Oil, Natural Gas, and Capitalism

by Greg Godels / January 27th, 2024

The great powers — the leading players in the imperialist system — have always required a source for the energy to drive their economic engines. They needed energy resources to build and empower their military might; they needed energy to grow their national economies and power their vessels of trade and transportation. Indeed, their socio-economic systems would have collapsed without ample and available energy sources.

At the dawn of the capitalist industrial era, that source came mainly from coal. Coal powered the machines that grew the productivity of labor to great new heights. It is reasonable to think that only those countries with easy access to coal could then become great capitalist powers.

Beginning at the turn of the last century, oil — an abundant, efficient, and easily stored and transported energy source– became essential for the exercise of economic and military might. As modes of transportation became dependent upon petroleum products, an intense rivalry was stoked for access to oil, often found in more remote areas of the world, far removed from the great urban centers of the great capitalist powers.

At the same time, the great capitalist powers accelerated their drive to dominate the entire world. Lenin and others saw this as a higher stage of capitalist development impelled by the dominance of monopoly capitalism, finance capital, and capital export.

Access and control of energy resources played an extremely large role in motivating this development, leading to conflict and colonization over the areas offering abundant oil production.

It could be said that “oil imperialism” was a critical factor in the course of the Second World War: Japan — a country without adequate oil reserves — needed to secure resources to pursue its imperialist mission; likewise, Germany’s eastward turn was prodded by its thirst for Soviet oil.

Constituting the leading imperialist power after WWII, the US had its own adequate petroleum resources, but sought to guarantee that global oil supplies would remain available to its clients in the crusade against Communism.

After the end of the Cold War, new technologies unleashed huge reservoirs of oil and natural gas in the US. A once-stable international market was consequently disrupted, allowing US producers to reshape, even dominate, the global distribution of oil and natural gas.

But in the decades to follow the end of the Cold War, those capitalist countries that were the most trusted anti-Communist allies were relying on long-established, existing sources of energy or had turned to convenient, adjacent, transit modes from the energy giant, the now-capitalist Russia.

Europe, for example, had grown increasingly reliant on Soviet oil and gas even before European socialism’s fall. And OPEC’s distribution network and quasi-planned marketing maintained a persistent global stability of price and availability.

From where would the US, undergoing a technological revolution with fracking, take its oil and gas bonanza?

I began to discuss the US shift toward what I called “US oil and gas imperialism” seven years ago (here, here, here, here and here). I wrote in July of 2019:

US oil and gas imperialism is another feature of the new economic nationalism. With US oil production matching or exceeding every other global producer, and with natural gas extraction growing dramatically, the economic nationalists foresee the US now competing successfully for markets. The conventional explanation of the US aggression against oil-producing states must now be retired. The US is no longer solely obsessed with commanding and dominating existing oil producers– US intervention is not simply about the oil in the way it has been in the past. That is, it is not simply acquiring oil resources that motivates US aggression, but commanding oil markets as well.

Thus, the US is also out to wreck competing oil and gas producers by sanctions, disruptions, and destruction. The US corporations want the markets in order to peddle their own energy resources. The long trail of wrecked, dysfunctional, and economically strangled global oil producers attests to this new motivation and serves US energy corporations well.

I have been writing often of this shift of US imperial design for over two years. Nothing demonstrates the intent of the new energy imperialism as does the Department of Energy’s recent renaming of US natural gas as “Freedom Gas” and the product as “molecules of freedom.” This silly branding is part of the campaign to win Europe and other gas-dependent markets from Russia and Iran/Qatar. Even though US liquified “freedom gas” is 20% more expensive than Russian gas, the Trump administration bullied Germany’s Angela Merkel to agree to two new LNG terminals in Germany. Her admission that LNG from the US would not break even for at least a decade demonstrates the aggressive face of the new US energy imperialism.

US gas producers have stoked anti-Russia sentiment to draw Poland and the Baltic states into their LNG market nexus. US LNG annual exports to Portugal and Spain grew from a tiny base to nearly 20 and 30 billion cubic feet, respectively, between 2016 and 2017.

And US crude oil exports soared after the crisis in the Straits of Hormuz. US oil shipping nearly doubled in the aftermath of the mysterious “attacks” in the Persian Gulf. President Trump underscored the attractiveness of foregoing the Straits and buying from the US. Rather than taking the “dangerous journey,” Japan and PRChina should be reminded that “the US has just become (by far) the largest producer of energy in the world.” (my emphasis)

Writing in 2019, I was anticipating geopolitical events geared to shifting the natural gas market dramatically in favor of the US. I foresaw the “anti-Russia” push as targeting the natural gas market in Europe and “crisis” in the Middle East as disrupting shipments from traditional Middle East suppliers.

Hostility and conflict would be the thumb-on-the-scales to offset the higher price (lower risk) of US liquified natural gas.

Unlike the Cold War era, where the US postured as a protective shield for safe, durable, and inexpensive energy channels, the post-Cold War US policy places US immediate economic interests above the supposed alliance obligations; without consultation, the US tossed aside its role among its allies as the guarantor of peace and security and is taking on the role of international energy huckster.

In 2022, the US secured a major victory in oil and gas imperialism with the war in Ukraine. As a result of a concerted campaign to destabilize Ukraine, separate it from Russia, and coax it into NATO’s anti-Putin alliance, the US drew Russia into a long, bloody war. The war proved to be a veritable gift for the US and its energy industry. Anti-Russia hysteria provoked the US’s European allies into breaking economic ties with Russia, including the big prize–cutting off Russia’s supplies of natural gas. Seduced by Cold War-like rhetoric and fear-mongering, European countries outdid each other with belligerence, culminating in refusing cheap Russian energy resources. To seal this self-defeating move on the part of US “allies,” the US organized the destruction of crucial Russian pipelines. Left with no alternative to Russian energy, Europe turned to their US “partner.”

US exports of oil to Europe more than doubled between 2021 and today. Likewise, disrupting natural gas distribution has paid off for the US with liquid natural gas (LNG) exports nearly doubling from 2018 to 2022. Quoting the Wall Street Journal:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine kicked U.S. [LNG] exports into overdrive. Since March 2022, U.S. developers have signed 57 supply agreements representing about 73 million metric tons of LNG annually… more than four times the number of contracts they signed between 2020 and 2021.

