*Nov 19 (Reuters) - A humanitarian assessment team visited Al Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza and saw signs of shelling and gunfire in what was described as a “death zone,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday.
The WHO-led team, which included public health experts, logistics officers and security staff from various U.N. departments, was able to spend only an hour inside the hospital on Saturday due to security concerns, WHO said in a statement.
The team described the hospital as a “death zone” and said the situation was “desperate,” with the hospital basically not functioning as a medical facility due to scarcity of clean water, fuel, medicine and other essentials.
“Signs of shelling and gunfire were evident. The team saw a mass grave at the entrance of the hospital and were told more than 80 people were buried there,” the WHO statement said.
The hallways and hospital grounds were filled with medical and solid waste, and patients and health staff expressed fear for their health and safety, it said. There were 25 health workers and 291 patients, including 32 babies in critical condition, remaining in Al Shifa, WHO said.*
“WHO and partners are urgently developing plans for the immediate evacuation of the remaining patients, staff and their families,” it said.
Remember that “top U.S. general” who unequivocally and with 100% certainty told the U.S. that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction - which led to the longest “war”, for nothing, in U.S. history?
Well that was a whole conspiracy that was never prosecuted and was a special event. I take your point but do think that it was a very unique period in history.
Sounds reasonable, even under very generous assumptions regarding the expansion of the Chinese army, there’s no way they can take Taiwan within the next few decades (unless big, but unlikely, changes in alliances in the region), according to military strategists. And by that time, those generous assumptions might no longer be tolerable for the Chinese economy.
I should spend the time to assemble my sources to oppose yours once I get on a computer, but one thing I found telling was that China’s current landing capability for infantry is in the low thousands whereas they would need in the high hundred thousands for minimal strategic goals, and this is the easy part in terms of shipbuilding. If they expect to invade opposed, they would need a whole fleet with anti naval and air capabilities which they don’t have and does take decades to build.
Well, there have been a lot of war games that currently show China losing but by a small margin. It’s likely that in less than a decade China would win by a small margin. According to many US generals.
So while your wrong, China almost certainly could take Taiwan in less than a decade, I would argue that there’s no chance in hell they would do it. Winning by a small margin here means millions if deaths if not nuclear war. This would be massacre that would make both Israel and Russia’s violence look down right peaceful.
And it’s not like China hasn’t shown it’s hand in what it would do. War is not China’s goal, a blockade is.
Are those games weighing Taiwan’s defense capabilities versus China alone? In practice China would be up against the USA, and Korea, and Japan, and the Philippines and a plausible economic and logistics alliance of most countries in the region. I am not a military strategist but the sheer numbers alone are not in favor of China, and that is ignoring the tactical challenges at play.
So if we believe the US military, then China can already win. Though many argue US military says this just to get more funding.
I would err on the side of US just barely winning with all allies.
That said, I do not believe China would invade. It makes no sense. Anyone who claims this is could happen should have their credibility questioned. As China as I said already has shown its hand, it will blockade if it comes to it.
With the way the economy is going there, I can’t imagine that we can expect that China will remain as it is now in a few decades. The entire thing is ready to come tumbling down at any moment.
Taking Taiwan would lose so many lives it’s absolutely absurd. It’s complete unviable, especially when the US has already clearly demonstrated an alternative solution (just “not blockade” them like Cuba).
I’ve been seeing this over the past few weeks and feel like the story changes a bit each time. First it was AOG had vanished and nobody could find any trace of them now they are in front of a London judge. Last time Southwest had found the issue and raised the alarm after making routine checks on inventory, not FAA and EU counterparts notified airlines to check their records. More and more airlines are finding mystery parts on their planes and not disclosing details.
Just a weird story that seems to be getting murkier with every re-telling. I hope some larger investigation clears all of it up.
This bullshit about Taiwan not being a country is so ridiculous.
South Sudan (2011)
Kosovo (2008)
Montenegro (2006)
Serbia (2006)
East Timor (2002)
Palau (1994)
Eritrea (1993)
Namibia (1990)
Zimbabwe (1980)
Djibouti (1977)
Seychelles (1976)
Angola, Sao Tome and Principe, Comoros, Cabo Verde, Mozambique (1975)
Guinea-Bissau (1974)
Equatorial Guinea (1968)
Swaziland (1968) -> Eswatini (2018)
And so on
These are the countries younger than Taiwan.
