UN says ‘only minimal flour delivered to Gaza' in recent weeks, mostly looted or taken by starving Palestinians
US-backed GHF says it has given out total 11.4 million mealsUN calls for more supplies to be let into GazaGazans at risk of famine
©Reuters
The United Nations said on Monday that it has only been able to bring minimal flour into Gaza since Israel lifted an aid blockade three weeks ago and that has mostly been looted by armed gangs or taken by starving Palestinians.
The organisation has transported 4,600 metric tonnes of wheat flour into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing, the only entry point Israel allows it to use, Deputy U.N. spokesperson Fahan Haq told reporters.
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The Irish Sun
9 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
I talked dozens out of boarding doomed Titan sub over catastrophic safety risks – Brit victims were deceived, says diver
A LEADING deep sea diver who warned Stockton Rush over Titan sub's catastrophic safety risks says victims were "deceived". Titanic expedition leader 9 Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, had been warned over safety concerns 9 Debris from the sub is unloaded from a ship Credit: AP 9 Businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman were killed Credit: Reuters 9 McCallum, who has led seven dives to the Titanic, implored OceanGate boss But his warnings over the sub's critical safety failings fell on deaf ears and "intolerant" Rush simply brushed aside cautions from experts. The world was put in a chokehold when Five days after it disappeared on June 18, 2023, a piece of debris was found on the ocean floor - confirming fears it had imploded. All five on board - Rush, British billionaire Harrowing emails show McCallum tried to warn Rush over Titan's danger - but the OceanGate CEO replied he was "tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation". Rush wrote: "We have heard the baseless cries of 'you are going to kill someone' way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult." McCallum said their tense email exchange ended after OceanGate's lawyers threatened legal action, and so he focussed on limiting the number of people who boarded Titan. Most read in The Sun He told The Sun: "I'd written to him three or four times, and he wasn't going to change. "I'd run out of options. I thought the sub would not survive sea trials and so I just focused on trying to limit the number of people that got into that thing. 'What's that bang?' Chilling moment sound of doomed Titan sub imploding heard from support ship "I probably talked three dozen people out of going on Titan, and I wouldn't get melodramatic about it, because I didn't want to over dramatise it. "Both because I wanted them to keep listening to what I was saying, but also I didn't want to become a drama queen and sort of written off as hysterical. "And so my simple answer was always, I would never get in an unclassed vehicle and nor should you." McCallum said he spoke to both Harding and Nargeolet, who both decided to take the risk. But he said Dawood and his son Suleman would have had "no idea" about the danger they were putting themselves in on the £195,000 dive as OceanGate downplayed the risk. McCallum said: "Hamish and Paul-Henri knew it was risky, but not the level of risk that they were taking. "The other two had no idea at all. And the reason that there's that uncertainty is because I think there was a concerted effort of deception. 9 British billionaire Hamish Harding was among those on the sub Credit: Reuters 9 French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, also died Credit: AFP 9 "If you look at the culture of OceanGate, they weren't willing to take outside commentary, and anyone inside the camp that spoke out got fired or worse. "And so you've got this diminishing group of people that are only listening to themselves and they just tuned out the talk of the risk. "The risk was still there. But they just weren't talking about it anymore." McCallum, who founded expedition company EYOS, said all of those who he successfully advised not to board Titan realise they had a "close call". He added: "Within 48 hours of the implosion one rang up in tears and said, 'I owe you my life. I was going to get into that sub, and I couldn't get your voice out of my head, and so I turned around and came home'. "He lost his deposit but he said 'I just couldn't get your voice out of my head', and he was in tears. "People are very conscious that they had a close call." McCallum said on the fateful day of the sub's disappearance from radar he "just felt sick". After the sub lost contact with its support ship Polar Prince rescue crews worked around the clock in what was thought to be a race against time to save the crew. But McCallum said it was clear the sub had imploded. 9 "I knew immediately what had happened," he said. "There were two or three days when everyone was going through the search and rescue. "I didn't understand that because we knew it had imploded. "I was sad to lose some friends and shipmates. But I was grateful for small mercies that it would have been instantaneous." Engineer Rush, who co-founded OceanGate in 2009, created Titan with an experimental design made up of a carbon-fiber pod with titanium rings bolted on. McCallum said carbon fiber material is not fit for submerging so deep underwater. But McCallum's warning that carbon fiber would not withstand such pressure, Rush informed him he was "going to carry on regardless". In 2018, OceanGate's then chief pilot David Lochridge was fired after his inspection report laid bare a series of safety risks. A report from the Marine Board of Investigation is expected to be released in the coming weeks. Read more on the Irish Sun McCallum said: "The report will be comprehensive and should cover all of the attributing elements that led to the disaster. "It will also indicate who is responsible and who might be subject to prosecution." 