Israeli troops raid one of last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza

BY LAUREN IRWIN - 12/19/23 

Israel’s military is continuing its ground campaign in Gaza, raiding one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza and launching more airstrikes in the south, The Associated Press reported.

Israeli forces raided the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City overnight, according to the church that operates it. One of the hospital’s facilitators, a pastor, said just two doctors, four nurses and two janitors were left to tend to wounded patients without running water or electricity, per the AP.

The attack on the hospital, which left 28 Palestinians dead, comes just a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he discussed with Israeli officials a transition to more “surgical operations.” It also follows White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan discussed ways Israeli forces could lower the intensity of the war.  

The air and ground war in Gaza was launched by Israel in response to the Oct. 7 surprise attack by militant group Hamas. In response to the initial attack, Israel has killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians and displaced 1.9 million in a counteroffensive that has destroyed much of northern Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

Rafah, the southern part of Gaza where Palestinians were told to seek shelter, has been repeatedly hit in recent days. Israel has struck militant targets across the area, often killing large numbers of civilians in the process, according to the AP.

In response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have launched attacks on ships in the Red Sea, causing major shipping companies to suspend trade and travel in the area. The Pentagon announced an international task force Monday that will aim to defend the ships.

Austin’s remarks signaled that the U.S. would continue shielding Israel from a growing number of cries for a cease-fire, the AP reported.

The Biden administration is growing increasingly critical of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war. Netanyahu has said the strikes will not stop until the remaining hostages — around 100 people — taken by Hamas in early October are released.

U.S. officials said they have not put a deadline on the scaling back of military operations but have talked with Israel’s leaders about taking a different approach.

Israel Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said in a press conference with Austin that Israel wanted to operate “at different levels of intensity” and allow civilians to return to certain areas.

Protesters calling for ceasefire in Gaza arrested inside U.S. Capitol

By Associated Press - Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Dozens of protesters unfurled a large banner and held up signs calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as they gathered inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda Tuesday.

The incident happened while the demonstrators were on an official tour of the U.S. Capitol. Moments after they arrived beneath the dome of the Capitol they pulled out signs and started chanting “Ceasefire now.”

The group set out dozens of children’s shoes on the floor to symbolize the thousands of civilian casualties that have taken place since the war began between Israel and Hamas.

The protesters also called for taking down barriers along the U.S. southern border as Senate Democrats and Republicans continue to negotiate border and immigration policy changes in a $110 billion package of aid for Ukraine, Israel and other security priorities.

U.S. Capitol Police intervened and separated journalists from the demonstrators.
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After approximately 20 minutes, the protesters had their arms zip-tied and were led out of the Rotunda by police without further incident.

Journalist who uncovered decomposing babies in Gaza is shot, injured

Hajar Harb, Miriam Berger and Niha Masih

Dec 19 2023

AL MASHHAD NEWS
TV journalist Mohammed Balousha, working for Emirati-owned Al Mashhad channel, was shot and injured in Gaza on Saturday.

Television journalist Mohammed Balousha filmed a report about the communications blackout in Gaza on Saturday afternoon, working near his home in Jabalya in the north.

But as he turned to return home, he suddenly fell. He was shot in his thigh, he told The Washington Post by phone on Sunday.

Balousha, who works for the Emirati-owned Al Mashhad channel, was wearing a helmet and press badge. He said he thought an Israeli sniper hidden in a nearby residential building shot him. The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Israel-Gaza war has been devastating for journalists, with at least 64 killed and 13 wounded, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The risks are gravest for Palestinian reporters based in Gaza, who must keep themselves safe while also dealing with the loss of their homes, families and colleagues

A day before Balousha was injured, elsewhere in Gaza, an Israeli drone strike killed Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa and injured correspondent Wael al-Dahdouh while they were out reporting, the Qatari channel said. It accused Israeli forces of preventing rescue workers from reaching Abu Daqqa, who was "left to bleed to death for over 5 hours."

