Indian Dockworkers Set Date for Strike After Three Years of Negotiations

Indian's main container ports could stop work due to a strike called for the end of August

Published Aug 16, 2024 4:00 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

Globally port workers have expressed their frustrations during contract negotiations and called for significant wage increases after working through the pandemic to keep global commerce functioning. The latest problems emerged in India where the six labor unions that represent workers across the 12 major seaports are laying the groundwork for a nationwide strike scheduled to begin in less than two weeks on August 28 and to run until terms are reached for a new contract.

The Indian unions follow the path taken around the world. In Europe Germany and Belgium for example have recently experienced labor stoppages at the ports. In the United States, last year West Coast longshoremen staged a work slowdown after a year of contract negotiations while on the East Coast, the International Longshoremen’s Association is threatening an October 1 strike saying it will not extend the deadline for a new contract. At the beginning of the week, operators of pilot boats and staff that oversee the movement of vessels will stop work for 48 hours in Fremantle, Australia.

According to the joint statement for the six labor organizations in India, the port labor contracts expired in December 2021. They have had seven rounds of negotiations over the past 331 months but are at a “standstill position.” No new talks are scheduled, but the government may intervene in the next two weeks and at least compel the sides back to the negotiating table.

The issues and demands from the union sound remarkably similar. The Indians are demanding pay increases, benefits, holiday pay, and addressing productivity efforts. The unions are also calling for the agreements to be retroactive to January 2022 when the next contract should have begun.

India’s labor relations are often contentious with the unions now accusing the Ministry of Shipping of impeding an agreement. They said the Ministry has a “lethargic attitude,” while citing changes in the regulations implemented early in 2021. The unions allege that the government centralized its authority while saying the goal was to create greater autonomy in port operations. They contend that government guidelines and the primary reason for the impasse.

The looming strike comes as India is working to expand its global exports and role as a manufacturer. The government is leading efforts to expand and invest in the ports and to attract more container services. Reports indicate that cargo volume overall is up more than four percent in 2024 with containers experiencing a nearly 10 percent increase.

After two days of meetings, the labor groups issued their joint declaration warning of the strike. They have also made the necessary filings with the port authorities and government for the action to proceed.
 

PATRIARCHY IS FEMICIDE

 India protests: Doctors call for shutdown of services

Mounting anger over the rape and killing of a medic trainee at a government hospital last week in the eastern city of Kolkata has boiled over into nationwide outrage and stirred protests over violence against women.

Nationwide protests have picked up momentum

Image: Subrata Goswami/DW

An association of Indian doctors on Friday called for more than a million colleagues nationwide to "withdraw" all non-essential medical services for a 24-hour period beginning Saturday.

The medical body said that essential services would remain operational at hospitals, as protests over the rape and murder of a female medic trainee last week at a government hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata take root nationwide.

"Doctors, especially women, are vulnerable to violence because of the nature of the profession. It is for authorities to provide for the safety of doctors inside hospitals and campuses. Both physical assaults and crimes are a result of indifference and insensitivity of the authorities concerned to the needs of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers," the Indian Medical Association said in a statement.




Protests intensify on Friday

Thousands of people marched through various Indian cities Friday to ask for better security for doctors at work as well as demand accountability for the woman's killing.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee led a rally in the state's capital city, Kolkata, on Friday, after students, doctors and residents took to the streets on the eve of India's Independence Day.

Protests have generally been peaceful, but a mob vandalized the hospital where the medic was killed on Wednesday night, with protests having picked up more steam following the incident.

Demonstrators also gathered near Parliament in New Delhi, and people assembled in various other cities like Mumbai and Hyderabad.

Suvrankar Datta, a resident doctor at one of India's top government hospitals in New Delhi said protests would continue and that hospital services could be hampered in the capital in the following days to come.



Multiple medical unions in both government and private hospitals have backed the protests.

Medic trainee was to work a 36-hour shift

The 31-year-old medic had settled down for a short nap after working for nearly 20 hours of a 36-hour shift before she was killed, local media reported. A police volunteer has been detained in connection with the crime.

But state government officers who first began investigating the case have been accused of mishandling it. The case has been transferred to a federal agency.

Doctors have repeatedly cited threats to their lives while on the job, with many calling for measures like cameras on campuses to ensure safety.

Protests have largely also focused on the big problem of sexual violence against women in the country — with female Indian social media users sharing harrowing stories about the many times they have felt unsafe.

ch/rm (AFP, Reuters, AP)

EU presses Meta on plans after disinformation tracker axed

Brussels (Belgium) (AFP) – The EU on Friday formally requested that Meta detail steps it is taking on transparency after the Facebook and Instagram owner scrapped a widely-used tool for tracking disinformation online.


