Before the war on Gaza, the seed of Israel’s strategy of wholesale destruction was planted in a 2006 war on Lebanon. Today, the playbook repeats itself

Shortly after 2pm on 8 April, it seemed that Beirut was hit by an earthquake. Within 10 minutes, multiple apartment buildings were obliterated, leaving in their wake mounds of rubble and shattered glass, pulverized concrete and twisted metal – and hundreds of dead and wounded bodies.

In those minutes, Israel had carried out one of the worst mass killings in Lebanon’s history. Dozens of Israeli warplanes dropped bombs and missiles on 100 targets across a country roughly the size of Connecticut, striking Beirut, the Bekaa valley and southern Lebanon. By the time rescue crews finished digging out mangled remains from the rubble two days later, the Lebanese health ministry’s toll stood at 357 dead and more than 1,200 injured. But even that is not a final accounting of the day’s casualties because health officials were still struggling to identify remains and conduct DNA tests.

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The trio combine sludgy rock, homemade electronics and squawking into a watertight groove that makes light work of their complex musicianship

From Glasgow, Scotland
Recommended if you like Horse Lords, Melt-Banana, abrasive saxophone
Up next Album out now, touring the UK and Ireland from June

Taupe’s lawless mix of “not jazz”, sludgy rock and homemade electronics hits like a shock of cold water to the face. The Glasgow-based trio are a formidable live band: thunderously loud, crushingly tight, quick to surrender all control and trust-fall their way through wild improvisations. Their third album, Waxing | Waning, out now on Prague’s Minority Records, finally captures that power, as well as the band’s oddball humour and free-flowing imagination.

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Exclusive: Owner says private members venue is changing policy after revolt over division of pre-Christmas money

The restaurant tycoon Richard Caring has admitted his private members club Annabel’s made a “dumb mistake” after staff revolted over the use of more than £70,000 of their pre-Christmas service charge takings to pay managers’ bonuses.

Just one table of diners at the exclusive Mayfair venue, which has hosted celebrities, financiers and aristocrats ranging from Kate Moss and Harry Styles to the late queen, can spend more than £10,000 in an evening, according to workers.

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The climate crisis is accelerating the frequency of devastating events across the world, displacing millions and disproportionately affecting women

The water mark on Naira Santa Rita’s wall told the story before she could find the words for it. High and brown, like a scar, it was the line left by the floodwater on 15 February 2022 – the night Petrópolis drowned.

Within minutes, the mountain city she called home became a war zone. From her window, she watched bodies float past in the streets below. More than 230 people died that night, in what was until then Brazil’s worst climate disaster.

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Wat hield u bezig deze week? Stijgende benzineprijzen, de nieuwe ombudsman van NRC en een datalek klinkt te passief.

De kerncentrale in Tsjernobyl was veertig jaar geleden het toneel van een grote kernramp. Door de oorlog dreigt er opnieuw gevaar. Dat jaagt sommige bewoners niet weg. „Een oude boom moet je niet verplanten.”

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Graag uw aandacht voor het tamelijk kansloze heerschap hierboven, dat op maandag 16 februari op klaarlichte dag inbreekt bij een huis op de Louis Couperusstraat in Capelle aan den IJssel. Hij steelt er onder andere een ring die verdacht veel lijkt op een verlovingsring, maar goed, die dingen gebeuren elke dag, dat is eigenlijk nog tot daaraan toe. Daarna neemt monsieur de kinderkamers onder handen en dan ben je ongetwijfeld een crackjunk maar zoals bipolariteit geen excuus is voor Kanye's antisemitisme is verslaving natuurlijk geen reden om basisscholieren te bestelen. "Als de kinderen naar bed gaan, willen ze nog even voelen hoe zwaar hun spaarpotten zijn. Dan merken ze dat ze zijn opengebroken." Kent iemand deze hufter toevallig?

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