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      Adults can see the horror in Gaza, but how best to talk to children about it? | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 09:00 · 1 minute

    Across Britain, families are calling for an end to the violence. But what should be shared and discussed with younger members?

    It is always at bedtime that the horror of Gaza hits Naila Khan. “You know the images of those Palestinian parents, where they’re rocking their dead child?” she asks me, from Manchester. “Every evening when I’m rocking my child, all I can imagine is those mothers holding their children and I think to myself: my child is breathing, is alive, is healthy, safe, has got shelter. We’re not being bombed.”

    Khan is a mother of four and, like many parents, she is struggling to process this war and the horrific impact on the children of Gaza. The death toll is unprecedented in our lifetimes, as is the on-the-ground footage we are seeing. I now understand why my mother couldn’t watch the news for years after I was born, and yet I can’t turn away. This war has galvanised my friends and acquaintances on social media, many of them parents. I get a lot of parenting content from Instagram, and use the platform to share my experiences. The horrifying footage of dead and injured children and distressed parents is now mixed in – it is a constant on my feed – eroding any barrier to empathy that might have existed between us before the age of social media.

    Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author

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      Threats, fear and surveillance: how China targets students in the UK who criticise regime

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 3 days ago - 11:19

    Chinese students tell the Guardian they are scared to return home and worry for their families after being followed and harassed

    The first time Liying* realised she was being watched, she was on her way home from an anti-Beijing protest outside the Chinese embassy in London in 2022. The sky was dark, and Liying – a student in her 20s from China – was walking with a fellow protester, megaphone in hand, when she noticed a stranger lurking behind them.

    The pair quickened their pace but the man, who looked Chinese, kept following. Ten minutes passed; then 20. Eventually, they ran into a nearby hospital and hid for more than half an hour. When they came out, he was gone.

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      ‘It was so wrong’: why were so many people imprisoned over one protest in Bristol? – podcast

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 3 days ago - 05:00


    More people have been imprisoned for rioting during a single day in Bristol in 2021 than in any other protest-related disorder since at least the 1980s. What was behind this push to prosecute so harshly? by Tom Wall

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      British Museum closes to visitors as Energy Embargo for Palestine group gathers outside

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 4 days ago - 17:42

    New protest group is critical of London museum’s sponsorship by BP and seeks to make link to Gaza

    The British Museum closed its doors to visitors on Sunday afternoon as hundreds of protesters gathered outside to demand that it end its partnership with BP – and sought to draw a link with the conflict in Gaza.

    A new UK-based protest group, calling itself Energy Embargo for Palestine, called on members of the public to boycott the museum while it continues to receive sponsorship from the company.

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      Former CPS chief says clampdown on protests risks creating ‘thought crimes’

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 4 days ago - 12:00

    Exclusive: Max Hill KC says it is imperative to protect free speech when setting limits on protesting

    The former director of public prosecutions for England and Wales has warned against the risk of creating “thought crimes” amid the recent clampdown on protesters and demonisation of demonstrators by politicians.

    In an interview with the Guardian, Max Hill KC, who was head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) from 2018 until November last year, said it was imperative to protect free speech when setting limits on protest.

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      Which will melt away first, the snow or the arts? | Stewart Lee

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 4 days ago - 10:00 · 1 minute

    Keir Starmer will need to make it affordable to be an artist, because the value of art is beyond financial metrics

    Nineteen years ago now, I was asked to perform my standup high in the Colorado Rockies at the Aspen comedy festival, a trade fair for the American comedy industry patronised by wealthy locals. In super-affluent Aspen, I discovered, to my horror, economically uncompetitive service industry workers were homed in special “employee housing projects”, like castrated catering cyborgs from a Russian science fiction novel, sleeping in pods, dreaming of electric sheep. But today that system seems benign compared with the housing poverty of Sunak island.

    In Aspen, the famous comedians were domiciled in luxury hotels. I was in a cheap motel on the edge of town, where I breakfasted daily with a quartet of equally undervalued underground comic book writers, regarded as witless savants nonetheless capable of providing content by the predatory industry vampires. Daniel Clowes told me the contents of his Oscar ceremony goody bag – the film of his Ghost World comic was nominated – were worth more than everything he had earned as a writer to that point.

    Stewart Lee’s Basic Lee is at Cambridge Arts theatre 15-16 April

    Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

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      Woman bailed after chanting ‘from the river to the sea’ in Manchester protest

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 12:08

    Exclusive: Police accused of suppressing free speech as Musa Khawaja, who is of Palestinian heritage, banned from city centre

    Police have been accused of suppressing legitimate protest after a woman was arrested for chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and given bail conditions banning her from Manchester city centre or from being in a group of more than three people.

    Musa Khawaja, 26, from Lancashire, was arrested for the chant outside the offices of BNY Mellon in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, during a demonstration against the bank’s investment of more than £10m in the Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems .

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      Green power: young environmentalists look to shake up Panama’s politics

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 11:00

    Buoyed by forcing the closure of a vast copper mine, a new generation of eco-conscious candidates are taking on the ‘shameful and corrupt’ status quo in May’s general elections

    In October, seven months before Panama’s general election, thousands of young environmentalists marched through the streets of Panama City demanding the closure of an open-pit copper mine , one of the largest in the Americas. They chanted “Panama’s gold is green” and “PRD trash” – a reference to the governing Partido Revolucionario Democrático ( Democratic Revolutionary party), which has long dominated politics in the country.

    Soon, they were joined by others from across Panamanian society: Indigenous people, workers, students and Instagram influencers.

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      Article 23: China hits back at criticism of Hong Kong’s hardline new security law

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 05:43

    Beijing dismisses chorus of concern from western governments over punitive new law as slander

    China has accused western governments and the United Nations of slander after they criticised Hong Kong’s new national security law , which was rushed through the city’s pro-Beijing parliament this week.

    The law, known as Article 23 , covers newly defined acts of treason, espionage, theft of state secrets, sedition and foreign interference. Critics said it was ushering in a “new era of authoritarianism”, would further erode the rights and freedoms of residents, and would scare off international business and investment.

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