From Ukraine To Myanmar, Drone Warfare Marks A Paradigm Shift – Analysis

Ukrainian soldiers pose with a drone. Photo Credit: Anton Sheveliov, Ukraine Ministry of Defence

 September 16, 2024

By Geopolitical Monitor

By Antonio Graceffo

On September 10, Ukrainian forces launched the largest drone attack of the war to date, targeting Moscow with 144 drones. The assault resulted in 20 drones being shot down, while several multi-story residential buildings near Moscow were set ablaze. Flights from Russia’s most important airports were temporarily suspended. In response, Russia launched a retaliatory strike using 46 drones.

The strikes from both sides highlight a now indisputable fact: drone warfare is playing a determining role in the Ukraine war.

Armed drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), are pilotless aircraft used to locate, monitor, and strike targets, including individuals and equipment. Since the September 11 attacks, the United States has significantly expanded its use of UAVs for global counterterrorism missions. Drones have key advantages over manned weapons. They can stay airborne for over 14 hours, compared to under four hours for manned aircraft like the F-16, allowing for continuous surveillance without risking pilot safety. Additionally, drones offer near-instant responsiveness, with missiles striking targets within seconds, unlike slower manned systems, such as the 1998 cruise missile strike on Osama bin Laden, which relied on hours-old intelligence.

There is much discussion in the US defense establishment regarding the use of drones, drone policy and how they should be incorporated into military strategy. According to the Marine Corps University, in order to calculate the effectiveness of a drone strike, several factors must be considered, including Tactical Military Effectiveness (TME), Operational Military Effectiveness (OME), and Strategic Military Effectiveness (SME). TME assesses how well the drone strike achieves its immediate objective, such as neutralizing a specific target. OME evaluates the broader impact on military operations, such as troop movements or operational coordination. Lastly, SME considers the long-term consequences of drone warfare, including the effects of drone strikes on enemy leadership, public opinion, and international relations. All three factors are critical in ensuring that drone strikes align with both short-term and long-term military objectives.

Drones are being deployed in large numbers in the Ukraine war, having already played a major role in the battles between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. They are also becoming an increasingly key platform in the Myanmar civil war and conflicts across the Middle East. Advanced militaries, including the Pentagon, are closely monitoring these theaters to refine their own drone strategies. For example, recently the U.S. released a ‘drone hellscape strategy’ for the defense of Taiwan, while China has been conducting simulations of a drone-only attack on the island. Yet even the world’s most advanced militaries seem to lack a definitive approach to drone warfare. And, ironically, they continue to learn valuable lessons from underfunded and undertrained rebels in other far-flung global conflicts.

Drone warfare in the Myanmar civil war

The Free Burma Rangers, a frontline aid group in the Myanmar civil war, has been reporting on the increasing incidence of drone warfare in the conflict. On September 6, 2024, a Tatmadaw drone strike resulted in the deaths of four civilians—two men and two women, and one person was also wounded in the attack. Another drone dropped a handmade bomb on a civilian home in Loi Lem Lay Village, Karenni State. During the same incident, a Tatmadaw drone with six propellers experienced mechanical issues while flying over the battlefield and was subsequently captured by the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF), a pro-democracy ethnic army. Taken together, these incidents underscore how drone warfare is still in its tactical infancy, with numerous failed deployments, and how payloads and weaponization are often being improvised by soldiers on the ground.

Other rebel armies in the Myanmar civil war, particularly the People’s Defense Forces (PDF), have developed their own drone units. For instance, a PDF unit reportedly carried out 125 drone strikes during the Battle of Loikaw in Kayah State. Another unit claims responsibility for around 80 drone strikes last year, resulting in the deaths of 80 to 100 junta troops. These forces are either manufacturing their own drones or repurposing civilian models by adding deployable explosives. The drones are inexpensive, widely available, and highly effective. Even the junta, supported by China and Russia, has adopted similar tactics by attaching mortar shells to their drones, while ethnic armiesoften use homemade explosives based on mortar shells captured from the Tatmadaw. These devices can range from 40 to 60mm, carry up to 2.5 kg of explosives and shrapnel, and are capable of killing or injuring anyone within a 100-meter radius in open terrain.

FPV drones a game-changer in the Ukraine war

In addition to homemade and modified drones, first-person view (FPV) drones can cost around $500 USD each, while reconnaissance drones equipped with advanced cameras can run into the thousands. Ukraine is deploying these drones at a rate of 100,000 per month, with plans to produce one million FPV drones in 2024. For a sense of just how important drones have become in the Ukraine war, consider the fact that this figure far exceeds the number of artillery shells supplied by the entire European Union over the past year.

