Sunday, February 9, 2025
Vance Says ‘Judges Aren’t Allowed to Control’ Trump’s ‘Legitimate Power’ - The New York Times
Kurdish officials fear Islamic State revival as US aid cuts loom | Islamic State | The Guardian
The Covid Dossier: A record of military and intelligence coordination of the global Covid event.
For the U.S. to reclaim tech supremacy, it must embrace decentralization and open source AI | Fortune
The Demon of Ethnic Cleansing Has Been Let Out of the Bottle in Israel - Israel News - Haaretz.com
Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 on X: "#Statement | The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia appreciates the condemnation, disapproval and total rejection announced by the brotherly countries towards what Benjamin Netanyahu stated regarding the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land and the Kingdom values the https://t.co/ebj2sVHx4w" / X
Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 on X: "#Statement | The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia appreciates the condemnation, disapproval and total rejection announced by the brotherly countries towards what Benjamin Netanyahu stated regarding the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land and the Kingdom values the https://t.co/ebj2sVHx4w" / X
A remarkably forceful Saudi Arabian statement on Palestine
[Clearly provoked by the continuing efforts of the Israeli government and its fellow travelers in the United States to portray the Kingdom as willing to "do a deal" with Israel.]
Requiem for America’s Helping Hand in the World - Guest Post -by Llewellyn King
Requiem for America’s Helping Hand in the WorldRequiem for America’s Helping Hand in the World
February 7, 2025 by Llewellyn King Leave a Comment
I have seen the U.S. Agency for International Development in action — in Bolivia, Botswana, Pakistan and in Eastern Europe — and I can say that it is sometimes ragged and sometimes wasteful, but overall it is a great value for the money.
It is the face of America in 100 countries and its work is independent of the State Department, which has been one of its strengths.
The purpose of State is to represent American policy abroad and all that it entails. The purpose of USAID is to extend a helping hand.
It is the agency which shows the world through its actions our goodness, our decency, our humanity. USAID makes a difference, whether it is fighting AIDS, Ebola and malaria in Africa or helping electrify the Americas.
I have chanced upon — and that is the word — USAID at work in my travels. In Bolivia, I saw a village enjoying the luxury of electricity for the first time. In Pakistan, I saw trucks of American grain going into an Afghan refugee camp — the only source of food for the inhabitants.
I have heard from my family about the work in Southern Africa, about the treatment of AIDS, malaria and other diseases, where it is most needed. My father suffered from malaria, and I have a special feeling for its ravages.
My wife, Linda Gasparello, has a special feeling for Egypt, where she has lived. She has noted the impact of USAID in Egypt, where it has helped build schools and train teachers, helped create jobs in agriculture and tourism, helped provide access to clean water, helped reduce child and maternal mortality, and helped eliminate polio.
USAID has probably convinced more people that the United States is the good guy in the world than most diplomatic efforts or even the reporting of the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Free Asia.
If the work of USAID ceases, as Elon Musk has engineered, or is subsumed into State, people will die and Russia and China will fill the vacuum. They won’t fill it with the same human touch, but they will be there and we will be gone — and our good works and influence with the departure.
I grew up in Zimbabwe and even before President John F. Kennedy created USAID, there was general hostility to the idea of foreign “do-gooders.” In those days, the do-gooders were volunteers and the churches. The white community worried about ideas of democracy and equality that would upset the balance of privilege in colonial society.
Later, in the countries I know best (Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Malawi and South Africa), that fear and resentment was transferred to the international aid community. The dethroned white ruling class spread the word that foreign aid was corrupt, wasteful, and ineffective. American conservatives signed on.
Did Musk — who is irrational and pathological in his hatred of USAID and wants it abolished, and has gone a long way to achieving that aim — absorb these prejudices when he was growing up in South Africa?
Musk and President Donald Trump have presented no evidence, sought no information nor commissioned a study on USAID’s efficacy. Based just on hearsay and a paranoia that the world is out to cheat America, take its money and otherwise kick sand in its face, they are dismantling one of our pillars of statecraft.
It is an abiding myth among MAGA conservatives that foreign aid is a sinkhole, corrupt and indefensible. I have seen otherwise. But you can’t see if you don’t look.
Remember the Marshall Plan, the expensive but so worthwhile rebuilding of devastated Europe after World War II? It is cherished here and in Europe as an act of American magnanimity and statecraft that was unique in its scope and its preparedness to use American wealth for the good of others.
