Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Americans get off on hurt, cruelty and revenge — and soulless Trump is their hero

D. Earl Stephens
December 18, 2024 
RAW STORY

Melania Trump gestures next to Donald Trump and Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, as they attend the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York City, U.S., October 17, 2024. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Just two weeks before the most consequential election in American history, I decided I’d finally had enough of the hurt and absurdity associated with once again dealing with a racist, America-attacking slob on our presidential ballot.

I put the blame for this where it squarely belonged: the wobbly, broken people in this country who stand up for the repulsive man, and his odious party.

I led the piece this way:

“I have heard way more than enough of this grotesque garbage that perhaps we should try to understand what makes the Trump voter tick, and somehow sympathize with their support of an unapologetic loudmouth who is so vile he sees “good people” on both sides of a violent white supremacist rally.”

I asked:

“Have you seen or heard this heated drivel that Kamala Harris and other Democrats have done an inadequate job of connecting with Trump voters who see nothing dangerous about a man who refers to human beings as “vermin,” and has adopted Adolph Hitler’s talking points at his odious campaign rallies? Have you seen or heard this absolute high-grade nonsense that we should work to lower the temperature in this country, and maybe not take it so personally when one party has gone completely in the tank for a hideous man who told the people who attacked America on January 6, 2021 that he “loves them?””


I stated:

“It is deplorable, and I’m here to remind you IT IS NOT NORMAL.”

Well, we know how the election turned out, and just five weeks later I am here to tell you I undersold my opinion of just how low these people would go when they crawled into the ballot box and somehow decided that the lying, racist felon, and not the lifetime public servant and law-abiding prosecutor, should inhabit the most powerful position in the world.


This has, in fact, become America’s new normal, and I am typing to you as a proud member of the incensed minority, who cannot believe we are once again being subjected to this disgraceful and dishonorable raw sewage that somehow tries to hold itself up as “leadership.”

I suppose it would be easier to just accept all this, and quietly move through what’s left of my life in bitter submission, but that just feels in many ways to be an early date with the grave.

Besides, we saw how all that went in 1930s Germany. And if you think that’s an overstatement then get in line with the rest of the problem, because I’ll have more on that in one minute.


Personally, I will have nothing to do with a Trump supporter. They have been excised from my life. I learned for good four years ago during their doubling-down period of absurdity, that what truly fuels these people has nothing to do with decency and love of country or fellow man. It has everything to do with lopsided support for an America that believes it can legally drag good people through the dirt, and then have a good laugh about it.

This is from my piece seven weeks ago detailing the truth about the America-attacker’s ardent supporters. Feel free to breeze through it, or ignore it altogether, because there will be some news on the other side. But I am putting it here again, because it was all confirmed November 5:
-You have told me you don’t really believe in “law in order” because in fact you support a convicted felon, who is currently facing scores of other felony charges for all manner of crimes, instead of supporting the career prosecutor who locked cheating lowlifes like Trump away behind bars ...
-You have told me you don’t believe in democracy, because you support the traitor who helped plan and execute the first attack on our Capitol since 1812, and attempted a violent coup that was one corrupt vice president away from possibly succeeding.
-You have told me you don’t believe in truth and honesty, because you support the man who told an astonishing documented 30,573 lies and mistruths during his epically awful presidency, and does nothing but lie from the time his fat little feet hit the deck in the morning until he finally passes out from overexposure at midnight.
-You have told me you don’t believe in our children’s future or the future of our planet, because you support the complete imbecile who is a sworn enemy of science, thinks climate change is a hoax, and that wind turbines cause cancer.
-You have told me you don’t have a shred of respect for the women in your lives, because you support the felon who physically attacks and berates them, and does not believe they should have the same rights men do.
-You have told me you don’t believe in a strong economy because you support the guy who wrecked the perfectly good one he inherited from Barack Obama so magnificently by failing to pass the only real test of his gross presidency. His multi-pronged failures to answer the COVID crisis, was among the greatest failures in American history. He simply couldn’t find it in his dark, empty soul to drum up even a shred of compassion for the millions of Americans who were sick and dying, and even went so far as suggesting that maybe we try drinking Lysol to combat COVID’s terrible effects.
-You have told me you don’t believe all Americans deserve affordable healthcare, because the guy you support tried to do away with that without any plan to replace it, and now pathetically tells us he has “a concept of a plan” to make it better. Can you really be this damn stupid?
-You have told me you don’t really support blue collar, working Americans because you support the guy who passionately hates unions, refuses to support raising minimum wage, and has relentlessly stood up for the corporations, starting with Big Oil, who grease his bottomless pockets.
-You have told me you really aren’t Christian, if I am to understand this religious orthodoxy at all, because I just don’t think Jesus Christ would have much respect for a foul-mouthed, abusive slob, who dutifully avoids church, belittles people who have less than him, and pawns off Bibles online like they are some steak, sneaker, or watch to pay off his endless stream of lawyers, and pad a lifestyle spent behind locked gates, where he cheats at golf and avoids working-class Americans at all costs.
-You have told me you don’t really support the men and women in uniform because you bow to a reprehensible draft-dodger who calls our fallen “suckers and losers” and just weeks ago disgraced the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery for a cheap, campaign photo op. The last two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of staff, including one he appointed are telling you that the man you support means our country harm, so kindly save all that phony patriotic garbage you are trying to dump on the rest of us.