FPV drones, launched from improvised platforms, can fly between 5 and 20 kilometers depending on their size, battery, and payload. Controlled by a soldier using a headset for a first-person view, with another providing guidance via maps on a tablet, these drones are often used to target vulnerable points such as tank hatches or engines. Their real-time video feed, transmitted through goggles or a headset similar to VR gaming, gives the operator precise control, especially in complex environments like urban warfare or dense terrain. FPV drones are effective for reconnaissance, targeted strikes, and even suicide missions, where they carry explosives and fly directly into a target. Unlike planes or helicopters, they are not hindered by anti-aircraft systems near the front lines. In fact, a $500 FPV drone can target the open hatch of a Russian tank worth millions of dollars, demonstrating their cost-effectiveness in modern warfare.

The rise of counter-drone and jamming technologies

As drone warfare becomes increasingly common on the battlefield, a need arises for effective drone jamming technologies. While Russian, Ukrainian, and other armies have access to jammers, ethnic armies in Myanmar lack them almost entirely. Jammers start at $2,400, but many cheap, commercially available models are essentially useless due to significant design flaws. Some have fixed antennae that point upward, despite attacks coming from the side, and many generate excessive heat without proper cooling. This raises concerns about their effectiveness in harsh environments, such as the deserts of the Middle East or the humid jungles of Myanmar.

Moreover, electronic jamming devices work on specific frequencies and drone pilots are adapting by switching to less commonly used ones. To counter this, new technologies like pocket-sized “tenchies” and backpack electronic warfare (EW) systems have emerged, jamming signals across a broader 720-1,050 MHz range, making them more effective against Russian drones. Despite Ukraine’s deployment of these newer jammers, Russia’s use of hunter-killer drone systems like the Orlan-10 for spotting and the Lancet for strikes, along with missile-equipped Orion drones, continue to challenge Ukraine’s drone defenses.

In response, Ukraine has created the Unmanned Systems Force (USF), a military branch dedicated to drone warfare. Additionally, semi-autonomous drones using AI are being developed to bypass jamming altogether. We remain in the nascent stages of drone warfare, where evolution is playing out in real time via innovations on the battlefield. In this sense, US defense spending in Ukraine is serving as an investment in research and development for the drone wars of tomorrow.

• This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

Shar

Geopolitical Monitor

Geopoliticalmonitor.com is an open-source intelligence collection and forecasting service, providing research, analysis and up to date coverage on situations and events that have a substantive impact on political, military and economic affairs.

AN OLD IDEA RESURFACES

Report pitches Alaska gas line over imports as cheaper solution to looming energy challenges

Alex DeMarban, 

Anchorage Daily News, 

Alaska
Sun, September 15, 2024 

Sep. 15—A long-sought 800-mile gas line would provide cheaper natural gas for use in the state compared to imported gas, according to a preliminary analysis commissioned by the Alaska Gasline Development Corp.

The report, conducted by global energy analyst Wood Mackenzie, also says that the long-productive Cook Inlet basin in Southcentral Alaska could be depleted of gas in about a decade.

The head of Enstar, Southcentral Alaska's natural gas utility, said the utility supports a gas line from the North Slope and does not disagree with the report's findings. But the utility, which is pursuing a plan to import gas, said the longer time need to build the gas line is an issue.

The analysis comes as state leaders grapple with the looming shortage of gas from the basin, and utilities like Enstar weigh gas imports that are expected to boost the price of heat and power for Alaskans.

The report does not answer where the billions of dollars needed to build that gas line will come from, a problem that for decades has hobbled efforts to build the infrastructure needed to tap vast quantities of North Slope gas.

The report points out that the gas line would take three years longer to complete than importing gas, which could potentially start in 2028.

It also makes noteworthy assumptions, leading one energy analyst to describe it as excessively optimistic. One assumption is that gas for the project will be produced by a company that currently does not produce oil or gas, Great Bear Pantheon. The exploration company is working to develop two North Slope projects, and has signed a preliminary deal with the gas line corporation to sell the gas to it, if it is produced.

The Wood Mackenzie report found that shipping North Slope gas to Southcentral Alaska for in-state use would cost about 9% less than imports, on average.

The pipe-delivered gas would run about $10.90 per million cubic feet daily, on average, based on a pricing range in the report.

Both options are higher than the current price of natural gas in Southcentral Alaska at about $8.69, according to the report.

Wood Mackenzie will later provide a full, final report that will go to the Alaska Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy, according to board members of the Alaska gas line agency, who expressed support for the report's findings at a meeting on Thursday.

The state gas line agency has worked unsuccessfully for about a decade to build the $44 billion Alaska LNG project. It would ship North Slope gas to Southcentral and super-chill it into a liquid that can be exported overseas.

The agency has proposed building the pipeline as a first-phase step in the project, at $11 billion, to address the anticipated gas shortage in Alaska.

However, the broader Alaska LNG project is operating under a short timeline.

Key board members of the gas line corporation have told state lawmakers in a letter that efforts to mothball, sell or shut down the project should begin at the end of this year, unless the agency finds private funding for at least the first phase, and "if there is insufficient value realized for the state."