Issued on: 16/08/2024 - 

The EU's request to Meta was sent under the bloc's Digital Services Act, a landmark new law that cracks down on illegal content online

 © Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP

Meta has been criticised on both sides of the Atlantic over the decision to shut down CrowdTangle -- a feature considered vital by researchers tracking viral falsehoods -- in a year of major election contests in the United States and elsewhere.

Unavailable since August 14, CrowdTangle is to be replaced with Meta's Content Library -- a technology researchers say offers nowhere near the same functionality.

The European Commission's request to Meta was sent under the bloc's Digital Services Act, a landmark new law that cracks down on illegal content online.

Brussels launched a formal investigation into Meta's Facebook and Instagram in late April, five weeks before bloc-wide elections in June, over concerns the platforms were failing to counter disinformation.

It raised the alarm in particular at plans to scrap CrowdTangle without an adequate alternative in place.

In its latest request, the commission asked Meta to provide details by September 6 on how it intends to give researchers access to publicly-accessible data on its platforms, and how it plans to update its election monitoring functionalities.

"Specifically, the Commission is requesting information about Meta's Content Library and application programming interface (API), including their eligibility criteria, the application process, and the data that can be accessed and functionalities," said a commission statement.

CrowdTangle has been relied on for years by researchers and journalists seeking to track in real time the spread of conspiracies and hate speech on Meta-owned platforms.

Organisations that debunk misinformation as part of Meta's third-party fact-checking program, including AFP, will have access to the Content Library instead -- but the new tool will not be accessible to for-profit media.

Killing off CrowdTangle is seen as a major blow in a year when dozens of countries are heading to the polls.

In an open letter earlier this year, the global nonprofit Mozilla Foundation warned that decommissioning CrowdTangle would be a "direct threat" to the integrity of elections, urging Meta to retain it at least until January 2025.

© 2024 AFP

During a heatwave, temperatures not the only threat: expert

Madrid (AFP) – Spain has just emerged from a 21-day heatwave that engulfed Madrid, Barcelona and Zaragoza, posing a health threat which extends far beyond the actual temperature, according to Julio Diaz, a researcher at Madrid's Carlos III Health Institute.

 16/08/2024 - 

Spain experienced a heatwave lasting 21 days © THOMAS COEX / AFP/File

Isn't heat what kills during a heatwave?

"The impact of heat on health is far more than just temperature... its effect can be felt across income levels, age groups, socio-economic conditions, healthcare, and different cultural approaches to heat," says Diaz.

"We divided Spain into 182 regions... and in each one, we worked out the temperature at which people start to die as a result of the heat. In Seville, 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) is not even classed as a heatwave, whereas in A Coruna (in northwestern Spain), the temperature which defines a heatwave is 26 degrees.

"When there is a heatwave, only 3.0 percent of mortality is due to heat stroke. Heat kills by aggravating other illnesses."

Why are the first heatwaves the most deadly?

"In the first heatwave (of the year) much more people are likely to be susceptible (to death) than the second because it claims the frailest, leaving fewer susceptible people in the second and fewer still in the third... That's why the first heatwave always has a greater impact on mortality. This is what in epidemiology we call the 'harvest effect'."
Why are living standards a factor?

"It's clear that the impact of heat is much greater in poorer neighbourhoods.

"It is not the same thing to experience a heatwave in a room with three people and one window and no air conditioning or fan, than going through the same thing in a villa with a swimming pool.

It's not even a question of having air conditioning or not, but about being able to turn it on. During this heatwave, the price of electricity in Spain skyrocketed."

- What is heatstroke? -

"Heatstroke happens when a person is exposed to high temperatures... and their body is not able to regulate that temperature. If you go out in the sun at 42C or exercise at those temperatures, your body is unable -- no matter how much it sweats, which is the main mechanism for regulating heat -- to lower and maintain its temperature at 37C.

When your body is no longer at 37C... your organs stop working properly, including your brain. Then hyperthermia sets in and the person can die."
What is 'heat culture'?

"In 2003, Europe suffered a brutal heatwave and 70,000 people died in 15 days. People were not prepared, and there were no prevention plans, which meant it had a brutal impact on mortality. Now nobody doubts that heat kills.

But people adapt. Between 1983 to 2003, for every degree above the temperature classed as a heatwave, the mortality in Spain increased by 14 percent. But after 2003, it barely increased by three percent.

