WAR IS ECOCIDE

IEA: Drone Attacks on Russian Refineries Could Upset Global Fuel Markets

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Apr 12, 2024

The drone attacks from Ukraine on Russian refineries could disrupt fuel markets globally, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday, estimating that up to 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Russia’s refinery capacity could be offline in the second quarter.

Global markets “rely on Russian exports of diesel, naphtha and jet fuel, while refining systems in Asia absorb substantial quantities of the country’s straight-run and cracked residue to boost upgrading unit feedstocks,” the IEA said in its monthly Oil Market Report today, as carried by Bloomberg.

The agency lowered by 160,000 bpd its forecast of global refinery throughputs this year and now sees these rising by 1 million bpd to 83.3 million bpd, due to lower Russian refinery runs, unplanned outages in Europe, and still-tepid Chinese activity.

Russian refinery outages have added to the unease in the global product market, the IEA said in the report.

In recent months, Ukraine has stepped up attacks on oil refineries in Russia, which have reduced Russian refining capacity, and which, reportedly, have the White House concerned about rising international prices.

The United States has repeatedly urged Ukraine to halt its drone attacks on Russian oil refineries due to Washington’s assessment that the strikes could lead to Russian retaliation and push up global oil prices, the Financial Times reported last month, citing sources familiar with the exchange.

According to Reuters estimates, the amount of Russian oil refining capacity that has been taken offline due to Ukrainian drone strikes is 14% of Russia’s total refining capacity.

Due to refinery damage as a result of the drone attacks, Russia’s gasoline production fell by 12% in the last week of March compared to the February average, Russian daily Kommersant reported last week, quoting the Federal State Statistics Service, Rosstat. The domestic market hasn’t felt the impact, yet, also thanks to higher fuel imports from Belarus, Kommersant notes

Ukraine says Russian drones damaged energy infrastructure in south

Issued on: 12/04/2024 - 

Attacks by Russian drones in southern Ukraine overnight caused a fire at an energy facility in Dnipropetrovsk region and damaged critical infrastructure in Kherson region, Ukrainian authorities said on Friday. Ukraine forces shot down 16 out of 17 drones. Russia also used one Kh-59 guided air missile for the attack, the Ukrainian military said via Telegram messaging app. FRANCE 24's Emmanuelle Chaze reports from Kyiv, Ukraine.

01:24
Video by: Emmanuelle CHAZE

 

Putin says Ukraine energy site strikes aim to 'demilitarise' country


Issued on: 12/04/2024 - 

Video by :Douglas HERBERT

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said that recent airstrikes on Ukraine's energy grid, which have caused huge blackouts, are part of the Kremlin's "demilitarisation" of its neighbour. "We assume that in this way we have an influence on the Ukrainian military-industrial complex," said Putin, adding that the strikes were also in response to Kyiv targeting Russia's energy infrastructure.

Truth Social shares hit grim milestone as price sinks again

Brad Reed
April 12, 2024 

Truth Social App (AFP)

Share prices for the Trump Media and Technology Group Corporation sank yet again on Friday, marking the fifth straight day this week that the value of former President Donald Trump's social media venture has continued to slide.

CNBC reports that shares in Trump Media dipped below $30 on Friday, a grim milestone for the company that signals it has lost more than half of its market cap since the company went public.

Although prices have moderately recovered since going below $30 on Friday, as of noon E.T. they were still trading at roughly 4 percent lower than on Thursday's closing price.

And in just the last week, shares in the Truth Social parent company have fallen by nearly 25 percent, erasing billions of dollars off what was once a market cap north of $7 billion.

CNBC notes that this ongoing crash has had a major impact on Trump's net worth given that he "is the biggest shareholder in the company, owning nearly 60 percent of its stock."

Despite all of that, Trump on Friday posted a message on his personal Truth Social account hyping the value of the network, which lost $58 million last year and generated a paltry $4 million in revenues.

"I am so proud of Truth Social, because I believe it represents the Make America Great Again Movement, and it shows the Spirit and Love of our Country," wrote the former president, who goes on trial Monday for allegedly falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to an adult film star.

"If people who believe in putting America First and want to Make America Great Again, support TRUTH, we will be your Voice like never before, and a Real Voice is what our Country needs, because we are in decline, and must bring America to Greatness. Think of this as a Movement, the Greatest Movement in the History of our Country. We are going to Save our Country, and Make America Great Again, GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!"

'Poor Marge': MTG mocked after report suggests she lost $32K by investing in Trump Media

Sky Palma
April 12, 2024

RAW STORY

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 30: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speaks during a hearing with the House Committee on Homeland Security on Capitol Hill on January 30, 2024 in Washington, DC. The committee met to mark up Articles of Impeachment against U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. 

