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Wednesday, December 6, 2023
China looks to deepen EU ties at summit, foreign minister says | Reuters
China looks to deepen EU ties at summit, foreign minister says | Reuters: China hopes to boost relations with the European Union at an upcoming summit, with a firm focus on pragmatic cooperation in the face of complex situations and severe challenges, its foreign minister Wang Yi said.
Pfizer plans to depart BIO - STAT
Pfizer plans to depart BIO - STAT: The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer plans to exit BIO, the latest in a string of major departures from industry trade groups.
Putin approval rating Russia 2023 | Statista
Putin approval rating Russia 2023 | Statista: Vladimir Putin's popularity level saw a slight decrease in August 2023. The vast majority of Russians approved of activities of their country's president.
Attack on Pakistan highway to China shakes key Belt and Road link - Nikkei Asia
Attack on Pakistan highway to China shakes key Belt and Road link - Nikkei Asia: ISLAMABAD -- A militant attack in the mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan region of northern Pakistan, near the Chinese border, has rekindled concerns over s
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
(185) 1948: Creation & Catastrophe (Full documentary) - YouTube
(185) 1948: Creation & Catastrophe (Full documentary) - YouTube
Through riveting and moving personal recollections of both Palestinians and Israelis, 1948: Creation & Catastrophe reveals the shocking events of the most pivotal year in the most controversial conflict in the world. It tells the story of the establishment of Israel as seen through the eyes of the people who lived it. But rather than being a history lesson, this documentary is a primer for the present. It is simply not possible to make sense of what is happening today without an understanding of 1948. This documentary was the last chance for many of its Israeli and Palestinian characters to narrate their first-hand accounts of the creation of a state and the expulsion of a nation. Hear stories from the Israelis and Palestinians who personally lived through events in Haifa, Jaffa, Dayr Yasin, Acre, Jerusalem, Ramla, Lydda and more. These shocking and dramatic events reveal the core of what drives the conflict today.
IBM releases first-ever 1,000-qubit quantum chip
IBM releases first-ever 1,000-qubit quantum chip: IBM releases first-ever 1,000-qubit quantum chip
The company announces its latest huge chip — but will now focus on developing smaller chips with a fresh approach to ‘error correction’.
(185) Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism - YouTube
(185) Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism - YouTube: Education and the Workforce Committee Republicans are committed to fostering the best opportunities for students to learn, workers to succeed, and employers ...
Tucker Carlson Destroys John Kerry and Climate Change Zealots with Facts (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila
Tucker Carlson Destroys John Kerry and Climate Change Zealots with Facts (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila: Tucker Carlson on Monday released episode 44 of his show on X.
Nuclear Power Is the Only Solution | TIME
Nuclear Power Is the Only Solution | TIME: The world has to embrace nuclear power in order to solve the climate crisis.
Houthi attacks on vessels in Red Sea sound alarm for global trade
Houthi attacks on vessels in Red Sea sound alarm for global trade: Shipowners demand more military protection for maritime routes amid fears of widening Middle East conflict
[Salon] Winning the battle, losing the war - ArabDigest.org
Winning the battle, losing the war
Summary: Israel has said it will win its war in Gaza and destroy Hamas; Tarek Megerisi dissects the three brutal scenarios by which Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu could claim a ‘win’.
In our 1 December podcast with the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Tarek Megerisi we focussed on the current situation in Libya. But before we did so we asked him about the war in Gaza. Here is what he said (you can find the podcast here.)
After the horrors of the 7 October Hamas attack we've seen the slaughter of now more than 14,000 Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip, another 200 killed in the West Bank, by the IDF and settler vigilantes. This is a war that Israel says it will win. Do you think it's winning? Do you think it can win?
