NAKBA 2.0

Israeli minister calls for voluntary emigration of Gazans

Reuters
Tue, November 14, 2023 

Palestinians fleeing north Gaza move southward, in the central Gaza Strip

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A senior far-right member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government said on Tuesday Gaza could not survive as an independent entity and it would be better for Palestinians there to leave for other countries.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who heads one of the religious nationalist parties in Netanyahu's coalition, said he supported a call by two members of the Israeli parliament who wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial that Western countries should accept Gazan families who expressed a desire to relocate.

The comments underscore fears in much of the Arab world that Israel wants to drive Palestinians out of land where they want to build a future state, repeating the mass dispossession of Palestinians when Israel was created in 1948.

"I welcome the initiative of the voluntary emigration of Gaza Arabs to countries around the world," Smotrich said in a statement. "This is the right humanitarian solution for the residents of Gaza and the entire region after 75 years of refugees, poverty and danger."

He said an area as small as the Gaza Strip without natural resources could not survive alone, and added: "The State of Israel will no longer be able to accept the existence of an independent entity in Gaza".

Smotrich spoke during Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip, a blockaded coastal enclave ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas that is home to some 2.3 million people, most of them refugees after earlier wars.

Palestinians and leaders of Arab countries have accused Israel of seeking a new "Nakba" (catastrophe), the name given to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in the wake of the 1948 war that accompanied the founding of the state of Israel.

Most ended up in neighbouring Arab states, and Arab leaders have said any latter-day move to displace Palestinians would be unacceptable.

Israel launched the Gaza operation in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas gunmen who burst out of the enclave and stormed across a string of communities in southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 240 as hostages back into Gaza, according to Israeli official figures. Israeli leaders have vowed to destroy Hamas and rescue the hostages.

More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed during the weeks-long Israeli bombardment of Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities, and whole stretches of the enclave have been levelled or turned to rubble.

The Israeli military has told residents of northern Gaza to leave their homes and head to the southern end of the Strip, where it said they would be safer, and said they would be able to return once the situation is stabilised.

Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, and Netanyahu has said it does not intend to maintain a permanent presence again, but that Israel would maintain security control for an indefinite period.

However there has been little clarity about Israel's longer term intentions, and countries including the United States have said that Gaza should be governed by Palestinians.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie; editing by Mark Heinrich

Israeli Minister Admits Military Is Carrying Out ‘Nakba’ Against Gaza’s Palestinians

Sanjana Karanth
Sun, November 12, 2023

An Israeli cabinet official has publicly admitted to the government’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, saying on television over the weekend that the country is “rolling out the Gaza Nakba.”

On Saturday, security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter sat for a television interview with an Israeli news network. Dichter is part of the right-wing nationalist Likud party, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs.

“We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” Dichter said when asked if the recent images of northern Gaza residents evacuating south are comparable to images of the 1948 Nakba.

“From an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war ― as the IDF seeks to do in Gaza ― with masses between the tanks and the soldiers,” he continued, according to a translation of the interview by Haaretz.

The Nakba, which in Arabic means “catastrophe,” refers to the mass displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Palestine was considered a multi-ethnic society until the tension between Arab and Jewish people rose as a result of both Jews migrating to flee persecution in Europe, as well as the Zionist movement attempting to establish a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine.

The tension escalated to war in 1948 after the UN General Assembly’s resolution trying to partition Palestine into two states was rejected a year earlier. The war resulted in the permanent displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by the newly formed Israeli forces.

Despite the UN calling for Palestinian refugee return and property restitution, Israel has continued to deny the rights of Palestinians and carry out an apartheid for 75 years. The anniversary of the Nakba serves as a painful acknowledgment of the generational and ongoing trauma that Palestinians face both on their occupied land and outside the region.

“Gaza Nakba 2023,” Dichter said. “That’s how it’ll end.”

When later asked if labeling the current forced evacuation a Nakba means Palestinians won’t be able to return to Gaza City, Dichter said: “I don’t know how it’ll end up happening since Gaza City is one-third of the Strip ― half the land’s population but a third of the territory.”

Israel’s monthlong siege on Gaza has killed more than 11,000 people and displaced millions. Israeli forces told Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza to avoid being killed, though several areas in the southern region have also been bombed.

On Friday, Netanyahu said that he wants “full security control” of Gaza with the power to “enter whenever we want” to kill who Israel perceives to be enemies.

Netanyahu Calls Palestinians ‘Collateral Damage’ As Israel Destroys Gaza

Sanjana Karanth
Updated Mon, November 13, 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Palestinian civilians being killed en masse are simply “collateral damage” in his military’s destruction of Gaza.

The right-wing leader appeared on multiple cable news shows to speak on the current state Israel’s monthlong siege on Gaza, which human rights experts have warned amount to ethnic cleansing and war crimes. For much of his appearances, Netanyahu attempted to downplay both his responsibility in the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israelis as well as his military’s role in killing Palestinians.

More than 11,100 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed since Israel’s violence escalated on Oct. 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Thousands are still trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings and homes, and millions are displaced and being forced to reside in Gaza refugee camps that are also being bombed by Israel. Many of the dead also include aid workers, journalists and doctors.