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The media company with ties to Donald Trump's Truth Social platform is seeing its value tank more each day. Now, years after she purchased shares in the company, Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not willing to talk about the state of her stocks.

Greene wouldn't respond to questions from CNBC or NBC News about her holdings in Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC), which merged with Trump Media and saw its share price drop at least 45 percent to date, NBC News reported.

Greene, along with Indiana GOP Rep. Larry Bucshon, revealed they bought stock in the company in October 2021 — the same month it announced the merger with Trump Media.

Just days after the announcement, Greene bought shares of DWAC ranging from $15,000 to $50,000. As NBC News points out, if Greene is still an investor in the company, she would have lost up to $32,000. Bucshon could have lost up to $8,900.

A spokesman for Bucshon responded to inquiries and revealed that the lawmaker is still an investor in the company, but Greene has chosen to stay mum and public disclosures have not shown that she's sold any stock related to DWAC or Trump Media. Greene spokesman Nick Dyer told NBC News that Greene “holds no stocks at this time as reflected in her financial disclosure.”

When asked by NBC News on Wednesday what happened to her Trump Media stock, Greene replied, “This is a waste of time. I think you can read my reports and see what I own."

But according to Campaign Legal Center general counsel Kedric Payne, if the value of Greene's stock drops below $1,000, she's not required to disclose any information.

Experts say another possibility is that Greene recently sold her stock, giving her a period of up to 45 days where she doesn't have to disclose anything. As NBC News points out, lawmakers "aren’t prohibited from trading or holding individual stocks and other investments. But under the STOCK Act, members of Congress must report any trades within 45 days."

But the news elicited little sympathy online.

"Awwwwe—poor Marge," wrote an X user called Pink Freud. And ctwin wrote: "Hoping like @mtgreenee the stock has no low to which it can sink."

Trump shares post slamming stock market for not getting his 'Michelangelo'-level genius

Kathleen Culliton
April 12, 2024 


Former President Donald Trump Friday made a new addition to his list of institutions that are conspiring against him: the stock market.

Trump shared this viewpoint on Truth Social, the social media site whose parent company has seen its value plummet after news hit it lost $58 million in 2023, in the form of an editorial from a writer whose credentials include “Author of President Trump's favorite Substack.”

“The Trump brand should be worth tens of billions of dollars more than what it is currently being traded at on the Nasdaq, given its uniqueness as combining the best of politics and business,” writes Paul Ingrassia.

“In the same vein in which DaVinci’s paintings and Michelangelo’s sculptures would be valued in the billions if ever sold on the open market today, Donald Trump’s creative visions equate to exceptional valuations — because of the rarity of his skillset and gifts.”

Ingrassia's online profile shows he is a communications director for a nonprofit that positions itself as “the answer to the useless and radically leftist American Civil Liberties Union,” a New York Young Republican Club member, and a recent graduate of Cornell Law School.

The common thread of his substack does not appear to be financial analysis, but commentary on the multiple legal woes facing Trump

Titles published by Ingrassia include, “MAGA Beauty Isabella DeLuca’s Arrest Is Proof Positive That Biden’s Weaponized Justice System Has Become Outright Despotic Against Political Dissidents.”

Ingrassia opens his think-piece by deriding New York civil court Justice Arthur Engoron and Attorney General Letitia James — the judge and prosecutor in Trumps’ $464 million civil fraud case — both of whom he accuses of fraud.

“The fraud is found in the courtrooms – and it is a fraud on the American public, as well as the rule of law – not just in New York, where the dangerous precedent is being set by radical and illegitimate operatives like Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron,” he writes.

“The people who increasingly hold the levers of power, like James and Engoron – and by extension, Joe Biden and Merrick Garland.”

ALSO READ: A criminologist explains why keeping Trump from the White House is all that matters

It’s worth noting that both Engoron and James were elected by the people of New York and their state-level positions are not connected to the federal Justice department.

This may be why Ingrassia next takes aim at all “institutions” he blames for the ruling in the Trump Organization civil fraud case.

“No matter how otherwise communistic our institutions may become, fortune, nature, (and God) invariably favors bold, original thinkers – especially in our age that suffers a pandemic of unoriginality and laziness,” he writes.

“Obviously, with the public listing of President Trump’s media company, his net worth is higher than ever before, placing him on Bloomberg’s list of the world’s top 500 billionaires, for the first time.”

Since the publishing of the Hill report Ingrassia shared, Trump has been bumped from the list.

