Russian airstrikes plummet after Ukraine destroyed four Russian Su-34 fighter jets


The New Voice of Ukraine
Thu, December 28, 2023 

Su-34

Russia daily airstrikes on the Tavria front have dramatically plummeted following the destruction of four Russian Su-34 fighter jets by the Ukrainian Armed Forces last week, Tavria Defense Forces spokesperson, Oleksandr Shtupun, told Radio Liberty on Dec. 27.

The invaders have opted for a reduced air arsenal, relying solely on Su-25 attack aircraft and Ka-52 attack helpicopters for strikes in the Tavria operational zone since the destruction of the Russian aircraft in Donetsk Oblast, Shtupun said.

Read also: Ukraine Air Force comments of destruction of 3 Russian Su-34 fighters, gives their approximate cost

"In simpler terms, the number of airstrikes has plummeted. Previously, we saw 15, 17, and even up to 20 per day. For instance, the day before yesterday witnessed only three airstrikes, and yesterday, there were seven," he said.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces effectively maintain their defensive position near Avdiivka, crediting the success partly to fortified structures developed during the full-scale war. Ukraine has fortifications extended to both rear positions and the second line of defense, leading Shtupun to believe that an operational breakthrough is unlikely.

Read also: Russian Air Force has to find new strategy after the destruction of three Su-34s

Ukrainian military forces downed three Russian Su-34s in southern Ukraine on Dec. 22, with intelligence sources confirming the elimination of Russian pilots as well.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces then downed another Su-34 on the Mariupol front and a Su-30 that had targeted Odesa Oblast on Dec. 24.

Venezuela Deploys Troops to East Caribbean Coast, Citing Guyana Threat

Andreina Itriago Acosta
Thu, December 28, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- Venezuela has decided to deploy more than 5,000 soldiers on its eastern Caribbean coast after neighboring Guyana received a warship from the UK amid a dispute over the Essequibo territory, according to President Nicolas Maduro.

“Venezuela has the right to defend itself, to tranquility, to peace,” Maduro said Thursday on state TV, while accusing Guyana of violating an agreement signed two weeks ago to continue talks over the oil-rich territory without the use of arms. “We do not accept provocations, threats from anything or anyone.”

Venezuela made a similar move in 2018 to halt ships working for Exxon Mobil Corp off in the area. Today’s actions, which Maduro said were just the first stage of a wider plan, could lead to an escalation of the long-dormant dispute between the neighboring countries over the Essequibo, a region roughly the size of Florida that’s controlled by Guyana but claimed by Venezuela since the 19th century.

Venezuela’s Navy Commander Neil Villamizar said 5,682 military personnel from several components of Venezuela’s armed forces were deployed, along with three ocean patrol vessels, three multipurpose vessels, seven missile boats, eight amphibious vehicles and over 20 fighter planes, including 12 Sukhoi.

While the troops deployed represent roughly 4% of Venezuela’s estimated military force, it matches the number of Guyana’s estimated combatants. That balance of power could shift if Guyana’s allies intervene, according to Rocio San Miguel, an expert in military issues and the president of Caracas-based watchdog group Control Ciudadano.

Earlier this month, the UK reaffirmed its support for Guyana following the renewal of Venezuela’s border claim on the Essequibo region.

Following a visit by David Rutley, British Minister for the Americas, Caribbean and Overseas Territories, Britain deployed a Royal Navy warship known as HMS Trent to Guyana to take take part in joint exercises.

Venezuela to hold military drills after UK sends warship to Guyana

Alys Davies - BBC News
Thu, December 28, 2023 

The Venezuelan army march during a military parade to celebrate independence day in Caracas in July 2023

Venezuela has ordered the armed forces to hold military exercises in response to the UK's decision to send a warship to support neighbouring Guyana.

Military leaders said 5,600 soldiers would take part in "defensive" exercises on Venezuela's eastern Caribbean and Atlantic coasts.

Earlier this month, Venezuelan voters backed the creation of a new state in oil-rich Essequibo.

Guyana has administered the area for decades.

In a television address on Thursday, President Nicolás Maduro said the exercises were being launched "in response to the provocation and threat of the United Kingdom against peace and the sovereignty of our country".

He added that the move was "practically a military threat from London" and broke the "spirit" of a recent agreement reached between Venezuela and Guyana not to use force to settle their dispute.

UK to send warship to Guyana amid Venezuela tensions

Guyanese Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo said the ship's presence was "routine" and part of building a "defensive capability".

"We don't plan on invading Venezuela. President Maduro knows this and he need not have any worry about that," he told a press conference.

On Sunday, the UK confirmed HMS Trent would take part in joint exercises with Guyana after Christmas.

It had been deployed to the Caribbean to search for drug smugglers, but was re-tasked after Venezuela's government threatened to annex the Essequibo region of Guyana.

Venezuela has long claimed ownership of Essequibo, a 61,000 sq-mile region which comprises about two-thirds of Guyana.

It disputes the border which was established under an international agreement in 1899.

Guyana, and British Guiana before it, have administered Essequibo for more than a century.

Map of contested region of Essequibo

Why the Armenian exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh may not end Azerbaijan’s ambitions


Christian Edwards, CNN
Tue, December 26, 2023 

Standing on the deserted streets of Nagorno-Karabakh on the 20th anniversary of his inauguration, Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev said he had achieved the “sacred goal” of his presidency: reclaiming the land taken from his father.

Azerbaijan had for decades been haunted by the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, a tiny Caucasian enclave home to one of the world’s most protracted conflicts. Armenians herald it as the cradle of their civilization, but it lies within Azerbaijan’s borders, like an island in unfriendly seas.

As separate Soviet republics, Azerbaijan and Armenia played nice under Moscow’s watchful eye. But as that empire crumbled, Armenia, then the ascendant power, seized Nagorno-Karabakh from its weaker neighbor in a bloody war in the 1990s.