So now the gory news, and but the latest bone-chilling example of where this is all headed:


On Friday, we learned that the lawyer, Aaron Siri, helping the certifiably crazy Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick health officials to staff the Department of Health and Human Services, has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine.

Read that again.

Does ridding ourselves of a life-saving measure that has protected hundreds ofmillions of people from a virus that causes paralysis and/or death sound at all normal to you?


Did you ever imagine before 2016 that a party running on making polio great again would have success at the polls in America?

I’m sorry, but just what in the f--- are normal people supposed to do with insane information like this???? It blows the mind of anybody with even a shred of sense in their damn head.

This isn’t just dangerous, it is criminal, warped and ghoulish.


It is surprising even for a cult of knuckle-draggers who viewed wearing masks during a pandemic that killed millions of us an affront and inconvenience to their warped way of life.

That one never should have passed for normal, either, but in retrospect almost looks in the vicinity of sane when stacked up against returning polio to America.

This Titanic news, which so far is being treated with a casual shrug in our bought-off press, was just the latest clown car to take to the America-attacker’s fast track toward the cliff since November 5.

He has already nominated one obscene billionaire after another to staff his broken cabinet — all of whom are far more interested in building their stock portfolios than they are building up the lives of average Americans.


Worse, in just the past five days alone, the orange, nuclear-powered blowhard has already admitted that he "can't guarantee" tariffs won't raise prices on goods, and that lowering grocery prices "is very hard."

Go ahead, read that one again, too, because we have been led to believe that those were the chief reasons people voted for Trump again. But as I exhaustively outlined above, they actually had nothing to do with it.

The majority of Americans get off on hurt, cruelty, and revenge and the soulless America-attacker is just the person to provide it.


Kennedy Jr. himself is so sick and unhinged his entire damn family spent whatever was left of their diminishing political capital to warn about the snake in their family to no avail.

They know full well how sick and dangerous he is.

In Hitler’s Germany, there was a SS physician named Josef Mengele who conducted inhumane, deadly, medical experiments on thousands of prisoners at Auschwitz. Mengele, who was infamously nicknamed the "angel of death," conducted most of his heinous experiments on children.


It is children who receive the life-saving vaccines that Kennedy Jr. most abhors.

And if you think I am swerving out of my lane and going too far here, you are in danger of becoming the problem, because here is a passage from a recent CNN story detailing Kennedy’s criticism of the ghastly man and his supporters, who he now curiously can’t wait to work for and with:
But Kennedy’s harshest attacks date back to Trump’s rise in 2016, when on his radio show “Ring of Fire,” Kennedy applauded descriptions of Trump’s base as “belligerent idiots” and suggestions that some were “outright Nazis” and “spineless fellow travelers.” Kennedy also likened Trump to historical demagogues like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, accusing Trump of exploiting societal insecurities and xenophobia to amass power.

Kennedy himself has repeatedly showed a weird, sickening affinity for Hitler and a callous disregard for the millions who were killed in the Holocaust, likening the Covid policies put forth by Dr. Anthony Fauci this way, as reported in Politico in January, 2022:
“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could you could cross the Alps to Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” said Kennedy, a nephew of former President John F. Kennedy and the son of his slain brother, former U.S. attorney general, civil rights activist and Democratic presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy.
Kennedy Jr. went on to say that today, “the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run and none of us can hide,” and complained about 5G, the newest generation of wireless communication networks, and about vaccine passports.
An AP investigation published last month detailed how Kennedy has invoked the specter of Nazis and the Holocaust in his work to sow doubts about vaccines and agitate against public health efforts to bring the pandemic under control, such as requiring masks or vaccine mandates.
In a speech to the Ron Paul Institute in October, for example, Kennedy referenced Nazis multiple times, obliquely comparing public health measures put in place by governments around the world to Nazi propaganda meant to scare people into abandoning critical thinking. Last month, he put out a video that showed a picture of Fauci with a Hitler mustache.

So on one hand, Kennedy Jr., is leery of Hitler (even if lucky little girls like Anne Frank could run and hide from him), while on the other pathetically throwing himself at the fat, little feet of a man, who he himself compared to the monster who created the terrible Holocaust.

Everything — EVERYTHING — is wrong with this.

In closing I am saying this: Things are only going to get worse in America — much worse — in the coming days and months. It took us no time at all to get to this terrible place, and the reason for that is that there are millions of people who support the monstrous, America-attacking Trump, and boisterously stand behind him and his grotesque plans — like entertaining the elimination of life-saving vaccines.

In Hitler’s Germany, his gruesome supporters were said to "know about it (his atrocities) but said nothing." In Trump’s America, his gruesome supporters are only too proud to amplify them.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.




'There will be some cuts': Republican reveals Social Security is in DOGE's crosshairs


Jake Johnson, 
Common Dreams
December 18, 2024 



Greg Lopez (campaign website).

A House Republican said Tuesday that he believes there "will be some cuts" to Social Security and Medicare as he entered a conference room at the U.S. Capitol for the first meeting of the DOGE Caucus, a new congressional group formed to support an advisory commission led by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Outside the conference room, Social Security Works executive director Alex Lawson asked Republicans passing through whether they would uphold President-elect Donald Trump's campaign pledge to protect Social Security and Medicare.

