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URBAN WARFARE AGAINST CIVILIANS

Israeli military expands Gaza offensive into urban refugee camps

Tuesday’s announcement came as residents reported shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij camps.

Palestinians inspect the rubble of a building of the Al Nawasrah family destroyed in an Israeli strike in Maghazi refugee camp.
Adel Hana / AP

By AP via Scripps News
Dec 26, 2023

Israeli forces on Tuesday expanded their ground offensive into urban refugee camps in central Gaza after bombarding the crowded Palestinian communities and ordering residents to evacuate. Gaza's main telecom provider announced another "complete interruption" of services in the besieged territory.

The military's announcement of the new battle zone threatens further destruction in a war that Israel says will last for "many months" as it vows to crush the ruling Hamas militant group after its Oct. 7 attack. Israeli forces have been engaged in heavy urban fighting in northern Gaza and the southern city of Khan Younis, driving Palestinians into ever-smaller areas in search of refuge.

The U.S. said Israel's minister for strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, was meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Despite U.S. calls for Israel to curb civilian casualties and international pressure for a cease-fire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military was deepening the fighting.

"We say to the Hamas terrorists: We see you and we will get to you," Netanyahu said.

Israel's offensive is one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. More than 20,900 Palestinians, two-thirds women and children, have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, whose count doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants. The agency said 240 people were killed over the past 24 hours.

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The U.N. human rights office said the continued bombardment of middle Gaza had claimed more than 100 Palestinian lives since Christmas Eve. The office noted that Israel had ordered some residents to move there.

Israel said it would no longer grant automatic visas to U.N. employees and accused the world body of being "complicit partners" in Hamas' tactics. Government spokesman Eylon Levy said Israel would consider visa requests case by case. That could further limit aid efforts in Gaza.

Residents of central Gaza described shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij camps. The built-up towns hold Palestinians driven from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war, along with their descendants. The camps are now crowded with people who fled the north.

"The bombing was very intense," Radwan Abu Sheitta said by phone from Bureij.

The Israeli military ordered residents to evacuate a belt of territory the width of central Gaza, urging them to move to nearby Deir al-Balah. The military later said it was operating in Bureij and asserted that it had located a Hamas training camp.

The telecom outage announced by Paltel follows similar outages through much of the war. NetBlocks, a group that tracks internet outages, confirmed that network connectivity in Gaza was disrupted again and "likely to leave most residents offline."

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said several countries had sent proposals to resolve the conflict following news of an Egyptian proposal that would include a transitional Palestinian government in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. He said Hamas "has been open to all initiatives that achieve a full cease-fire on the aggression on our people."

Regional spillover

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel faces a "multi-arena war" on seven fronts — Gaza and the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran. "We have responded and acted already on six of these," he told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Iranian-backed militia groups around the region have stepped up attacks in support of Hamas.

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq carried out a drone strike on a U.S. base in Irbil in northern Iraq on Monday, wounding three American service members, according to U.S. officials. In response, U.S. warplanes hit three locations in Iraq connected to a main militia, Kataib Hezbollah.

Almost daily, Hezbollah and Israel exchange missiles, airstrikes and shelling across the Israeli-Lebanese border. Around 150 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, mostly fighters from Hezbollah and other groups, but also 17 civilians. At least nine soldiers and four civilians have been killed on the Israeli side.

In the Red Sea, attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen against commercial ships have disrupted trade and prompted a U.S.-led multinational naval operation to protect shipping routes. The Israeli military said a fighter jet on Tuesday shot down a "hostile aerial target" above the Red Sea that the military asserted was on its way to Israeli territory.

A mass grave

More than 85% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes. Deir al-Balah and Rafah, in the south on the Egyptian border, have been overwhelmed with displaced people, even as Israel bombards them.


U.N. officials say a quarter of Gaza's population is starving under Israel's siege, which allows in a trickle of food, water, fuel, medicine and other supplies. Last week, the U.N. Security Council called for immediately speeding up aid deliveries, but there has been little sign of change.

In an area Israel had declared a safe zone, a strike hit a home in Mawasi, a rural area in the province of Khan Younis. One woman was killed and at least eight were wounded, according to a cameraman working for The Associated Press at the nearby hospital.

In response, Israel's military said that it wouldn't refrain from operating in safe zones, "if it identifies terrorist organization activity threatening the security of Israel."

Hamas' Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 240 others hostage. Israel aims to free the more than 100 hostages who remain in captivity.

Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll in Gaza, citing militants' use of crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel says it has killed thousands of militants, without presenting evidence.

At the Kerem Shalom border crossing, U.N. and Gazan medical workers unloaded a truck carrying about 80 unidentified bodies that had been held by Israeli forces in northern Gaza. They were buried in a mass grave.

Medical workers called the odors unbearable. "We cannot open this container in a neighborhood where people live," Dr. Marwan al-Hams, health emergency committee director in Rafah, told the AP. He said the health and justice ministries would investigate the bodies for possible "war crimes."

In the north, Israeli troops are focusing on the Gaza City neighborhood of Daraj Tufah, believed to be one of Hamas' last strongholds in the area, according to reports from Israeli military correspondents, who receive briefings from army commanders.

Hamas has shown resilience. The Israeli military announced the deaths of two more soldiers, bringing the total killed since the ground offensive began to 161.

UN official reports of 'absolute carnage' at Gaza's Al-Aqsa hospital

2023/12/26

An injured Palestinian man is transported near the bodies of Palestinians who were killed after heavy Israeli bombardment of the Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip, at the morgue of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah. The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health said more than 70 people were killed. 

An employee of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has described what she saw at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza as "absolute carnage."

Gemma Connell told the BBC that there were many injured with "extremely severe wounds but [who] cannot be treated because there are so many people in front of them in the line for surgery, and the hospital is absolutely overloaded."

"Tragically I saw a nine-year-old boy with a devastating head injury who passed away," Connell was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

Israel's army has stepped up its operations against the Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a troop visit to the sealed-off coastal strip that Israel would "intensify the fight in the coming days."

According to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, more than 20,600 people have been killed so far in the latest war.

The Israeli army's offensive to eliminate Hamas from Gaza was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel's history, carried out by terrorists from Hamas and other groups on October 7. Around 1,200 people were killed and about 240 were taken hostage, some of whom were later released during a brief truce.

Large parts of Gaza have been destroyed during the Israeli offensive.

Palestinians mourn their relatives in the morgue of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, after heavy Israeli bombardment of the Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip. The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health said more than 70 people were killed. 

A Palestinian man carries the body of a child killed after heavy Israeli bombardment of the Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip, at the morgue of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah. The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health said more than 70 people were killed. 

Mohammed Talatene/dpa

Gaza refugee camp in ruins after Israeli strike

By AFP
December 25, 2023

Men recover the body of a victim killed after an Israeli strike at Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza - Copyright AFP Mahmud HAMS

Residents of Gaza’s Al-Maghazi refugee camp returned to their neighbourhood on Monday only to find blocks of concrete strewn where their homes had stood just a day ago.

“These houses are destroyed. Our house was bombed,” said camp resident Abu Rami Abu al-Ais amid the debris.

