Lucky bustards: rare birds' habitat saved as French judges block mega-basins

A French court has halted plans to build four large water reservoirs in western France, ruling that they would threaten the survival of the little bustard, an endangered bird species.

Little bustards grow to between 42 and 45cm long with a 90-110cm wingspan. They weigh around 830g and feed on seeds, insects, rodents and reptiles. © Wikimedia Commons

By: Paul Myers

Issued on: 20/12/2024 - 

RFI

The French government gave the green light for the construction of 16 water reserves – known as mega-basins – for agricultural use in the Marais Poitevin, north of La Rochelle.

But 10 environmental campaign groups, including Nature Environnement 17 and the Ligue de protection des oiseaux ("Birds' Protection League", LPO), opposed the decision and took the case to the Bordeaux Administrative Court of Appeal.

On Wednesday, the court ruled that four of the 16 mega-basins are likely to destroy all or part of the habitat of the little bustard.

"The authorisation granted is illegal because it does not provide for a 'protected species' exemption," the judges said.

They ruled that building work on the reservoirs should be halted, and added that the water stored in the Sainte-Soline reservoir – the only one of the four built so far – can be used next summer by nearby farms.

Violent clashes

The mega-basins have divided opinion, with supporters saying they are a way to use water efficiently because it is pumped from the underground water table in the winter and stored for use in the dry summer months.

Critics argue they are too big and favour large farms, while activists claim water is a common good and that farmers are effectively stealing it rather than moving towards less water-intensive and more sustainable agricultural practices.

Protest convoy against government irrigation scheme reaches Paris after 8 day march

Tensions between the two sides led to violent clashes around the site of the Sainte-Soline reservoir in March 2023.

"Biodiversity was the forgotten issue," said LPO director Régis Ouvrard. "The mega-basins perpetuate a system of intensive agriculture responsible for the decline in biodiversity, and endangering populations of endangered species such as the little bustard."

More than half of endangered species in France are not protected: report

Little bustards grow to between 42 and 45cm long with a 90-110cm wingspan. They weigh around 830g and feed on seeds, insects, rodents and reptiles.

"The bustard is a species on life support," Ouvrard added. "It lost 94 percent of its numbers between 1978 and 2000. The four reserves targeted by this ruling will have a direct impact on 5 percent of the total bustard population."

The government said it had taken note of the court's decision.

International rescuers join search for Vanuatu quake survivors

Port Vila (AFP) – Overseas rescuers joined a hunt for survivors in the rubble of shattered buildings in earthquake-struck Vanuatu on Thursday, with officials saying the toll of nine dead is set to rise.

Rescue workers search for survivors in the Vanuatu capital Port Vila after an earthquake killed at least nine people. © STR / AFP

By: RFI
Issued on: 19/12/2024 

More than 100 personnel, along with rescue gear, dogs and aid supplies, were being flown on military transport planes from Australia and New Zealand to the capital Port Vila.

The 7.3-magnitude quake struck off the Pacific nation's main island on Tuesday, flattening multi-storey concrete buildings, cracking walls and bridges, damaging water supplies and knocking out most mobile networks.

Vanuatu has declared a seven-day state of emergency "due to the severe impacts", along with a curfew from 6 pm-6 am.

Civilians joined in the immediate rescue effort despite multiple aftershocks shaking the low-lying archipelago of 320,000 people, which lies in the quake-prone Pacific Rim of Fire.





AFP photos showed rescuers working with mechanical diggers at night to save people in one large building, all its floors pancaked into a flat pile of concrete.

Rescuers were focused on searching for people in two collapsed buildings in Port Vila, said Glen Craig of the Vanuatu Business Resilience Council.

"We know people are trapped and some have been rescued, and there have also been fatalities," he told AFP.

"My good friend that was killed in the earthquake – the funeral is at 2 pm today – but I have also got to think about the other 300,000 people in Vanuatu," Craig said.

Australia's government flew in a 64-person disaster response team equipped with two dogs, along with six medics, nine police and emergency response managers.
Death toll set to rise

"Australia's emergency crews are now on the ground in Vanuatu following the devastating earthquake," said Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

An Australian air force transport plane carries Australians out of earthquake-devastated Vanuatu 

© Handout / AUSTRALIAN DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE/AFP

A government-organised flight has also repatriated 148 Australians, she said.

New Zealand is flying in 37 people, mostly search-and-rescue specialists, government officials said. A separate C-130 military transport plane with 18 personnel, rescue equipment and disaster supplies landed on Thursday.

Nine people have been confirmed dead by Port Vila's hospital and that number is likely to rise, according to the latest update by Vanuatu's disaster management office.

Two of the dead were Chinese citizens and one French, their embassies have said.

The quake caused "major structural damage" to more than 10 buildings including the main hospital, it said, while also hitting three bridges, power lines, water reserves and mobile communications.

The shipping port is closed following a "major landslide".

French engineers have declared Port Vila's airport runway operational, although it has not re-opened to commercial flights.

The death toll will "definitely go up", said Craig, of the Vanuatu business council.

However the country and its people depended on tourism and agriculture, he warned.

Small island nations lead fight for climate justice at UN's top court
'People need to come back'

"We can't have an economic disaster on top of a natural disaster," Craig said, urging a quick restart of the tourism business.

"The runway is in great condition and it has been a huge focus for the government to get that terminal open by tonight or latest tomorrow for commercial flights," he said.