As final proof to his billion-dollar value theory, Ingrassia points to the quality of Trump products.

“President Trump’s eye for discernment is why he has been able to build some of the most stunning golf courses seen anywhere in the United States,” writes Ingrassia.

“The Trump Brand is one of if not the world’s most recognizable brands. Whether pertaining to real estate, or politics, or media and entertainment, the Trump namesake is ubiquitous the world over, and is demarcated for its luxury and quality of content.”

Other Trump-branded items have included Trump Vodka, Trump Steak, Trump Magazine and Trump Mortgage, all of which appear in a round-up of the former president’s failed business ventures.

Trump shared Ingrassia’s analysis the same day financial experts reported Trump Media’s stock had lost half their value since hitting the market in late March, and followed it up with a post about Truth Social.


“If people who believe in putting America First and want to Make America Great Again, support TRUTH, we will be your Voice like never before, and a Real Voice is what our Country needs,” Trump wrote. “Because we are in decline.”On Friday, Trump Media stock values dipped below $30, Yahoo Finance data show.

Beijing slams US-Japan-Philippines summit, says South China Sea actions ‘lawful’

Reuters Published April 12, 2024

US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida take part in an official White House State Arrival ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 10. — Reuters

Beijing on Friday criticised the United States, Japan and the Philippines and defended its actions in the South China Sea as “lawful” after US President Joe Biden hosted a trilateral meeting in Washington.

Biden on Thursday pledged to defend the Philippines from any attack in the South China Sea at the White House summit, which came amid repeated confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed waterway that have raised fears of wider conflict.

A joint statement issued by the leaders of the trio of nations voiced “serious concern” over Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea, slamming its behaviour as “dangerous and aggressive”.

Beijing claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, brushing aside competing claims from several Southeast Asian nations including the Philippines.

On Friday, China hit out at the joint summit in Washington, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning saying Beijing “firmly opposes the relevant countries manipulating bloc politics, and firmly opposes any behaviour that provokes or lays plans for opposition, and hurts other countries’ strategic security and interests”.

“We firmly oppose engaging in closed cliques that exclude others in the region,” Mao told a regular press conference.

“Japan and the Philippines can of course develop normal relations with other countries, but they should not invite factional opposition into the region, much less engage in trilateral cooperation at the cost of hurting another country’s interests.

“If these are not wanton smears and attacks on China, what are they?” she said.

“China’s actions in the East China Sea and South China Sea are appropriate and lawful, and beyond reproach,” Mao added.
‘Ironclad’

On Thursday, Biden told Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida that the United States’ defence commitments to Japan and to the Philippines are “ironclad”.

As they met around a horseshoe-shaped wooden table in the grand East Room of the US presidential residence, the US, Japanese and Philippine leaders hailed the meeting as “historic”.

Without mentioning China by name, they painted their alliance as a bedrock of peace and democracy in the Asia-Pacific region in contrast to authoritarian Beijing.

Marcos, seen as closer to Washington than his more China-leaning predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, said they shared an “unwavering commitment to the rules-based international order”.

Kishida said that “multi-layered cooperation is essential” and that “today’s meeting will make history”.

Biden, 81, also held separate talks with Marcos, 66, the son and namesake of the country’s former dictator.

Heatwaves put millions of children in Asia at risk: UN

AFP Published April 11, 2024 

People walk under the shadow at a street market during a heatwave in Yangon on April 2, 2024. — AFP

Massive heatwaves across East Asia and the Pacific could place millions of children at risk, the United Nations warned on Thursday, calling for action to protect vulnerable people from the soaring temperatures.

Global monitors have warned that 2024 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record, marked by climate extremes and rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Data from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) showed over 243 million children across the Pacific and East Asia were estimated to be affected by heatwaves, putting them at risk of heat-related illnesses and death.

Several countries in the region are currently smouldering in the summer heat, with temperatures nearing record levels as they regularly hit over 40 degrees Celsius. Local forecasters are predicting steeper rises in the coming weeks.

Some Philippine schools suspended in-person classes in April, with the state weather forecaster saying temperatures could reach a “danger” level of 42 or 43 degrees Celsius in parts of the country.

In Thailand, a temperature of 43.5C was recorded in the northern province of Mae Hong Son earlier this week — just a few degrees shy of the record 44.6C. Around 40 people die from heat-related illnesses annually, according to the Thai Ministry of Health.

In February, neighbouring Vietnam endured a monster heatwave in its southern “rice bowl” when temperatures reached up to 38C — an “abnormal” high for the period.