Sure, in the early years they didn’t think of themselves as a country. They thought of themselves as the rightful rulers of China who were just temporarily occupying an outlying island, but they’ve been isolated on that island since 1949. That’s 74 years now. There are full generations of people who have grown up in Taiwan.
It makes perfect sense that Taiwan should formally renounce any claim to the rest of China. The business of being the “Republic of China” is ridiculous. They lost the war, they’re never going to unpause the conflict and defeat the PRC military. At the same time, China should just acknowledge that the people of Taiwan have no interest in being part of their country. Sure, 74 years ago they were on the opposite side of a civil war. But, it’s unlikely any decision-maker from that conflict is still alive today. It could be that a handful of soldiers in their teens or twenties are still alive in their 90s, but nobody that young was making any important decisions.
The US started as a breakaway colony in 1776, was at war with Great Britain until 1783, and it only took until 1785 before Great Britain and the US re-established diplomatic relations. The UK continues to have a decent amount of soft power around the world because it has maintained good relationships with all the countries that decided they didn’t want to be part of that empire.
It’s telling that Taiwan is now becoming closer to Japan than to China. Taiwan was occupied by Japan for half a century, and it was a pretty brutal occupation. That occupation only ended a little before the ROC moved there in 1949. If the PRC had just normalized relations with Taiwan decades ago, Taiwan and China would probably both be working together in opposition to Japan due to their shared history of mistreatment by Japan. Instead, China’s ridiculous insistence that a 74 year old country isn’t actually a country is just causing that country to ally with old enemies against China.
It would put to bed the idea that the PRC and ROC are still involved in a civil war that’s just on pause. If Taiwan said “The civil war’s done, you won, we only claim this island now”, China could still claim that the island is theirs and Taiwan is an occupier, but they couldn’t pretend that the civil war is still ongoing. It could also give other countries an excuse to have normal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Instead of having to choose between the ROC or the PRC as the legitimate government of China, they could say that the PRC is the legitimate government of China, but that Taiwan is a breakaway region that gained independence back in 1949, and that they recognize Taiwan as a country too… but only as the legitimate government of that one small island.
As for whether it would make an invasion more or less likely, who knows. It probably wouldn’t change anything. China has to know that if they ever invaded it would be an extremely costly invasion, and anything of value in Taiwan would likely be destroyed. Invasion would be devastating to Taiwan’s economy, and terrible if not devastating to China’s economy. The only reason to do it is political. Theoretically it could be something a weak central government could do to make the people feel patriotic and to make the government seem strong. But, that might backfire and they might look weak and people could lose faith and/or stop fearing them.
Not as precarious as the window latch industry right now. If it comes out this guy accidentally fell out a window, we need some serious inquisition and regulation on window latch manufacturers. Whatever models Russia’s using, if they’re in China now, who knows where else? We need recalls.
Before the unexpectedly heavy rains that is killing people in India now, India witnessed a heatwave like never-before . We are used to heatwaves, but this year has been really grim. So many people died that the central govt & the UP state govt got scared and refused to classify these deaths due to heatstroke/ heatwave.
India's PM Modi has publicly said "climate is not changing, we are changing" and accepting these deaths as due to heatwave caused by climate change would embarrass the dictator. so it doesn't get acknowledged and nothing will be done to manage it.
The plastic straws thing drives me up the wall.
They had to choose the smallest of possible plastic items to replace with the smallest impact (compared to things like plastic plates/cutlery or something). But paper/cardboard straws SUCK. Smoothies/thick shakes/juices/cocktails, its mush before your done or just straight up bends and snaps when you try to stir the drink after a couple minutes of bing in there. Plastic straws disappeared immediately but the lids for coffee cups and soft drinks are only just getting phased out now? Its like they did the absolute least possible and went “look at us saving the environment!”. At least bamboo straws and other biodegradables hold up the whole way through the drink.
Indeed, the whole paper straw thing is ridiculous. But let’s not forget that poor sea turtle that they pulled a plastic straw out of its nose. Yeah, that was a random one-off, not very likely to happen again anytime soon. If anything, they need to be more worried about fish, dolphins and turtles getting hung up in lost fishing nets…
Back to the stupid straw thing, someone on that other site that we don’t tend to speak of mentioned a perfect solution. Use a Twizzler candy, they’re hollow and edible once you’re done!
japantimes.co.jp
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