One lawmaker, Rep. Greg Lopez (R-Colo.), told Lawson that "when we look to reduce our national debt, I think these should be on the table," referring to the two programs.






"I am a strong advocate of discussing this and reevaluating them, and I do believe, at the end of the day, there will be some cuts," Lopez added.

Asked if cuts to Social Security and Medicare would be "on the table" for the DOGE Caucus, Lopez replied, "We're about to find out."

The House Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency Caucus was founded last month by Reps. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) and Pete Sessions (R-Texas) with the stated goal of backing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency "in its mission to dismantle the out-of-control government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies."

Musk and Ramaswamy, Trump's picks to lead the advisory panel, have openly attacked Social Security in recent weeks, intensifying advocates' warnings that the commission is a ploy to enact steep cuts to critical antipoverty programs.

Sessions, co-chair of the DOGE Caucus, refused to answer when Lawson pressed him on whether he would commit to protecting Social Security and Medicare in line with Trump's rhetoric on the campaign trail.


"Most of the responses have been what I would say are no comments," Lawson said at the entrance of the DOGE Caucus meeting. "That's the safest position for a member of Congress, to have no position that they have to defend in front of their constituents."

"If they had their way," Lawson added, "they'll close every door and make all the decisions out of the light and the watch of their constituents."

The House DOGE Caucus is expected to hit triple-digit membership shortly, and its makeup is almost entirely Republican. Just three Democrats have joined thus far: Reps. Steven Horsford of Nevada, Val Hoyle of Oregon, and Jared Moskowitz of Florida.

Horsford said in a statement after Tuesday's caucus meeting that he is in the group "to defend the working families in Nevada that I represent."

In an appearance on Fox News following the meeting, Bean said that "we had a packed caucus room" and that attendance was higher than he expected, with over 50 Republicans and three Democrats. Asked to provide some specifics on programs that could be cut, the first category Bean mentioned was "education."

There's also a Senate DOGE Caucus led by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa.), who has previously said she's open to Social Security privatization and argued lawmakers should "sit down behind closed doors" to "have an open and honest conversation" about changes to the New Deal program.






'Profits go poof': U.S. businesses reportedly waking up to risk of Trump's plans


Brad Reed
December 18, 2024 
RAW STORY

Donald Trump (Shutterstock)

Axios is reporting that some American businesses are waking up to the possibility that President-elect Donald Trump isn't just bluffing with his plans to slap massive tariffs on all foreign-produced goods.

The report begins by noting that business leaders in recent weeks have been cozying up to Trump more because his planned tariffs "could make their profits go poof."

In fact, writes Axios, Trump's proposed 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian and Mexican goods, as well as his proposed 60 percent tariffs on all Chinese goods, are high enough that "they could entirely wipe out the annual profits of some large companies, per an analysis from consulting firm PWC."

Of course, these companies will not simply stand idly by as their profit margins erode but will rather jack up prices on their customers, which will lead to a resurgence of inflation.

Chris Desmond, a PWC principal for customs and international trade, tells Axios that the potential impact these tariffs will have on businesses and consumers should not be underestimated.

"This is one of the biggest events in my career to impact so many U.S. multinational companies that deal with property imports," explained Desmond, who also pointed out that products such as avocados could get price hikes even if they aren't grown in Mexico but simply pass through there on their way to the United States.

"That's messy," Desmond told Axios. "There's a need for guidance."
Ireland fines Meta 251 mn euros over Facebook hacks


By AFP
December 17, 2024

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) criticised Meta for a security flaw in its video upload function which hackers were able to exploit - Copyright AFP/File LOIC VENANCE
Alexandra BACON

An Irish regulator helping police European Union data privacy on Tuesday said it had fined Facebook-owner Meta 251 million euros ($263 million) for a data protection failure that saw users’ accounts hacked.

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) criticised Meta for a security flaw in its video upload function which hackers were able to exploit to gain full access to other users’ Facebook profiles.

Over a two-week period in 2018, unauthorised users were able to hack into around 29 million Facebook accounts globally, including three million based in the EU.

The personal data involved included email addresses, phone numbers, locations and places of work.

“The failure to build in data protection requirements throughout the design and development cycle can expose individuals to very serious risks and harms, including a risk to the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals,” said Graham Doyle, the regulator’s head of communications.

“By allowing unauthorised exposure of profile information, the vulnerabilities behind this breach caused a grave risk of misuse of these types of data,” he added.

Meta Ireland and its US parent company remedied the breach shortly after its discovery, the DPC said, and reported the issue to the regulator in September 2018.

“We took immediate action to fix the problem as soon as it was identified, and we proactively informed people impacted as well as the Irish Data Protection Commission,” a Meta spokesperson said.

– Big tech crackdown –

It is the latest fine in a series issued to the US social media giant and its rivals, as global regulators seek to rein in big tech firms over privacy, competition, disinformation and taxation.

The EU has been at the forefront of this regulation, with its strict General Data Protection Regulation, launched in 2018 to protect European consumers from personal data breaches.

Many global tech companies including Google, Apple and Meta, base their European operations in Dublin, attracted by Ireland’s corporate tax rate.

As a result, Ireland’s data protection agency is the lead regulator responsible for holding them to account.

The series of fines by the DPC against Meta over data breaches by its Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook services have been dwarfed by the tech giant’s multi-billion-dollar earnings.

