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workersolidarity · 7 months

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[ 📹 Footage from on the night of February 29th, when the Israeli occupation forces opened fire on thousands of starving Palestinians gathered for humanitarian aid on Al-Rashid street in Gaza City. 118 Palestinian civilians were killed in the massacre and more than 700 others were wounded in the attack.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚨

INVESTIGATION OF ISRAEL'S "FLOUR MASSACRE" CONFIRMS ZIONIST FORCES RESPONSIBLE FOR SHOOTING HUNDREDS OF STARVING PALESTINIANS

An investigation by Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (EURO-MED) into the "Flour massacre", which saw 118 starving Palestinian civilians killed and nearly 800 wounded in what the Israeli occupation tried to blame on a "stampede," says it has produced evidence that the majority of casualties were actually caused by the firing of live Israeli bullets.

The Flour massacre occured on February 29th, 2024 near the Nabulsi roundabout on Al-Rashid street in Gaza City, where thousands of hungry Palestinian families gathered for the arrival of a humanitarian aid convoy carrying food to starving crowds that desperately needed sustenance.

Soon after the trucks arrived, gunfire erupted, including tracer rounds which could be seen in video evidence taken at the time, causing thousands of civilians to panic, running off in different directions in search for shelter.

The Israeli occupation authorities used heavily edited clips of night vision drone video to argue that nearly a thousand Palestinian casualties were a result of a stampede after Israeli forces fired rifles into the air to defend themselves from defenseless civilians desperate for food, whom they claim were looting the free food being distributed to the crowds.

So senseless was Israel's explanations for the atrocity, that even CNN's Christiane Amanpour, a normally deferential TV commentator who rarely resists the official narratives of the Israeli occupation, had to push back against Israeli officials on U.S. national television.

But a newly published report by the Geneva-based human rights organization, Euro-Med Monitor, says that many of casualties were in fact the result of the firing of live bullets that have been forensically analyzed and found to match those used by Israeli soldiers.

According to Euro-Med Monitor, "Many victims of the massacre" actually suffered injuries from "5.56x45mm NATO bullets," adding that, "this is a type of bullet fired from Israeli army weapons."

"A sample of 200 dead and injured victims revealed that they were indeed hit by this type of bullet, and that the bullets were discovered and examined at the massacre site along with shrapnel found in the bodies of the wounded and dead," Euro-Med said in its report.

After carrying out a forensic analysis of the type of bullets used, Euro-Med says it "discovered that [this type of bullet] is discharged from assault rifles like the M4 and Tavor, along with machine guns," specifically "light machine gun[s] or LMG" such as the "IWI Negev."

Euro-Med says its research "revealed that 5.56×45mm ammunition is a basic FMJ bullet used by the Israeli army."

"This type of bullet is imported from the United Kingdom on occasion, produced in 2020/2022, and licensed for use by the Israeli Ministry of Defense," the human rights organization said of its analysis.

Euro-Med added that the bullet "is also manufactured in Israel by IMI SYSTEMS," an Israeli company which manufactures weapons, ammunition and other military technologies, and "regularly supplies them to the Israeli security forces, including the Israeli army."

Citing testimony by Muhammad Yasser Washah, a local 17-year-old resident of Gaza City's Al-Sabra neighborhood who was present for the Flour massacre, along with its own analysis, Euro-Med said it retrieved a bullet lodged in the youths jacket after going through the bag of flour he had been carrying on the night of the atrocity.

After analyzing the bullet pulled from Washah's jacket, Euro-Med discovered that its "form and dimensions were identical" to the bullets mentioned previously, though this particular bullet is designed to penetrate several millimeters of solid steel.

Euro-Med recorded testimony from several witnesses to the horrific massacre, putting together a timeline for the events of that night.

According to witnesses, the Zionist army began "directly shooting at civilians" as they waited for food aid at "approximately 4:10am" on Thursday, February 29th.

By 5:30am, the Israeli occupation forces "raided the entire gathering, where many people were lying injured, killed or were attempting to flee."

Euro-Med says that many people were taken into custody by the occupation's soldiers, others were forced to flee south, while some "Israeli forces directly executed others and left their bodies on a nearby beach."

According to testimony given by a witness who asked for anonymity, Euro-Med quoted the witness as saying, "We were shocked when Israeli soldiers showed up and took a group of young men from Gaza [City]."

The witness added that “While the majority of them were fleeing to the beach, some were at the Nabulsi roundabout, others were evacuated to the south, and still others were killed and left on the beach.”

The witness also detailed the fate of a doctor named Muhammad Awad who had been detained by Israeli soldiers but was released soon thereafter, “he moved several steps away, they opened fire on him and wounded him in the shoulder…We were under siege until 6:30 am, and the injured were pleading with us not to leave them…The food and flour were covered in blood when I left."

A second witness who works as volunteer paramedic also asked for anonymity fearing retaliation. That witness told Euro-Med “In the hopes of receiving assistance, I went to the Nabulsi roundabout. As a precaution, I brought a first aid bag with me because I knew that similar incidents had resulted in shootings.”

The witness explained how shortly before 4:30am, the humanitarian aid trucks "passed the checkpoint and the Israeli army started firing, throwing stun grenades and smoke bombs" as an Israeli tank advanced towards the crowd.

“I treated several injured people with first aid. I discovered that some had suffered injuries to their chests, while others had suffered injuries to their limbs," the witness recounted, adding that, "while I was trying to pull out one of the injured people, the tank came forward, and I was forced to flee the scene." The witness concluded by saying, “there was a large number of dead and injured people.”

Euro-Med Monitor goes on to lay out four "key pieces of evidence confirming the Israeli army's involvement in the killing and wounding of starving civilians," including signs of injuries on the bodies of the dead and wounded, footage released by the Israeli occupation authorities themselves, as well as "audible evidence of gunfire emenating from Israeli tanks positioned near the coast."

The Human Rights organization also pointed to video evidence published by the Zionist occupation, which despite being heavily edited, shows the "sheer panic and intimidation that struck all of the civilians present - including those relatively far away from the aid trucks - and pushed them to flee in all directions in order to seek shelter."

Euro-Med also warned that Israeli shootings of starving Palestinian civilians attempting to receive humanitarian aid has "become a regular practice."

The organization stated that over the last few weeks, "Israeli forces have directly attacked and killed dozens of people in Gaza City, including on Salah al-Din Street and in the vicinity of the Kuwait roundabout, where it has occurred no less than twice since the Flour Massacre."

The most recent example of this kind of attack came just last night when, according to Euro-Med Monitor, "many civilians were injured by Israeli violence near the Kuwait roundabout."

The Euro-Med report goes on to slam the Israeli occupation for "starving the people of Gaza, killing the starving people, and obstructing the entry and distribution of humanitarian supplies, especially in Gaza City and the northern Strip, demonstrat[ing] Israel’s aim of forcibly displacing the Palestinian people there as part of its genocide, ongoing since 7 October 2023."

The investigation goes on emphasize that the Zionist army's "extrajudicial executions and intentional killings of Palestinian civilians" who have not taken part in the hostilities, "amounts to serious violations of International humanitarian law," and are considered "war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court."

"These crimes, which Israel has been committing against the Gaza Strip’s people since 7 October, violate the right of Palestinians to life in accordance with international human rights law, and constitute acts of genocide," the Human Rights group added.

Euro-Med concludes it's report by urging the international community to take action to "force Israel to halt its starvation campaign" against civilians in the Gaza Strip, "in order to prevent the impending catastrophe of mass famine there, and to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and grave violations against the Strip and all of its Palestinian residents."

The Geneva-based human rights organization also issued a call for a "more effective and decisive" international intervention to "ensure the safe, complete, and reliable delivery of humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip without any hindrance," and "thus guarantee the provision of and access to" basic goods and services desperately needed by the starving population in the Palestinian enclave.

#source

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

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eretzyisrael · 2 months

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BY: KAREN BEKKER

In complete contravention of journalistic standards, CNN continues to advocate for US sanctions on Israel in a televised segment by Katie Polglase that aired on The Amanpour Hour on July 13 and in a nearly 4000-word written article posted online. (“The US held off sanctioning this Israeli army unit despite evidence of abuses. Now its forces are shaping the fight in Gaza,” July 13, 2024. The byline of the written article said that it was “by CNN’s International Investigations team,” but Polglase is listed as the investigative reporter.) Moreover, the segment that aired included a baseless claim that echoes the medieval stereotype of Jewish bloodlust.

The Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics states that advocacy and commentary should be labelled. Neither the online article nor the segment that aired are labelled as commentary, and the segment appears to be a news report. Yet, it’s obvious in both that an agenda is being pursued.

The televised segment was ostensibly about Israel, yet it included seven references to supposed U.S. inaction:

Katie Polglase: This is the Netzah Yehuda battalion, an Israeli army unit showcasing their military might in a promotional personal training video. But the unit has a decades-long history of abusing Palestinians in the West Bank. And the Americans know it. A state department investigation found they had committed gross human rights violations but this finding never led to U.S. sanctions. Even media reports of possible sanctions outraged Israel…. Polglase: So despite their track record, the Netzah Yehuda battalion is still receiving American arms and is now operating in Gaza…. Charles Blaha, Former U.S. State Department Official: That is very bad news. That shows first of all, that Israel, that the government of Israel has no intention of holding the Netzah Yehuda battalion accountable. Polglase: He says the U.S. is not following their own laws by sending them weapons. Blaha: Of course, we treat Israel differently and that really undermines our human rights advocacy and the rest of the world. The law that Congress passed and our taxpayer-funded assistance is going to Israeli units that have committed gross violations of human rights. Polglase: This assistance, despite the growing evidence of abuse. CNN exclusively obtained the names of three more Israeli units found by U.S. officials to have committed gross human rights violations prior to October 7th. All are still operating, including the Yamam, seen here in Gaza in an operation that rescued four Israeli hostages, but left nearly 300 Palestinians dead, according to local health authorities. The Israeli military dispute that the toll was so high. As the death and destruction mounts, it is U.S. weaponry supporting these units, begging the question for how much longer will Israel’s greatest ally choose to turn a blind eye.

