Sunday, December 1, 2024

#Georgia - President Salome Zourabichvili slams Georgia's government as 'illegitimate': Euro News

1 December 2024

In an interview with Euronews, Salome Zourabichvili talks about the current wave of unrest happening across Georgia and what could happen next.

Russian-Georgian conflict explained (Abkhazia & South Ossetia)

Thousands rally after stalled EU talks, is the government afraid? | DW News

Crowds have clashed with police for a third consecutive night in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. They accuse the ruling Georgian Dream party of pulling the country into Russia's orbit. Earlier Georgia's Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said the state would not allow a revolution to take place. The wave of unrest was sparked when the government froze talks to join the European Union.

#georgia #protests #russsia

#Gaza - Israel ‘ethnically cleansing’ north Gaza says former Israeli defence minister: Middle East Eye

1 December 2024

In an interview with Democra TV, former Israeli chief of staff and defence minister Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon accused Israel of engaging in "ethnic cleansing" in the northern Gaza Strip. Ya’alon, who was dismissed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2016, has since emerged as one of Netanyahu’s most vocal critics. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported on Saturday that the death toll in Gaza has risen to at least 44,382, with more than 105,142 Palestinians injured since the beginning of Israel's military offensive on 7 October 2023.

#F1 - Why Verstappen lost his pole start at the Qatar GP: Autosport

1 December 2024

Jonathan Noble and Stuart Codling sit down to review all the action from Saturday's Sprint Race and Grand Prix Qualifying from Qatar. There's an immediate reaction to the news that Max Verstappen's pole position was removed; with the Dutchman demoted to second via a controversial penalty for driving unnecessarily slowly with George Russell in Q3, with the British driver now inheriting pole as a result. There's also an analysis of Lewis Hamilton's continued criticism of his poor qualifying form, Lando Norris giving up a Sprint victory to teammate Oscar Piastri on the run to the line, and Sergio Perez's losing a position in the pitlane to Franco Colapinto after the Mexican driver missed the green light at the start of the Sprint.

and

MAX'S PENALTY: HOW THE STEWARDS GOT IT WRONG by Peter Windsor

webmaster John Nichols @itcracing @Linkedin

Saturday, November 30, 2024

#F1 - 024 Qatar Grand Prix - Saturday Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS TEAM

Press Information
30 November 2024

F1: Session Report

2024 Qatar Grand Prix - Saturday

After a positive Friday for the Team this continued into Saturday, first with the Sprint Race followed by Qualifying later in the evening.
Lining up P2 and P7 for the Sprint, George finished P3 after being passed by the McLaren of Oscar Piastri on the first lap and Lewis was P6, having run P5 for the first half of the race.
Qualifying took place later in the evening and proved to again be a very close session between the top four Teams.
Both Lewis and George continued to make progress throughout the sessions on the soft compound with George securing P2 and Lewis taking P6.
George was unable to improve on his final lap and missed out on securing pole by just 0.055s.

F1 Sprint

Driver	Grid	Result	Tyres
George Russell	P2	P3	Medium
Lewis Hamilton	P7	P6	Medium

Qualifying

Driver	Q1		Q2		Q3
George Russell	11 Laps 1:21.241	P1 Medium, Soft, Soft	9 Laps 1:21.069	P4 Soft, Soft	8 Laps 1:20.575	P2 Soft, Soft
Lewis Hamilton	10 Laps 1:21.637	P7 Soft, Soft	9 Laps 1:21.095	P5 Soft, Soft	8 Laps 1:21.011	P6 Soft, Soft

George Russell
Today has been a great day, it's good to be in this groove at the moment with four front row starts. My first Q3 lap was really strong and I was pleased with it but unfortunately I wasn't able to improve on my final lap. This was mainly due to the scrappy out lap I had with the near miss with Max that meant I ended up in the gravel so that didn't help prep wise ahead of my final push lap. I'm still really pleased with P2, I'm taking all the positives and I'm feeling great in the car.

It's going to be exciting tomorrow as the top four teams are very close. Starting on the right side of the track does seem to have a slight disadvantage, which we saw earlier on in the Sprint Race for the majority starting on this side of the track, which meant I couldn't fight with Lando. I'm hoping tomorrow we'll be able to fight with Max and stay ahead of those behind us, our race pace this morning looked good and the tyres seem resilient so I'm hoping we don't end up in another DRS train and we can have some fun. There's a lot of possibilities to do something different, I'm looking forward to it.