In September, the DPC hit Meta with a 91-million-euro fine for failing to put measures in place to protect users’ password data and for taking too long to alert the regulator about the issue.

It came after the European Commission scored two major legal victories in separate cases that left Apple and Google owing billions of euros.

The regulator also recently hit Microsoft-owned LinkedIn with its first EU fine, a 310-million-euro penalty for personal data breaches over targeted advertising.

Cuba’s ‘invisible’ tragedy: US-bound migrants who disappear in the Caribbean

By AFP
December 17, 2024

Cubans show pictures of their relatives who disappeared in January 2023 on a handmade migrant boat somewhere between Cuba and South Florida 
- Copyright AFP YAMIL LAGE

Leticia PINEDA

In the early hours of January 3, 2023, 32 people climbed onto a makeshift raft off southern Cuba and set out across the Caribbean for Florida, 170 kilometers (100 miles) away.

They were never heard from again.

Among them was an eight-year-old girl who was traveling with her mother, six members of a family from the central Cuban city of Camaguey and a couple from the south-central city of Cienfuegos who left their children behind for safety.

The boat’s occupants also included Yoel Romero, a 43-year-old bricklayer and father of three, Jonathan Jesus Alvarez, a 30-year-old truck driver, also with three children, and Dariel Alejandro Chacon, a 27-year-old maintenance worker.

Chacon’s mother Idalmis put some toast in her son’s backpack for the crossing to Florida, but he never got to eat it.

The bag washed up four days later on a rocky beach at a luxury golf club in the Florida Keys.



– ‘We need to know’ –



The Caribbean has become a watery grave for Cubans fleeing a severe economic crisis on the communist island and headed for Florida.

At least 368 Cubans have died or disappeared on the Caribbean migration route since 2020, when the International Organization for Migration (IOM) began gathering statistics on what it calls “invisible shipwrecks.”

The US Coast Guard repatriated a similar number — 367 — who tried to enter the country illegally in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024.

But residents of the cash-strapped island, reeling from the worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s main ally and financial backer, in the 1990s, remained undeterred.

AFP spoke to 21 relatives of the 32 Cubans who went missing at sea on January 3, 2023.

All were desperate for news of their relatives’ fate.

“Nobody has given us an answer,” Alvarez’s mother, Osmara Garcia, said in an interview in her adobe house in a low-income neighborhood of Cardenas, a city in west-central Cuba from which many of the missing travelers hail.

“We need to know whatever the answer is…because the uncertainty is unbearable,” Romero’s mother Amparo Riviera said.



– Two backpacks –



Cuba is experiencing the biggest emigration wave since the revolution that brought the late Fidel Castro to power in 1959.

The island has lost around one million inhabitants since 2012, census figures show.

Many try the well-traveled route across the sea to the United States, where President Joe Biden in 2023 began allowing legal entry for citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela — four countries with grim human rights records.

More than 700,000 Cubans entered the United States — legally or illegally — between January 2022 and August 2024.

But for many of those who do not meet the conditions for entry, including having a US sponsor, illegal entry by sea is the fallback plan.

The raft bearing Alvarez, Chacon, Romero, and their fellow travelers left from Playa Larga beach on Cuba’s southern coast.

The only clues as to their fate were the backpacks of Chacon and another migrant found within a kilometer and a half of each other on the Florida coast.

“From then on, my life changed (…) it was all about the search,” Romero’s mother Riviera said.



– Backyard boat builders –



Unlike in the Mediterranean, where NGOs track migrant boats and organize rescue missions, the plight of people crossing the Caribbean goes largely undocumented.

At least 1,100 migrants from Central and South America have disappeared “without a trace” on the Caribbean migrant route since 2020, said Edwin Viales, regional monitor for the IOM Missing Migrants Project.

2022 was the deadliest year on record for Cubans trying to reach the US by sea, with at least 130 migrants perishing in the process, according to the IOM.

At the end of 2022 and start of 2023, home-made rafts were leaving Cuba daily, with videos shared online showing boatpeople cheering each other on at sea.

Little was ever said about those who never arrived at their intended destination.

The group that left from Playa Larga secretly built a raft measuring nine meters (30 feet) from bow to stern, with a sail, eight oars and 10 metal barrels to give buoyancy.

Alvarez’s mother said her son kept his departure a secret.

Would-be Cuban migrants often hush up their preparations because emigrating by sea is illegal in Cuba and they do not want their families to worry about them.



– ‘We prayed to God’ –



Only a few Cubans, like Oniel Machado, a 49-year-old blacksmith from the western city of San Jose de la Lajas, have survived a shipwreck in the Florida Straits to tell the tale.

He and 12 fellow migrants spent hours face down, clinging onto the boards of their raft, which was roiled by a raging sea, one night in April 2022.

“We prayed to God,” Machado told AFP a month later, “and we covered ourselves, and when we woke up, we were in US waters.”

That journey ended in disappointment for the group, however.

They were picked up by the US Coast Guard and returned to Cuba.


US, Chinese ships at Cambodia bases as Washington navigates diplomatic currents
IMPERIALISM DOCKS IN A STALINIST MONARCHY

ByAFP
December 18, 2024

Crew members of the USS Savannah line up as they prepared to dock in Cambodia's port city of Sihanoukville this week - Copyright AFP YARN SOVEIT
Suy SE

When a US warship docked in Cambodia this week, it moored just a few kilometres from a base where China has built an extended new pier and two of Beijing’s own vessels have been berthed for about a year.