Many of these contracts run for 20 years and underpin the construction of terminals that have yet to be built. LNG exports are expected to more than double [again!] from current levels by the end of this decade…

Thus, thanks to the war in Ukraine, US allies had the privilege of incurring the costs of liquefaction, shipping, and building LNG terminals to show their solidarity with the US-instigated war.

Foolishly, European leaders rushed to show their support for the war, even at tremendous cost to their own economies.

Likewise, the unfolding war in the Middle East plays into the hands of the US oil and natural gas imperialists. As the WSJ concedes:

In the longer term, the Red Sea situation could bring more business for U.S. LNG shippers, which are building out export capacity at Gulf Coast facilities and are vying for big contracts with big buyers in Europe, analysts said.

The percentage of LNG tankers set to pass through the Suez Canal has dropped to its lowest point in at least a decade.

But the LNG will be coming from the West, thanks to the beneficence of the US government anticipating the changing energy market!

Paul Hannon and William Boston put it well: “For the second time in three years, a conflict in Europe’s neighborhood is threatening to weaken a struggling economy, while a more robust U.S. is watching from a safe distance.”

It is indeed an odd ally that takes advantage of the sacrifices that it imposes upon its friends to make. While US capitalism has enjoyed strong growth, thanks to two wars in other lands, its European friends have endured inflation and stagnation.

Germany, led by Social Democrats and Greens, has met the US-led call to war with enthusiasm, militarism, and aggression unseen since the Second World War. Germany has materially supported Ukraine second only to the US and matched the US’s shuttering of economic relations. Where the US has shown healthy growth for 2023, Germany has fallen into recession, its industrial sector racked by high energy costs and supply shortages — a steep price to pay for following US leadership. “‘The threat of deindustrialization is real,’ said Max Jankowsky, chief executive of GL Giesserei Lossnitz, a 175- year-old foundry in the eastern German state of Saxony.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s popular satisfaction is the lowest for a chancellor since 1997. Germany — the leading power in the European Union, an industrial giant, the world’s fourth largest economy — has been brought to its knees by US oil and gas imperialism.

The people, and especially the left, need a constant reminder of the material interests behind global imperialism and the mechanism that powers it.

Imperialism is not a consequence of bad leadership from Trump, Biden, Johnson, or Modi or their ilk; it is not the product of neoliberalism or any other ideology; it is not the result of a lust for power. In short, imperialism is not a matter of moral choice or competence. Instead, it is an imperative of capitalism in its modern form. It is an expression of the rivalries generated by capitalist competition for markets, resources, and most tellingly, profits. When that competition reaches its greatest intensity, war ensues.

Some would like to believe that we can break the link between capitalism, exploitation, inequality, poverty, environmental degradation, and war. They aver that a benign capitalism, regulated by enlightened governments, can escape the imperialist system. History shows no such eventuality. People are awakening to the impossibility of “fixing the system.”

The left overlooks this at its peril.

Greg Godels writes on current events, political economy, and the Communist movement from a Marxist-Leninist perspective. Read other articles by Greg, or visit Greg's website.

False Witnesses and No Evidence

The Tangled Truth of a Death Row Inmate

by Nancy Lockhart, M.J. / January 27th, 2024

In a case that has captured the attention of both legal experts and the public, Willie Jerome Manning stands convicted of a crime that he did not commit. The conviction of Mr. Manning who was sentenced to death for the murders of two Mississippi State students, now faces scrutiny due to newly discovered evidence pointing toward his wrongful conviction. This isn’t the first time evidence has been presented to the court based on untruthful testimonies about Willie Manning by witnesses eager to cut deals with the state by providing false testimonies.

Exonerated for the Elderly Mother and Daughter Murders

Mr. Manning was unjustly condemned to death for two separate double murders and has been exonerated of the 1993, case of murdering an elderly mother and daughter in Starkville, Mississippi. The Mississippi Supreme Court recognized vital evidence was hidden, showing that the state’s main witness lied for self-benefit.

The State’s Case against Willie Manning

Two college students, Tiffany Miller and Jon Steckler were found murdered on December 11, 1992. Four months later, in April of 1993, Manning became a primary suspect. The Oktibbeha County Mississippi Circuit Court appointed post-conviction lawyers twice. Both times the attorneys withdrew because they were not familiar with state post-conviction and federal habeas corpus practices. Meanwhile, an exceptionally experienced attorney in post-conviction and federal habeas corpus practice had the desire to represent Mr. Manning, and the circuit court of Oktibbeha County Mississippi ignored the attorney’s motion.

In the parking lot of an apartment building, Tiffany Miller’s vehicle was discovered double-parked. The car was a two-seater and evidence that Jon Steckler had been run over was clear from his blood found underneath the vehicle.  Sheriff Dolph Bryan assumed a connection between the murders and a previous car break-in. Bryan’s theory lacked concrete evidence as he believed the murder victims interrupted a theft in progress from John Wise’s car burglary. The break-in occurred at a fraternity house parking lot on the campus of Mississippi State University. The burglarized car belonged to Wise, who reported missing items which included a leather jacket, a portable CD player, and a brass restroom token. Some of the local businesses used brass tokens for entering their restrooms, and one was found near the murder victims, about five miles from the house Willie lived in with his mother. John Wise declared that the discovered coin exhibited a shiny appearance, contrasting with his own, which did not.

The sheriff created a scenario of the perpetrator forcing Miller and Steckler into Miller’s car, with Tiffany Miller sitting on Willie Manning’s lap and Jon Steckler driving. After reaching the destination, the sheriff surmised that the victims were forced out of Miller’s car and shot, after which the murderer drove the car to an apartment complex and abandoned it. Sheriff Dolph Bryan orchestrated this entire crime scene without physical evidence or witnesses.

This investigation resulted in Manning’s conviction, which was partially based on the discovery of a hair fragment belonging to a Black individual in Miller’s car. The hair fragment was admitted as evidence, and as a result, the sheriff and prosecutor implied Mr. Manning’s presence in the vehicle. The Department of Justice has acknowledged that the FBI’s hair analysis testimony at Manning’s trial was unreliable and false.  Mr. Manning is actively contesting his conviction of the double homicide.

Fabricated Testimonies and Sheriff Dolph Bryan

The case against Willie Manning is fundamentally weak, as it’s characterized by speculative assumptions from Sheriff Bryan, fabricated testimonies, and questionable forensic analysis, including the use of discredited hair follicle science. Willie Manning was convicted on jailhouse informant testimony made by Earl Jordan, Frank Parker, and Renee Hathorn. Each of the sheriff’s informants was facing prison time for criminal charges. Every jailhouse informant gave fabricated testimonies in return for reduced sentences or total exoneration, with two of them receiving financial rewards.