The defeat became a “festering wound” Aliyev promised to heal. But he grew frustrated by diplomatic talks that he believed aimed only “to freeze the conflict.” After decades of “meaningless and fruitless” summits, from Minsk to Key West, he changed his tack.

Brute force stepped in where diplomacy had failed. While the conflict remained frozen, Azerbaijan had transformed. Now oil-rich, backed by Turkey and armed to the teeth, it reclaimed a third of Nagorno-Karabakh in a 44-day war in 2020, stopped only by a Russian-brokered ceasefire.

But the agreement proved brittle and, in September, Azerbaijan struck again. Unable to resist its military might, the Karabakh government surrendered in just 24 hours. The region’s ethnic Armenian population fled within a week, an exodus the European Parliament said amounted to ethnic cleansing – an allegation Azerbaijan denies. “We brought peace by war,” Aliyev told a forum this month.

Whether that peace will be a lasting one is unclear. In Azerbaijan, many fear that the ethnic nationalism and vow of territorial reunification on which Aliyev built his legitimacy is more likely to find new targets than to dissipate.

And in Armenia, which was left exposed by its weak military and absent allies, the state is struggling to absorb more than 100,000 Karabakh refugees, many of whom say they cannot adjust to their new lives.

Karabakh flags fly in the Yerablur Military Cemetery in Yerevan, Armenia, above the graves of those killed during Azerbaijan's latest offensive, November 22, 2023. - Anthony Pizzoferrato/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images

Life in limbo

Nonna Poghosyan fled her home in Stepanakert, Karabakh’s capital, with her husband, twin children and elderly parents. They now rent a small apartment in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. But Poghosyan, who worked as the American University of Armenia’s program coordinator in Stepanakert, said her mind is still in Karabakh.

“I’m just dying to know what’s happening there in Stepanakert. What’s happening with my house? I envy everybody who breathes the air there,” she told CNN.

Aliyev said the abandoned houses had remained “untouched,” but videos on social media show Azerbaijani troops vandalizing homes.

“I don’t want to imagine it’s been taken by someone else. That’s the house we built for our kids,” said Poghosyan.

Her children were walking home from school when Azerbaijani rockets struck Stepanakert on September 19. Her husband found them on the roadside and took them to a bomb shelter. When they woke the next day, the government – the self-styled Republic of Artsakh – surrendered. Their lives had unraveled overnight.

They fled their home the next week, along with almost all of the population. By then they were starved and exhausted: Nagorno-Karabakh had been blockaded for 10 months after Azerbaijan cut off the Lachin corridor – the only road linking the enclave to Armenia proper – preventing the import of food, medicine and other supplies.

Now, the road along which necessities were stopped from entering was opened to allow the population to flood out. As tens of thousands fled at once, it took Poghosyan four days to drive from Stepanakert to Yerevan, she said – a journey that ordinarily took four hours.

A truck carries refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh on September 28. More than 100,000 Armenians fled the enclave in the days after Azerbaijan's lightning offensive. - Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images

Karabakh refugees gathered what belongings they could and fled to Armenia, arriving at makeshift registration centers in border towns like Goris. - Anthony Pizzoferrato/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images

As Armenian citizens, the government in Yerevan welcomed the refugees. But the support it can provide is meager. Poghosyan received a one-off payment of 100,000 Armenian dram (about $250), but she pays 300,000 dram (about $750) in rent. Her family lives off the savings they had put aside for their children’s education, money that will only last a few months.

The dissolution of the Karabakh government has left Poghosyan without child benefits, her parents without their pensions, her husband – a former soldier – without his salary. But she considers herself lucky to have an apartment. “There are people living in cars. There are people living in school basements, playgrounds,” she said.
‘We left our souls there’

Gayane Lalabekyan said she wakes every morning to her new apartment in Yerevan and asks herself if she did the right thing. Many Karabakh Armenians, struggling to come to terms with their new lives, wonder what, if anything, they could have done differently.

“I ask myself, ‘Was it the right move?’” Lalabekyan, an English teacher, told CNN. She is often overcome with guilt for abandoning her homeland, but then remembers the “primitive fear” she felt while fleeing.

“When I see my daughter, her little son; when I see my mother, she’s 72; when I see my son and his wife, they married in July; I see that, if we stayed there, maybe I wouldn’t have them,” she said.

Armenian children wait outside a registration center in Goris, Armenia, while their parents stand in line, on September 27, 2023. - Anthony Pizzoferrato/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images

Aliyev said Armenians wishing to remain in Karabakh would have to accept Azerbaijani citizenship. “They had two chances: Either to integrate with the rest of Azerbaijan or to go to history,” he said.

But, after generations of violence, few Armenians believed they could live safely in Azerbaijan and almost none would submit to rule by the government in Baku, despite Azerbaijan’s insistence that no civilians had been harmed in what it called its “anti-terror measures” in the territory.

“Aliyev isn’t a real man, he’s a devil. We can’t trust their promises,” said Lalabekyan. “We can’t live together.”

Karabakh Armenians were supposed to be protected by Russian peacekeepers, which deployed to the region under the terms of the Moscow-brokered ceasefire in 2020.

But the attack came on the heels of a rupture in Armenia’s relations with Russia, after Yerevan grew frustrated that its longtime ally was failing to defend it against Azerbaijani aggression. Feeling it had no choice but to diversify its security apparatus, Armenia began to forge fledgling partnerships with Western countries.

To Russia, the move was a betrayal. It used the opportunity to wash its hands of its needy neighbor. Unable to funnel resources from its military campaign in Ukraine, and unwilling to anger Azerbaijan and Turkey, Russia stood by as the ceasefire it negotiated was shattered – though the Kremlin later rejected criticism of its peacekeeping contingent.