I don't even know what win means anymore. To be honest, in this context. I think that if you look at the situation in front of us, there are probably three different definitions of winning, depending on which part of this wider alliance you ask, this group of the world's most technologically advanced states and militaries, who are currently pulverising the Gaza Strip. You know, the nicer face of this alliance, the United States of America, the Europeans they love to patronise us and tell us this is all about Israel's right to self-defence and that what Israel and the IDF are doing is carrying out a counterterrorism campaign. Under that narrative, I think winning is defined as completely removing Hamas from the Gaza Strip. It seems plausible, it seems something that most of us are familiar with, from previous campaigns against al Qaeda, against ISIS, and so on. And let's not get into the ironies of this as an objective. But if that is indeed the objective, then this is a very counterproductive approach to achieving it. After obliterating most of the built-up areas of Gaza, after committing atrocities, like forcefully shutting down hospitals, forcing babies to die in incubators, which is something I can't even believe I'm actually saying and just massacring large swathes of the population, you're only going to drive people towards Hamas, because they are an embedded resistance movement, whether we like it or not. And I think it says a lot that one month after what Hamas did, to massacre civilians in Israel in deeply distressing and inhuman ways - and I think that's something important to acknowledge, because there has been almost a counter narrative being produced to gloss over that - but despite all of that, to me, at least, it seems that Hamas are clearly winning the PR war here. And that should really spur a moment of self-reflection amongst the coalition because honestly how disgusting do your own actions have to be to start off from the point of October 7, and still look like the bad guy here.
The Israeli Defence Force is intensifying its operations in the southern Gaza Strip after a week-long pause in the war with Hamas [photo credit: IDF]
And the second definition of Israel winning Tarek?
The second definition of winning that I've discerned is the one that is espoused by large sections of Israel's extreme right wing government and its cultural establishment. And it's chilling, I think, if you note how much of that political and cultural establishment and even how many of the normal population of Israel just simply have no acknowledgement at all of the humanity of Palestinians. It's not even dehumanisation, it's almost like they consider them some kind of repulsive scourge that has to be extinguished. And if you look at the statements of these politicians and of these groups, it's really quite clear that what they want to do is to reclaim large chunks, if not all of the Gaza Strip and use the cover of this military response to Hamas in Gaza to also catalyse the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. So basically, when the dust settles, they want to have seized as much land as possible in Palestine and killed or expelled as many Palestinians as possible. And as distressing as it is to say, that probably has a higher chance of success than the first definition of winning here. Because you know, the block on this happening is not the conscience of Israelis or any of their western partners and it's not their military capacity. They could probably do this overnight. The block is the political pressure that this activity is creating elsewhere in the global political system. Already large swathes of the world, from Chile to South Africa to Malaysia, are outraged at what's happening. The Abraham Accords group is shaken, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia trying to lead the diplomatic push against what's going on. Even old allies like Jordan and Egypt - who have been at peace since the 70s - are being pushed into ever more desperate and hardline statements in a bid to stop this happening. So the Israelis keep pushing towards this barbaric goal. And if they do it too hard and too fast, it really could trigger a regional war and God knows where that leads.
You said three definitions of Israel winning, what’s the last one?
The last definition of winning, which is probably one that I don't hear discussed hardly at all, but it's worth being cognisant of, because it highlights how utterly depraved this whole thing is, is to make the case to say that this is all about Netanyahu saving his political skin. I mean, the guy was deeply unpopular to begin with. And then many blamed him for his failure to stop October 7 happening. And you know, Bibi, his whole shtick is that he would be the guy who stops a Palestinian state ever emerging by empowering Hamas against the Palestinian Authority, defending Hamas and neutralising any armed resistance to Israel by periodically mowing the lawn, which is this horrible clinical phrase for regularly killing armed resistance actors, for want of a better term, in order to manage them. And it's clear that after October 7, this policy has failed catastrophically. So right now, he knows that as soon as this war ends he's done for, the polling numbers are hugely stacked against him. So really, he feels like he has to keep waging a war until something that looks like either satisfying revenge or victory can be created, that would be sufficient for him to keep this Frankenstein's monster of a (government) coalition going on or to allow him to build a new one.
So yeah, I don't really know what winning looks like, it's probably healthier for us to focus on how this ends, which is that we just hope that the ceasefire continues, hostages continue to be released. And eventually there's too much inertia around the prolonged truce, and Netanyahu has too little political capital remaining to start up hostilities again. Because a real win here would be to stop October 7 happening again, or to stop the systematic massacre of Palestinians happening again. And the only way to do that is through a political settlement.
The podcast was recorded 30 November. On 1 December Israel resumed its offensive targeting the southern Gaza Strip and the city of Khan Younis. Yesterday Al Jazeera reported the renewed offensive had already killed 700, taking the death toll in Gaza to more than 15000.