9 Rob McCallum urged Rush to get the sub certified Credit: Facebook How the Titan tragedy unfolded By Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital) FIVE men plunged beneath the surface of the North Atlantic in a homemade sub in a bid to explore the Titanic wreckage. Four passengers paid £195,000 each to go on the sub, with the fifth member of the trip being a crew member. But what was supposed to be a short trip spiralled into days of agony as the doomed Titan vanished without a trace on June 18, 2023. The daring mission had been months in the making - and almost didn't happen at the hands of harsh weather conditions in Newfoundland, Canada. In a now chilling Facebook post, passenger Hamish Harding wrote: "Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. "A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow." It would be his final Facebook post. The following morning, he and four others - led by Stockton Rush - began the 12,5000ft descent towards the bottom of the Atlantic. But as it made its way down into the depths, the vessel lost all contact with its mother ship on the surface, the Polar Prince. It sparked a frantic four-day search for signs of life, with the hunt gripping the entire world. There was hope that by some miracle, the crew was alive and desperately waiting to be saved. But that sparked fears rescue teams faced a race against time as the passengers only had a 96-hour oxygen supply when they set out, which would be quickly dwindling. Then, when audio of banging sounds was detected under the water, it inspired hope that the victims were trapped and signalling to be rescued. It heartbreakingly turned out that the banging noises were likely either ocean noises or from other search ships, the US Navy determined. Countries around the world deployed their resources to aid the search, and within days the Odysseus remote-operated vehicle (ROV) was sent down to where the ghostly wreck of the Titanic sits. The plan was for the ROV to hook onto the sub and bring it up 10,000ft, where it would meet another ROV before heading to the surface. But any hopes of a phenomenal rescue were dashed when Odysseus came across a piece of debris from the sub around 1,600ft from the Titanic. The rescue mission tragically turned into a salvage task, and the heartbroken families of those on board were told the devastating news. It was confirmed by the US Coast Guard that the sub had suffered a "catastrophic implosion".
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Irish Times
Venice Architecture Biennale 2025: Ireland presents an elegantly complex take on a richly simple idea
Can architecture save the world? Exploring the national pavilions in the Giardini of the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale , you might be forgiven for wondering why the world isn't saved already. Plant trees! Recycle building materials! Reconnect with the Earth! Make aesthetic gestures in reparation for colonialism! That's us sorted, so. In truth, a strange atmosphere hangs over the Giardini, and it is an unusual space at the best of times. The individual national pavilions speak of an era when empire still seemed (to some) like a reasonable idea, and often their architecture is a too-obvious giveaway of aspirations to certain kinds of glory. For every elegant Nordic pavilion, designed by Sverre Fehn and completed in 1962, there's an uber-neoclassical edifice screaming the will to power, Germany, Britain and the United States being cases in point. Taken as a whole, and with a couple of notable exceptions, it's a little like being in a theme park of the ironies of nationalistic pride. Architecture tends to last longer than governments, although the deleterious effects of the worst examples of both can linger far longer than one would like. This year Britain and the US have softened their edifices, with hanging strands of clay and beads for Britain, and a huge latticed timber porch for the US. READ MORE There is a certain degree of uncomfortable satire in the latter, as the presentation, entitled An Architecture of Generosity, is all about a spirit of openness and welcome that doesn't exactly chime with the actions of the current leaders of that country. One thing is for sure: the apocalypse will be Instagrammable. Germany's pavilion, Stresstest, takes on climate change with input from an extensive list of architects and artists, centring on huge wraparound digital display of hot city images, flanked by a space reflecting back your own body heat, and another shaded with cool trees. Elsewhere, some pavilions, such as those of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, proclaim the names of countries that no longer exist. The Israeli pavilion is empty and dark, while the lights are on at the Russian one but no one is home. It is being used as a site for the biennale's education programmes in a much derided 'collaboration agreement' with the Russian Federation. There are some high points where the presented