Age and the likelihood of home ownership: Survey reveals global variations


ByDr. Tim Sandle
DIGOTAL JPRNAL
October 12, 2024

House-related home-building works. — image by © Tim Sandle.

Are you a homeowner? If not, your chances of doing so will probably relate to your age and where in the world you reside, according to new data.

For those electing to purchase property the ability to do so in terms of costs and availability vary worldwide. The age at which a person can enter the property market also varies between countries.

To explore these themes, a new study conducted by Deluxe Holiday Homes analysed 30 countries to identify the ones with the youngest homeowners. The final ranking is made based on the average age of first-time homebuyers and the study adds average net salary, house price per square meter and homeownership rates to give a wider context. All data was collected from open sources such as reports by Numbeo and housing governmental censuses.

The new study identified Indonesia as the country with the youngest homeowners, where the average age of a first-time buyer is 26. In contrast to this affordability, Austria has the highest average prices for city centre homes at $6,796 per square meter.

Other data of interest is with disposable income. On this measure Norway stands out as a country with the highest net salary at $3,381.

The data summary shows:
 

Country	Average age of a first-time buyer	Average net salary	Average house price per sq m city center	Average house price per sq m outside city center	Average house price per sq m	Homeownership rate
Indonesia	26	316.30$	1,438.68$	760.22$	1,099.45$	84
Italy	27	1,720.39$	4,241.08$	2,639.47$	3,440.28$	73.7
France	27.5	2,525.56$	6,594.61$	4,633.43$	5,614.02$	64.7
Norway	28	3,381.04$	6,297.65$	4,358.43$	5,328.04$	80.3
Vietnam	28.5	440.05$	2,601.61$	1,430.95$	2,016.28$	88.1
Finland	28.8	2,799.21$	5,699.85$	3,679.05$	4,689.45$	69.5
Malaysia	29.5	879.93$	1,852.01$	1,035.85$	1,443.93$	76.9
India	30	642.53$	1,828.15$	1,000.37$	1,414.26$	86.6
Thailand	30	538.58$	3,735.47$	1,991.38$	2,863.43$	80
Belgium	30	2,594.93$	3,968.87$	3,140.26$	3,554.57$	72.5
Austria	31	2,615.49$	6,796.98$	4,944.04$	5,870.51$	51.4
United Arab Emirates	32	3,475.38$	3,824.30$	2,608.63$	3,216.47$	28

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/life/age-and-the-likelihood-of-home-ownership-survey-reveals-global-variations/article#ixzz8oXs2rISz












As well as having young homeowners (by average) Indonesia has the smallest average salary and it also has the cheapest housing prices, giving young people an opportunity to buy a home. The average price per square meter in Indonesia is $1,099.

Italy takes the second place in the ranking of the countries with the youngest homeowners, with people buying houses for the first time at 27. The average home price here is three times higher than in Indonesia at $3,440 per square meter but the housing market is larger.

France follows closely in third place as the country where people become first-time homeowners at 27.5 years on average. Prices for French houses are among the highest in the ranking and the cost per square meter outside city center is higher than for the city center houses in Italy, $4,633 and $4,241 respectively.

Norway ranks fourth with people getting their first home at 28 on average. The prices per square meter are comparable with France but most people already own a home in Norway with 80.3 percent.

Vietnam is fifth in the ranking of the countries with the youngest homeowners, where the average age of the first-time buyers is 28.5 years. Vietnam has the highest homeownership rate in the list, with 88.1 percent of the population owning a home. The average cost of the house is much cheaper than in the European countries with $2,016 per square meter.

Trump's disastrous business legacy: How he destroyed every venture he touched

Robert Reich
October 13, 2024 

Trump’s entire candidacy is based on a lie.

TRUMP: I’m really a good businessman. I’m so good at business.

Not true. Trump is a business failure. Almost every business he’s touched, he’s driven into the ground


MARCO RUBIO: You ever heard of Trump Steaks?

TRUMP: Trump Steaks are the greatest steaks, and I mean that in every sense of the word!

RUBIO: You ever heard of Trump Vodka?


TRUMP: It’s a smooth vodka. It’s a great-tasting vodka.

RUBIO: All of these companies that he’s ruined!

It’s true! Trump had a failed board game …


TRUMP: My new game is Trump the Game.

… a failed bicycle race called the “Tour de Trump” …

TRUMP: I think this is an event that can be tremendous in the future. And it can really rival the Tour de France.


… a failed football team.

TRUMP: It’s gonna stay strong. It’s gonna stay strong for a long time.