A billboard showing Russian President Vladimir Putin stands above a largely deserted road leading to Stepanakert after Azerbaijan's offensive, October 2, 2023. - Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

With Russia’s protection absent and Western support merely rhetorical, Karabakh Armenians felt they had no choice but to flee. But accepting this offers scant consolation to Lalabekyan, who said she feels like a stranger in her own country.

“What will we do next? We don’t know who we are. Are we Artsakh citizens or Armenian citizens? We can’t answer this question. We left everything there. We left our souls there.”

The prospect of peace

Some cold-eyed observers argue the plight of the Karabakh refugees may be the tragic price of regional peace. As Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, Armenia’s relinquishment of the enclave was a prerequisite for reconciliation.

But Aliyev has shown little magnanimity in victory. On his first visit to the enclave, he trampled on the Karabakh flag and mocked the Karabakh politicians he had imprisoned as they attempted to flee.

Among those detained is Ruben Vardanyan, former State Minister of Artsakh. Vardanyan’s son, David, described to CNN the “opaque justice system” in which his father is now ensnarled, having been charged with “financing terrorism” and “illegal border crossings,” among other things. Azerbaijan and Armenia have no diplomatic relations, so Vardanyan has been denied consular access. David has only been able to speak to his father once since his arrest on September 27, via a prison phone. “He just said he might be there for a while,” David said.

“If we really want peace in the region between Azerbaijan and Armenia, you can’t have political prisoners still being in jail while a peace agreement is signed,” he said.

Ruben Vardanyan, a former Karabakh politician, was arrested by Azerbaijani soldiers while fleeing Karabakh and was being held in Baku, September 28, 2023. - State Security Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan/AP

In the weeks after the reconquest of Karabakh, Baku canceled peace talks in Brussels and Washington, citing Western bias against Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, its rhetoric around its territorial ambitions has sharpened. Government documents have referred to Armenia as “western Azerbaijan,” a nationalist concept alleging Armenia is built on Azerbaijani land.

Some hope, however, came on December 7 when Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to a prisoner exchange – a deal brokered without Brussels or Washington, but which was welcomed by both. The US said it hoped the exchange would “lay the groundwork for a more peaceful and prosperous future.” Armenia also removed its block on Azerbaijan’s candidacy to host the COP29 climate conference next year.

The biggest sticking point, however, will likely be Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani exclave separated from the mainland by a sliver of southern Armenia. Aliyev hopes to build a “land corridor” that would slice through Armenia, connecting Nakhchivan to Azerbaijan proper.

Aliyev described the so-called “Zangezur” corridor as a “historical necessity” that “will happen whether Armenia wants it or not.”

Armenia is not wholly opposed to the idea, but is refusing to relinquish control over parts of its territory. Last month, it presented a plan to revive the region’s infrastructure, restoring derelict train lines to better connect Armenia with Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Iran and elsewhere. It hopes to benefit from trade that could not happen during the lengthy hostilities, calling the project the “Crossroads of Peace.”

But Armenia’s preferences may count for little. Aliyev said in December “there should be no customs duties, no checks, no border security, when it goes from mainland (Azerbaijan) to Nakhchivan,” adding that the Armenians should begin construction “immediately at their own expense.”

Aliyev said he had no plans to occupy Armenian territory, stressing “if we wanted, we would have done it.” But, at the same event, he said that the territory had been “taken” from Azerbaijan in 1920 under Soviet rule, and warned Armenia “we have more historical, political and legal rights to contest your territorial integrity.”

Anna Ohanyan, a senior scholar in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Aliyev’s rhetoric had been tempered since the announcement of the prisoner exchange, but “this is largely due to a strong pushback from the US.”

“His aims have not changed: He still needs a rivalry or conflict with Armenia, even after he recovered full control of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Ohanyan told CNN. “Hosting COP29 may keep Aliyev on his best behavior for perhaps a year, but this is not a guarantee that he will play by the international rules. Russia hosted the Winter Olympics in 2014, and annexed Crimea right after.”

Aliyev watches over a military parade in Stepanakert, known by Azerbaijanis as Khankendi, on November 8, 2023. - Azerbaijani Presidency/Anadolu/Getty Images

Diplomacy may again prove fruitless. Analysts warn of Azerbaijan’s growing military presence around southern Armenia. Olesya Vartanyan, Crisis Group’s senior analyst for the South Caucasus, told CNN “in one of the areas where Azerbaijani forces are located along the border, it would take them very little to cut Armenia into pieces.”

Karabakh Armenians always knew they were caught in the crosshairs of great-power conflict. But, after 30 years of relative peace, they were not expecting things to fall apart so quickly. As a new year beckons, they look ahead to an uncertain future, bereft of homes, possessions, and livelihoods.

“I understand it’s a big game with big countries involved: Russia’s interests, Turkey’s interests, Azerbaijan being a player between all these, Armenia being too weak to withstand. I understand it globally,” said Poghosyan. “But on the level of 100,000 people, it’s a tragedy.”

Polish culture minister says he will put state media into liquidation

Reuters
Wed, December 27, 2023 

WARSAW, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Poland's culture minister has decided to put its state television, radio and news agency into liquidation, he said on Wednesday, deepening a dispute over the future of publicly owned media after a momentous change in government.

A pro-E.U. coalition headed by Donald Tusk took power in Poland this month and started an overhaul of state media institutions which critics say had become propaganda outlets during the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party's eight years in power.

The changes have met with strong opposition from PiS, which says the new government has circumvented normal parliamentary procedure in implementing them.

The move follows a decision by President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, to veto the new government's spending proposals for public media financing.

"Due to the decision of the President of the Republic of Poland to suspend financing of public media, I decided to put into liquidation the companies Telewizja Polska SA, Polskie Radio SA and Polska Agencja Prasowa SA," Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz said in a statement posted on social media platform X.

