Eve Livingston sensitively draws us into the worlds of two women who share a similar past: abusive partners who committed suicide. Through powerful scene‑setting, we’re there when each woman hears the news, and we feel the complex emotions these deaths provoke. This is a difficult, complicated subject—not often tackled. Livingston bravely shines a light on how, in these particular circumstances, suicide can bring both grief and relief.
Things started as they so often do: he was older, professionally successful in a similar field to Siri’s, and there was something “magnetic” about him. There was also, she came to realise, a darkness beneath the surface. A tragic bereavement in his past had left him struggling with his mental health, something which immediately evoked sympathy in Siri and made him seem a deeper and more sensitive person, qualities she was drawn to. At the beginning of their relationship, he would often turn up uninvited to her home or events she was attending, or bombard her with messages — behaviour she now views as stalking, but found flattering in those hazy early days of a new relationship.
Dutch Housing Minister Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan drew sharp criticism this week after defending priority access to scarce social housing for recognized refugees, arguing that many young Dutch first-time home seekers “can still live with their parents.”
In an interview with De Telegraaf, the D66 minister was asked why status holders — asylum seekers granted residence permits — should receive preference for social rental homes while Dutch “starters” face long waiting lists and delayed independence. She responded that “we see that a lot of starters can still, or are allowed to, live with their parents.”
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) October 14, 2026
Dutch commentator and activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek wrote on X that the policy amounted to “systemic racism.”
“And not just the ‘new’ newcomers. A 25-year-old Syrian who came here with his parents years ago jumps the queue for a home when he decides he wants to live on his own. Meaning a 25-year-old white Dutch guy can forget about getting his own place and ends up on waiting lists for 10+ years,” she wrote, adding: “Putting the interests of foreigners above the interests of the native population needs to end.”
Talking about systemic racism: Young Dutch people can barely find a place to live, because migration drove 60% of the housing demand since 2015, regular prices are insane, and migrants get PRIORITY for the affordable social housing. And not just the “new” newcomers. A 25-year-old Syrian who came here with his parents years ago jumps the queue for a home when he decides he wants to live on his own. Meaning a 25 year-old white Dutch guy can forget about getting his own place and ends up on waiting lists for 10+ years. But according to our minister of housing that’s fine because they can just continue to “live with their parents.” Putting the interests of foreigners above the interests of the native population, needs to end. That’s why with the @SaveEuropeAct, apart from demanding closed borders and Remigration, we also demand Removing social welfare incentives and benefits that function as pull factors for migration.
— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) October 13, 2026
Boekholt-O’Sullivan, an Irish-born former lieutenant general in the Dutch Air Force who took office earlier this year, claims that anyone who wants to live in the Netherlands should get a roof but does not address the major housing crisis brought on by mass immigration.
“For me, the fundamental principle is that anyone who is allowed to and wants to live in the Netherlands gets a roof over their head,” she said. She noted that status holders typically leave asylum reception centers and argued that alternatives such as remaining in centers, homelessness, hotels or cruise ships were unacceptable, so priority allocation should continue until other solutions exist.
The remarks landed amid fresh data underscoring migration’s outsized role in the Netherlands’ housing crunch. A report released this week by the Economic Institute for Construction (EIB) found that migration accounted for about 60 percent of additional housing demand between 2015 and 2024. Migrants who arrived in that period occupied roughly 435,000 homes by 2024, out of nearly 700,000 homes added to the stock.
In addition, data shows that migrants occupy 44 percent of the 2.2 million social housing units in the country.
The 44 percent figure of social housing units occupied by first or second-generation immigrants has doubled from 22 percent in 2000, and is forecast to rise to 51 percent by 2030.
A total of 92 percent of Syrian first-generation immigrants reside in social housing. In addition, 90 percent of those born in Somalia, Afghanistan, and Eritrea reside in social housing.
Asylum-related migration contributes disproportionately to lasting demand because status holders remain permanently at high rates, unlike many labor or student migrants who leave within a decade.