According to Earl Jordan’s affidavit, the sheriff indirectly made it clear that he would assist Jordan with his habitual offender charges in exchange for helping him with Manning. The sheriff and Jordan met four or five times and Jordan’s testimony was fabricated under the sheriff’s influence. In exchange, Jordan received some reward money and a 3-year sentence reduced to time served. Jordan submitted an affidavit because Dolph Bryan was no longer the sheriff. Bryan served as sheriff of Oktibbeha County from 1976-2012.

Similarly, Frank Parker’s testimony included claims of overhearing Manning confess to a cellmate about disposing of a gun and admitting to the murders. An affidavit from Willie’s cellmate challenges the credibility of this statement. Parker also stated he was fleeing charges in Texas and turned himself in at the jail in Mississippi.

Parker’s uncle, who housed Frank for over a decade, informed law enforcement about his nephew’s longstanding dishonesty. He recounted an incident where, during their absence, Frank cleared out their house and pawned their valuables. Frank’s uncle filed charges against him and subsequently informed law enforcement in Oktibbeha County that he would not consider Frank as a witness in any case, due to his lack of trustworthiness.

Renee Hathorn was Willie’s girlfriend at the time and her role was particularly pivotal. Hathorn testified against Manning for the defense. In an affidavit, she states that Sheriff Dolph Bryan pressured her into getting Willie to confess to the murders of Steckler and Miller. He never did, he consistently maintained his innocence. She also visited with Willie in his jail cell at night from time to time, while wearing a wire. Sheriff Dolph Bryan also met with her to discuss and rehearse her trial testimony. Before testifying during the trial, the sheriff gave her money, paid her bills sometimes, and also paid for some furniture. He additionally picked her up and purchased food from a fast food restaurant. Hathorn was facing from 8-10 years in prison and additional years on parole for a total of 33 bad checks in Oktibbeha and Lowndes Counties. She additionally states that she accrued bad check charges in Macon, Clay, and Jackson counties. She owed more than $10,000 in fraudulent checks and court fees. All of this was erased in exchange for her fabricated testimony. Additionally, she received $17,500 in reward money.

No Witnesses, Physical Evidence, DNA, Fingerprints or Fibers

The forensic analysis of hair by the FBI failed to conclusively establish a match between the hair discovered in the vehicle, where two students from Mississippi State were allegedly apprehended, and Willie Jerome Manning. The initial classification of the hair as originating from a Black individual was a critical factor in implicating Mr. Manning in the murder. There is an absence of definitive physical evidence connecting Manning to the crime. There are no witnesses, fingerprints, DNA, or blood, and there are not any fibers. The prosecution’s argument hinged primarily on the testimony of prison informants and a hair that the FBI initially claimed was consistent with a Black person. However, the FBI later withdrew this claim, admitting that such a conclusion surpasses the scientific validity of hair analysis, thereby rendering it unreliable and scientifically unsound.  Mr. Manning underwent trial, was found guilty, and subsequently sentenced to death row, based on contrived testimonies from jailhouse informants, prepared and orchestrated by Sheriff Dolph Bryan.

The prosecution in Willie Manning’s case relied on several key pieces of fabricated evidence. Testimonies from informants such as Earl Jordan and Frank Parker, who later admitted their statements were false and put them under pressure in exchange for wiping their criminal slates clean.

The role of the prosecutor was crucial in assembling and presenting these elements as part of the case against Manning. The prosecution’s case against Mr. Manning included forensic evidence, deemed unreliable. An expert asserted that bullets recovered from a tree in Manning’s yard were discharged from the same firearm used in the students’ murder, claiming this to the exclusion of all other firearms globally. However, current forensic science discredits such bullet comparisons as invalid. Mr. Manning has submitted a new petition to the Mississippi Supreme Court to contest his convictions in this case. Should this petition be rejected, it could lead to the court setting an execution date for him.

This article was composed using information sourced from the following petition:

Willie Jerome Manning, Petitioner, v. State of Mississippi, Respondent. In The Supreme Court of Mississippi, No. 2023-DR-01076. Motion for Leave to File Successive Petition for Post-Conviction Relief. Attorneys: Krissy C. Nobile, Robert S. Mink, Sr., David P. Voisin,  Clocked: September 29, 2023, 19:24:16.

Nancy Lockhart is an analyst and strategist specializing in cases of grave injustices. E-mail: TheWrongfulConviction@gmail.com. Voicemail: (914) 984-7990. Visit https://nancylockhart.net for the latest updates and discover methods of advocating to assist Willie Mannings campaign. Read other articles by Nancy.

 

The ICJ’s Provisional Orders: The Genocide Convention Applies to Gaza

by Binoy Kampmark / January 27th, 2024

On January 26, legal experts, policy wonks, activists and the plain curious waited for the order of the International Court of Justice, sitting in The Hague. The topic was that gravest of crimes, considered most reprehensible in the canon of international law: genocide. The main participants: the accused party, the State of Israel, and the accuser, the Republic of South Africa.

Filed on December 29 last year, the South African case focused on its obligations arising under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and those of Israel. Pretoria, in its case, wished that the ICJ adjudicate and declare that Israel had breached its obligations under the Convention, and “cease forthwith any acts and measures in breach of those obligations, including such acts or measures which would be capable of killing or continuing to kill Palestinians, or causing or continuing to cause serious bodily or mental harm to Palestinians or deliberately inflicting on their group, or continuing to inflict on their group, conditions of life calculated to bring out its physical destruction in whole or in part, and fully respect its obligations under the Genocide Convention”.

The latter words derive from Article II of the Convention, which stipulate four genocidal actions: the killing of the group’s members; the causing of serious bodily or mental harm to those group’s members; the deliberate infliction of conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction, in whole or in part, of that group and imposing measures to prevent births within the group.

The sheer extent of devastation being wrought by Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza, justified by the Netanyahu government as necessary self-defence in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks of October 7, led the South African team to also seek immediate provisional measures under Article 41 of the Court’s statute. (The review on the case’s merits promises to take much longer.) They included the immediate suspension of the IDF’s military operations in and against Gaza, the taking of all reasonable measures to prevent genocide, and desisting from committing acts within Article II of the Convention. The expulsion and forced displacement of Palestinians should also stop, likewise the deprivation of adequate food, water and access to humanitarian assistance and medical supplies and “the destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza.”