"In the current situation, such action will ensure the continued operation of these companies, carry out the necessary restructuring and prevent layoffs of employees in the above-mentioned companies."

He said that the state of liquidation could be withdrawn at any time by the companies' owner, which is the state.

PiS lawmaker Joanna Lichocka said in a post on X that "Tusk's government is destroying the Polish media".

"This is an act which damages the state," she added. (Reporting by Alan Charlish Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

Gaston Glock, the Austrian developer of the Glock handgun, dies at 94

Wed, December 27, 2023 

Gaston Glock, the Austrian developer of the handgun that bears his name, died on Wednesday. He was 94.

The Glock company announced his death, the Austria Press Agency reported.

Glock, a reclusive engineer, founded the company in 1963 in Deutsch-Wagram, near Vienna. It has since expanded around the world, including a U.S. subsidiary founded in 1985.

Glock handguns are used by police and some countries' military forces, as well as private customers. The weapon was significantly lighter, cheaper and more reliable than the models available when it was created.

Glock said on its website that its founder “not only revolutionized the world of small arms in the 1980s, but also succeeded in establishing the Glock brand as the global leader in the handgun industry.”

Glock's company developed its first military products, including field knives, in the 1970s.

Glock “recognized his great opportunity” to design an innovative weapon when the Austrian Defense Ministry in the early 1980s invited tenders for a new self-defense pistol, with a reduced weight and safe and simple operation, according to the company.

The result was the polymer-framed semi-automatic Glock pistol. More than 25,000 were delivered to the Austrian military between 1982 and 1984, the company said.

Berlin, The Associated Press

Gaston Glock, the man behind the gun, dies aged 94 - APA

2023/12/27


By Kirsti Knolle

Gaston Glock, the reclusive engineer and tycoon who developed one of the world's best-selling handguns, died on Wednesday aged 94, Austrian news agency APA said.

The Austrian won loyal followings among police and military across the world with the weapons that bore his name. Forbes estimated his and his family's fortune at $1.1 billion in 2021.

His rise began in the 1980s when the Austrian military was looking for a new, innovative weapon.

Up until then, the Glock company had made military knives and consumer goods including curtain rods. But he assembled a team of firearms experts and came up with the Glock 17, a lightweight semi-automatic gun largely made of plastic.

The revolutionary design - with a frame made of a high-strength, nylon-based polymer and only the slide made of metal - beat several other companies' blueprints and secured his upstart outfit the contract.

Soon the easily assembled weapon became a global hit. "Get yourself a Glock and lose that nickel-plated sissy pistol," Tommy Lee Jones said in the 1998 movie "U.S. Marshals".

Many U.S. police officers used them and U.S. rappers worked them into their rhymes, among them Snoop Dogg's "Protocol" and Wu-Tang Clan's "Da Glock".

U.S. soldiers found toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hiding with a Glock in a hole in the ground in 2003. They later presented that weapon to U.S. President George W. Bush, according to the New York Times.

Gun-control advocates criticised Glock for popularising powerful guns that they said were easy to conceal and could hold more ammunition than other guns.

A former U.S. Marine combat veteran armed with what police described as a .45 caliber Glock with a high-capacity magazine killed 12 people in a bar in Thousand Oaks, California, in November 2018.

White supremacist Dylann Roof used a Glock pistol to kill nine African-American people during a Bible study session at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June, 2015.

MALLET ATTACK

Glock himself rarely responded to criticism from activists, shunned public debate and, in 2000, refused to join other weapons manufacturers in signing a voluntary gun control deal with the U.S. government.

He made few comments of any kind to the press, but the public got glimpses of a sometimes tempestuous private life through the courts.

At the age of 70, in July 1999, he survived an attempt on his life when an investment broker who managed his assets hired a former wrestler to attack him with a rubber hammer, a court heard.

Glock had grown suspicious of how the broker was managing his affairs and had flown to Luxembourg to confront him, lawyers said. He suffered seven blows to the head but fended off the assault. The broker, Charles Ewert, and the attacker, Jacques Pecheur, were both jailed.

His 49-year-old marriage with Helga Glock ended in divorce in 2011 and the pair embarked on a lengthy legal battle over alimony. Soon after, he married his second wife, Kathrin, more than 50 years his junior.

He owned a lakefront mansion and a state-of-the-art equestrian sport centre in the province of Carinthia, where celebrities showed up for parties.

He is survived by his wife, a daughter and two sons.

(Reporting by Kirsti Knolle; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Nick Macfie)

© Reuters

The number of wounded Israeli soldiers is mounting, representing a hidden cost of war

 The country's mainstream media hardly cover the hardship endured by Palestinians, and their plight barely registers in Israeli public discourse.

MAKING ALL PALESTINIANS 'HAMAS'

Israeli soldier Jonathan Ben Hamou, 22, wounded in the war with Hamas, sits in his room at Sheba hospital's rehabilitation division, in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. Ben Hamou was wounded in the Gaza Strip when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the bulldozer he was using to help clear the way for other troops and dig trenches. He lost his left leg beneath the knee.

(AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

TIA GOLDENBERG
Updated Thu, December 28, 2023

RAMAT GAN, Israel (AP) — Igor Tudoran spent just 12 hours inside the Gaza Strip before a missile slammed into his tank, leaving him with a life-altering injury.

“Already within the tank, I understood from the condition of my leg that I would lose it. But the question was how much of it will I lose,” he said, seated on a bed in the hospital where he has been treated since he was wounded last month.

Tudoran, 27, a reservist who volunteered for duty after the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas that triggered the war, lost his right leg beneath the hip. He has kept up a positive attitude — but concedes that his hopes of becoming an electrician may no longer be possible.

Tudoran is part of a swelling number of wounded Israeli fighters, yet another sizable and deeply traumatized segment of Israeli society whose struggles are emerging as a hidden cost of the war that will be felt acutely for years to come. Given the large numbers of wounded, advocates worry the country is not prepared to address their needs.