In response, the IDF said it "has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists."

Countering Al Jazeera's claims, the IDF said it approved a "safe route" for ambulances to reach the journalist, but the vehicles took a different route and were unable to pass through a damaged road. "When the army became aware of the obstruction, a tractor and troops were dispatched to open the road, but unfortunately, it had already been too late," the IDF said in a statement.

Al Jazeera said it will refer the case to the International Criminal Court.

In late November, Balousha broke the story that four premature babies left behind at al-Nasr Children's Hospital after Israel forced the staff to evacuate without ambulances had died, and their bodies had decomposed. Balousha was interviewed by The Post for a story about the incident.

Shani Sasson, a spokesperson for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), had earlier told The Post that Israeli forces neither directed al-Nasr's staff to evacuate nor operated inside the facility, but declined to answer whether COGAT or the Israeli military had been told about the babies or taken any action to care for them.

After he was shot on Saturday, Balousha said he fell to the ground and lay unconscious for about 20 minutes.

When he awoke, he struggled to reach the second floor of his house, where he keeps a first-aid kit. "Due to the severity of the pain and bleeding, and because my left foot was twisted behind me, it was not easy for me to climb the stairs," he said.

It took Balousha six hours to make it to the second floor. A video he took of his injuries showed heavy bleeding from his left leg.

He bandaged his wounds and tried to stop the bleeding as best he could. About 4 a.m., a friend called him by chance, but it took his friends two hours to reach him amid the threat of fighting.

"They transferred me onto a wooden board attached to a wheelchair and we walked a kilometre" to a local clinic, Balousha said. Medical volunteers there changed his bandages, gave him an injection and transferred him by ambulance to another health centre.

The doctor told Balousha that his thigh had a double fracture. He needed surgery, which could only be done at al-Ahli Hospital, the last functioning operating facility in northern Gaza.

The ambulance headed out but had to turn back because Israeli tanks blocked the way to the hospital, Balousha said. With no other option for surgery in Jabalya, he returned home.

Balousha accused Israel of directly targeting him as a journalist. "I was wearing everything to prove that I was a journalist, but they deliberately targeted me, and now I am struggling to get the treatment necessary to preserve my life," he said.

Al Mashhad TV said in a statement that it "holds the Israeli government responsible" for Balousha's safety and that the agency was trying to evacuate him from Gaza.

A CPJ report published in May, on the cases of 20 journalists whose deaths it attributed to the Israel Defense Forces since 2001, highlighted a pattern in Israel's response: No one has been held accountable for them.

Evan Hill contributed to this report.

At least 100 elephants die in drought-stricken Zimbabwe park, a grim sign of El Nino

Farai Mutsaka, Dec 20 2023

PRIVILEGE MUSVANHIRI/AP
In this photo supplied by IFAW, an elephant lies dead metres from a watering hole in Hwange National Park.

At least 100 elephants have died in Zimbabwe's largest national park in recent weeks because of drought, their carcasses a grisly sign of what wildlife authorities and conservation groups say is the impact of climate change and the El Nino weather phenomenon.

Authorities warn that more could die as forecasts suggest a scarcity of rains and rising heat in parts of the southern African nation including Hwange National Park. The International Fund for Animal Welfare has described it as a crisis for elephants and other animals.

“El Nino is making an already dire situation worse,” said Tinashe Farawo, spokesperson for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.

El Nino is a natural and recurring weather phenomenon that warms parts of the Pacific, affecting weather patterns around the world. While this year’s El Nino brought deadly floods to East Africa recently, it is expected to cause below-average rainfall across southern Africa.

That has already been felt in Zimbabwe, where the rainy season began weeks later than usual. While some rain has now fallen, the forecasts are generally for a dry, hot summer ahead.

Studies indicate that climate change may be making El Ninos stronger, leading to more extreme consequences.