By 15-2, the court accepted that “the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the Court renders its final judgment.” (Over 26,000 Palestinians have been killed, extensive tracts of land in Gaza pummelled into oblivion, and 85% of its 2.3 million residents expelled from their homes.) Measures were therefore required to prevent “real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights found by the Court to be plausible, before it gives its final decision.”

The grant of provisional measures was, however, more conservative than that sought by Pretoria. Conspicuously missing was any explicit demand that Israel pause its military operations. That said, the judgment did little to afford Israel’s leaders and the IDF comfort from the obligatory reach of the Genocide Convention, an instrument they had argued was irrelevant and inapplicable to the conduct of “innovative” military operations.

To that end, Israel was obligated to take all possible measures to prevent the commission of acts under Article II of the Genocide Convention, including by its military; prevent and punish “the direct and public incitement to genocide” against the Palestinian populace in Gaza; permit basic services and humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip; ensure the preservation of, and prevent destruction of, evidence related to acts committed against Gaza’s Palestinians within Articles II and III of the Convention; and submit a report to the ICJ on how Israel was abiding by such provisional measures within one month.

As is very much the form, the justice from the country in the dock, in this case, Israel’s Aharon Barak, could see nothing inferentially genocidal in his country’s campaign. South Africa, he insisted, had intentionally ignored the role played by Hamas in its October 7 attacks, and “wrongly sought to impute the crime of Cain to Abel.”

Inevitably, the singular experience of the Holocaust survivor, the sui generis Jewish view of trauma, used as solid armour against any possibility that Israel might ever commit genocide, became a point of contention. Genocide “is the gravest possible accusation and is deeply intertwined with my personal life experience.” Israel had a firm commitment to the rule of law, and to accept that it was committing genocide “is very hard for me personally”. Tellingly, he suggested that Israel’s campaign in Gaza be examined, not from the viewpoint of the Genocide Convention but international humanitarian law.

With classic casuistry, Barak did vote for the measure requiring Israel to do everything “within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza strip”. But having identified nothing in the way of such intent, the issue became a moot one. With some relief, Barak could state that certain measures sought by South Africa, including an immediate suspension of military operations, were rejected by the ICJ, which preferred “a significantly narrower scope”.

From the other side of the legal aisle, the South African foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, wished that the ICJ had grasped the nettle to order a halt in military operations. But, with some deft reasoning, she was satisfied that the only way Israel could implement the provisional measures would be through a ceasefire. Much the same view was expressed by the Associated Press: “The court’s half-dozen orders will be difficult to achieve without some sort of cease-fire or pause in the fighting.” That logic is clear enough, but the actions, given the various statements from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his officials alleging slander and a blood libel against their country, are unlikely to follow.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

Watching the Watchdogs: Law, Propaganda, and the Media Walk into a Bar

Or what happens when legal proceedings at the ICJ expose Western media bias and Israeli state propaganda

by Rami G Khouri / January 27th, 2024

This month, the world watched South Africa initiate International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings on the genocidal acts Israel committed in Gaza. In a two-day session on January 11 and 12, the court heard the extensive evidence the South African legal team had gathered to support their case against Israel, and the rebuttal by the Israeli team.

The hearings were historic for two reasons. First, this was the first time that Israel’s decades-long aggression against the Palestinians was articulated in detail for the world to hear, without having to pass through the distorting lens of Western media or politicians. Second, this was the first time that Israel was substantively held to account in public under international law, without being shielded from such accountability by its Western backers, as it has been for the past century.

The unprecedented nature of the hearings drew international attention. The media around the world covered the proceedings extensively, often with live feeds of both presentations. But in the West, once again an anti-Palestinian media bias became apparent.

Channels like the BBC were accused of not fully showing the South African presentation, while broadcasting more of the Israeli one. American, Canadian and British newspapers were chastised for not featuring the ICJ case on their front pages.

The bias was clearest in the glaring parallels between the main points in Israel’s presentations to the court – which reflected the longstanding main themes of Israeli propaganda – and the reporting of Western mainstream media, with some exceptions. Indeed, Western coverage of the war has been skewed since day one.

The US progressive publication The Intercept did its own analysis of three leading US newspapers – the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times – and found that their reporting “heavily favoured Israel”. It said that they “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict; used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians; and offered lopsided coverage of antisemitic acts in the U.S., while largely ignoring anti-Muslim racism in the wake of October 7.”

According to the Intercept’s analysis, the word “slaughter” was used in reference to Israeli deaths vs Palestinian deaths in a ratio of 125 to 2; the word “massacre” in a ratio of 60 to 1. Anti-Semitism was mentioned 549 times, while Islamophobia just 79 times.

This anti-Palestinian bias in print media “tracks with a similar survey of US cable news that the authors conducted last month that found an even wider disparity,” it concluded.

Many other such studies and examples of Western media bias towards Israel are now available.

Tweeting the Intercept report, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, asked a pertinent question: “After months of western media misrepresenting or not reporting the unfolding genocide in Gaza and all sort of int’l law violations against Palestinians: I have a question. Don’t journalists have codes of conducts and professional ethics to abide by and be held accountable to?”

To answer her question: They do, in principle. But in practice, journalists and their media managers and owners operate in the context of most Western media playing a central role in the continuing legacies of Western-Israeli settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide against the Palestinians.

Consequently, the majority of citizens and politicians are convinced that they must support Israeli policies, even if these include settler-colonial brutality and apartheid.

It is no surprise that American, and most other Western, public opinion in the last half-century or so heavily sided with Israel over the Palestinians – because citizens mainly heard Israeli perspectives that dominated the news media and the statements and policies of their governments.

Over the past three months, however, the war in Gaza has revealed just how much Israeli state propaganda shapes US policy and the media’s dominant narrative of events. As Norman Solomon, media critic and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, put it in a January 18 Common Dreams article:

What is most profoundly important about the war in Gaza – what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed, and traumatized – has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public … With enormous help from US media and political power structures, the ongoing mass murder – by any other name  – has become normalized, mainly reduced to standard buzz phrases, weaselly diplomat-speak, and euphemistic rhetoric about the Gaza war. Which is exactly what the top leadership of Israel’s government wants.

This dual legacy of the US’s distorted reporting and dysfunctional state policies is no longer as potent as it used to be, as the global public reactions to the ICJ genocide hearing have shown.