“There’s no safe place in the Gaza Strip.”

Late on Sunday three houses in the camp were hit by Israeli air strikes that killed at least 70 people, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. AFP was unable to independently verify the information.

Israel says it issues evacuation orders and warnings so civilians can get to safety before military activity, but Zeyad Awad said there was no advisory before the strike.

“What should we do? We are civilians, living peacefully and wanting only safety and security,” he said.

“Yet we are suddenly struck by Israeli warplanes without any warning.”

The Israeli military said it was “reviewing the incident”.

“Despite the challenges posed by Hamas terrorists operating within civilian areas in Gaza, the IDF (military) is committed to international law including taking feasible steps to minimise harm to civilians,” it told AFP.

Swathes of the Gaza Strip have been razed in blistering Israeli bombardments during more than two months of war.

The conflict was triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas gunmen on southern Israel on October 7. They indiscriminately killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on the latest official Israeli figures.

The militants also took hostage about 250 people, Israel says.

In response, Israel launched a relentless retaliatory land, sea and air assault on the Gaza Strip, alongside a ground invasion aimed at destroying Hamas.

The offensive has killed at least 20,670 people, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

– ‘They chased us’ –

On Monday returning camp residents were shocked to see the scale of destruction, some describing how their children had panicked when the blast occurred.

“The Israeli army does not spare civilians… They (are) causing extensive, enormous destruction and panic in the hearts of my children,” said Awad.

“My child said to me ‘Protect me. What’s happening? I can’t breathe.'”

AFP footage showed several residents walking through the debris, inspecting the damage caused by the night-time strike. Some hugged each other and burst into tears.

Several charred vehicles could be seen scattered on the roads, while children searched through the wreckage to find their books.

Al-Maghazi camp is one of several in Gaza and was established in 1949, according to the UN, to shelter refugees who fled hostilities at the time of Israel’s creation the year before.

Many who fled Al-Maghazi camp after the strikes on Sunday were doing so again, after already escaping attacks in northern Gaza.

One of them was Rawan Manasra, originally from Beit Hanun. The strike in the camp decimated her family, she said.

“They (Israeli army) killed my five brothers. I no longer have brothers. They killed them along with their children and wives,” Manasra told AFP.

“Every day there are strikes… They tell us to move from the north to the south, then they chase us and attack us.”

Dozens of wounded from Sunday’s strike were taken to Deir al-Balah hospital in central Gaza, one of the few hospitals still partly functioning. Some were on stretchers while volunteers carried others in their arms.

“It’s a massacre,” health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

“Dozens of injured people are becoming martyrs due to the inability to treat them immediately,” he added.

Israeli strikes in Gaza have repeatedly struck hospitals, which are protected under international humanitarian law, and desperation is growing among medical staff over their inability to treat people.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of having tunnels under hospitals and using the medical facilities as command centres, a charge the Islamist group denies.

Displacing a Nation: What Led to (and Caused) the Gaza-Israel Catastrophe

The Hamas-Israel War has devastated Gaza and displaced its people. It could result in expulsions in the West Bank over time.

BYDR. DAN STEINBOCK
DECEMBER 22, 2023

Neighbourhoods in Gaza have been razed by airstrikes. 

© UNICEF/Mohammad Ajjour

The Hamas-Israel War has devastated Gaza and displaced its people. It could result in expulsions in the West Bank over time. It is about the dispossession, displacement and devastation of a nation.

By mid-December, over 20,000 Palestinians, some 70 percent of whom are women and children, have been killed in the Hamas-Israel War (although these figures are likely to be gross underestimations) and 1.9 of the 2.3 million Palestinians displaced. If the Israeli offensive would last a year, which is the tacit goal of Israel’s far-right government, over 100,000 Palestinians would be dead by October 7, 2024. As talks continued on hostage deals and hundreds of thousands marched for peace in world capitals, the war has continued, despite a truce and loud calls for lasting ceasefire.

It is a dramatic narrative. But it is about the proximate causes of October 7, which has been in the cards for years.[i] Yet, ultimately, it is about longstanding ethnic cleansing and the effort to control huge offshore oil and gas reserves.

Secret memorandum on the Gazan population transfer

Barely a week after the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel’s Intelligence Ministry prepared a secret memorandum. It is this Ministry that oversees the Mossad and the Shin Bet, under the prime minister. In the 10-page memo, three options regarding the Palestinian civilians were predicated on “the overthrow of Hamas” and the “evacuation of the population outside of the combat zone”:Option A: Population remains in Gaza under Palestinian Authority

Option B: … but under local Arab authority.
Option C: Population is evacuated from Gaza to Sinai.[ii]

Of these three options, the memo recommended C: the forcible transfer of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to Egypt’s Sinai, as the preferred course of action. In the Ministry’s view, Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Canada would support the plan financially, or by taking in Palestinian refugees as citizens.

FIG 1 Secret Memorandum by the Israeli Intelligence Ministry

Two weeks later, the memo was leaked to the media.[iii] It sparked an international firestorm over the “advocacy for ethnic cleansing.” Yet, the option was promoted by the Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel who claimed that members of the Knesset across the political spectrum were backing it.[iv] In regional view, it was a pipe dream nobody bought.

Certainly, the early stages of the Israel’s counter-offensive, “Operation Iron Swords,” reinforced the view that a population displacement is now at the forefront.

From “targeted killings” to mass exterminations

Two days after the Hamas offensive, IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari stated that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.”[v] What followed was the Israeli army’s expanded authorization for bombing non-military targets, the loosening of constraints regarding expected civilian casualties, and the use of an artificial intelligence system to generate more potential targets than ever before.”

The presumably “targeted killings” have absolutely nothing to do with ground realities as Gaza has morphed into a “mass assassination factory.” As even US intelligence has acknowledged, almost half of the Israeli munitions dropped on Gaza have been imprecise “dumb bombs.”[vi]

Since October 7, the strategic objective, which the Biden administration has tacitly accepted, has been to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure, exterminate its people and undermine its future.

As Prime Minister Netanyahu struggled to downplay the memo, the leak worsened Israeli-Egyptian tensions. Meanwhile, a pro-Likud think-tank outlined “a plan for resettlement and final rehabilitation in Egypt of the entire population of Gaza.”[vii]

But truth to be told, the transfer option isn’t exactly news. In Israel, such agendas had been disclosed already over three decades ago – and they were first implemented decades before.

Ethnic cleansing since 1947

Since the late 1980s, Israeli “new historians” – including Benny Morris, Ilan Pappé, Avi Shlaim and Simha Flapan – have revised Israel’s role in the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight. In contrast to their precursors, they argued that ethnic cleansing triggered what the Palestinians call the Nakba (“Catastrophe”); that is, the displacement and dispossession of Palestinians, and the devastation of their society. Even prior to these historians, the Nakba had been described as ethnic cleansing by many Palestinian scholars such as Rashid Khalidi, Adel Manna, and Nur Masalha.

What divided the Israeli new historians was the question whether the catastrophe was intentionally planned or collateral damage of the 1947 UN Partition Plan and the 1948 Israeli Independence. The damage idea was promoted by Benny Morris; the intentional interpretation by Ilan Pappé.[viii] Morris relied primarily on Hebrew sources; Pappé used both Hebrew and Arabic sources.