"People need to come and go, it brings normality back."

Rescue teams from Australia and New Zealand are joining the serach for survivors after an earthquake killed at least nine people in Vanuatu 

© Handout / AUSTRALIAN DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE/AFP

Craig said he had visited four resorts, which were using generators for electricity and hoping for tourists to return next week.

"Generally, they are okay, there are some cracks and some tiles have popped out, but there is not bad damage."

Basil Leodoro, an emergency doctor in Vanuatu with Respond Global, said landslides blocked airfields on some surrounding islands, raising concerns about food supplies.

Water supplies, including wells and storage systems, were damaged on some islands, he told AFP.

Earthquake injuries were only being reported on the main island of Vanuatu, however.

"As expected, we are seeing open fractures, wounds and closed fractures, soft tissue injury as a result of the earthquake," Leodoro said.

He said he was helping to organise medical support from Fiji and Solomon Islands to relieve exhausted teams in Vanuatu.

"That is the burden we are seeing – it is not unexpected in these crisis situations."

EU mobilises for cyclone-ravaged Mayotte as Macron hits back at angry crowds

The European Union has responded to France's request for assistance for its overseas territory of Mayotte, devastated by Cyclone Chido, as President Emmanuel Macron told angry locals they would be "10,000 times" worse off if they were not in France.

A boy carries a sheet of roofing across the beach in the aftermath of Cyclone Chido, in Passamainty, Mayotte on 20 December, 2024. REUTERS - Gonzalo Fuentes

By: RFI
Issued on: 20/12/2024 - 

The cyclone, which hit the island on Saturday, 14 November, destroyed infrastructure and flattened many of the makeshift dwellings in its large slums.

Thirty-one people have been reported dead, although the death toll is expected to rise significantly.

Almost one week on, there are still food and water shortages and electricity is yet to be restored in some areas, in the aftermath of Mayotte's worst storm in nearly a century.

Angry exchanges

On Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron arrived on the Indian Ocean archipelago, along with four tonnes of emergency aid. But residents say this is far from enough, and there were angry exchanges with the president.

Macron hit back at a jeering crowd: "If this wasn't France, you'd be 10,000 times more in the shit. There is no other place in the Indian Ocean where people have received this much help. That’s a fact.”

As the French president visited a neighbourhood in Tsingoni on Mayotte’s main island Grande-Terre – where people still have no access to drinking water or phone service – one man shouted: "Seven days and you’re not able to give water to the population."

“I understand your impatience. You can count on me,” Macron replied, adding that water would be distributed at city halls.

France and Comoros clash over migrants lost in Mayotte cyclone disaster

Macron later announced that France would observe a day of national mourning on Monday, 23 December. He also said a special law suspending the usual regulations would be passed to speed up reconstruction, based on the model used for the restoration of Notre-Dame Cathedral.

The president left Mayotte – France's poorest department – on Friday, after spending some 24 hours meeting locals and officials.

Mayotte cyclone lays bare the fragility of France’s 'forgotten' territory

French soldiers work to clear a road in the aftermath of Cyclone Chido, in Mayotte. via REUTERS - Etat-major des armees

EU response

In a statement issued on Friday, the European Union said it had responded to “France’s request for assistance”, providing emergency shelters, hygiene kits and medical tents.

Belgium, Germany, Italy and Sweden have offered the shelters and other items via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, it said.

Neighbouring Comoros, which gained independence from France in 1974, said it was ferrying 250 tonnes of bottled water to Mayotte on Friday.

The EU said it had also provided Mozambique with €900,000 in emergency humanitarian funding to help affected communities there. Seventy-three people were reported dead in northern Mozambique and 13 in Malawi, according to the authorities.

Cyclone Chido leaves 34 dead and devastates Mozambique

People queue to fill containers with drinking water in Doujani, Mayotte on December 18. REUTERS - Yves Herman

Sweden ends UNWRA funding, boosts Gaza aid through alternative channels

Sweden announced it would cease funding the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) after Israel decided to ban its operations from January, citing alleged links to the October 7, 2023 attacks. Instead, Sweden said it will increase humanitarian aid to Gaza through other UN and international organisations.


Issued on: 20/12/2024 - 

By: NEWS WIRES

File photo taken November 27, 2023 of a heavily damaged UNWRA school after Israeli strikes in the village of Khuzaa in southern Gaza. © Saïd Khatib, AFP

Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide increased overall humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Nordic country said on Friday.

Israel, which says it will ban UNRWA operations in the country from late January, accuses the agency of being involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel that triggered the 14-month-old war in Gaza.

Sweden's decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channelling aid via the agency more difficult, the country's aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.

"Large parts of UNRWA's operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible," Dousa told Reuters. "For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through."

Dousa said Sweden "in no way" supported Israel's law and had repeatedly expressed its criticism. "Israel must do much more to ensure humanitarian access to Gaza," he said.

The new Israeli law does not directly ban UNRWA's operations in the West Bank and Gaza but it will have a severe impact on UNRWA's ability to work. Top U.N. officials describe UNRWA as the backbone of Gaza's aid response.

Read more

After banning UNRWA, Israel has yet to propose alternative aid structure for Palestinians

Sweden plans to lift its overall humanitarian aid to Gaza next year to 800 million Swedish crowns ($72.44 million) from 451 million spent this year, the foreign ministry said.