“I have never seen a scope like this and an intensity like this,” said Edan Kleiman, who heads the nonprofit Disabled Veterans Organization, which advocates for more than 50,000 soldiers wounded in this and earlier conflicts. “We must rehabilitate these people,” he said.

Israel's Defense Ministry says roughly 3,000 members of the country's security forces have been wounded since Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 240 people hostage. Nearly 900 of those are soldiers wounded since Israel began its ground offensive in late October, in which troops have engaged in close combat with Hamas militants. More than 160 soldiers have been killed since the ground operation began.

“They add up,” said Yagil Levy, who teaches civil-military relations at Israel’s Open University, of the wounded. “There could be a long-term impact if we see a big rate of people with disabilities that Israel must rehabilitate, which can produce economic issues as well as social issues.”

The war has also brought unprecedented suffering to Palestinians in Gaza, where more than 21,000 have been killed, over 55,000 wounded and amputations have become commonplace. Most of the tiny enclave’s population has been displaced.

Israelis still largely stand behind the war's objectives and it is mostly seen as an existential battle meant to restore a sense of security lost in Hamas’ attacks. The country's mainstream media hardly cover the hardship endured by Palestinians, and their plight barely registers in Israeli public discourse.

In a country with compulsory military service for most Jews, the fate of soldiers is a sensitive and emotional topic.

The names of fallen soldiers are announced at the top of hourly newscasts. Their funerals are packed with strangers who come to show solidarity. Their families receive generous support from the army.

But historically the plight of the wounded, though lauded as heroes, has taken a backseat to the stories of soldiers killed in battle. After the fanfare surrounding tales of their service and survival recedes, the wounded are left to contend with a new reality that can be disorienting, challenging and, for some, lonely. Their numbers have not had significant bearing on public sentiment toward Israel's wars in the way that mounting soldiers' deaths have.

The exceptionally large numbers of wounded in this war, however, will provide a visible reminder of the conflict for years to come.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized their sacrifice during a recent visit to wounded soldiers at Sheba Medical Center, Israel’s largest hospital, which has treated and rehabilitated many of the injured. “You are genuine heroes,” he said.

At Sheba, soldiers and civilians wounded in the war spilled out into the corridors on a recent day and passed the time with their families on an outdoor deck. Soccer paraphernalia adorned the wounded soldiers’ hospital beds as did the ubiquitous Israeli flag.

One man who had lost a leg after being attacked at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7 lay in the sun on the hospital grounds, his wheelchair parked nearby. The Israeli pop diva Rita handed out hugs to some wounded soldiers. A military helicopter carrying more wounded landed nearby.

The Israeli Defense Ministry said it was working at “full capacity” to assist the wounded, and that it was cutting red tape and hiring employees to deal with the influx.

Jonathan Ben Hamou, 22, who lost his left leg beneath the knee after a rocket-propelled grenade struck the bulldozer he was using to help clear the way for other troops, is already looking forward to the day when he can use a state-funded prosthetic.

Ben Hamou, who mostly uses a wheelchair since the incident in early November, said that he eventually plans to pursue his goal of attending a military commanders’ course.

“I’m not ashamed of the wound,” said Ben Hamou, who filmed the RPG’s moment of impact as well as his evacuation to hospital. “I was wounded for the country in a war inside Gaza. I am proud.”

But Kleiman, who himself was wounded in an operation in the Gaza Strip in the early 1990s, said he thinks Israeli authorities are not grasping the severity of the situation.

The disabled veterans group is ramping up efforts to address what he suspects will be the overwhelming needs of a new cadre of wounded soldiers. He said the organization is tripling its manpower, adding therapists and employees to help wounded veterans navigate bureaucracy and upgrade rehab centers.

Kleiman said the number of wounded is likely to stretch close to 20,000 once those diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder are included.

He said if wounded soldiers don’t receive the mental and physical care they need, including making their homes or cars accessible, it could stunt their rehabilitation and delay or even prevent their reentry into the workforce.

“There are wounded whose lives have been ruined," said Idit Shafran Gittleman, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv research center. "They will have to contend with their wound their entire lives.”

___

Israeli soldier Jonathan Ben Hamou, 22, wounded in the war with Hamas, practices walking with crutches during a physiotherapy session in Sheba Hospital's rehabilitation division in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. Ben Hamou was wounded in the Gaza Strip when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the bulldozer he was using to help clear the way for other troops and dig trenches. He lost his left leg beneath the knee.

An Israeli soldier wounded in the war with Hamas walks with crutches in the rehabilitation division of Sheba hospital in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. 

Israeli soldier Jonathan Ben Hamou, 22, wounded in the war with Hamas, sits in his room at Sheba hospital's rehabilitation division, in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. . 

Israeli soldiers wounded in the war with Hamas walk in the rehabilitation division of Sheba hospital in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. 

Israeli reservist Igor Tudoran, 27, wounded in the war with Hamas, sits in his room at Sheba hospital's rehabilitation division, in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. Tudoran was wounded in the Gaza Strip when a missile fired by militants in Gaza slammed into his tank. 

(AP Photos/Oded Balilty)

U$ ARMS ZIONIST APARTHEID STATE

Gaza war puts US’s extensive weapons stockpile in Israel under scrutiny

ABOUT TIME

Harry Davies and Manisha Ganguly
Tue, 26 December 2023 

Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Their precise location is classified, but somewhere in Israel there are multiple closely guarded warehouses that contain billions of dollars’ worth of weapons owned by the US government.

Long shrouded in secrecy, the warehouses are part of an extensive but previously little-known stockpile now facing scrutiny as pressure mounts on the Biden administration over its support for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

The stockpile was first established in the 1980s to rapidly supply US forces for any future Middle East conflicts. However, over time, Israel has been permitted in certain situations to draw from its extensive supplies.