In a city like Madrid, you never used to see older people wearing shorts but nowadays they all wear them -- you see them going out for a walk wearing a hat and with a bottle of water.

In places where they are used to having heatwaves, there are now much more air conditioning units and secondly, homes are much more adapted to cope with this heat.

People don't go out from 3:00 pm, that's why the siesta exists in Spain. And in the southern Andalusia region, the villages are painted white and the streets are wide so the wind can freely circulate."

Israel FM says expects allies to attack Iran if it strikes

Jerusalem (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Friday his country expected support from foreign allies "in attacking" Iran if it strikes Israel, comments deemed "inappropriate" by France's visiting top diplomat.


Issued on: 16/08/2024 - 
     

Israel's top diplomat Israel Katz (C) holds hands with his French and British counterparts, Stephane Sejourne (R) and David Lammy, in Jerusalem 

© GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP

Iran and its regional allies have vowed retaliation for high-profile killings late last month blamed on Israel, including an attack in Tehran that killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, which Israel has not claimed responsibility for.

"If Iran attacks, we expect the coalition to join Israel not only in defence but also in attacking significant targets in Iran," Katz told his counterparts, France's Stephane Sejourne and Britain's David Lammy, according to a statement from the Israeli foreign minister's office.

Sejourne, who is on a joint visit to Israel with Lammy, said it would be "inappropriate" to discuss responding to any attack while diplomacy is in high gear to stop it happening.

"It would be inappropriate to speak of an Israeli response while we work towards a diplomatic solution... We are working to prevent Iranian retaliation," he told reporters in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Israel said US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated that Washington was ready to "defend Israel".

The United States "continues to monitor attack planning from Iran and its proxies and is well-postured across the region to defend Israel and protect US personnel and facilities", Austin said in a phone call with Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, according to an Israeli readout.

Lammy and Sejourne were visiting while Israel, the United States and mediators Qatar and Egypt held talks in Doha aimed at brokering a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and a hostage release deal.

More than 10 months of war in the Gaza Strip have sent regional tensions soaring, drawing in Iran-backed Hamas allies in the Middle East.

Violence has also surged in the occupied West Bank, where on Thursday Israeli settlers stormed a Palestinian village, killing a 23-year-old man in an attack that has drawn widespread condemnation.

Lammy called the violence "abhorrent" and condemned it "in the strongest of terms".

Sejourne said that "any action that could jeopardise the negotiation process towards a ceasefire deal is unacceptable."

© 2024 AFP

Hezbollah reveals military muscle in clashes with Israel

Beirut (Lebanon) (AFP) – Hezbollah has gradually revealed its military capabilities in 10 months of cross-border clashes with Israel, analysts say, including footage of purported underground missile facilities released Friday amid fears of all-out war.


Issued on: 16/08/2024 -

Rockets fired from Lebanon are intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system © Jalaa MAREY / AFP/File

The Lebanese Shiite Muslim movement, armed and financed by Iran, has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in support of its ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.

Fears of a major escalation skyrocketed after an Israeli strike last month on Beirut's southern suburbs killed Fuad Shukr, one of Hezbollah's top commanders, hours before an attack in Tehran, blamed on Israel, killed Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Since Israel and Hezbollah last went to war in 2006, the pro-Iran militant group has increased its military strength, according to analysts.

On Friday it released a polished video appearing to show its fighters trucking large missiles through tunnels at an underground facility.

Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, a security consultancy, said it was "the most explicit video Hezbollah has ever released showing the size of its tunnels".

It also showed "for the first time what appeared to be missiles big enough to be ballistic missiles", he told AFP.

Hezbollah likely released the video to "deter" Israel from a major operation against it, he said.
'Blind spots'

A video released by Hezbollah's military media office showed what the group said were underground missile facilities 

© - / HEZBOLLAH MILITARY MEDIA OFFICE/AFP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel is "prepared both defensively and offensively" and "determined" to defend itself after the killings of Shukr and Haniyeh.

Pressure has been mounting on Israel to secure a truce that could avert a wider war, in parallel with intensified diplomatic efforts in Lebanon to avoid an escalation.

Kahwaji said that since October, "Hezbollah has been testing its tactics and weapons arsenal, and also looking for holes and vulnerabilities in the Israeli defence systems."

The group has used surveillance drones to locate Israel's Iron Dome air defence systems, with a view to overwhelming or destroying them, he said.

Hezbollah has made extensive use of inexpensive, sometimes locally produced drones to put pressure on Israeli air defences, analysts note.