Enstar: 'The problem is timing'

The Wood Mackenzie report focuses on the cost of in-state gas if that first-step pipeline is built.

It assumes that 25% of the funding for the phase would come from ownership equity, with the remainder financed with debt.

It does not provide details on the potential source for the the funding.

It says a federal loan guarantee and reduced property tax for the project would have the most impact in reducing the cost of gas.

The report also says that building the pipeline will provide several billions of dollars in extra benefits to Alaska, compared to imports. The construction of the line could support more economic growth, jobs and tax and royalty income for the state.

Enstar, the natural gas utility for Southcentral Alaska, has warned that the gas shortfall could begin next year, leading to particular concerns about gas supply this winter when demand will be highest.

Alaskans got an idea of the concerns during a severe cold snap last winter, when equipment at an underground gas storage reservoir in Cook Inlet failed to produce gas as expected. If the situation had worsened, Southcentral residents would have been asked to take energy reduction steps.

Enstar this year has proposed a plan to import marine shipments of natural gas into Southcentral, through Port MacKenzie, across Cook Inlet from Anchorage.

The plan includes a proposal for a $57 million pipeline, and would require the use of a specialized ship moored at the port to process the gas, to prepare it for shipment in pipelines.

John Sims, president of Enstar, said in a prepared statement on Thursday that Enstar supports using North Slope gas to meet in-state needs.

But the schedule for getting a pipeline built is an important consideration, he said.

"Enstar has always supported and promoted utilizing natural gas from the North Slope," he said. "We are not surprised to see yet another study that acknowledges that the Cook Inlet is running out of available gas for utilities and that if the pipeline is built, it will bring cheap gas to Alaskans."

"The report highlights findings that we don't disagree with," Sims said.

"The problem is timing," he said. "Whatever we move forward with as an import solution will not impede the progress of the AKLNG project, and we will set ourselves up to take advantage of its benefits when it arrives."

Wood Mackenzie also reported that Cook Inlet gas production is expected to be depleted in the mid-2030s.

The report says exploration success has been limited in the basin, an indication that new discoveries can't come to the rescue. Only three commercial discoveries have been made in the last 15 years despite 34 exploration wells drilled. That's a 9% success ratio, the report says.

"Relying on additional production from Cook Inlet is not considered a viable option to meet long-term demand," the report says.

Larry Persily, an oil and gas analyst and former Alaska deputy commissioner of revenue, said the report is based on several of the "most optimistic assumptions" falling into place.

Persily, a longtime skeptic of the project, said key questions include whether the current cost estimate is too low, and who will invest the billions of dollars to build the project, he said.

"It's worrisome to base an $11 billion decision, if it is in fact $11 billion, on everything going right," he said. "There's lot of cards in this house that could turn up the wrong way as you try and build this thing."

Hay fever may have led to extinction of woolly mammoths

Daily Telegraph UK
15 Sep, 2024 

Hay fever may have led to the extinction of woolly mammoths, a study claims.

Plant pollen has been found in the remains of four mammoths, with scientists also discovering the first evidence of the animal having allergies.

Scientists believe that the ancestors of elephants may have suffered from allergies to plant pollen that damaged their sense of smell and ability to find a mate and reproduce.

This hay fever, researchers suggest, could have led to a prolonged decline in birth rates, culminating in the extinction of the species around 4000 years ago.

The last ice age ended around 10,000 years ago and led to a period of rapid climate change which saw trees and plants flourish.

Scientists from private companies in Israel partnered with academics in Italy and at the Russian Academy of Sciences to analyse tissue samples from four mammoth corpses now in a museum that were dug up from the permafrost in northeastern Siberia.

Allergies have been found as a possible cause for the extinction of the species.

Climate change theory

The conventional school of thought is that climate change led to the extinction of the woolly mammoths 4000 years ago, after millennia of increased isolation and population decline following the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago.

A 2021 study by Cambridge University scientists concluded that rapid climate change was “the final nail in the coffin” for the species which could grow up to 3.6m tall and weigh 7.2 tonne .

The warmer climate saw trees and wetland plants replace the preferred grassland habitat of the woolly mammoth, the decade-long project found. The loss of vegetation has been blamed as a key reason for mammoth extinction.

But humans have also been blamed for the demise of the mammoth, with studies suggesting over-hunting by early tribes fatally lowered herd numbers.

Early cavemen are known to have painted mammoths on the side of caves, as well as using their giant bones to make shelters and tusks to make weapons.

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First theory pointing to disease

But the latest study, published in the new Elsevier journal Earth History and Biodiversity “proposes a new evolutionary mechanism for the extinction of mammoths”.

“A new hypothesis and mechanism for the extinction of mammoths is proposed based on a decrease in the likelihood of mating due to allergies and decreased sensitivity to odours,” the scientists write.

Zilberstein added: “Our theory of the extinction of mammoths is the first one that pointed to markers of diseases – allergies to plants.