The plan paid off as one of the smartest investments we could have made as a country. It is an extreme example of the effectiveness of soft power.
It convinced Europe of the fundamental goodness of the American project and enabled more than 70 years of openness and sharing, convincing generations that America had certain values of human concern that would always prevail even when there were disputes.
In trashing USAID — and what mindless trashing it has taken! — the United States has opened the door to Russia and China to take on the good-guy mantle and to manipulate global opinion in their favor; and to make an always dangerous world into a more hostile one for the United States.
Without food and medicine, staples of the USAID efforts, the poorest and most wretched will suffer unspeakably. In Africa, where Musk and I grew up, people will die.
There is a ghastly irony that they will do so at the hand of the richest man in the world, acting for the richest nation in the world.
Iran ready to negotiate with US but not under Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ | Politics News | Al Jazeera
Saturday, February 8, 2025
The Covid Dossier: A record of military and intelligence coordination of the global Covid event.
Russell Vought's about to use a normally obscure role to tear down the ‘deep state’ - POLITICO
Labour MPs slam 'barbaric' Netanyahu call for Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia | Middle East Eye
Friday, February 7, 2025
Biden judge rules Michigan can ban Catholic counselors from helping gender-confused minors - LifeSite
China Admits : Installing Solar Panels Over Deserts Permanently Disrupts the Ecosystem - Glass Almanac
Thursday, February 6, 2025
The PG&E Wildfire Settlement: A Tale of Justice, Struggles, and Delayed Compensation - TechBullion
Trump Says Israel Will Hand Gaza to US at the 'Conclusion of Fighting' - News From Antiwar.com
White House Confirms: Politico Propped Up By Millions Of Dollars From US Government | ZeroHedge
Trump, an American Stalin? Massive Population Transfers were a Feature of Communist Dictatorship
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Fernando Guerra on the L.A. Wildfires – LMU Magazine
Fernando Guerra on the L.A. Wildfires – LMU Magazine
Fernando Guerra on the L.A. Wildfires
The wildfires of January 2025 likely are the biggest natural disaster in Los Angeles history. Fernando Guerra, director of the LMU Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles, talks about the current and future impacts of the fires on the city’s people, resources, and budget.
https://magazine.lmu.edu/podcasts/fernando-guerra-on-the-l-a-wildfires/
The Burn and the Rebuild – LMU Magazine
The Burn and the Rebuild – LMU Magazine
Editor's Blog February 4, 2025
The Burn and the Rebuild
By Joseph Wakelee-Lynch
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Clouds of smoke from the 2016 Sand Fire blew into the suburbs of Los Angeles, making it look like an apocalyptic landscape.
“Place is a character in the stories we tell in our magazine.” When asked what I consider distinctive about LMU Magazine, that sentence describes a characteristic that’s among those I most value.
The Society of Jesus began work in Los Angeles in 1911 at a time of explosive growth. In 1890, the city’s population was only some 50,000. By 1910, it had grown to more than 300,000, and continued growth was certain. The Jesuits wanted to build a university and parishes in Southern California. The Society had already established two universities in the Golden State’s Bay Area, the first hub of California. But in Los Angeles they saw a place with need. A commitment to minister is a commitment to place, as well as to people.
When the Jesuits came to Southern California, Los Angeles was in the midst of a process of becoming. Cities are always changing, of course, and we should remember that this basin that contains L.A. was once native land, once Mexican land. For better and for worse, change has transformed this place where we live. By now, in 2025, after more than a century of growth — and immigration — this place has an identity, if not several.
Perhaps like each of us who live and work here, I have a mental map of this place we call Los Angeles. The sites on my map vary from time to time, and they include prime locations like the Getty Center, Dodger Stadium, and Disney Hall. My map also has permanent pins, so to speak, in Alvarado St., Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church (“La Placita”), the Chinese American Museum, Huntington Gardens, the former Blue Whale jazz club in Little Tokyo, Pershing Square, Union Station, and Sullivan Field. These locations, where people make things, build things, create things, and pray about things, help define this place.
With the wildfires of early January of this year, Los Angeles suffered a severe blow to its sense of place. Entire neighborhoods and large portions of communities were obliterated, leveled, burned down to the ground. Blocks and blocks were reduced to rocks upon rubble. Restaurants, churches, coffee shops, music stores, schools, and even open parks were destroyed. Severe is a massive understatement to describe the damage done. Fernando Guerra, director of LMU’s Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles, describes the wildfires as the “costliest natural disaster in Los Angeles history.”