Trump decided it was a good idea to start a mortgage company in 2006.


TRUMP: It’s a great time to start a mortgage company.

That failed in less than two years. Let’s see, what else was there?

ELIZABETH WARREN: Trump Travel, Trump Ice …


JOHN OLIVER: Trump Magazine, which folded, Trump World Magazine, which also folded…

MITT ROMNEY: Whatever happened to Trump Airlines?

Oh! That was a good one! One of his planes had a crash landing within the first two months, which he insisted was the “most beautiful” landing you’ve ever seen. The business failed within three years.

Trump has even managed to bankrupt multiple casinos. How do you lose money running a casino, when the house always wins?

There’s an old joke that the easiest way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one. And that’s exactly what Trump did.

Multiple analyses show that if Trump had simply invested his multimillion-dollar inheritance in an index fund and not touched it, he’d be a lot richer than he is now. Think about that. His entire life’s work has been less successful than if he’d done nothing.

And when he was president, Trump ran the country like he ran his failed businesses. He added $8.4 trillion to the national debt — largely through his tax cuts for the rich and big corporations.

Trump has managed to survive every one of his business failures by leaving other people on the hook — leaving workers unpaid and shafting his investors.

The whole idea that Trump is good at business was a carefully crafted illusion — concocted for a reality TV show. And as with a lot of reality TV shows, we’ve come to learn it was all show, and no reality.

The only business Trump has been successful at is conning people. Now he’s trying to do it again. Don’t fall for it.



Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Awash in oil money, Guyana promises cash, free tuition and other perks ahead of election


Guyanese President Mohamed Irfaan Ali meets with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at the United Nations headquarters, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (Bryan R. Smith/Pool Photo via AP)

BY BERT WILKINSON
October 11, 2024

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Guyanese President Irfaan Ali announced several perks ahead of national elections next year, including free college tuition and a one-time cash payment of nearly $1,000 for every household in the oil-rich South American country.

Ali also promised to cut power bills by half and to increase the monthly minimum wage from $350 to $500 starting next year as he addressed Parliament during a special session late Thursday, noting that the recently wealthy nation of nearly 800,000 people can afford to help residents via public aid programs.

During a press conference after the session, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said Guyana’s budget can easily absorb the one-time cash grant to the country’s estimated 264,000 households.

“We have a $22-billion-dollar economy now,” he said.

Guyana was once one of the poorest countries in South America despite large reserves of gold, diamonds and bauxite. But it has been awash in money after a consortium led by ExxonMobil discovered the first major oil deposits in May 2015 off the country’s Atlantic coast.

Production began in December 2019, with an output of some 645,000 barrels a day expected to soar to 1.3 million by 2027.

In 2022, Guyana’s GDP grew by more than 60%, the highest real GDP growth worldwide that year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Free tertiary education had been in place since the mid-1970s but was discontinued in the early 1990s under pressure from the IMF.

The offer of free university tuition is one of several new measures to tackle the high cost of living, Jagdeo said.

Since becoming oil-rich, Guyana’s government has launched infrastructure projects including the construction of hospitals, hotels, schools, highways, its first deep-water port and a $1.9 billion gas-to-energy project expected to lower power bills.

Israel’s airstrike warnings terrify and confuse Lebanese civilians


Men read mobile phone alerts telling residents of southern Lebanon not to return to their homes until further notice because of operations Israel says are targeting Hezbollah facilities in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)


BY KAREEM CHEHAYEB
 October 10, 2024

BEIRUT (AP) — As the war between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies, Lebanese civilians are increasingly paying the price – and this dangerous reality often becomes clear in the middle of the night: That’s when the Israeli military typically warns people to evacuate buildings or neighborhoods to avoid airstrikes.

Moein Shreif was recently awakened at 3 a.m. by a neighbor calling to alert him that Israel planned to strike a nearby building in his middle-class suburb south of Beirut where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

A mobile phone displays an Israeli alert warning residents of southern Lebanon not to return to their homes until further notice in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Shreif, his wife and their three children quickly fled their multi-story apartment building and drove away. Within minutes, explosions rang out, he said later that day upon returning to see the smoldering ruins of his building and the one next door.

“I didn’t even have time to dress properly, as you can see,” said Shreif, a well-known Lebanese folk and pop singer who was still wearing his pajamas from the night before. “I didn’t take anything out of the house.”
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Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging strikes nearly every day since the start of the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it will fire rockets into Israel until there’s a cease-fire in Gaza; Israel says its fighting to stop those attacks, which have forced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes.