According to the Unicef report, children are more at risk than adults as they are less able to regulate their body temperature.

“Children are more vulnerable than adults to the effects of climate change, and excess heat is a potentially lethal threat to them,” said Debora Comini, Director of Unicef’s Regional Office for East Asia and the Pacific.

The report said that heatwaves and high humidity levels — commonly experienced in the region — can have a deadly effect as the heat will “hinder the body’s natural cooling mechanisms.”

“We must be on high alert this summer to protect children and vulnerable communities from worsening heatwaves and other climate shocks,” Comini said.

The UN projected that over two billion children are expected to be exposed to heatwaves by 2050.

Charity for change

Editorial 

DAWN

Published April 10, 2024 

PAKISTANIS are large-hearted people who empty their pockets at the slightest hint of another’s need.

The Stanford Social Innovative Review reported a few years ago that the country contributed over 1pc of its GDP towards philanthropy. A study by the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy said that approximately $2bn is donated by Pakistanis per year.

Today, as Pakistanis celebrate Eid, it is apt to recall that the collective culture of compassion is rooted in the tradition of ‘giving’ in the Muslim faith, and it takes on various forms: zakat — a mandatory duty on a Muslim’s assets for other needy Muslims — fitra, qarz-i-hasana, sadqa, infaaq, khairaat, etc.

Moreover, religious tradition also mandates discretion in charity with the intention of protecting the identity and dignity of every beneficiary. While most Muslims are particularly generous during the holy month of Ramazan, the irony of crippling price hikes in the same period — a problem the country has to contend with every year — is not lost on anyone.

The patterns of giving, however, have altered over the years: people now prefer to help individuals, trusted religious charities, medical institutes and schools instead of state-sponsored donation drives due to the absence of government accountability and a resounding trust deficit. When the state is involved, the donors question where the funds are going.

The fusillade of appeals for funds and advertisements fill our screens and newspapers while the cityscape reflects destitution — women, children and the elderly, crowding streets, soup kitchens and shrines. There is then a need to reimagine altruism for sustained social change and justice, particularly in the midst of extreme economic misery. For this, the philanthropic sector ought to find channels to redistribute wealth and provide a strong overarching structure for charity to reach causes such as gender justice, climate refugees, healthcare, education, amenities and housing with the aim of amplified, long-term impact.

In the absence of a trusted state mechanism, charities can collaborate and identify the areas of greatest need. Concrete steps can include the expansion and transparency of income support schemes, job opportunities and financial cover for households and the homeless who are either living a hand-to-mouth existence or have nothing. It is time to donate with justice. The state, meanwhile, can play a role to ensure donations are not ending up in the pockets of extremists.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2024

The professor’s delinquent students

Jawed Naqvi 

DAWN

Published April 9, 2024

THE zero from the large ‘G20’ image created with a mesh of wires has vanished. It was placed ambitiously over a tall footbridge near the venue where the G20 summit took place last September.

Whether someone took it away as a memento or sold it as scrap, or if the hastily minted zero flew away on a windy day, hardly matters. With a bevy of pliable TV channels, Prime Minister Narendra Modi could verily interpret the remaining G2 image as something more exclusive than G20.

He has already conjured a diplomatic advantage from the routine annual event, which nobody other than some ministers and his avid party supporters are able to divine. G20 summits happen annually in different member countries, the next one being scheduled without the needless fanfare in Lula da Silva’s Brazil.

Mr Modi, however, shrewdly used his turn as host to flaunt India as a Vishwa guru, a global professor, as it were, and there are not just a few that see the self-congratulatory boast as a national triumph. However, a strange problem has arisen for the global professor over his 10 years in office. The entire neighbourhood has fled the class. He seemed to have been an agreeable yoga teacher, but after they saw him asking people to bang their kitchen utensils to drive away the Covid virus, the children turned their interest to less contrived Confucius.

Foreign policies of nations are an extension of their domestic truth, the adage goes. Among the reasons, other than the unconvincing one about corruption, for which Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was thrown into prison is that he told the packed Delhi assembly before his arrest the story of a fourth class pass king who, because of his poor education, pushed terrible policies like demonitisation that crippled his country’s economy. Kejriwal likened the allegorical king to the mediaeval Tughlaq sultan of Delhi, and this barb must have rankled the professor.

The fact is that every leader in South Asia, except perhaps those ruling Afghanistan, has a verifiable educational degree to back their claim to acceptability. The prime minister of Pakistan is a graduate from Lahore’s Government College University, while his Bangladesh counterpart graduated in Bengali literature from a reputed institute in Dhaka.