Critics said the minister’s comments minimized the burdens on young Dutch adults who have already spent years on waiting lists for social housing or who face high private rents and purchase prices that lock them out of independent living.
Social housing waiting lists in major cities often stretch many years; priority rules for status holders allow some recent arrivals to bypass ordinary queues. Dutch population growth in recent years has been driven almost entirely by net migration, amplifying pressure on an already constrained housing market marked by strict planning rules, nitrogen regulations and slow construction.
The latest debate about Dutch housing policy and mass immigration is only one aspect of the massive burden foreigners have been on Dutch society, which shows that Dutch taxpayers have spent €400 billion on migrants between 1995 and 2019.
The landmark study, entitled “Borderless Welfare State: The Consequences of Immigration on Public Finances,” shows that net costs of immigration to the Dutch public sector over the period 1995-2019 were an astounding €400 billion, averaging €17 billion a year, with a peak of €32 billion in 2016 due to the 2015 refugee crisis.
However, this is far from the total figure. Since 2019, Dutch taxpayers have paid tens of billions more, with no end in sight.
The post Migrants skip the line for affordable housing, while Dutch people ‘can still live with their parents,’ says Dutch housing minister appeared first on Remix News.
One person has died as stormy weather with high volumes of water is sweeping across Greece, affecting mostly Greek islands. Rhodes is one of the Greek islands severely hit by the bad weather front, while Evia and the Sporades islands (Skiathos, Skopelos and Alonissos) are also at the mercy of the intense weather phenomena. RHODES […]
The post One dead as stormy weather sweeps across Greek islands appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.
For Boston Magazine, Kara Baskin explores a growing subculture of tweens and teens who don’t feel entirely human. Some identify as one animal, like a cat or a dog; others identify with multiple animals. One kid Baskin speaks to, Sol, says she “doesn’t summon the animals, but rather they come and go on their own schedule.” These young people call themselves therians (distinct from furries, who are fans of anthropomorphic animal characters). Baskin provides a fascinating glimpse into a world where adolescents can express themselves and explore their identities.
Bafflement is the baseline condition of raising kids right now. The adolescent quest for self-discovery is timeless—but today’s parents experimented in ways that were analog: new hairstyles, inscrutable music, beer snuck in the woods. Their own parents might not have liked it, but they could at least relate.
Now the landscape of adolescent discovery is literally foreign, thanks to social media, which has turbocharged once-obscure subcultures like the furry fandom—and, at its rarer edge, therianthropy—and redefined what “fringe” even means. Even if a kid is the only therian at school, she can find 400 more people just like her online. That’s one of the biggest challenges for parents in the algorithm age: The world your kid actually lives in is one you can’t enter. It touches the fear in every parent, therian kid or not: What happens when our kids inhabit a world we don’t understand, with idols we don’t recognize?
As the US Navy lays the groundwork for its next-generation SSN(X) attack submarine to replace its aging fleet, the US’s longstanding undersea supremacy faces an intensifying test against China’s rapid naval buildup, advancing acoustic stealth and superior shipyard capacity. The US Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) issued a sources-sought notice to survey domestic shipyard […]
The post US Navy’s SSN(X) won’t arrive for years as China closes sub gap appeared first on Asia Times.
Trump e Putin hanno siglato un accordo per il rilascio di diesel russo pari a 5 milioni di tonnellate. Gli USA hanno sospeso le sanzioni sul gasolio fino ad aprile. I prezzi, secondo Trump, “scenderanno per noi a ritmi record”.
Gli accordi tra russi e americani non finirebbero però qui. Secondo Reuters, l’inviato e genero di Trump, Kushner, avrebbe discusso con il consigliere di Putin, Dmitriev, dell’ingresso di un investitore americano addirittura dentro Nord Stream, l’azienda che controlla i gasdotti sabotati. Precondizione di questo accordo è ovviamente la sospensione delle sanzioni USA, per cui la decisione di ieri sembra perfettamente coerente.