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But it wasn’t until late last month, when Israel dramatically expanded its aerial campaign against Hezbollah, that Lebanese people began receiving regular warnings about upcoming airstrikes. Human rights groups say Israel’s warnings — which aren’t issued before many airstrikes — are inadequate and sometimes misleading.

On Sept. 23, Israel made 80,000 calls into Lebanon, according to Imad Kreidieh, head of the country’s telecommunications company – presumably recorded warnings about upcoming airstrikes.

The calls caused panic. Schools shut down. People rushed home early from work. It ended up being the deadliest day of airstrikes in Lebanon in decades, with over 500 people killed — roughly one quarter of all those killed in Lebanon the past year, according to the country’s Health Ministry. Women and children make up one quarter of all the deaths, the ministry says.

Israel has issued warnings on social media nearly every day since then.

On Oct. 1, 27 villages in southern Lebanon were told to evacuate to the north of the Awali River, dozens of kilometers (miles) away. “Save your lives,” the instructions said.

That is when Salam, a 42-year-old mother of two, fled the village of Ain Ebel. She and her family are now staying with relatives in Beirut. Salam refused to give her full name for fear of reprisals.

Flames and smoke rise from an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)

So far, Ain Ebel – a mostly Christian village – hasn’t been bombarded, although surrounding villages whose residents are predominantly Shiite Muslims have been. Salam’s teenage children are terrified of going home, especially since Israel launched a ground invasion.

Salam is still baffled and angry that her village was evacuated.

So far, evacuation notices in Lebanon have been far more limited than in Gaza, but the messages in both places have a common theme. In Gaza, Israel says it is targeting Hamas militants embedded among Gaza’s civilians. In Lebanon, it warns of similar behavior by Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.
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Most of the Israeli military’s warnings first appear on the social media accounts of its Arabic spokesperson. They are then amplified by the Lebanese media.

The warnings instruct people to vacate homes “immediately,” and they are usually followed by a series of overnight strikes that often cause damage in areas beyond those that were warned. Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah fighters, weapons or other assets belonging to the group. Warnings are rarely issued before daytime strikes.

The Lebanese government says at least 1.2 million people have been displaced by the war, the vast majority since Israel ramped up airstrikes across the country last month. Over 800 of some 1,000 shelters are over capacity.

One quarter of Lebanese territory is now under Israeli military displacement orders, according to the U.N.'s human rights division.

Smoke rises as a building collapses in Beirut’s southern suburbs in Lebanon, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

“Calling on residents of nearly 30 villages to leave ‘immediately’ is not effective and unlawfully suggests that civilians who do not leave an area will be deemed to be combatants,” said Ramzi Kaiss, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Beirut.

Kaiss said Israel — which usually issues warnings 30 to 90 minutes ahead of airstrikes — is obligated to protect civilians who refuse to evacuate, or who are physically unable to.

Amnesty International is also critical of Israel’s practice of warning entire towns and villages to evacuate. It “raises questions around whether this is intended to create the conditions for mass displacement,” Agnes Callamard, the group’s secretary general said in a statement on Thursday.

The Israeli military didn’t respond to a request for comment. It has previously said it makes a significant effort to save civilian lives with its warnings.

 Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the sourthern suburbs of Beirut’s southern suburbs in Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. 

(AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)

For almost a year, Israel’s strikes were mostly concentrated in communities along the border, far from the capital and its populous suburbs. But now people who once felt relatively safe in the outskirts of Beirut are increasingly at risk, and their neighborhoods are receiving a small but growing share of airstrike warnings.

In Shreif’s case, he said his neighbor called about five minutes after the Israeli military issued a warning on the social media platform X.

Shreif considers himself lucky: If it wasn’t for that wake-up call, his family might not be alive. The AP could not determine whether any people were killed or injured in the strike that destroyed Shreif’s building or the one next door.

To the northeast of Beirut, in the Bekaa Valley, Israel recently issued a warning to people to stay at least 1,000 meters (yards) away from their town or village if they are in or a near a home that has weapons belonging to Hezbollah.

 People and rescue workers search for victims after an Israeli airstrike hit two adjacent buildings, in Ain el-Delb neighborhood east of the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)

Some of the warnings have come in the form of animated videos. One shows an elderly woman in a kitchen, suggesting she is unaware of hidden rooms and compartments in her own house that contain weapons for Hezbollah.

“Didn’t you know?” the narrator says in Arabic, as the elderly woman discovers rockets under the couch, behind the shower curtains and elsewhere. The video warns viewers to leave their homes immediately if they – or their neighbors – discover weapons.

But in many cases there are no warnings at all.