“It showed that the extinction was a slow process of decreasing the mammoth population due to the destruction of chemical communication [recognition by smell] between animals during the breeding season.”

REST IN POWER

Environmental activist who feared for life killed in Honduras

September 15, 2024 7:57 PM
By Agence France-Presse

Juan Lopez, left, sits with fellow Honduran environmental activists during an interview in Washington, D.C. Oct. 3, 2019.

Tegucigalpa, Honduras —

An anti-mining activist was shot and killed in Honduras, President Xiomara Castro said, vowing justice for the latest such murder in one of the world's most dangerous countries for environmentalists.

Juan Lopez, 46, was gunned down as he left church Saturday in the northeastern town of Tocoa, his widow Thelma Pena told AFP.

Castro condemned the "vile murder" in a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, late Saturday and said she had ordered an investigation.

"Justice for Juan Lopez," Castro wrote.

Lopez, who belonged to the ruling Libre party, campaigned against open-pit iron ore mining in a forest reserve in the vicinity of Tocoa, where he worked in the town hall.

In an interview with AFP in 2021, Lopez discussed the risks that he said environmental activists face in this poor and violent Central American country.

"If you start defending common interests in this country," he said, "you clash with major interests."

"If you leave home, you always have in mind that you do not know what might happen, if you are going to return," said Lopez.

At a recent news conference, the activist called for the resignation of Libre officials caught on video negotiating bribes with drug traffickers in 2013.

That video recently ensnared Carlos Zelaya, a brother-in-law of the president. He resigned his seat in congress after admitting he took part in that meeting with drug gangsters.

The U.N. country representative of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Isabel Albaladejo, urged investigators to consider "possible reprisals" against Lopez for his demand for a local mayor to resign for alleged links to organized crime.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had ordered protective measures for Lopez due to threats against him and other environmentalists from Tocoa.

Fellow rights defender Joaquin Mejia paid tribute to the environmentalist, calling him "a comrade committed to social change."

Mejia accused authorities of failing to "fulfill their obligation" to protect Lopez.

Honduran Attorney General Johel Zelaya said the "reprehensible" murder would not go unpunished, and paid tribute to Lopez's activism.

"His life was an example of struggle. He never gave up in his incessant battle, hand-in-hand with the people to preserve natural resources," Zelaya said on X.

The NGO Global Witness says Honduras is one of the world's most dangerous countries for environmental activists.

In 2023 it was ranked third in the world for the number of killings of such activists at 18, tied with Mexico. The top two were Colombia and Brazil.

The organization said that from 2012 to 2023, 148 environmental campaigners were killed in Honduras.

They include Berta Caceres, a high-profile opponent of a controversial hydroelectric dam who was murdered in 2016.

A council of Indigenous organizations co-founded by Caceres said that the Honduran state and Castro's government were "responsible for this new murder by not guaranteeing Juan's life."

 'FRIENDLY FIRE'

Israel admits killing three hostages by mistake

By Melanie Swan
Daily Telegraph UK·
15 Sep, 2024 

Hostage victims, from left, Nik Beizer, Ron Sherman, and Elia Toledano

Israel’s military has admitted there was “a high probability” that three hostages died as a result of an airstrike in Gaza, 10 months after they were killed.

The families of soldiers Ron Sherman and Nik Beizer, both 19, and civilian Elia Toledano, 28, were informed that Israeli Defence Forces’ fire was responsible for their deaths.

A joint investigation was conducted by officers of the forces’ intelligence directorate, as well as operational commanders from the Israeli Air Force, and officers from the headquarters of the hostages and missing persons.

All three hostages were abducted on October 7, when more than 250 were taken captive and about 1100 mostly civilians were murdered in a Hamas attack.

The report stated there was “a high probability that the three were killed as a result of a byproduct of an IDF airstrike during the elimination of the Hamas northern brigade commander, Ahmed Ghandour, on November 10, 2023″.

However, it added that “it is not possible to definitively determine the circumstances of their deaths”.

The investigation indicated that the three hostages were held in the tunnel complex in Jabalia from which Ghandour operated. The forces said that at the time of the strike it did not have information about the presence of hostages in the targeted compound.

“Furthermore, there was information suggesting that they were located elsewhere, and thus the area was not designated as one with suspected presence of hostages,” the investigation said, adding that throughout the war, the forces have not struck areas where there are indications or suspicions of the presence of hostages.

The bodies were recovered from Gaza on December 14 and brought back to Israel for burial.

“The IDF continues, even at this moment, to exert all efforts to fulfil the paramount national mission of bringing all of the hostages home,” the report concluded.

In December, the forces accidentally shot and killed three hostages, Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz, and Samer Al-Talalka, fearing they were Hamas operatives posing as hostages. They went public on the tragedy just hours after it happened.