The leader of Sri Lanka is a law graduate, and the Maldives president studied civil engineering in the UK. The King of Bhutan went to Oxford, and Nepal’s Maoist prime minister has a diploma in agricultural science. Among Indian leaders, Nehru wrote numerous fabulous books, including a couple on world history, during his imprisonment. Indira Gandhi could give a polished interview in French, English and flawless Hindustani, while her son was a well-regarded commercial pilot who initiated India’s move into the digital era.

China being the elephant in the room is not a fact that Mr Modi readily acknowledges.

Mr Modi is usually projected by his fawning TV anchors as the greatest orator India has ever had. He can be quite compelling, true, but only if a better speaker like Sanjay Singh of Aam Aadmi Party or Lalu Yadav of Bihar are locked up, or if Derek O’Brien and Mahua Moitra of Mamata Banerjee’s party are arbitrarily suspended from parliament.

Who are the Confucius-hugging leaders that have shunned the professor’s lure? Pakistan is an old suspect. Sri Lanka has had its links with Beijing at least since Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s days. She told me of her affection for Marshal Tito and Zhou Enlai even as she cultivated cordial relations with Nehru and later with his daughter. Nepal always had flourishing ties with China, even as relations with India were rocky. Proximity to China has never not been a concern in New Delhi with Bangladesh. The new neighbours to court the professor’s bête noire are the Maldives and, more worryingly for him, tiny Bhutan, an erstwhile pocket borough.

Like the last elections, when it was the run-in with Pakistan that helped spur Mr Modi to victory, he seems to be searching for a handy stand-off in the neighbourhood.

A hot pursuit warning to Pakistan induced by the election season from Modi’s defence minister is an example of domestic exigencies framing foreign policy. A truer challenge comes from China, which recently renamed 30 cities and villages in India’s northeast to accord with its claim to sovereignty on Arunachal Pradesh. Mr Modi has curiously denied common lore that China recently took away a chunk of Indian territory.

China being the elephant in the room is not a fact that Mr Modi readily acknowledges, and that explains his raising of the issue of a miniscule island that Indira Gandhi conceded to Sri Lanka in 1974.

Kachchathivu is a barren uninhabitable real island comprising 285 acres spread between 1.6 kilometres length and 300 metres width. There has never been a record of India’s claim to the place, and the subject was discussed in 1921 without conclusion. According to the documents published last week by The Hindu, then foreign secretary Kewal Singh briefed former chief minister of Tamil Nadu K. Karunanidhi (father of the current one opposed to Mr Modi) about Mrs Gandhi’s decision to concede the island.

Three reasons were cited. There was no evidence of Indian claim on it. There was oil, which India had secretly assessed the prospects of, in a nearby area which Delhi would get in a settlement. A delay could alert Sri Lanka about the secret. Possibly the most compelling reason given by Mr Singh was the fear of Sri Lanka being driven closer to China if India persisted with a case it had no solid basis to defend.

Colombo was officially phlegmatic. The foreign minister ignored the barb saying it was prompted by India’s domestic politics. Besides, an international pact doesn’t just get wished away.

Did the global professor nevertheless succeed in denting the image of Indira Gandhi, seen by most Indians as a woman of steel? Probably not. But the Sri Lankan media decided to bunk his class anyway.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2024

Complicit in genocide

Germany has expressed little concern over the devastating impact of the Gaza war on Palestinians.

Zahid Hussain 

DAWN

Published April 10, 2024 

NICARAGUA has gone to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with a complaint against Germany for “facilitating the commission of genocide” against the Palestinian people, in coordination with Israel. The South American country has called upon the ICJ judges to stop Berlin from providing Israel with weapons and other assistance.

In its 43-page submission, Nicaragua has stated that Germany stood in violation of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. “By sending military equipment and now defunding UNRWA [UN agency for Palestinian refugees] … Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide,” the Nicaraguan representative said in his opening statement before the top UN court. It is “imperative and urgent” the court ordered such measures, given that the lives of “hundreds of thousands of people” were at stake.

Germany has politically and militarily backed Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 33,000 people, most of them women and children. The country is the second biggest arms supplier to the Zionist state after the US, accounting for 30 per cent of the weapons being used by the Israeli military in its war on Gaza. The two countries together provide 98pc of the weaponry, making them complicit in the ongoing genocide.

German arms exports to Israel have increased tenfold in the last one year. According to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the major surge in arms supply came during Israel’s offensive. Berlin has also stopped its funding to UNRWA after an unsubstantiated allegation by Israel that some staff members of the UN agency were involved in the Oct 7 Hamas attack inside Israel. Germany had hitherto been the second-largest contributor to the UN organisation.