Last month, in Ain el-Delb near the southern city of Sidon, an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building, burying about 70 people under the rubble.

 A man looks at destroyed buildings hit by Israeli airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

Achraf Ramadan, 34, and his father were among the lucky one who rescue workers were able to pull out alive. His mother was taken to the hospital alive, but she later died from her wounds. His younger sister Julia, a public relations professional in her late 20s, was found dead. Achraf and Julia together had been leading initiatives to support displaced Lebanese families in and around Sidon.


“This is a nice and peaceful neighborhood,” Ramadan said, sounding dejected. “The international community is asleep and not taking initiative. On the contrary, I think it’s giving Israel an excuse for its barbarity on the pretext of self-defense.”
___

Associated Press writers Fadi Tawil in Beirut, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, and Zeina Karam in London, contributed to this report.

KAREEM CHEHAYEB
Chehayeb is an Associated Press reporter in Beirut.

Displaced Lebanese families face harsh conditions


Issued on: 13/10/2024 -

01:48
Video by:Shirli SITBON

"This is no way to live. Two or three families are living in each room, is this a life?" asks a displaced woman taking refuge in a school-turned-shelter in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon. Israel's expanded operation has displaced more than 1.2 million people, according to Lebanon's government, which says more than 2,100 people have been killed and 10,000 wounded in over a year of fighting.

Reuters call on Israel to investigate journalist Issam Abdallah's killing 'fully and transparently'


Issued on: 13/10/2024 

00:56

October 13, 2024 marks one year since the killing of Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah by Israeli shelling just over a kilometre from the Israeli border, near the Lebanese village of Alma al-Chaab. Reuters editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni repeated calls to Israeli authorities for a transparent investigation into the killing of Abdallah.

As Hezbollah and Israel battle on the border, Lebanon’s army watches from the sidelines


BY ABBY SEWELL
October 11, 2024


BEIRUT (AP) — Since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon, Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have clashed along the border while the Lebanese army has largely stood on the sidelines.

It’s not the first time the national army has found itself watching war at home from the discomfiting position of bystander.

Lebanon’s widely beloved army is one of the few institutions that bridge the country’s sectarian and political divides. Several army commanders have become president, and the current commander, Gen. Joseph Aoun, is widely regarded as one of the front-runners to step in when the deadlocked parliament fills a two-year vacuum and names a president.

But with an aging arsenal and no air defenses, and battered by five years of economic crisis, the national army is ill-prepared to defend Lebanon against either aerial bombardment or a ground offensive by a well-equipped modern army like Israel’s.

Flames and smoke rise from an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)

The army is militarily overshadowed by Hezbollah. The Lebanese army has about 80,000 troops, with around 5,000 of them deployed in the south. Hezbollah has more than 100,000 fighters, according to the militant group’s late leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Its arsenal — built with support from Iran — is also more advanced.


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A cautious initial response

Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters have been clashing since Oct. 8, 2023, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets over the border in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza.

In recent weeks, Israel has conducted a major aerial bombardment of Lebanon and a ground invasion that it says aims to push Hezbollah back from the border and allow displaced residents of northern Israel to return.

As Israeli troops made their first forays across the border and Hezbollah responded with rocket fire, Lebanese soldiers withdrew from observation posts along the frontier and repositioned about 5 kilometers (3 miles) back.

 A man uses his mobile phone as flames and smoke rise at the scene of buildings hit by an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. 

(AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)

So far, Israeli forces have not advanced that far. The only direct clashes between the two national armies were on Oct. 3, when Israeli tank fire hit a Lebanese army position in the area of Bint Jbeil, killing a soldier, and on Friday, when two soldiers were killed in an airstrike in the same area. The Lebanese army said it returned fire both times.

Lebanon’s army declined to comment on how it will react if Israeli ground forces advance farther.

Analysts familiar with the army’s workings said that, should the Israeli incursion reach the current army positions, Lebanese troops would put up a fight — but a limited one.

The army’s “natural and automatic mission is to defend Lebanon against any army that may enter Lebanese territory,” said former Lebanese Army Gen. Hassan Jouni. “Of course, if the Israeli enemy enters, it will defend, but within the available capabilities … without going to the point of recklessness or suicide.”

Rescue workers search for victims at the site of Thursday’s Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)

Israeli and Lebanese armies are ‘a total overmatch’

The current Israeli invasion of Lebanon is its fourth into the neighboring country in the past 50 years. In most of the previous invasions, the Lebanese army played a similarly peripheral role.