In Israel, the death toll stands at more than 1,200, most of whom were killed in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. The U.S. believes that the number of hostages taken by Hamas militants during the attack is in the hundreds.

On Friday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, and said that the only solution to the violence is to end the Israeli occupation and allow Palestinians the right to self-determination.

“The extensive Israeli bombardment of Gaza, including the use of high impact explosive weapons in densely populated areas, razing tens of thousands of buildings to the ground, is clearly having a devastating humanitarian and human rights impact,” he said. “After four weeks of bombardment and shelling by Israeli forces in Gaza, the indiscriminate effects of such weapons in a densely populated area is clear. Israel must immediately end the use of such methods and means of warfare, and the attacks must be investigated.”

“Considering the predictable high level of civilian casualty and the wide scale of destruction of civilian objects we have very serious concerns that these amount to disproportionate attacks in breach of international humanitarian law.”

Netanyahu called Türk’s accusation “hogwash,” claiming that Israeli forces are not deliberately targeting civilians despite the skyrocketing Palestinian death toll. The prime minister also repeated his claim that Hamas is responsible for Gaza’s civilian casualties, when it is Israel launching the attacks from air, sea and land.

“We’re deliberately doing everything in our power to target the terrorists,” Netanyahu told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And the civilians, as happens in every legitimate war, are sometimes what are called ‘collateral damage.’ That’s a longer way of saying unintended casualties.”

Israel’s ground forces battled Hamas militants near Gaza’s largest hospital, Al Shifa, where health officials say thousands of medics, patients and displaced families seeking shelter are trapped with no electricity and lack of medical supplies. Israel has accused Hamas of hiding in the hospital without providing evidence, but Hamas and hospital staff have both denied the allegations.

“Some hospitals, including Al Quds and Al Shifa hospitals, have also received specific evacuation orders, in addition to the general evacuation orders to all of northern residents of Gaza. But such evacuation, as the World Health Organization has warned, is a ‘death sentence’ in a context where the entire medical system is collapsing and hospitals in southern Gaza have no capacity to absorb more patients,” Türk said.

“While bombings on Gaza from air, land and sea continue, the complete siege now lasting over one month has made it an agony for residents in Gaza to find basic necessities, and frankly to survive,” he said. “All forms of collective punishment must come to an end.”

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, al-Shifa’s last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, resulting in the deaths of three premature babies and four other patients. Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said that 37 other children may be on the verge of death after the life support machines stopped working in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.

Netanyahu claimed that Israel would help evacuate patients from the hospital. But in a statement obtained by Palestinian news agency WAFA, Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila said that Israeli forces “are not evacuating people from hospitals; instead they are forcibly evicting the wounded onto the streets, leaving them to face inevitable death.”

Medical Aid for Palestinians, a United Kingdom-based humanitarian group, said it is concerned that more babies at al-Shifa Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit will soon die. The organization also called out news outlets who are failing to verify Israel’s claims about its bombardment.

“We are deeply concerned by uncritical media reporting regarding the Israeli military’s statement that it will help move premature babies trapped at the hospital to a ‘safer hospital,’” MAP CEO Melanie Ward wrote. “The only safe option to save these babies would be for Israel to cease its assault and besiegement of al-Shifa, to allow fuel to reach the hospital, and to ensure the surviving parents of these babies can be reunited with them.”

Head lice DNA discovery reveals new details about first Americans

Katie Hunt, CNN
Mon, November 13, 2023 

Head lice have been constant, if unwanted, human companions for as long as our species has been around.

Evidence of this ancient connection includes a 10,000-year-old louse found on human remains at an archaeological site in Brazil and an inscription on a 3,700-year-old ivory lice comb that might be the oldest known sentence written with an alphabet.

For scientists interested in how humankind evolved and spread around the globe, the blood-sucking parasite — officially called Pediculus humanus — also contains a lode of genetic information that, as new research shows, is illuminating some of the biggest questions in the human story.

“Lice have been with us since the origin of humankind; for millions of years they have evolved with us,” said Marina Ascunce, a research molecular biologist at the US Department of Agriculture who has analyzed and compared the DNA of 274 lice collected with the help of head lice researchers from all over the world. The analysis is part of a new study published Wednesday in Plos One.

“When the first anatomical modern humans left Africa, they carried their lice with them,” she said.


Marina Ascunce, a research molecular biologist, prepares to perform a polymerase chain reaction procedure, which produces millions of copies of a specific DNA sequence in a short amount of time. - Jeff Gage/Florida Museum of Natural History

Ascunce, who did the work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida, and her colleagues found that lice clustered genetically into two distinct groups that rarely interbred.

The team also detected a small number of “hybrid lice” — reflecting a mix of the two clusters — that were mostly found in the Americas, which she said she interpreted as a “signal of contact between Europeans and Native Americans.” The group appeared to be a mixture of lice descended from the earliest Americans and those descended from European lice, which were brought over during the colonization of the Americas. However, it was unclear why the researchers found so few of these lice.

One weakness of the new study was that only one of the lice samples was from Africa. However, another study is underway using the 274 samples from this research and additional samples from other places, including Africa, Ascunce said. New, more efficient sequencing techniques available now may reveal additional information, she added.