Israel now appears to be receiving munitions from the stockpile in significant quantities for use in its war on Gaza, yet there has been little transparency about transfers from the arsenal.

In interviews with the Guardian, multiple former US officials familiar with American security assistance to Israel have described how the stockpile enables expedited arms transfers to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It can also shield movements of US weapons from public and congressional oversight, they said.

“Officially it’s US equipment for US use,” a former senior Pentagon official said, “but on the other hand, in an emergency, who’s to say we’re not going to give them the keys to the warehouses?”

Since the emergency of the Hamas massacre on 7 October, Israel has dropped tens of thousands of bombs in Gaza, and it has been open about its demand for large amounts of US-supplied munitions.

There are widely held concerns that Israel’s bombing of Gaza has been indiscriminate. And with close to 20,000 people dead in Gaza, according to local authorities, the US is facing questions about the quantities and categories of bombs it is providing to Israel and the proportion being made available through the secretive pre-positioned stockpile.

In Washington, lawmakers have raised concerns about proposals by the White House that would relax rules on the kinds of weapons placed in the stockpile, waive spending caps on its replenishment and give the Pentagon greater flexibility to make transfers from the arsenal.

Josh Paul, who recently resigned from the state department in protest at Washington’s continued lethal assistance for Israel, said the proposed changes to the stockpile were part of a drive by the Biden administration to find new ways to supply Israel.

Describing internal US deliberations in October, he said: “There was a press from the White House to say essentially we need to figure out every possible [legal] authority that we could give Israel that would get it weapons as fast as possible.”
An abundance of munitions

The full contents of the pre-positioned stockpile – known as the War Reserve Stocks for Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) – are not publicly disclosed, though former officials say the Pentagon provides Congress with an annual breakdown of what it holds.

The report may be classified, but earlier this year an unusually candid description of the stockpile’s contents emerged when a former US military chief recalled in an op-ed touring the WRSA-I warehouse.

“The current stockpile is full of so-called dumb munitions [those without sophisticated guidance systems],” he said, including “thousands of ‘iron bombs’ that are simply dropped from aircraft so gravity can do its work”.

In 2020, this abundance of dumb munitions in the stockpile was highlighted by a pro-Israel thinktank, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, which complained that WRSA-I had become “obsolete” because of its high levels of unguided bombs and shortage of precision-guided munitions (PGMs).

In its latest aerial bombardment of Gaza, however, Israel has relied heavily on these lower-accuracy unguided munitions, which weapons experts say has undercut claims by the IDF that it is trying to minimise civilian casualties.

Israel has not denied its use of unguided munitions, which can pose significant risks to civilians when used in densely populated areas. Its air force repeatedly shared images on social media at the beginning of the offensive of dumb bombs, such as M117s, attached to its fighter jets.

It is not possible to ascertain how frequently M117s were being used in Gaza or the manner of their deployment, but between 40% and 45% of the munitions used by Israel have been unguided, according to US intelligence assessments reported by CNN. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about what proportion of these munitions were from WRSA-I.

Unguided munitions, also known as dumb bombs, do not have guidance systems but follow a ballistic trajectory, guided by gravity, and can therefore be imprecise. These munitions, which tend to be based on older designs, have a higher chance of causing civilian casualties when used in densely populated areas like Gaza.

Precision-guided munitions (PGMs) are designed to increase the chances of the munition damaging or destroying its intended target while reducing collateral damage. Greater accuracy is achieved using in-built systems such as laser, GPS and radar technology to guide the weapon.

An unguided munition can become a PGM when a guidance tail kit – such as a US-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) – is attached, converting the munition into a guided bomb unit (GBU). These bombs can carry payloads of thousands of pounds; heavy GBUs can flatten buildings and are referred to as bunker busters.

A former senior US official familiar with WRSA-I said that when it came to air-to-ground munitions, “we’ll give them whatever they need”, though they noted that Israel had its own domestically produced supplies of unguided munitions, unlike PGMs for which it largely relies on sales from the US.

US-supplied tail kits allow Israel to convert its stocks of unguided bombs into precision-guided ones, heavy 2,000lb versions of which appear to have been used in airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Defence analysts say there is little transparency about the categories and quantities of arms that the US is providing to Israel, but one transfer from WRSA-I emerged in October when Axios reported that the US would supply Israel with 155mm artillery shells. The unguided munitions, intended for Israel’s ground campaign in Gaza, were held in large volumes in WRSA-I.

The 155mm shells are particularly hazardous, according to Marc Garlasco, a former UN war crimes investigator, as each shell releases 2,000 lethal fragments, and “their accuracy degrades over distance, increasing the likelihood of civilians and civilian infrastructure getting hit by errant shells”.

Images published by Gaza police’s explosive ordnance disposal team last month appeared to show munition fragments of 155mm artillery shells being removed from buildings in Gaza. It is not known whether they were of US origin or from its stockpile.

The IDF and Israel’s defence ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Bypassing controls

Although Israel maintains WRSA-I and pays for its storage, its access to the stockpile is not unlimited, said Sarah Harrison, a former US defence department lawyer who is now an analyst at Crisis Group.

“There’s only one other stockpile like this, in [South] Korea, it’s very unique and allows for a transfer to happen fast,” she said. “But the stockpile does not authorise Israel to just take things and take things for free,” as there has to be a legal authority for each transfer of equipment.

Former officials said that where transfers from WRSA-I can differ from regular arms sales between the US and another country was that the equipment can be drawn from the stockpile before the processes that account for the transferred equipment are fully completed.

“We sort of retroactively build a foreign military sales case, which may or may not need to be notified to Congress, depending on what they took and what quantities,” said Josh Paul, the former state department official.