The one exception, said Aram Nerguizian, a senior associate with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, was in 1972, when Israel attempted to create a 20-kilometer (12-mile) buffer zone to push back Palestinian Liberation Organization fighters.

At that time, Nerguizian said, the Lebanese army successfully slowed the pace of the Israeli advance and “bought time for political leadership in Beirut to seek the intervention of the international community to pressure Israel for a cease-fire.”

But the internal situation in Lebanon — and the army’s capabilities — deteriorated with the outbreak of a 15-year civil war in 1975, during which both Israeli and Syrian forces occupied parts of the country.

Hezbollah was the only faction that was allowed to keep its weapons after the civil war, for the stated goal of resisting Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon — which ended in 2000.

By 2006, when Hezbollah and Israel fought a bruising monthlong war, the Lebanese army “had not been able to invest in any real-world post-war modernization, had no ability to deter Israeli air power” and “was left completely exposed,” Nerguizian said. “The few times that the (Lebanese army) and Israeli forces did engage militarily, there was total overmatch.”


 Lebanese army soldiers stand guard in front of a car that was hit by an Israeli strike as workers covered it on a truck, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)

International aid has been a mixed blessing

After the 2011 outbreak of civil war in neighboring Syria and the rise of the Islamic State militant group there, the Lebanese army saw a new influx of military aid. It successfully battled against IS on Lebanon’s border in 2017, although not alone — Hezbollah was simultaneously attacking the group on the other side of the border.

When Lebanon’s financial system and currency collapsed in 2019, the army took a hit. It had no budget to buy weapons and maintain its existing supplies, vehicles and aircraft. An average soldier’s salary is now worth around $220 per month, and many resorted to working second jobs. At one point, the United States and Qatar both gave a monthly subsidy for soldiers’ salaries.

The U.S. had been a primary funder of the Lebanese army before the crisis. It has given some $3 billion in military aid since 2006, according to the State Department, which said in a statement that it aims “to enable the Lebanese military to be a stabilizing force against regional threats” and “strengthen Lebanon’s sovereignty, secure its borders, counter internal threats, and disrupt terrorist facilitation.”

President Joe Biden’s administration has also touted the Lebanese army as a key part of any diplomatic solution to the current war, with hopes that an increased deployment of its forces would supplant Hezbollah in the border area.

But that support has limits. Aid to the Lebanese army has sometimes been politically controversial within the U.S., with some legislators arguing that it could fall into the hands of Hezbollah, although there is no evidence that has happened.

 Lebanese officers parade during a graduation ceremony marking the 74th Army Day, at a military barracks in Beirut's suburb of Fayadiyeh, Lebanon, on Aug. 1, 2019. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar

 Lebanese army soldiers sit on their armored vehicle as they patrol the Lebanese side of the Lebanese-Israeli border in the southern village of Kfar Kila, Lebanon, on Oct. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)

In Lebanon, many believe that the U.S. has blocked the army from obtaining more advanced weaponry that might allow it to defend against Israel — America’s strongest ally in the region and the recipient of at least $17.9 billion in U.S. military aid in the year since the war in Gaza began.

“It is my personal opinion that the United States does not allow the (Lebanese) military to have advanced air defense equipment, and this matter is related to Israel,” said Walid Aoun, a retired Lebanese army general and military analyst.

Nerguizian said the perception is “not some conspiracy or half-truth,” noting that the U.S. has enacted a legal requirement to support Israel’s qualitative military edge relative to all other militaries in the region.

 Lebanese army soldiers deploy at the Lebanese side of the Lebanese-Israeli border in the southern village of Kfar Kila, Lebanon, Saturday, May 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
___

Associated Press writer Matt Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

ABBY SEWELL
Sewell is the Associated Press news director for Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. She joined the AP in 2022 but has been based in the region since 2016, reporting and guiding coverage on some of its most significant news stories.

Israeli strikes kill a family of 8 in Gaza and destroy a century-old market in Lebanon


Hezbollah rescue workers search for victims on the rubble of destroyed buildings at commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in NAbatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

BY WAFAA SHURAFA AND SAMY MAGDY

 October 13, 2024


DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli strike on the central Gaza Strip killed a family of eight, Palestinian medical officials said Sunday, as Israeli forces battled Palestinian militants in the territory’s north and airstrikes destroyed a century-old market in southern Lebanon.

The strike in Gaza late Saturday hit a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing parents and their six children, who ranged in age from 8 to 23, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, where the bodies were taken.

It said a further seven people were wounded, including two women and a child in critical condition. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies.

A year into the war with Hamas, Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets in Gaza nearly every day. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups because they operate in densely populated areas. In recent months, it has repeatedly struck schools being used as shelters by displaced people, accusing militants of hiding among them.