The group has released three videos purportedly showing drone footage over military and other facilities in northern Israel including the port city of Haifa, and the annexed Golan Heights.

"The drones help Hezbollah detect blind spots in the Israeli radars and sensors. The group exploits the mountainous terrain and low flying of drones to evade Israeli early warning sensors," said Kahwaji.

"Repeated attacks enable Hezbollah to establish a better idea of Israeli defences and map potential entry points," he added.

Military analyst and retired Lebanese army general Khalil Helou said the drones are harder to detect because they are small and "have a very small radar print".

Hezbollah also exploits the fact that the Israeli army has little reaction time, he added.

"Hezbollah began firing Katyusha rockets, drones and guided missiles at the same time to overwhelm the Iron Dome," Helou said.

Hezbollah's anti-tank missiles can also cause significant damage because the Iron Dome system aims to intercept "indirect fire such as rockets or missiles, but is useless against direct fire", he added.
'Double-edged sword'

Aram Nerguizian, a senior associate at the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, described Hezbollah's military "probing actions" as "a double-edged sword".

"They expose gaps in Israeli defences and are learning opportunities for Hezbollah operators," he said.

But "they also expose Hezbollah capabilities to Israeli countermeasures... and generate data points for an interconnected Israeli missile defence and counter-strike system," he added.

"It is very difficult to respond proportionately, in kind" to Shukr's killing without triggering a wider war against an Israeli army that "has significantly tightened up its security posture", he added.

Hezbollah has repeatedly said only a Gaza ceasefire deal will stop its attacks.

The violence since October has killed some 570 people in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters but including at least 118 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.

Kahwaji also said that Hezbollah wants to "avoid provoking Israel into an all-out war".

The movement is unable to "assassinate Israeli leaders and military commanders", he added.

"Its only strategy is to fire more missiles and increase the war rhetoric to show defiance."

© 2024 AFP

Palestinian village in shock after attack by Israeli settlers

By AFP

August 16, 2024

A girl comforts the mother of a Palestinian man killed during an attack by Jewish settlers on the village of Jit in the occupied West Bank - Copyright AFP TAUSEEF MUSTAFA
Mohamed Awad

The Israeli settlers who attacked Hassan Arman’s village of Jit in the occupied West Bank had a simple aim, he says: “To burn, kill, or destroy” — all of which took place that night.

Residents hid in fear while dozens of settlers ransacked their northern village late on Thursday, burning homes and cars, until eventually a young Palestinian man was shot dead.

Arman, whose car was destroyed by fire during the attack, said he had “never seen anything like it” in Jit as he opened the charred door of his vehicle.

Inside, everything had melted, leaving just a skeleton of twisted metal.

When the Jewish settlers reached his house, they were “in full uniform, armed with knives, a machine gun, and a silencer”, he said.

A few houses down, Muawiya al-Sada struggled for words as he stood in the scorched remains of his living room. Only the burnt wooden frame of his sofa remained after the cushions and fabric went up in flames.

“After they burned the house there, they came to this house, broke the windows, and threw firebombs — Molotov cocktails — inside,” he told AFP, while shards of glass from his window panes crunched under the weight of his boots.

Sada and his neighbours then heard gunshots which they later learned caused the death of Rashid Sulait, 23, who was said to have been shot in the back.

After that, “there was a brief period of calm, and then the army entered (the village).”

– Mourners in the streets –

Crowds gathered for the funeral on Friday where the young man’s body, wrapped in a Palestinian flag, was borne aloft by mourners and carried through the streets.

At the funeral, his uncle Muhannad Sada told AFP: “A bullet came from behind him and exited the other side, and he was martyred.”

“It was not the army who fired the bullets, but the settlers,” he added.

CCTV footage released by one resident showed masked men in black hoodies emerging from a field, setting fire to a car and breaking into a home, then setting upon a villager when he tried to chase them away.

The army said it dispersed the settlers from Jit, detaining one Israeli civilian.

The Palestinian Authority, which rules the West Bank from Ramallah, called the attack “organised state terrorism”.

Israel’s president and prime minister both denounced the attack, which drew widespread condemnation including from the United States, the United Nations, France, Germany and Britain.

The incident came at a tense time for the region, as negotiators try to hammer out a Gaza war ceasefire that could also douse threats by Iran and its proxies to attack Israel.

Violence in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 and separated from the Gaza Strip by Israeli territory, has surged during the Gaza war.