The United States has said the Ream naval base could grant China a strategic position in the Gulf of Thailand, near the disputed South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety.

Washington is now looking to bolster its relationship with Cambodia, after Phnom Penh scrapped joint military exercises in 2017.

Cambodia has long been one of China’s staunchest allies in Southeast Asia, and Beijing has extended its influence over Phnom Penh in recent years.

China’s sway has taken its most concrete form at the Ream base — once partly funded by the United States — where the new jetty extends 363 metres (1,191 feet) into the Gulf of Thailand.

The two Type-056A Chinese anti-submarine corvettes — number 630, the Aba, and 631, the Tianmen — have been stationed alongside it for about 12 months, despite Cambodian leaders’ insistence that the base is not for use by any foreign power.

The jetty and the ships symbolise Beijing’s interests in Cambodia, which analysts say Washington is looking to counter with the port call by the USS Savannah.


– China’s reach –


Under President Xi Jinping, the world’s second-largest economy has hugely strengthened its military depth and reach.

The Gulf of Thailand lies between the South China Sea — where Beijing has built artificial islands with military facilities — and the Indian Ocean, where it has struck multiple infrastructure deals as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

A Chinese firm acquired a 99-year lease on the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota, and Beijing has other agreements with countries including Pakistan, the Maldives, Bangladesh and Djibouti, where it has a military base.

Even if Cambodia’s Ream does not become a formal Chinese base, Beijing’s warships could gain preferential access to its facilities for exercises and resupply, said Timothy Heath, a senior international defence researcher at the US-based Rand Corporation think tank.

It is far from the key trade and oil transit route of the Malacca Strait, he noted. But “China could find value in establishing an intelligence collection post at Ream, which they may well seek.”

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Cambodia in June, and the combat ship USS Savannah docked at the southern port city of Sihanoukville on Monday, about 30 kilometres from the Ream base and the 1,500-tonne grey Chinese corvettes.

Ali Wyne, a researcher and adviser from International Crisis Group, told AFP the US visit “is part of Washington’s effort to repair defence ties with Phnom Penh”.


– ‘China’s little puppet’ –


Analysts say Cambodia is now looking to reduce its reliance on China and develop other relationships.

The US warship’s port call could be a “smart strategic move” by Phnom Penh as it sought to “shift global perception from seeing Cambodia as China’s little puppet,” political analyst Ou Virak told AFP.

China is Cambodia’s biggest creditor and has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure investments under former leader Hun Sen.

His son, Hun Manet — a graduate of the US military academy West Point — has led Cambodia since 2023, although Hun Sen has retained an influential role in government after nearly four decades of rule.

Cambodia’s Chinese-funded projects include a $2 billion expressway between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, and the $1.1 billion Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, which opened last year.

They have “helped elevate economic growth”, according to Phnom Penh.

But more than half of the Southeast Asian infrastructure projects China has funded in recent years have been cancelled, reduced in scale or were unlikely to proceed, according to a March study by the Australia-based Lowy Institute.

Others in the region and elsewhere were also looking to diversify their foreign policies, Wyne said.

“Both the United States and China should appreciate” that a growing number of countries were pursuing “multialigned foreign policies that cultivate partners other than the world’s two foremost powers”.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/us-chinese-ships-at-cambodia-bases-as-washington-navigates-diplomatic-currents/article#ixzz8umXJXw92
Serbia’s capital Belgrade to make public transport free


By AFP
December 18, 2024

A tram on the old Sava Bridge in Belgrade, which is soon to be demolished - Copyright AFP Andrej ISAKOVIC

All public transport in Serbia’s capital Belgrade will be free from next month — the latest European city to adopt the radical measure to counter gridlocked roads.

“This means no one will have to pay for a ticket anymore,” mayor Aleksandar Sapic said Wednesday, with the city following the example of Luxembourg, the Estonian capital Tallinn and the French city of Montpellier.

Belgrade — which has a population of nearly 1.7 million — struggles with terrible traffic jams, with the number of cars on its roads increasing by 250,000 over the past decade, according to Sapic.

The Serbian capital is one of the few major European capitals without an underground mass transit system.

A metro system has been promised for 2030, although ground has yet to be broken on the project amid numerous delays.

Sapic also vowed that the city’s entire fleet of buses, trams and trolley buses would be replaced by 2027.

Last month the mayor’s plans to demolish a major World War II-era bridge triggered protests and criticism that the removal of the river crossing would only exacerbate the city’s traffic problems.

The measure announced Wednesday was the latest in a series of handouts greenlit by Belgrade’s municipal government backed by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party. Over the past year kindergartens have been made free and students in the capital have also been given financial aid.



Three ‘transformations’ for nature, according to UN experts


ByAFP
December 18, 2024

The report highlighted the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy in Kenya - Copyright AFP Andrej ISAKOVIC
Kelly MACNAMARA

Human societies need a radical overhaul to stop the destruction of the planet, according to the UN biodiversity expert panel’s “transformative change” report released Wednesday.

The assessment, the second by the expert panel this week, says overconsumption in richer countries, a concentration of wealth and power, and a society increasingly disconnected from nature, were driving ecological destruction.

It ideas of how to respond to “biodiversity loss, nature’s decline and the projected collapse of key ecosystem functions”.