Israel is waging air and ground campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month, though it has not said how or when. Iran supports both militant groups and has said it will respond to any Israeli attack.


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In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces have been attacking Jabaliya, where the military says militants have regrouped. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the built-up refugee camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, and other areas.

Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the opening weeks of the war. The Palestinians fear Israel intends to permanently depopulate the north to establish military bases or Jewish settlements there. The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1.

The military confirmed Saturday that hospitals were included in the evacuation orders but said it had not set a specific timetable. It said a medical convoy scheduled to transfer patients from the Kamal Adwan Hospital in recent days was canceled for security reasons — without elaborating — but that the convoy had delivered fuel to the hospital on Saturday.

Dr. Mohamed Salha, director of the Awda hospital, said it was among three hospitals in the north, including Kamal Adwan, that had received small shipments of fuel that would only last for a matter of days. He said they also need medicine and medical supplies.

He said casualties are still streaming in and his hospital alone is doing 12 to 15 operations a day.

Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, said there are a “large number of martyrs” still uncollected from the streets and under the rubble.

“We are unable to reach them,” he told The Associated Press, adding that street dogs are eating some of the remains

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s bombardment and ground invasions of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and left much of the territory in ruins. Palestinian medical officials do not say whether those killed by Israeli forces are militants or civilians, but say women and children make up over half the fatalities. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
Israeli airstrikes destroy Ottoman-era market in Lebanon

Israeli airstrikes destroyed an Ottoman-era market in the southern city of Nabatiyeh overnight, killing at least one person and wounding four more. Lebanon’s Civil Defense said it battled fires in 12 residential buildings and 40 shops in the market, which dates back to 1910.

“Our livelihoods have all been leveled to the ground,” said Ahmad Fakih, whose corner shop was destroyed.

Rescuers were searching for survivors and remains in the pancaked buildings early Sunday as Israeli drones buzzed overhead. Nabatiyeh was one of dozens of communities across southern Lebanon that Israel has warned people to evacuate, even as the city hosts people who have already fled.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is allied with Hamas, began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, drawing retaliatory airstrikes. The conflict dramatically escalated in September with a wave of Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders. Israel launched a ground operation into southern Lebanon earlier this month.

In a separate incident, the Lebanese Red Cross said paramedics were searching for casualties in the wreckage of a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Sunday when a second strike left four paramedics with concussions and damaged two ambulances.

It said the rescue operation had been coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers, who informed the Israeli side. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Israeli forces have repeatedly fired upon first responders and U.N. peacekeepers since the start of the ground operation. The military has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to ferry fighters and weapons and says Hezbollah operates in the vicinity of the peacekeepers, without providing evidence.

At least 2,255 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the conflict, including more than 1,400 people since September, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters. At least 54 people have been killed in the rocket attacks on Israel, nearly half of them soldiers.


Iran, which supports Hezbollah and Hamas, launched around 180 ballistic missiles at Israel to avenge the killing of Nasrallah; an Iranian general who was with him; and Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, who died in an explosion in Iran’s capital in July that was widely blamed on Israel.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.
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A beating heart silenced: south Lebanon's Nabatiyeh market

Nabatieh (AFP) – Rubble and plumes of smoke were all that was left Sunday of Nabatiyeh marketplace, once the beating heart of the city in south Lebanon where Israel has intensified its bombardment.


Issued on: 13/10/2024 - 

Devastation the day after Israel attacked the iconic marketplace in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh © Abbas FAKIH / AFP

Late Saturday, state media reported Israeli air strikes on the marketplace of the major city some dozen kilometres (miles) from the border with Israel.

The health ministry said the attack wounded eight people. Israel's military has not commented.

"It's as if an earthquake shook the Nabatiyeh market. It's been completely destroyed," said resident Tarek Sadaka.

"Even the street corner where we used to sit and drink coffee in the morning was destroyed."

The air strike badly damaged the buzzing market, which was home to shops selling everything from clothing and jewellery to sweets, as well as to small restaurants.

"Words can't express what I feel," Sadaka said, holding back the tears

.

Market buildings shattered by the Israeli air strike on Nabatiyeh 

© Abbas FAKIH / AFP

"I'm staying here and I will not leave Nabatiyeh -- Nabatiyeh is our motherland. It's heartbreaking to see people's livelihoods gone," he said.

A few metres (yards) away, flames still licked at chipped masonry on Sunday as black smoke rose from the ruins.

Electrical wiring hung from the shattered facade of a three-storey building, its walls blackened.