In light of historical evidence, ethnic expulsion has accompanied Jewish colonization in the Palestine ever since the 1880s and the beginning of the modern Zionist movement, as Pappé has argued with documentation. These expulsions were not decided on an ad hoc basis, as mainstream historians claimed. Instead, the Palestinian displacement and dispossession constituted ethnic cleansing, in accordance with the Plan Dalet (Plan “D”), drawn up in 1947 by Israel’s future leaders, such as David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of the nation. In this view, the aim has always been, and still remains, “to take over as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible.”[ix]

Today, the Palestinians in Israel, Occupied Territories, neighboring Arab countries and worldwide are the descendants of the 720,000 out of 900,000 Palestinians who once lived in areas that became Israel (Figure 5).

Figure 2 Ethnic cleansing in stages – before the 2023 Gaza War

In the pre-British Mandate map, the Palestinians comprised some 90% of the total population and the Jews the rest. In the 1947 Partition Plan, the UN granted 55% of Palestine to the new Jewish state and 45% to the non-contiguous Arab one, whereas Jerusalem was to be under international control. By the 1948 Israeli independence, the Jewish forces had already expelled some 750,000 Palestinians while capturing 78% of the historic Palestine. The remaining 22% was split into the West Bank and Gaza Strip. During the 1967 War, Israel occupied all historic Palestine and expelled another 300,000 Palestinians.

* Map mix from Al Jazeera

From demographic displacement to economic objectives

After a month of systematic devastation in Gaza, Netanyahu’s far-right defense minister Smotrich stated that the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians in Gaza is the “right humanitarian solution.” Israel would no longer put up with “an independent entity in Gaza.”

Meanwhile, Netanyahu lobbied European leaders to help him persuade Egypt to take in refugees from Gaza, without any success, even while he was downplaying his own Intelligence Ministry’s preferred proposal to “evacuate” all Palestinians. By contrast, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said his country rejected any attempt to justify or encourage the displacement of Palestinians outside Gaza.[x]

In the UN Security Council, ethnic cleansing was defined in 1992 as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”[xi]

It is this kind of demographic displacement that has motivated the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians particularly since 1947. But the current efforts at population transfers, whether from Gaza or the West Bank, are no longer dictated by only demographic goals. Since the 1990s, ethnic cleansing seems to have also been motivated by economic objectives.

The original 7,400-word analysis was published by The World Financial Review (December-January issue), see https://worldfinancialreview.com/displacing-a-nation-what-led-to-and-caused-the-gaza-israel-catastrophe/

[i] Steinbock, D. 2018. “Israel’s 50-Year Time Bomb.” Consortium News, Oct 18.

[ii] Options for a policy regarding Gaza’s civilian population. Policy Dept. Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence. Oct 13, 2023.

[iii] “An Israeli ministry, in a ‘concept paper,’ proposes transferring Gaza civilians to Egypt’s Sinai”. AP News, Oct 30, 2023

[iv] Gamliel, G. 2023. “Victory is an opportunity for Israel in the midst of crisis.” Jerusalem Post, Nov 19.

[v] ““Emphasis is on damage, not accuracy’: ground offensive into Gaza seems imminent.” The Guardian, Oct 10, 2023.

[vi] Abraham, Y. 2023. “’A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza.” +972 Magazine, Nov 30; “Exclusive: Nearly half of the Israeli munitions dropped on Gaza are imprecise ‘dumb bombs,’ US intelligence assessment finds.” CNN, Dec 14, 2023.

[vii] “Zionist think tank publishes blueprint for Palestinian genocide.” The Grayzone, Oct 24, 2023. See also the think-tank’s website https://www.izs.org.il/ Soon afterwards the website went offline and Weitman’s paper was no longer downloadable.

[viii] Morris, B. 1988. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, Cambridge UP.

[ix] Pappe, Ilan. 2006. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld, p. 362.

[x] “Israeli minister supports “voluntary migration’ of Palestinians in Gaza.” Al Jazeera, Nov. 14, 2023.

[xi] “Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 780 (1992).” UN Security Council. May 27, 1994. p. 33


Dr. Dan Steinbockis an internationally recognized strategist of the multipolar world and the founder of Difference Group. He has served at India, China and America Institute (US), Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see https://www.differencegroup.net/

Australia and Spain reject US request to join a Red Sea ‘Prosperity Guardian’ naval operation

Australia has rejected a US request for a warship to help protect international shipping lanes in the Red Sea.

NEWSROOM
DECEMBER 24, 2023

DDG 51 Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer. Source: military.com

Canberra will instead send six additional ADF personnel. US bringing together allies to protect against Houthi strikes, Bloomberg informs.

Australia has rejected a US request for a warship to help protect international shipping lanes in the Red Sea, with Defense Minister Richard Marles saying the nation’s strategic focus had to remain on the Indo-Pacific.

Marles, who is also deputy prime minister, told Sky News on Thursday that Australia wouldn’t be sending a “ship or a plane” to the Middle East, but would instead almost triple its troop contribution to the US-led maritime force.

“We need to be really clear around our strategic focus and our strategic focus is our region,” Marles said.

The Australian Government continues to work with the United States and other partners in support of the international rules-based order in the Middle East and surrounding region. — Richard Marles (@RichardMarlesMP) December 21, 2023

The US this week announced Operation Prosperity Guardian, an international maritime task force intended to protect trading vessels sailing through the Red Sea from attacks by Houthi militants based in Yemen. Participating countries include the US, UK, France and Canada.

In a post to social media site X on Thursday, Marles said Australia would contribute an additional six Australian Defence Force personnel.

The US is Australia’s closest defense partner, a relationship even further strengthened in 2021 by the Aukus security agreement that will deliver Canberra a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

Spain’s Defense Ministry denied Washington’s claims that it will participate in a multinational force to patrol the Red Sea.

In a statement released to Spanish media outlets including the ABC and La Vanguardia, the ministry said Spain cannot make the decision unilaterally, and is subject to decisions made by the EU and NATO.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Spain would be among the countries joining the 10-nation security initiative to protect trade in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks.

The Yemeni rebel group has ramped up attacks in recent days, targeting ships alleged to have links with Israel.

Energy company BP announced it was suspending shipping in the region, following in the steps of big shipping firms such as Evergreen and Maersk, which have suspended shipping operations off the coast of Yemen. The companies are instead opting to divert the routes.

The interruption of “the critical waterway… threatens the free flow of commerce, endangers innocent mariners, and violates international law,” according to the US defense secretary.

He announced launching Operation Prosperity Guardian to bolster the security of shipping in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

According to the US announcement, the UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain are taking part.

However, if Spain’s justification for why it cannot participate is true, countries such Italy, Netherlands and France would also have to answer to the EU and NATO before committing.

Unraveling the Red Sea Conundrum: Houthi Conflict and its Global Economic Ramifications

The Red Sea, a critical maritime route connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, holds immense strategic importance in the global economy.