Germany has expressed little concern over the devastating impact of the Gaza war on Palestinians.

The European nation, which is a signatory to the Genocide Convention set up in the wake of the Holocaust, is among the very few countries that are not willing to support the increasing international demands for a ceasefire. It has continued its arms supply to Israel despite widespread public protests within the country and outside. Germany abstained twice from a vote in the UN General Assembly calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

While proclaiming unconditional support for Israel, German leaders have expressed scant concern over the devastating impact of the war on the hapless Palestinian population. When asked about her government’s scant efforts towards ensuring a ceasefire, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said: “It is not the job of politicians to tell the guns to shut up.” Her stance may have softened after her latest tour of the region, describing the situation in Gaza as “hell”, but there is still no call for a ceasefire from Germany.

Nicaragua’s government, led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, has filed charges against Germany in the wake of the ICJ’s ruling in a separate case filed by South Africa in January this year ordering Israel to do “everything in its power to prevent genocidal acts”. Pretoria accused Israel of perpetrating genocide in the Gaza Strip. The UN court has also ordered the Zionist state to step up access to humanitarian aid for Gaza.

Although the ICJ’s rulings are obligatory, Israel, as usual, has flouted its orders and has, instead, intensified its military operation, reducing a large part of the occupied territory to rubble. It has also rejected the UN Security Council’s resolution calling for a ceasefire. It is obvious that the support of the US and some Western countries, particularly Germany, has lent impunity to Israel’s genocidal war.

A major reason for Berlin’s resolute support for Israel is its guilty conscience over the Holocaust, carried out by Hitler in the 1940s, which exterminated millions of Jews. Ironically, Germany has tried to make amends for its Nazi past by backing the Zionist state, which is itself carrying out a genocide now.

Germany has long made Israel’s security its Staatsräson (‘reason of state’). The term was first coined by a German ambassador to Israel in the early 2000s and has often been quoted by the German leadership to justify its unflinching support for the Zionist state. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently made another argument for his country’s support for Israel, saying that it was “a democracy”.

Such arguments trivialise the war crimes perpetrated by Israel, and give credence to the allegation of Berlin being an accomplice in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Germany has rejected the allegations made by Nicaragua and declared that it has “violated neither the Genocide Convention nor international humanitarian law” and that it could demonstrate this before the ICJ.

It will, however, be hard for Berlin to refute the charges against its government, particularly as it is facing intense criticism from within for its blind support for Israel. The German government has banned all anti-Israel protests, declaring them anti-Semitic. But the restriction has failed to contain the growing public outrage over Israel’s war crimes. The strongest voice is coming from the administration’s own ranks.

A group of some 600 German civil servants have reportedly issued a statement calling on the government to “cease arm deliveries to the Israeli government with immediate effect”. The memorandum has accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza in contravention of international law. The statement cited the ICJ’s ruling in January that Israel’s military actions are “plausible acts of genocide”.

Surely, Germany is not the only Western country to have either actively backed Israel’s war crimes or looked away — an attitude that has exposed the hypocrisy of the so-called civilised world. Yet, while the growing public pressure at home and the horrors of Israel’s war have compelled a number of Western countries to moderate their stance, finally calling for at least a temporary ceasefire, there is no indication yet of Berlin giving up its support for Israel’s war.

Since the US does not recognise its jurisdiction, it cannot be charged by the ICJ. But Germany can. Nicaragua has done a commendable job by taking the case to the court, highlighting Berlin’s complicity in war crimes. It may not stop Germany’s military and political support for Israel, but will certainly help expose the so-called morality of Western nations.

The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
X: @hidhussain
Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2024

No joy in Gaza

That hardly detracts from Israel message to aid agencies.  

 ‘Don’t feed the Palestinians: punishable by death.’

Mahir Ali 

DAWN

Published April 10, 2024 

THE targeted slaughter last week of seven employees of World Central Kitchen (WCK) kicked off an international reaction that would not have occurred had the targets been Palestinian or, more broadly, Arab. This wasn’t an ‘error’ on the part of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), it was part of a pattern that has been evident since Oct 7.

The Israeli response following the Biden administration’s threats of an unspecified policy change if the Netanyahu government did not take more action to protect civilians suggested that such action had hitherto proved insufficient — if it existed in the first place. Which it clearly did not. To cite just one aspect of the genocidal campaign, 15 to 20 civilian deaths were officially deemed permissible for every suspected junior Hamas operative. For purportedly senior figures, the level of acceptable ‘collateral damage’ soared to 100.