Aid will flow via several organisations including the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), the U.N. Populations Fund (UNFPA) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the ministry added.

The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: "We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees." The refugee population relies on UNRWA healthcare, education, emergency relief and humanitarian assistance, it said.

The U.N. General Assembly threw its support behind UNRWA this month, demanding Israel respect the agency's mandate and "enable its operations to proceed without impediment or restriction".

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on X: "Defunding UNRWA now will undermine decades of Sweden’s investment in human development including by denying access to education for hundreds of thousands of girls and boys across the region."


Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden's decision to drop its support for UNRWA.

"There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach," she said.

The U.N. has said nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack and had been fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon - killed by Israel - was also found to have had an UNRWA job.

(REUTERS)

Italian court aquits Vice Premier Salvini in migrant rescue ship case


A Sicilian court on Friday acquitted Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini of illegally detaining 100 migrants aboard the Open Arms rescue ship in 2019, when he was interior minister.


Issued on: 20/12/2024 - 
By: NEWS WIRES

Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini at the Bunker Courtroom in Palermo, Sicily, on December 20, 2024. © Alberto Pizzoli, AFP

A court in Sicily Friday found Vice Premier Matteo Salvini not guilty of illegally detaining 100 migrants aboard a humanitarian rescue ship when he was interior minister.

The court dropped all the charges against Salvini in relation an incident in 2019, when he refused to allow the migrants to leave the Open Arms rescue ship at Italy’s southernmost island of Lampedusa.

Verdicts in Italy are only considered final once all appeals are exhausted, a process that can take years.

Now transport minister in Premier Giorgia Meloni’s far-right-led government, Salvini has always defended himself, saying he acted to protect Italy’s borders.

(AP)

After Building Progressive Power Among House Democrats, Jayapal Passes the Torch

 to Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) 

The outgoing CPC leader is proud of empowering the caucus to fight for "an economic agenda that worked for working people and poor people."

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on December 5, 2024.
(Photo: Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Dec 20, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

After six years at the helm of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, dedicated to "building the infrastructure" necessary to effectively fight for key policies on Capitol Hill, term-limited Rep. Pramila Jayapal is determined to ensure that the CPC's incoming leaders "are as successful as possible."

Jayapal (D-Wash.) spoke with Common Dreams on Wednesday about her time leading the caucus of nearly 100 lawmakers whose legislative priorities include "comprehensive immigration reform, good-paying jobs, fair trade, universal healthcare, debt-free college, climate action, and a just foreign policy."

She was elected first vice chair of the CPC in June 2017, just months into her freshman term in Congress. Explaining her foray into leadership, Jayapal affectionately said, "I blamed it all on Keith Ellison," a Minnesota Democrat who was then a congressman and caucus leader and is now his state's attorney general.

"He was very encouraging," she said of Ellison. "He knew that the whole reason I was running, because he had heard me talk about it on the campaign trail... was because I wanted to strengthen the power of the progressive movement inside Congress and figure out how we could be more effective working on the inside and the outside, which I was coming from."

Jayapal, who was born in India and came to the United States as a teenager for college, founded the immigrant advocacy group Hate Free Zone—which later became OneAmerica—after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Residents of the Seattle area elected her to Congress in 2016, during her first term in the Washington State Senate.

In politics, Jayapal has shared stories from her own life with the world, publicly writing and speaking about her experiences as an immigrant woman of color, a woman who had an abortion, and a mother to her trans daughter. She has welcomed the mentorship of Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the first woman of color to co-chair the CPC and, as Jayapal put it on Instagram earlier this week, "one of the most courageous and effective progressive leaders I have had the privilege to know."



U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) talk with reporters in Washingotn, D.C. on May 31, 2023. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Backed by leaders like Ellison and Lee—who is leaving Congress after this session—Jayapal jumped into the CPC hoping to transform it into "a caucus that could really have the power to stand up for working people and deliver." In 2018, she was elected co-chair with Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), and following 2020 caucus rule changes, she became a solo chair.

"What I realized when I came in is that we didn't really have the infrastructure we needed to support us to be powerful as a bloc of votes," said Jayapal, who utilized the skills and connections she developed as an organizer in the role she is now preparing to leave.

"I was able to come in and not only think about how you build power on the inside, but also how you coordinate with the outside," she said. "And that inside-outside strategy, and the trust I had, and the relationships I had, were really critical to my success in building the infrastructure here in Congress and sort of coalescing the movement around a set of priorities that we were then able to fight for and stand up for."

Jayapal recognized the need to hire staff and reform CPC rules to boost meeting attendance and caucus cohesion. She explained that "I felt very strongly about leadership transition to build the bench, and so I put in term limits for the CPC chair as well."

Thanks to that policy, she will pass the torch to Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) early next month. Jayapal, who will be chair emerita, told Common Dreams, "I'm just really proud to have built an infrastructure that I can pass on to the next chair that just wasn't there before and will continue to get better, of course, with new leadership."

The 35-year-old incoming chair will be joined by Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) as deputy chair and Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.) as whip. They will face a Republican-controlled Congress and the second administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

"I'm honored to build on the legacy of Chair Jayapal," Casar said after the caucus election earlier this month. "I've fought back against extremist, egocentric autocrats in Texas for my entire adult life. The Democratic Party must directly take on Trump, and it'll be CPC members boldly leading the way and putting working people first."