possibilities might bear future fruit. Canada is showing Picoplanktonics, Living Room Collective's exploration of plankton-infused building blocks that absorb and store carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, Austria offers a solution to the housing crisis, although as its curators, Michael Obrist, Sabine Pollak and Lorenzo Romito, demonstrate, the solution lies in the political will to care for people through social and structural change, rather than through nifty apartment design. Picoplanktonics at the Canadian pavilion at Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 Hungary is fun, as Márton Pintér, its curator, takes a look at all the other things trained architects end up doing instead of architecture, while also sharing narratives of the steady attrition through compromise that ultimately demolishes their utopian dreams. The main pavilion in the Giardini is closed for renovation, so the Arsenale houses the bulk of this year's curated exhibition, and bulky it is. From an arch of elephant-dung bricks to bioengineered trees, and from jaunty robots to exhaling rocks, the halls of the vast venue are abuzz, and overstuffed. It is as if Carlo Ratti, the biennale's curator, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, just couldn't say no. Or perhaps he was high on saying yes. In either case, it just doesn't work, and the overall effect is irritating rather than enlightening. Visitors interact with the Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective exhibit. Photograph: Andrea Avezzù Installation view of the Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective exhibit. Photograph: Andrea Avezzù, courtesy La Biennale di Venezia 'To face a burning world, architecture must harness all the intelligence around us,' Ratti, who is an engineer as well as an architect, says. Instead we are surrounded by an impossible cacophony. Entitled 'Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective' it features odes to AI and robots everywhere. One mimics the actions of visitors banging a drum. Another carves at wood alongside a pair of artists from Bhutan in national dress. AI also helpfully summarises the frequently verbose wall texts alongside each installation; it is amusing to see where even AI chokes on the jargon. Some of the most interesting and most moving pavilions, including Ireland's, are in the adjacent spaces at the Arsenale. A team from Peru explores the man-made reed islands on Lake Titicaca, where human ingenuity thrives only because it has evolved in harmony with nature. The Lebanese pavilion, The Land Remembers, is quietly devastating, as Edouard Souhaid, Shereen Doummar, Elias Tamer and Lynn Chamoun of Collective for Architecture Lebanon look at the impacts of ecocide, following the bombing of their country with white phosphorus by Israeli forces. They also explore the resilience of plants, and their capacity for healing and regrowth. Then there are the flashy projects that underline so much that is wrong with the world of architecture and design. A space-age gateway to a row of Porsche-designed water bikes by the star architect Norman Foster is all aesthetics over old ideas; similarly, the New York practice Diller Scofidio + Renfro bizarrely won a Golden Lion for its Canal Cafe. The 'cafe' is part water-purification plant, part espresso bar at a quieter end of the Arsenale; the jury's citation praised it for its 'demonstration of how the city of Venice can be a laboratory to speculate how to live on the water, while offering a contribution to the public space of Venice'. Again, the only new thing it seems to present is the aestheticisation of something that has been going on in many parts of the world for years. Admittedly, there is a slightly twisted delight in the sight of well-heeled biennale visitors lining up for the delicious frisson of drinking formerly filthy water. Gateway to Venice's Waterways by Norman Foster with Porsche. Photograph: Marco Zorzanello Nearby, one of the most moving elements of the Italian pavilion, which explores the country's relationship to the sea, is an old film of children happily and (presumably) safely swimming in Venice's canals. After all this, Ireland's pavilion, in its now regular space towards the quieter reaches of the Arsenale, comes as a welcome respite. It has been created by a team led by the Cork-based firm Cotter & Naessens , whose other projects include Dún Laoghaire's Lexicon Library, Limerick's Grainstore and some exceptionally elegant private housing that makes remarkable use of light. At Venice a timber structure encloses a circular space with a wraparound internal bench. The diameter of the space makes you want to stay, sit and talk. Inside Assembly, at the Venice Bienalle. Photograph: Cotter & Naessens Architects Assembly celebrates Ireland's citizens' assemblies, whichhave come together to debate issues from marriage equality to biodiversity loss. 'Could citizens' assemblies be realised at different scales?' the architects ask, imagining villages, cities and towns with their own social chambers, where people can meet to discuss, disagree and maybe even (whisper it) come up with something new, without resorting to cancellation, rage and online abuse? The idea is richly simple, although it is also elegantly complex in its execution. Leaning on the idea of architecture as an enabler rather than souped-up saviour, Louise Cotter points out how making civic architecture is (or, rather, should be) about making spaces to gather. 