Most Deserving Of A Lump Of Coal – Issues & Insights
Most Deserving Of A Lump Of Coal – Issues & Insights: Administration climate envoy John Kerry wants to be sure that others will never reach the life of easy affluence he's lived.
NATO/West or Global Majority?, by Michael Hudson - The Unz Review
NATO/West or Global Majority?, by Michael Hudson - The Unz Review: Unipolar Destruction or Multipolar Development? The World Must Choose
Why John Kerry Would Force Poor People To Burn Wood And Dung
Why John Kerry Would Force Poor People To Burn Wood And Dung: Listen now | The main alternatives to coal are oil and natural gas; John Kerry says he's against them, too.
Monday, December 4, 2023
Zelensky will brief senators Tuesday ahead of key vote on military aid | The Hill
Zelensky will brief senators Tuesday ahead of key vote on military aid | The Hill: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will address senators at a classified briefing Tuesday via a secure video conference feed, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced. Zelensky will brief senators on the state of the war in Ukraine and the need for another round of military aid a day before the Senate is scheduled to…
In 2014, 300 scientists warned Anthony Fauci would start a global pandemic.
In 2014, 300 scientists warned Anthony Fauci would start a global pandemic.: In 2014, 300 scientists warned Anthony Fauci would start a global pandemic. Following the high-profile escape of three bugs from U.S. labs, these 300 scientists sent a letter to President Obama, urging him to shut down Anthony Fauci's gain-of-function research.
[Salon] The fracturing of the Sisi / Bibi love affair - ArabDigest.org
The fracturing of the Sisi / Bibi love affair
Summary: Israel’s aim of destroying Hamas is unlikely to be realised yet in the drive to do so Benjamin Netanyahu seems ready to accept heavy damage to relations with Egypt and other Arab states.
We thank Maged Mandour for today’s newsletter. Maged is a political analyst and a regular contributor to Arab Digest and to Middle East Eye and Open Democracy. He is also a writer for Sada, the Carnegie Endowment online journal. Maged is the author of an upcoming book, Egypt Under El- Sisi: A Nation on the Edge (I.B.Tauris) which examines the social and political developments in Egypt since the coup of 2013. The book is published 25 January. You can find his most recent AD podcast which focusses on Egypt Under El- Sisi here.
On the 21 November, in a carefully orchestrated show for domestic consumption, the Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly gave a speech in the Egyptian parliament. In his address, the prime minister emphasised that Egypt will respond “decisively” against any plans to push Palestinians out of Gaza into the Sinai. The speech was met with wide support, with the PM stating that parliament will “barricade” itself behind President Sisi. Madbouly's comments were a reiteration of remarks given by the president on 18 October where he rejected the depopulation of Gaza, even going so far as to hint that millions in Egypt would rise up in protest at such a move. The regime’s position shows the beginning of growing tension with Israel which, since the coup of 2013, has been one of Sisi’s closest allies. In 2016 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the warming relationship between the two countries, thanking the president for his efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
The close alliance, however, was primarily based on an Egyptian foreign policy that was geared towards one goal, ensuring regime stability and long-term survival. Hence, as long as the alliance with Israel functioned in a way that allowed the regime to cement its hold on the domestic sphere, then this alliance would only get closer. From the Israeli side, the Sisi regime played a role in taming Hamas, blockading it, while not completely destroying it. This allowed Netanyahu to continue to avoid peace talks with the Palestinians and to continue his policy of settlement expansion in the West Bank. His strategy was completely undone by the 7 October attack, which has now placed Cairo at loggerheads with one of its closest allies.
Indeed, prior to the Hamas attack, the relationship between Sisi and the Israelis had reached unprecedented levels of cooperation. In terms of security, Israel participated in the counterinsurgency campaign in the Sinai, conducting over 100 airstrikes against Daesh-affiliated militants. Israel participated in the Sisi regime's domestic repression through the sale of sophisticated spy software used to monitor political dissidents. The American Jewish organisation AIPAC even lobbied on behalf of the regime to ensure the continued flow of American military aid as Sisi was establishing his autocracy. On the economic front, the relationship also reached new heights, with a US$15 billion gas deal signed in 2018, the proceeds of which went directly into the coffers of the Egyptian General Intelligence Services (GIS). Another deal was also signed in August 2023, aimed at increasing Israeli natural gas exports to Europe through LNG facilities in Egypt, once again showing the depth of the cooperation between the two countries. In exchange, the regime continued to blockade Hamas, while working to maintain security in Sinai, suffocating the strip but not completely destroying Hamas either, in a complex dynamic of carrots and sticks.