Israeli settlement of the occupied land — considered illegal under international law — has also hit new records since the war began on October 7.

Since then, at least 633 Palestinians have been killed in violence with settlers or Israeli troops, according to the Palestinian authorities.

At least 18 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in attacks involving Palestinians, according to official Israeli figures.

 Settler rampage in West Bank sparks condemnations Issued on: 16/08/2024 -

 

Over 100 illegal Israeli settlers attack town in West Bank, killing 1, setting fire to property

Israeli forces provided protection to illegal settlers, prevented Palestinian civil defense vehicles from entering town of Jit, witnesses tell Anadolu

 15/08/2024 Thursday
AA


More than 100 illegal Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, killing one person and setting fire to a home and several vehicles, according to multiple sources.

According to the witnesses, the settlers stormed the town of Jit, situated along the main road between Nablus and Qalqilya.

The attackers opened fire at residents, pelted stones at homes, and set fire to at least one house and several vehicles, they added.

The witnesses also said that Israeli forces provided protection to the illegal settlers and prevented Palestinian civil defense vehicles from entering the town.

Citing an Israeli security source, the Israeli army radio reported that more than 100 settlers stormed the town.

The source said that the settlers set fire to four homes and six vehicles owned by Palestinians, while hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at residents and their property.

“The incident ended without any arrests, while several Palestinians suffered from inhalation of tear gas” fired by Israeli soldiers, it added.

Over the past few years, the Israeli military has conducted regular raids in the West Bank, which have escalated with the beginning of the war on Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023.

At least 632 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 5,400 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Health Ministry.

In a landmark advisory opinion on July 19, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land "illegal" and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Palestinian killed as settlers torch homes and cars in West Bank village

Over 100 assailants take part in rampage in Jit; unclear who shot dead man in his 20s, while wounding another; suspect arrested; PM, Herzog, Gallant and others denounce violence

By Emanuel Fabian
and ToI Staff

Today

A home torched by masked settlers in the Palestinian town of Jit in the West Bank, August 15, 2024. (Screenshot: X; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)


Dozens of extremist Israeli settlers, many of them masked, rampaged in the West Bank Palestinian village of Jit on Thursday night, setting fire to homes and vehicles. A Palestinian man was also reported killed amid the attack.

The settlers hurled stones and Molotov cocktails, torching at least four homes and six vehicles in the village, located just west of Nablus. More than 100 assailants were involved, according to an Israeli security official.

The Palestinian Authority health ministry said a 23-year-old Palestinian, named Rasheed Seda, was killed and another Palestinian civilian was critically wounded by the “settlers’ bullets.”
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Israeli security sources said it was unclear who had shot the Palestinians.

The Israel Defense Forces said that minutes after the “grave incident” was reported, troops and border police officers were dispatched to the scene. The IDF said the troops used riot dispersal means and live fire in the air while taking the Israelis out of the village.

One of the assailants who participated in the attack was detained and handed over to police, the IDF said.

The military also said it is looking into the death of the Palestinian amid the attack, and had launched a joint investigation with the police and Shin Bet security agency.

“The IDF condemns events of this type and the rioters, who harm security, law and order, and divert the IDF and the security forces from their main mission of thwarting terrorism and protecting the security of the residents,” the military added in a statement.

Police did not respond to requests for comment, directing The Times of Israel to the IDF’s statement.

The prime minister and president both issued strong condemnations of the rampage.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he views the incident “with severity,” but appeared to frame the actions as a misguided attempt to fight terror, rather than as terrorism in of itself, saying: “Those who fight terrorism are only the IDF and security forces, not anyone else.”

The PMO added: “Those responsible for any crime will be caught and prosecuted.”
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President Isaac Herzog issued a statement saying he “strongly condemns” the riot.

“This is an extreme minority that harms the law-abiding community of [settlers] and the settlement movement as a whole, in addition to harming the global reputation of Israel during a particularly sensitive and difficult period,” Herzog lamented.

“This is not our way and certainly not the way of Torah and Judaism. Law enforcement officials must act immediately against this dangerous phenomenon and bring the lawbreakers to justice.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant denounced the “handful of extremists” for rampaging in Jit “while our soldiers are fighting on various fronts to defend the State of Israel.”

“I firmly condemn any type of violence and give my full backing to the IDF, the Shin Bet and Israel Police to perform their roles and deal with matter severely,” Gallant wrote in Hebrew on X. “The extremist rioting goes against all moral commandments of the State of Israel.”
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He also published an English-language version of the tweet.