The global protests in solidarity with Palestine revealed that Israel and its Western protectors and media parrots, who repeat largely discredited Israeli propaganda arguments, can no longer convince global audiences to the same extent they did in the past. This is due to Israel’s own brutal actions, but also the changed global information system.

The world now sees daily on social media and some alternative media Israel’s genocidal actions and apartheid policies. The ICJ presentations and thousands of associated articles, commentaries, webinars, public talks and other events across the world exposed these Israel-Palestine realities.

Changed information flows have caused serious concern in Washington, as well as Tel Aviv, because decent, justice-loving citizens reject the US’s fervent support for Israel’s military brutality – and many say they are likely to reject voting for “Genocide Joe” Biden in the presidential election this November. This is what happens when ordinary citizens see the full story of events in Palestine – for the first time in modern history.

A new US opinion poll confirms that likely voters are more inclined to vote for candidates who supported a ceasefire in Gaza, by a 2-to-1 margin (51-23 percent). Among young and non-white voters, who are crucial for a Democratic win, between 56 and 60 percent said they would back ceasefire supporters.

But the growing awareness of what is going on in Israel-Palestine has had an impact well beyond US politics. As South African journalist Tony Karon noted in an article in The Nation on January 11: “So Israel is waging a classic colonial war of pacification of a native population resisting colonization – at a moment when much of the global citizenry is producing the receipts of centuries of Western violence and enslavement, demanding justice and a reordering of global power relations. Standing up for Palestine has become shorthand for that global struggle to change how the world is ruled.”

Indeed, the intense global support for Palestine, which peaked during the ICJ hearing, represents the Global South challenging the political and economic hegemony of the North. People across the world are saying they support justice and will continue to resist Western colonial forces that have ravaged scores of societies for half a millennium.

First published at Al Jazeera which notes that the views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Rami G Khouri is a Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut, and a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the Middle East. Read other articles by Rami.

The Reasonings by the 2 Dissenting Judges on the ICJ’s Genocide Case by South Africa against Israel

by Eric Zuesse / January 27th, 2024

There were 17 judges ruling on this case, including one from South Africa and one from Israel. Both of those two judges were not regular members of the Court but were included only because this ‘International Court of Justice’ was treating this matter as-if not “justice” (in criminal law — which this case was supposed to be about) but instead equity (in civil law — which is irrelevant to this criminal case) were at-issue (and therefore needing to be ‘balanced’, instead of to be concerned only to determine in the case “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” as being the SOLE basis for valid judgment on the matter.

Page 26 of the 29-page ruling has paragraph 85: “The Court deems it necessary to emphasize that all parties to the conflict in the Gaza Strip are bound by international humanitarian law. It is gravely concerned about the fate of the hostages abducted during the attack in Israel on 7 October 2023 and held since then by Hamas and other armed groups, and calls for their immediate and unconditional release.”

The 84-page South African document that had brought criminal charges against Israel, titled “Applications Instituting Proceedings,” said in the opening paragraph of its Introduction:

South Africa unequivocally condemns all violations of international law by all parties, including the direct targeting of Israeli civilians and other nationals and hostage-taking by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups. No armed attack on a State’s territory no matter how serious — even an attack involving atrocity crimes — can, however, provide any possible justification for, or defence to, breaches of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (‘Genocide Convention’ or ‘Convention’),1 whether as a matter of law or morality. The acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group, that being the part of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip (‘Palestinians in Gaza’).

So: the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks against Israelis was not an issue or topic in the case that South Africa had brought to the Court.

Nonetheless — and appealing to public sentiments instead of to the actual case that was supposed to be at hand — paragraph 85 of its decision on the case pandered by essentially accepting as true there what both South Africa and Israel agree upon — as-if it were even pertinent (relevant) to this case (which it is not). One isn’t supposed to bring up in a criminal trial — or any trial — a matter about which both the prosecution and the defense are in agreement. It distracts from the case-at-hand and can serve only to distort judgments.

So: right there, in the paragraph that comes immediately before the Court’s judgment in the case, which is paragraph 86, the Court makes clear that the decision isn’t entirely excluding pandering. That is pandering to Israel’s side of this dispute. But South Africa had already accepted that detail of Israel’s side. It was irrelevant and was brought up by the judges purely pandering to public opinion — in Israel’s favor. It had nothing to do with whether or not Israel is, in fact, genociding Gazans.

To what extent did the ruling pander, and was it fairly balanced in its (irrelevant but popular — among supporters of Israel) panderings?

The next paragraph (86) is the one that everybody talks about, and so it is merely linked-to here as being on pages 26-29 of the pdf if you want to read it.

As is indicated there, the two dissenting ‘Justices’ in the Court’s 6-part order to Israel were Julia Sebutinde (Uganda) and Aharon Barak (Israel), and Sebutinde dissented on all 6 whereas Barak dissented only on 3 out of those 6. In each of those two instances, the jurist summarized up-front in the decision what the supposed ‘reasoning’ for the dissent was. Here both of those two summaries are shown:

DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE SEBUTINDE

[T]he dispute between the State of Israel and the people of Palestine is essentially and historically a political one, calling for a diplomatic or negotiated settlement, and for the implementation in good faith of all relevant Security Council resolutions by all parties concerned, with a view to finding a permanent solution whereby the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can peacefully coexist — It is not a legal dispute susceptible of judicial settlement by the Court — Some of the preconditions for the indication of provisional measures have not been met — South Africa has not demonstrated, even on a prima facie basis, that the acts allegedly committed by Israel and of which the Applicant complains, were committed with the necessary genocidal intent, and that as a result, they are capable of falling within the scope of the Genocide Convention — Similarly, since the acts allegedly committed by Israel were not accompanied by a genocidal intent, the  Applicant has not demonstrated that the rights it asserts and for which it seeks protection through the indication of  provisional measures are plausible under the Genocide Convention — The provisional measures indicated by the Court in this Order are not warranted.

SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGE AD HOC BARAK

1. South Africa came to the Court seeking the immediate suspension of the military operations in the Gaza Strip. It has wrongly sought to impute the crime of Cain to Abel. The Court rejected South Africa’s main contention and, instead, adopted measures that recall Israel’s existing obligations under the Genocide Convention. The Court has reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend its citizens and emphasized the importance of providing humanitarian aid to the population of Gaza. The provisional measures indicated by the Court are thus of a significantly narrower scope than those requested by South Africa.

2. Notably, the Court has emphasized that “all parties to the conflict in the Gaza Strip are bound by international humanitarian law”, which certainly includes Hamas.