Related: New Progressive Caucus Chair Ready to 'Fight Billionaires, Grifters, and Republican Frauds'


Trump won his first presidential contest the same day Jayapal was initially elected to Congress. On that night in November 2016, before the White House race was called, Jayapal described her victory as "a light in the darkness" and told supporters that "if our worst fears are realized, we will be on the defense as of tomorrow," according toThe Seattle Times.

After four years of fighting the first Trump administration, CPC members kicked off 2021 with a fresh opportunity to advance progressive policies: Although the Senate was divided, Democrats controlled the House of Representatives and President Joe Biden was sworn in—despite Trump contesting his 2020 loss and inciting an insurrection.

During Biden's term, which ends next month, the Jayapal-led caucus has successfully encouraged the Democratic president to pursue various executive actions promoting access to contraception, climate action, corporate accountability, higher wages, lower costs for essentials, and relief for immigrants from countries in crisis, among other priorities.

The caucus also played a significant role in enacting major pieces of Democrats' Build Back Better agenda. In the summer of 2021, Jayapal made clear to Congress and the president that House progressives would withhold votes from what became the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—unless they also passed legislation on the climate emergency and social issues.

Biden signed the infrastructure bill in November 2021—followed by the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022. The delay was largely due to obstructionist then-Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who ditched the party in the aftermath and are both leaving Congress at the end of this session.

Although Jayapal wishes the second bill would have passed sooner, and tackled the country's childcare and housing crises, she said that she is still "particularly proud" of what the caucus was able to accomplish with that battle. As she told Common Dreams, "There would be no Inflation Reduction Act without Build Back Better, and there would've been no Build Back Better without the CPC."


Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) speaks at a "Go Bigger on Climate, Care, and Justice" rally on July 20, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

 (Photo: Shannon Finney/Getty Images for Green New Deal Network)


Those two legislative packages were "about changing the way that we thought of government's ability to fight for working people," she continued. They "were about delivering results to people that would matter, whether it was in terms of great jobs, whether it was in terms of taking on climate change, whether it was in terms of driving down the cost of prescription drugs, [or] unrigging the tax system so that the wealthier began to pay their fair share."

"All of those things were kind of fundamental and core to an economic agenda that worked for working people and poor people," said Jayapal, who has personally championed legislation including the College for All Act, Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, Housing Is a Human Right Act, Medicare for All Act, Transgender Bill of Rights, and Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act—partnering with Senate progressives such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the founding chair of the CPC.

While the Congressional Progressive Caucus will have new leadership next year, Jayapal plans to remain engaged by providing advice and support as chair emeritus and by co-chairing the CPC Political Action Committee with Casar and Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.). Under the PAC's current heads—Jayapal, Pocan, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)—it "has grown from a $300,000 budget in the 2016 election cycle to raising $12 million over the past three election cycles," the group said Wednesday.

Jayapal told Common Dreams that she is "really proud of the fact that we've had an incredible record" for CPC PAC endorsements. Over the past decade, a majority of pre-primary backed candidates have won their general election races—often "pushing back on big money that came in, dark money that came in, sometimes in the millions," she said, pointing to Reps. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) as examples.

Lee, Ramirez, and Jayapal were all reelected last month, but overall it was a devastating cycle for Democrats, who failed to win control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. The outgoing CPC chair is among those who have responded to the results by urging the Democratic Party to reject super PACs and uplift working-class voters going forward.

In a memo earlier this month, Jayapal, Casar, Frost and fellow CPC member Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) called on the next Democratic National Committee chair, whoever it is, to "create an authentic... brand that offers a clear alternative and inclusive vision for how we will make life better for the 90% who are struggling in this economy, take on the biggest corporations and wealthiest individuals who have rigged the system, expose Trump's corporate favoritism, and create a clear contrast with Republicans."

Noting Republicans' aim to use their forthcoming federal trifecta to pass another round of tax cuts for the rich, Jayapal said that "when we fight against the tax cuts, the Trump tax scam 2.0, we should tie it to this: The Democratic Party is not beholden to corporate PACs and dark money. We are fighting for the people."

"There's a clear contrast between Trump and his billionaires... and Democrats who are fighting for the vast majority of Americans, the 99% of Americans who are out there struggling every day," she added. "That's the contrast we need to be able to draw."



In her final days as CPC chair, Jayapal is highlighting that contrast by slamming Trump and the billionaires who have his ear, like Elon Musk, for risking a government shutdown—which could begin Saturday—by derailing a bipartisan spending bill this week.

"The past 24 hours is the clearest demonstration yet of what Trump 2.0 will entail: The president of the United States allowing his unelected billionaire friends to control the government and enrich themselves at the expense of working people," she said in a Thursday statement. "We cannot succumb to a government by billionaires, for billionaires."

DR. QUACK AND FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE

Watchdog Says Dr. Oz Push for 'Medicare Advantage for All' Is Disqualifying

"Oz's deep ties to the private healthcare industry make his nomination to lead our nation's current healthcare system totally egregious," said Public Citizen healthcare advocate Eagan Kemp.


Dr. Mehmet Oz was pictured at an event in New York City on November 21, 2024.
(Photo: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Dec 20, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

The watchdog group Public Citizen said Thursday that lawmakers should reject President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Medicare privatization advocate Mehmet Oz to lead a key health agency and instead move toward a publicly run single-payer system that would cover all Americans at a lower cost than the status quo.