Interior Minister Moshe Arbel, meanwhile, urged the Shin Bet and other law enforcement bodies to “act immediately to eradicate the phenomenon of grave nationalistic crime that took place this evening against innocents in the village of Jit.”

Arbel, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said the action “go against the values of Judaism, are a moral and human low point, and harm the State of Israel and the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria.”

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a minister in the Defense Ministry in charge of settlement affairs, said the storming of Jit was “not connected in any way to the settlement enterprise or to settlers.”

“They are criminals who should be dealt with to the full extent of the law by law enforcement authorities,” Smotrich said.

“We build and develop the settlements in a legal and stately manner, back the IDF in its struggle against terror, and strongly disagree with any display of criminal anarchist violence that has absolutely nothing to do with love of the land and settlement of it.”

Smotrich’s reaction was markedly different from his reaction last year to a similar settler rampage in the West Bank town of Huwara. Days after that incident, he triggered an international outcry by saying Huwara “needs to be wiped out” and that “the State of Israel should do it.”

“There’s no place for violence. Period,” said MK Zvi Sukkot of Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, a longtime radical settler activist who last year set up a sukkah in Huwara amid clashes there between settlers and Palestinians that followed a terror shooting and other violent incidents.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir meanwhile lashed out at IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Yoav Gallant, claiming they were to blame for the rampage in Jit.

“I told the chief of staff this evening that not backing soldiers in shooting any terrorist who throws rocks leads to the type of incidents like tonight,” Ben Gvir, who heads the ultranationalist Otzma Yehidut party and as head of the National Security Ministry is in charge of police, said in a statement.

“Despite this, it’s unequivocally forbidden to take the law into your own hands,” he continued, without explicitly denouncing the rioters. “It’s the IDF that needs to deal with terror and deterrence, including toward the terrorists from Jit. The time has come for the defense minister to leave this conception and do it.”

Illustrative: Settlers from the Givat Ronen outpost hurl stones at Palestinian protesters (unseen) during clashes in the West Bank village of Burin on April 15, 2014. (Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP)

Settler violence spiked after the October 7 massacre carried out by the Hamas terror group in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, but violence was already on the rise before then, according to watchdogs.

Israeli authorities rarely arrest Jewish perpetrators in such attacks. Rights groups lament that convictions are even more unusual, and the vast majority of charges in such attacks are dropped.

Since October 7, troops have arrested some 4,850 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,960 affiliated with Hamas.

According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 630 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.

There have also been several cases of settlers killing Palestinians in the past 10 months, some of which are still under investigation.

During the same period, 26 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another five members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.

Gaza’s overwhelmed undertakers stack ‘graves on top of graves’

By AFP
August 16, 2024

Palestinian gravedigger Saadi Hassan Barakeh say he has been burying the dead for 28 years, but has never been so busy amid the Gaza war - Copyright AFP TAUSEEF MUSTAFA
Youssef Hassouna

Undertakers are working like bricklayers in a Gaza cemetery, piling cinder blocks into tight rectangles, side by side, for freshly dug graves.

More than 10 months into the Gaza war, so many bodies are arriving at the cemetery in Deir el-Balah that the men, working in the hot sun, hardly have space to bury them.

“The cemetery is so full that we now dig graves on top of other graves, we’ve piled the dead in levels,” says Saadi Hassan Barakeh, leading his team of gravediggers.

Barakeh, 63, has been burying the dead for 28 years. In “all the wars in Gaza”, he says he has “never seen this”.

Previously, Barakeh also oversaw burials at the nearby Ansar cemetery, which covers 3.5 hectares (8.6 acres).

But now “the Ansar cemetery is completely full. There were too many dead”, he says, his clothes smeared in dirt from digging graves.

He now handles just the Al-Soueid cemetery, with its 5.5 hectares of graves. Yet even with one cemetery instead of two, he works “every day, from six in the morning to six in the evening”.

“Before the war, we had one or two funerals per week, maximum five,” he says, wearing a white prayer cap that matches his long beard.

“Now, there are weeks when I bury 200 to 300 people. It’s unbelievable.”

– ‘I can’t sleep’ –

Gaza’s death toll of just over 40,000 in more than 10 months of war, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, is straining its people as well as its cemeteries.

Barakeh bears daily witness to the tragedies. Hoe in hand, he gives encouragement to his 12 workers as they prepare and close dozens of graves every day.

At night, however, some images are hard to forget.

“I can’t sleep after seeing so many mangled children’s bodies and dead women,” he said, adding: “I buried 47 women from one family.”