Paul, who until October worked on the US’s foreign arms transfers, said he was concerned by the expedited process as it could bypass the state department’s pre-transfer controls. “There’s no review of human rights, there’s no review of regional balance, there’s none of the conventional arms transfer policy review that would normally happen,” he said. “Essentially, it’s take what you can and we’ll sort it out later.”

A Pentagon spokesperson acknowledged it was “using foreign military financing and sales authorities to expedite delivery of security assistance, where feasible”. They said the US was “leveraging several avenues and sources to provide Israel security assistance, to include stockpiles in Israel and the US.”

Arms control experts say the speed and opacity of these transfers make it difficult to understand what is leaving WRSA-I, the legal mechanisms used for drawdowns and the extent to which Congress is being made aware of what support the US is providing to Israel via the stockpile.

Now, the White House is seeking to use its supplemental spending request to further relax rules related to WRSA-I, a move that senators led by Elizabeth Warren have said would harm their ability to “determine whether US assistance is contributing to disproportionate civilian harm”.

Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the state department, said Israel enjoyed many existing exceptions from procedural safeguards in its defence partnership with the US, and “any additional shortcut in fuelling conflict in the Middle East should be concerning”.

He said: “Do these arm transfers make sense strategically? Does pouring additional gasoline on the fire make sense in terms of US national interests or in achieving peace and stability in the region?”

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says conflict in Gaza is 'greater than war of extermination'


Sky News
Updated Wed, 27 December 2023

Mahmoud Abbas President of the State of Palestine since 2005


Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said the war in Gaza is "greater than a war of extermination".

Speaking to Egyptian TV channel ON, Mr Abbas claimed the impact of the conflict between Israel and Hamas on the Palestinian people is "greater than a disaster".

He went on to compare the war to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war - which the Palestinians call nakba, meaning catastrophe in Arabic.

"What happened in 1948, emigration and destruction, and what is happening now is far uglier than what happened (then)," Mr Abbas said.

"What is happening now is the ugliest thing happening to the Palestinian people, not only in Gaza but in the West Bank and Jerusalem in the last 79 days to today."

It comes as the Hamas-led Gaza health ministry says 250 Palestinians have been killed and 500 wounded in the past 24 hours - with 106 of those said to have died in a Christmas Eve airstrike on the Maghazi refugee camp.

A further six people were killed in the West Bank city of Tulkarm during an Israeli raid, the Palestinian health ministry said on Wednesday.

But despite international efforts to halt the fighting, Israel's prime minister told members of his party the war "isn't close to finished".

When asked how the Israeli leadership imagines Gaza after the war, Mark Regev, senior adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, told Sky News Hamas "must be destroyed".

'In front of the eyes of the world'

During the interview, the Palestinian president criticised the US for its continued support for Israel since the 7 October Hamas-led attack.

He claimed that the deaths of civilians is happening "in front of the eyes of the world" and America is in the lead.

He implied that if the country accepts a United Nations resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, rather than vetoing it, the war may have a chance of coming to an end.

On 15 December, Mr Abbas met with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who reiterated the US's stance that the Palestinian Authority should be responsible for governing Gaza at the end of the war.

But, he acknowledged that significant changes and "a lot of work" would be needed to revamp and revitalise the authority.

Mr Abbas agreed that a Palestinian state must be established in the aftermath of the conflict, reiterating in the Egyptian TV interview that it must be made up of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, The Times of Israel reported.

'Isn't a day without killing'

The Gaza health ministry reports 20,674 people have been killed and 54,536 injured in Israeli strikes since 7 October. Around 1,200 Israelis were killed by Hamas raiders that day.

Acknowledging the level of destruction, Mr Abbas said "there isn't a day without killing" in all the cities and refugee camps in Gaza, adding that the Israeli military's defence about "protecting itself" is without logic.

Meanwhile, both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been holding separate talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo.

But, according to two Egyptian security sources, both sides rejected Egypt's proposal for a permanent ceasefire - which would reportedly involve Hamas giving up power in the Gaza Strip.

"We reiterate that there can be no negotiations without a comprehensive cessation of aggression," Izzat Al Rishq, a member of Hamas's political bureau, said in response.

NAKBA 2.0
Six Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank city of Tulkarm

Wed, December 27, 2023 

By Ali Sawafta

TULKARM (Reuters) - Six Palestinians were killed by a drone strike during an Israeli raid n the West Bank city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said on Wednesday, one of the latest examples of rising violence since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The Israeli military said its forces came under attack by militants who threw explosive devices at them during a counter-terrorism operation. The attackers were struck by an Israeli air force aircraft, it said.

The confrontation took place in the Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm, a flashpoint city on one of the main crossing points into the West Bank.

Witnesses said the six young men killed in the strike were sitting together in the early hours of the morning but were not involved in clashes with Israeli forces conducting a raid in other parts of the camp.

"We heard the sound, and the screaming, our house is nearby so we came out to see," said Izzaldin Assaili, a resident who lives nearby.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the young men were aged between 17 and 29. Another man, aged 24, died of wounds received in a clash last month, the agency said, quoting the health ministry.

No detailed comment on the incident was immediately available from the Israeli military.

The West Bank had already been experiencing the highest levels of unrest in decades during the 18 months preceding the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen but confrontations have risen sharply as Israel have launched a ground invasion of Gaza.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers over the past weeks and security forces have carried out thousands of arrests, with repeated confrontations between troops and Palestinian protesters.

(Reporting by Ali Sawafta; Writing by James Mackenzie; editing by Grant McCool)

On foot and by donkey cart, thousands flee widening Israeli assault in central Gaza

Wed, December 27, 2023 



DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Thousands of Palestinian families fled Wednesday from the brunt of Israel’s expanding ground offensive into Gaza’s few remaining, overcrowded refuges, as the military launched heavy strikes across the center and south of the territory, killing dozens, Palestinian health officials said.