The Israel war in Gaza, however, is a direct threat to the regime's stability, which sees an influx of Palestinians as a grave security risk. Indeed, such an influx would be extremely damaging to Sisi’s legitimacy and would accelerate the erosion of his already thinning base of support. One only needs to keep in mind that one of the main propaganda pieces used to delegitimise the late President Morsi was his supposed intent to “sell” Sinai to the Palestinians. Hence, any hint that Sisi has accepted the transfer of Palestinians in exchange for debt relief would cause an uproar amongst his base in the midst of a crushing economic crisis which is already posing a grave threat to Sisi's rule. In addition, the perception that Egypt is participating in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, or in the suppression of armed Palestinian attacks against Israel would also do incalculable damage to the regime’s legitimacy within a population that is decisively anti-Israeli, in spite of years of propaganda against Hamas including accusations of direct participation in terror attacks inside Egypt. Hence, based on the regime’s calculus of maintaining a grip on power, no amount of American or Israeli pressure will dissuade Sisi from his staunch opposition to the depopulation of Gaza.
A satellite photo dated November 17, 2023 shows a crowd gathered on the Salah al Deen road, which is used as a population evacuation corridor in the southern Gaza Strip [photo credit: Maxar Technologies]
Israel, on the other hand, in its fevered pursuit of a ‘permanent solution’ to the Gaza question, is making Gaza uninhabitable with what appears to be the goal of forcing a new reality on not only Egypt, but the region. For example, as of 17 November , 45% of the housing in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed, 51% of the schools in the strip have been damaged, only 9 out of the 35 medical facilities are partially functioning and 70% of the Gazans in the south do not have access to clean water. In addition, the IDF is now moving to expand its military operation to the south of the strip, after calling for people to move there from the north, with the ex-Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert arguing that the Hamas HQ is located in Khan Younis. In doing so, the IDF plans to designate an area of 2.5 square miles as a safe zone. A minuscule slice of land for over 2 million people and one without even the modicum of facilities such as safe drinking water and adequate toilets.
The humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Gaza seems to have a clear aim, to push as many Palestinians out of the strip as possible. This places the Sisi regime in an extremely difficult position. Curiously, it has failed to force the entry of humanitarian assistance to attempt to alleviate the deepening crisis, even though the border crossing is under Egyptian control. There is a clear lack of desire by the regime to antagonise Israel, which has shown its willingness to use force to stop the delivery of aid, most notably when it bombed the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing multiple times since the start of the conflict.
Hence, the 7 October attacks and the IDF’s brutal response are threatening to upend one of the hallmarks of the post-Arab Spring Middle East, namely the Sisi-Bibi alliance. It has also shown the limits of cooperation between Egypt and Israel as long as the Palestinian question remains unresolved. While the long-term ramifications of the war are unclear what is without doubt is that Israel’s reliability as an ally is now an open question, not only in Cairo, but elsewhere across the region with those countries with whom it has established formal diplomatic relations as well as those with whom it has had friendly, if informal dealings.
Does putting my parent in a retirement home make me a bad son or daughter? — Aleteia
Does putting my parent in a retirement home make me a bad son or daughter? — Aleteia: In many cases, the time will come when our elderly parents need full-time care. Not everyone is able to provide that at home, but sending our parents to a retirement home can make some people feel guilty. Should it?
Chipmaking Amid War in Israel - by Nicholas Welch
Chipmaking Amid War in Israel - by Nicholas Welch: What happens when innovation comes under fire
Sunday, December 3, 2023
How Jensen Huang’s Nvidia Is Powering the A.I. Revolution | The New Yorker
How Jensen Huang’s Nvidia Is Powering the A.I. Revolution | The New Yorker: The company’s C.E.O. bet it all on a new kind of chip, Stephen Witt writes. Now that Nvidia is one of the biggest companies in the world, what will he do next?
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