As Volkswagen weighs its first closure of a German auto plant, workers aren't the only ones worried

Volkswagen is considering closing some factories in its home country for the first time in the German automaker’s 87-year history

By DAVID MCHUGH 

AP business writer

September 8, 2024, 

FRANKFURT, Germany -- FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Volkswagen is considering closing some factories in its home country for the first time in the German automaker's 87-year history, saying it otherwise won't meet the cost-cutting goals it needs to remain competitive.

CEO Oliver Blume also told employees Wednesday that the company must end a three-decade-old job protection pledge that would have prohibited layoffs through 2029.

The statements have stirred outrage among worker representatives and concern among German politicians.

Here are some things to know about the difficulties at one of the world’s best-known auto brands:

Management says the company’s core brand that carries the company’s name needs to achieve 10 billion euros in cost savings by 2026. It recently became clear the Volkswagen Passenger Car division was not on track to do that after relying on retirements and voluntary buyouts to reduce the workforce in Germany.

With Europe’s car market smaller than before the coronavirus pandemic, Volkswagen says it now has more factory capacity than it needs — and carrying underused assembly lines is expensive.

Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz explained it like this to 25,000 workers who gathered at the company’s Wolfsburg home base: Europeans are buying around 2 million cars per year fewer than they did before the pandemic in 2019, when sales reached 15.7 million.

Since Volkswagen has roughly a quarter of the European market, that means “we are short of 500,000 cars, the equivalent of around two plants,” Antlitz told the workers.

“And that has nothing to do with our products or poor sales performance. The market simply is no longer there,” he said.

The Volkswagen Group, whose 10 brands include SEAT, Skoda, CUPRA and commercial vehicles, turned an operating profit of 10.1 billion euros ($11.2 billion) in the first half of this year, down 11% from last year’s first-half figure.

Higher costs outweighed a modest 1.6% increase in sales, which reached 158.8 billion euros but were held down by sluggish demand. Blume called it “a solid performance” in a “demanding environment.” Volkswagen’s luxury brands, which include Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini, are selling better than VW models.

The discussion about reducing costs focuses on the core brand and its workers in Germany. Volkswagen's passenger car division recorded a 68% earnings drop in the second quarter, and its profit margin was a bare 0.9%, down from 4% in the first quarter.

One reason is the division took the bulk of the 1 billion euros that went to job buyouts and other restructuring costs. But growing costs, including for higher wages, and sluggish sales of the company’s line of electric vehicles are a deeper problem. On top of that, new, competitively priced competitors from China are increasing their share of the European market.

Volkswagen must sell more electric cars to meet ever-lower European Union emission limits that take effect starting next year. Yet the company is seeing lower profit margins from those vehicles due to high battery costs and weaker demand for EVs in Europe due to the withdrawal of consumer subsidies and the slow rollout of public charging stations.

Volkswagen Workers Protest Plans to Close Plants

Bloomberg Television

 Sep 4, 2024

Volkswagen workers heckled CEO Oliver Blume as he defended plans to consider unprecedented factory closures in Germany. The company says flagging car sales have left it with about two plants too many, reports Elisabeth Behrmann.

 Read more: https://t.co/9YuI59nIcx

Meanwhile, VW's electric vehicles also face stiff competition in China from models made by local companies.

The world’s automakers are in a battle for the future, spending billions to pivot to lower-emission electric cars in a race to come up with vehicles that are competitive on price and have enough range to persuade buyers to switch. China has dozens of carmakers making electric cars more cheaply than their European equivalents. Increasingly, those cars are being sold in Europe.

Profits have also declined at Germany’s BMW and Mercedes-Benz thanks to the same pressures.

Volkswagen has 10 assembly and parts plants in Germany, where 120,000 of its 684,000 workers worldwide are based. As Europe’s largest carmaker, the company is a symbol of the country’s consumer prosperity and economic growth after World War II.

It has never closed a German factory before. VW last closed a plant in 1988 in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania; its Audi division is in discussions about closing an underutilized plant in Belgium.

Far-right parties fueled by popular disenchantment with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s quarreling, three-party coalition government scored major gains in Sept. 1 elections in Thueringia and Saxony states, located in the former communist East Germany. Nationwide polls show the government's approval rating at a low point. Plant closings are the last thing the Scholz government needs.

The chancellor spoke with VW management and workers after the possible plant closings became known but was careful to stress that the decision is a matter for the company and its workers.