In a new brief, Public Citizen warned that Medicare privatization efforts—particularly via an expansion of Medicare Advantage plans run by for-profit insurance companies—would likely "move into overdrive" if the Senate confirms Oz as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Ahead of his 2022 Senate bid, Oz backed a plan he described as "Medicare Advantage for All," under which privately run plans would cover non-seniors and "all Americans who are not on Medicaid"—effectively eliminating traditional Medicare.

Public Citizen warned such a plan "would mean huge corporate profits while patients continue to struggle to get the healthcare they need," noting that Medicare Advantage plans are notorious for denying necessary care and overbilling the federal government to the tune of tens of billions of dollars per year.

"Policymakers should pass Medicare for All to guarantee care for everyone in the U.S., bring down costs for working families, and generate savings for the country as a whole."

"Further privatizing Medicare would increase healthcare costs systemwide by adding further administrative bloat to our healthcare system," the new brief argues. "Our healthcare system is already made up of thousands of health insurance plans offered by numerous insurers as well as state and federal programs that all play some role in paying for healthcare."

"By spending healthcare resources on corporate profit or administrative waste, privatized Medicare would mean Americans pay even more for healthcare than they already do," the brief adds. "We already spend far more than comparably wealthy countries, over $12,500 per capita, compared with peer nations that are spending around half, per capita."

Oz's plan would also benefit companies in which he has invested tens of millions of dollars, according to financial disclosures.

"Dr. Oz owned between $280,000 and $600,000 in shares in UnitedHealth Group, a major Medicare Advantage insurer, and between $50,000 and $100,000 in shares of CVS Health," Public Citizen noted Thursday, citing the filings.

Eagan Kemp, a healthcare advocate at Public Citizen, said in a statement that Oz's "Medicare Advantage for All" proposal "is dangerous to all patients, especially seniors and people with disabilities, many of whom have not received the care they need under Medicare Advantage."

"Healthcare is a right, not a commodity," said Kemp. "Oz's deep ties to the private healthcare industry make his nomination to lead our nation's current healthcare system totally egregious. Congress should reject Oz's nomination and any proposal to further privatize Medicare."

"Instead," he added, "policymakers should pass Medicare for All to guarantee care for everyone in the U.S., bring down costs for working families, and generate savings for the country as a whole."

Public Citizen's brief came as Oz's nomination faced increasingly close scrutiny from congressional Democrats, who have raised similar concerns about the former television personality's promotion of Medicare Advantage and ties to the private insurance industry.

"As CMS administrator, you would be tasked with overseeing Medicare and ensuring that the tens of millions of seniors that rely on the program receive the care they deserve, including cracking down on abuses by private insurers in Medicare Advantage," a group of Democratic lawmakers led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter to Oz last week. "The consequences of failure on your part would be grave. Billions of federal healthcare dollars—and millions of lives—are at stake."

"Given your financial ties to private insurers, combined with your view that the traditional Medicare program is 'highly dysfunctional' and your advocacy for eliminating it entirely," the lawmakers added, "it is not clear that you are qualified for this critical job."

Fallout of Assad’s ouster in Syria ripples down the Mediterranean to Libya

Analysis

The loss of its military power in Syria has led Russia to turn its sights on Libya. Could the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria see the strengthening of his Libyan counterpart, Khalifa Haftar?

20/12/2024 - 
By: Leela JACINTO

Handout satellite image released by Maxar Technologies shows the Russian naval base at Tartus, Syria on December 13, 2024. © AFP

The reports began trickling in barely 24 hours after Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad was ousted.

“Several Assad regime officials arrive in Libya’s Benghazi,” read a headline on a local Libyan news site on Monday, December 9 – the morning after rebels arrived in Damascus to find the Syrian president had fled.

While Assad was taken to Moscow, Libyan news reports said “a number of Syrian officials” loyal to Assad had landed in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. No details of the fleeing officials were provided, although officials at Benghazi’s Benina airbase and global flight tracking sites confirmed the plane landing.

By the end of the week, air traffic between Syria and Libya had increased. Russia was withdrawing significant amounts of military assets from Syria, primarily from its Khmeimim airbase in Latakia, and transporting them to Libya, according to several news reports.

With Assad’s sudden fall, Russia was scrambling to manage its considerable military facilities and personnel in Syria.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted that Moscow was in touch with rebels in Damascus. Fighters from Syria’s rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) were posted on the outside perimeter of Russian military facilities, journalists in Syria reported. Outsiders were not allowed into the high security zones.

More than a week after Assad’s ouster, in a critical development, the Syria-Libya traffic had expanded to the sea.

Russia had begun moving naval assets on the Mediterranean from the Syrian port city of Tartus to Libya, according to US news reports. An unnamed US defence official told CNN this week that “Moscow has increased pressure on Libyan National Army commander Khalifa Haftar to secure Russia’s claim to a port in Benghazi”.

The Libyan port warning had a whiff of déjà vu.

Moscow’s attempts to secure naval access to eastern Libya, an area controlled by strongman Haftar, have been alarming officials in Western capitals over the past few years. Destabilised and divided during more than a decade of conflict, Libya has been an ideal entry point into Africa for Russia.

But Western concerns over Russia’s growing influence in Libya and the neighbouring Sahel region have not translated into any thwarting action on the ground. And so the warnings, by unnamed US officials, of Russia’s naval ambitions in Libya continue to make periodic headlines in US newspapers.