Authorities fear a repeat of 2019, when more than 200 elephants in Hwange died in a severe drought.

“This phenomenon is recurring,” said Phillip Kuvawoga, a landscape program director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which raised the alarm for Hwange's elephants in a report this month.


PRIVILEGE MUSVANHIRI/AP
At least 100 elephants have died in Zimbabwe's largest national park in recent weeks because of drought.

Parks agency spokesperson Farawo posted a video on social media site X, formerly Twitter, showing a young elephant struggling for its life after becoming stuck in mud in a water hole that had partly dried up in Hwange.

“The most affected elephants are the young, elderly and sick that can’t travel long distances to find water,” Farawo said. He said an average-sized elephant needs a daily water intake of about 200 litres.

Park rangers remove the tusks from dead elephants where they can for safekeeping and so the carcasses don't attract poachers.

Hwange is home to around 45,000 elephants along with more than 100 other mammal species and 400 bird species.

Zimbabwe's rainy season once started reliably in October and ran through to March. It has become erratic in recent years and conservationists have noticed longer, more severe dry spells.

“Our region will have significantly less rainfall, so the dry spell could return soon because of El Nino," said Trevor Lane, director of The Bhejane Trust, a conservation group which assists Zimbabwe’s parks agency.

He said his organisation has been pumping 1.5 million litres of water into Hwange's waterholes daily from over 50 boreholes it manages in partnership with the parks agency. The 14,500-square-kilometre park, which doesn’t have a major river flowing through it, has just over 100 solar-powered boreholes that pump water for the animals.

Saving elephants is not just for the animals’ sake, conservationists say. They are a key ally in fighting climate change through the ecosystem by dispersing vegetation over long distances through dung that contains plant seeds, enabling forests to spread, regenerate and flourish. Trees suck planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

“They perform a far bigger role than humans in reforestation," Lane said. “That is one of the reasons we fight to keep elephants alive.”

 Canada is growing at a pace not seen since the baby boom in the 1950s — and it’s being driven largely by the arrival of non-permanent residents. Alberta is Canada's fastest growing province.

Black Santa Claus surprises children with Christmas cheer in Brazil

A Black Snta Claus visited children in Rio de Janeiro’s Cidade de Deus favela on Monday. The NGO hosting the event, Favela Mundo, invites Black artists to portray Santa Claus to reinforce the importance of representation for children in their communities. #shorts #BlackSanta #Brazil #representation

EU extends suspension of tariffs in US steel dispute

December 20, 2023

AFP – The European Union (EU) said it would prolong its suspension of retaliatory tariffs on United States (US) goods after reaching an agreement in a steel and aluminium dispute triggered by Donald Trump when he was president.

The European Commission said in a statement it would suspend its EU balancing tariffs until March 31, 2025 after Washington said it would offer further tariff exclusions to EU exporters.

EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said the important extension on Brussels’ side was the outcome of intensive engagement with the US.

He said the suspension gave Brussels the necessary space to seek the full removal of 232 tariffs that Washington slapped on EU exports under a 2018 order issued by then-president Trump.

In a protectionist move largely targeting cheaper Chinese imports, Trump had slapped high tariffs on steel and aluminium coming from many countries, sweeping up EU exports in the process.

Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, who also seeks to protect US industry, kept the tariffs in place but granted suspensions for EU exporters. The US faces elections next year, and some of its states with high steel output are swing states that could help decide the outcome.

The EU also faces bloc-wide elections next year that will usher in a new European Commission.

Timeline of steel carbon tariff leaves sector exposed, UK Steel warns

19TH DEC 2023


UK STEEL

The government has confirmed that the UK will implement a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in 2027, one year after the European Union fully implements its own.