Employee representatives have a lot of clout at Volkswagen. They hold half the seats on the board of directors. The state government, which is a part-owner of the company, also has two board seats — together with the employee representatives a majority — and 20% of the voting rights at the company. Lower Saxony Gov. Stephan Weil has said the company needs to address its costs but should avoid plant closings.

That means management will have to negotiate - a process that will take months.

Managers at the employee assembly faced several minutes of boos, whistles and tooting horns before they could start their presentation on the potential explanation. “We are Volkswagen, you are not,” workers chanted.

Daniela Cavallo, who chairs the company works council representing employees, said the council “won't go along with plant closings.” Reducing labor costs won't turn around Volkswagen's financial situation, she argued.

“Volkswagen’s problem is upper management isn’t doing its job,” Cavallo said. “There are many other areas where the company is responsible... We have to have competitive products, we don't have the entry-level models in electric cars.”

 

Because Of Ukraine War And Kremlin’s Promotion Of Toxic Masculinity, Gender Gap In Population In Russia On The Rise – OpEd

 September 8, 2024 By Paul Goble

Because of war and other societal traumas in the Soviet Union, the share of men in the population of the Russian Federation is lower relative to women than in almost any other country and the gap between life expectancy of men and women there extremely high, Russian demographers say.

Between 2006 and 2021, these differences began to narrow; but with the launch of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine and both the combat losses it has produced and the toxic masculine behaviors including increased alcohol consumption related to the war, both male-feel divisions have widened once again (cherta.media/story/strana-zhenshhin/).

In 2020, women formed 54 percent of the population of the Russian Federation, while men formed only 46 percent, demographers say; and they outlived men on average by 10 years. Now, new data show that the share of women in the population is rising, and the gap in life expectancy between the two genders is as well. Now, it is again over 11 years.  

Many continue to blame these patterns on events of the 20th century, independent Moscow demographer Aleksey Raksha says; but that is a mistake. Today’s gender differences reflect both deaths from the war in Ukraine and even more, others say, riskier male behavior, including the over-consumption of hard liquor in the form of vodka or samogon.

Alcohol currently is behind “no fewer than 150,000 to 200,000 deaths in Russia each year, Raksha says, “and about 80 percent of them are men” who drink in response to the absence of the kind of possibilities that exist in other societies that encourage men in them to drink ever less and to worry more about taking care of their health.  

Russian sociologist Irina Tartakovskaya says the shortage of men has enormous negative consequences for society, including but not limited to hostility toward women among men who can’t find sexual partners and the increasing number of female-headed single parent families who are poorer and a greater drain on state resources.

In Russia today, 4,850,000 families are in that category, “almost 40 percent of the total,” official statistics show (https://govoritmoskva.ru/news/406224); and their share will only increase if the gender gaps in Russia continue and the government does nothing to alter its current support for toxic masculinity.

But even if the war ends soon and the Russian government stops supporting risky male behaviors, Russian demographers like Raksha say, the likelihood that either of the gender gaps in Russian demography will change anytime in the next several decades is very low. Consequently, at least for the near future, the situation with regard to them and Russian society will get worse. 

Russian soldiers. Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons

 

As China Buys Less Oil, Angola Struggles To Repay Debt

 September 7, 2024

By Africa Defense Forum

Angola’s long-running financial relationship with China has been built on a simple equation: Angola would repay its growing Chinese debt with oil, a strategy that became known as the Angola Model.

The strategy is faltering, however, as China has begun importing less oil from Angola and other African nations and more from Russia, the Persian Gulf and Asia. The shift has been driven, in part, by African countries’ lack of investment in new oilfields and infrastructure. Aging equipment and shrinking oilfields make the continent’s oil producers, including Angola, less reliable as exporters, according to researchers with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The shift also reflects the lopsided relationship between China and African countries. While China remains the largest export market for Angola and other African nations, Africa as a whole amounts to less than 5% of China’s imports, according to Carnegie Endowment researchers.

“The case of Angola is particularly striking,” the researchers wrote in a recent report on China’s shifting relations with African nations. In 2010, Angola was China’s second-largest oil exporter behind Saudi Arabia. By 2023, Angola had fallen to eighth place. Between 2019 and 2023, Angola’s exports to China fell 20%, according to the Carnegie report.