BY  S.M. SAYEM
DECEMBER 24, 2023

Image credit: Henry Ridgwell (VOA) via Wikipedia

The Red Sea, a critical maritime route connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, holds immense strategic importance in the global economy. Its waters facilitate the movement of goods and energy resources, making it a linchpin for international trade. Situated at the crossroads of major shipping routes, the Red Sea serves as a gateway for a significant portion of the world’s trade. Its geostrategic location has positioned it as a key maritime corridor, linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean. This has made it a focal point for major global powers seeking to secure their economic interests and exert influence in the region.

However, the stability of this crucial waterway and its possible effects on international trade have come under scrutiny due to the Houthi rebels, a Yemeni insurgent group, and recent events involving their fighters and their attacks on ships in the Red Sea. With numerous parties fighting for dominance and influence, the geopolitical dynamics around the Red Sea become more complicated. The motives behind these acts are complex, entwining power battles with regional disputes.

The recent years have seen an increase in the threat to local maritime security, which has been made exacerbated by the Israel-Hamas conflict. The Houthis had previously attacked ships associated with nations fighting alongside the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. For example, in 2018, they launched an attack against crude oil tankers that were owned by Saudi Arabia’s state shipping company, Bahri, when they were traveling through the Bab al-Mandab Strait to or from the Red Sea and Suez Canal. The Saudi Energy Ministry responded by stopping oil shipments via the chokepoint for about a week (though this seems to have been insufficient time to force shippers to look for other routes; if the interruption persisted, they may have).

But according to current discourse, the Houthis have attacked Israeli oil tankers with drones and rockets following the Israeli raid on Gaza on October 7 with the support of the Palestinians. Twelve international oil companies and large ships have forbade the transit of cargo over the Red Sea in response to their attack. A ship traveling from Asia to Europe or from Europe to Asia needs an additional two weeks to traverse through the Red Sea and Suez Canal. As a result, additional costs for manpower, fuel and insurance will ultimately be passed on to the consumer. Consequently, the announcement came a couple of days ago from the world’s largest shipping company, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC. They said the ship left the Red Sea. In announcing their decision, the MSC said the situation in the Red Sea area had become critical. On Friday, the company’s ship, MSC Platinum Three, was attacked in the Red Sea. Though the ship’s crew was unharmed, the ship is no longer operational. Since then, the company’s ships have been plying the southern tip of Africa.

A similar action was taken earlier this week by the French operator CMA CGM. In addition, German shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd and Danish company Maersk made the decision to cease operations in the Red Sea prior to the CMA. The majority of the ships in the ocean are operated by these corporations. And OOCL, an enterprise located in Hong Kong, has finally declared that it will no longer be carrying cargo in the Red Sea.

Experts predict that if this pattern persists, there would be a significant rise in the cost of items on the global market. The cost of the ship’s oil would increase by a million dollars if the route from Shanghai to Rotterdam took them beyond the Cape of Good Hope. Global energy security and the dry cargo trade would take a further hit if Houthi strikes intensify and the Red Sea marine traffic is severely disrupted as a result—especially in Europe, which is still recuperating from the devastating effects of the war in Ukraine. As demand rebounded in Europe and the US after the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that northbound crude oil transfers through two important routes to the Mediterranean—the Suez Canal and the Sumed pipeline in Egypt—increased by more than 60 percent during the first half of this year compared to 2020. Europe has been importing more oil from some Middle Eastern suppliers as a result of Western sanctions against Russia’s energy sector, according to the EIA. For instance, Iraq has shipped 743,000 barrels per day on average to Europe through the Suez Canal this year, up from 629,000 barrels during the same period last year, according to data from Kpler.

There’s more trouble over on the other side. Europe’s ports have a fixed number of workers for fixed jobs. Assume that every week, 50,000 containers are unloaded from a port. One week, amidst the abrupt absence of all containers, the subsequent week witnessed the arrival of twice as many containers, leading to the consequential loss of equilibrium in the workload. Today, as ships avoid the Suez Canal, that is precisely what is taking place. The ports are under a great deal of strain and it is growing harder to manage. Specifically, during COVID, the Suez Canal had to be halted for a few days. The price of goods increased sharply and quickly on a global scale during that time. Experts respond there’s a possibility something similar will occur again.

Freightos, an online shipping marketplace, reports that shipment costs have already climbed. Prices for cargo travel between Asia and the US East Coast increased by 5% to $2,497 per 40-foot container following the escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict. It might cost extra. since large corporations are staying away from the Suez Canal. The Indian Ocean must be reached by traveling across Africa. To avoid this path, it needs to factor in an additional 14 days. High fuel usage must be added at the same time. Ships take a lot longer to get to their destinations as a result.

There are no Houthi vessels that are capable of blocking the waterways, according to experts. Though they have only once used a helicopter to attack a ship, they do occasionally attempt surprise strikes. To address such a situation, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hurried to the Middle East nations. He then proceeded to Bahrain and declared that ten nations—including Bahrain, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy—would join forces to build a new force to combat the Houthis. In essence, it will facilitate smooth sailing and guarantee the security of the Red Sea. It will be based on Task Force 153, which is presently in operation in Bahrain. It is unclear at this time, nevertheless, if additional nations will be open to cooperating on this agreement’s model.

But how seriously the Houthis perceive this US threat is still up in the air. The Houthis are not letting any Israeli ships enter the Red Sea because they did not only assault the Israeli ship in response to the massacre occurring in Gaza. So long as there is a conflict in Gaza, the Red Sea will serve as another theater of operations for the Houthis, according to analysts.

The conflict involving Houthi rebels in the Red Sea underscores the delicate balance between geopolitics and global trade. The impact is felt not only economically but also in terms of energy security and the stability of maritime trade. As nations collaborate to counter the Houthi threat, the situation remains volatile, and the Red Sea continues to be a hotspot for geopolitical tensions. The ongoing conflict serves as a stark reminder of the intricate connections between regional conflicts and the broader global economy, underscoring the need for diplomatic solutions to safeguard vital international waterways.


S.M. Sayem is a Dhaka-based foreign policy analyst. He is studying Economics at the University of Chittagong. Contact: smsayem[at]049gmail.com

Seymour Hersh: Nord Stream and Germany’s shrinking economy

BY NEWSROOM
DECEMBER 26, 2023


Has Biden’s pipeline sabotage led to the rise of the German right? – askes Seymour Hersh, the famous American investigative journalist.

The German economy has been deprived for more than a year of cheap Russian gas, thanks in part to Joe Biden and his decision early last year to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines. Meanwhile, German politics is continuing its tumble to the right. It may bring much of Western Europe with it.

Last week Alternative for Germany (AfD), a rigid anti-immigrant party in a nation where immigrants make up 18 percent of the total population, backed its first successful mayoral candidate since it was formed a decade ago. The New York Times described the victory in Pirna, a small town in Saxony, as a reflection of the party’s surging popularity. It is backed by 35 percent of voters in Saxony and 22 percent nationwide — a figure that has doubled in the past two years.