Using parasites to understand the past

It’s not the first time that researchers have harnessed the genetic diversity of lice as a tool to better understand the ancient history of the insects’ hosts.

Genetic analysis of clothes or body lice, which are one of three lice to live on humans, revealed that humans likely began wearing some form of clothing at least 83,000 years ago, according to a paper published in 2010.

Some 20 years ago, David Reed, a coauthor of the new study and a researcher and curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, found that human head lice are composed of two ancient lineages, with origins predating Homo sapiens. That 2004 study controversially suggested that our species had been in direct contact — at least close enough to rub heads — with archaic humans such as Neanderthals.

The groundbreaking hypothesis was later corroborated when the first Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, confirming that Homo sapiens had in the past encountered Neanderthals and had babies with them.

That 2010 study analyzed mitochondrial DNA, which is more easily retrievable than nuclear DNA and gives information about the female line only. The latest study in the journal Plos One tapped both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, which reflects the genetic lineage of both parents. Doing so allowed researchers to detect the hybrid lice and better capture the genetic diversity of head lice.

Ascunce said she had hoped the information they gleaned might answer whether Neanderthal head lice are still around today, but the 15 genetic markers, known as “microsatellites,” that they studied in the lice nuclear DNA didn’t reveal that information.

“Because very little was known about the louse genome when we started the study, we used markers that have a high mutation rate, so we were not able to answer those questions,” she said.

“New ongoing studies are being done using whole genome sequences from human lice, so stay tuned for more exciting research on that.”

1 in 3 US Asians and Pacific Islanders faced racial abuse this year, AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll shows

TERRY TANG and LINLEY SANDERS
Mon, November 13, 2023 


Jen Ho Lee, a 76-year-old South Korean immigrant, poses in her apartment in Los Angeles on March 31, 2021, with a sign from a recent rally against anti-Asian hate crimes she attended. Despite ongoing efforts to combat anti-Asian racism that arose after the pandemic, a third of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders say they have experienced an act of abuse based on their race or ethnicity in the last year. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Despite ongoing advocacy and legislation to combat anti-Asian racism that arose after the pandemic, about a third of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders say they have experienced an act of abuse based on their race or ethnicity in the last year, including being on the receiving end of verbal harassment, slurs, physical threats or cyberbullying.

A new poll from AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 15% of Asian American and Pacific Islanders specifically say they believe they have ever been the victim of a hate crime. About half — 51% — believe racism is an “extremely” or “very serious” problem in the U.S.

From as early as a decade ago to as recently as two weeks ago, Jennifer Lee, a 29-year-old Filipino American in San Diego, can recall being called racial slurs and being discriminated against. She recently interviewed for a job at a tutoring service.

The interviewer assumed Lee was Japanese and said: “You people are always so obedient. Why? That’s so pathetic,” she shared.

About 2 in 10 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (23%) say they have experienced being verbally harassed or abused in the last year, and 22% have been called a racial or ethnic slur. About 1 in 10 say they have been physically assaulted or threatened physically. About a third of Asian American and Pacific Islanders say they often or sometimes face discrimination because of their race or ethnicity when applying for jobs.

Last month, the FBI reported an overall 7% increase in hate crimes, even as the agency’s data showed anti-Asian incidents in 2022 were down 33% from 2021. That seeming contradiction doesn't surprise Stephanie Chan, director of data and research at Stop AAPI Hate, an advocacy group.

“We know that Asian Americans are among the most likely to not report the crime that they’ve experienced," Chan said. "It’s really sobering to see that even when the world seems to have returned to normal, after the pandemic, these levels are still really elevated in terms of anti-Asian American hate.”

The poll also shows President Joe Biden gets mediocre ratings from Asian Americans, who viewed him favorably at 52%. That's still higher than U.S. adults overall who viewed the president favorably at 44% in a June AP-NORC poll. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is of Asian American and African American descent, is also seen favorably by about half (47%) of Asian Americans.

Lee, a Democrat, believes the president should be a role model and not turn a blind eye to racism. But she has reservations about Biden, who is just shy of his 81st birthday, filling that role.

“It seems like he’s more performative and he’s trying to say whatever the people want to hear. Also, I understand he’s of an older age, not that all people of that age are Joe Biden. But mentally, I think he’s not all there,” Lee said.

“Asian Americans are really no different than the national mood, which is Biden favorability is low,” said Natalie Masuoka, professor of political science and Asian American Studies at UCLA. “The relatively lower favorability for Biden actually could impact turnout at lower-level offices."

The lukewarm feelings about Biden should be a warning for the Democratic Party not to take AAPI voters, who tend to be mostly Democrats, for granted, Masuoka added.

Still, former President Donald Trump, who is seeking a rematch with Biden, fares even worse than the current commander-in-chief, with 7 in 10 saying they have an unfavorable opinion of Trump. No current Republican candidate asked about in the poll is viewed favorably by more than 1 in 4, while two candidates of Indian descent — Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley — each remain largely unknown by at least 4 in 10 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Thomas Lee, of Long Island, New York, fears the possibility of Trump getting reelected could lead to an increase in discrimination and hate crimes.