More recently, in February, the forces also said it was likely an airstrike had killed hostage Yossi Sharabi. As his body had not been recovered, the chance he had been killed by Hamas could also not be ruled out, the IDF said.

Germany holds back weapons supply to Israel, despite promise of support - report

"Ultimately, the growing concerns [against Israel] are the reason why fewer approvals are being granted, even if no one wants to say it out loud."

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

SEPTEMBER 16, 2024 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers his speech after a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Jerusalem, March 17, 2024.(photo credit: Leo Correa/Pool via REUTERS)

Although German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has reaffirmed his military support for Israel repeatedly, the German Federal Security Council, chaired by Scholz, has not approved arms exports to Israel for months, according to a Sunday Profil Magazine report.

According to the report, no approvals for arms exports to Israel have been granted since March. However, Scholz made public declarations of his solidarity with Israel and promised continued military aid at the end of July.

Furthermore, following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, Scholz came to Israel and delivered a pledge of unconditional solidarity with Jerusalem. He, along with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, have repeatedly emphasized their belief in Israel's right to self-defense, which included waging war in the Gaza Strip.

"Ultimately, the growing concerns [against Israel] are the reason why fewer approvals are being granted, even if no one wants to say it out loud," summarized an employee of a representative on the Federal Security Council.

Approvals to export arms to Israel were initially granted at the start of the Israel-Hamas war , and they included an increase in export approvals that reportedly totaled a value of 326 million euros – ten times more than in the previous year, 2022, before the war.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz hosts a reception for the diplomatic corps at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, September 10, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/AXEL SCHMIDT)

However, despite the initial increase in weapons aid, this support was no longer provided at the beginning of 2024, as the Israeli media outlet Shomrim discovered after speaking to several representatives of the arms industry. Those spoken to chose to remain anonymous.
Israel's need for weapons piles up, no permits come through

According to the report, the representatives explained how Israel's requests for weapons and arms from Germany had piled up, but the necessary export permits had not come through.

"Often, there are no approvals at all – or they take forever to be processed," the report noted. It added that "export volumes have dropped significantly compared to last year – from 326 million euros to 14.5 million (as of August 21, 2024)."

Meanwhile, Germany's budget plan reportedly still includes a line mentioning that it will "Contribute to the procurement of defense systems for Israel."
A heated topic in the party

When asked about the issue in the Middle East, a Green Party official of the Foreign Ministry said that the topic of arms exports "is not easy within our party. We have MPs who are hardcore Israel supporters and others who attend pro-Gaza demonstrations."

Furthermore, the Economics Ministry, which processed politically approved export permits at the civil servant level, stated in response to an inquiry about arms exports that, "The federal government takes allegations of possible violations of international humanitarian law very seriously."

"The federal government publicly and privately communicates to Israel its expectation that Israel will comply with international humanitarian law when exercising its right to self-defense," it added.

According to the daily Bild, sales of heavy weapons systems to the Emirate of Qatar – one of the most important supporters of the terrorist group Hamas – were approved.

Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.

THE LAST COLONY VIVE INDEPENDENCE

Pacific New Caledonia

12:40 pm today

New Caledonian local consortium makes offer for moth-balled Koniambo nickel plant

Patrick Decloitre, Correspondent French Pacific Desk

Koniambo nickel operation. Photo: Image courtesy of Glencore

A local consortium in New Caledonia is reported to have made an eleventh-hour offer to take over and restart activity for the now moth-balled Koniambo (KNS) nickel plant.

The plant's furnaces were placed in "cold" mode at the end of August, six months after major shareholder Anglo-Swiss Glencore announced it wanted to withdraw and sell the 49 percent shares it has in the project.

This caused close to 1200 job losses and another 600 among sub-contractors.

Although KNS claimed at least two foreign investors were still interested at this stage, none of these have so far materialised.

But a "Okelani Group One" (OGO), made up of three local partners, said their offer could revive the project with a different business model.

They have made an offer to KNS's majority shareholder SMSP (Société Minière du Sud Pacifique, New Caledonia's Northern province financial arm).

OGO President Florent Tavernier told public broadcaster NC la 1ère much depended on what Glencore intended to do with a debt of some US$13.7 billion KNS had accumulated over the past ten years.

Another OGO partner, Gilles Hernandez, explained: "We would be targeting a niche market of very high quality nickel used in aeronautics and edge-cutting technologies, especially in Europe, where nickel is now classified as 'strategic metal'."

Although KNS was designed to produce 60,000 tonnes of nickel per year, that target was never reached.

OGO said it would only aim for 15,000 tonnes per year and could only re-employ 400 of the 1,200 laid-off staff.

Takeover in sight for Southern New Caledonia plant

In the south of New Caledonia, another mining plant, Prony Resources, is also in dire straits and stopped operations a few months ago.

It has been trying to find a possible company to take over the shares held by Swiss trader Trafigura (19 percent).