“Without stability and significant investment in secondary recovery of mature oilfields, it’s a trend that is set to continue,” Luke Patey, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, told the South China Morning Post.

During that same 2019 to 2023 period, Angola’s oil production fell 22% from 1.42 million barrels per day to 1.1 million barrels per day.

China receives nearly 72% of Angola’s oil exports, making it Angola’s largest oil importer. However, the recent drop in business is straining Angola’s ability to keep up with its Chinese debt. Since 2002, Angola has borrowed more than $45 billion from China, more than half of that going into its energy sector, according to Boston University.

Angola still owes Chinese lenders $17 billion. Chinese loans constitute about 40% of Angola’s total debt. Overall, debt payments consume about half of Angola’s national budget every year, placing it among African countries most vulnerable to a potential debt crisis, according to international credit rating agency S&P Global.

Chinese lenders gave Angola a three-year reprieve on loan payments that ended in 2023 — just as Angola’s economy took a downturn. As oil revenues have declined, Angola has been forced to cover interest payments on its debt by tapping into a Chinese-held $1.5 billion escrow fund that was mandated as part of its loans. This year’s debt payment to Chinese leaders is estimated at $10.1 billion.

Angola recently left OPEC, the cartel of oil-producing countries, after a dispute over quotas. Angolan authorities hope that step will encourage more direct investment by China and other countries in its oil sector. In the meantime, the country’s leaders are trying to diversify their economy to reduce the impact of fluctuating oil prices.

Angolan Finance Minister Vera Daves de Sousa recently told the Financial Times that Angola agreed with its largest creditor, the China Development Bank, to release cash held as collateral for its billions of dollars in loans.

Daves de Sousa said the escrow will release $150 to $200 million a month to meet those debt obligations. The plan does not include a restructuring on the debt which other African nations have requested. Such restructurings often extend the payment period, ultimately increasing the amount of the repayment as interest continues to mount.

Instead, Daves de Sousa said, the plan is designed to pay off the Chinese debt more quickly and avoid default.

“We understand that it is not restructuring, because we didn’t ask for a change of maturities and we didn’t ask for a change of payments,” Daves de Sousa said.

Africa Defense Forum
The Africa Defense Forum (ADF) magazine is a security affairs journal that focuses on all issues affecting peace, stability, and good governance in Africa. ADF is published by the U.S. Africa Command.

Chemical Cocktail Of Micropollutants Amplified The Effect Of Algal Toxins Causing Mass Fish Mortality On The River Oder In 2022

 

The scientists took water samples at five locations along the River Oder, extracted poisoned fish and analysed the effects of the micropollutants. CREDIT: Annika Jahnke / UFZ

 September 7, 2024

By Eurasia Review

Summer 2022’s environmental disaster led to the death of up to 60 per cent of fish biomass and up to 85 per cent of mussel and snail biomass in the River Oder.

In August 2022, the UFZ set up an interdisciplinary ad hoc working group together with researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (Vetmeduni) and the University of Birmingham. They took water samples at five locations along the Oder, extracted poisoned fish and analysed and evaluated the samples.

“The aim of the study was to find out which micropollutants are in the Oder, how they affect aquatic organisms in the river and what threat the cocktail of algal toxins and micropollutants could pose to humans,” says Prof Dr Beate Escher, lead author and environmental toxicologist at the UFZ.

As the researchers now explain in the scientific journal Nature Water, they were able to detect more than 120 organic micropollutants in the water samples. The highest concentrations of chemical substances were found for the flame retardant tris(1-chloro-2-propyl)phosphate, the polymer additive hexamethoxymethylmelamine and the corrosion inhibitor 1H-benzotriazole. Most of the pollutants detected were presumably discharged into the Oder from sewage treatment plants, but their concentrations were low. However, the scientific team also found pollutants such as 2,4-dichlorophenol, which were probably discharged from industry, as well as pesticides and their degradation products, such as chlorotoluron, which were discharged directly into the water from agricultural land.

“The concentrations of these chemicals are not unusually high, but are typical for European rivers”, says Beate Escher. “They did not lead to fish mortality, but together with the algal toxins they can lead to additional stress for aquatic organisms.”