Germany once dominated the world’s markets with its luxury cars and industrial machinery but is now in a process of what some have called rapid deindustrialization. Three months ago, the television network Euronews called Germany “the world’s worst performing major developed country, with both the International Monetary Fund and European Union expecting it to shrink this year.” The political gains of AfD, I was told by Max Paul Friedman, an American academic who knows Germany well, “make many Germans very scared” because the economic gloom causes other political parties in Germany and throughout Europe, as well as in the US, to take up anti-immigrant policies.

“If the pipelines were flowing, would this all be different?” asked Friedman, a professor of history and international relations at American University. “Yes and no. Energy prices are central, but they would still have the sclerotic bureaucracy, the Chinese market decline, the lack of skilled labor. And given what is happening all over the North Atlantic countries, they would still be in an Islamophobic, anti-immigrant mood like their neighbors anyway.”

Given those realities, Friedman told me, he would depict “the pipeline issue as a catalyst or maybe the straw that broke the camel’s back, rather than the sole critical factor contributing to Germany’s woes.”

Sarah Miller, who has spent four decades writing for and editing the best of America’s oil and gas magazines — she now blogs on Medium—has depicted these days as “desperate times, especially for German and some European companies facing inflated energy bills and ongoing and possible entrenched inflation at home.” Germany is at risk, she told me this week in an email, “of losing a big part of the industrial base that has been key to its continued industrial strength and political clout within the EU over the last few decades. This industrial base is also emotionally important to the Germans — that goes especially for cars and chemicals — making it a huge political issue.”

“It’s interesting,” Miller said, “that what everybody fears most — from Germany to China and lots of places in between — is a repeat of the deindustrialization, financialization, and economic hollowing out that the US experienced over the last decades. America is a cautionary tale. It’s pretty pathetic when you think about it that way.”

America has been the most controversial factor in Germany’s recent hard times, so controversial that its role is rarely mentioned. Biden’s decision in the fall of 2022 to order a CIA-led team working undercover in Norway, with the best of Norway’s special forces, who have been an American asset since the end of the Second World War — to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. Nord Stream 1 had been supplying Germany with cheap Russian gas since 2011. The newly constructed Nord Stream 2 was in the final stages of completion when it was shut down, under American pressure, by Chancellor Scholz in February 2022.

The Americans assigned to the covert mission in the Baltic Sea in the weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 assumed that the goal was to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin not to invade. When the invasion took place, despite earlier public threats to destroy the pipeline by Biden and Victoria Nuland, now acting deputy secretary of state, the American team in Norway was ordered to continue its work and find a way to get the job done.

The operatives had prepared for the mission and were ready to go by late May, but the plan was called off on short notice by Biden. There was no explanation because presidents, whether or not they are deeply involved in mission planning or, as in the case in hand, know very little about the planning, have no need to explain their thinking. The CIA team remained deeply involved and enthusiastic because they assumed that Biden would eventually pull the trigger.

The White House did, however, order that the CIA find a way to give the White House the option to blow up the pipeline at a time of Biden’s choosing. The bombs were already in place. Arranging that option, with the necessary assurance or success, was much more difficult than the president and his advisers would ever know. It was made possible with the help of outside academic technical experts. The presidential order came in late September and three of the four pipelines were destroyed after the explosives were triggered by a specially assembled low frequency sonar device. (No bombs were laid at the fourth pipeline because the two Navy divers who had practiced for months were under a strict timeline and were returned to safety before they could finish their mission.)

Biden’s timing seemed aimed at Chancellor Scholz. Some in the CIA believed that the president’s fear was that Scholz, whose constituents were lukewarm in their support for Ukraine, might waffle with winter coming on and conclude that keeping his people warm and his industries prosperous was more important than backing Ukraine against Russia. He might decide to let the gas flow. Once again, as US presidents since Kennedy have feared, Russian gas would be a strategic asset.

In the ten months since I published my first account of the Nord Stream sabotage the German government and media, as in the United States, have either ignored or provided alternate accounts of the how and why the pipelines were destroyed. The idea that a sitting US president would deliberately destroy a vital source of energy and of a close ally has been, as Freud would say, ‘taboo’, Seymour Hersh writes.

PUTIN'S SOCK PUPPET

Orbán: Russia's attack on Ukraine is an 'operation' - not a war

YOU KNOW A POLICE ACTION LIKE VIETNAM WAS

2023/12/21

Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, speaks at the Carmelite Monastery during a joint statement with Turkish President Erdogan. Orban received Erdogan for his one-day visit. 

Marton Monus/dpa

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has questioned the warlike nature of the Russian attack on Ukraine and backed Russia's President Vladimir Putin with his choice of words.

"This is an operation as long as there is no declaration of war between the two countries," said the right-wing populist politician at his annual press conference in Budapest on Thursday.

This was the prime ministers response to the question as to why he had recently avoided using the term "war" in his talks with Putin.

Some people would characterize the events as a "war," he said.

"But we Hungarians don't dictate to anyone what words they should use to talk about it," Orbán emphasized. "We are glad that it is not a war," he carried on.

On the other hand, he said that Ukraine was at war. Orbán, who has long maintained good relations with Putin, met the Kremlin leader in Beijing in October.

Orbán made ambiguous comments regarding the dispute with Brussels over the frozen €21 billion ($23 billion) in EU funding for Hungary. On the one hand, he rejected the accusation that he wanted to link this issue with the EU's plans for further Ukraine aid totalling €50 billion.

On the other hand, he emphasized that he was strictly against including this sum in the EU's seven-year budget.

He claimed to be afraid that nothing would be left to pay out the current blocked millions to Hungary, despite this not being true.

However, he is fundamentally in favour of financial support for Ukraine, as Budapest is also interested in Ukraine's existence as a buffer state between Hungary and Russia.

'Deplorable': Iowa's GOP governor opts out of summer food program for kids

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
December 26, 2023 

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds (Mario Tama/Getty Images North America/TNS)

Iowa's Republican-led government sparked outrage late last week by declining to participate in a federal program that would have provided low-income residents with $40 a month in additional food assistance during the coming summer.

Created by the U.S. Congress late last year, the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) for Children program aims to boost nutrition benefits for families with school-aged children who typically receive free or reduced-price meals during the school year. Starting in summer 2024, eligible families will receive a prepaid debit card with $40 per child for three months.

But in a press release issued Friday, the state's health and human services department said it had notified the Biden administration that Iowa would be opting out of Summer EBT, claiming the program doesn't sufficiently restrict the kinds of food that families can purchase.

Kim Reynolds, Iowa's Republican governor, echoed that assertion in a statement focused more on childhood obesity than food insecurity, which impacts one in 11 kids in her state.

"Federal Covid-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don't provide long-term solutions for the issues impacting children and families," said Reynolds. "An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic."

The Iowa Hunger Coalition (IHC) noted that because of the government's decision, 240,000 children in the state will lose out on $120 in food assistance this coming summer.

"This is an unconscionable decision," Luke Elzinga, the IHC's board chair, said in a statement. "Announcing three days before Christmas that we've deliberately chosen not to feed hungry kids? The Dickensian parallels write themselves."

Elzinga criticized the state government's suggestion that "low-income Iowans can't be trusted to make their own choices about what to feed their kids" as "incredibly insulting."