But Southern Province President Sonia Backès told NC la 1ère last week that one "seriously interested" buyer had now been found.

"They have successfully passed the several stages of the takeover process and we really hope they can complete it," she said, without indicating where the potential buyer was from.

If the deal eventuated, the new entity would take over the shares held by Swiss trader Trafigura (19 percent) and another block of shares held by the Southern Province, with a total of 74 percent participation.

Prony Resources intends to remain open to new offers until February 2025, which leaves only five months to complete any takeover and transfer of shares process.

Prony Resources, in full operation mode, employs some 1,300 staff. Another 1,700 are also employed indirectly through sub-contractors.

It has paused its production only to retain up to 300 staff, in safety and maintenance mode, partly due to New Caledonia's current unrest and insurrectional situation.

CLIMATE CRISIS

Bebinca strongest typhoon to hit Shanghai since 1949

Rebecca BAILEY
Sun, 15 September 2024 


Pedestrians struggle with their umbrellas in strong winds and rain from the passage of Typhoon Bebinca in Shanghai on Monday (Hector RETAMAL) (Hector RETAMAL/AFP/AFP)


The strongest storm to hit Shanghai in over 70 years made landfall on Monday, with flights cancelled and highways closed as Typhoon Bebinca lashed the city with strong winds and torrential rains.

A red alert is in place, and some coastal residents have been evacuated, city authorities said.

The typhoon landed early Monday morning in the coastal area of Lingang New City, in Pudong to the city's east, the China Meteorological Administration said.


It is the strongest storm to hit Shanghai since Typhoon Gloria in 1949, state broadcaster CCTV said shortly after Bebinca made landfall.

Many businesses were already closed for the Mid-Autumn Festival public holiday, and the city's 25 million residents have been advised to avoid leaving their homes.

All flights at Shanghai's two main airports are grounded, and ferry services and some trains have been suspended.

Highways were closed at 1:00 am local time (1700 GMT), and a 40 kilometre (25 mile) per hour speed limit is in place on roads inside the city.

At rush hour, live video feeds showed Shanghai's normally jammed roads almost empty of traffic, and its famed skyline obscured by thick fog.

Nine thousand residents have been evacuated from Chongming District, an island at the mouth of the Yangtze River, authorities said.

Footage from northern Baoshan District showed ferocious winds ripping through a line of trees on the riverbank.

Shanghai's flood control headquarters told CCTV they had already received dozens of reports of incidents related to the typhoon, mostly fallen trees and billboards.

CCTV broadcast footage of a reporter by the coast in neighbouring Zhejiang province, where waves pounded the craggy coastline under leaden skies.

"If I step out into (the storm), I can barely speak," the reporter said.

"You can see that the surface of the sea is just wave after wave, each higher than the last."

Another typhoon, Yagi, killed at least four people and injured 95 when it passed through China's southern Hainan island this month, according to national weather authorities.

Bebinca has also passed through Japan and the central and southern Philippines, where falling trees killed six people.

CCTV said Bebinca was expected to move northwest, causing heavy rain and high winds in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces.

China is the world's biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that scientists say are driving climate change and making extreme weather more frequent and intense.

mjw-reb/je/smw


Shanghai slammed by what China says is the city’s strongest storm in seven decades

Nectar Gan, CNN
Sun, 15 September 2024 

Shanghai was brought to a standstill on Monday by what authorities say was the strongest typhoon to directly hit the Chinese financial hub in more than seven decades, with flights, trains and highways suspended during a national holiday.

Typhoon Bebinca made landfall in an industrial suburb southeast of the metropolis of 25 million people at about 7:30 a.m. local time. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) said it packed top wind speeds of 130 kilometers per hour (80 mph), the equivalent of a Category 1 Atlantic hurricane.

The China Meteorological Administration recorded wind speeds of 151 kph (94 mph) near the typhoon’s eye when it made landfall, and state media described it as the strongest storm to hit Shanghai since 1949.

The administration on Monday issued a red typhoon warning, its most severe alert, warning of gale force winds, heavy rainfall and coastal floods in large swathes of eastern China.

The powerful storm has disrupted travel plans for holidaymakers during the Mid-Autumn festival, or Moon Festival, a three-day national holiday that started on Sunday.

All flights at Shanghai’s two international airports have been canceled since 8 p.m. Sunday. The city also suspended its ferry services, halted some train lines and closed ports, bridges and highways on Monday.

Many tourist destinations in the city, including Shanghai Disney Resort, were also shut on Monday. Videos on Douyin, China’s version of Tiktok, show Disney staff taping trash bins to fences at the park.

A large number of fishing boats moor at a port to avoid Typhoon Bebinca in Zhoushan, China, on September 15, 2024. - Costfoto/NurPhoto/Getty Images

More than 414,000 people in Shanghai had been evacuated to safety by midnight Monday, with exhibition centers and school gyms turned into makeshift shelters, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Similar safety measures were also adopted in the neighboring provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu. Across the region, more than 1,600 flights had been canceled as of Monday afternoon, according to CCTV.