“His followers are typically more of the like ... very far radical rights. They don’t mesh well with minorities,” Thomas Lee said. “Of course, it’s got to be dependent on him becoming president, but that is kind of like the direction where I feel like it’s very likely that something’s going to happen.”

The 42-year-old Taiwanese American switched from Republican to Democrat before the 2020 presidential election, partly due to the anti-Asian sentiment he attributed to Trump. In the first year of the pandemic, Thomas Lee felt like he needed protection every time he and his family went out. He also has unease about Biden's age, but would rather have him than Trump back in the White House.

But Tia Davis, a 26-year-old Pacific Islander and Black California resident, downplayed the idea that people like her face significant racism and praised Trump. As a person of Samoan descent, she said the worst other Samoans have to endure is “healthy teasing.”

Beyond that, Davis, who switched from Democrat to Republican after Trump was elected, said she wants a president who is a smart businessman. How they deal with racism and hate crimes is not a crucial factor.

“I’m more concerned about feeding my family,” she said.

The survey shows how AAPI communities’ perceptions of levels of discrimination runs along political party lines. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say that Asian Americans and other people of color face “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of discrimination and that white Americans do not. Overall, the poll shows about half of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders identify as Democrats and about a quarter lean Republican.

Many Asian American and Pacific Islanders are not optimistic about anti-Asian racism easing in the future. About half believe they are at least somewhat likely to be a victim of discrimination because of their race or ethnicity within the next five years, and 40% believe it’s at least somewhat likely they will be the target of a hate crime based on race or ethnicity within the same period. Of those who have been hate crime victims, 20% believe it’s “very” or “extremely likely” to happen again sometime in the next five years.

Still, Chan, of Stop AAPI Hate, hopes this poll lessens people's ignorance surrounding anti-Asian discrimination. She hopes people will understand it's more than just hate crimes, which tend to get the most media coverage.

“People’s daily lives are impacted by things like verbal harassment or bullying in schools or online acts of hate or civil rights violations,” Chan said. “Like not even being allowed to dine at a restaurant or stay at a hotel or being rejected for an Uber ride. I would say pay attention to these. These are the experiences that we’re having in America today.”

___

The poll of 1,178 U.S. adults who are Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders was conducted Oct. 10-20, 2023, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based Amplify AAPI Panel, designed to be representative of the Asian American and Pacific Islander population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

China Copper Giant’s Downfall Sealed as Court Accepts Bankruptcy

Bloomberg News
Mon, November 13, 2023


(Bloomberg) -- Maike Metals International Co., once one of the most powerful traders in China’s massive copper market, filed for bankruptcy after more than a year of debt struggles.

The firm founded by entrepreneur He Jinbi in the early 1990s was until recently responsible for more than a quarter of China’s copper imports. On Monday, Maike said the Intermediate People’s Court of Xi’an accepted its filing, a step toward a final ruling by the court to wind up the company.

The court case caps a tumultuous period in the world’s biggest copper market after a sagging economy squeezed the country’s private sector, leading to Maike’s dramatic cash crunch and He’s disappearance. The company’s woes have rippled internationally, leading some of the most active banks in metals to pull back from financing.

The latest development in Maike’s saga comes as hundreds of executives from the global metals industry gather in Shanghai for Asia Copper Week, an annual event of contract negotiations, market discussions and networking.

The nation’s copper demand has proved relatively healthy this year, largely thanks to the rapid expansion of the country’s new-energy sectors — especially solar power and electric vehicles. But traders have struggled with the legacy of the pandemic as well as the country’s prolonged property slump and tighter rules on commodity trading.

Maike and He have been targeted with legal action by creditors since the firm ran into payment difficulties in 2022 during China’s extended Covid lockdowns. By September of that year, its trading activities had largely ground to a halt, and it filed for “preliminary restructuring” with the Xi’an court in February.

Maike will “fairly pay off all types of creditors’ rights” in accordance with market principles and the rule of law, it said. The company declined to comment further on the bankruptcy proceedings or on He’s latest whereabouts, after executives lost contact with him in early October.

Chairman He was sued this year by ING Groep NV in Hong Kong over $147 million in unpaid debt. The case involved overdue payments owed by a trading arm of Maike, according to court filings. The Chinese company has previously declined to comment about the case.

Another big copper merchant and conglomerate, Amer International Group Co. has also struggled. The Fortune 500 firm owned by billionaire Wang Wenyin has seen an exodus of staff — including some of its top metals traders — as a result of the challenging market conditions.

--With assistance from Alfred Cang.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

P3
China on track to operate African Tazara railway as powers vie for control of mineral trade routes


South China Morning Post
Sun, November 12, 2023 

China has chosen China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) to negotiate a concession to operate the Tanzania-Zambia Railway line, as geopolitical tensions rise over control of trading routes for critical minerals in Africa.

CCECC, a subsidiary of the China Railway Construction Corporation, is expected to negotiate a public-private partnership concession in the form of a build-operate-transfer model with Tanzania and Zambia to operate Tazara.