The CBAM could create a level playing field on carbon pricing, ensuring that imported steel pays the same carbon costs as UK steelmakers. A robust, industry-supporting UK CBAM is considered, by industry body UK Steel, to be essential to prevent deindustrialisation (also known as carbon leakage), where high carbon costs and climate change regulations are placed on domestic producers, but not on foreign producers that export steel to the UK. Over 90% of the world’s steel faces little or no carbon costs, so a UK CBAM is considered essential for the nation’s steel industry to compete on a level playing field.

By confirming a CBAM from 2027 instead of matching the EU’s 2026 timeline, the government risks high-emission steel being dumped in the UK from 2026 when the EU CBAM takes effect. The steel sector through UK Steel has repeatedly warned the government against not mirroring the EU implementation timetable, as this would leave the UK steel industry exposed. The delayed implementation could mean that some of the high-emission steel currently exported to the EU will be diverted to the UK and depress prices when facing the EU CBAM in 2026. Simultaneously, trade safeguards end in 2026, leaving the UK steel industry exposed to surges in imports.

Mutual recognition between the UK and EU CBAM policies and Emission Trading Schemes (ETS) is equally crucial to avoid any restrictions to trade. 75% of the UK steel industry’s exports – totalling 2.55Mt of steel (£3.5bn in value) – goes to European markets. Without mutual recognition and linked emission trading schemes, UK-made steel will face a financial trade barrier when exported to our biggest export market.

If the UK CBAM is not robust enough, imported steel could circumvent the policy and not pay carbon costs while domestic steelmakers face increasing carbon costs. Free allocation of UK ETS carbon allowances has been the only effective protection against carbon leakage in relation to carbon costs. Any changes to free allocations must be done carefully and gradually, and the Government must be ready to step in in cases of circumvention, incorrect customs reporting, or other unfair trading practices.

UK Steel director general, Gareth Stace, said: “With over 90% of global steel production facing no carbon cost, it is only right that a new carbon border policy is put in place to create a level playing field on carbon pricing. However, implementing the UK scheme one year after the EU CBAM starts is hugely concerning.

“A UK CBAM is essential to securing investments in new green steel production and making sure that low-emission, UK-made steel is not undercut by high-emission, imported steel which has not faced carbon costs. Steel trade on equal terms can be achieved by a robust and industry-based UK carbon border policy.

“With a delayed timeline, the Government must now get the implementation right. If the CBAM is easily bypassed while carbon costs rapidly rise for UK industry, Britain's steel sector could suffer huge damage. The Government will need to be fleet of foot to respond in cases of unfair trading practices and take further action in 2026, if necessary. We look forward to working with government to ensure the UK CBAM works for industry and provides shielding against high-emission imported steel, enabling a fair, competitive environment.

AI could be humanity’s last chance to meet climate goals. Here’s why

BYKATE BRANDT AND RICH LESSER
December 18, 2023 

In California, artificial intelligence is being used to process wildfire camera data and provide automated wildfire notifications.
JASON HENRY - BLOOMBERG - GETTY IMAGES

The world must dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to meet Paris Agreement goals. Yet based on current trajectories, emissions are set to rise by 10% over the next eight years. This will only accelerate widespread droughts, flooding, extreme heat, and other devastating impacts across the globe.

Against this challenging backdrop, it is clear that acceleration is needed across all fronts of climate action. One of those opportunities lies in artificial intelligence (AI). Research shows that by scaling currently proven applications and technology, AI could mitigate 5 to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030–the equivalent of the total annual emissions of the European Union. For the first time, AI was highlighted at COP28 as one of the key potential solutions to tackle climate change, with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) announcing the AI Innovation Grand Challenge at the conference to identify and support the development of AI-powered solutions for climate action in developing countries.

Reversing the emissions trajectory will take everyone involved–government officials, business leaders, and technologists–all rowing the boat in the same direction. Policymakers have a central role to play, with three critical priority areas that will allow AI to contribute to its full potential.