All’UE, mancherà invece il 7% del gas per coprire i consumi invernali. Parliamo di 14 miliardi di metri cubi. Oltre al blocco di Hormuz che ha fermato il GNL dal Qatar, da gennaio partirà il blocco totale autoimposto delle fornitire russe. È poi pronta “la più lunga lista di sanzioni europee mai presentata contro Mosca”: 1600 aziende e personalità. La Commissione ha però versato 1,24 miliardi per droni e missili all’Ucraina e restano da pagare a breve 15,4 miliardi. Ne mancano comunque almeno il triplo per tenere in piedi l’esercito per la prima parte del ’27.
L’UE non è però intenzionata a rivedere le sue regole di austerità. Secondo il vicepresidente della Commisisone Dombrovskis, “non possiamo continuare a introdurre nuove forme di flessibilità” perchè la sostenibilità fiscale “rappresenta una risorsa fondamentale”. Il ministro all’economia olandese dice che bisogna ridurre a tutti i costi il debito, “fuggire dai problemi non è la soluzione”, e che si sente “piuttosto stanco di questa discussione”. Tesi espressa anche dai ministri belga e tedesco. Non importa che, secondo proprio il commissario all’energia, Jorgensen, soltanto per la guerra nel Golfo, l’UE pagherà 90 miliardi di extracosti per l’energia. Saremo in guerra, senza energia, ma il deficit sarà sotto al 3%.
Continua intanto la deindustrializzazione dell’Europa, che procede pari passo alla sua militarizzazione. Avanza l’ipotesi di una reindustrializzazione del sito Beko di elettrodomestici di Siena a opera della Leonardo. Non si produranno più frigoriferi in Europa ma missili per distruggere la nostra economia. Una grandiosa strategia.
Ma c’è qualcuno che seriamente può pensare che questa politica possa farci uscire dalla crisi in cui ci ha portato? Che queste élite abbiano la lucidità e la buona fede per ammettere gli errori madornali e autocorreggersi?
L’UE non è in crisi. È la crisi.
Rappresenta oggi l’ostacolo interno principale all’organizzazione dei popoli europei in vista dei loro interessi e della pace.
Dobbiamo svegliarci, prima che siano le condizioni storiche a farlo per noi.
di Gabriele Guzzi
L'articolo La UE non è in crisi. È la crisi proviene da Blondet & Friends.
Doctors and healthcare workers gathered in parallel to the World Medical Association (WMA) General Assembly in Rotterdam on October 8-10, demanding the suspension of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) over its breaches of medical ethics throughout the Gaza genocide.
Activists held mobilizations warning against the IMA’s attempts to obscure attacks on Palestinian health workers and infrastructure. These actions included a petition demanding the organization’s suspension from the WMA signed by nearly 6,850 health professionals.
“The petition demands that the IMA is suspended by the WMA for its gross violations of medical ethics over decades, concerning Palestinian patients and healthcare services and the complicity of Israeli doctors in the starvation, torture and medical neglect of Palestinian prisoners,” the IMA Out! coalition stated.
The coalition also called upon medical associations to follow the example of the South African Medical Association, the British Medical Association, and the Turkish Medical Association in severing ties with the IMA.
On Saturday, October 10, 81 health workers simultaneously removed their scrubs and hung them in a line facing the WMA assembly. Each was marked with the name of a Palestinian healthcare worker currently held in illegal Israeli detention.
“These scrubs should not be empty,” said general practitioner Mejrem Ahmetaj from Artsen voor Gaza (Doctors for Gaza) in the Netherlands. “Our colleagues belong with their patients, not in Israeli prisons.”
The campaign to suspend the IMA over its breaches of medical ethics has been developing for months. In June this year, a report in The Lancet reported that a petition launched by the People’s Health Movement (PHM) to hold the IMA accountable collected over 1,100 signatures. Working together with other organizations and networks, including chapters of Healthcare Workers For Palestine and Teva boycott groups, the initiative was able to expand.
Since October 2023, at least 1,700 Palestinian health workers have been killed, and many more remain imprisoned in horrifying conditions in Israeli detention centers. Among them is Kamal Adwan Hospital Director Hussam Abu Safiya, whose mistreatment and imprisonment have caused international outcry.