Taking action will be difficult — but not impossible, the report said.

“It is not just governments. It is not just business. It is not just civil society. It is all of us. We all need to work together,” said Arun Agrawaln, one of the lead authors of the report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Here are three examples of successful transformations, big and small, according to IPBES.

– Sea bounty –

In 2002 Spain suffered what was at the time its worst environmental disaster, when the Prestige oil tanker broke in two, spilling fuel that blackened swathes of the Atlantic coastline.

Fishing communities in Galicia responded to the devastation by pioneering a new way to manage a marine reserve, with fishers, scientists and the local authorities working together.

The “Os Minarzos” reserve model was “not without tensions”, IPBES said.

But more than 17 years later, the area has better fishing practices, more species and higher incomes — as well as improved trust and cooperation.

It also inspired new guidelines for the UN’s agriculture body and a network of more than 20 million fishers in Europe and across parts of North and South America.

– Ant Forest –

China’s largest private tree planting project, Ant Forest, is a mobile phone application that rewards users for climate friendly activities.

The app boasts that 500 million people have used its programme, which gives users “green energy points” for things like walking or cycling to work instead of driving, and cutting down on plastic and paper.

The points grow into a virtual tree, which Ant Forest matches by planting a real tree.

“Recognising a wide range of ecological and social goals, the plants are suited to specific contexts and provide jobs in eco-agriculture and ecotourism in remote rural areas facing environmental degradation in China,” the report said.

Since its launch in 2016, the project has planted 548 million trees in 13 provinces.

– ‘Power of community’ –

Traditional knowledge from indigenous peoples and local communities is a key aspect of the report, which highlighted the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy in Kenya.

IPBES said this “represents a new model for conservation”, which tries to tackle a range of issues together, including species loss, incomes and climate change.

The conservancy involves community-managed protected areas, as well as activities like river cleaning and tree planting.

IPBES said the project has succeeded in creating areas “where both humans and wildlife thrive”.

“Over a very short period of time, biodiversity reappeared,” said Karen O’Brien, another of the lead authors of the report.

“The power of community, again and again in our examples, is important.”


THE LAST COLONY   VIVA INDEPENDENCE

Climate change made Cyclone Chido stronger: scientists

By AFP
December 18, 2024

Officials warn of a death toll reaching hundreds, possibly even thousands
 - Copyright AFP Andrej ISAKOVIC

Climate change intensified Cyclone Chido as it barrelled toward the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte, said a preliminary study by scientists studying the link between global warming and tropical storms.

The assessment by Imperial College London also estimated that cyclones of Chido’s strength were 40 percent more likely in the warmer climate of 2024 compared to pre-industrial times.

Chido was the most damaging cyclone to hit Mayotte in 90 years when it made landfall Saturday, flattening tin-roof shacks in France’s poorest overseas territory.

Classified as a category four storm — the second highest on a five-point scale — Cyclone Chido crossed the small archipelago, where about one-third of the population live in makeshift housing.

The true scale of the disaster is still unknown but officials fear the death toll could eventually rise into the thousands.

Scientists at Imperial College London assessed what role global warming might have played in whipping up the wind speed and ferocity of tropical storms like Chido.

To overcome a scarcity of real-world data, they used an advanced computer model that runs millions of simulated tropical cyclones to infer what might be attributed to recent warming.

They concluded that wind speeds in the region near where Chido made landfall had increased by 3 miles per second compared to the climate before humanity began burning fossil fuels.

Climate change “uplifted the intensity of a tropical cyclone like ‘Chido’ from a Category 3 to Category 4”, the study said.

In the absence of conclusive studies, France’s weather service has stopped short of attributing Chido’s intensity to global warming, but says warmer oceans driven by human-caused climate change have made storms more violent.

Mayotte took the cyclone’s full force and Meteo-France said Chido’s impact was “above all the consequence of its trajectory” over the island.

The climate is nearly 1.3 degrees Celsius warmer compared to the pre-industrial era, and scientists say this extra heat in the atmosphere and oceans is stoking more frequent and volatile weather events.

Warmer air can hold more water vapour, and warmer oceans cause greater evaporation, supercharging the conditions upon which tropical storms feed.



Devastated Mayotte battles to recover from cyclone ‘steamroller’


By AFP
December 18, 2024

The cyclone left scenes of utter devastation - Copyright AFP DIMITAR DILKOFF
Thibault Marchand

The district of La Vigie on the French overseas territory of Mayotte was until last week a bustling hub of life. Now it no longer exists.

All that remains after Cyclone Chido rammed into Mayotte at the weekend, leaving devastation unprecedented in the last century in its wake, are ravaged hills, piles of tangled sheet metal and wood, and a few bare tree trunks.

“It was like a steamroller that crushed everything,” said Nasrine, a teacher who did not give her last name, as she showed people around her now transformed neighbourhood.

Climbing up the hill clutching an umbrella to protect her from the sun, the young woman stopped in horror.

“We’re not supposed to see the sea from here — before, the vegetation covered the whole view,” she said.

Nasrine lived in one of the few concrete buildings in the district around Pamandzi, a town close to Mayotte’s main airport on the island of Petite Terre, just east of the main island of the Mayotte archipelago.

Her house survived the cyclone. But a little further on, Touharati Ali Moudou lost everything.

“The wind knocked down the house,” said the mother in her 30s, who recently arrived from the Comoros to the north from where many immigrants head to Mayotte in search of a better life.