First, policies must enable AI innovation and adoption for climate-positive applications. Data sharing frameworks, investment in research, affordable technology access, and education initiatives are needed to drive development and deployment. Government has a key role to play as an end-user. In the absence of clear community, national, or sector-specific objectives for climate action, AI-driven innovation could go off in disjointed directions. Resource allocation would be inefficient. Establishing priority innovation domains where AI could most immediately and effectively advance climate action–such as leveraging AI for flood-resilient farming, climate change adaptation, and accelerating the energy transition–can unlock resources and focus minds. 

Second, policymakers should accelerate AI’s climate impact by prioritizing high-potential use cases and embedding efficiency and optimization requirements into industrial regulation. Existing processes and legacy infrastructure in high-emission sectors like aviation, manufacturing, electricity production, and construction, could be more immediately optimized with AI, not just with wholesale reconstruction, which could be costly and take too much time. Long-term transformative investments still need to be made, but more immediate impact should be encouraged.

Third, policymakers can help ensure that the computing resources needed for AI advances are powered by carbon-free energy–for example, through improvements to electricity grids like better load management which AI can enable. 

AI can be critical in our collective effort to tackle climate change. AI is already driving progress by helping individuals get better and more actionable information, businesses optimize their operations, and governments and other organizations improve prediction and forecasting

Germany’s Energy Efficiency Act includes specific regulations requiring data centers to purchase renewable energy and mandates the reuse of the heat they generate.

Singapore is using AI to predict floods and test flood-resilient infrastructure. The city of Lisbon is utilizing AI to map its current inventory of solar panels and assess expansion potential. The data collected is then used to develop forecasts for renewable energy supply, which in turn informs building codes and incentive budgets. The Philippines is advocating using AI to tackle climate change adaptation challenges and disaster risk reduction.

Policymakers globally have been focused on promoting the responsible development of AI–which is critical. But they must also pursue a policy agenda to harness AI’s potential to solve big challenges like climate change. Enabling this technology through smart policy decisions may prove one of the most impactful climate actions we can take today–and would provide a vital down payment on goals to significantly reduce emissions during this decade.

Kate Brandt is the chief sustainability officer at Google. She previously served in the White House as the US’s first Federal Chief Sustainability Office, Senior Advisor at the Department of Energy, and Energy Advisor to the Secretary of the Navy.

Rich Lesser is the global chair at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He also serves as chief advisor to the World Economic Forum Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

Donald Trump Used to Get Nazi Greeting at Work: Ivana

Donald Trump Accuses Migrants Of 'Poisoning the Blood of Our Country'

By Andrew Stanton
Weekend Staff Writer
NEWSWEEK
Dec 19, 2023 

An interview with Donald Trump's ex-wife, Ivana Trump, in which she said he received a Nazi salute, resurfaced as the former president faces backlash over his latest immigration remarks.

The former president, who remains the front-runner to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and whose anti-immigration policies have been a cornerstone of his political career, has come under fire after claiming immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of the United States during a campaign event in Durham, New Hampshire, on Saturday.

"They're poisoning the blood of our country," he said. "They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America, not just in three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world."

The remarks sparked an avalanche of criticism, with many comparing his rhetoric to that used in Nazi Germany. President Joe Biden's campaign accused him of parroting Adolf Hitler. Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung previously told Newsweek that the former president "gave a great speech and knocked it out of the park in front of over 10,000 people who came out to see him."
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center on December 17, 2023, in Reno, Nevada. Trump’s ex-wife, the late Ivana Trump, alleged that he received a Nazi greeting at work in a newly resurfaced 1990 interview.

Following the remarks, several allegations made by Ivana Trump in a 1990 Vanity Fair article titled After the Gold Rush resurfaced. The article, written by Marie Brenner, was published amid the couple's divorce following his affair with Marla Maples. Ivana died on July 14, 2022.

"Donald Trump appears to take aspects of his German background seriously. John Walter works for the Trump Organization, and when he visits Donald in his office, Ivana told a friend, he clicks his heels and says, 'Heil Hitler,' possibly as a family joke," the article reads.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign via email for comment.