The researchers used the risk quotient RQ to analyse the extent of this stress and thus the risk of the detected pollutants for aquatic organisms. The RQ is defined as the ratio between the measured concentration of a pollutant and its predicted no effect concentration (PNEC). If the RQ exceeds the value of 1, the pollutant can affect aquatic life. The researchers added up the RQs of the detected chemicals and thus obtained mixture risk quotients (RQmix) of between 16 and 22 at the sampling sites.

“All RQmix values significantly exceeded the threshold value of 1, which indicates a potential risk to aquatic organisms from pollutants,” says co-author and water chemist Dr Stephanie Spahr from IGB.

Only 30 organic micropollutants were included in the model, although thousands of organic chemicals are probably present in the river. The chemical cocktails extracted from the water samples also showed clear effects in laboratory experiments with algae, water fleas and zebrafish embryos, which are considered common models for aquatic organisms.

The researchers investigated how these pollutants and the prymnesins found in the Oder interact as mixtures in water extracts using neurotoxic effects on human nerve cells in vitro.

“This test, which is commonly used in bioanalysis and water quality assessment, does not aim to assess the risk to human health, but rather to identify the mixture effects of neurotoxic chemicals,” says Beate Escher.

Assistant Professor Dr Elisabeth Varga, a food and environmental analyst at VetMedUni Vienna, provided an algal toxin standard that is very similar to the prymnesins identified in the Oder. The in vitro assays are carried out at the UFZ in automated high-throughput screening in the modern CITEPro technology platform in very small volumes. “It was therefore possible to test this prymnesin standard and other detected micropollutants as well as the water extracts directly,” says Beate Escher.

Even at very low concentrations in the nanomolar range, prymnesins shortened the outgrowths of nerve cells that are responsible for signal transmission and killed the cells.

In addition, many organic micropollutants quantified in the water extracts were analysed: several substances were neurotoxic, but at significantly higher doses.

“Through mixture modelling and comparisons of the neurotoxicity measured in the extracts, we were able to show that prymnesins dominate the neurotoxic effect. However, the micropollutants we detected also contributed to this,” says Elisabeth Varga.

However, the effects of pollution on aquatic organisms in rivers such as the Oder could ultimately be much greater.

“The prymnesins have a very high proportion of the cocktail effects, which are exacerbated by micropollutants. This puts even more pressure on the entire ecosystem of the Oder, which is already under great stress,” says Beate Escher.

And Prof Dr Luisa Orsini, co-author and Professor of Evolutionary Systems Biology and Environmental Omics at the University of Birmingham, adds: “The warmer temperatures and extreme weather events caused by climate change can make such toxic algal blooms an even greater risk for inland and marine waters and the population.”

Türkiye’s Erdogan Calls for Islamic Alliance against Israel

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends a press conference with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (not pictured), Ankara, Türkiye, 04 September 2024. (EPA)

8 September 2024

 AD ـ 05 Rabi’ Al-Awwal 1446 AH


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday Islamic countries should form an alliance against what he called "the growing threat of expansionism" from Israel.

He made the comment after describing what Palestinian and Turkish officials said was the killing by Israeli troops of a Turkish-American woman taking part in a protest on Friday against settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

"The only step that will stop Israeli arrogance, Israeli banditry, and Israeli state terrorism is the alliance of Islamic countries," Erdogan said at an Islamic schools' association event near Istanbul.

He said recent steps that Türkiye has taken to improve ties with Egypt and Syria are aimed at "forming a line of solidarity against the growing threat of expansionism," which he said also threatened Lebanon and Syria.

Erdogan hosted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Ankara this week and they discussed the Gaza war and ways to further repair their long-frozen ties during what was the first such presidential visit in 12 years.

Ties between them started thawing in 2020 when Türkiye began diplomatic efforts to ease tensions with estranged regional countries.

Erdogan said in July that Türkiye would extend an invitation to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "any time" for possible talks to restore relations between the two neighbors, who severed ties in 2011 after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.

Israel did not immediately comment on Erdogan's remarks on Saturday.

Israel's military said after Friday's incident that it was looking into reports that a female foreign national "was killed as a result of shots fired in the area. The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review.

There was no immediate comment on Friday's incident from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

Killing of activists without remorse by Israel an 'atrocious reality,' says ex-British MP

'We can't continue with this complicity whilst innocent civilians continue to die, continue to be injured and continue to lose loved ones,' Ex-Labour Party lawmaker tells Anadolu

Burak Bir |08.09.2024 - TRT/AA


The insurgence into the West Bank, the total annihilation of the Palestinian people, the killing of activists and journalists without remorse from Israel, it's an atrocious reality that we're all facing,' says Claudia Webbe

LONDON

The killing of a Turkish-American activist in the West Bank by Israel during a peaceful protest is a "terrible atrocity" that is continuing to go on, according to a former British MP, who said Israel is "out of control."