Before the cyclone hit, she had been told that she could find shelter in a nearby gymnasium but, she said, “there were a lot of people, and my father is very old”.

So they stayed home.

In the end, they were lucky: only two people were injured among her family and nearby neighbours, including a man whose head was slashed by a piece of metal blown by the wind.





– Community spirit –

Everyone, from Mayotte locals to officials far away in Paris, knows that the official toll of 22 dead risks rising exponentially.

“What I fear is that the toll will be far too high,” French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who visited Mayotte on Monday, told BFMTV, describing the damage as “colossal”.

Communication is almost non-existent. Nobody has television anymore. The mobile network and internet are at best patchy, at worst non-existent. Only the radio can sometimes give snippets of information.

With much of the population living in shanty towns in informal dwellings protected only by sheet metal roofs, Chido encountered few obstacles.

But a ray of hope comes from the sense of community as people team up to clear the area and return to a semblance of normal life.

In three days, the landscape of desolation has already changed.

“It looks good compared to Saturday,” Nasrine said.

Residents of the neighbourhood worked to clear the roads and remove most of the electrical cables on the ground, defying the authorities’ instructions for caution, she said.

The assistant principal of a middle school in Pamandzi, Morgane Renard, inspected the damage.

The shock caused by Chido was clear in her voice, which choked when talking about the cyclone: the first gust of wind, the slight lull and then the second “colossal” gust of wind.

“Even those who thought they were safe did not imagine to what extent the violence of the wind could devastate everything,” she said, acknowledging she was one of the lucky ones.

Apart from two trees that fell on her family house, it is intact.

“Sharing is the key word at the moment,” said Nasrine.

In the street, neighbours meet to cook with wood on makeshift equipment. Abeta, a 17-year-old boy, improvised a system with a water bottle cut in half to collect water drop by drop from a leaking pipe.



– Reconstruction –

Touharati Ali Moudou showed a pile of mattresses, blankets and a few belongings saved from the disaster. She has already put men to work to create a new dwelling and on a roughly flat piece of land posts have already been raised.

The sheet metal will soon be back, first for the roof: she will get a home for herself, her three children and the nieces and nephews who she sometimes looks after.

All over Mayotte, informal settlements that house an estimated 100,000 of the 300,000 officially registered inhabitants have been destroyed.

Reconstruction will be daunting. According to Retailleau, only 10 percent of Mayotte’s inhabitants had insurance.

Kaweni, the largest shantytown in France, on the outskirts of the capital Mamoudzou on Mayotte’s main island, is one of the most affected.

The sound of hammers hitting sheet metal reverberates across the neighbourhood as locals rush to rebuild homes before the rainy season arrives.

“It’s the new sound of Mamoudzou,” said a law student who came to the capital where the network is more stable to recharge his phone and give news to his parents who “thought he was dead”.



Heartbreaking Aftermath Of Cyclone Chido In Mayotte

Story by Hannah Hodgetts • 18/12/2024


Boinali Dhakioine

The aftermath of Cyclone Chido has left the communities of Mayotte devasted.

Cyclone Chido hit the region of Mayotte, France, on December 14th and is claimed to be one of the worst storms to hit the island in over 90 years.

Boinali Dhakioine, from Mamoudzou, Mayotte, France, captured heartbreaking footage of the effects of the cyclone on the island in the Indian Ocean.


Boinali Dhakioine

Many towns and homes were left destroyed as collapsed roofs, fallen trees and abandoned cars can be seen blocking the streets.

Mayotte was hit with torrential rainfall, wave heights over 5 meters and winds reaching up to 200 km per hour.

The natural disaster resulted in communities cut off from electricity and water and many roads, internet and phone networks still down.




Boinali Dhakioine

The cyclone continued to cause heartbreak to nearby islands of Comoros, Madagascar and Mozambique where the death toll is rising.

French President Emmanuel Macron declared national mourning and claimed to support residents and emergency services involved in the emergency and relief operation.

President Macron claimed to visit the French Indian Ocean territory in support of rescue teams who are struggling to clean up one of the biggest storms to hit the region in nearly a century.

Related video: France: Cyclone Chido Batters Mayotte, Leaving Significant Damage 4 (StringersHub)



 

France imposes curfew for cyclone-hit Mayotte as toll rises


By AFP
December 17, 2024

According to the latest official toll, 22 people are confirmed to have been killed in Mayotte by Cyclone Chido - Copyright Securite Civile/AFP Handout

Authorities announced a nighttime curfew Tuesday to curb looting after a devastating cyclone hit the French overseas territory of Mayotte, with the country’s prime minister warning the death toll could rise.

According to the latest toll from the interior ministry, 22 people are confirmed to have been killed and 1,373 injured by Cyclone Chido when it barrelled into the archipelago at the weekend.

But authorities fear that hundreds, and possibly even thousands, will be confirmed dead once the true scale of the toll is revealed after the rubble is cleared and roads are unblocked.

Cyclone Chido was the latest in a string of storms worldwide fuelled by climate change, with the exceptional system being super-charged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, according to experts.

Rescuers were searching for survivors in the wreckage and said they expected to find numerous victims in the ruins of slums such as ones in the capital Mamoudzou.

In a sign of the potential magnitude of the tragedy, the Red Cross said it feared more than 200 of its volunteers were missing on Mayotte.