She also alleged that Trump would read a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, and that he kept the book by his bed. Brenner asked Trump about the allegation, and he said a friend gave him the book.

"'Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he's a Jew,'" Donald Trump said, according to the article. "'(I did give him a book about Hitler,' Marty Davis said. 'But it was My New Order, Hitler's speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I'm not Jewish,')" the article reads.

Donald Trump added: "If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them."

 

Low economic growth can help keep climate change within the 1.5°C threshold, says study

by Autonomous University of Barcelona

Credit: One Earth (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.oneear.2023.11.004

A new study shows that economic growth rates make a big difference when it comes to prospects for limiting global warming to 1.5°C, as per the Paris Agreement. A recent study by the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) shows that pursuing higher economic growth may jeopardize the Paris goals and leave no viable pathways for humanity to stabilize the climate. On the contrary, slower growth rates make it more feasible to achieve the Paris goals.

The scientific study, published recently in the journal One Earth, was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of Barcelona, the University of Leeds, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and led by Aljoša Slameršak, Giorgos Kallis, Daniel W. O'Neill, and Jason Hickel.

The article focuses on the period between 2023 and 2030, crucial for keeping the goals of the Paris Agreement alive and challenges the established assumption of high economic growth in existing scenarios of climate mitigation, since growth itself is a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions.

The study demonstrates that global economic growth of 4% per year, which is currently assumed in the mitigation scenarios, is incompatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement even if the most ambitious mitigation plans of any major country were implemented globally.

"To reduce global emissions fast enough to limit warming to 1.5°C, we find it is necessary to pursue ambitious mitigation and shift away from growth. Even with highly ambitious mitigation, global economic growth would need to fall below the recent historical trend of ⁓2% per year, with high-income economies transitioning to post-growth," says Aljoša Slameršak, ICTA-UAB researcher and lead author of the study.

Scenario analysis demonstrates that lower economic growth makes a notable difference in the reduction in CO2 emissions. "By comparing scenarios of low and high growth, we show that lower economic growth alone can reduce CO2 emissions by 10%–13% by 2030. By moving beyond the pursuit of economic growth in wealthy nations, we could substantially narrow the gap between the current trajectory of dangerously high emissions and the pathways that can keep us within a safe climate space," adds Daniel O'Neill from the University of Barcelona and University of Leeds.

The authors warn that their scenarios provide only a simple global analysis of the climate implications of economic growth. ICTA-UAB researcher Jason Hickel explains that "our scenarios do not account for important differences between higher and lower-income countries when it comes to mitigation responsibilities and development needs. A detailed analysis across these dimensions would mean lower-income nations could reach higher rates of economic growth, while high-income nations would need to pursue post-growth demand reduction strategies."

Hickel provides a brief outline of interventions that could pave the way to a post-growth scenario. The objective of post-growth is to prioritize production of what is important for human well-being and environmental sustainability, while reducing less-necessary forms of production and consumption. Key features of such a scenario are reduction of inequalities, universal access to necessary goods and services, and increased public investment for a low-carbon energy transition.

"Our study shows that pursuing growth constrains the possibilities of limiting dangerous climate change. This finding should encourage policymakers in high-income nations to abandon growth as an objective and consider post-growth policies to achieve improvements in well-being and ecology. In the next step of our work on post-growth scenarios, we aim to provide more clarity on how different economic sectors and activities contribute to emissions and social well-being. Doing so will allow us to identify what sectors and activities should be reduced or increased in order to achieve social and ecological goals," concludes ICTA-UAB researcher Giorgos Kallis.

More information: Aljoša Slameršak et al, Post-growth: A viable path to limiting global warming to 1.5°C, One Earth (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.oneear.2023.11.004

Journal information: One Earth 

Provided by Autonomous University of BarcelonaA low-carbon energy transition may result in substantial emissions