Friends of mine who lived in Altadena lost their house, a home that was like a refuge to me. I remember a statue of St. Francis in standing in their back yard. It’s the only thing that was left standing.
I not only loved my friends’ home, however. I loved driving up Lake Ave. to visit them. I inevitably found their house not by the names of streets I needed to turn onto but by visual markers I’d see along the way: this church, that coffee shop, a familiar gas station. None of them are standing, and I feel now as if Altadena is nowhere.
At the turn of the 20th century, the building of Los Angeles took vision, determination, resourcefulness, commitment and sacrifice. They’ll all be needed now in the building of something new. Lives were lost. Homes, and more, are gone in Altadena, Pacific Palisades, Pasadena and Sierra Madre. There is tragedy and catastrophe enough. For now, the immaterial yet necessary sense community also seems to be gone. We’ll need more determination, resourcefulness, commitment, and sacrifice. Community usually takes years to build. Rebuilding it will take just as long.
Iran welcomes Trump's foreign aid cuts as both sides hint at nuclear negotiations | The Times of Israel
'They've done their homework': The unexpected power of Musk's digital assault on Washington - POLITICO
State Dept. Fires About 60 Contractors Working on Democracy and Human Rights - The New York Times
Saudi Arabia, in swift response to Trump, says no ties with Israel without Palestinian state | Reuters
Pando: The murderous history of USAID, the US Government agency behind Cuba's fake Twitter clone
Tariffs on Trading Partners: Can the President Actually Do That? | Council on Foreign Relations
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
[Salon] Population Transfers Sanctioned by America? It’s on the Table. - GUEST POST BY DANIEL LEVY
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/opinion/israel-trump-netanyahu-gaza.html
Population Transfers Sanctioned by America? It’s on the Table.
Feb. 4, 2025
By Daniel Levy
Mr. Levy is the president of the U.S./Middle East Project.
President Trump has introduced a seemingly game-changing, if incendiary, proposal ahead of his meeting on Tuesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, the first foreign leader he will meet since his inauguration. Three times in less than two weeks, Mr. Trump has suggested that Palestinians could be relocated from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan.
It is hard to exaggerate the traumatic resonance of displacement and population transfer in collective Palestinian memory. This history helps explain the Palestinian determination to remain in the newly devastated territory and the widespread outcry to this relocation proposal and its long-term radicalizing potential.
If the two leaders take this idea seriously in their meeting, and, worse, if the idea comes to fruition, it will almost certainly boost hostility to Israel in the region and kick any prospects of U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Saudi normalization — a goal Mr. Trump enthusiastically seeks to pursue — deep into the long grass. The Saudi leadership recently joined many others in designating Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide and has become more forceful in conditioning normalizing ties on the creation of a Palestinian state. Aside from being morally reprehensible, a large-scale population transfer of Palestinians would very likely close the door on a three-way U.S.-Israel-Saudi deal for the foreseeable future.
Having put the idea out there, Mr. Trump may think the storm that followed gives him leverage. He may assume that Arab leaders — in classic transactional terms — could give him something in return if he drops it. The idea has a potentially beneficial domestic political angle for Mr. Netanyahu. It holds strong appeal to the right-wing allies that his coalition government depends on and for whom continuing the Nakba — the expulsion and flight of Palestinians around Israel’s creation in 1948 — seems to be an ideological goal. These potential benefits will neither last long nor get them very far.
Mr. Trump’s relocation idea joins a long list of Washington’s illusions about settling the conflict in the Middle East: that Israel is more likely to make peace if treated with indulgence in response to accusations of violations of international law; that resistance to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories has a military solution; and that normalizing Israel’s relations with Arab states, with which it is not in conflict, can work as an end run around dealing with Palestinian dispossession and denial of self-determination and rights.
In the current environment, suggestions of depopulation, whether intended as a practical proposition or not, cannot be taken lightly. This is not only because of the history of partition and displacement. It is also because of what is happening now. Shortly after the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, as Israel expanded its military operations in Gaza, reports surfaced that the government had floated plans — later downplayed by Mr. Netanyahu — to force Palestinians out of Gaza and into Egypt. Proposals of “voluntary” mass emigration of Palestinians have also been aired in Israeli political circles, including by senior officials.