(Emphasis added.)

The segment seems to be less about Israel and more about U.S. support for Israel. And Polglase does not present anyone advocating the contrary point of view, who might point out, for example, that Israel is fighting a defensive and existential war, one that it did not start and did not want, and it needs the support of its allies now. The segment crosses the line from journalism into advocacy.

But that’s not the only problem with the televised report. Polglase relies on an anonymous source and presents his opinions and speculation with no pushback. The anonymous soldier tells Polglase, “There were some kids throwing rocks in a small village. That normally isn’t a big deal. But the company commander decided, let’s throw them a party. So they took the emergency response team and 20 soldiers. They walk door to door, throwing flash-bangs and gas grenades into people’s homes as a punishment for the kids throwing rocks.”

“Isn’t a big deal,” seems an odd way to describe the large stones frequently thrown at both soldiers and civilians in the West Bank, as they have the potential to be lethal – unlike the stun grenades that the soldier seems to think are, in fact, a big deal.

Polglase then prompts him with a leading question, “Collective punishment?” He obliges her, “Yes. Collective punishment.” This is not the first time we’ve seen Polglase use this type of leading question to elicit a response to condemn Israel. But “collective punishment” is a defined term in international law, and this is not what the term means. Nor does either Polglase or her anonymous source know whether the commander had other reasons for his decision to which the low-level soldier was not privy.

Polglase then admits that CNN has used facial recognition technology to essentially spy on an IDF officer, Lieutenant Colonel Nitai Okashi. She describes an incident that happened under his command in ominous terms, complete with grim background music to set the tone – but on close inspection, she hasn’t revealed anything that Okashi himself did wrong. By Polglase’s own account two Palestinian men were “arrested for assisting the killer of two … Netzah Yehuda soldiers.” The two were beaten by the soldiers on the way to the police station. Obviously this should never have happened, and according Polglase, the soldiers involved received jail time. But she doesn’t even claim that Okashi was present when the incident occurred. Even more disturbingly, in the written article online, Polglase doesn’t even mention the reason the two Palestinian men were arrested.

#katie polglase #cnn #nitai okashi #collective punishment #netzah yehuda #hamas #gaza

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jordanianroyals · 11 months

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youtube

Queen Rania of Jordan 's Interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour: Decries Western Double Standard and Deafening Silence on War on Gaza, 24 October 2023

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Jordan is home to 40 percent of the total registered Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, according to the UN. That is simply a huge number, especially for a small country. Jordan's Queen Rania is herself of Palestinian descent. And she's joining me now for a world exclusive from Amman, the capital. Queen Rania. Welcome to our program.

QUEEN RANIA: Thank you, Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Can I ask you first, as an Arab, as a Palestinian, as a human being, a mother, how you are feeling ever since October 7?

QUEEN RANIA: Well, look Christiane, I cannot begin to describe to you the depth of the grief, the pain, and the shock that we are feeling here in Jordan. All of us are united in this grief, regardless of our origin. We just can't believe the images that we're seeing every single day coming out of Gaza. We're going to bed seeing those images and waking up to them. You know, as a mom, we've seen Palestinian mothers who have had to write the names of their children on their hands, because the chances of them being shelled to death, of their bodies turning into corpses, are so high.

I just want to remind the world that Palestinian mothers love their children just as much as any other mother in the world. And for them to have to go through this, it's just unbelievable.

And equally, I think that people all around the Middle East, including in Jordan, we are just shocked and disappointed by the world's reaction to this catastrophe that is unfolding. In the last couple of weeks, we have seen, you know, a glaring double standard in the world. When October 7 happened, the world immediately and unequivocally stood by Israel and its right to defend itself, and condemned the attacks that happened. But what we're seeing the last couple of weeks, we're seeing silence in the world. Countries have stopped at just expressing “concern,” or acknowledging the casualties, but always with a preface of declaration of support for Israel. Are we being told that it is wrong to kill a family – an entire family – at gunpoint, but it's okay to shell them to death? I mean, there is a glaring double standard here and it is just shocking to the Arab world.

This is the first time in modern history that there is such human suffering and the world is not even calling for a ceasefire. So the silence is deafening and, to many in our region, it makes the Western world complicit through their support and through the cover that they give Israel, that it is just trying to defend itself. Many in the Arab world are looking at the Western world as not just tolerating this, but as aiding and abetting it. And this is just horrendous and it's deeply, deeply disappointing to all of us.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Queen Rania, I'm going to ask you more about this and go deeper into your feelings about this. But first I want to ask you, you know, the Israelis are shocked to their core, the grief… What happened to them has never happened in that way since the Holocaust. And they are shaken to their core, as I said, and in grief. I just want to get from you what you felt on October 7.

QUEEN RANIA: Well, of course, I was shocked. Jordan has made its position very clear. We condemn the killing of any civilian, whether Palestinian or Israeli. That is Jordan's ethical, moral position. And it's also the position of Islam. Islam condemns the killing of civilians. As my husband mentioned recently, the Pact of Omar, which was issued on the gates of Jerusalem 15 centuries ago – that's 1,000 years before the Geneva Conventions – orders Muslims not to kill a woman, child, or elderly person, and not to destroy a tree or hurt a priest. So this is what we believe are the rules of engagement at time of war. But they need to apply to everybody.

So yes, there was the shock and there is the condemnation. But why isn't there equal condemnation to what is happening now? I just want to emphasize that this conflict did not begin on October 7, although it has been being portrayed as that. You know, most networks are covering the story under the title of ‘Israel at War.’ But for many Palestinians on the other side of the separation wall and other side of the barbed wire, war has never left. This is a 75-year-old story; a story of overwhelming death and displacement to the Palestinian people. It is a story of an occupation under an apartheid regime that that occupies land, that demolishes houses, confiscates lands, military incursions, night raids… The context of a nuclear-armed regional superpower that occupies, oppresses, and commits daily documented crimes against Palestinians is missing from the narrative. You know, for too long, Palestinians lives…

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Queen Rania, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I want to ask you a specific question because you're using a lot of words which clearly many in the Arab World have used – words like apartheid and the rest. But you know that you are going to come under a lot of criticism from Israel and its supporters. And I'm wondering whether you're coming out to speak…

QUEEN RANIA: But let me just emphasize that “apartheid” is a designation that was given not by Arabs, but by Israeli and international human rights organizations.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You wrote in an Instagram story just in the last week, “It isn't self defense if you're an occupying force,” and you showed the destruction of Gaza. And you have posted a video of yourself from a presser in 2009 during that war, saying “It is heartbreaking to see how little has changed. The world cannot remain silent. This has to stop.” Do you feel that you have a particular voice, you know, as Queen of Jordan, in a country that has a peace treaty with Israel, to speak up?

QUEEN RANIA: It's not about me, it's about speaking up for humanity. You know, this is not about being pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian. This is about choosing the people, the everyday people on both sides. And explaining again that the Palestinian people have for too long been living under oppression and dehumanization. They suffered daily indignities and human rights violations, whether being jailed or humiliated or harassed. They do not have freedom of movement. There are over 500 checkpoints scattered all over the West Bank. You have a separation wall, which is deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice, that has separated the territories into 200 disconnected enclaves. And you've seen the aggressive expansion of settlements on Palestinian land, and those have interrupted the territorial contiguity of the territories and has deemed an autonomous, independent Palestinian state not viable. So this is the background of this conflict. There is a hyper-fixation on Hamas now because of what happened in the last couple of weeks. But this is a problem that far precedes Hamas and will continue after Hamas. This is a fight for freedom and for justice, and that is what needs to be heard.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Can I ask you this question then? Because, quite a brave…I think she's Saudi anyway, a journalist on the Saudi television network Al Arabiya, took this and hammered Khaled Mashal, the former head of Hamas, and said to him, the butchery – well, that's my word – But she said, what everybody is seeing on their screens has turned the world away from the Palestinian cause. And just to expand, people are saying Hamas and what it did has brought this down on these poor people of Gaza. Do you accept that?

QUEEN RANIA: Well, I do not believe in, as I said, in the killing of civilians. But this is a story of violence that has been going on now for so long. And this violence needs to be condemned. But at the end of the day, what we're seeing today, and what people need to understand, is that yes, under the guise of the right to defend itself, we are witnessing atrocities.

You know, every country has a right to defend itself, but not through any means – not through war crimes, not through collective punishment. 6,000 civilians killed so far, 2,400 children – how is that self-defense? We are seeing butchery at a mass scale using precision weapons. So for the past two weeks, we have seen the indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza. Entire families wiped out, residential neighborhoods flattened to the ground, the targeting of hospitals and schools and churches and mosques and medical workers, journalists, UN aid workers – how is that self-defense? Why is it that whenever Israel commits these atrocities it comes under the banner of self-defense, but when there is violence by Palestinians, it is immediately called terrorism. Is the word “terrorist” just reserved exclusively for Muslims and Arabs

CHRISTIAN AMANPOUR: Well let me ask you then…

QUEEN RANIA: There's a real double standard here that we’re seeing. A false symmetry that we see…

CHRISTIAN AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you this, your husband, King Abdullah…

QUEEN RANIA: Yes, false symmetry, because these are not two equal people in the conflict. One is an occupier, and one is the occupied. One has a military, the mightiest in the world, and the other doesn’t have a military at all. So there is a false symmetry here that is being drawn. And also, when you say “the right to defend itself,” that does not say the entire story. It doesn't say the story of the violation of international law, international humanitarian law. It doesn't tell you the suffering and the story of an occupation. You know, Israel is in violation of no less than 30 UN Security Council resolutions that require it, and it alone, to act to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, to stop the settlements, the separation wall, the human rights violations. This is at the crux of this issue. It is not this hyper-fixation on Hamas.

