Dave Q 🇳🇿

New Zealander, supports Ukraine and democracy. Why is the planet burning?
@daveqnz.bsky.social

[Alex is fine @Lacertko]

We already breached 1.5°C.

[UAVoyager🇺🇦 @NAFOvoyager]

Horrifying strike in Zaporizhzhia: russian drone slammed into a civilian bus stop in broad daylight.

At least two dead, several wounded.

Ordinary people, ordinary day — turned into carnage in seconds.

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

Ukrainian farmers continue working in frontline areas despite constant Russian drone and KAB strikes.

One of them is Oleksandr Korosteliov, the owner of an agricultural enterprise. Before 2014, he worked in Crimea, Zaporizhzhia region, and Kherson region. After Russia's occupation of Crimea, he was forced to leave behind everything - machinery, farms, and thousands of hectares of land. In 2022, history repeated in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Oleksandr’s son, the chief agronomist of the enterprise, was killed in 2022 after hitting a mine while carrying out drone reconnaissance as a volunteer.

Today, Oleksandr cultivates fields in Zaporizhzhia region.

📹: DW

[Tim White @TWMCLtd]

The new working week begins as war continues on Europe's eastern front.

For Ukraine and its people, it's Day 1566 of terrorism on their land, on their homes and loss of loved ones.

Every single one of those days I've made a 🧵so all the important news is in one place.
Let's go

[Serena of Aotearoa 🇵🇸 🇿🇦 🇳🇿 @SerenaTNZ]

Do not vote for RW insecticide

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

Europe Wins Again. Obviously.

Armenia went to the polls yesterday. And the results are exactly what you’d expect if you’d been paying attention for the past five years, rather than wallowing in Kremlin nostalgia like a damp sock.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared victory on Monday, with his Civil Contract Party leading with 52.5% of the vote.  Armenia, a landlocked country the size of Belgium that Russia has spent decades treating as a vassal state, has looked at its options and made a decision that required roughly the same level of intellectual effort as choosing between a Michelin-starred restaurant and a skip fire.

They chose Europe.

This election was less a routine vote than a referendum on Pashinyan’s post-2020 course reducing dependence on Russia and moving toward an explicit European orientation. And Russia, naturally, did everything in its power to stop it. According to Reuters, citing Western intelligence officials, the election faced heavy Russian covert interference, including disinformation campaigns and a plan to transport Russian Armenians into Armenia to sway the vote. One analyst collective described it as one of the largest state-backed disinformation campaigns in modern European history. And Armenia still told them to get lost.

Putin had already warned Armenia it would face economic consequences for drifting westward, and introduced restrictions on Armenian agricultural exports in the weeks before the vote.  Threats, propaganda, economic blackmail. The full Russian toolkit. Result: irrelevant.

Now, Trump, Tucker Carlson and JD Vance would like you to believe that Russia represents some superior civilisational model. A proud, white, Christian fortress holding the line against the Muslim hordes supposedly swamping Europe. It is a compelling narrative, in the same way that flat earth theory is compelling if you ignore every single fact available to you.

Here is one such fact: between 10 and 15 percent of Russia’s own population is Muslim. Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis. Millions of them. Russia is, by its own demographic reality, a multi-ethnic, multi-faith state with a larger Muslim population than most of Western Europe. But you’re not supposed to know that. It complicates the story.

Meanwhile, the Muslim share of the EU population sits at around 5 percent. But the Tucker Carlsons of the world need you frightened, so the numbers get quietly shuffled off stage.

So Armenia joins the queue. Behind Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and every Eastern European country that isn’t currently run by a Slovak who seems to have wandered in from a Moscow focus group. The pattern is not subtle. Every country that has actually experienced Russian influence in practice is sprinting in the opposite direction. The only nation currently moving toward Russia’s orbit is the United States, which managed to elect a man whose foreign policy instincts were apparently shaped by a property developer’s admiration for strongmen with good buildings.

The world watches America and hopes it finds its way back. Most people think it will. Eventually. The damage, however, is already considerable, and democracy, like a soufflé, does not always survive rough handling.

Armenia made its choice. The right one. Obviously.