The October 7 Hamas attack which triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 40,005 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.

“I buried a lot of women and children, and only two or three guys from Hamas,” says Barakeh.

– ‘Why the children?’ –

If Israelis “have a problem with (Yahya) Sinwar, why do they harm children?” he adds, referring to the alleged October 7 attacks mastermind who is now Hamas’s overall leader.

“Let them kill Sinwar and all the others, but why the women and children?”

Mounds of freshly dug soil are reminders of recent burials. Graves with white headstones fill nearly all the available space, while men dig new holes in the few vacant areas.

The team forms a human chain to carry the cinder blocks, whose price has soared since Gaza’s factories closed due to a lack of fuel and raw materials.

“One shekel ($0.27) before the war, 10 or 12 today,” he lamented.

Besides gravediggers and the workers carrying cinder blocks, hardly anyone comes to funerals anymore, Barakeh says.

“Before the war, there were sometimes 1,000 people at one funeral; today there are days when we bury 100 people and there aren’t even 20 to lay them to rest.”

High above his head, the constant hum of an Israeli surveillance drone serves as a reminder of the aerial threat creating a steady stream of bodies.

Gaza records first polio case in 25 years as UN urges vaccinations

(AFP) – Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday, after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.

Issued on: 16/08/2024 - 

UN agencies want two seven day pauses in the Gaza war so they can vaccinate 640,000 children against polio, which has been detected in the territory's waste water

 © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP/

Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.

According to the United Nations, Gaza, now in its 11th month of war, has not registered a polio case for 25 years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory's wastewater in June.

"Doctors suspected the presence of symptoms consistent with polio," the health ministry said. "After conducting the necessary tests in the Jordanian capital, Amman, the infection was confirmed."

The case emerged shortly after Guterres called for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children.

Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious. It can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal. It mainly affects children under the age of five.

The UN health and children's agencies said they had made detailed plans to reach children across the besieged Palestinian territory and could start this month.

But that would require pauses in the 10-month old war between Israel and Hamas, they said.

"Preventing and containing the spread of polio will take a massive, coordinated and urgent effort," Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.

"I am appealing to all parties to provide concrete assurances right away guaranteeing humanitarian pauses for the campaign."

The World Health Organization and UN children's fund UNICEF said they were planning two seven-day vaccination drives across the Gaza Strip, starting in late August, against type 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2).

Last month, it was announced that type 2 poliovirus had been detected in samples collected in Gaza on June 23.

"These pauses in fighting would allow children and families to safely reach health facilities and community outreach workers to get to children who cannot access health facilities for polio vaccination," the agencies said in a statement said.
Regional public health issue

After 25 years without polio, its re-emergence in the Gaza Strip would threaten neighbouring countries, it added.

"A ceasefire is the only way to ensure public health security in the Gaza Strip and the region."

During each round of the campaign, the health ministry in Gaza, alongside UN agencies, would provide "two drops of novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) to more than 640,000 children under 10 years of age".

More than 1.6 million doses of nOPV2 were expected to transit through Israel's Ben Gurion Airport "by the end of August", the statement added.

The war was triggered by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

On Thursday, the toll from Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza passed 40,000, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties.

© 2024 AFP

Kamala Harris vows to tackle price gouging, ease cost of living in economy plan

US Vice President Kamala Harris outlined economic proposals including a federal ban on price gouging in groceries and tax breaks for families in her first major economy-focused speech as the Democratic presidential nominee during a visit to North Carolina on Friday. Though her plans do not stray far from those put forth by the Biden administration, Harris shifted the focus from job creation and infrastructure to measures that would ease the cost of living for Americans.


Issued on: 16/08/2024 -

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event in North Carolina on August 16, 2024. 

© Mike Stewart, AP

Vice President Kamala Harris is promoting a broad set of economic proposals that would offer new tax breaks and lower the cost of living for Americans, aiming to address the financial concerns that are at the top of the mind for voters and that Republican Donald Trump is trying to lay at her doorstep.

Harris traveled to the battleground state of North Carolina to lay out her plans on Friday, including a proposal for a federal ban on price gouging on groceries. She also is proposing $25,000 in down payment help for certain first-time homebuyers and tax incentives for builders of starter homes, among other things.

Read moreFrom Gaza to China: Where Kamala Harris stands on foreign policy issues

Harris is calling for tax breaks aimed at families, as well as middle- and lower-income people. She would expand the child tax credit to up to $3,600 – and $6,000 for children in their first year of life. Harris would expand the earned income tax credit to cover people in lower-income jobs without children, which the campaign estimates would cut their effective tax rate by $1,500. Harris also wants to lower health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act.