On Chinese social media, some Shanghai residents reported power and water outages on Monday morning. Many had rushed to stock up on food and supplies over the weekend.

The typhoon is expected to quickly weaken into a tropical storm as it moves inland toward the west.

Bebinca is the second major storm to hit China this month, following deadly Super Typhoon Yagi, the world’s second most powerful tropical cyclone so far this year.

Yagi killed four people in the southern province of Hainan after making landfall on September 6 with maximum sustained wind speeds of 230 kph (140 mph), the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane, before wreaking devastation across parts of Southeast Asia.

Scientists have found that hotter oceans caused by the human-caused climate crisis are leading storms to intensify more rapidly.

Shanghai is generally not in the direct path of strong typhoons, which typically make landfall further south in China. Prior to Bebinca, the city had only been directly hit by two typhoons – in 1949 and 2022 – plus a handful of severe tropical storms, according to data from the China Meteorological Administration.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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Labour MPs face backlash for mean and unjust Winter Fuel cut – Simon Fletcher

12th September 2024Leave a Commenton Labour MPs face backlash for mean and unjust Winter Fuel cut – Simon Fletcher

“In the process of getting its way on one universal benefit, the Labour government has done real harm.”

By Simon Fletcher

It is, according to the Guardian’s editorial, ‘mean, unjust and politically inept.’ Labour’s decision to abolish the universal provision of pensioners’ winter fuel payments in favour of a means tested allowance that will automatically exclude millions of hard-pressed older people is the government’s first major controversy. Labour MPs face a huge backlash in their constituencies. It is no overstatement that for many this will set in stone how many people view the still-new government.

To means test the winter fuel payment will save just £1.4 billion. It is estimated that the number of people receiving the payment will fall from more than 11 million, to about 1.5 million, including many who are clearly in no sense well-off. The Chancellor’s decision will affect 86 per cent of pensioners – not just wealthiest but those on the basic state pension rate of £11,500 a year. In the North East local authority area of Gateshead, for example, it is estimated that over 31,000 pensioners are set to lose the allowance.

The winter fuel payment was a universal policy introduced by Gordon Brown that survived under the Tories. But it took Labour under Reeves and Keir Starmer just weeks to announce it will be means tested. 

What is particularly insidious about the government’s imposition of a means test for winter fuel payments is that it has naturally and automatically opened the door to arguments against universalism. Having announced the policy in July as a measure to cut costs, the government has inevitably fallen into a narrative that ‘targeting’ – means testing – is preferable to universal provision. Keir Starmer himself said on Kuenssberg on Sunday: ‘the Winter Fuel Payments, are now to be targeted. They were untargeted before and I think everybody thought that wasn’t a particularly good system. So it needed to be targeted.’ On this he is wrong – very many people support a universal payment. At the meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on the Monday night before the vote, Rachel Reeves was reported as arguing that to vote against the government’s change was to reject the notion of means testing it. One MP was said to believe this line had traction, since ‘everyone in that meeting agrees it’s not right that millionaires get this payment.’ One new MP, Shaun Davies, has argued that the motion to reject the government plan would allow ‘rich pensioners like Alan Sugar to get the winter fuel payment.’ Across social media, supporters of the government are willingly using anti-universalist arguments. Ultimately that line of thought is of most use to the right of politics.

The problem with the narrative around ending the universal provision of the winter fuel payment is that the very same argument can be applied to any other universal benefit or service. If millionaires should not receive x benefit or service, what is the argument in favour of them receiving y or z? Logically, the same thing can be said about healthcare or concessionary travel exemptions like the Freedom Pass. The reason for universal provision is that it is the simplest mechanism to maximise a benefit for the largest number of people, binding in support for the welfare state and public services in the process. It eliminates the problem of people failing to claim for means-tested benefits and likewise avoids the trap of just failing to qualify for a benefit or service. The question of the rich in society is addressed in a different way, through progressive taxation. Universalism has been fought for by generations of labour movement activists and social reformers. The completely unnecessary ditching of the universal mechanism in this case – and the conscious use of ‘targeting’ and ‘means testing’ arguments – sets a dangerous ideological precedent for future debates as the government pursues its ‘tough choices.’

All of this comes at a time when quite contrary arguments have been building. For example, in London, Sadiq Khan has delivered universal free school meals in all primary schools, as has the Welsh Labour government. But through its actions over the winter fuel payment, Labour at a national level is legitimising the very arguments that are used against successful schemes like free school meals.

When a party of social democracy goes down the road of tearing up universal benefits it is bound to strengthen multiple damaging arguments. In the case of the winter fuel payments, a second insidious line of argument has broken out: many pensioners now feel pitted against those public sector workers who have recently won pay rises. It is now commonplace on the media and social media to hear the argument that workers have gained whilst pensioners’ universal payments have been targeted. The two have been counterposed in sections of the public debate, instead of a coalition being built. Again, that ultimately aids the right.