"We've somehow decided that parents know best when it comes to school curriculum but not what to feed their kids? Starvation is not a legitimate strategy to reduce childhood obesity," Elzinga said, adding that "an abundance of academic research has made clear the link between food insecurity and obesity in the United States."

Hunger is growing across the U.S. as safety net expansions enacted during the coronavirus pandemic continue to unwind. Some states have moved to make crisis-era programs such as universal free school meals permanent while others, such as Iowa and Arkansas, have worked aggressively to curb benefits for poor residents.


IHC said Saturday that Iowa's food banks are currently seeing record-breaking demand and warned that the government's pledge to bolster existing state-level programs while refusing to take part in Summer EBT will exacerbate the crisis.

"Hunger is a policy choice, and this is just one more unfortunate example of that fact," said Elzinga. "Summer EBT should be a bipartisan no-brainer policy win for Iowa's kids. The Iowa Hunger Coalition will be making this an issue with the Iowa legislature in 2024. We can not and will not accept this disastrous decision by Governor Reynolds. It's deplorable that Iowa's leadership has chosen to make feeding children a political issue."

Democratic State Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott toldThe Gazette on Friday that the government's rejection of Summer EBT is a "huge loss for Iowa."

"If we're talking 20-some million (dollars) coming from the federal government, I don't think the state is going to be matching that," said Trone Garriott, who works with the Des Moines Area Religious Council Food Pantry Network. "They are just going to be leaving it to the charities to make up the difference."

Trump plots 'a high-stakes gamble with the economy’s health': NYT

Brad Reed
December 26, 2023 




The New York Times is reporting that former President Donald Trump is planning to reignite trade wars with foreign nations if he's reelected next year in a move the paper describes as "a high-stakes gamble with the economy’s health."

While Trump levied tariffs on foreign competitors in his first term, the Times reports that a second term would see that effort go into overdrive with the goal of severing the economic relationship between the United States and China.

"Essentially, Mr. Trump’s trade agenda aims at backing the United States away from integration with the global economy and steering the country toward becoming more self-contained: producing a larger share of what it consumes and wielding its might through one-on-one dealings with other countries," the Times reports. "If he is elected, he plans a more audacious intervention in hopes of eliminating the trade deficit and bolstering manufacturing — with potentially seismic consequences for jobs, prices, diplomatic relations and the global trading system."

Daniel M. Price, a former economics adviser for President George W. Bush, told the Times that such plans were "erratic and irrational" and he warned that longtime American allies such as Japan and South Korea would not be shy about whacking America with stiff tariffs should Trump target them in a second term.

Trump has floated a sweeping 10 percent tariff on all imported goods in his second term, which trade experts warn could jack up prices and reignite inflation just as it has cooled from earlier highs.

Fantasy fair featuring Dali, Basquiat returns to life in California

Agence France-Presse
December 26, 2023

A Keith Haring-painted carousel graces the first amusement park made by contemporary artists of the 20th century (Robyn Beck/AFP)


Mesmerizing carousels and Ferris wheels designed by Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf that spin to music by Miles Davis or Philip Glass -- this is "Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy."

With works designed by prominent 20th-century artists, the resurrected show bills itself as the world's first art amusement park, a one-of-a-kind psychedelic fair.

Luna Luna recently opened its doors in Los Angeles. Its features include a mirrored fun house signed by Salvador Dali, a pavilion from Roy Lichtenstein, an enchanted forest by David Hockney, and a marriage chapel designed by Andre Heller, the Austrian multimedia artist who brought the "Forgotten Fantasy" to life nearly four decades ago.

Heller, an aficionado of traveling fairs and circuses, and with far-flung interests in film, music, theater, sculpture and more, recruited some of the most established names from the last century's art scene as well as some talented newcomers to create Luna Luna: an amusement park designed to make art accessible to ordinary people.

The fair debuted in Hamburg, Germany in 1987, but after drawing thousands of visitors, money ran out, bureaucratic obstacles mounted, and plans for a world tour had to be shelved. Luna Luna ended up being packed away in 44 shipping containers in Texas for the next 35 years.

That's when Drake got involved. The superstar rapper and singer heard about Luna Luna, said he was "blown away" by the concept, and had his music company, DreamCrew, buy and restore the fair's attractions.

Drake and other investors put $100 million into the project, a Luna Luna executive told the New York Times.

Breathtakingly unique pieces emerged from the dusty containers -- like Haring's carousel, in which distinctive figures seem to come to life like colorful dancers, or Basquiat's Ferris wheel, which has a strong social-protest component.

"Just seeing something like this artwork in a carnival form, I've just never seen this before. It definitely was beyond our expectations," said visitor Douglas Hickman, 38, who spent several minutes staring with fascination at the Basquiat Ferris wheel.

"Being an artist myself, I feel like it's just a one-of-a-kind experience."

- 'A time capsule' -

Unlike the fair's original opening in Germany, which took place in an open-air park, this one is set in an enormous warehouse. Dark backgrounds help create a psychedelic or museum-like effect.

Also unlike the German experience, the public will not be able to ride on Luna Luna's attractions, as was originally intended; they are now viewed as relics to be preserved.

Still, thanks to the spinning motion of the rides, an intoxicating play of colorful lights and the meticulous musical curation, visitors feel immersed in a carnival from another time.

"We would love to go on" one of the rides, said Adam Umber, who was with his four-year-old son Elias. "But I think it's fabulous. It's a time capsule and you get to experience something that's as old as '87, but has not been in view" since then.

While rides like the carousel and the Ferris wheel are only for viewing, visitors can immerse themselves in the magic of other attractions -- like the Dali dome, Hockney's enchanted forest or the Heller wedding chapel.

A sign in the chapel, under oversized caricatures of a bride and groom, bears the playful invitation: "Marry a friend or marry a foe; marry a shoe or marry a crow; marry whomever or whatever you wish, be it a bike or be it a fish. For love is love at Luna Luna, even if you love a tuna!"

When Luna Luna opened in Germany, the invitation to "marry whomever" you wish allowed for same-sex couples to do so -- a political act in the 1980s.

Yoori Kim, who came to the Los Angeles fair to celebrate her 35th birthday, took those words to heart and decided to marry... herself.

"I just recently got clean," she said. "So I figured this is a good moment to celebrate my sober life and... the rest of the time I have on this world."

"I feel a little overwhelmed because it's so stimulating," she said.

"The great artists in the 20th century that I never got to meet, I feel like they're living through their artwork right now.


"It's such a good feeling to be in the middle of all that. We need more of this."

"Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy" will be in Los Angeles until the spring of 2024.

Endangered Species Act's 50th anniversary: What 6 northwest animals can tell us

2023/12/25

A female Spotted Owl sits perched on a branch of a tree among old growth near Mount Rainier forest land in Washington, June 27, 2008. - Chris Joseph Taylor/TNS/TNS

No matter how humble or obscure, all plant, animal and insect life in America is eligible for protection under the Endangered Species Act, one of the most far-reaching and important conservation statutes in the world.

Arachnids, birds, corals, crustaceans, flatworms and roundworms, mammals, reptiles, sponges, trees, algae ... all species, great and small.