“The toll is, as of today, at more than 20 dead, 200 badly wounded and 1,500 wounded in a relative state of urgency,” Prime Minister Francois Bayrou told parliament.

“This toll could rise. We all know this,” he added.

– ‘Completely devastated’ –

The health services are in tatters while power and mobile phone services have been knocked out.

The airport is closed to civilian flights and there is mounting concern over how to ensure supplies of drinking water.

Bayrou said progress was being made with about 50 percent of the electricity network restarted, with a target of 75 percent “by the end of the week”.

The main hospital has recovered around half of its activity, and “about 80 percent of the road network is accessible again”, he added.

The curfew from 10:00 pm to 4:00 am (1900 GMT to 0100 GMT) is being put in place as a security measure to prevent looting, the French interior ministry said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who chaired a crisis meeting on Monday night, has described the situation as a “tragedy”.

Late Tuesday, Macron said he would visit territory on Thursday, cutting short a trip to Brussels to meet European Union leaders.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who on Monday visited the island, said that Mayotte has been “completely devastated”, with 70 percent of inhabitants affected.

– ‘Until last minute’ –

Mayotte is France’s poorest region, with an estimated one-third of the population living in shantytowns whose flimsy sheet metal-roofed homes offered scant protection against the storm.

“We’re starting to run out of water. In the south, there’s been no running water for five days,” said Antoy Abdallah, a resident of Tsoundzou in the territory’s capital Mamoudzou.

“We’re completely cut off from the world,” the 34-year-old lamented.

Most of Mayotte’s population is Muslim and religious tradition dictates that bodies must be buried rapidly, meaning some may never be counted.

Assessing the toll is further complicated by irregular immigration to Mayotte, especially from the Comoros islands to the north, meaning much of the population is not even registered.

Mayotte officially has 320,000 inhabitants but authorities estimate there could be 100,000 to 200,000 more people, taking into account illegal immigration.

After hitting Mayotte, Cyclone Chido made landfall in Mozambique, claiming at least 34 lives and destroying 23,600 homes, authorities said.

– Prime minister criticised –

Mayotte is one of several French overseas territories ruled from Paris.

French military planes have been shuttling between Mayotte and the island of La Reunion, also a French overseas territory, to the east which was spared the cyclone and is serving as the hub for rescue efforts.

The first air evacuation of 25 badly wounded people from Mayotte to La Reunion took place on Monday night, Health Minister Genevieve Darrieussecq said.

The disaster poses a major challenge for a government only operating in a caretaker capacity, days after Macron appointed the sixth prime minister of his presidency.

Bayrou faced tough criticism less than a week into the job after choosing to chair a provincial town hall meeting in his capacity as mayor of Pau instead of attending Macron’s crisis meeting in person.

French National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, a member of Macron’s centrist party, said that “instead of taking a plane for Pau” Bayrou should have “taken a plane for Mamoudzou” instead.


 

UK electricity grid set for ‘unprecedented’ £35 bn investment



By AFP
December 18, 2024

Limited transmission capacity means green energy projects have waited years to connect Britain's electricity grid - Copyright AFP ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

National Grid unveiled Wednesday a massive plan to nearly double the transmission capacity of the UK’s electricity grid, boosting the British government’s net zero ambitions.

The British company said it plans to invest up to £35 billion ($45 billion) to upgrade the UK’s electricity grid.

“The plan includes an unprecedented level of investment… over the five years to March 2031,” National Grid said in a statement.

The Labour government, elected in July, has vowed to move away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy, promising among other things to decarbonise the UK’s electricity grid by 2030.

The grid has struggled with limited transmission capacity, meaning green energy projects have waited years to connect.

The investment will upgrade the existing grid network and pay for new construction projects that will see electricity transmission capacity almost doubled.

“This plan represents the most significant step forward in the electricity network that we’ve seen in a generation,” said the company’s chief executive John Pettigrew.

“We will nearly double the amount of energy that can be transported around the country,” he added.

More than twice the quantity of transmission infrastructure — such as pylons, cables and substations — built over the last decade will need to be constructed in the next five years, the publicly-owned National Energy System Operator said in a report last month.

The plans announced Wednesday will need to be agreed by industry regulator Ofgem, as its balances the push to upgrade power infrastructure with protecting customers against higher bills.

The government has moved swiftly to take control of key electricity operations from National Grid in a bid to tighten the country’s energy security and aid transition to a net zero carbon economy.

The government recently bought Electricity System Operator — which oversees the balancing of supply and demand in the UK’s electricity grid — for £630 million.

It was launched on October 1 and renamed National Energy System Operator.

National Grid, privatised in 1990, is responsible for transporting electricity in England and Wales, while SSE and ScottishPower share that responsibility in Scotland.

SSE recently announced plans to invest around £22 billion in grid infrastructure and ScottishPower plans to invest £10.6 billion.

“It’s clear that the UK’s network needs upgrading and this statement of intent by National Grid is a good step forward,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

“Whether that’s more homes being built, electricity-hungry data centres for all things AI or supporting the transition of industries to an electric world, electricity demands are getting bigger by the day,” he added.

In its clean energy push, Labour has launched a publicly-owned green-energy company called Great British Energy to spur investment in renewable projects like wind, solar, nuclear and tidal power.

The new company will receive £8.3 billion of taxpayers’ money over the next five years.