CHRISTIAN AMANPOUR: Can I ask you, you know, to sort of elaborate, because your husband, King Abdullah, I believe it was last weekend at the summit of Arab leaders in Cairo, he said, “The message the Arab world is hearing is loud and clear. Palestinian lives matter less than Israeli ones. Our lives matter less than other lives.” I know you've said a lot about your feelings about what's going on right now. But do you think in general, that that’s true? That even world leaders and others, and you meet a lot of them, and so does the King, which is why he said that, I assume?

QUEEN RANIA: Well, like I said, it has been very disappointing to see the double standards in the world today. To see that the strong condemnation of what happened on October 7, but very little condemnation of what is happening today.

Why isn't there a call for an immediate ceasefire? We are seeing staggering human suffering happening today. Why is the narrative always skewed to the Israeli side? The Western media and policymakers are quick to adopt the Israeli narrative. When Israel attacks, Palestinians “die,” but when Israelis die, they are “murdered in cold blood”. It’s a massacre. So even like on October 7, we've seen the situation described as savagery, barbaric, bloodthirsty, cold-blooded. We're not seeing that terminology describing the situation today, even though the atrocities are of greater magnitude.

I'm not arguing accuracy, Christiane, I am arguing equivalence and double standards here. When the President of the United States is told that, you know, he has seen evidence of children beheaded, only to retract because the IDF said that there's no proof of that, that is confirmation bias. Even at your network, Christiane, you know, the CNN website at the beginning of the conflict reported a headline of Israeli children found butchered in an Israeli kibbutz. And when you read through the story, it hasn't been independently verified. Now, my question to you, would you publish, such a damning yet unverified claim made by a Palestinian?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Queen Rania, I just need to stop you right there. Because there have been pictures shown by the Israelis and our journalists have been down there. I'm not talking about beheadings; I'm talking about babies’ bodies riddled with bullets and things. But let's – it is just all so horrible, as you say.

I want to ask you about what Jordan has said. And your husband the king has said that there has been anyway, an attempt or suggestion to move Palestinians who are trying to seek safety either into Egypt or into Jordan, your country. And the king has said, “This is a red line. I think the plan by certain of the usual suspects to try and create de facto issues on the ground. No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.”

QUEEN RANIA: Well, look, the people of Gaza now are facing two choices: either they leave or they face death or collective punishment. So essentially, they're given a choice between expulsion or extermination, between ethnic cleansing and genocide, and no people should have to face that kind of choice.

And what my husband was referring to is the people of Palestine, of Gaza, should not be forced to be moved again. Most of the residents of Gaza are already refugees. And right now, at least a million have been displaced from their homes. So, we do not want another mass displacement of Palestinians, like what happened at the Nakba in 1948. And that's what my husband meant about this being a red line. The Palestinians have the right to remain on their land.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Yeah, because they were concerned about so-called forcible transfer and never be allowed to come back.

There have been quite a lot of protests in your country, as in many other parts of the world. And you have explained what is shaking up, and that is a very different narrative about what's happening depending on what part of the world people come from, and certain leaders come from. There's a most definite taking-of-sides. That's absolutely going on, as you illustrated. What about though – or are you kind of used to it now and have to manage it – the protests on the streets, even against the 1994 peace treaty? Are you concerned about the anger and wider war or wider instability in countries like yours or in others around the region?

QUEEN RANIA: Well, you would be concerned if there's division, but we are absolutely united in our stance. We all believe in the same thing, we are all feeling the same pain, we all want the same thing. And so, I think there's a lot of unity in the Arab World. And like I said, there is a sense of: do our lives matter less, you know? Why is it that when people are coming to represent, you know, the Palestinian issue, at the top of an interview, they have to have their humanity cross-examined, they have to present their moral credentials: “do you condemn?” We don't see Israeli officials being asked to condemn, and when they are, people are readily accepted by “our right to defend ourselves.” I have never seen a Western official say the sentence: Palestinians have the right to defend themselves.

And so, you know, we are seeing this even in western democracies. Freedom of speech is apparently a universal value, except when you mention Palestine. When people gather to support Israel, they're exercising their right to assembly. But when they gather for Palestine, they're deemed terrorist sympathizers or anti-Semitic. So you're seeing these double standards and it's creating all of the disillusionment in the Arab world, and in many who are just seeing the injustice.

And I just want to emphasize, Christiane, that at the end of the day, there is no military solution to this issue. Wars are never won; they're always losses on all sides. Victory is a myth that politicians make in order to justify immense loss of life. Even if Israel goes and defeats or kills every last Hamas member, then what? Haven’t they left a trail of terrible memories, horrific memories, that will just create a new generation of resistance that is fiercer and more violent? Because, at the end of the day, you can only have a political resolution to this, and my husband has for so long always emphasized that there could be no peace and stability in the Middle East without a political resolution.

So, even if you're an ally to Israel, you are doing it no service by giving it blind support. Your expediting and expanding the provision of lethal weapons to Israel is only going to expand this conflict. It’s only going to prolong and deepen the suffering. There can never be a resolution except around the negotiating table. And there's only one path to this and that is a free, sovereign, and independent Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security with the state of Israel. That is the only path that's going to that's going to get us there.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Many, many analysts are already talking about that. And we hope that something like that can emerge from the ashes in this catastrophe. Queen Rania, thank you so much indeed for joining us.

#Queen Rania #interview #video

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the-garbanzo-annex-jr · 1 year

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by David Litman

CNN has a shaky relationship with polling data, as CAMERA has documented previously. In a previous, admittedly more egregious case, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour appears to have entirely fabricated the existence of polling data that fit her preferred narrative. On July 14, however, CNN’s Abeer Salman took a slightly different track by using existing polling data, but only some of it.

In an article titled “Palestinian leader calls on world to ‘protect us,’ and his people respond with bitter laughter,” Salman reports on the declining popularity of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. To her credit, this is a story that needs to be told.

But Salman, who has a history of slanted coverage (and even uncritically publishing an antisemitic cartoon), doesn’t end there. She portrays the story as one in which Palestinians are frustrated that Abbas is not “protecting” them from “increasing Israeli settler violence and frequent, deadly Israeli military incursions…”

In doing so, Salman shifts the story from one of growing Palestinian extremism and violence into one of Palestinian victimhood. The narrative portrays the situation as one in which Palestinians are mocking Abbas’ “calls for peaceful resistance” (a dubious claim itself) not because they are increasingly supportive of violence against Israelis, but because they are victims of Israeli violence.

But the data, including the polling data from Salman’s own source, works against her narrative.

The CNN reporter cites a Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) poll, pointing out that “71% were dissatisfied” with Abbas as president and “74% demanded that he resign.”

However, Salman leaves out the other side of the story from those PCPSR polls. As Abbas’ popularity has declined, two other indicators have taken notable and contemporaneous turns: (1) support for the two-state solution has declined; and (2) support for “armed confrontations and intifada” has risen.

Tracking all three questions since March 2015, we see the following trend:

Source: Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research

Shortly after satisfaction with Abbas began dramatically declining (from 37% in 2020 to 32% in 2021, 23% in 2022, and 19% in 2023), support for armed confrontations and intifada” began sharply increasing (from 43% in 2021 to 52% in 2022 and 58% in 2023). Equally important to note is that support for a two-state solution has simultaneously declined in a similarly dramatic fashion (from 40% in 2022 to 27% in 2023).

That is, the story isn’t just one of declining popularity for Abbas. It’s one of greater support for violence and for rejection of living peacefully, side by side with Israel.

While one must always be cautious of reading too much into polling data, as a recent CAMERA study showed, around the same time that polling data began showing these trends, the level of Palestinian violence dramatically surged, jumping from 1,248 attacks in 2020 to 2,063 in 2021 and 2,674 in 2022. And while UN data suggests violence by Israeli settlers has also increased, the data shows quite clearly that settler violence grew more slowly and remains at levels dramatically lower than Palestinian violence, with 358 incidents in 2020, 496 incidents in 2021, and 849 incidents in 2022.

This preempts the suggestion that the growth in support for violence among Palestinians was a response to growing Israeli violence, given that the data shows the surge in violence has been overwhelmingly driven by the Palestinian side.

One other polling point left out: what Palestinians prefer over “peaceful resistance.” While Salman states that many Palestinians mock calls for “peaceful resistance,” she leaves out what the polls show they prefer: “armed struggle.” While the polling question has not been consistently asked over the same period by PCPSR, the March 2023 poll showed Palestinians chose “armed struggle” (54%) over “popular resistance” (21%) as the “most effective” method to end the conflict and achieve statehood (only 18% chose “negotiations”).

This information exposes Salman’s narrative as rather superficial and misleading in its portrayal of the larger context. While she is correct in noting Abbas’ decline in popularity, a story which deserves far more attention than it has gotten in Western media, her misleading narrative leaves works to distort the other highly relevant trends shaping Palestinian societal views.

#cnn #media bias #christine amanpour #polling data #palestinian violence #palestinian victimhood

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camillasgirl · 10 months

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The Queen's speech at the Foreign Press Association Awards 2023

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a huge pleasure to be here with you this evening to celebrate the 135th anniversary of the Foreign Press Association and to reflect on your many achievements as the world’s oldest and biggest association of foreign journalists. But I cannot begin without also reflecting that as we gather, journalists, photographers and their support teams are even now risking their lives. We think particularly of those reporting from Ukraine and the Middle East in these most difficult of times.