These details come from a report this month by Yuval Abraham in the Israeli magazine +972, revealing the existence of an AI programme dubbed ‘Lavender’ that picks targets for assassination based on “massive amounts of data”. According to Abraham’s Israeli intelligence sources, the IDF, during the first months of the war, “almost completely relied on Lavender, which clocked as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants”. He cites one of the sources as acknowledging that intelligence personnel devoted little more than “20 seconds to each target before authorising a bombing”.

He adds that “additional automated systems, including one called ‘Where’s Daddy?’ … were used … to track targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they entered their family’s residences”, presumably so that children and spouses could simultaneously be pulverised. After all, as some rabbis and several politicians have indicated, even infants are fair game as they will only grow up to be a problem for the Zionist state.


It is not easy to say ‘Eid Mubarak’.

Death by starvation is a part of the package. ‘Aid drops’ and US-supplied bombs sometimes arrive simultaneously. The Biden administration made a big deal out of the president’s apparent warning to Benjamin Netanyahu that the unadulterated adulation of Israel that has been the US norm for more than half a century might lapse if “Israel did not take more action to protect civilians and aid workers in Gaza”, as the New York Times put it.

Take more action? Has Israel already been protecting civilians and no one has noticed, apart from ‘Genocide Joe’ Biden and a few other American Zionists? The fact is that far too many Americans, Jews and gentiles, who might unthinkingly have voted Democrat previously, might be disinclined to do so in November. Nancy Pelosi signing on to a plea to temporarily halt lethal arms sales to Israel, or Chuck Schumer advocating the replacement of Benjamin Netanyahu, is unlikely to make much difference. Sufficiently woke Americans can see through the absurdity of aiding and abetting Israel while hesitantly denouncing its genocidal excesses without recognising them as such.

Israel plays along by, for instance, ‘regretting’ that it purposefully targeted European WCK employees or sacking a couple of IDF personnel. It has even ostensibly opened another gateway for aid delivery — but that hardly detracts from its message to aid agencies. As Al Jazeera columnist Andrew Mitrovica put it, the signal is tantamount to warning: ‘Don’t feed the Palestinians: punishable by death.’

UNRWA, the chief source of solace for Palestinian refugees, was hobbled for the same reason. Almost all of Israel’s Western collaborators signed on to that absurd cause.

Even after six mon­ths of daily crimes aga­inst humanity, the US and its fellow travellers restrict themsel­ves to issuing empty thre­­ats — mainly aga­inst Netanyahu, who is merely a particularly obnoxious symptom of the Zionist state’s trajectory since 1948 — instead of taking actions that could almost instantly curtail Israel’s vengeful bloodlust, and perhaps even its persistent determination to exaggerate the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.

Any scope to observe the month of fasting was bound to be diminished by enforced starvation, amid dire warnings of an Israeli-enforced famine. And, after sixth months of relentless death and destruction, it’s hard to imagine anyone actually celebrating Eid.

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the tragic hero, having murdered his royal benefactor, is perturbed by his inability to pronounce a particular word. “I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’/ Stuck in my throat,” he complains to his wife, who responds, “These deeds must not be thought/ After these ways so, it will make us mad.”

The world’s response to an unfolding genocide 30 years after the horrendous killings in Rwanda, with too few honourable exceptions, makes it inevitable that, this year, ‘Eid Mubarak’ sticks in my throat.

mahir.dawn@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2024

The American eclipse

Rafia Zakaria 

DAWN

Published April 10, 2024

DURING the afternoon of April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse bisected the US. Not everyone sees solar and lunar eclipses as purely scientific events that have to do with the physical position of the moon or Earth and the sun’s light. According to myths and legends — and there are many in different religious traditions and cultures — solar eclipses are moments of omens and portents. For weeks leading up to the event, astrologers and psychics predict all kinds of things that could happen in the months following the eclipse. Astrologers say that the total time during which the sun is obscured, in this case three and a half to four minutes, corresponds to that many number of months in terms of the duration of the eclipse’s ‘effects’.

As if the eclipse were not enough, a comet called 12/P Pons-Brooks has also appeared in the sky at the same time as the eclipse. This comet, which appears every 71 years, is called the ‘Devil’s comet’ because it has a horned shape. The first spectacular image of the comet, which can be seen with the naked eye in many parts of the US, shows a bluish tail against the darkness of the sky. The last time that this comet was seen was in 1954 and it will not appear again until the end of the century in 2095. Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and Mars, a spectacular array of planets, were also visible at the time of the eclipse during the period of totality, which is the point when the moon has completely obscured the sun.