The ESA turns 50 this month, and if beating extinction is the measure, the law has been a success.

Of the more than 1,600 U.S. species listed for protection since the act's inception, 99% have been rescued from the oblivion of extinction. And some, the bald eagle, gray whales of the northeastern Pacific and peregrine falcons, to name just a few, have recovered to the point they are no longer listed.

In all, as of February, 55 species have been delisted due to recovery — 37 within the past 10 years — while 56 have improved from endangered to threatened, the act's two protection designations. As of October, 21 listed species have been lost to extinction. Most of those, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, were listed in the 1970s and 1980s and already in very low numbers, or were likely already gone at the time of listing. Federal protection came too late for them.

But there is much more to do: Researchers found in a 2022 study, published in PlosOne, that insufficient funding to support listing, as well as waiting until species are already too far gone before they are protected, undermine success.

Over the decades and amid the lives of so many species, the ESA is no single narrative of success or failure. Each cameo below tells a different tale of the ESA at 50.
Northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina)

It was the poster animal of the campaign that saved more than 20 million acres of old-growth forest on federal lands in three states.

But the story of the ESA and the northern spotted owl shows how sometimes species continue to decline, despite listing and heroic efforts to save them.

The northern spotted owl was listed as a threatened species in 1990. And despite protecting more than 20 million acres of federal old-growth forest habitat the owls depend on, their populations in study areas throughout their range have still declined by 35% to more than 80% over the past two decades, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The trouble is threats to the owl's survival keep multiplying.

The Northwest Forest Plan stopped all logging of old growth on federal lands in Washington, Oregon and Northern California in 1994. But logging on private land still hammers the owl's habitat — and so do wildfires. Now the barred owl is outcompeting spotties everywhere they live. Barred owls, native to the eastern U.S., are bigger, are more aggressive and will eat practically anything. Salamanders, frogs, fish, birds, earthworms, snails, slugs and more are vacuumed from the woods by this opportunistic hunter.

Spotted owls have a more limited diet that ties them to the old-growth forest canopy environment. They also have none of the aggressive and territorial manner of the barred owl.

"They are very interactive with people," said Robin Bown, a spotted-owl biologist for the USFWS based in Portland. She once banded a spotted owl as it sat in her lap. "Scratch them under their chin and they will fall asleep. Barred owls, you call them and they come looking for a bird to tear it apart, screaming at the tops of their lungs."

The USFWS is proposing a shoot-to-kill program that would take out more than 500,000 barred owls over the next 30 years. The agency's plan is out for public comment.
Wolverine (Gulo gulo)

These charismatic carnivores of the Cascades are renowned for their ferocity, agility and all-terrain finesse. In the depth of winter, they are at their best, scaling snowy mountain slopes with their big paws and loping strides. With their crampon-like claws, jaws strong enough to crack open frozen bones and thick, dark, double, oily coats, wolverines — also called mountain devils — are masters of the icy north.

"If wolverines have a strategy it's this: Go hard, and high and steep and never back down. Not even from the biggest grizzly and least of all from the mountain. Climb everything ... eat everybody. Alive, dead, long dead, moose, mouse, fox, frog, its still warm heart or frozen bones," writes Douglas Chadwick in his book, "The Wolverine Way."

Local populations of wolverine were extinct in Washington by the 1930s. Like most predators, they were shot on sight, trapped and poisoned as vermin. But they have battled their way back to parts of their home range, naturally recolonizing the Cascades by dispersing from British Columbia. Now, loss and fragmentation of habitat due to climate change threatens wolverine survival, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Wolverines need deep snow that persists into spring to create safe dens for their young.

Wolverines used to range along the Cascade crest from the Canadian border but today are exceedingly rare, with maybe as few as 30 to 40 animals in Washington — most of them in the North Cascades.

Yet the ESA, for the wolverine, has been a story of agency indecision.

Environmental groups' first petition to the USFWS for listing the wolverine dates to 1994, with the agency changing its mind about listing several times ever since. Under a May 2022 court order, the agency finally issued its decision last month, listing the wolverine for protection as a threatened species.
Puget Sound Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha)

More than 130 species depend on Pacific salmon. From the caddisflies that feed on their carcasses and in turn feed juvenile salmon, to the seals, sea lions and endangered orcas that slurp up the fish as they head to freshwater, they're a keystone species, and a good measure of overall ecosystem health.

European settlers rerouted some rivers and turned others into machines for shipping, electricity generation and drinking water. They converted hundreds of acres of habitat into farmland, and razed forests that purify the water, stabilize stream banks and provide shade for salmon.

Puget Sound Chinook, or king salmon, were first listed under the ESA 24 years ago. There is little to no sign of recovery in most rivers.

The energy it took settlers to make the White River flow in a different direction, to dry up the Black River and to turn the Duwamish into a shipping canal needs to be applied to recovery of Puget Sound Chinook, said Donny Stevenson, vice chair of the Muckleshoot Tribe.

"If we can get that same level of ... commitment, then we're talking," he said. "Then you have the ability to really make a difference. Until that point, it's ultimately taking incremental steps."

Chinook also are the most important prey for the endangered southern resident killer whales who frequent the Salish Sea.

The southern residents have their own culture: behaviors passed on intergenerationally, like language, hunting and gathering skills and food preferences. The eldest orcas have witnessed a sea of change, as shorelines hardened, green hues faded to gray, the salmon shrunk in size and fewer returned.

In 2005, the southern residents were listed as endangered. A recovery plan was finished in 2008. Generally, the orcas are struggling to survive in the face of at least three threats: lack of Chinook, pollution and underwater noise that makes it harder for them to hunt and communicate.

Deborah Giles, science and research director for the nonprofit Wild Orca, said the lack of prey, specifically Chinook, has had profound impacts on the immediate physiological health of the orcas as well as the social fabric of who they are.

With fewer Chinook, the southern residents are visiting the San Juan Islands, their traditional summer home, less often, corresponding with a 50% decline in available Chinook from the Fraser River.
Franklin's bumble bee (Bombus franklini)

Officially nobody's seen a Franklin's bumble bee in years. Entomologists aren't sure if they've all died out or if the remaining few are just difficult to find.

The species is particularly unique in that it only lives in a few small areas across Southern Oregon and Northern California. But the dangers that cut into Franklin's bumble bee populations are quite similar to those threatening pollinators across the rest of the country.

Franklin's are like other bumble bees in size and shape, said Sarina Jepsen, director of the Xerces Society's Endangered Species and Aquatic Program. They're mostly black except for yellow splotches on the top of their thorax and heads. Worker bees will also have a few yellowish hairs toward the bottom of the abdomen.

Worker bees spend their days out collecting nectar and pollen from plants and flowers. They drink the nectar (yes, bees have tongues) for energy and regurgitate some back at the nests, which are often underground, Jepsen said. Pollen collected serves as food for the young (larval) bees.

Throughout the process of collecting these foods the bees are also pollinating the flowers and plants they visit. About 85% of flowering plants rely on insects like bees, beetles, butterflies and moths for pollination, Jepsen said.