It is also expected to upgrade the railway - which Chinese President Xi Jinping has called "a symbol of China-Africa friendship" - at an estimated cost of US$1 billion.

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The concession is expected to give a much-needed lifeline to the almost 50-year-old line, also known as Tazara, which was originally funded by Mao Zedong's government as a foreign aid project.

Last month, the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority announced the news, saying Chinese investors and CCECC were poised to play a significant role, hence the company's proposal was "expected imminently".

Observers have said the funding for the railway pointed to Beijing's keen interest in using Tazara for mining exports from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But China is not alone - competition in the area with both the European Union and the United States is intensifying as the race for critical minerals used in the production of electric vehicle batteries heats up.

Tim Zajontz, a lecturer in global political economy at the University of Freiburg, said while the Chinese consortium would commit to invest in Tazara's ailing infrastructure and insufficient rolling stock, it was not an aid mission.

"The Chinese investors have made it unmistakably clear in previous negotiations that Tazara is no longer considered an aid project but that it must be a commercially viable venture," said Zajontz, who is also a research fellow in the Centre for International and Comparative Politics at Stellenbosch University.

Aly-Khan Satchu, a sub-­Saharan Africa geoeconomic ­an­­­­­­­­­­a­­­­­­­­­lyst, said the Tanzanian and Zambian governments seemed to be looking for a major revamp of the railway and were happy to concede the running of this line to the private sector.

"So I expect this to be a revamp, to operate as the concessionaire for a meaningful period of time," Satchu said.

He also noted Xi's keen interest in upgrading Tazara.

"This railway is a symbol of the Sino-African story and President Xi understands the power of the narrative," Satchu said.

Xi had promised to overhaul the railway when Tanzanian counterpart Samia Suluhu Hassan visited China last year and during Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema's visit in September.

"China is willing to support the upgrading and transformation of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway in accordance with the principles of marketisation and commercialisation," Xi said when he met Hichilema.

Zajontz said Tazara was part of the DNA of Sino-African relations, and often used to emphasise that China's dealings with Africa were based on equality, solidarity and anti-imperialism.

"Notwithstanding the official rhetoric, Beijing has also keen geoeconomic interests in Tazara's rehabilitation which would improve the performance of the Dar es Salaam corridor, not least for mining exports from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo," said Zajontz, whose coming book, The Political Economy of China's Infrastructure Development in Africa, discusses Tazara's planned privatisation.

When China's involvement in the Tazara railway began in the 1970s, the country was facing its own financial difficulties.

Meanwhile, Zambia was desperate for a railway link to the Tanzanian coast for its main export, copper. Neighbouring white-controlled Rhodesia - now Zimbabwe - had cut Zambia's only route to the sea in response to its transfer of power to the black majority.

The US and Russia both refused to fund a new railway, so China stepped in, building Tazara for about a billion yuan, or billions of US dollars at today's rates.

The Tazara Memorial Park in Zambia's Lusaka province commemorates Chinese nationals who died during the construction of the railway line in the 1970s. Photo: Xinhua alt=The Tazara Memorial Park in Zambia's Lusaka province commemorates Chinese nationals who died during the construction of the railway line in the 1970s. Photo: Xinhua>

From 1970 to 1975, as many as 50,000 Chinese workers were deployed to build the 1,860km (1,155 miles) of track stretching from Zambia's copper belt to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean.

It remains China's biggest overseas project to date, and managed to boost Beijing's political capital during the Cold War.

However, the American embassy in Zambia said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that although China had funded Tazara's construction, it was the US that kept it running, with over US$45 million in help for "new locomotives and rolling stock" as well as "substantial technical assistance".

"Tazara has never reached its full potential," the embassy wrote on Thursday. "By the end of 1978, only two trains were operating daily."

"In the 1980s, the United States joined international partners in responding to Zambia and Tanzania's request to rehabilitate Tazara, with the US government providing over US$27 million through USAID," it added.

Zajontz said the embassy's post was a great example of how the "great powers" competed for public opinion across Africa.

"Everyone who knows a little bit about Tazara knows that eventually it will be privatised and that the Chinese would not allow a non-Chinese firm to run it - for obvious historical reasons," Zajontz said.

He added that the tweet showed how "desperate" both China and the West were in stressing how much they had invested in African infrastructure initiatives.

Tazara's upgrade follows EU and US announcements that they will fund the building of a railway from the Zambian copper belt to an existing line to the Angolan port of Lobito. They will also develop the Lobito transport corridor, which will connect inland southern DRC and northwest Zambia to regional and global trade markets via the Angolan port city.

The interest in the central African countries all circles back to minerals that are vital to the manufacture of electric batteries, including cobalt which is mined in the DRC and Zambia. Chinese companies have made vast investments in both countries.

"The US wants to chalk up something on the board and this Lobito corridor is a relatively bite-sized investment - but the US is a Johnny-come-lately and woefully behind the curve," Satchu said.

Zajontz said the West was keen to control its own transport routes in the region.

"Both the US and the EU want to prevent a situation in which Chinese transport or logistics firms could interrupt critical value chains if prompted as part of geopolitical escalations," Zajontz said.