By joining you this evening, I am following in the footsteps of my husband, an honorary member of the FPA, who joined you at these Awards in 2008. On that occasion, he described your role as “not only to look at the world and study the way it works, but to report what you see accurately, to explain it and indeed to interpret it. In so doing you shape the view and define the perspective of millions of people and that is an enormous responsibility”.

I know, second-hand, a little of the responsibility of your profession. There are journalists in my family…and I have even been the subject of one or two stories myself over the years... I have also had the opportunity to visit a significant number of newsrooms and have seen how tough your work is. Particularly, if I dare say so, for women, who, despite the many hurdles they have faced, have been among the bravest reporters of all. From trailblazers like Martha Gelhorn and Christiane Amanpour, to those such as Marie Colvin (an FPA Journalist of the Year) and Daphne Caruana Galizia, who have so tragically paid with their lives, their courage was matched only by their conviction that the truth matters. Perhaps this has never been more evident than in our digital age, where disinformation runs rife and where female journalists are increasingly targeted on social media. The FPA has done much to promote and protect women throughout your long history, appointing your first female President in 1955, and, more recently, providing specialised training for women to deal with disruptive and abusive behaviour from members of the public. For this, all your readers and broadcast audiences are in your debt.

As the late great Dame Ann Leslie wrote, it is among the sacred duties of journaliststo ‘face the glacier in the cupboard and to expose its coldness and cruelty to the bright, clear and humanising light of day.’ That is what she, and all of you, do. This is especially true in one area of your work for which I should particularly like to thank you: raising awareness of domestic and sexual abuse against women in every part of the globe. The FPA was, of course, founded in 1888, when foreign correspondents came to the United Kingdom to report on the Jack the Ripper murders and decided to band together to secure better access to information and sources. Although we might now deplore some of the more sensational approaches to those terrible events, the fact is that the FPA grew out of the need to reveal and condemn violence against women. And this remains a key part of journalism today. You have the ability to break the corrosive silence that frequently surrounds abuse. You bring into the open the voices of victims, you break taboos, you shine a light on these heinous crimes and you guide the public on what they can do to help. As the foreign correspondent Christina Lamb makes clear in her devastating book ‘Our Bodies, Their Battlefield’, rape and sexual abuse continue to be a pervasive and all-too-often hidden feature of conflict zones the world over.

Ladies and gentlemen, as my husband observed 15 years ago, yours is an awe-inspiring responsibility: you question, debate and analyse and thus protect what is so easy for us to take for granted – true freedom of expression. As I said at the London Press Club Awards in 2011, I believe freedom of expression to be at the heart of our democratic system. In this, you play a vital, if not pivotal role.

Take courage from the words of one of our greatest writers, and former journalist, Tom Stoppard: “I still believe that if your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon”. May you continue to use it wisely. Thank you.

#queen camilla #quote #speech

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geronimo-11 · 11 months

Text

WIP Saturday

I'm alive!! Sort of... just not as active here anymore lol

But I've fallen into the Call of Duty pit and I can't seem to escape, so... here we are. Tagged by @isobel-thorm forever and a day ago

I honestly don't know who else is actively posting anymore, so this may just be for you fam lol.

Price and Maggie's reunion, and then some Ghost/Maggie pining-ish stuff under the cut

---------------------------------

John Price looked almost exactly the same as he had ten years ago. There was more gray in his beard now, and it was certainly thicker now than it was then, but he had the same warm, eye creasing smile. Maggie stood from her seat to greet him and found her hands had stopped shaking of their own accord. Just his presence was a comfort. Safe, she reminded herself. You’re safe here.

He was shaking his head in disbelief as he approached, but the smile never left his face. If anything it seemed to grow, and the lines around his eyes were more pronounced as he looked her over.

“Look at you,” he said fondly. His voice was rougher than she remembered. He stopped in front of her and she caught the scent of tobacco and some sort of spiced cologne. “It’s been a while, Mags.”

Maggie smiled as she stepped forward, accepting his offered hug gladly.

“I know, I’m sorry. That’s my fault,” she told him. “I’ve been busy.”

“So I saw,” he said lightly. “I turn my back for two minutes and you’ve turned into Christiane Amanpour.”

He observed her for a moment as they sat across from each other. His blue eyes roved over her face as if he was looking for something. As if he could see right through her. Maggie felt her stomach twist anxiously and took a slow breath to steady herself. She was being paranoid. It had been years since they’d seen each other, it was only natural for him to– a beer appeared on the table between them and Maggie jumped.

Her hand flew to her bag, her body tensed to bolt. The man who had sat the glass down gave her an odd look before giving Price a nod and walking away. She hadn't even seen the captain order anything when he walked in. They seemed familiar with each other, so clearly the man already knew what Price liked to order. Which meant that maybe this wasn’t as inconspicuous a meeting place as she had hoped it would be.

Maggie took a deep breath and rested her hands on the table as she watched the man leave. When he was securely behind the counter she turned her gaze back to Price. His piercing gaze was still on her, moving from her face to her trembling hands. She clasped them together with what she hoped was a convincing smile.

----------

Maggie watched him silently. Her gaze searched his face intently for a moment, as if there would be some sort of tell in spite of the mask to give away his thoughts. She kept his gaze for a long moment before she turned away. Her footsteps were muted by the carpet as she walked across the room to the cabinet in the corner.

“Wine or whiskey?”

Ghost followed her with his eyes, surprised by the sudden redirection.

“I’m a whiskey man.” She supposed he had decided to humor her instead of calling her out, and for that she was grateful. Another beat of silence, then, “You?”

“Oh, yeah,” Maggie mused wryly. “I’m a whiskey man, too.”

That got a small chuckle out of him at least. The corner of her mouth curled up, pleased. Maggie placed a glass in front of him and filled it before pouring one for herself. She took a drink and her face twisted immediately. Her nose scrunched as she swallowed, and she took a deep breath through her mouth to cool the burn in her throat. Her eyes watered as she tried not to cough.

Ghost hummed thoughtfully as she gave her glass a distasteful look. “All right, Ace?”

Maggie shook her head. “Fine,” she squeaked and took another, smaller, drink. Ghost pulled his glass toward him and held it to his nose. He inhaled deeply and hummed again before he set the glass back on the table. Maggie frowned.

“You gonna make me drink by myself?” she asked.

More silence stretched between them and it was only after it had reached the point of being uncomfortable that she realized the meaning behind her words. To drink with her, Ghost would have to take off his mask. Something he had made a point not to do in front of her. She didn’t want to seem like she was crossing a line, especially not after he’d just saved her life. It took a lot to get under his skin, she was well aware, but she didn’t want to seem… disrespectful? Ungrateful? Before she could take back her words, Ghost was already moving.

Maggie felt the air leave her lungs in one long, shaky exhale as Ghost lifted his hand towards his head and tugged off his mask, tossing it on the counter between them. His eyes fixed on hers over the rim of his glass as he lifted it to his lips and took a long drink. Maggie soaked in the details of his face eagerly.

His hair was the same shade of dark brown as his eyes. The black face paint he used to cover his skin beneath the mask was all but wiped away except for a few patches here and there, but it served to make his eyes look even darker. A jagged silver line dragged harshly across his cheekbone, and another cut into the dark brow above his right eye. When he sat the glass down she noticed another scar on his upper lip.

He had a straight nose and sharp jaw, and his lips twitched in amusement – she could only assume because of the stupid, awed expression on her face. It wasn’t her fault, though. Now that she had an unobscured view of his face, she could confirm her earlier suspicions. He was handsome. Damn.

Ghost was watching her just as curiously as she was watching him and Maggie could feel the heat rising to her cheeks the longer they stared at each other. She forced herself to look away under the guise of taking another drink. The burn was a welcome distraction.

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the-firebird69 · 3 months

Video

youtube

A tiny house property in Union County, Florida

What I know is I've been pushed around too and my husband and she's right people bother you here's is very nice it's still a mobile home but it's got real wooden frame and it's sturdy and it's got wood siding and strong it's like a hurricane level 6 really go up to 7 or 8 but you're up in the air and my husband says that you could take it in Florida to a tiny home area and they have them and they're not that far out and you put it on a foundation so she found it and she tried to get in they said her house is not the code and he said wow that's interesting and then he said ok well you're looking mobile home parks and it looks like they're on the slab and she said they're up to it well they put a foundation blocks in around the under the whole thing and they put wood on it and then you lower it onto a leveled surface and that keeps it from bouncing around and critters and she said okay I've seen that and she said the permitting is not required and people see that and it's like a hurricane 6 and she says 7 that's very good and you strap it down you just can't anchor it onto the concrete directly and she said ohh OK but you can strap it so it just doesn't it can't have a foundation so she says this is great so she said I guess your dry stack the CMU and he says I don't know if you have to dry stack here yeah probably but you could put like a dab on the inside of like mastic and it wouldn't it wouldn't hold it but it would keep them from moving all over the place and she liked that idea so they've done it before and they're gonna do it with this stuff hit the fan and it's really really harsh and people are being moved a lot faster than that. I like my husband's idea of getting a small home it's not tiny they're about 800 square feet which is 20 by 30 or 25 by 30 roughly one floor it's pretty big so you might have to go like 600 square feet which is 20 by 30 and that is actually large for us and most people who have two people could live in it and they say it's the next step and all that but it looks nice I need seen them it can't seem to find them. So this is an alternative you still cannot have a permanent foundation it has to be temporary and you can do my husband's idea you put these CM the block into the ground is the best way to do it putting something under it like stone it'll move around but you want to kind of level the bottom and then put the block in and the top should be level and it's not very hard and you lay them dry and you drive in over the hole it's kind of tricky because the wheels are right on the edge but it's wise to dig down if you don't want to do the whole thing it's fine but you only need it in like 6 or 7 points and you suggest a screw jacks underneath on prostituted platforms and it's pretty sturdy you can use those all around and be easier but it's not ideal you have a lot of money you can build places and you could have a house sitter computer system and we should probably make that seriously though in your areas

Hera

Zues

Olympus

People do see who it is now it's the empire and they're trying to kidnap our son they're only there's only one state between us he says and he's saying to Ken it's only one more day ken says this sucks it says I can't stop seeing it so Ken said it today and I said I said it again and that's what they're saying.