Overall, the plan represents a continuation of many Biden administration priorities but with a pronounced shift in emphasis from job creation and infrastructure and to matters more closely tied to easing the cost of living – food prices, housing and tax breaks for families. Many initiatives would require congressional approval, which is far from assured in the current political environment, and there were scant details on how to pay for the ideas.

Some of Trump’s economic advisers offered rebuttals, with Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the former president's campaign, calling the vice president's plans representative of “the most socialist and authoritarian model.” Kevin Hassett, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors during the Trump administration, called it “completely preposterous” for the government to play a role in setting food prices, a reference to Harris’ proposed federal ban on “corporate price-gouging” in food and groceries.

Stephen Moore, who has advised Trump on economic issues, argued that inflation increases under the Biden administration have been “catastrophic,” and charged that the Biden administration and Harris "try to blame a lot of the problems that they’ve created on Trump.”

Read more  Biden, Harris celebrate deal to lower drug prices in first joint public appearance

But the vice president is actually seeking to blunt Trump's attacks on her as “a radical California liberal who broke the economy,” as he put in during a speech Thursday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he displayed popular grocery store items meant to represent the high cost of food.

Year-over-year inflation has reached its lowest level in more than three years, but food prices are still 21% above where they were three years ago. A Labor Department report this week showed that nearly all of July’s inflation reflected higher rental prices and other housing costs, a trend that, according to real-time data, is easing. As a result, housing costs should rise more slowly in the coming months, contributing to lower inflation.

Harris' grocery pricing proposal would instruct the Federal Trade Commission to penalise “big corporations" that engage in price spikes and singles out a lack of competition in the meat-packing industry for driving up meat prices.

Polls show that Americans are more likely to trust Trump over Harris when it comes to handling the economy: Some 45% say Trump is better positioned to handle the economy, while 38% say that about Harris. About 1 in 10 trust neither Harris nor Trump to better handle the economy, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

Riding a resurgence of enthusiasm since the Democrats’ campaign reboot, Harris has embarked on a battleground state blitz in recent weeks that has broadened the number of races viewed as competitive by strategists. In North Carolina, Democrats are navigating renewed energy with caution in an economically dynamic state that hasn't been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama in 2008.

North Carolina has been a hot spot for visits from Biden and Harris this year. After Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump in June, Raleigh was the first city where he held a rally in an attempt to reenergise Democratic voters. Harris also made two North Carolina stops – in Greensboro and Fayetteville – in the weeks leading up to Biden’s decision to drop out of the race.

Gov. Roy Cooper told Friday's crowd, “I have that 2008 feeling.”

“We in North Carolina know what that means, because that’s the last time we voted for a Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama,” Cooper said. “It is time North Carolina makes history again.”

North Carolina State University political science professor Steven Greene said that the state "went from a situation where Joe Biden was almost surely going down in defeat here, whereas Kamala Harris has a very real chance of winning,”

Deborah Holder, a 68-year-old Raleigh resident who runs six McDonalds, said of the vice president, “Her culture is something that is going to be a huge strength for her, because she’ll be able to look at the rest of us not just as her constituents, but as people that she has dealt with in all walks of life,”

As a business owner, Holder said she’d like for the vice president to outline ways she plans to aid small businesses across the country.

“We are the backbone of this country, we are the people that hire people,” she said.

Dan Kanninen, battleground states director for the Harris campaign, said North Carolina “is as likely as any of those states to be the tipping point state, so we’ve invested in it heavily since the beginning.”

Harris is trying to strike a balance in defining her own image and economic agenda while still giving credit for the Biden administration’s track record.

Biden was asked Thursday whether he thought Harris would distance herself from his economic record. "She's not going to,” he said.

In their first joint speaking event since Biden dropped out, he and Harris were in Maryland on Thursday where they showcased successful negotiations to lower prices for Medicare recipients on 10 prescription drugs. The shift was enabled by a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, a sprawling law largely focused on climate and health care policy.

During the event, Harris praised Biden and said “few leaders in our nation have done more" to make health care affordable. The president critiqued large pharmaceutical companies and argued that Trump is “fighting to get rid of what we just passed.”

Biden echoed some of the policies being proposed by Harris as he made the case for his economic legacy.

“I have no problem with companies making money, but not with price gouging,” Biden said. “I thank God that in the last three months that I am president of the United States I was able to finally get done what I tried to get done when I was a young senator."

(AP)