These crimes have been extensively documented by UN experts and human rights associations, yet the IMA – which represents over 90% of Israeli physicians – took no action. Instead, some of its leading figures backed unfounded claims that Gaza’s hospitals are used for military purposes.
“The IMA has said and done nothing about these war crimes against health workers, patients and hospitals,” said Jonathan Fluxman from IMA Out!.
Ahmetaj added that the IMA is not a bystander. “It defends these attacks and blocks international condemnation while Palestinian healthcare is being destroyed,” the physician said. “That is not medical neutrality. That is complicity.”
The protest coincided with a legal action initiated by the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF). On October 7, the foundation announced it had called upon the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the involvement of the IMA, the Israeli Ministry of Health, Ministry of Defense, and medical professionals “in the death, torture, and ill treatment of Palestinian detainees held at the Sde Teiman detention facility since October 7, 2023.”
The legal submission addressed the participation of Israeli medics in crimes perpetrated at Sde Teiman’s field hospital. There, health workers and detainees documented abuses spurring from directives issued by the Israeli Ministry of Health in December 2023.
According to the Hind Rajab Foundation, the Ministry of Health guidance instructed medical staff to treat prisoners while blindfolded and handcuffed and required them to sign medical documentation using only their professional titles. It also directed them to restrict transfers to civilian hospitals and authorized forced medical treatment without protections.
“By November 2025, at least 29 detainees had died at Sde Teiman as a result of physical violence, medical neglect, or both,” the organization wrote. The IMA did not initiate any disciplinary proceedings against members involved in these practices – and even used international journals as platforms to obscure them.
“The evidence shows that medical participation in torture and abuse at Sde Teiman was structural,” Natacha Bracq of the Hind Rajab Foundation said. “The Israeli Ministry of Health built the field hospital, dictated the terms of medical treatment; doctors served under Military Police authority rather than the Medical Corps; and a professional association provided ethical cover.”
“Israeli physicians abandoned their neutrality when they agreed to treat patients in chains and erase what was done to them,” Dyab Abou Jahjah from the same organization added. “The WMA must answer why an association that provided institutional cover for torture is still welcome at its table.”
People’s Health Dispatch is a monthly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and subscription to People’s Health Dispatch, click here.
TOKYO – For decades, the US enjoyed a remarkable luxury: its two biggest creditors, Japan and China, kept showing up at Treasury auctions with checkbooks open. Now, Donald Trump’s trade wars, tariff threats and widening geopolitical confrontations raise an uncomfortable question: what happens if Washington’s most reliable bankers decide they’ve had enough? Granted, global investors […]
The post When Asia’s central banks turn bond vigilante on Trump appeared first on Asia Times.
Steve Rose investigates a catastrophic pollution incident at Furnace Brook, a fishing lake in East Sussex, where thousands of fish suddenly died and the local ecosystem collapsed. Neighbours suspect pollution from nearby Morgans Farm, and Rose examines whether their concerns are justified. In doing so, he uncovers broader national problems with water pollution, illegal waste dumping, and the limited power and resources councils and regulators have to tackle them.
He headed about half a mile up the valley to a tributary joining the stream from a neighbouring property named Morgans Farm. “You could clearly see the water upstream [of the tributary] was totally normal, a sandy colour with clay silt in it, and what was below it had gone a blue-black colour. You could see dead brook trout, wild eels, and there was a dead crow or raven, which may well have eaten something poisonous from the river.” In some places, he says, there was a thick layer of blue-grey scum on the water, which he later learned is sometimes called “bacterial cheese”. “There’s so much nutrient [sic] in the water that it allows for a bacterial colonisation explosion.” The bacteria take up all the oxygen, which causes most of the fish, especially the older, larger ones, to die.
The Bishop of Leeds is urging Catholics to 'live simply' to protect the planet. But why are bishops banging on about climate change when they're supposed to be saving souls? asks Roger Watson.
The post Saving the Planet, One Pastoral Letter at a Time appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
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