Thor Freya

amanpour she is a great newsperson one you morlock shoiuld emlulate. it i about hte story. she has helped you and others. She is your kind and race a little bit bigger but she is very very sharp and smart and our son and daughter like her she's for the cause. Knows it they like each other too we're having a hard time everybody and stuff to be poor here dirt poor and I'm doing things but really I don't think my ebike would make it to California get 100 miles forget the other batteries it's like 140 with nothing and I'm not even out of Florida yet so they are thinking about it.

Thor Freya Of course he's saying that this is our son and he's thinking of how am I gonna live somewhere and people are not helping. He is stuck here and he stranded

Olympus

#youtube

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readingsquotes · 5 months

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"Stewart asked Amanpour if it’s “an American problem,” that the world, via social media and reporting from Al Jazeera, is getting a very different perception of Gaza than what western media is generally showing. He even appeared angry when he stated that eliminating Hamas is an unrealistic military goal for Israel (“So what, you’re not going to stop until you kill everybody?”) and annoyed when Amanpour responded “Israel was attacked on October 7th, the worst single day massacre in its history” and said (just as Biden administration flacks Karine Jean-Pierre, Matt Miller or John Kirby would have said ) Israel “has the right to defend itself but… the issue is you stay within the guidelines of international law.”

Stewart then genuinely seemed scared when he talked about the blowback he expected, asking Amanpour, “Do you have any idea how much shit I am going to take for today’s show?” It reminded me of how candidly Ta-Nehisi Coates expressed his worry when he spoke out against Israel’s “segregationist Apartheid regime” on Democracy Now! in November (“I have my fears. I do. I do. You know, I’m afraid right now, sitting here talking to you!”) More personally, it made me think of the fear I have had in writing and speaking about Gaza, which has had a significant impact on five different jobs or contract positions I’ve had over 15 years.

I think for Stewart and Coates—and I can say definitively for myself—that for American writers, we feel guilty about Palestine because we know our tax dollars pay for the horror we are seeing. Even when we speak about it anyway, we are afraid at some level because we know it could harm our careers.

But here’s the thing: this belies the nature of our so-called independence, and reveals how subjective our positions are.

Indeed, at the height of tax season, we need look no further than to a Palestinian journalist to see how implicated we are. Ahemd El-Madhoun, the same reporter who made the viral video of Palestinian journalists working “all together, hand in hand,” posted a damning video on Friday. He was reporting from the Nuseirat refugee camp (on the same day a group of journalists was shelled by Israel, resulting in the amputation of journalist Sami Shehada’s leg).

In an obliterated crater, El-Mahoud found a shell that read “MADE IN USA.” It’s the type of shell the Biden administration bypassed congress to send 14,000 rounds of to Israel in December.

“Israel is killing us with American bombs funded by your tax,” he El-Madhoun wrote, the weekend millions of Americans sent their money to Washington, correctly adding that we have “directly participated in the genocide!”

El-Madhoun is not an independent, western journalist. But he’s telling western journalists news we can use.

For maybe the best way to “respect and value Palestinian journalists,” as Hossam Shabat pleads for us to do, is to not try to step in and tell Palestinian stories for them. Perhaps, the best thing for us to do is to demand the United States stop supplying the bombs which are murdering our colleagues, so that they can do their work in peace."

#palestine #free palestine #isreal #gaza #apartheid #genocide #colonization #us politics #american imperialism #journalism

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reasoningdaily · 1 year

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It has been one week since CNN’s town hall with Donald Trump — and the fierce fallout stemming from the event is still reverberating.

While accepting the prestigious Columbia Journalism Award and serving as the school’s 2023 commencement speaker, Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday became the first network anchor to publicly voice dissent with management over the town hall, which has spawned a storm of fierce backlash.

Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor, disclosed that she had met with CNN boss Chris Licht this week and that the two “had a very robust exchange of views” about the matter. She said that Licht “welcomed that exchange of views,” but stood by his decision to hold the town hall. Licht told staffers the morning after the event that he believed it was worthwhile because it woke people up to the stakes of the 2024 election.

After hearing out Licht, Amanpour told the Columbia Journalism School graduates that she had not been moved.

“I still respectfully disagree with allowing Donald Trump to appear in that particular format,” the veteran anchor said, contending that the American people had demonstrated with their votes in the last three elections that they are well aware of his behavior.

“I would have dropped the mic at ‘nasty person,’ but then that’s me,” Amanpour candidly added, recounting the moment when Trump lashed out at moderator Kaitlan Collins for asking a question that he did not like.

Inside CNN, Amanpour is far from alone in her views. In private, the town hall has been widely criticized by employees at all levels across the organization. Some of these employees believe that Trump wasn’t worthy of a town hall platform after leading the insurrection on the US Capitol and continuing to spew dangerous lies about the 2020 election. Others believe that it was a worthy endeavor to confront him, but that the event was poorly executed.

Ahead of Amanpour’s address, Licht sent a note to the network’s global workforce of more than 4,000 employees, praising the anchor for the “rare and exceptional honor” and encouraging them to tune in. A CNN spokesperson said Licht was aware she planned to address the town hall in her speech.

During the address, Amanpour acknowledged that the press still has not quite figured out how to grapple with Trump, who has abused media platforms to spread dangerous disinformation far and wide, often overwhelming fact-checkers who have struggled to keep up with his rapid-fire stream of lies and falsehoods.

“Maybe we should revert back to the newspaper editors and TV chiefs of the 1950s, who in the end refused to allow McCarthyism onto their pages,” Amanpour suggested. “Unless his foul lies, his witch hunts and his rants reached the basic evidence level required in a court of law. His influence gradually decreased with all but his fervent colleagues and cults.”

“So maybe less is more,” she suggested. “Maybe live is not always right.”

“Some of the very best and even most fiery, compelling interviews are, in fact, taped and they are edited, not to change the context or the content or the truth or the intent, but to edit for filibuster and a stream of disinformation,” Amanpour added.

The award-winning anchor also described the raucous town hall audience — which cheered Trump on as he mocked sexual abuse claims — as part of the problem. It was CNN’s venue, she contended, and should not have allowed for the jeering and cheering.

Licht conceded to her “the execution” of the town hall “was lacking a little,” she said, and he assured her that “we will not witness that same appalling behavior in future town halls.”

Amanpour defended CNN as an institution and implored people to give the news organization another chance, even as she acknowledged it “doesn’t mean we always get everything right.”

“I can only hope that your trust in us might have been shaken, but not shattered,” she said. “That you believe we can survive and rebuild that trust.”

Amanpour also spoke about her decades-long career and how it had informed her belief that journalists must provide the public clear-eyed coverage. She noted, for example, that newsrooms recognize Ukraine “is the victim of a Russian imperialist illegal aggression,” instead of giving false equivalency to each country’s claims.

“Be truthful, but not neutral,” Amanpour urged. “Bothsidesism is not always objectivity. It does not get you to the truth. Drawing false moral or factual equivalence is neither objective or truthful. Objectivity is our golden rule and it is in weighing all the sides and hearing all the evidence, but not rushing to equate them when there is no equating.”

“There is a 100% connection,” she said, “between a robust, independent, free and fair press and a functioning democracy and the advance of human rights and justice.”

Amanpour said the angry debates over Covid-19 vaccines and the 2020 election results are proof that Americans now have difficulty believing basic facts. She indicated that it is the job of the press to cut through the noise, counter disinformation, and summon the public back to reality.

“I refuse any more to say or to concede that we live in a post-truth world because that is lazy and it is ultimately a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Amanpour said. “We need to seek to provide and defend the truth.”

#Christiane Amanpour voices dissent over Trump town hall #says she had ‘very robust exchange’ with CNN chief #christiane amanpour

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coochiequeens · 2 years

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This moid is guilty of a lot more than this

BY TAREQ HADDAD ON 10/29/19

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon targeted "incels"—supposedly involuntarily celibate men—because they were easier to manipulate with conspiratorial thinking, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie has said.

The former Breitbart editor enlisted the services of Cambridge Analytica to drum up fringe voters from swing states such as Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

The strategy was successful and Republicans secured the White House—attaining 306 electoral college votes to Democrats' 232—but explosive revelations from Wylie in 2018 changed the way people understood that win.

His whistleblowing revealed that Cambridge Analytica harvested the profiles of 50 million Facebook users and how that data was used alongside publicly available voter records to identify people more likely to vote for the Trump campaign.

Of those, Wylie said Bannon targeted the men who calls themselves "incels"—also referring to them as "unmarried straight white dudes who couldn't get laid."

At a talk at the Emmanuel Centre in London on Monday, he said that Bannon viewed them as easy victims for manipulation as they were "lacking economic opportunities" and were more prone to "conspiratorial thinking."

Wylie made similar comments to Amanpour and Company, also on Monday, while on a media tour promoting his new book.

"When you look at the types of people that [Cambridge Analytica] were targeting, it wasn't everybody they were trying to engage with," he said.

"It was very much in the margins and in the fringes of society to bring and recruit people who would otherwise not necessarily engage in conventional politics, but would engage with particular kinds of ideas that [Cambridge Analytica] promoted online.

"That can make an impact. If you get an extra one percent, an extra two per cent, in that swing state and you win that swing state, that might mean you win the presidency."