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot dead by Israeli forces on Friday while participating in a demonstration against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita.

An autopsy report of Eygi has confirmed she was killed by an Israeli sniper’s bullet to the head, Nablus governor Ghassan Daghlas said on Saturday.

Eygi, 26, had been actively involved in solidarity movements supporting Palestinian rights. Her death has sparked outrage and calls for accountability from both local and international communities.

"The insurgence into the West Bank, the total annihilation of the Palestinian people, the killing of activists and journalists without remorse from Israel, it's an atrocious reality that we're all facing," Claudia Webbe, a former Labour Party lawmaker, told Anadolu.

"We're seeing daylight murder, and it's absolutely appalling," said Webbe, reiterating her call for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians since last October. She also called for a stop on arming Israel, saying it is "absolutely vital."

The UK has suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licenses to Israel after a review, warning there is a "clear risk" the equipment could be used to commit serious violations of international law.

The 30 licenses cover components for military aircraft, helicopters, drones and items that facilitate ground targeting, excluding parts made in the UK for the F-35 fighter jet program.

Talking of the casualties, she said: "We know that many more have been maimed and injured, two thirds of them women and children. This has to stop."

"We march to ensure that we show our solidarity. We can never stop marching until Palestine is free, until there is a Palestine state and the recognition of Palestine," she said ahead of Saturday's national solidarity march for Palestinians in London.

Webbe said stopping arms shipments to Israel is not enough and people need "boycotts, divestment and sanctions now."

"We need governments to listen. We can't continue with this complicity whilst innocent civilians continue to die, continue to be injured and continue to lose loved ones," she added.

"The children of Gaza deserve better. Palestine deserves a future, and we all have to keep marching now."

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Besides the casualties, the military campaign has turned much of the enclave of 2.3 million people into ruins, leaving most civilians homeless and at risk of famine.

SNIPER SHOT TO THE HEAD

Türkiye making efforts to repatriate body of Turkish-American activist killed by Israel

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was shot dead by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank on Friday

Seda Sevencan |08.09.2024 -

The  lifeless body of Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot in the head with a bullet by Israeli forces, are taken to Rafidia State Hospital in Nablus, West Bank on September 06, 2024.

ISTANBUL

Türkiye is actively working to facilitate the handover of the body of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a Turkish-American activist killed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank, to her family for burial, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

“We continue the necessary work to deliver the body of our citizen Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was killed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, to her family for burial,” Oncu Keceli wrote on X.

“We are in contact with the deceased's family members living in the United States and relatives in Türkiye."

Keceli said: “At this stage, the autopsy report is expected to be forwarded to our Consulate General In Jerusalem by the Palestinian authorities,” adding that Eygi’s “body will first be brought to Israel and then transferred to our country via Jordan.”

Eygi, 26, a dual citizen of Türkiye and the US, was shot dead by Israeli forces during a Friday protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita, Nablus district of occupied West Bank.

The international community, including Türkiye, the US and UN, has condemned the killing, and the death has sparked outrage and calls for accountability from both local and international communities.

The Israeli military has yet to comment on the specifics of the incident or the findings of the autopsy.

Eygi’s killing echoes the case of American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed in a similar manner in 2022.

Shireen, a senior Al Jazeera journalist widely respected for her extensive coverage of Palestine and Israel, was shot in the head on May 11, 2022 while covering an Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank city of Hebron. She was wearing a press jacket and a helmet.

* Ikram Kouachi contributed to this story

American shot dead at West Bank demo where Israeli forces opened fire

By AFP
September 6, 2024

Israeli forces withdrew from a deadly 10-day raid in the West Bank city of Jenin - Copyright POOL/AFP ROBERTO SCHMIDT

Imad Saada

A Turkish-American woman was shot dead Friday while demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank town of Beita, where the army acknowledged opening fire.

Turkey identified the woman as Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, condemning her death, while the United States called it a “tragic” event and called on its ally Israel to carry out an investigation.

