the Hindustan Times

“In a historic move, Turkey and Egypt are launching their first joint naval exercises in 13 years, dubbed “Friendship Sea,” signaling a dramatic thaw in relations and an unprecedented show of strength in the eastern Mediterranean.” This high-profile military collaboration—just miles from Israel’s coast—follows a decade of diplomatic rupture triggered by the 2013 ouster of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government, which Turkey had supported. 2/3
Sep 17 8 tweets 1 min read
These are all Israeli IDF army officers who were trained in the uk

Source: - Declassified - Image NEW | Declassified has obtained a list of Israelis who graduated from the Royal College of Defence Studies in London.

Israeli officers fighting in Gaza have received training at Britain’s prestigious Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS), Declassified reveals. /1
Sep 17 9 tweets 2 min read
The Gaza flotilla is intending as I understand from informed sources in contact with the flotilla intending to pause again and regroup in Malta on its trip to Israel to break the seige in Gaza. The flotilla is in my view on very grave danger and ought to be being escorted by European naval vessels.
Sep 10 5 tweets 1 min read
At this point following the Qatar obscenity Israel is now breaking the internet and the world.

something decisive is needed to break Israel - a peaceful action that will work and show the world that justice still exists and that peace is possible. A wise friend proposed a brilliant idea. Every nation on earth which is willing and able should send a frigate to the Mediterranean Sea and take a message to Israel that it cannot ignore.
Sep 4 13 tweets 4 min read
I’ll be posting videos and news here on Twitter from the flotilla which is about to depart from Majorca for Tunis on the first leg of the journey to Gaza. More boats are expected to join the flotilla from Europe and North Africa along the way as it moves west across the Mediterranean. @GretaThunberg is making the voyage again and Israel will not be able to contain or stop this flotilla most likely. And definitely not the publicity.
Aug 10 5 tweets 1 min read
Netanyahu has proposed a pathway to end the war in Gaza under pressure primarily from the U.S. UK, France & Germany. Spain and Ireland and several other European nations & the European Commission.

LIVE: PM Netanyahu Holds a Press conference youtube.com/live/1ebXvF9MO… The @israelipm sounds defeated. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end. The deal being offered to Gaza is far from perfect but it sounds workable in Netanyahus outline.
Jul 25 7 tweets 1 min read
Guess who has the most to lose if/when @realDonaldTrump discovers he’s now a lame duck President.

He is now so deep under water both in polling and with his base that it’s very hard to imagine him bouncing back. I’ll answer my question shortly buts it’s well worth pondering…. In the meantime consider this.

Trump is now a laughing stock. And not only is everyone in America now laughing at him. But he has also been abandoned by his base and his party.
Jul 25 4 tweets 1 min read
This is pathetic from @realDonaldTrump he’s lashing out like an angry teenager. Jerome Powell says he’s included a the costs of a building that was completed years ago in his very public attack on the FED Chair. Trump has completely lost the plot. The single most damaging thing that he could do to undermine confidence in the U.S. dollar (which he publicly claims to want to deflate and there by make all Americans poorer - is to attack the Federal Reserve and the SEC.
Jul 2 13 tweets 2 min read
I attended the Bonn climate talks. They were very disappointing to everyone. The elephant in the room was (of course) the U.S. decision to withdraw from the talks altogether.

open.spotify.com/episode/3YV0SU… Unfortunately.. perhaps intentionally in advance of the continuation of climate talks regardless of #US_Disintigration the talks were also very sparsely attended particularly by activists and NGOs. The reason for this was @elonmusk destroying @-USAID.
Jul 2 5 tweets 2 min read
This article is deeply depressing. For my part at Scoop.co.nz it is clear to me that:

1. The Govt has a deliberate strategy - probably not official but nevertheless operative to destroy NZ media.
2. This is not going to change any time soon.
thespinoff.co.nz/politics/02-07… & Sadly from what I discerned last year the @nzlabour opposition is both apathetic and indifferent to the plight of media. Also the @NZGreens. And have always been so for as long as I can remember.

This is extremely disappointing
Jan 22 15 tweets 10 min read
Ok so this is a bit weird, but in a kinda chill way so do bare with me and and I will be happy to answer questions afterwards. It’s about a castle on a virtual island in a massive online role playing game called Evony and it involves a possible but speculative discussion about @elonmusk and @X.

All will be revealed but first a picture or four actually from the game. More will come.Image
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Ok. So here’s what I think is going on in a nutshell. I think elonmusk has invested in a MMORPG: a “Massive Multimedia Online Role Playing Game” which is a bit of a mouthful, called EVONY.

I liked its Twitter ads and finally clicked. It’s huge. Someone else can do the business story here which I am sure is interesting too.Image
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Jan 12 7 tweets 2 min read
This interview with working class Uk financial markets savant Gary Stevenson - who has just published an autobiography - is seriously terrifying. He now has a @YouTube channel it seems and I’ll post a link shortly.

James O'Brien meets Gary Stevenson | LBC via @YouTube His prognosis for the collapse of social democratic nation state finances due to the very sharp rise in income distribution inequality in the UK is horrific.

The consequences of unfettered transfers of money over decades due to neoliberal economics initially and more recently quantitative easing driven transfers of wealth from the middle class to the top 5% of the population is the cause of his concern.

It’s very hard to imagine what can be done politically to rebalance this.

Thomas Piketty’s thesis which among other things warned about all of this based on long term historical analysis of wealth inequality appears to be colliding with Western Civilisation in a manner that threatens the very foundations of that civilisation.
Jan 9 4 tweets 1 min read
Well this was actually pretty good… very little crazy right wing stuff - none in fact - some light criticism of wokeness and a consensus that Hitler was a socialist or communist dictator not a rightwing liberal fascist - mercifully no discussion of Greenland Panama or Canada

The bit at the end was actually quite nice and agreement about ending the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Importantly and probably deliberately there was very little to zero overt electioneering - a little bit of criticism of Weidel’s Spitzencandidat competition from Weidle but nothing extreme.

So nothing imo that could be seen as being election interference IMO - nor any reason for the DSA to be concerned or to get involved.

I didn’t even hear any particularly overt endorsement that went beyond that you might hear in passing in a podcast interview.

It ended with a discussion of mars - Elon’s favourite subject of conversation - which was quite interesting including a reference to the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy series and Douglas Adams.
Jan 8 6 tweets 2 min read
Comedians vs Trump and Elon /1

Trump Ratchets Up Call to Annex Canada & Greenland as Trudeau Says He'll... via @YouTube Comedians vs Trump & Elon /2
Zuck, Meta fact checking, McDonald’s, and Amazon Cozy Up To Trump, Dropping Fact-Checkers & their integrity. via @YouTube
Jan 5 8 tweets 2 min read
This is an update thread on this OCCRP story on @StateDept and @USAID funding for several large investigative journalism projects which has had a lot of downstream impacts it seems. Especially in Europe,

The underlying original story about govt funding for investigative journalism projects was initially flagged by @ryangrim.

This organisation - OCCRP that not many people seemed to have been aware of - was responsible for a series of outstanding investigative journalism consortia projects including the Panama papers. This is a leaked rough cut of the NDR (German public broadcaster north west Germany) investigation into what happened With the OCCRP story.

It was never officially published but was recently leaked publicly by Wikileaks.

dalek.zone/w/xjUjomMZxRCv…