Cambridge Analytica utilized the "Big 5" personality model to identify which on-the-fence swing voters could be manipulated.

The model—which rates individuals on openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism—has long been identified by political scientists as an accurate indicator for political leaning.

Liberals and left-leaning individuals tend to score higher in openness for example, whereas Conservatives and right-leaning individuals tend to posses higher levels of conscientiousness.

Having such data at the fingertips of Cambridge Analytica meant they could send deeply tailored political messages and only to those whose temperament they knew might favor Trump.

"Imagine we are on a blind date," Wylie said at the talk, reported the London Evening Standard. "We've never met before and I start telling you how much I love your favorite musicians, how I watch the same TV as you do, etc.

"You realize the reason I'm so perfect for you is because I spent the last two years going through your photo albums, reading your text messages and talking to your friends. Facebook is that stalker."

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popolitiko · 3 years

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The journalist who protested on Russian state TV says it was 'impossible to stay silent'

“NO WAR”

“Stop the war, don’t believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.”

“Russians against the war”

London (CNN Business)The Russian state television journalist who took a dramatic stand against President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine during a live broadcast says it was "impossible to stay silent" and that she wants the world to know that many Russians are against the invasion.

Marina Ovsyannikova told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday that many Russian journalists see a disconnect between reality and what is presented on the country's television channels, and that even her mother has been "brainwashed" by state propaganda.

"I have been feeling a cognitive dissonance, more and more, between my beliefs and what we say on air," said Ovsyannikova. "The war was the point of no return, when it was simply impossible to stay silent."

On Monday, the Channel One editor appeared behind a news anchor holding a sign that said: "NO WAR." Ovsyannikova told CNN on Wednesday that she was compelled to act by memories of airstrikes during Russia's conflict in Chechnya, where she lived as a young girl.

"I worry about Russian soldiers ... I think they really don't understand why they have to do this, why they [are] fighting," she told Amanpour.

On Tuesday, Ovsyannikova was found guilty by a district court in Moscow of organizing an "unauthorized public event." The "administrative offense" carries a fine of 30,000 rubles ($280). A lawyer who had formerly been representing Ovsyannikova told CNN that the administrative charge was based solely on a video statement that she recorded prior to appearing with an anti-war poster on Channel One. The Kremlin has described her actions as "hooliganism," a criminal offense in Russia. Ovsyannikova told CNN that she initially planned to stand back from the cameras during her protest, but then realized she would need to be close to the news anchor to ensure that her poster was seen by viewers. She was "afraid until the last minute," she added. "I decided that I would be able to overcome the guard who stands in front of the studio, and stand behind the host. So I moved very quickly and I passed by the security and showed my poster," said Ovsyannikova. In the video statement recorded before her public protest, Ovsyannikova blamed Putin for the war.

"What is happening now in Ukraine is a crime, and Russia is the aggressor country, and the responsibility for this aggression lies on the conscience of only one person. This man is Vladimir Putin," Ovsyannikova said.

"Unfortunately, for the past few years, I have been working on Channel One and doing Kremlin propaganda, and now I am very ashamed of it," she said in the video. "It's a shame that I allowed to speak lies from the TV screens, ashamed that I allowed to zombify Russian people."

"I am ashamed that we kept silent in 2014, when all this was just beginning," she says, a reference to Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Censoring the press

Putin earlier this month signed a censorship bill that criminalizes what Russia considers to be "fake" information about the invasion of Ukraine, with a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for anyone convicted, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Russia has cracked down on local media outlets over the war in Ukraine and many have curtailed their coverage as a result. International networks such as CNN, ABC News, CBS News and others have stopped broadcasting from Russia. And independent Russian news outlet TV Rain, also known as Dozhd, shut down altogether. Its editor and staff, along with other independent journalists, have left the country.

On Wednesday, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported that Roskomnadzor, Russia's media communication watchdog, has restricted access to the BBC News website at the request of the Prosecutor's General's Office.

Earlier in March, Roskomnadzor restricted access to the BBC Russian service website.

Watch the interview on CNN.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/16/media/marina-ovsyannikova-amanpour/index.html

#journalist #NO WAR #Russian state TV

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endoace · 3 years

Text

—— introducing akihiko “ace” endō.

stats page. ooc page. discord.

// tl;dr, former academic enthusiast from a well-off family struggles to unite his two halves - the part that lashed out in anger and revenge and did something awful and the part that was supposed to be and do something great, and a whole that has stagnated, lost, ever since. a mun that is shirking college responsibilities and is available damn near all hours on all platforms.

&& — the basics.

this part is simple. ace is part of the fifteen’s graduating class, aspired to be the next oscar wilde or michael foucalt or amanpour, was that annoying guy smoking at parties going, “well, in kant...” that everyone assumed would be successful through pure spite and lack of sleep alone.

he assumed it too. one could say he even took it for granted.

akihiko (or ace, a nickname he earned because of his affinity for AP classes and ghost-writing lowerclassmen’s essays to perfection) attempted to pick a fight, drunk on liquor and adrenaline and anger, with jacob willington on senior night, which earned him the title he bears with heavy shoulders and spooked glances: culprit. guilty, sinner, criminal —

&& — the details.

he left island for college and tried his best to return as infrequently as possible. he tells his parents it’s because he’s busy. so busy, so successful. he hates the lie, but he can’t stand the feeling that the closer to home he gets, the more the graveyard presses in on him, suffocating.

he can’t believe there’s a wedding happening. he can’t believe he didn’t just send an expensive gift off the registry and stay home. for some godforsaken reason, he’s here, surrounded by everyone who knows him. knows him better than anyone else in the world. his nightmare.

he wants to hate the fifteen for having their lives together, for moving on when he couldn’t, but he’s never considered they could be pretending too.

&& — the connections.

i’d love for someone to have brought him, begged him, influenced him, to come to the wedding. (read: bride? groom? wedding party? being part of the wedding party?) having the other muses know some of his reluctance + having a strong bond right off the bat for him to show up for would be lovely.

i want ace to have had a crush on someone during their high school years, cowardly kept it to himself, and to still be projecting feelings onto said person. they can kept in touch over time, they can have returned the feelings - but nothing was ever done about it, not when it was easy, and now things are too, too complicated.

similarly possible, a hookup plot. these are the only people in the world he wouldn’t feel like he’s lying to or taking advantage of - they know his sins, and should they still make the conscious choice to want to fuck him? well, his craving for human contact and affection would go far deeper than any sense of rationality.

but, as all things must, a balance: who hates him the most? who skitters from him in a room, seeing the blood on his hands and fearing him for it? is it actually anyone, or is it his own paranoia manifesting? ...in the end, does it really even matter which?

and finally: the one who dragged him away. this can be anyone, and have any present relationship, but the one who decided they had to go, that jacob fell wrong, that not even ace’s own parents could save him. but did you know? did you know that to be true, in your heart of hearts, or did you want to spare ace the punishment, or did you simply let him take the mighty fall for what you felt was righteous justice?

#sierraintro #i've read this so many times it feels like the ramblings of a lunatic kfsfjf #maybe i'm just really in character <3 #&& — access

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samingtonwilson · 5 years

Text

A Bid on Bucky

Summary: You spend thousands of dollars at a bachelor auction for Bucky when you could’ve had him for free this entire time.

Pairing: bucky x reader

a/n: this fic is damning evidence that idiots in love is my favorite genre, your honor. i’ve more likely than not used this gif before but idc because im lov it

Tony Stark is a humanitarian— a fact you have neither forgotten, nor will he allow you to forget.

Oftentimes, he’ll remind you verbally and, other times, a visual reminder will be posted on the team’s social media accounts. The pictures of him at the elephant sanctuary he helped found in Thailand are your personal favorites.

If news of his latest cause is not filling the pages of The Times or showing up on CNN’s special segment of Billionaires Who Care with Christiane Amanpour, it’s being distributed via monthly text reminder of reasons to leave Tony’s special coffee alone— last month you were told, “His donations allowed the doors of Planned Parenthood to remain open in developing nations such as Burkina Faso, and all he asks for in return is that his teammates do not finish his goddamn coffee.”

Of course, because you all live for him sniffing out your mugs at morning meetings to discover the culprit, his reminders only lead to greater coffee theft as it, in turn, increases the redness in his face when he finds the morally corrupt heathenous criminal— who is usually Clint.

In true Tony Stark fashion, though, his favorite way to remind you all, and the rest of the world, is through a gala. A gala where champagne flows like water, money is no object, extravagance is to be expected, and, as a member of the team, attendance is mandatory.

At first, you hated the damn things. It’s not like you’ve ever cared about the private island one guest owns which another guest is so obviously jealous of, or if the deal to buy a chunk of land on the light side of the moon before that hippie Elon Musk usurps it all has successfully closed.

But now? Now that you’ve learned how to direct the money those snots brag ostentatiously about into causes you truly care for with a couple little sly techniques, you fucking love the things.

You and Natasha have a game, actually. Whose Shameless and Absolutely Disingenuous Flirting Will Lead to More Money Donated to (Insert Tony’s Latest Cause Here)?

Natasha is the current titleholder as Smelly Von Oil Tycoon’s wife shooed you away before you could close the million dollar deal and Cowboy Hat McFast Food Franchise would have given up his entire company if Natasha kept batting her eyelashes at him. But in the end, just as every other time the two of you have played, you both felt like winners because the almost obscene amount of money was helping fund housing for Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh. The competitive edge to it is just for entertainment.

This time, though, seeing as this event is an auction and you are in no mood to flirt with red-faced old men with paper-thin skin, you have taken to auctioneering with Sam.

Motioning to a projected photograph of a luxurious Paris hotel room with a view of the Eiffel Tower in your best Vanna White impression, you grin as brightly as you can. “And the last item Sam and I will be auctioning off together is a two-night stay at Plaza Athénée in Paris. First class airfare for two is included, as are two tickets to the Louvre. You’ve been to Paris, haven’t you, Sam?”