One renowned scientist — the late Robbin Thorp — surveyed Franklin's bumble bee populations every year and noticed a decline in the early 2000s. By 2006 he found only one bee. Theories for their decline included climate change, invasive diseases or species, perhaps even a deadly type of fungus imported from Europe.

Jepsen and a group of other scientists petitioned the federal government to list the Franklin's bumble bee as endangered in 2010, and in 2021 the species was listed.

Even if it's too late for the Franklin's, lessons learned from the species, funded in part by their listing, can be put to good use with other pollinators. Of the about 50 bumble bee species in the United States, about a quarter of them are in danger, Jepsen said.
Gray wolf (Canis lupus)

Few endangered animals, if any, provoke such a wide array of responses throughout the country.

To some, the predators represent the wilderness, the untamed spirit — in some cultures they're even objects of worship. But to others, they're a threat, a danger to people, pets and livestock.

Once, gray wolves roamed across much of the country, inhabiting around 38 states and much of Canada, said Adrian Treves, an environmental studies professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

"Right from the get-go in New England, people who were hunting for deer misperceived them as competitors," Treves said.

So those early American settlers began killing the wolves, a tradition that lasted hundreds of years and expanded even further with a federal poisoning and "eradication" campaign, set in motion at the behest of livestock owners and hunters, Treves said.

By the early 1970s the country had wiped out all wolves in the Lower 48 states, except for a small population in northeast Minnesota, Treves said. Federal officials listed them as endangered in 1976, just three years after enacting the Endangered Species Act, and their numbers started to grow.

The wolves once more spread their roots in Minnesota and jumped to Wisconsin, and though a reintroduction attempt failed in Michigan, they migrated back into the state on their own, Treves said.

They can be found again across the American West as well, in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado, among other places.

Gray wolves are a resilient species, Treves said. And they don't tend to congregate in one place; rather, when a pack grows too large they'll instinctively spread out.

But protections aren't evenly spread, Treves said, in large part thanks to a lack of a national recovery plan from federal officials.

For example, wolves in the western two-thirds of Washington enjoy federal protections, but those in Eastern Washington do not. Other states still allow the wolves to be hunted, and politicians push back and forth on whether to keep the species listed as endangered.

While gray wolves serve as a political football, Treves noted that there is one piece of good news: If humans stop killing them, their numbers will rebound.
Grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis)

Hardly picky with their habitat, grizzly bears used to roam all across western North America, as far south as Mexico, up through Canada and across the Great Plains. Now, in the contiguous 48 states, you can only find them if you know where to look.

The grizzly bear was one of the first species identified by the federal government as being threatened with extinction.

Six years before President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service included the grizzly on its list of species on the brink. The grizzly bear would later be classified as "threatened" in the contiguous 48 states.

The agency designated six "recovery zones," which were thought to still contain bears in them, said Joe Scott, a grizzly specialist at Conservation Northwest. Those six zones consisted of areas around Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park, the North Cascades and three other regions around Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, northeast Washington and southeast British Columbia.

Reducing interactions between bears and humans has helped grizzlies recover so much in some ecosystems that states around Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park have petitioned to delist the bear in those zones. However, the bears are considered functionally extinct in both the North Cascades and the Bitterroot region between Montana and Idaho, making the two regions an unfulfilled promise of the ESA. The last grizzly sighting in the North Cascades was in 1996.

That could change soon. After a decade of fits and starts, in September, the U.S. Forest Service released a draft plan that outlined three options to restore a population starting with 25 bears in the North Cascades with a decision anticipated next year. The USFS is also intending to release a similar plan in 2026 on reintroducing bears into the Bitterroot system. Some tribes, such as the Upper Skagit, have advocated for the introduction of the bears, while other tribes have joined ranchers and other large landowners, who are concerned for their livestock.

The grizzly bears' absence in the Cascades is an example of how, while the Endangered Species Act facilitates the process that can eventually reintroduce bears into an area, the law doesn't dictate the speed at which those efforts happen or whether plans get scrapped or delayed, Scott said.

© The Seattle Times

Ethanol is a key Iowa issue for GOP presidential contenders

Jared Strong, Iowa Capital Dispatch
December 26, 2023 

Republican candidates for the presidency have fawned over farmers this caucus season as they’ve courted voters in Iowa — the nation’s top producer of corn, eggs and pork.

The candidates often talk in platitudes about their support for Iowa agriculture and paint themselves as farmers’ best friends.

“I’m proud to be the most pro-farmer president that you’ve ever had in your life,” former President Donald Trump told supporters during a campaign stop in Council Bluffs in July.

None of the candidates has suggested that farmers be forced to implement costly measures to help the environment. To the contrary, the candidates rail against federal regulations that pertain to agriculture, especially those that seek to protect the nation’s streams.

“I will prevent both federal and state overreach from obstructing our agricultural industry,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote in the Des Moines Register.

The lone agriculture issue to cause serious contention among the candidates is ethanol, which Iowa also leads the nation in producing.

Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy said he supports the ethanol industry, but when he was poised early this month to announce his forceful opposition to using eminent domain to build carbon dioxide pipelines — and to even question their purpose — the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association released a scathing critique of the candidate. The association called him a hypocrite for his support of an oil pipeline and lack of support for pipelines that might benefit ethanol producers and farmers.

Ethanol has, on the whole, been a rallying point for the candidates. More than half of the state’s corn is used to produce the fuel — bolstering demand for the crop and the price per bushel it fetches. And the candidates have supported its use in combustion engines as an alternative to electric vehicles, which are largely disdained by Republican voters.

A Gallup poll in March found that 71% of Republicans would not consider owning an electric vehicle.

But the unwavering support for ethanol among the candidates was not initially clear. DeSantis, when he was a congressman representing Florida in 2017, supported an end to the Renewable Fuel Standard, which mandates a certain amount of ethanol be blended with gasoline each year.

Trump has taken repeated shots at DeSantis because of it: “If he had his way the entire economy of Iowa would absolutely collapse,” Trump said in July.

DeSantis has reversed course on the issue and said recently he would not seek to end the biofuels mandate.

The candidates have expressed support for the year-round sales of E15, a gasoline blend that is 15% ethanol. In some states, including Iowa, the gasoline that is blended with ethanol is more volatile, and the E15 that is created with it does not meet federal fuel standards in the summer that are meant to limit air pollution caused by evaporation.

“Why is government telling you what months you can do it?” Nikki Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, said during a campaign stop in Altoona.

Trump scored points with the ethanol industry in 2019 when his administration decided to allow the widespread sale of E15 during summer months, but the rule change was struck down by an appeals court that said only Congress could authorize it. He also drew the ire of ethanol advocates when his administration granted waivers to fuel refiners that exempted them from Renewable Fuel Standard requirements.

Trump holds a commanding lead in Iowa, according to a recent Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll. He is the top choice of 51% of likely Republican caucusgoers. DeSantis and Haley are a distant second and third, with 19% and 16%. Ramaswamy has the fourth-most support at 5%.

GOP candidates on issues

This is one of an occasional series of stories comparing Republican presidential candidates’ positions on issues ahead of the Iowa Caucuses on Jan. 15, 2024.

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.

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