Given the government’s actions and its warnings about future choices in which things must get worse before they can get better, a broad campaign in defence of universal benefits and services is necessary.

In the process of getting its way on one universal benefit, the Labour government has done real harm.

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• This article was originally published by Simon Fletcher’s Modern Left on Setpember 10th, 2024.
• You can become a subscriber of Modern Left to receive exclusive content and support the platform here; and follow Simon Fletcher on Twitter/X here.

 

I cannot support austerity – Ian Byrne on the Winter Fuel Payment Cut

12th September 2024Leave a Commenton I cannot support austerity – Ian Byrne on the Winter Fuel Payment Cut

“I cannot morally support austerity when I see the damage it has done to my class and communities.”

By Ian Byrne MP

I have received more correspondence from worried pensioners in West Derby regarding this vote than any other in the last five years and this week I was their voice in Westminster, as I promised to be when elected.

The anger and fear among my constituents over the proposed changes to the winter fuel payment is unprecedented in my time as an MP, and the calls, letters and emails I have been receiving certainly reflect this, many from those already plunged into poverty because of the unfair pension changes by the Tories in 1995.

Labour has a massive job to build back our public services and communities, but this cannot be done on the backs of the poorest in society, continuing the inhumane work of the former Tory chancellor George Osborne. Let us not forget that Sir Michael Marmot’s research found that around 148,000 excess deaths are directly attributed to the impact of his austerity measures. 

As the elected voice of my constituents in Parliament, I have a duty to reflect their views in Westminster. Here is a quote from just one of the pensioners I heard from before the vote – and one of several I included in my recent letter to the Chancellor, urging her to change her mind on means testing the Winter Fuel Payment:

“I am messaging you because the fuel allowance has been cancelled by the Labour government. It’s a disgrace and very vindictive and hurtful. My wife and I are pensioners… it’s not OK at all when the allowance goes to our winter bills. Please can you help? It seems pensioners are easy pickings, we have no voice. I do hope you can help.”

This is simply devastating.

But there is another way to rebuild our country back in a fairer and more equitable way. The Common-Sense policy group recently published a detailed set of alternative proposals to austerity which is eminently achievable – and not on the backs of those already struggling.

The ending of the winter fuel payment for so many people is something I would have fought if it had been proposed by a Conservative Government. I am genuinely so sad and sorry that it is a Labour Government choosing to implement this policy now.

This significant policy change was not in the manifesto of change I stood on and I am very aware that the pensioners who voted for me in West Derby feel bewildered and deeply betrayed by this political choice.

I cannot morally support austerity when I see the damage it has done to my class and communities.

I cannot choose to wilfully harm some of our most vulnerable people in my constituency – so many of whom have contributed so much to our communities throughout their lives.

I remember, too, the words of Gordon Brown, who introduced the winter fuel payment after the 1997 election, because he was “simply not prepared to allow another winter to go by when pensioners are fearful of turning up their heating, even on the coldest winter days”.

I have also signed an Early Day Motion in Parliament, laid down by the Labour MP for Poole, Neil Duncan-Jordan, which called on the Government to undertake full impact assessments and give full consideration to those just over the Pension Credit entitlement threshold before making the proposed changes to the Winter Fuel Allowance. 

And earlier this week I wrote to the Chancellor on behalf of my West Derby constituents, urging her to change her mind. You can view this letter below: 

I urge the Government to have a rethink even at this late hour and withdraw this plan.

The End Fuel Poverty Coalition has warned that there could be fatal consequences from the scale of those economising on heating and the risk of a record increase in excess deaths as a result. Likewise, National Energy Action argues that many people were too scared to turn their heating on, for fear for of getting deeper into debt, no matter the impact on their physical or mental health.

Furthermore, I agree with Age UK when they say it is “alarming,” that more than 1.5 million older people are already cutting back or stopping their social care across the UK because they cannot afford the cost. This is “potentially disastrous” for an older person with care needs as cutting back or stopping care in this way increases the chances of serious ill health and injury.

I also understand that an Age UK petition launched in August 2024, calling to save the Winter Fuel Payment, has already received in the region of 500,000 signatures. 

I agree with the range of campaigners in advocating for a substantial comprehensive package to help address pensioner poverty, including fuel poverty, and will continue to call for urgent Government action – including measures to bring down energy bills through public ownership of energy (as per the recently announced Great British Energy Bill as a first step).

Further to this, I believe we need to reform social security and establish a new social care system that is fair, free at the point of use and available to everyone when they need it.

I will continue to advocate, in Parliament and beyond, that everyone deserves a decent retirement free of financial stress and insecurity.

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• Ian Byrne is the MP for Liverpool West Derby.
• You can follow him here on x/twitter.
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