Read more Russia woos Libya's Haftar with an eye on a naval prize

The sudden collapse of the Assad regime in Syria has notched up the geostrategic scramble, sending ripples thousands of miles across the Mediterranean Sea, a vital maritime zone connecting the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

All about that naval base

Russia has a critical naval facility in the Syrian port city of Tartus, which houses elements of the Black Sea Fleet and is Moscow’s only repair and replenishment hub in the Mediterranean.

Established by the Soviet Union in the 1970s, the Tartus naval base was expanded and modernised by Russia after the 2011 anti-Assad uprising, when President Vladimir Putin used military might to back his Syrian ally.

Russia’s reward came in January 2017, when it signed a free-of-charge 49-year lease with Syria, granting Moscow sovereignty over the Tartus naval base. The lease could be automatically extended for further 25-year periods if neither side objects.

While HTS-led rebels now controlling Syria have allowed Russia to withdraw its military assets so far, the future of Moscow’s permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean is far from certain.

“We're yet to see what will happen in terms of the Russian presence in Syria. Obviously they come out weaker in the sense that the man they have invested in has gone. But the crown jewel of Russian foreign policy in Syria was not necessarily Assad. It was the military bases that they held there, that enabled power projection in the Mediterranean. That's still being negotiated right now and I think Libya is part and parcel of this strategy,” said Emad Badi, nonresident senior fellow at the Washington DC-based Atlantic Council.

With Assad’s fall, the focus has now shifted to Libya’s 1,700-kilometre Mediterranean coastline, of which the eastern chunk is controlled by Haftar’s armed coalition.

“The Russians are now more dependent on Libya. This gives Haftar a stronger hand to play. Haftar is always trying to play countries off one another, so he will feel even stronger,” said Tarek Megerisi, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Fathers, sons and lessons in kleptocracy

In the course of an intrigue-packed military career, Haftar has switched sides, worked with rival powers, and managed to save his skin while amassing a fortune.

Dubbed “the strongman of Cyrenaica” or eastern Libya, the 81-year-old warlord began his military career in Muammar Gaddafi’s army before deserting to the US, where he spent two decades, gaining US citizenship and clocking up other monikers such as “America’s man”.

But over the past few years, Haftar has adroitly turned into “Russia’s man”, using a template set by Assad, his Syrian strongman counterpart.

Haftar, like Assad until his ouster, holds power by relying on close-knit family ties. In the octogenarian Libyan warlord’s case, his lieutenants are his sons, who occupy lucrative posts and top military ranks in eastern Libya. The most prominent among them, Saddam Haftar, is widely rumoured to be the chosen scion of “Clan Haftar”.

Read moreHaftar's sons rise in the east, bringing 'corruption, death, destruction'

The links between the Haftars and the Assads run deep, according to Frederic Wehrey, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Khalifa Haftar and his sons had long been bolstered, both directly and indirectly, by the Assad regime through a common ideology of authoritarian kleptocracy, networks of illicit businesses that enriched the two regimes, and mutual military aid from Russia,” noted Wehrey in a recent blog.

Human and drug trafficking links

The trafficking networks linking clans Haftar and Assad have been documented in numerous reports.

They were often physically linked by Cham Wings, a private Syrian airline sanctioned by the EU and US for laundering money and supporting the Assad regime.

The plane with Assad regime officials that landed in Benghazi on December 8, just hours after Damascus fell to rebels, belonged to Cham Wings, according to Libyan news reports.

Investigated by Frontex, the European border and coast guard agency, for its involvement in human trafficking, Cham Wings was the subject of a February 2024 investigative report by Spanish daily EL PAÍS and Lighthouse Reports, a Dutch journalism collaborative.

The report tracked the trafficking of Syrians and Bangladeshis from Damascus and the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka to Benghazi. The migrants then reached the EU with the help of “perpetrators often acting under the protection of the Hafter [sic] family,” noted EL PAÍS.

The exclusive agent for Cham Wings in Libya, Mahmoud Abulilah Al-Dj, denied the accusations in an email to EL PAÍS.

But the US Treasury Department sanctions listing for Al-Dj mentions an additional allegation: drug trafficking.

“Al-Dj used his Syria-based Al-Ta’ir Company (Al-Ta’ir) to receive cargo tied to Captagon shipments and open a major smuggling line linking Lattakia [sic] to Benghazi, which has resulted in huge profits for Captagon traffickers,” noted the Treasury Department press release.

Trade in the amphetamine drug Captagon helped bankroll the Assad regime after the imposition of international sanctions. The extent of the Captagon state-capture was in plain sight following the Syrian president’s ouster, with videos of abandoned manufacturing sites spilling with pills and portions.

Russian flights to Libya, Turkish ones from Libya

Despite the reams of evidence detailing Haftar’s illicit business networks, the US and its Western allies continue to engage with the strongman of Cyrenaica.

“American and European intelligence are well aware of the relationship between Haftar and the Russians. But for some crazy reason, American policy seems to be that they can bring Haftar onto their side. And so, if anything, they continue to empower and help Haftar, even though he is a Russian proxy at this point,” said Megerisi.

The Western approach to handling Libya has focused on calls for the withdrawal of foreign forces and an inclusive settlement between the country’s internationally recognised government based in the capital, Tripoli, and the eastern players beholden to Haftar.

But the West has displayed neither the capability nor the will to turn words into action on the ground.