"For Beijing, the recent announcement of Western investments along the Lobito corridor has certainly increased the geopolitical incentive to invest in and operate Tazara."

Emmanuel Matambo, research director at the University of Johannesburg's Centre for Africa-China Studies, said China understood the ideological and intangible value of Tazara, and so "the concession will not place high demands, if at all, on Zambia and Tanzania".

As a landlocked country, Zambia in particular had struggled to make efficient use of its neighbours' seaports and China was alive to that, he said. "The Tazara is more than a railway; it embodies China's long-standing solidarity with the developing world."

Matambo added that, unlike Tanzania where the ruling party had a firm hold on the incumbency, Zambia was more politically open and China had wanted to retain Zambia's friendship through leadership changes. Helping in tangible ways such as reviving Tazara would boost China's image in the eyes of Zambians, he said.

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Biden administration slow to act as millions are booted off Medicaid, advocates say

AMANDA SEITZ and KENYA HUNTER
Mon, November 13, 2023 

A Medicaid office employee works on reports at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. Error-ridden state reviews have purged millions of the poorest Americans from the Medicaid program, and poverty experts across the country worry the Biden administration is not doing enough to stop them.

 (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File) 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Up to 30 million of the poorest Americans could be purged from the Medicaid program, many the result of error-ridden state reviews that poverty experts say the Biden administration is not doing enough to stop.

The projections from the health consulting firm Avalere come as states undertake a sweeping re-evaluation of the 94 million people enrolled in Medicaid, government’s health insurance for the neediest Americans. A host of problems have surfaced across the country, including hours-long phone wait times in Florida, confusing government forms in Arkansas, and children wrongly dropped from coverage in Texas.

“Those people were destined to fail,” said Trevor Hawkins, an attorney for Legal Aid of Arkansas.

Hawkins helped hundreds of people navigate their Medicaid eligibility in Arkansas, as state officials worked to “ swiftly disenroll ” about 420,000 people in six months’ time. He raised problems with Arkansas' process — like forms that wrongly told people they needed to reapply for Medicaid, instead of simply renew it — with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Nothing changed, he said.

“They ask questions but they don’t tell us what is going on,” Hawkins said of CMS. “Those should be major red flags. If there was a situation where CMS was to step in, it would have been Arkansas.”

Nearly a dozen advocates around the country detailed widespread problems they’ve encountered while helping some of the estimated 10 million people who've already been dropped from Medicaid. Some fear systemic problems are being ignored.

Congress ended a COVID-19 policy last year that barred states from kicking anyone off Medicaid during the pandemic, requiring them to undertake a review of every enrollee's eligibility over the next year. But the Democratic-led Congress also gave Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra the power to fine states or halt disenrollments if people were improperly being removed.

HHS has shared little about problems it has uncovered.

Earlier this year, the agency briefly paused disenrollments in 14 states, but did not disclose which states were paused or for what reasons.

In August, HHS announced thousands of children had been wrongly removed in 29 states that were automatically removing entire households, instead of individuals, from coverage. CMS required the states to reinstate coverage for those who had been terminated under that process, said Daniel Tsai, the director of the CMS Center for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program Services.

“We are using every lever that we have to hold states accountable," Tsai said.

Florida tried twice to remove Lily Mezquita, a 31-year-old working mom in Miami, Florida, from Medicaid during her pregnancy this year. She pleaded her case in 17 phone calls — some with wait times stretching as long as two hours — before she was finally reinstated in August from her hospital bed while in preterm labor. Mezquita would explain the state's law, which says she's guaranteed coverage through her pregnancy and 12 months after giving birth.

“No matter how much I tried to explain, no one was willing to listen,” she said. “They’re making errors, and they’re very confident in their errors.”

Because her coverage didn’t immediately register in the state’s system, Mezquita paid out-of-pocket for pills doctors prescribed to prevent pre-term labor from arising again, and she missed follow-up appointments to check on her baby girl.

If trends continue, as many as 30 million people could end up being dropped from Medicaid once states finish reviewing their Medicaid rolls, according to Avalere's projections. The numbers dwarf the Biden administration’s initial projections that only 15 million people would lose coverage throughout the process.

“We have to say it’s going poorly,” Massey Whorley, a principal at Avalere, said of the Medicaid redeterminations. “This has been characterized by much higher-than-expected disenrollment.”

Most have been removed for procedural reasons, like failing to send back their renewal form or mail in proper paperwork. That points to bigger problems with how the states are determining Medicaid eligibility: their notices aren't reaching people, don't make sense or they're requiring unnecessary paperwork. Many of the people removed for those reasons may still qualify for Medicaid.

In Arkansas, which has finished its Medicaid redeterminations, public records shared with the AP show more than 70% of people were kicked off Medicaid because the state couldn’t reach them, they didn’t return their renewal form or provide requested paperwork.

“I can’t say how many calls I’ve gotten from people who just got out of the emergency room and found out they don’t have coverage,” Hawkins said.

The state's Department of Human Services says it tried to reach people with additional calls, emails and texts. It believes the high number of procedural disenrollments were the result of people who no longer qualified for Medicaid not mailing back their renewal forms, spokesman Gavin Lesnick told AP in an email. Lesnick said CMS has never asked Arkansas to pause disenrollments.

