Chris Thomson

Bittell Res. patch worker,Friend of Spurn Bird Observatory, Real Ale aficianado and Ex Member of the Labour Party.

[Missing Pets GB @MissingPetsGB]

HELP FIND MISSING SAMANTHA THE LABRADOR

Have you seen a dog like Samantha recently in the CONSETT area ? Or anywhere else?

Adult Red Labrador
Nervous Dog (do not chase)
Microchipped Lost: 05 Apr 2026: CONSETT County Durham DH8
#stolendoghour

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

More than a hundred thousand Bornean orangutans vanished between 1999 and 2015. Half the island's population, gone in sixteen years, and the largest single driver is the oil in your biscuit.

Orangutans exist in exactly two places on earth now, Borneo and Sumatra, and both are being cleared at some of the fastest rates on the planet to plant oil palm. Around 350,000 hectares of Bornean forest have gone every year this century. The way it is cleared is the ugly part. The forest is not felled and milled, it is drained and burned. Developers cut channels into the peat to dry it out, then set the land alight, and peat does not burn like wood. It smoulders underground for weeks, sometimes months, throwing up a toxic haze that drifts across whole countries.

In 2015 that haze became one of the worst environmental disasters in modern memory. About 2.6 million hectares burned. On many days that autumn the fires in Indonesia released more carbon dioxide than the entire economy of the United States. A study by Harvard and Columbia estimated the smoke caused around a hundred thousand premature deaths across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, alongside half a million respiratory infections. The World Bank put the bill at sixteen billion dollars. All of it to clear ground for palm and pulp.

The animals in that forest do not walk away. The orangutan is slow, and it starves among the stumps or wanders into the new plantation looking for food and is killed as a pest. In 2018 one was found on Indonesian Borneo shot a hundred and thirty times with an air gun, then stabbed and clubbed. Mothers are killed and their babies sold into the illegal pet trade. The Sumatran tiger, the rhino and the elephant are being pushed off the same burning map at the same time, each down to a few thousand animals or a few hundred, each running out of the one forest it has.

The culprits are not hard to find. About 85% of the world's palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, and investigators have traced palm grown on illegally cleared land straight into the supply chains of the largest names in the aisle: Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Procter and Gamble, Mondelez. From there it goes everywhere. Palm oil sits in something like half the packaged products in the shop, the spread, the chocolate, the biscuit, the instant noodle, the tub of dairy-free ice cream, the very things sold as the lighter, greener, kinder choice.

Almost all of it now carries a small stamp promising it was sustainably sourced. In one recent year the stretch of Sumatra known as the orangutan capital of the world lost more forest than in the previous four years combined. Stamp and all.

[alex thomson @alextomo]

And another N Irish gem : the stunning House Martin colony at the Loch Neagh Visitor Centre !!

[The Hormuz Report @HormuzReport]

BREAKING: Iran's IRGC says it has completely destroyed Amazon's central data hub in Bahrain with several cruise missiles and warns more are coming, per Fars News.

The attack marks a new phase: Iran is now targeting U.S. tech infrastructure. The IRGC has warned 18 American tech companies — including Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, and Google — that they are legitimate targets. AWS facilities in the UAE and Bahrain have already been hit before, disrupting banking and critical systems that rely on Amazon's cloud.

Data centers are now strategic targets. Iran argues these companies support U.S. military and intelligence operations. By striking Amazon, Tehran is signaling that American tech firms operating in the region are no longer off-limits. The war has expanded into the digital domain.

[Earth Hippy 🌎🕊️💚 @hippyygoat]

Spain gives the world..
HOPE, STRENGTH AND MORAL CLARITY.
-Susan Sarandon

[Furkan Gözükara @FurkanGozukara]

🚨 DISGUSTING: Max Blumenthal confirms the US military intentionally bombed an Iranian hospital, destroying its ICU and IVF clinic.

He reveals Washington also deliberately obliterated a massive sports stadium just to sabotage Iran's FIFA competitions.