Sebutinde was treating this matter as-if it were a civil trial over something such as whether an international contract had been fulfilled according to its terms by both sides, only one side, or no side. Is that type of reasoning appropriate in a case that had been brought by a third party against one party in a war against the other party in that war — specifically by South Africa against Israel as allegedly perpetrating genocide against (not “Palestinians” but instead) the residents in Gaza? If not, then Sebutinde is a dangerously unqualified person to be sitting on this Court. Furthermore: her factual allegations (such as “the acts allegedly committed by Israel were not accompanied by a genocidal intent”) are either demonstrably false or almost certainly false, such as by this evidence cited in South Africa’s case, which evidence she entirely ignored:

The Israeli Prime Minister also returned to the theme in his ‘Christmas message’, stating: “we’re facing monsters, monsters who murdered children in front of their parents … This is a battle not only of Israel against these barbarians, it’s a battle of civilization against barbarism”.445 On 28 October 2023, as Israeli forces prepared their land invasion of Gaza, the Prime Minister invoked the Biblical story of the total destruction of Amalek by the Israelites, stating: “you must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember”.446 The Prime Minister referred again to Amalek in the letter sent on 3 November 2023 to Israeli soldiers and officers.447 The relevant biblical passage reads as follows: “Now go, attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxens and sheep, camels and asses”.448

— President of Israel: On 12 October 2023, President Isaac Herzog made clear that Israel was not distinguishing between militants and civilians in Gaza, stating in a press conference to foreign media — in relation Palestinians in Gaza, over one million of whom are children: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved. It’s absolutely not true. … and we will fight until we break their backbone.”449 On 15 October 2023, echoing the words of Prime Minister Netanyahu, the President told foreign media that “we will uproot evil so that there will be good for the entire region and the world.”450 The Israeli President is one of many Israelis to have handwritten ‘messages’ on bombs to be dropped on Gaza.451

— Israeli Minister of Defence: On 9 October 2023, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in an Israeli Army ‘situation update’ advised that Israel was “imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”452 He also informed troops on the Gaza border that he had released all the restraints”,453 stating in terms that “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.”454 …:

— Israeli Minister for National Security: On 10 November 2023, Itamar Ben-Gvir clarified the government’s position in a televised address, stating: “[t]o be clear, when we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means … those who support … — they’re all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed.”456

— Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure: ‘Tweeting’ on 13 October 2023, Israel Katz stated: “All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.”457 On 12 October 2023, he ‘tweeted’: “Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home. … And no one will preach us morality.”458

— Israeli Minister of Finance: On 8 October 2023, Bezalel Smotrich stated at a meeting of the Israeli Cabinet that “[w]e need to deal a blow that hasn’t been seen in 50 years and take down Gaza.”459

— Israeli Minister of Heritage: On 1 November 2023, Amichai Eliyahu posted on Facebook: “The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything is blown up and flattened, simply a pleasure for the eyes … We must talk about the day after. In my mind, we will hand over lots to all those who fought for Gaza over the years and to those evicted from Gush Katif” [a former Israeli settlement].460 He later argued against humanitarian aid as “[w]e wouldn’t hand the Nazis humanitarian aid”, and “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza”.461 He also posited a nuclear attack on the Gaza Strip.462

— Israeli Minister of Agriculture: On 11 November 2023, Avi Dichter in a television interview recalled the Nakba of 1948, in which over 80 percent of the Palestinian population of the new Israeli State was forced from or fled their homes, stating that “[w]e are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba”.463 …

She ignored every one of those quotations — yet each one of them was core to South Africa’s case. It was core to the motivation for this genocide that is occurring in Gaza.

And the case isn’t merely about intention; it is very much also about what Israel is actually doing. For example: see this on that, which displays not the intent but instead the results of that genocidal intent.

Barak’s reasoning was different but almost as scandalously bad: blaming South Africa for having even brought the case. Furthermore: since this ‘judge’ in the trial was actually serving instead as a defense attorney for his country Israel, he can be expected to have been serving atrociously as a judge — the ICJ had brought in as judges both a South African and an Israeli jurist so as to get a ‘balanced’ instead of a fair verdict in it. They were, at least to a large extent, treating this criminal case as-if it were instead a civil one.

By contrast to Barack: Sebutinde, who is one of the 15 regular judges on that Court, is so scandalously inadequate that she ought to be fired post-haste. But clearly, the Court itself, from the top on down, simply cannot rationally be trusted. Its problems are deep and severe. The genocide case against Israel will drag on for years and yet even at its outset, South Africa had presented a more trustworthy verdict (its case) regarding Israel than the ICJ ever will be able to, unless the entire institution becomes radically changed so as to become decent.

Eric Zuesse is an investigative historian. His new book, America's Empire of Evil: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. Read other articles by Eric.

The secret sex lives of harbor porpoises in the San Francisco strait

2024/01/22

Ultimately, scientists say an acute understanding of harbor porpoises and identifying key components of social hotspots like San Francisco Bay may also help foster marine conservation areas — and ideal mating conditions — for similar cetaceans they don't know as much about, such as the vaquita, a species native to Baja California that's nearly extinct, with only 10 individuals left.

 Sea Shepherd Conservation Society/dpa

Bill Keener's eyes widened as he peered through his binoculars and spotted the dark, shiny dorsal fins swiftly bobbing along the surface of San Francisco Bay. "There's three of them coming right at us," he said.

It was a drizzly Tuesday morning in winter, and the Marine Mammal Center field researcher and I had been wandering along the pedestrian walkway on the Golden Gate Bridge for about an hour. Cars whooshed past us as we dodged bicyclists and paused at lookout points, keenly peering over the steel railing toward the murky turquoise water about 200 feet below. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of the species he's been closely tracking for decades: the harbor porpoise, a shy yet charismatic creature that nearly disappeared from the bay altogether.

The trio of small cetaceans briefly surfaced once or twice, drawing closer to the eddies that rippled like a shiny ooze over the bay as the porpoises hunted for schooling fish. Clusters of gulls were never too far away, squawking overhead as they waited to make away with a snack of their own.

By the time high tide approached, the harbor porpoises appeared by the dozen, swimming in perfect sync, blowing bubbles and charging through the water at speeds of up to 15 mph. Suddenly, one of the porpoises darted toward another one like a bat out of hell, leaving a frothy white swell in its wake. The interaction didn't last for more than a second.

Keener and I both looked at each other. Did we just see what we thought we did?