Foreign powers continue to operate in Libya but the US and EU is not among them.

In January 2020, Turkey, a NATO member, intervened in Libya to support the Tripoli administration when it came under attack from Haftar’s forces. Aided by a deployment of thousands of anti-Assad Syrian fighters, Turkey managed to negotiate an end to the hostilities.

While Ankara and Moscow back opposing Libyan sides, the two powers manage to work together in the oil-rich North African nation, a coexistence founded on economic interests.

Turkey has signed hydrocarbon deals with the Tripoli authorities while scooping up contracts in the “reconstruction bonanza controlled by Haftar’s sons” in the east, noted Wolfram Lacher from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in a recent briefing.

The understanding between Ankara and Moscow has seen some eyebrow-raising travel over the Mediterranean in recent months.

“There is a rapport and a friendly competition, let's call it, between Turkey and Russia in Libya,” said Badi. “We're seeing Russia deploy assets to Libya, and Turkey repatriate some of its mercenaries from Libya due to Syria-related developments. So it's an interesting nexus on that front.”

As the year closes with the Assad clan on the losing end and the Haftars on a winning spree, analysts are wary of predicting what the cards read for 2025.

“Russia is moving things into Libya because Libya is already an established hub for them. It's a rational move by Russia, not an escalatory one,” said Megerisi. “It's probably worse news for the conflicts that are ongoing in places like Sudan, Niger, Mali, because a lot of the equipment that comes to Libya ends up going to other theaters where there is active combat. So we might see an escalation in those regions in the future.”

Israel army says troops shot Syrian protester in leg

ILLEGAL OCCUPATION OF THE GOLAN HEIGHTS 

By AFP
December 20, 2024

A child looks on as Israeli soldiers patrol in Jubata al-Khashab, in the UN-patrolled Golan Heights buffer zone, which Israeli troops entered after the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad - Copyright AFP Aris MESSINIS

The Israeli military said its forces shot a protester during a demonstration against the army’s activities in a village in southern Syria on Friday, injuring him in the leg.

Since Islamist-led rebels toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on December 8 Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian military facilities in what it says is a bid to prevent them from falling into hostile hands.

In a move widely condemned internationally, Israel also sent troops into a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights, and beyond, calling it a defensive and temporary measure.

“During a protest against IDF’s activities in the area of Maariya in southern Syria, IDF (Israeli military) called on protesters to distance themselves from the troops,” the military told AFP.

The village is just outside the southern point of the UN-patrolled zone.

“After the troops identified a threat, they operated in accordance with standard operating procedures against the threat… The protester was shot in the leg,” the military said.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the Israeli troops were stationed at a barracks in the village.

“During a protest condemning the Israeli incursion, a young man was injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire in the village of Maariya, in the Daraa region,” the Observatory said.

Israeli forced from Al-Jazeera barracks “opened fire directly at the demonstrators,” wounding the man in the leg, it said.

– Israelis ‘sowed fear’ –

A villager from Maariya told AFP that Israeli soldiers had been entering his village and other nearby villages in recent days.

“When the Israelis entered … they sowed fear and horror among the people, the children, the women,” Ali al-Khalaf, 52, told AFP.

“So much so that some people fled to other nearby villages. They (Israeli troops) entered the villages of Maariya, Aabdyn and Jamlah,” he added.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security briefing atop a strategic Syrian mountain inside the UN-patrolled zone.

During the visit Netanyahu reviewed the army’s deployment in the area, his office said.

Hours after Assad was overthrown, Netanyahu had ordered Israeli troops to seize the buffer zone.

Israel has framed the move as temporary and defensive, with Netanyahu saying it was in response to a “vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone”.

Israeli forces have also been operating in areas beyond the buffer zone in Syrian-controlled territory, the military has confirmed.

Netanyahu said his country has “no interest in confronting Syria. Israel’s policy toward Syria will be determined by the evolving reality on the ground”.

Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa accused Israel of “a new unjustified escalation in the region” by entering the buffer zone but said “the general exhaustion in Syria after years of war” prevents it from entering new conflicts.

Israel conquered around two-thirds of the Golan during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later annexed it. The United States, during Donald Trump’s first term as president, is the only country that has recognised Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan.

Pentagon Admits Number of US Troops in Syria Much Higher Than Previously Disclosed

"How does the Pentagon 'recently learn' that it has more than double the number of U.S. troops in Syria than it claimed to have a day earlier?" asked veteran journalist Jeremy Scahill.

Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder holds a press briefing at the Pentagon on October 1, 2024 in Arlington, Virginia.
(Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Dec 20, 2024

COMMON DREAMS

The Pentagon acknowledged Thursday that it had been providing journalists and the public with an inaccurate count of the number of U.S. troops deployed to Syria, with a spokesperson for the department telling members of the press that the actual figure is two times higher than what was previously disclosed.

"We have been briefing you regularly that there are approximately 900 U.S. troops deployed to Syria," Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder told reporters during a briefing on Thursday. "In light of the situation in Syria and the significant interest, we recently learned that those numbers were higher, and so asked to look into it. I learned today that in fact there are approximately 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria."

Ryder said the roughly 1,100 additional U.S. forces are considered "temporary rotational forces that deploy to meet shifting mission requirements," while the other 900 troops are "on longer-term deployments."

There is also an undisclosed number of private U.S. contractors operating in Syria, as The Intercept's Nick Turse has reported.