While Washington stopped short from blaming anyone, the UN rights office directly accused Israeli forces of killing Eygi, saying Israeli security forces “shot in the head and killed” her.

The incident occurred as Israeli forces withdrew from a deadly 10-day raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, another flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, amid the ongoing Gaza war.

The raid, part of broader Israeli military operations, has drawn international criticism, with Israeli ally Germany warning against escalating military actions in the West Bank.

The UN said Eygi, 26, was participating in a “peaceful anti-settlement protest” in Beita, scene of weekly demonstrations. Israeli settlements in the West Bank — where some 490,000 people live — are illegal under international law.

She arrived at the Rafidia hospital in Nablus “with a gunshot in the head” and was later pronounced dead, said hospital director Fouad Nafaa.

Turkey said she was killed by “Israeli occupation soldiers”. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the Israeli action as “barbaric”.

“We are deeply disturbed by the tragic death of an American citizen,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre aboard Air Force One travelling with President Joe Biden.

“We have reached out to the government of Israel to ask for more information and request an investigation into the incident,” she added.

The Israeli army said it was looking into her death.

Eygi was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organisation, and was in Beita for a weekly demonstration against Israeli settlements, said Neta Golan, the group’s co-founder.

– ‘Series of crimes’ –

Beita mayor Mahmud Barham said he was told an Israeli soldier “fired two shots” at protesters demonstrating against an Israeli settlement outpost, with one bullet hitting Eygi “in the head”.

An ISM activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the shot that killed Eygi was “a shot to kill” and reported seeing “blood coming out of her head”.

The Israeli army said its forces “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them”.

Since Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel which triggered the ongoing war in Gaza, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 662 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

At least 23 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period, according to Israeli officials.

Responding to Friday’s incident, Hamas strongly condemned “the crime committed by the Zionist occupation army” resulting in Eygi’s death.

Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee, said on X that he extended condolences to Eygi’s family.

“Another crime added to the series of crimes committed daily by the occupation forces, which require that their perpetrators be held accountable in international courts,” he said.

– Jenin pullout –

There was no official confirmation of the withdrawal from Jenin, but AFP journalists reported residents returning home.

The raid on Jenin and other regions of the West Bank killed “35 terrorists’, the Israeli army said Friday, stressing that its “counterterrorism operation has yet to be concluded”.

The UN rights office said however that 36 Palestinians, including eight children, were killed in the 10-day operation launched on August 28.

The Jenin pullout came with Israel at loggerheads with key ally the United States over talks to forge a truce in the Gaza war, now nearly in its 12th month.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel and Hamas to finalise a deal, saying: “I think based on what I’ve seen, 90 percent is agreed.”

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied this, telling Fox News: “It’s not close.”

Washington and fellow mediators Qatar and Egypt have been pushing a proposal to bridge gaps between both sides.

Netanyahu insists on a military presence on the border between Gaza and Egypt along the so-called Philadelphi Corridor.

Hamas is demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal, saying it agreed months ago to a proposal outlined by US President Joe Biden.

Visiting Israel on Friday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said “a purely military approach is no solution to the situation in Gaza”, after the recovery of six dead hostages announced at the weekend.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians including some hostages killed in captivity, according to official Israeli figures.

Of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the attack, 97 remain in Gaza including 33 the Israeli military says are dead. Scores were released during a one-week truce in November.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has so far killed at least 40,878 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Most of the dead are women and children, according to the UN rights office.

burs/hkb/dv

750, 000 Israeli protesters bring Tel Aviv to a halt, demand deal to free captives

Frustration spills over as thousands of Israelis protest government’s failure to secure the release of captives in Gaza.

An aerial view of thousands of Israelis gathering with banners to protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government for not signing the ceasefire agreement in Tel Aviv, Israel, on September 07, 2024 

[Yair Palti/Anadolu]

Published On 8 Sep 2024

An estimated 750,000 Israelis have taken to the streets in one of Israel’s biggest-ever protests as they demanded that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strike a deal to free remaining captives in Gaza.

The record number of demonstrators comes a week after the Israeli Army announced it had recovered the bodies of six captives from a tunnel in southern Gaza.

Family members of Israeli captives and groups representing them blame Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government for failing to secure a truce deal that would secure their release.

More than 100 captives still remain in Gaza, but about one-third of them are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli military. A total of 105 captives were released by Hamas in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons as part of a deal in November.

