Off the grid in the mountains

World news, or at least the bits of the world in which we are interested, is, as usual, bleak. Here's a round-up:

• Israel/Hamas cease fire - well it's a possibility and the negotiators are working on something that would release a handful of the hostages Gaza took in an unprovoked act of war in October last year, but the stumbling block is that Hamas wants a truce that would allow it to continue as a military force, whereas Israel wants to resume fighting and wipe out Hamas. So Israel wants a short cease-fire, while Hamas wants a longer one that could be dragged out into permanence, while continuing to manipulate the sympathies of the West.
• Russian forces have captured a number of villages on Ukraine's eastern front last week. As many as 25,000 Russian soldiers are also trying to take Chasiv Yar, which lies on strategic high ground, about seven miles west of Bakhmut. Biden has signed off a package totalling $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine. No sign of a speedy resolution of that conflict.
• In Darfur, a country the size of Spain in the north central bit of Africa, where 52% of the population are aged under 16, on account of genocide 20 years ago that killed 300,000; further trouble is brewing and renewed ethnic slaughter is anticipated.
• In Scotland, Humza Yousaf resigned yesterday, in a speech which ended in suppressed sobs, probably because he realised he has no-one but himself to blame.
• In Iraq, a hit man killed Um Fahad, a 30 year old mother who had previously been jailed for 90 days for posting a video of herself on Tik Tok dancing with her 6 year old son. It seems that she just wouldn't be told and would keep posting videos of herself, unveiled, wearing make-up. Her murder was the third killing of social media performers.
• In Kenya, 45 people were killed after a dam collapsed due to heavy rain.
• Ireland is drafting emergency legislation to deport illegal migrants to Britain, whence they have fled, fearing Sunak's Law to deport illegal migrants to RwandaForFuck'sSake.
• In the United States of America, the students are revolting (but of course), in an anti-semitic movement, supporting Hamas. Columbia University has finally put its foot down and has announced that it has started suspending students who had failed to leave a pro-Palestinian encampment.
• Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has said, no, no, you cannot make me go, even though I did say last week I would resign because of corruption accusations against my wife.
• In Germany, the first of three trials has commenced in a case involving defendants accused of plotting to overthrow the German government. In December 2022 heavily armed German police officers stormed houses, apartments, offices and a remote royal hunting lodge, making dozens of arrests, including a dentist, a clairvoyant, an amateur pilot and a man running a large social media group. The German authorities contend that their figurehead was Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss, an obscure and conspiracy-minded aristocrat who would have been made chancellor if the coup had succeeded. The group was well organized and dangerous, some of its members were former officers trained by German elite military forces, one was a judge turned far-right lawmaker with Alternative for Germany, the surging populist party known as the AfD. The police said the group had stashed more than a half-million dollars in gold and cash; amassed hundreds of firearms, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition and a cache of explosives; and secured satellite phones to communicate once it disabled national communications networks. Germans, eh? They don't change.
• In France, Gérard Doopy-doo was ordered to stand trial on criminal charges that he sexually assaulted two women during a 2021 film shoot.

If all of this (and that's just last week) makes you want to get well away from other members of the human race, here's a video made by Martijn Doolaard, a chap who seems to be of a hermit frame of mind, living off grid, restoring an old stone hut high in the Piedmont mountains. Mr mongoose will like this, as it shows the chap laying a stone floor then cleaning it with acid to remove cement grout and reveal the sparkling colours of the stones. It's a long video, but, god, its soothing.