A bulldozer worked to clear scattered debris which had blocked the streets.

Just one tree remained standing, unscathed, amid the widespread destruction.
'Scorched earth'

Nearly a year of cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza war escalated into all-out conflict on September 23.

Since then, Israel's intense military campaign of bombardment has killed more than 1,260 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

It has also displaced upwards of one million people, Lebanese officials said.

Since last October, Israel has launched limited strikes on Nabatiyeh, but the damage was nothing compared with the destruction caused by the air strikes.

Nabatiyeh is home to major public institutions, public and private hospitals and several universities.

The morning after. "This was the most beautiful area and the best market"

 © Abbas FAKIH / AFP

Helmi Jaber slowly made his way around the dilapidated market on Sunday, walking with a cane.

The elderly man said he lived nearby but his room was flooded when a water tank leaked after being damaged in the strike.

"This was the most beautiful area and the best market" in the city, Jaber said.

"We are scared... We fear there may be new strikes. They (the Israelis) do not spare anyone and want to turn Nabatiyeh into scorched earth," he added.

He said he wanted to leave, "but who will take me in now? I can barely move" he said, squeezing his cane.

"Who will look after us? Lawmakers who can afford to travel and stay in hotels? Will any of them check on us?" he asked of a country reeling from five years of economic crisis widely blamed on a corrupt governing elite.
'Nabatiyeh is my soul'

Every day for years, Mahmoud Kharabzeit, 69, would have coffee with his friends at the marketplace.

He said he was in shock after this fixture in his life disappeared in the blink of an eye -- but he also insisted that the city would overcome the destruction.

Nabatiyeh "has been through many wars -- it has been bombed, but we are still standing our ground", he said.

"I will stay here. My home is here, my family house is here, and that of my siblings," Kharabzeit said.

"I cannot leave Nabatiyeh. Nabatiyeh is my soul."

Ali Taha, a 63-year-old local imam, felt the loss of the market keenly.

"It's as if my home has been bombed. This is where we grew up and where everyone got to know each other," he told AFP.

In the streets on Sunday and in social media posts, residents and others originally from the city expressed their grief at the loss of Nabatiyeh's iconic market.

Writer Badia Fahs listed the shops and their owners in a Facebook post ... a bookstore, a shop selling sweets, a clothing and shoe store, a falafel and spice shop -- and a music store filling the streets with Arabic melodies...

"It is our heart that has been burnt, not just a square made of cement," she wrote.

© 2024 AFP

The 2 people killed after a leak at a Texas oil refinery worked for a maintenance subcontractor


Emergency personnel arrive at oil refinery after hydrogen sulfide leaked Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024 in Houston. (KTRK via AP)

October 11, 2024

DEER PARK, Texas (AP) — Two employees killed when hydrogen sulfide leaked at a Houston-area oil refinery were employees of a subcontractor performing maintenance work, the director of Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company that operates the plant, said Friday.

The two “were in the zone directly affected, and who received the direct impact of the gas,” Pemex Director Victor Rodriguez said during a news briefing in Mexico City. Both bodies have been recovered.

Mexican Energy Secretary Luz Elena Gonzalez said “there is no longer any risk” as a result of the leak and that the cause of the leak is under investigation.

Pemex previously said in a statement that operations had been “proactively halted” at two units of the oil refinery with the aim of mitigating the impact.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the two workers were killed and nearly three dozen others were either transported to hospitals or treated at the scene following the leak of hydrogen sulfide Thursday at the facility in Deer Park.
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No names have been released, and Gonzalez said the remains of the two dead workers were taken by the Harris County medical examiner.


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Hydrogen sulfide is a foul-smelling gas that can be toxic at high levels. Gonzalez said that the gas release happened during work on a flange at the facility, which is part of a cluster of oil refineries and plants that makes Houston the nation’s petrochemical heartland.

City officials issued a shelter-in-place order but lifted it hours later after air monitoring showed no risk to the surrounding community, Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton said.

“Other than the smell, we have not had any verifiable air monitoring to support that anything got outside the facility,” Mouton said.


The leak caused the second shelter-in-place orders in Deer Park in the span of weeks. Last month, a pipeline fire that burned for four days forced surrounding neighborhoods to evacuate.

Head of international shipping regulator says industry must do more to cut carbon pollution


 A cargo ship sails toward the Pacific Ocean waiting to transit the Panama Canal in Panama City, June 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)

 A boater passes between cargo ships on the harbor, in Vancouver, British Columbia, July 16, 2024. 

(Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP, File)


BY PETER PRENGAMAN
October 9, 2024

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — For years, the international shipping industry has been criticized for making little progress in reducing the carbon-belching pollution released from the fuels that vessels use in moving most of the cargo that people use every day, such as food, cars and clothing.

Now, the new head of the International Martime Organization, charged with regulating international shipping, is subtly calling out inaction and nudging companies to work harder. “What I’m finding is that there is more that can be done,” said Arsenio Dominguez, who gave a wide-ranging interview on the sidelines of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference in Germany this week. “The low hanging fruit is there.

Dominguez, who took over as secretary general at the beginning of this year, said that includes using satellites to chart routes according to weather, to waste less fuel, cleaning the hulls of ships to reduce friction in the water and what is often referred to as slow steaming, reducing ship speed, which also uses less fuel and thus pollutes less.

Dominguez was careful to note that many companies are working to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which cause climate change. But getting to the IMO’s goal of a 30% reduction in emissions by 2030 will require immediate implementation of every possibility.

A focus on the fuels that power ships

Ultimately, major decarbonizing will mean an overhaul of shipping fuel, said Dominguez, a point industry leaders agree on.

Today, most ships run on heavy fuel oil, which releases carbon dioxide along with sulfur, nitrogen and other pollutants. Much cleaner fuels already exist, and many more are being developed, such as hydrogen, ammonia and biofuels. But they are more expensive, not yet available at scale and only better for the planet when made in clean ways. For example, hydrogen can be made from water and clean energy via a process called electrolysis, and that does not release greenhouse gases. It’s considered “green” hydrogen. However, nearly all hydrogen today is made out of methane, meaning natural gas, using steam-methane reforming, which releases carbon dioxide.

“Fuels, fuels, fuels,” Bud Darr, executive vice president for maritime policy and government affairs for MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, said when asked during a panel at the sustainability conference on Monday what the biggest challenges were to decarbonizing.



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“We need a massive scaling up of both production and shoreside infrastructure in order to deliver what we will need to operate the new generation of ships and equipment that we are investing in,” Darr said in a followup email.

Currently, the shipping industry is responsible for about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Their total emissions are expected to go up sharply in future decades unless major changes are made.

Other parts of the world economy have made strides in decarbonizing, including electricity and ground transportation, thanks to electrification. Comparatively little has happened in shipping.

“The IMO has been very slow,” said Bastien Bonnet-Cantalloube, an expert on shipping and aviation decarbonization with non-profit Carbon Market Watch. “There was no progress in 10 or 15 years. Now things are starting to pick up.”

Last year, the IMO set a target to reach net zero emissions by or around 2050, a goal that is a potential catalyst while also putting a spotlight on just how far the industry has to go.

The IMO is being pushed to move toward a carbon tax in part to be in line with what is already happening in some places, like the European Union.

Starting this year, large ships coming in and out of European ports pay taxes on their carbon dioxide emissions. In 2026, they will also pay for emissions of the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide. Some industry leaders hope that a carbon levy from the IMO, which would effectively be the world’s first global carbon tax, could allow shipping companies to simply pay one carbon tax, instead of taxes in multiple jurisdictions.

Still, there is wide disagreement, both among countries and shipping companies over a tax, how much it should be and what revenue would be used for.


IMO moving toward potentially big decisions next year

During meetings earlier this month in London, the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee continued drafting text on mandates to phase in cleaner fuels and set a greenhouse gas pricing mechanism. But what those principles will translate into is far from clear.

“I don’t call it a tax. I know that is a way of referring to it,” said Dominguez, underscoring the sensitivity of the issue.

Dominguez said delegates, member countries of the IMO, considered multiple scenarios for rating the carbon efficiency of ships, setting fuel standards and gathering revenue for emissions.

The committee next meets in April, when it’s expected to approve the measures. Formal adoption would take place in the fall, and whatever is decided wouldn’t take effect until 2027, giving countries and companies time to adjust.

In the meantime, Dominguez said that shipping companies needed to do all they could to cut emissions, which for some included using liquid natural gas as a fuel.

Ship engine manufacturers had shown that using LNG in engines increased efficiency, which led to lower emissions, he said.

“If we stop LNG right now without an alternative, then we go back to Square 1,” he said, adding that he knew it “was a divisive point.”

Indeed, scientific studies have shown that leaks of LNG, which is mostly methane, itself a potent greenhouse gas, can cancel out any advantage gained from burning more cleanly compared to other fossil fuels. Environmentalists have long argued that using LNG is simply a way for major oil and gas producers to continue business as usual, thus postphoning a major transition to renewable energies.


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