The Palestinians fighters led by Hamas took about 240 people captive in the wake of attack in southern Israel on October 7. At least 1,139 people were killed in the attack.

Since then Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and destroyed vast swaths of the coastal enclave in a campaign that has caused global condemnation. Israel has also killed more than 600 people in the occupied West Bank and detained nearly 10,000 Palestinians.

Record number of protesters

Organisers say 500,000 people attended rallies in Tel Aviv, and 250,000 others joined rallies in towns elsewhere in the country.

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reporting from Amman, Jordan, because the channel has been banned from Israel by the government, said most demonstrators say they will continue to protest until the government hears their demands and changes its policy.

“The consecutive demonstrations over the last week saw unprecedented crowds, but Netanyahu maintains that military pressure is still the main way to bring the remaining captives back home, and a deal to bring about their release is still nowhere in sight,” Salhut reported.

Danielle Aloni, a released captive, spoke at the rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night and said, “Mr Prime Minister, a few days ago, in front of the families of the captives and said, sorry that we’re not able to bring them back alive. But what kind of forgiveness is that if you do not intend to change your ways?” before adding, “We will not forgive”.




Libby Lenkinski, vice president for public engagement at the New Israel Fund, says that increasing numbers of Israelis recognise that a lasting ceasefire is the only way that can be achieved.

According to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), there have been an average of 113 protests across Israel per month since October last year.



“There were groups of protesters calling for a ceasefire as early as November and December [last year], and I think that number has been growing in a pretty steady way,” Lenkinski told Al Jazeera in an interview from New York.

She said the number of protesters had “grown pretty dramatically in the past week”, with an increasing number of Israelis protesting now understanding that a ceasefire is actually the only way that the captives will return to Israel.

“I think that’s now a pretty common understanding among protesters. You do see a rising number of Israelis wanting this to end whether they are in the streets or not,” she said.

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

Robert Reich: The US Jobs Report: What It Means For The Fed And Politics – OpEd

 September 8, 2024

By Robert Reich

Friday’s jobs report is being looked at carefully for two reasons: 

First, the Fed meets again on September 18. It has kept interest rates high to hobble inflation, but inflation has been (more or less) tamed, so the big question is whether it will cut interest rates by a quarter of a point (25 basis points, in Wall Street lingo) or a half a point (50 basis points). The latter will obviously give the economy a bigger push. 

Second, most Americans believe the economy is the most important issue in the upcoming presidential election — now in its final stretch — and a very good jobs report can be helpful to Kamala Harris to reassure voters; a bad jobs report could be helpful to Trump to make his case that Biden-Harris have failed on the economy. 

So which is it? Well, let’s take a closer look. 

Employers added 142,000 jobs in August, which is fewer than economists had expected — a slight disappointment, for the second consecutive month. And June and July’s job numbers were revised downward — bringing the three-month average to 116,000 jobs. That’s fairly bad news. (If the economy is healthy, it should be creating 200,000 jobs a month.)

But wait. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.2 percent, after rising to 4.3 percent in July. And average hourly earnings rose 0.4 percent in August from the previous month, or 3.8 percent from a year earlier. All good news. 

But wait again. If you add in everyone who’s working part-time who’d rather be working full-time, the broader unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9 percent in August, the highest level since October 2021. Bad news. 

Yet hold on. The average workweek also increased slightly, indicating that workers are getting more hours. Good news. 

The percentage of people in their prime working years (ages 25 to 54) who were working went down a bit in August, to 83.9 percent. But that’s hardly a cause for concern because the July rate of 84 percent was the highest since 2001. That’s pretty good news. 

Bottom line? This is largely a steady-as-she-goes jobs report. The economy doesn’t seem to be sliding toward recession, nor is it expanding as fast as it could. We’re still on course for a “soft landing” — with little inflation and almost no cause for alarm about the economy cooling too quickly. 

My betting is the Fed will cut interest rates by a quarter of a point when it meets on September 18 rather than by a half of a point. 

As to politics, this report should have no bearing. Trump will of course accuse Harris of poor economic management, but that’s absurd. Not only was she not in charge, but Harris can credibly claim to be part of an administration that’s brought inflation down from double digits while continuing to expand job growth — a far better record than Trump had when he was president.

Robert Reich

Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, and writes at robertreich.substack.com. Reich served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fifteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of Nations," and"Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The Common Good," which is available in bookstores now. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.