Long phone wait times and notices that don't include reasons why people are being kicked off Medicaid have plagued the process in Florida, said Lynn Hearn, an attorney at the Florida Health Justice Project. Hearn helped Mezquita appeal her case to the state. Earlier this year, the nonprofit sued the state over its handling of the process.

“We’ve seen CMS reluctant to step in on the issues that we’ve raised,” Hearn said. “We have seen errors in state processing that indicate more than anomalies — more like systemic issues."

The Florida Department of Children and Families has had an 87% response rate to its renewal forms and call wait times are under five minutes, spokeswoman Mallory McManus said in an email.

Medicaid enrollees in North Carolina, meanwhile, are also having trouble reaching their local office by phone or getting calls returned when they leave a message, said Cassidy Estes-Rogers, the director of family support and healthcare at the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy. State officials didn't immediately respond to questions about phone troubles.

Estes-Rogers said she meets regularly with local CMS officials about problems.

“They just don’t come back to us with any information on how that was resolved, and we don’t see any immediate effects from it,” she said.

Similar problems have arisen in Texas, where website and app outages have meant families don't even get the electronic notices stating their Medicaid coverage was up for renewal, said Graciela Camarena, the child health outreach program director for the Children's Defense Fund in Texas.

"They were visiting the doctor's office or the pediatricians' office — that's where they found out they were denied," Camarena said.

Camarena said CMS has met with her organization to go over some of the issues. Some Texas lawmakers have asked CMS to investigate issues in the state, where nearly 1 million have lost Medicaid.

CMS has not asked the state to stop the process, Texas Health and Human Services spokeswoman Jennifer Ruffcorn said in an email. The agency “is continuously working to improve” its app and website, she added.

Local groups have also been funneling up problems to national groups that CMS meets with weekly, Tsai said. In some cases, issues raised to the agency don't violate federal regulations.

“However," Tsai said, “You look at what's happening and you say, ‘how is this a good, consumer friendly-process?’”

CMS has tried to play nice with states on Medicaid, hoping they can help improve the enrollment process for many years to come said Jennifer Wagner, the director of Medicaid eligibility and enrollment for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The organization has been working with local groups to notify CMS of problems.

“There is a question, in some states, if it’s time to shift toward enforcement," she said.

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Hunter reported from Atlanta.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Confederate military relics dumped during Union offensive unearthed in South Carolina river cleanup

JAMES POLLARD
Mon, November 13, 2023 

A Confederate sword blade is displayed at a press conference celebrating the early completion of the Congaree River cleanup on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023 in Columbia, S.C. Hundreds of Civil War relics were unearthed during the $20 million project.

 (AP Photo/James Pollard) 

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Hundreds of Civil War relics were unearthed during the cleanup of a South Carolina river where Union troops dumped Confederate military equipment to deliver a demoralizing blow for rebel forces in the birthplace of the secessionist movement.

The artifacts were discovered while crews removed tar-like material from the Congaree River and bring new tangible evidence of Union Gen. William T. Sherman's ruthless Southern campaign toward the end of the Civil War. The remains are expected to find a safer home at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum in the state capital of Columbia.

Historical finds include cannonballs, a sword blade and a wheel experts believe belonged to a wagon that blew up during the two days of supply dumps. The odds of finding the wagon wheel “are crazy,” according to Sean Norris.

“It's an interesting story to tell,” said Norris, the archaeological program manager at an environmental consulting firm called TRC. “It's a good one — that we were able to take a real piece of it rather than just the written record showing this is what happened.”

One unexploded munition got “demilitarized” at Shaw Air Force Base. Norris said the remaining artifacts won't be displayed for a couple more years. Corroded metal relics must undergo an electrochemical process for their conservation, and they'll also need measurement and identification.

Dominion Energy crews have been working to rid the riverbed of toxic tar first discovered in 2010, at times even operating armor-plated excavators as a safeguard against potential explosives. State and local officials gathered Monday to celebrate early completion of the $20 million project.

South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster said this preservation is necessary for current generations to learn from history.

“All those things are lost on us today. They seem like just stories from the past," McMaster said. "But when we read about those, and when we see artifacts, and see things that touched people's hands, it brings us right back to how fortunate we are in this state and in this country to be where we are."

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Pollard is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.


Toxic gunk cleansed from Congaree River 13 years after first reported. What’s next?

Sammy Fretwell
Mon, November 13, 2023 at 12:10 PM MST·6 min read

Thirteen years after a kayaker reported stepping into a stinging patch of muck in the Congaree River, contractors have cleaned up the toxic mess that covered a stretch of the river bottom below the Gervais Street bridge in Columbia.

Work crews excavated and removed some 38,500 tons of coal tar from two sections of river bed between the Gervais and Blossom street bridges in what has been one of the largest environmental cleanup projects in Columbia’s recent history.

The $20 million Congaree cleanup effort was pronounced officially complete during a public event along the river Monday that featured Gov. Henry McMaster, Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann and Keller Kissam, Dominion Energy’s South Carolina president.

Officials said the cleanup work, underway for more than a year, finished about a year ahead of schedule.