Following Mr. Trump’s recent comments, Israel’s extreme nationalist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, promised to submit an “operational plan” to the government for carrying out the relocation. He and other extremists have repeatedly promoted Israeli-Jewish settlement of Gaza.
These displacement plans do not end with Gaza. The West Bank, where Israel is escalating military operations, is considered by many right-wing extremists in Israel to be the real prize, and Jordan the preferred destination for Palestinians living there.
None of this offers a future of security for Israelis, either. They risk creating an even more destabilized environment for those neighbors being called on to absorb the relocated Palestinians, and the displacements would serve as a rallying cry and recruitment lure for resistance movements across the region.
Of course, Mr. Trump is well known for his bluster, and it is far from clear whether he and Mr. Netanyahu will make this a priority in their meeting. But what if the goal is to actually see this through to implementation? A number of current Trump administration nominees, including Elise Stefanik, to be the ambassador to the United Nations, and Mike Huckabee, to be the ambassador to Israel, openly advocate a greater Israel that belongs to the Jews only. Can it even be done?
Gaza, in many ways, is indeed the demolition site that Mr. Trump has described. Israel’s military campaign has laid waste to 90 percent of the housing stock, most public infrastructure, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches and governmental buildings. If the guns continue to stay silent and Palestinians see no horizon of hope, or even if war resumes, might an atmosphere be created that is more conducive to mass exit? Could the degree of economic aid and military dependence that Jordan and Egypt have on the United States tip the balance?
Probably not. Israel has failed to defeat either Hamas or crush the determination of the Palestinian people. It is hard to find a starker contrast than that between the words uttered by the U.S. president and the resilience of the Palestinian population, as hundreds of thousands have made their way back to northern Gaza in recent days, determined to rebuild their lives.
There is nothing to suggest that Arab states would either fund such an act of displacement or play any role in it, including as recipient countries, despite Mr. Trump’s claim of Egypt and Jordan, “They will do it.” Quite the opposite — all have come out staunchly in opposition, most recently this weekend at a meeting in Cairo of key Arab foreign ministers, who, in a joint statement, rejected “any efforts to encourage the transfer or uprooting of Palestinians from their land, under any circumstances or justifications.”
There is profound contradiction in hearing a president who prides himself on deportations and closing his own borders to migration being so generous in volunteering third countries as recipients of population transfers.
It is even harder to make the case that removing Palestinians should become a policy priority for the U.S. government. After all, what possible core national security interest could it serve? Whatever else there is to say about plans to acquire Greenland or the Panama Canal, America, at least, would be the end beneficiary. Helping to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians? Not so much. It would only further lacerate America’s standing in the world.
Daniel Levy is the president of the U.S./Middle East Project and served as an Israeli peace negotiator at the Oslo-B talks under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Taba negotiations under Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
[Salon] The United States you know is gone - Guest Post by Mason Richey
https://koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2025/02/197_391507.html
Guest Column
The United States you know is gone
2025-02-04
By Mason Richey
The new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has moved quickly to disrupt — and in some cases dismantle — the normal functioning of the U.S. government. Many governance mechanisms are being undermined and critical civil service personnel are being fired. Indeed the very notions of the rule of law and constitutional separation of powers are under assault in Washington. We are witnessing the U.S. become autocratic.
No one should be surprised. As a candidate, Trump promised to be a “dictator” on Day 1. Trump’s endgame is unclear, and whether he succeeds at his authoritarian takeover is still uncertain, but the U.S. has finally crossed the Rubicon it began fording on Jan. 6, 2021. The political character of the U.S. is now fundamentally changed. U.S. allies and partners should recognize this dynamic, as, like all states, U.S. foreign policy is greatly determined by its domestic political foundation.
What is the Trump administration doing? Why? And how will these actions affect other countries?
The Trump administration’s blitzkrieg of improper tariff imposition, legally dubious executive orders, malfeasant personnel decisions and flat-out constitutional violations in seizing executive power covers a large range of activities. To begin with tariffs, Trump’s imposition of near-universal import tariffs against China, Canada and Mexico (with the latter two tariffs temporarily suspended) was authorized using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). This statute has never been used for tariffs, but only for sanctions in the context of U.S. national security emergencies. Trump’s justification for using the IEEPA — cross-border fentanyl smuggling and undocumented migrant flows — is highly dubious. There is no evidence that Canada has any significant role in either of those activities, even if one grants the claim for Mexico and China. Moreover, the IEEPA statute’s reporting obligations require demonstrating a direct connection between the emergency and the remedy, which is not supported in these cases.