Lewis Hamilton
It was a pretty straight forward session for us in qualifying, the car was feeling decent and we were able to fix the bouncing. The tyres and the grip of the track was feeling great, this track is amazing. My last lap in qualifying unfortunately wasn't great, I had the car snapping away from me which meant I lost time and couldn't improve higher than P6. I was giving it everything and was generally feeling good but didn't improve when I crossed the line.

Tomorrow I'm hoping for a good race, this track is great to drive so it should be an exciting race. I'm hoping the car will be in a better place tomorrow and we'll be able to make some improvements. Unfortunately, today in the sprint all of the top Teams were really quick and it was hard to overtake but 'll be giving it my all in the race tomorrow.

Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO
Overall, we are happy with the results we have seen today as a Team. The car seems to function well in these conditions as we can run the car low and stiff on a smooth track which ultimately suits the characteristics of our car and George seems to like the way it drives. We've seen this over the last couple of qualifying sessions and races. George was performing well in Q3 but was just lacking half a tenth to secure pole against Max.

For Lewis this generation of cars aren't always suiting his driving style, he likes to be aggressive on corner entries and unfortunately this car at the moment can't quite take it, especially on qualifying laps when it's right on the edge. Lewis in the race, however, usually manages to turn it around like last week where he was overtaking car after car and coming through the pack. We'll see what tomorrow brings and hopefully we can deliver another good result with both cars for the Team.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
The Sprint Race was a bit frustrating, George lost a place into turn 1, he couldn't quite tuck in and lost a bit of ground to Piastri by not having a tow. It felt like we were close to getting a pass on a couple of occasions but once Lando was helping him out with DRS it was impossible to get through. Lewis had a good start, getting up to P5 but took a bit too much out of the tyres and dropped a place from there. It's a shame that the DRS zone was shortened for this year as it's always difficult to pass on the sprint races with everyone on the same age tyres, this has just made it even harder.

Qualifying was reasonable but frustrating for George to end up less than 60ms off pole for the second day in a row. The car was working well. It felt like George had a good shot at pole with a strong first lap but our second run wasn't clean and he failed to improve. Lewis was lacking a bit of rear stability in places which was preventing him going any quicker but P6 will still put us in the fight at the front. From the Sprint this morning it looks like the long run performance is very similar between all the cars so it should make for an interesting race.

#F1 #QatarF1 - Sprint Full Highlights 30th Nov. 2024 | 2024 Qatar Grand Prix: Breaking Sports 2024

30 November 2024

Oscar Piastri has claimed victory in the Sprint at the Qatar Grand Prix after team mate Lando Norris – who had led the event throughout – pulled over to let his fellow McLaren driver through at the very last moment, seemingly paying the Australian back for their previous switch during the Sprint event in Sao Paulo.

57 mins ago

#Gaza - Surgeon Reveals Why The US Won't Save Palestine: Novara Media

13 November 2024

Novara Live broadcasts every weekday from 6PM on YouTube and Twitch. Episodes of Downstream are released Sundays at 3PM on YouTube.

Gaza-returned surgeon gives gut wrenching testimony in UK parliament, stuns MPs

Israeli army covers up killings of its own civilians, with Ali Abunimah

#Syria - Russian jets hit back at rebels as hundreds flee Aleppo | Middle East conflict: Sky News

2024 November 2024

The Syrian army has withdrawn from the city of Aleppo after a lightning offensive by rebels. The military said it was preparing a counteroffensive following sweeping gains by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al Sham. Groups opposed to Bashar al Assad's regime were forced out of the city in 2016 during the country's brutal civil war. Iran-backed Hezbollah and Russia were key players in restoring Assad's power to much of the country. However, Hezbollah's resources have been degraded by a war with Israel, while Russia is embroiled in a conflict with Ukraine.

#syria #aleppo #assad

Tahrir al-Sham

is a Sunni Islamist political and armed organisation involved in the Syrian Civil War

#NATO #Ukraine #Russia - Zelensky calls for NATO to protect parts of Ukraine's territory • FRANCE 24 English

30 November 2024

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Friday for NATO to offer guaranteed protections to parts of Ukraine controlled by Kyiv in order to "stop the hot stage of the war."

Zelensky also implied he would be willing to wait to regain the almost one-fifth of his country that Russia's army has seized, if such a deal could offer security for the rest of Ukraine and end the fighting.

#NATO #Ukraine #Russia