5: Israel intercepts boat seeking to break Gaza blockade
Israel’s navy intercepted an activist boat seeking to break the country’s decade-long blockade of the Gaza Strip, saying it was boarded without incident and was being directed to shore.
The navy said in a statement on Wednesday its forces had “redirected” the sailboat in order to prevent a “breach of the lawful maritime blockade” of the Palestinian enclave.
It said this was done “in accordance with government directives and after exhausting all diplomatic channels”.
Aljazeera
4: Theresa May’s Conference Speech Gave a Monstrous Ideology a Human Face
So who is Theresa May? She’s been leading the country for nearly three months now, but in that time it’s still been hard for many people to get a real handle on her: she never really fought a national election, not even within her own party. All we have are a few drabs of PR-speak – a firm hand on the wheel, a tough negotiator – and some icky libidinal complexes, as a generation of Tories too young to have bowed before the altar of Thatcher find themselves a new substitute nanny-figure to worship.
Today, at the Tory party conference, we found out who Theresa May really is. She’s not an apolitical administrator, she’s not a sensible pragmatist, or someone who can sanely and carefully guide this country through its next few years of inevitable decline. She is a rabid right-wing ideologue, the fanatical devotee of a ruthless and brutal political philosophy, and she’s dangerous.
You could be forgiven for thinking the opposite, though. Theresa May’s speech was a calculated pitch for the political centre-ground, touching on issues that might usually be the preserve of the Labour party, and offering solutions that seem very different to the Tories we think we know. She didn’t talk like somebody defending the status quo, but someone trying to overthrow it: “Our society should work for everyone,” she said, “but if you can’t afford to get onto the property ladder, or your child is stuck in a bad school, it doesn’t feel like it’s working for you.”
Vice News
3: Debate Wrap-Up: Tim Kaine and Mike Pence Agreed on Some Terrifying Policies
TIM KAINE AND MIKE PENCE quarreled and quibbled over a number of issues Tuesday night, the central one being the condition of Donald Trump’s soul, but the biggest takeaway of the debate may be the things the two men agreed about — all of which are scary.
They agreed that Russia is evil and terrifying and must be aggressively countered. They agreed that the U.S. should militarily intervene in Syria. They agreed that the national debt is frightening. They agreed that community policing, a euphemism for doing nothing, is going to make everything better again. And they agreed to talk over the female moderator, Elaine Quijano.
The Intercept’s staff liveblogged the debate, sympathizing with the routinely ignored moderator, while at the same time marveling over the irrelevance of some of her questions – fearmongering about the debt and Social Security? Seriously? With all the real things we should be worrying about?
Glenn Greenwald wrote about how “Mike Pence and Tim Kaine puffed up their chests and grappled with one another over who can be more antagonistic to Russia and who can scare Vladimir Putin more.” In Pence’s case, this happened in spite of the fact that Trump has called for a de-escalation of tensions with Russia, which has in turn led to Democrats’ “repeated accusations that he is some sort of agent of the Kremlin.”
The Intercept
2: Allan Nairn: Regardless of Who Wins in November, U.S. Wars & Aggression Will Continue
Vice-presidential candidates Virginia Senator Tim Kaine and Indiana Governor Mike Pence squared off Tuesday night in the only vice-presidential debate, where they discussed everything from Donald Trump’s tax history to their running mates’ foreign policy platforms. Democracy Now! expanded the debate by giving Green Party vice-presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka a chance to respond to the same questions posed to Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence. After the debate, Democracy Now! hosted a roundtable of guests, including prize-winning investigative journalist Allan Nairn, who gave his response to the three candidates’ answers.
Democracy Now
1: António Guterres to be next UN secretary general
António Guterres, the former Portuguese prime minister, will be the next UN secretary general, after the security council agreed he should replace Ban Ki-moon at the beginning of next year.
In a rare show of unity, all 15 ambassadors from the security council emerged from the sixth in a series of straw polls to announce that they had agreed on Guterres, who was UN high commissioner for refugees for a decade, and that they would confirm the choice in a formal vote on Thursday.
“Today after our sixth straw poll we have a clear favourite and his name is António Guterres,” the Russian UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters with his 14 council colleagues standing behind him.
“We have decided to go to a formal vote tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock, and we hope it can be done by acclamation.”
The abrupt end to the UN leadership race came as a surprise. Many observers had expected the selection process to go on late into October as the major powers struggled to promote their favourite candidates. And some thought that Russia, currently holding the presidency of the security council, would block Guterres, as Moscow had said it wanted an eastern European in the top UN job.
The Guardian