Trump’s executive orders from Jan. 20 are too numerous to fully recount, but three stand out. One, the ending birthright citizenship — enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — has already been temporarily blocked by a federal judge as “blatantly unconstitutional.” A second executive order freezing certain federal spending likely violates congressional budgetary power, and has already been enjoined by a federal judge. The executive order also likely violates both administrative law and the 1974 Impoundment Control Act. Thirdly, the executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, has created a shadow-government entity currently operating with little transparency yet expansive power to alter government spending and the federal workforce. DOGE’s future existence is also under scrutiny in federal court.
Trump administration personnel decisions have also seemingly violated federal law. Trump purged senior civil servants from the Justice Department for political reasons (and thus in violation of the standard of misconduct or poor performance). He dismissed 18 inspectors general — whose job, ironically, is to monitor government malfeasance — also in apparent violation of civil service law. Even one of Trump’s political allies, Sen. Lindsay Graham, admitted that these firings were illegal. With Trump’s blessing, DOGE, the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management have promulgated a deferred resignation plan for U.S. government employees that violates the Antideficiency Act and U.S. budgetary law.
Trump and Musk have used DOGE to force open access to U.S. Treasury payment systems and databases. The stated — and likely illegal — reason is to stop payments to certain federal contractors, while the opportunities for corruption and sensitive data breaches are high. For ideological reasons, the DOGE team is also reportedly abolishing the U.S. Agency for International Development. This is also unconstitutional, as the agency was founded by an act of Congress. Both of these DOGE actions are likely to result in federal lawsuits.
Why is Trump doing this? There are several interconnected reasons. First, some Trump “victories” — like the now suspended tariffs against Canada and Mexico — will be superficial and symbolic, but give him a chance to spin them as substantive for political gain. Second, the Trump White House believes there are policy outcomes it cannot get through constitutional processes: immigration disincentives, tariff receipts (e.g., from China) to offset tax cuts and defunding certain government programs. Third, Trump’s administration views chaos and cruelty as essential to demoralizing federal employees so they will quit, allowing for a radical downsizing of government and its remaking for the benefit of Trump and the "Make America Great Again" agenda.
Lastly, the common element of these measures is jurisprudential. Trump’s team has chosen illegal and gray-area measures because they know they will end up before the Supreme Court, which they believe will advance a controversial doctrine known as the “unitary executive theory” that would grant vast additional powers to the president at the expense of Congress. Trump would become an American Viktor Orban.
What does all this mean for allies and partners? The Trump administration is gutting the rule of law domestically, which means it will have no qualms about violating the rules-based order internationally. Washington is no longer a values partner, and the damage it is doing today will echo for years, perhaps generations. The sooner allies — such as Korea — understand this and calculate accordingly, the sooner they can adapt to surviving in a new world of predation.
Mason Richey is a professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, president of the Korea International Studies Association and editor-in-chief of the Journal of East Asian Affairs.
Trump to meet with Netanyahu at White House with war in Gaza as backdrop - The Washington Post
Washington bill would jail priests for not breaking Seal of Confession: ‘No exemption’ - LifeSite
Bishop Strickland: Collapse of the family at the root of our moral, spiritual decline - LifeSite
In 'Enormous Loss for the American People,' Trump Fires CFPB Head Rohit Chopra | Common Dreams
What tariffs is China imposing on the US – and why are they significant? | Donald Trump News | Al Jazeera
Ukraine war briefing: Trump demands rare earths from Kyiv in exchange for aid | Russia | The Guardian
Monday, February 3, 2025
Trump Pauses Tariffs on Mexico and Canada After Speaking With Leaders - News From Antiwar.com
USAID’s History Of Regime Change, Destabilization, And Censorship Justifies Its Closure By Trump
Prince Turki Al Faisal: Mr Trump, it’s time for America to recognise Palestine | The National
(128) Al Qaeda rules Syria… US and NATO whitewash their terrorist proxies as the new government - YouTube
[Salon] Israel’s medevac scandal - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Israel’s medevac scandal
Summary: many thousands of Palestinians in Gaza more than half of them children are in urgent need of medical care abroad; citing security concerns the Israel government and the IDF have slowed approvals to a trickle.