“Why, yes, baby girl, I have,” he replies with a grin as broad as yours, the spotlight and his natural charm causing his deep brown eyes to sparkle like diamonds. You think for a second that you can actually hear Bucky scoffing in the audience. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, but I will say that it is called the City of Love for a reason.”

“Of course, our unlucky-in-love Sam shared those kisses only with every bit of bread and cheese he came across but you can share it all with someone special.” At that, Sam elbows you gently in the ribs with a fond roll of his eyes. “We’re going to start the bidding at twenty-thousand dollars.”

Immediately, paddles shoot up and Sam begins calling out higher bids and paddle numbers while you lean your hip against the podium and take a long sip of your champagne which has since, unfortunately, gone lukewarm and flat. Your face pinches and you scan the crowd for a wandering waiter.

Before you can, though, your head tilts just as you spot Bucky, a large button reading “BACHELOR #4” pinned to the lapel of his tux.

He’s laughing. Not openly and loudly like he usually does when the two of you are alone, but his shoulders are shaking and he’s grinning so the skin beside his eyes wrinkles. You think fleetingly that his cheeks might even be dusted in pink as he ducks his head.

The sight makes you smile, too, and you set your champagne aside. It’s secondary now.

“Congratulations to Mr. Baldwin and all the other winners of these wonderful vacations,” Sam says once the winner has been announced and ushered backstage. “Sadly, our time is up for the night.”

You nod and pick up your microphone again. “Yes, but you will be seeing Sam again tonight as a part of the Bachelor Auction. Give the crowd a spin, Sam, show them what they could be going on a date with.”

Sam unbuttons his wine-colored tuxedo and spins slowly, a slight swing in his hips. He’s met with several wolf-whistles, a rose thrown on stage, and a brief retching noise courtesy of Clint, to which Sam replies with a wink and a scoffed, “The glory is too much to handle for the insecure and faint of heart, ain’t it, Barton? We got a doctor on retainer in case you pass out.”

Sam holds out his elbow to help you down the stairs and you gratefully loop your arm through his, your other hand hoisting the hem of your dress above your ankles.

You sigh after meeting one of the bid winners, smile falling from your lips the moment you turn away. “I should’ve bid on that Marrakech trip.”

Sam cocks an eyebrow. He doesn’t seem to mind one bit that you have yet to release him and simply follows you as you head to the bar. “Enjoy it last time?”

“You mean when I was there to locate stolen Chitauri weapons?” you let out a bark of sarcastic laughter. “Steve didn’t even let me glance in the relative direction of a souq when that was the only reason I volunteered.”

“So that’s a no?”

You take the fresh flute of champagne a waiter offers and nod your thanks. “That’s a hell fucking no.” A pathetic pout and, “I deserve to love Morocco.”

“Makin’ that face at me won’t help your cause. Makin’ that face at Pervert Santa Claus over there,” he points to a man, rosy-cheeked with a white beard and wandering eyes, who you recognize as the winner of the trip. “That’ll get you what you want.”

You make a face, tongue sticking out as you gag, and set your glass atop the bar. “First of all, even the prospect of sex with me will make his heart give out.”

Sam laughs into his tumbler of whiskey and rolls his eyes.

You grimace openly when the eyes of an elderly man— his arm around a woman who looks to be barely in her twenties— linger a bit too long and smile when he visibly shrinks. “And B., I only flirt with them to get donations. I’d sooner never leave this tower again than get with one of these ‘I only donate money to boost my public image’ types.”

He hums and a slow, lazy smile curves his lips. He nods his head in the direction of something behind you. “Barnes’ got a different ideology.”

As casually as you can, you turn your body to lean your elbows atop the bar and tilt your head ever so slightly to glance where Bucky is standing.

Standing and laughing. How is he still laughing?

Arching an eyebrow at the woman he speaks to, you lift your glass to your lips. “Doesn’t look like she fits the bill.”

“You’re joking,” Sam laughs, shaking his head as he sets his elbows on the bar as well. His shoulder brushes yours and, despite the itchy fabric of his tuxedo, you don’t mind. “That’s Maris Scheufele.”

Long, chestnut brown hair swept over one shoulder to keep her back bare, her gown is silky, liquid gold. Dripping in wealth.

You purse your lips and turn back to Sam. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Chopard heiress.”

“Chopard like—” with wide eyes, you point at the sapphire and diamond earrings borrowed from Pepper on your ears and the matching ring on your left index finger. “Like Cannes Film Festival Chopard? Like that Chopard?”

“Yeah, that Chopard.” He has to stop from laughing at the look you offer him. He thinks he might see your skin turn green in a matter of minutes. “She’s more loaded than Cigarette-Breath Du Rideshare-App-CEO from the elephant benefit.”

You manage a small smile and a quick roll of your eyes, only to have them once again land on Bucky and the Chopard heiress. Maris.

You aren’t jealous— per se. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, after all. Childish, and inconsiderate, and rooted in insecurity.

Sure, she’s cuddled up next to someone you’re in the midst of denying feelings for out of fear and the prospect of being undeserving. And, sure, she’s covered in diamonds and you’re usually covered in dried blood, dust, and dirt from HYDRA facilities. But you aren’t jealous.

You know you’ve wasted your time, his efforts, and your emotions being anything but happy with Bucky. Chances lost never come around again, right? So you’ve made your peace with it. You’ve had to make your peace with it.

With how much you’ve messed up, how many chances you’ve lost. With how perfect she is and how perfect he looks laughing with her.

Perfect.

So perfect that your teeth grit and the grip you have on your champagne flute tightens.

“He’s gonna bring in the big bucks.”

You snort. “I thought he had different ideologies.”

“He does. But you know she ain’t gonna let him get auctioned off to anyone else.” A corner of Sam's lips turn up in disgust as he, too, stares at them with little stealth. Nick Fury would be ashamed in you both. “Lookin’ at him like he’s a piece of jerky.”

“Jerky?”

“Old, dried up beef.” He then hums in agreement with his own words. “Nasty, hundred-year old beef.”

With a laugh— a laugh that has the cadence of a sob— you drop your head into your hands.

You meet Bucky’s eyes when you pick your head up, his head tilted in silent question. Perhaps at your wet, ironic smile, perhaps at the pull of your eyebrows.

You shake your head in response and it’s when he almost immediately returns to laughing at whatever Maris Scheufele is saying that you straighten with a frown.

What the hell kind of name is that anyway? Maris.

“What the hell—” you pause to take the glass from Sam’s hands and polish off his whiskey. “What the hell is so funny?”

The glass is snatched back. “Not you finishing my drink, that’s for sure.”

Shrugging as you continue to stare at Bucky and Maris, you mumble, “Put the next one on my tab.”

Sam snorts as he asks for another drink, facing you as he adds, “S’an open bar, you cheap ass.”

Once you’ve been able to secure a fresh, much stronger drink for yourself, you loop your arm through Sam’s again and set your chin on his shoulder. Your noses nearly bump when he looks at you and you both laugh softly. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”

“You did.” He yelps and laughs when you pinch his side, lightly knocking his head against yours. Gentle eyes meet yours as he says, “Not tryna be harsh, but you had him and you let him go.”

“I know.”

“He spent weeks moping about it, you spent weeks moping about it.”

“I know.”

“It was miserable comforting both you idiots.”

“Yeah, you’re the real victim here.”

Despite your dry tone, he nods in agreement. “You could tell him right now. Get all this bullshit over with and out in the open.”

Just the idea makes your heart rate spike. “He might reject me. Exact revenge for what I did.”

“Barnes is a lotta things. Greasy, geriatric, testy, fuckin’ annoying as shit—” Sam hisses when you pinch him again, “— but vindictive ain’t one of ‘em.”

Before Sam can convince you to move even an inch from the part of the bar you’ve dubbed yours for the night, warm fingers wrap around your elbow and tap your arm five times in quick succession. A secret identification code.

A secret identification code that makes you smile despite yourself. You lift your head from Sam’s shoulder and hope you don’t look too eager as Bucky leans back against the bar, facing you entirely. “Look who it is.”

He waves vibranium fingers and grins, a bit of that thirties charm you’d heard so much about shining in his blue eyes as he looks at you. “Hi, sweetheart. Wilson,” he adds with a playfully curt nod, chuckling when Sam returns it. “You were great up there. Prettiest MC I’ve ever seen. Almost had me buyin’ the trip to Morocco to make up for the shit Steve put you through.”

You feel Sam shaking in silent laughter and sigh when you hear his whispered, “For fuck’s sake.”

“Only ‘almost’?” you ask with a pout Bucky grins at and wide eyes that have him swallowing over a dry throat. “What does a girl have to do for you to actually bid?”

He shakes his head after a moment of simply staring, chuckling. “These poor bastards don’t stand a chance against you, do they? They’d probably sign their entire companies over to you and not think twice about it.”

“Just doing my part to save the Amazon,” you shrug. “Like you’re doing with the Bachelor Auction.”

“‘Bout that,” he begins as he straightens his jacket and tie— all black. You trace his jaw, sharp and angular, when he glances away for just a second. “How long d’you think it’ll take Stark to put me out of my misery when nobody bids on me?”

“I wouldn’t be so negative. I know of one person who’ll definitely bid on you.”

His lips quirk up on one end, eyes dreamy as his head tilts in indulgence. “Yeah? Who’s that?”

“Your heiress.”

Bucky doesn’t seem to notice Sam jabbing his elbow into your ribs and cocks an eyebrow in confusion. “My what?”