The US is a superpower currently involved in the grotesque genocide taking place in Gaza. According to Ali Olomi, a professor of mediaeval Islamic history and esotericism at Loyola Marymount University, the solar eclipse portends dire things for rulers and tyrants, with strong significance for Jerusalem. Others have gone on to spell doom for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the architect of the genocide in Gaza, pointing to his recent health problems and expecting him to lose political support and power.

Meanwhile, many Christians in the US see the events of the eclipse and the war in the holy land as a sign of the second coming of Christ. Such celestial ‘omens’ have gained a greater following because the path of this eclipse and the one that occurred in 2017, also in the US, together formed the shape of the cross.

Undoubtedly, even for those who do not believe in any higher powers, witnessing a total eclipse is a profound experience.

Some of these ardent believers in predictions of the end times point to Verse 15:33 in the Gospel of Mark, which says: “And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour”, referring to the dark hours of the crucifixion in Christianity. The belief is that the obscured light of the sun is a sign of God’s wrath at the inability of humankind to remain true to the righteous path.

In Islam, special prayers are suggested for the time of a solar eclipse. American Muslims gathered to perform these prayers, known as Salat al-Kusuf, in different parts of the US. Held at various Islamic centres, these prayers are meant to show obedience and surrender to the power of the Divine. According to Prof Omid Safi, professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University in the US, Islamic tradition holds that eclipses, both solar and lunar, are signs of divine matters unfolding in nature. Notably, a lunar eclipse also occurred in the US just two weeks prior to this solar eclipse.

For those who have witnessed a solar eclipse, the event is disconcerting. In the middle of the day, the sun begins to be obscured. There is not total darkness, but a kind of dusk or twilight falls upon the earth. Animals then get very agitated and confused and birds either become quiet or start making a lot of noise. The BBC recently quoted a behavioural ecologist as saying, “[Light] is such a huge cue that affects everything from plants to animals.”

There can also be a palpable temperature change, as the warmth of the sun is suddenly cut off and the temperature may fall to night-time levels.

Undoubtedly, even for those who do not believe in any higher powers, witnessing a total eclipse is a profound experience underscoring the insignificance of human life against the far bigger presence of the universe. On most ordinary days, we go about our lives and pay little attention to the fact that the planet that we call home is a sphere spinning round a star in space. It seems that in our busy lives there is no time anymore to reflect on nature or to consider the facts of planetary rotations and revolutions. For us, the sun simply rises and sets every day, and a waxing and waning moon appears throughout the month. The might and beauty of a total eclipse is that it forces humans so engrossed in the details of their own lives, responsibilities and problems, joys, and sorrows to pause and consider their very minor position in a universe which is so enormous that their minds can barely take in its vastness and majesty.

In this sense, even witnessing recordings of the progress of an eclipse is often accompanied by a realisation of the insignificance of mankind; it is an acknowledgement that provides its own sense of liberation. The workings of this divinely created universe are so much larger than our small lives and our petty problems. Focusing on this fact will help us locate ourselves as part of a cosmic system whose workings are magical and whose very gift is to present us with our own position in the vastness of time and space.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2024

US topples China as Taiwan’s largest export market due to chips, AI demand

AFP Published April 12, 2024

Semiconductor chips are seen on a circuit board of a computer in this illustration picture taken February 25, 2022. — Reuters

The United States has topped long-time leader China as Taiwan’s main export market for four consecutive months due to a surge in demand for microchip products and AI technology, Taipei’s finance ministry said on Friday.

Self-ruled Taiwan is a microchip-manufacturing powerhouse, churning out the world’s most advanced silicon wafers necessary to power everything from e-vehicles and satellites to fighter jets and increasingly to power AI technology.

For two decades, its top export market has been China — which claims Taiwan as part of its territory — but December data from Taiwan’s finance ministry shows the United States topping the list for the first time since August 2003.

In December, Taiwan exported $8.49 billion in products to the United States, compared with $8.28bn to mainland China.

The trend continued through March, when US exports increased by 65 per cent to $9.11bn, a 6pc jump, while mainland China received $7.99bn.

Those figures exclude Hong Kong, which holds its own status as a customs territory. When combined with mainland tallies, China remains the top destination for Taiwanese goods.

Taiwan’s finance ministry official in the trade division attributed the recent US tilt to the global “reorganisation of electronics and ICT (information and communication technology) supply chains, and the popularity of the AI industry”.

Since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen came to power in 2016, she has been working to strengthen economic ties with the United States, seeing Washington as a crucial partner as neighbouring China grows increasingly aggressive.

Dawn Business