As docile and elusive as they may be, it turns out harbor porpoises have a surprisingly active sex life — right underneath San Francisco's most well-known landmark — and we had just witnessed one of the most unique mating rituals in the animal kingdom. Prior to recent studies conducted here by the Marine Mammal Center's cetacean field research program, harbor porpoise mating activity was rarely reported or documented, and the bridge provides the only setting of its kind in the world where the noise-sensitive animals can be observed by biologists without boats or other vessels scaring them off.

"We jokingly refer to it as the 'funnel of love' for porpoises," Keener said of the mile-wide strait, where hundreds of porpoises from as far north as the Russian River down to Pigeon Point in San Mateo County congregate as often as twice a day. "Imagine living in a rural area and you don't have a lot of social contact with your neighbors, but you go to a barn dance on Saturday night, and that's where all the locals are. That's kind of what it is."

A new book published by Springer late last year, "Sex in Cetaceans," reveals groundbreaking findings regarding the species' unusual mating behavior — specifically that it's not exclusive to harbor porpoises in the bay, and is in fact demonstrated by populations all over the globe, from Alaska to the East Coast, Greenland to Japan and down to West Africa. This kind of knowledge is crucial because it not only helps conservationists' work to maintain the species' strong numbers throughout most of their range, but also come up with strategies for subpopulations living in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, where they are classified as critically endangered and endangered, respectively, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.

"You have to follow the science where it goes, but the point for us is there is a conservation link here," Keener said.

A disappearance from San Francisco Bay

Harbor porpoise bones uncovered in shell mounds from prehistoric Native American populations around the bay revealed that the animals — which are often mistaken for dolphins but have a distinct family of their own — were commonly found and hunted throughout the region for centuries, Keener explained. But at the onset of World War II in the 1930s, dozens of ships began to crowd the Golden Gate, and underwater nets were cast out to keep enemy submarines away as hundreds of mines dotted the waters beneath the shoals.

All of these factors were exacerbated by an increase of environmental contaminants in the water that likely drove away the porpoises. Keener grew up in San Francisco, and remembers going across the Bay Bridge in the '50s when he was young and taking in the pungent odor that always seemed to emanate from below.

"It would stink like a cesspool because there were no laws preventing industrial discharge and sewage from flowing in," he said. "I had been interested in harbor porpoises for a long time, but I never expected to see them in San Francisco Bay."

More than 60 years would pass from their disappearance until they came back.

The introduction of the Clean Water Act in 1972 helped generate more favorable conditions for harbor porpoises, as well as other marine mammals in the bay, such as whales, sea lions and harbor seals. Experts also theorize that the harbor porpoises lost their institutional memory of the bay as a habitat and new generations had to rediscover it again.

By 2008, one of Keener's late colleagues, Jonathan Stern, a marine ecologist and adjunct professor in San Francisco State University's department of biology, was conducting a study on minke whales when he made the notable discovery that harbor porpoises were reoccupying the bay again on a daily basis after their yearslong absence. As the population boomed, a team of scientists founded Golden Gate Cetacean Research (now the Marine Mammal Center's cetacean field research program) and secured a first-of-its-kind permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service in order to paint a clearer picture of the animals' numbers, survival rates and social lives.

"We got to see things we've never seen before and gain an understanding of these creatures we had never had," Marc Webber, another research biologist for the Marine Mammal Center, said during a recent conversation over Zoom. "They're sneaky little guys and have more interesting behaviors than we ever gave them credit for."

'Life in the fast lane'

Researchers had initially observed the harbor porpoises from Cavallo Point near the Marine Mammal Center's headquarters in Sausalito but quickly learned that with the right timing and the right gear, the Golden Gate Bridge was where they needed to be if they wanted to see some action. In the days before drones, the landmark provided a rare window into the harbor porpoises' day-to-day activity. As researchers spent hours crisscrossing the pedestrian walkway with cameras in hand, adjusting their shutter speed and trading tips on lenses, they documented one new discovery after another.

Harbor porpoises are known to "live life in the fast lane," Webber said, using a term coined by porpoise expert Andrew Read. They mature and bear young early on in life because of their brief life expectancy, which is one of the the shortest out of any cetacean at just 10 to 12 years. They have a high metabolic demand and are constantly on the move, swimming as far as 40 miles in a single day.

Yet, biologists learned that porpoise calves remained close to their mothers for at least a year before venturing off on their own. The animals also engaged in unexpected activities that appeared to be just for fun, such as wake riding off the stern of a large merchant ship. But there was one photo in particular that made all of the researchers do a double take.

It was a male harbor porpoise mid-air, having leapt clear out of the water. At first, they assumed he must have been trying to feed. But upon closer inspection, they noticed something, um, peculiar going on with his anatomy.

"I mean, quite literally for a moment, we thought, 'Is this animal hurt? Is that something coming out of its body?'" Webber said. "It took a moment because it was so unanticipated. We kind of had to zoom in and study the image for a little bit, and lo and behold: This male was in mating mode, and he was out in the air for all to see, you might say."

Up until that photo was taken, harbor porpoises were not known to jump out of the water, or make much of a show of themselves at all. But this one was making a pass by a female in an attempt to copulate with her, and he was doing it so quickly and energetically that the momentum was enough to carry him above the surface of the bay. (The resulting splash can be intensified by the response of the female, which is usually not expecting the surprise encounter and will aggressively throw her flukes at the male.)

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"The male will fly into the air — he'll actually get airborne — and he misses 99% of the time," Keener said.

Once again, scientists knew nothing about the sex lives of harbor porpoises. What they did know was that most marine mammals, like dolphins and whales, partook in mating activity belly-to-belly. So they did what they had to do: try to take as many photos of harbor porpoises in the act as possible.

But their findings raised more questions than answers.

'These animals are locked into a sexual arms race'

Researchers learned that male harbor porpoises are slightly smaller than female harbor porpoises, which is uncommon in most species because it means the males aren't competing with each other for mates. Instead, they have to use their nimble nature to their advantage, going from female to female and trying to get as much of their own semen into as many harbor porpoises as quickly as possible in order to beat out any other potential suitors.

The resulting ritual is rather short-lived and not very romantic, lasting only about one to two seconds. "Blink and you'll miss it," Webber joked.

But scientists noticed a curious thing: that male harbor porpoises were only approaching the females from the left side, which had never been documented in marine mammals before. At first, they thought it might have something to do with echolocation, but Dara Orbach, a researcher at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi who specializes in mammalian reproductive behavior and anatomy, took a closer look.