Though you weren’t planning on replying, Tony’s voice over the speakers doesn’t allow Bucky to question you further and you heave a sigh of relief. He calls all the bachelors to the stage and Sam pulls his arm from yours, bumping your shoulders together before he departs just as Tony begins telling a story of his first bachelor auction and how much he went for.

Bucky remains still, however. Leant against the bar, eyes on you.

“Bachelor number 4,” you say, pointing at the button he wears. You smile softly. “You’re needed on stage.”

That seems to jolt him out of whatever stupor he was lost in and he stands straight. He takes a step forward and pauses, so close you can feel the heat radiating from him and smell his subtle cologne. “Bid on me if no one else does.”

“I won’t need to.”

Natasha finds you just as the bidding begins and orders herself a drink. She doesn’t say much, simply looking at you as you stare at Bucky standing next to Steve and Sam, and nods to herself. She remains a quiet, comfortable presence until Steve is brought to centerstage and nearly every paddle in the room shoots up. “You tell him yet?”

“Nope.”

“Thought so.” She nods her head to her left and you follow the movement to where Maris sits, back straight as she, too, looks at Bucky— but she’s grinning, paddle poised to be raised. “Scheufele being a cock block?”

You’re visibly surprised when you turn back to Natasha, her ginger hair falling in loose waves over her shoulders. “How did you— How the hell could you possibly know that?”

With the crooked curve of blood red lips, she smiles. “I’m just that good. And Sam texted me about it ten minutes ago.”

She continues to watch you as the excited winner of a date with Steve rises from his seat. “He’s next.”

“I know that.”

“You gonna bid on him?”

You snort, though unconvincingly, and shake your head. “And go against an heiress? I’ll save myself the embarrassment.”

“Stark pays us buckets,” she tells you with a frown, picking a stray piece of lint off her silver dress. “You could afford to go against an heiress.”

Bucky’s eyes are narrowed as he looks over the crowd of people seated at their tables. The light bounces off diamonds and sequins, gold and shiny leather shoes. It stings his eyes, it makes him scowl.

“And next, ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on Bachelor Number 4,” Tony announces, turning a bit to glance at Bucky as he trudges over, not bothering to look a bit more appealing. “James Buchanan Barnes, truly the human equivalent of a cat.”

Bucky openly glares at Tony now.

“James enjoys silence, brooding, eating like a fuckin’ horse, and telling the same story more than once,” Tony continues, ignoring the roll of Bucky’s eyes. “Cute, cuddly, and a little dangerous, we’ll start the bidding at one-thousand.”

Three paddles shoot up. One from Maris, and two toward the center of the room. Your shoulders tense, Bucky’s relax.

“Okay, do I see eleven hundred?”

Two paddles remain lifted until Maris shouts from her seat in a lilting voice, “Three thousand.”

Your jaw clenches, Bucky grins.

Tony set his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Alright, three thousand going once—”

“Thirty-one hundred!”

It feels as if the entire room turns in their seats to gape at you, but you try to pay them no mind. You, wearing your jealousy and determination like armor, stand at the bar with an empty glass in your hand, waiting for Tony to call your bid. But before he can—

“Thirty-two!”

Your eyebrows furrow as you look at Maris. “Thirty-three!”

“Four thousand!” She’s smiling. A perfectly manicured eyebrow is raised in challenge.

You see red. “Forty-three hundred.”

“Six thousand!”

“Sixty-five hundred!”

“Seventy-five hundred!”

When you look at the stage in a bit of a panic, Tony grins expectantly at you and Bucky— Well, you don’t think Bucky’s ever looked so shocked in all the time you’ve known him. But when his eyes go from Maris to meet yours, you find yourself yelling, “Ten thousand!”

The room goes silent, or maybe you’ve just tuned it all out, and Tony is shaking his head in amusement. “Ten thousand going once.”

You turn toward Maris as she sits and tosses her paddle onto the table. “Ten thousand going twice.”

You face the stage again. Bucky’s expression is unreadable. “Sold to our beautiful teammate in blue.”

A bright spotlight shines on you and you fight the urge to run from the room, from the Tower, from New York, and give your best smile.

—

It’s four in the morning, all the lights on the residential floors of the Tower have been turned off, and the world is peaceful. But your mind continues to race.

You sit at the kitchen counter, container of Sam’s leftover cheesecake from your lunch out with him open before you. You twirl a fork between your fingers and stare at nothing in particular, your soft breaths the only sound in the room.

You’d changed out of your dress hours ago, washed off your makeup and taken the pins out of your hair. You could barely meet the eyes of your reflection out of fear of judgement and you didn’t ask FRIDAY to dim the lights or lock your door just in case she laughed at you.

Tony had yet to talk to you about paying the ten grand you bid on Bucky and you left the ballroom before anyone could so much as snicker. You knew you couldn’t hide forever, you just needed the night to come to terms with your own stupidity.

Yet as you prop your chin upon your palm and sigh, you think you might need a day or two, too.

Quiet steps down the hall are made purposefully louder as they grow closer so as to not startle you, the lights dim as bulbs flicker on to about ten-percent of their full brightness. You fear your heartbeat might be audible to everyone in a ten mile radius at the sight of his blue eyes, messy brown hair, and wrinkled black t-shirt, and take a deep breath through parted lips in a futile attempt to calm it down.

He offers you a small smile and walks to the fridge. “You want some water?”

You shake your head— even though he can’t see you. “No, I’m fine.”

There’s a beat of silence and you take a breath to steady yourself. “Buck, I think we should talk.”

He takes out a glass bottle of water for himself and shuts the fridge, leaning against the sink. He’s still smiling. “I know.”

“I—”

“I’m not gonna hold you to this thing,” he interjects, rolling the bottle between his hands. He watches as you sit up straight and set your fork down. “I know you made the bid just to donate the money and save me from that married heiress—”

“Married?” you repeat to yourself.

“And you’ve made it clear you just want to be friends,” he continues, undeterred. “So it’s okay. Hell, I’ll pay for half of it so I’ll feel like I’ve actually done somethin’ to save the sea turtles.”

“The Amazon.”

“Right, the Amazon,” he amends with a quiet laugh. He takes a sip of the water and sets the botte aside. “So whaddya say, huh? We’ll go half and half, help this cause out a little, and you don’t have to go on a date with me.”

“Bucky, you don’t understand—”

“No, no, I get it,” he says, walking around the narrow strip of granite separating you to sit on the stool beside yours. Features soft but a little sad, he shrugs as warmth rolls off him in waves. “I told you to bid on me in case no one else did and you saw how much more Steve went for. You tried to raise the bids on me and got stuck since those billionaires didn’t want to shell out more than ten grand on the Winter Soldier. I get it!”

“That’s not why I did it, Bucky. Not at all.”

He lowers his eyes to his hands, staring at mismatched palms, and says nothing.

“Honestly, I—” You stop yourself when it feels as if your heart’s lodged itself in your throat and struggle to swallow over it. “When I saw that Chopard heiress talking to you and laughing with you, and when she bid on you and almost won that date, I— Something happened.”

He looks at you now, eyebrows pulled together. “What happened?”

“I— I don’t know. I guess I was a little jealous,” you say with a laugh only to shake your head. There’s a subtle sting behind your eyes, at the tip of your nose, and you pray to every deity you can think of to stop any tears. “No, I was very, very jealous. You two looked so happy and perfect and I wanted to scream, and cry, and— Fuck, all I could think about is how much time, and energy, and emotion I’ve wasted pushing you away so neither one of us ends up heartbroken when I already am.”

You sigh, unable to meet his gaze as he gapes at you, his mouth hanging open as you laugh mirthlessly. “It probably seems so stupid to you and I know you’ve moved on, but, holy hell, I wish you still had some kind of crush on me because I’m dying here, Buck. I mean I just spent ten thousand dollars to make you go on a date with me.”

“You did,” he agrees. He’s smiling when you manage to look at him, “You spent ten thousand dollars on me when you could’ve just had me for free this entire time.”

He grasps your chin between his flesh index finger and thumb and jostles you a little, gaze so adoring. “And what punk ass told you I moved on from you? Huh? That same goof who said it’s just a crush?”

He leans forward and pauses just before his lips meet yours, as if waiting for you to pull away only for you to close the distance first.

What starts off as just a light brush of your lips against his quickly turns into a deep, hungry kiss that quiets your mind and forces your heart into overdrive. The warmth of it reaches your toes and every hair follicle, especially as both his hands cup your face while your fingers tangle through his hair, the rasp of his stubbly beard against your soft, sensitive skin stealing your breath even more.

You pull away first and your voice is small, a bit hoarse as you ask, “So you still like me?”

He sets his forehead against yours and his lips pull into a smile. “I’d say it’s a li’l more than that, sweetheart.”

It’s hours later when the sun is up, the cheesecake slice is long forgotten, and Bucky’s pulled you onto his stool to straddle his lap, your lips swollen and a little painful, that you groan in embarrassment.

He immediately leans away from your neck and looks up at you in concern, lips full and cherry red. “What? What’s wrong?”

“I have to pay Tony ten thousand dollars.”

Chuckling, he rolls his eyes and presses a kiss to your chin. “I’ll pay it.”

“Then I’ll owe you ten thousand dollars.” You withhold a moan when he nips at a part of your neck that has your hips rolling into his, the hitching of his breath felt more than heard. “That— that just transfers the problem.”

You feel him smile, arm tightening around you. “I think I know of a way you can pay me back.”

“Sounds like you just discovered the world’s oldest profession.”

A punishing nip under your jaw and you gasp as he laughs. “I’m still all for going half and half to save the sea turtles.”

“The Amazon.”

He sighs and leans back. “Fuckin’ Christ. Someone needs to save the fuckin’ turtles already, then.”

#i wish i could show y'all the dress i imagine her wearing but alas #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes x reader fluff #bucky barnes x reader angst #well. mild angst #VERY mild

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