'This,' she says, 'brings it down to the level of community.' 'The need to assemble is fundamental,' Luke Naessens, who curated the pavilion with Cotter, says. 'But the right to assemble is under pressure.' The pavilion itself was put together from beech wood by Alan Meredith, two trees having fortuitously fallen in a storm at precisely the right time. It is visually completed with a carpet designed by Liam Naessens and created by Ceadogán Rugmakers . Adding a further layer, the whole thing is soundtracked by the composer David Stalling, with ambient noises, including birdsong and the sounds of the making of the pavilion itself at the exterior, and spoken word, including a poem by Michelle Delea, and voices from those who participated in citizens' assemblies inside. 'To start with, people were diffident about coming in because of the carpet,' Cotter says, 'but as it got dirty they lost their inhibitions.' It's a seemingly throwaway remark that hits at a deeper truth about the way environment can both invite and inhibit. Through their researches, the team explored places where people gather and communicate, from church choirs to cattle marts. 'Originally we had a kind of passageway with seats on either side, but that was a more hierarchical and confrontational space,' Cotter says. 'So it had to be round.' Size matters, too, as their researches demonstrated a sweet spot of distance that allows for connection and intimacy without intimidation. Stalling's composition is designed as what he describes as 'an intimate form of musical dialogue'. Together they have got it entirely right, as experience proves that this is a space in which it is lovely to linger and that, in so doing, conversations with strangers ensue. 'Thinking about assembly as a process really inflected our design,' Naessens says. 'While we were working on independent parts we would come together, and something someone else was doing might shift the direction. There's a reflexive element to it.' Architecture as Trees, Trees as Architecture at the Venice Biennale. Photograph: Marco Zorzanello The Lebanese pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 Their explorations continually underlined the idea of how much the human element matters. As Cotter remarks, 'buildings like cathedrals or train stations come alive when filled with people, [but] the pandemic completely inverted our sense of what a place of assembly is'. Thinking about this, and about how smartphones have added to the changes in how we meet and interact, a project such as Assembly becomes even more interesting for the quiet ideas it ignites. Many brilliant solutions to our social woes have been previously proposed in Irish pavilions past, such as the excellent Suburban to SuperRural, curated by FKL Architects in 2006; and Free Market , put together by Jeffrey Bolhuis, Jo Anne Butler, Miriam Delaney, Tara Kennedy, Laurence Lord and Orla Murphy in 2018. Each presented cogent and practical ideas, with some inspiring leaps of the imagination to spice things up. In the former, dull suburbs were re-created as biodiverse places in which people, and nature, could thrive; in the latter, the dying market towns of Ireland gained a new lease of life as remarkable places to live and work. Yet what has changed? The national pavilions at successive Venice architecture biennales are, in the main, supported by their respective governments – in Ireland by funding from Culture Ireland and the Arts Council . But do governments take notice? Then time passes and things stay the same or, as is the case with the environment, declines. What if the biennale could do something good? Imagine if we did adopt the social-housing covenants of Austria or build with carbon-dioxide-sucking bricks. 'The biennale does matter,' Naessens says. 'The process of working alongside people from Oman, Morocco – it's valuable. It's random which pavilions are next to each other in the Arsenale, but the conversations that come through are really generative, especially when we're looking at things like climate change, which are global.' As I leave the Arsenale the crowds are thinning out. A man is tipping out a melancholy version of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on a steel drum, as opposite him the mimic robot has given up, and hangs forlornly in space. The queue to ask questions of an AI robot with a surreally smoothed-out face has vanished but, given my chance, I can't think of anything to say. 'Does any of this matter?' I try. 'Ahh, that is a big question,' replies the robot, and leaves it at that. The 19th Venice International Architecture Exhibition runs until November 23rd. Assembly will tour Ireland, including to Cork Midsummer Festival, in 2026
Irish Independent
2 days ago
- Irish Independent
Palestinians awaiting aid trucks are killed as UN warns of man-made drought
Nidal al-Mughrabi and Olivia le Poidevin ©Reuters Israeli fire killed at least 44 Palestinians in Gaza yesterday, many of whom had been trying to get food, local officials said, while the United Nations' children's agency warned of a looming man-made drought in the enclave as its water systems collapse. At least 25 people awaiting aid trucks were killed by Israeli fire south of Netzarim in central Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run local health authority said. Register for free to read this story Register and create a profile to get access to our free stories. You'll also unlock more free stories each week.