Using silicon molds of reproductive tracts from stranded harbor porpoises, she encountered something truly bizarre within their already complex anatomy, which she described as the "most complicated" out of all 14 sea mammals she had been studying. The muscular spirals of the female's corkscrew-like vagina twisted in the opposite direction of the male's penis and had a series of up to 13 folds, suggesting the possibility that the females had evolved to elude the males, control paternity, and possibly even expel their sperm from their bodies. The harbor porpoise penis, in turn, was shaped like a meaty hook that bent to the left and appeared to be trying to poke through the intricate chambers of the female's reproductive tract to reach her cervix. It would make sense, then, that males would have the best chance of fertilizing females if they approached them from a specific angle.

"That was the answer to the mystery," Keener said. "These animals are locked into a sexual arms race, and what we're seeing here is evolution in action."

Researchers now knew that harbor porpoises were the only species in the world to have sexual asymmetry coupled with this distinctive lateralized behavior. "It's extraordinarily rare to see both both behavior and sexual anatomy co-evolve in this way," Orbach said.

But they started to scratch their heads once again. Were harbor porpoises only doing this in San Francisco Bay, or was it happening everywhere?

A global phenomenon

The team of Bay Area biologists connected with marine mammal experts all over the world, collecting data from eight different countries, including Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and Romania. Together, they determined the unique mating activity was universal across all harbor porpoises, but also observed new behaviors altogether. In one instance in the U.K., researchers found evidence of a male harbor porpoise sexually approaching another male by hooking its penis around the other porpoise's tail stock. And in Denmark, drone footage was captured of a young male calf no more than 10 months old that sexually interacted with its mother by rushing toward her from the left side. Such behavior has been seen before in other species, such as bottlenose dolphins, but poses new questions for researchers like Orbach, who is still working to determine whether these actions are genetically built into the animals or learned by witnessing similar behavior from other individuals in the wild.

"I have a lot of questions about nature versus nurture that I think would be interesting to answer, and we can do so by looking at animals that aren't in the wild," Orbach said, noting that a facility in Denmark that raises captive harbor porpoises has been increasing its observations of mating patterns so they can learn more. "I think that there's been so little research on the sex lives of harbor porpoises in general because it's such a challenging field — they're often submerged beneath the water and not always visible — so it's exciting to me that we're exploring this topic that hasn't been covered for a long time."

The ongoing research is critical, Orbach added, because of the social stigma around discussing concepts of mating in the science world, especially with female genitalia. "This is still anatomy, and we need to be discussing this," she said. "Pointing out deficits in our knowledge and showing alternative ways to answer these questions has been really rewarding and offers potential to future researchers."

Ultimately, Keener and Webber believe that having an acute understanding of harbor porpoises and identifying key components of social hotspots like San Francisco Bay may also help scientists hoping to foster marine conservation areas — and ideal mating conditions — for similar cetaceans they don't know as much about, such as the extremely rare Burmeister's porpoise in South America, and the vaquita, a species native to Baja California that's nearly extinct, with only 10 individuals left. Notably, the vaquita's reproductive anatomy bears "a remarkable resemblance" to that of the harbor porpoise's, Orbach said, and more knowledge about vaquita breeding behavior could save the species.

"What we've learned from San Francisco Bay is literally trying to inform what these other researchers can look out for and see," Keener said.

And while harbor porpoises currently have a healthy population throughout the Bay Area, Keener said it's important to note risks like entanglement from fishing gear, tidal energy generators and electricity from underwater turbines that are currently harming porpoises in the Baltic Sea as similar wind farms could head toward California'sCentral Coast.

"Our coast will be developed too," Keener said. "So understanding why porpoises chose to come back into a very noisy San Francisco Bay — perhaps because there's food and these mating opportunities — proves that if you clean an area and make it habitable for them, they will use it again. They will come back and we've seen that."

The harbor porpoise is a shy animal, most often seen in groups of two or three, mostly in cold temperate to sub-polar waters of the Northern Hemisphere. picture alliance / dpa

At the onset of World War II in the 1930s, dozens of ships began to crowd the Golden Gate, and underwater nets were cast out to keep enemy submarines away as hundreds of mines dotted the waters beneath the shoals. 

Barbara Munker/dpa


DPA International

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas challenges ban before CAS

Agence France-Presse
January 27, 2024 

Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, swims for the University of Pennsylvania at an Ivy League swim meet against Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 22, 2022 

Joseph Prezioso AFP/File

American swimmer Lia Thomas, who became the first transgender athlete to win a US national college title, is taking legal action in a bid to be allowed compete again in elite female competition, including the Paris Olympics.

Thomas has not swum since World Aquatics introduced new rules in 2022, which prohibit anyone who has undergone any part of male puberty from competing in the female category.

On Friday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirmed "the registration of the request for arbitration filed by US transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, aimed at challenging certain parts of World Aquatics' Policy on the eligibility for the men's and women's competition categories".

"Ms Thomas accepts that fair competition is a legitimate sporting objective and that some regulation of transgender women in swimming is appropriate," the statement read.

"However, Ms Thomas submits that the challenged provisions are invalid and unlawful as they discriminate against her contrary to the Olympic Charter, the World Aquatics Constitution, and Swiss law."

"Such discrimination cannot be justified as necessary, reasonable, or proportionate to achieve a legitimate sporting objective," the 25-year-old said in her submission to CAS.

CAS said that Thomas was seeking "an order from the CAS declaring that the challenged provisions are unlawful, invalid, and of no force and effect".

CAS said the proceedings had begun in September 2023, but had been "subject to strict confidentiality rules", adding "at this point, no hearing date has been fixed yet".

Two years ago, governing body World Aquatics voted to stop transgender female athletes from competing in women's elite races.

In February 2022, USA Swimming decided to revise its rules, limiting testosterone levels for a period of at least 36 months for any transgender athletes wanting to compete at the elite level.

The change was prompted by the controversy surrounding Thomas' performance in the university championship.

Born male and having begun transition in 2019, Thomas was adjudged by detractors to be physiologically advantaged.

Barely a month later, the University of Pennsylvania swimmer won the women's 500-yard freestyle final.

It was an historic victory, made possible by the refusal of the NCAA, which governs college sports, to apply the new USA federation rules.

In June 2022, World Aquatics announced that it wanted to create an open category for transgender athletes. But it limited entry to its women's categories to swimmers who "became women before puberty".