Progressive lawmakers, and some Republicans, have argued that U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Syria given the lack of clear legal authorization for their continued presence.



The Pentagon spokesperson could not provide an exact date on which the extra 1,100 troops were deployed to Syria, but he said they were there "clearly before the fall" of former President Bashar al-Assad's government earlier this month.

The U.S. maintains it was not involved in the rebel offensive that toppled the Assad government, and on Friday a delegation of senior American officials arrived in Damascus for the first U.S. diplomatic mission to Syria's capital since Assad's fall.


Drop Site's Jeremy Scahill, who has long reported on covert U.S. military activities overseas, expressed incredulity at Ryder's comments during Thursday's briefing.

"How does the Pentagon 'recently learn' that it has more than double the number of U.S. troops in Syria than it claimed to have a day earlier?" Scahill asked.

'Unprecedented' Lawsuit Targets 2 US Lawmakers for Backing Israeli Military Aid

"This class action is only the beginning of the people's exercise of power against the violence of the American government," said one plaintiff.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) speaks during the news conference in Washington, D.C. 
(Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Dec 20, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

More than 500 California residents on Thursday took the latest legal action against U.S. leaders in an effort to stop the government's support for Israel's assault on Gaza, with taxpayers represented by two Democratic U.S. House members filing a class action lawsuit against the lawmakers for voting in favor of Israeli military aid.

The plaintiffs, who are represented by the law firm Szeto-Wong Law, live in 10 counties in Northern California and are represented by Democratic Reps. Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson.

The specific legal tactic being used by the plaintiffs is "unprecedented," according to the group Taxpayers Against Genocide, and hinges on Huffman and Thompson's votes in favor of the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act in April.



The funding package allocated $26.28 billion in military aid to Israel, which at the time was six months into its bombardment of Gaza and a near-total blockade on humanitarian aid that was pushing the enclave's population of 2.3 million people toward starvation.

Now, Israel has been attacking Gaza for 440 days, and more than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed since the onslaught began. At least 77 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Thursday, the same day the class action lawsuit was filed and Doctors Without Borders published a report that detailed how the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have imposed "apocalyptic conditions" on the enclave and how humanitarian workers have seen "clear signs of ethnic cleansing as Palestinians are forcibly displaced, trapped, and bombed."

The plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit argued that Huffman and Thompson's votes in favor of billions of dollars for the IDF abused the lawmakers' "tax and spend" authority and "illegally forced their constituents into being complicit in genocide."

Huffman and Thompson voted for the funding package, the plaintiffs noted, months after the International Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling in South Africa's genocide case against Israel, finding that Israel's actions had threatened Palestinians' right to be protected from genocide. The case has proceeded for ongoing litigation since the preliminary ruling was announced.

The votes were also taken weeks after Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, issued an extensive report that found Israel was committing acts of genocide in Gaza.

"I trusted Congressman Huffman to call for a cease-fire and to demand that the U.S. follow our own laws in addition to international law," said Robie Tenorio, one of the plaintiffs. "But despite overwhelming documented and corroborated evidence, Congressman Huffman voted in April 2024 to send Israel more offensive weapons, all paid for by U.S. taxpayers."

In March, a month before the vote, Democratic lawmakers urged President Joe Biden to enforce the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act—Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which prohibits the U.S. from providing military aid to any country that is blocking U.S. humanitarian assistance.

The administration threatened in October to cut off military aid within one month if Israel did not prove that it was allowing in sufficient food, water, medicine, and other relief, but the U.S. State Department did not follow through on the threat despite the U.N.'s finding that conditions had not improved.

In January, the Center for Constitutional Rights sued Biden and members of his Cabinet on behalf of several Palestinian groups and individuals, accusing them of failing to prevent genocide in Gaza. The case was dismissed in July.


The lawsuit filed on Thursday argues that Huffman and Thompson violated the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, and U.S. federal laws.

Norman Solomon, co-founder of the grassroots advocacy group RootsAction, said at a press conference on Thursday that Huffman has consistently said he supports U.S. military aid to Israel because he "opposes antisemitism."

"As a Jewish-American I find that kind of rationale disgusting, outrageous, and sickening," said Solomon.




Leslie Angeline, a plaintiff from Marin County, California and an organizer with the peace group CodePink, wrote at Common Dreams on Thursday about her hunger strike in protest of U.S. support for Israel, which she ended as the lawsuit was announced.

"I want to tell you what 30 days with no food does to a person, and my experience is made easier by the fact that I have a roof over my head, access to clean water, and a certainty that I won't have to flee my home at any moment," Angeline wrote. "The women my age in Gaza are not given the same luxuries."

"I wake up each morning worrying about the genocide that is happening in Gaza, knowing that if it wasn't for my government's partnership with the Israeli government this couldn't continue. Our government is sending billions upon billions of our tax dollars to slaughter innocent children, mothers and fathers, entire families with bombs and artillery funded by our country," she continued. "I understand that 'my trauma' is nothing compared to what the people of Gaza must be suffering. I can't even imagine the horrors they're being forced to live through or die from."


Maria Barakat, a Palestinian-Lebanese American and plaintiff from Sonoma County, said it was significant that hundreds of Californians "feel empowered by the ability to take meaningful action."


"This class action is only the beginning of the people's exercise of power against the violence of the American government," said Barakat, "and our refusal to be complicit."