“There were many who doubted that it could be done, but I’m here today to say proudly that not only did our exceptionally talented and dedicated team do it, they did it in a manner that sets an example for others to follow,’’ Kissam said in a prepared statement.

McMaster, who took a personal interest in the cleanup effort, told the crowd gathered at the river that having to clean up the Congaree shows why it is important to protect the environment. The coal tar is believed to have drained into the river from an old manufactured gas plant, which operated on Huger Street from around the turn of the 20th century to the 1950s.

“There’s a lesson in here: That it’s easy to mess things up, but it’s hard to clean up,’’ McMaster said. ‘’Here we are cleaning up something that was done probably inadvertently without thinking. Everything went into the river back way back then.’’

“We have to be sure now that what we are doing is not messing something up so somebody has to clean it up later.’’

With the work completed, Rickenmann said plans to develop parts of the river can move more smoothly. Columbia leaders have long envisioned having a riverfront park near where the cleanup occurred.

The city also wants to expand the system of trails along the area’s rivers and plans are on the table to open Williams Street, which runs parallel to the Congaree between Gervais and Blossom streets.

“Opening up the river and the connectivity is something we have talked about for so long,’’ Rickenmann said. “This riverfront is really ..... the catalyst for Columbia.’’

Perhaps more importantly, the cleanup makes it safer for swimmers and kayakers below the Gervais Street bridge. The area near the end of Senate Street has historically been a popular spot to launch watercraft.

Dominion contractors dug up the material and hauled it away after building two temporary dams to hold back water in parts of the river. The dams, highly visible in Columbia during the cleanup, have now been removed and the state Department of Health and Environmental Control says the project was a success.

Gov. Henry McMaster speaks during a Nov. 13, 2023 public event to announce the completion of an environmental cleanup of the Congaree River in Columbia. Tons of toxic coal tar were removed from the river.

Work done in the river occurred on about three acres that contained the vast majority of the coal tar, which was located in two spots where the public might most be likely to have come in contact with it. A small amount of coal tar was left in other, less accessible parts of the river, according to Dominion. Overall, the coal tar was scattered over an 11-to-14-acre area.

Dominion’s Tom Effinger said the muck dug from the river bottom was hauled to a landfill on Screaming Eagle Road in Richland County for disposal.

During the cleanup, more than coal tar was removed. Work crews pulled out 2.5 tons of trash and debris, such as tires, Kissam said.

Contractors also found more than 100 Civil War era relics, including a wagon wheel, a Confederate saber, cannon balls and an anchor. Some of the Civil War era relics were believed to have wound up in the river during the time of Union General William Sherman’s assault on Columbia in 1865.

Hundreds of other artifacts were recovered from other eras, including from when Native Americans lived in the area.

Work crews found at least one unexploded bomb that was from an era after the Civil War. A special military bomb crew hauled it off. To protect workers, armor-plated heavy equipment was used to dig through the mud, Kissam said.

The cleanup work started in May 2022 after years of disagreements on whether to remove the tar or cover it up with rocks and leave the material in place.

SCE&G, later acquired by Dominion, had initially considered cleaning up the tar in the face of pressure from DHEC. But the company then changed its mind after saying cleaning up the tar would be a difficult, expensive process.

Leaving the tar in place and covering it up with stones and fabric would have saved the company $11 million at the time. SCE&G said it was having trouble getting environmental permits for the work, which is why it opted for leaving the material.

Critics said, however, that it was the company’s responsibility to get the tar out of the river since the pollution had drained from the manufactured gas plant site on Huger Street.

Then, after the Congaree Riverkeeper organization threatened a pair of lawsuits, Dominion restarted efforts to cleanse the river bottom of coal tar. The power company restarted the project and got the permits it needed.

The Congaree River is one of Columbia’s three major rivers. This photo is near the Gervais Street bridge.

Once the cleanup work finally began in May 2022, it went smoothly, officials said.

Coal tar is a goopy black substance generated from the 1800s to the 1950s at manufactured gas plants that produced energy. It is filled with toxins, including cancer causing benzene and substances that can cause tumors on fish.

Nationally, an estimated 5,000 coal tar sites exist across the country, including spots in other parts of South Carolina, besides the Congaree River.

In 2010, a kayaker notified DHEC that he had stepped in the substance, prompting the agency to post public warning signs along parts of the river. Other people, including riverkeeper Bill Stangler, also came in contact with the burning muck.

Stangler, the riverkeeper for the Congaree, Broad and lower Saluda rivers, said the coal tar cleanup took a lot of effort on the part of his organization, state regulators and local politicians. Had people not pushed the power company to restart the cleanup, it may never have been done, said Stangler, who said he was not invited to Monday’s public event along the river.

“We’ve been advocating on this for more than a decade, ever since a local river user stepped in that tar,’’ Stangler said. “It took a lot of work to get there. It was contentious at times, but we are happy to see this project get done.

“It sends a signal to our community and communities across the country that if you stand up and speak and fight for your rivers, great things can happen.’’


Confederate relics were discovered in the Congaree River during a cleanup of toxic coal tar. These relics were displayed Nov. 13, 2023 during a public event on the Congaree.