Pure state terrorism!

[InfoGram @_InfoGram_]

🇺🇸Reporter: "You serious about arresting Netanyahu?"

🇺🇸Mamdani: "100% Yes."

🇺🇸Reporter: "Trump said he won’t."

🇺🇸Zohran: Because he has an ICC warrant for war crimes. Trump can protect him. I won’t. I follow the law. No war criminals."

Zohran Mamdani is fire 🔥

[A.J. Delgado @AJDelgado13]

Had to quickly share that @FerranTorres20 , the hero who scored the winning World Cup goal, is a hardcore dog rescue advocate; has rescued stray dogs since he was little; and is the proud dad of three rescue dogs. 🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸

[Wokerati Marty @WokeratiMarty]

I’m so pleased David Lammy’s lost his job.

I’ll never forget him saying not enough people had been killed in Gaza for it to be called a genocide.

This clip will go down in the history books if the ICJ ever confirm it is a genocide. Not that anyone with eyes needs it confirmed.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

Tomorrow, the new Prime Minister should do something very simple: end all arms sales to Israel.

[G-Axis @GAxisInfo]

🚨 Breaking:

🇮🇱 Israel: "We are activating our ultimate weapon tonight."

🇮🇷 Tehran: "We have had the blueprint for that 'ultimate weapon' ever since your chief scientist left his laptop in a Dubai hotel room last year. Try something else."

Mossad is in a bad spot.

[mustafa yazıcı @myzccc]

Netanyahu ispanya'yı
açıkça tehdit ediyor:

"Bunun bedelini ödemek üzeresiniz. İspanya İsrail’e karşı durduktan hemen sonra yaşanan elektrik kesintilerini ve gizemli tren kazalarını asla unutmayın.”

Ne diyor bu?
İspanya içinde terör saldırıları yapacaklarını söylüyor.
Dünya bunu böyle not etmeli.

Ve İspanya'nın cevabı:
"Sizi karalamıyoruz, tanımlıyoruz: Siz soykırımcı ve suçlu bir rejimsiniz. Hepiniz Uluslararası Ceza Mahkemesi'nin önüne çıkacaksınız."

[Mike King🦉🐺 @GlosterBirder]

I'd like to thank Sam Phillips the farmer at the Long-tailed Shrike site within 5 mins of arriving, seeing the situation & talking to me he took me in his Landy to find & open a suitable field for parking. A very enlightened attitude given the invasion👏 #GlosBirds @BirdGuides

[Chris Thomson @chrisaluco]

https://t.co/nPG2WLkTaP

[Chris Thomson @chrisaluco]

@soran0312_ 16

[Vinicios Betiol @vinicios_betiol]

Imagens que não apareceram nas transmissões oficiais dos jogadores argentinos agredindo os espanhóis, após perderem o jogo, mesmo com a ajuda da arbitragem.

[Peter Oborne @OborneTweets]

Sir Keir Starmer misled MPs during his final PMQs last Wednesday. Corbyn's Labour Party was never found to be 'institutionally antisemitic'. Sir Keir needs to return to parliament and correct the record:
https://t.co/vKmdbG0Yj1

[simon maginn @simonmaginn]

Peter Oborne - a Tory - has done more to defend Corbyn than any Labour MP.
Starmer's lie about 'institutional antisemitism' defiles the parliamentary record.
#ItWasAScam

[Feargal Sharkey @Feargal_Sharkey]

Just 5 years after being fined £90 million for illegally dumping sewage of the Kent coast Southern Water have; just been fined £7m after illegally dumping sewage off Kent coast.

That's the 106 offence in the last 15 years. Time to put an end to the corruption.

https://t.co/WgKYaBPQX6

[sarah @sahouraxo]

BREAKING:

Israel has flattened the Lebanese Red Cross center in Bint Jbeil, South Lebanon.

Not a battlefield target.
A humanitarian infrastructure.

The Lebanese Red Cross saves lives — and this is precisely why Israel erased it.