On 30 January Dr Rik Peeperkorn was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s PM programme. Dr Peeperkorn is the World Health Organisation’s Representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territories in Gaza and the West Bank. He told the presenter Evan Davis that twelve to fourteen thousand patients in Gaza were in urgent need of medical evacuation. Roughly half of that number were related to injuries caused by IDF ground and aerial fire. Injuries included amputations, spinal damage and severe burns requiring multiple operations. Many of those WHO is seeking to medevac are children.
Dr Peeperkorn said that since the closing of the Rafah crossing on 6 May 2024, of the many thousands in urgent need of medical attention there had been only 458 evacuations with roughly half of those being children. Of those who were allowed out 40% were suffering from cancer and congenital abnormalities, one third with traumatic war injuries and the remainder with blood diseases and other illnesses.
He described the procedures of attempting to secure Israeli permission as “very slow and overly complex.” The process put in place by the Israeli authorities is “critically impacting patients who cannot afford to wait.” He said approval rates need to be drastically increased for patients and companions (i.e. a spouse, parent or sibling accompanying as a carer.) “There can never,” he said “be denials for child patients.”
He noted that in the month from late November to late December 2024 WHO had submitted 1200 medevac requests. Of that number only 29 had been approved for treatment abroad. In a particularly cruel twist 99 children were approved but with their accompanying companion denied permission making it impossible for the children to travel.
At that point in the interview one might reasonably have expected some sort of forceful interjection from the presenter. After all these are patients, among whom are children, in desperate need of acute medical treatment which they cannot receive in the largely destroyed health care system in Gaza.
Rather than drawing attention to the inhumanity inherit in what Israel is doing Evan Davis chose to focus on the issue of security clearance:
I’ve actually understood, I was wondering what argument Israel would be using in denying security clearance to a child WHO want to evacuate but the issue is around the companion is it? That has been the sticking point and what has been Israel’s argument for denying security clearance?
To which Dr Peeperkorn replied that for both patients and companions “the reasons are not disclosed to us”.
Given the BBC’s mantra of balanced coverage it surely was incumbent on PM to put the question asked of Dr Peeperkorn directly to the Israelis. That is: why, given the urgent need and the huge numbers involved, is Israel not quickly granting medevac permissions particularly to children and their carers? Instead Evan Davis skipped along to the next interview about a Van Gogh painting bought for $50 at a garage sale.
Over 96% of children in Gaza aged 6 to 23 months and women are not having their minimum nutrient requirements met [photo credit: @hadjalahbib]
The denial of medevac requests is part of a larger campaign that has included restrictions on medical volunteers wanting to enter Gaza. Last summer the Israelis banned medical aid workers of Palestinian origin from being allowed into the Strip. Medical supplies were restricted to personal medications and no medical equipment was allowed in.
The most recent statistics available show that in addition to the nearly 48000 killed (with the expectation that at least another 10000 are buried under the rubble) there are more than 110,000 wounded. The Israeli destruction of hospitals has been so profound that there are just 18 partially functioning throughout the enclave with only one of those still operating in North Gaza.
The massive destruction visited on the Strip has created a breeding ground for disease. 91% of Gazans are facing acute food insecurity. Over 96% of children aged 6 to 23 months and women are not having their minimum nutrient requirements met. 290,000 children under five and 150,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women require feeding and micronutrient supplements. 60,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition. Huge swathes of residential housing have been destroyed leaving families living in vast tent cities in the midst of winter flooding. There is an acute shortage of potable water. The education system has been wrecked.
The numbers are numbing and obscure the reality which - with Donald Trump back in the White House - has deteriorated further even as the shaky six week ceasefire still holds. One of Trump’s first executive orders was to reinstate his ban on humanitarian aid to Palestine much of which has been funnelled through USAID and which under President Biden had been restored. UNRWA the organisation best placed to deal with the health catastrophe has been banned by Israel and as we noted in our 28 January newsletter that move is backed by Washington. Trump also pulled the US out of WHO.