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[edward miller @labourcartel]

Rumours flying that DP World is close to a deal at Lyttelton. They operate four ports in Australia. The spent a decade (2014-2023) paying nothing in corporate tax. Stacks of related party transactions that reduce taxable income. Rip-off incoming.

[Imtiaz Mahmood @ImtiazMadmood]

Two days after Henry died Hampshire Police secretly recorded Digwa in a police van speaking Punjabi to his brother. Digwa admitted stabbing Henry. Discussed claiming self defence. Made zero mention of racial abuse. Not one word.

Hampshire Police had that tape.

They knew Digwa was lying about the racist attack. They had the evidence. They had his own words and then tried to smear Henry as the aggressor anyway.

Three days after his death their statement read “it was reported two men had been assaulted by an unknown man.” Henry was the unknown man. The boy bleeding out on the street. They flipped it.

Family complained. Statement changed. Then police told the family their NEXT update would again infer Henry was the initial aggressor. His family had to fight them a second time. While grieving their murdered son.

Then during the trial Hampshire tried to issue a statement telling the public to stop talking about it online. Calling it disinformation. The CPS had to step in. Told them they were about to collapse their own murder case.

This is the force that handcuffed a dying boy. Missed the murder weapon twice. Had a secret tape proving the killer lied. And still tried to bury Henry's name.

That's not incompetence. That's a machine protecting itself. At the expense of a dead boy's reputation and three officers are still on active duty. Not suspended. Treated as witnesses. To their own actions.

Hampshire Police didn't just fail Henry on that street. They kept failing him for six months after he died.

- @Banksycat

[Pazienza @Pazienza82]

Adjusted for inflation we are not receiving improved health funding from any budget of Nicola Willis.

[TaraBull @TaraBull]

Next time he should definitely wear his hard hat on the job

[MJdowntheshore @MJdowntheshore]

Big pussy got grabbed by a strong woman.

[LambDressedAsMutton @RaukawaDiver]

Increasing anger over government’s approach to Māori rights https://t.co/csRg9AgM3r

[Fun Viral Vids @Fun_Viral_Vids2]

We were absolutely floored by the millions of you that watched us make silly water sillouettes on our driveway last summer. We are starting out the summer the only way we know how, and this time it’s all about movies! What else do you want to see? We have a whole summer ahead, a driveway and a hose. The possibilities are endless!!!

[Cherie @Cherie59789095]

46% of NZ rivers are polluted because of agriculture and they want to do more damage ... FF need to F off.

[Anna @AnnaDeMilanese]

China hat heute eine „Spezielle Marineoperation" in den Gewässern östlich von Taiwan gestartet.
Offiziell: „Durchsetzung der Seeverkehrsregeln."

Tatsächlich: Blockade taiwanesischer Gewässer. Taiwan antwortet sofort: „Sie haben hier nichts zu suchen. Kehren Sie um und verlassen Sie das Gebiet unverzüglich."

Auslöser: Japan und die Philippinen haben Verhandlungen über maritime Grenzziehungen östlich von Taiwan begonnen – China nennt das „unilaterale Provokation."

Russland nennt seine Invasion „Spezialoperation."
China nennt seine Blockade „Spezielle Marineoperation."
Die Sprache ist dieselbe. Das Muster ist dasselbe. Europa beobachtet.
🇹🇼🇨🇳🇯🇵🇵🇭🇪🇺🇺🇦

[Prez @PrezLives2022]

So Ivanka claims she came across this island swimming in the Mediterranean and she came ashore barefoot to explore the islands😂😂

Here is the problem with this: First, the island is in the Adriatic Sea. Secondly, the Albanians say the island is full of snakes making her barefoot story implausible. Lastly, in the words of Steve Schmidt, the island is full of landmines thus making her extremely lucky or a liar. I’m going with liar.

[Nancy Dollar @we_dollar]

Langford (Feds) on Q&A this morning boasting about how the farmers have "captured" the Labour Party and that they've got the Labour Party under control.
Disgraceful.
And him proselytising that the nats are perfect.

Are the left going to stand up?
#nzpol

["Emmie" - Tauranga 2024 @Tauranga2020]

I'm going to be really brassed off if the day in this country ends without some comment & action being taken over the pencil case issue
From the speaker, the electoral commission & Parliamentary Services & an apology from the party involved
If this isn't stopped now anything goes