In the midst of Trump’s frenzied attack how do we put those numbing numbers into context? Perhaps the only way, the best way, is to think not of numbers but of the people behind them. Back in October of last year Arab Digest recorded a podcast with Hasan Ramadan a teacher from North Gaza living in a tent with his family in a refugee camp in the south. With Israeli drones circling overhead he told us:
My main hope right now is to survive along with my family. This is the first priority and hope for me. The other thing is to have suitable conditions for me and for my family, especially for my kids. A good life with good food, water and housing.
Will you have to leave Gaza to get safety for your family?
Gaza now is completely destroyed. You can say it's 90% destroyed. For my family, they can't enter into the living conditions in such an area because we don't have a home. Our home was destroyed. We are without education (schools). I think life here is unbelievable and terrible. I'm thinking really hard to leave Gaza, to go to another country so that I can live there along with my family and for my kids to have proper education, proper housing, proper food, proper drinking water.
[Salon] Trump tariff hike will leave no party unscathed: China Daily editorial Guest Post
Trump tariff hike will leave no party unscathed: China Daily editorial
chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2025-02-02
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China firmly deplores and opposes the move by the United States to impose additional tariffs on all Chinese imports, and it will take "necessary countermeasures" to defend its legitimate rights and interests.
The remarks by a ministry spokesperson on Sunday came after the US decided on Saturday to impose a 10-percent tariff on goods imported from China. The White House said the 10-percent tariff is on all imports from China and on top of existing tariffs. The tariff hike will come into effect on Tuesday.
The US side cited the fentanyl issue in the US as the justification for the move. But as the Foreign Ministry spokesperson said this is just a pretext. "The additional tariffs are not constructive and will only harm the counternarcotics cooperation between the two sides in the future."
As the spokesperson pointed out, China has conducted counternarcotics cooperation with the US side in a broad-based way. At the request of the US, China officially put all fentanyl-related substances under control on humanitarian grounds in 2019, making it the first country in the world to do so. The move played a vital role in preventing the illicit manufacturing, trafficking and abuse of these substances and has won full recognition from the international community including the US.
The US administration should objectively and rationally view the country's fentanyl crisis, which is a domestically driven problem for the US.
The tariff hike also severely violates World Trade Organization rules, and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement released on Sunday that China will file a lawsuit with the WTO regarding the wrongful practices of the US in imposing tariffs on Chinese goods. It also stated that China will take corresponding countermeasures to firmly safeguard its rights and interests.
China has repeatedly stated that there is no winner in a trade war or tariff war, but it has been left with no choice but to respond to the US move. It will only be a matter of time before Beijing unveils its countermeasures toward the latest tariff move of the US side.
The tariff hike will not contribute to resolving the issues plaguing the US. Economists at the Peterson Institute for International Economics have predicted that the tariff hikes imposed on imports from Canada, Mexico and China will be passed on to consumers, resulting in higher prices for a wide range of goods. It is especially so with Chinese imports, as the US cannot find alternatives of huge amounts of Chinese imports that stretch widely across the US' consumer markets and industries.
Despite the protectionist measures the US has taken against China over these years, the trade volume between China and the US still hit $688.28 billion last year, a year-on-year increase of 3.7 percent. It speaks volumes of the mutual benefit the two countries gain from the trade and economic cooperation.
The US tariff hikes only harm the economic and trade cooperation between the world's two largest economies. A review of the series of protectionist measures the US has initiated against China since the first Trump administration launched its trade war against China, clearly indicates tariff measures are not conducive to the interests of either side, nor to the rest of the world.
Beijing urges Washington to correct its wrong practices, maintain the hard-won momentum of China-US drug control cooperation, and promote the stable, healthy and sustainable development of China-US relations.
Economic and trade relations between China and the US have been and should continue to be of a win-win nature. The two economies have strong structural complementarity and their links are crucial parts of the global industry and supply chains. The Trump administration has said that the two countries have a shared responsibility to work together to resolve some common challenges faced by the world, that should include the well-being of the global economy.
The two sides, as agreed by the two heads of state in their exchanges last month, recognize it is natural for countries to have divergences and disputes with each other, but they should seek to resolve them through appropriate means in a responsible way. Beijing therefore urges the US to meet China halfway, face the problems that have emerged, have frank dialogues, strengthen cooperation, and manage differences on the basis of equality and mutual respect.
That's what they should do to prove the Sino-US relations have a new beginning rather than returning to the old trail that will only take a heavy toll on the mutually beneficial relations between the two countries.