On foot or riding donkey carts loaded with belongings, a stream of people flowed into Deir al-Balah — a town that normally has a population of around 75,000. It has been overwhelmed by several hundred thousand people driven from northern Gaza as the region was pounded to rubble.

Because U.N. shelters are packed many times over capacity, the new arrivals set up tents on sidewalks for the cold winter night. Most crowded onto streets around the town’s main hospital, Al-Aqsa Martyrs, hoping it would be safer from Israeli strikes.

Still, no place is safe in Gaza. Israeli offensives are crowding most of the population into Deir al-Balah and Rafah at the territory’s southern edge as well as a tiny rural area by the southern coastline. Those areas continue to be hit by Israeli strikes that regularly crush homes full of people.

Israel has said its campaign in Gaza is likely to last for months, vowing to dismantle Hamas across the territory and prevent a repeat of its Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. Benny Gantz, a member of the country's three-man War Cabinet, said the fighting ”will be expanded, according to need, to additional centers and additional fronts.”

He and other Israeli officials also threatened greater military action against Lebanon’s Hezbollah, hiking fears of an all-out war on that front.

The two sides have exchanged fire almost daily across the border. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen warned Wednesday that “all options are on the table” if Hezbollah does not withdraw from the border area, as called for under a 2006 U.N. cease-fire.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “must understand that he’s next,” Cohen said.

DEATH, DISPLACEMENT AND STARVATION

Israel's offensive in Gaza has already been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. More than 21,100 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The count doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Some 85% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have fled their homes. U.N. officials say a quarter of Gaza’s population is starving under Israel’s siege, which allows in only a trickle of food, water, fuel and other supplies.

The latest people to be displaced fled from several built-up refugee camps in central Gaza targeted in the latest phase of Israel's ground assault. One of the camps, Bureij, came under heavy bombardment throughout the night as Israeli troops moved in.

“It was a night of hell. We haven’t seen such bombing since the start of the war,” said Rami Abu Mosab, speaking from Bureij, where he has sheltered since fleeing his home in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for Bureij and neighboring areas Tuesday. The area was home to nearly 90,000 people before the war and now shelters more than 61,000 displaced people, mostly from the north, according to the U.N. Bureij camp, like others in Gaza, houses refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and their descendants and now resembles other densely populated neighborhoods.

It was not known how many were evacuating. In Deir al-Balah over the past two days, empty lots have filled up with families in tents or sleeping on blankets on the ground.

This was the third move further south for Ibrahim al-Zatari, a daily laborer. First he, his wife and four children moved in with relatives in Gaza City after a strike flattened their home in northern Gaza. Later, they fled to Bureij to escape fighting in the city. On Wednesday morning, they made an hourslong journey on foot to Deir al-Balah, where — like many others — they wandered the streets looking for an empty spot to lie down.

“There is no foothold here,” he said. “Where should we go?”

With much of northern Gaza leveled, Palestinians fear a similar fate awaits other areas, including Khan Younis, where Israeli forces launched ground operations in early December. The Israeli military said Wednesday it deployed another brigade in the city, a sign of the tough fighting.

Israeli shelling Wednesday struck a residential building in Khan Younis next to Al-Amal Hospital, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which runs the facility.

Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said at least 20 people were killed and dozens more wounded. Footage from the scene showed several torn bodies lying in the street as rescue workers loaded a man whose legs had been severed onto a stretcher.

Despite U.S. calls for Israel to shift to a more precise assault, the military so far appears to be following the same pattern used in earlier phases of the ground offensive in northern Gaza and Khan Younis. Before troops move in, heavy bombardment targets what Israel says is Hamas’ tunnels and military infrastructure. Fierce urban fighting follows as troops move block to block, backed by airstrikes and shelling that the military says aim to force out pockets of militants. The resulting devastation has been massive.

Israel has said Hamas must be destroyed after its its Oct. 7 attack in which militants broke through Israel’s formidable defenses and killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted around 240. An estimated 129 remain in captivity after dozens were freed.

Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian death toll in Gaza because the militants operate in residential areas. Late Wednesday, the army said it destroyed a network of tunnels that stretched for several kilometers in Gaza City and served as a command and control center. Part of it ran under a hospital and had an exit inside a neighboring school, it said.

The military says it has killed thousands of militants, without presenting evidence, and that 164 of its soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive.

WARNING OVER LEBANON

Cross-border exchanges of fire have escalated between Hezbollah and the Israeli military.

An Israeli strike on a family home in Lebanon overnight killed a Hezbollah fighter, his brother and his sister-in-law, local officials and state media said Wednesday. A day earlier, a Hezbollah strike wounded 11 people in northern Israel.

Since the Gaza war began, the near daily battles have forced tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate their homes from nearby communities. At least nine soldiers and four civilians have been killed on the Israeli side, and around 150 people on the Lebanese side, mostly fighters from Hezbollah and other groups, but also 17 civilians.

Gantz warned that time for diplomatic pressure was “running out.”

"If the world and the Lebanese government will not act to stop the firing on the northern settlements and keep Hezbollah away from the border, the IDF will do so,” he said, referring to the Israeli military.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least six Palestinians during an overnight raid in the refugee neighborhood of Nur Shams, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. More than 300 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war, mostly in confrontations with Israeli forces during raids and protests.

___

Magdy and Keath reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Najib Jobain contributed from Rafah, Gaza Strip.

___

Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Wafaa Shurafa, Samy Magdy And Lee Keath, The Associated Press

Uruguay’s green power revolution: rapid shift to wind shows the world how it’s done

Sam Meadows in Montevideo
Wed, 27 December 2023 

Photograph: Alessandro Cinque

It was the 2000s, and fossil fuel prices were rising worldwide. After a period of volatility in the 1980s, the crude oil price per barrel had reached one its lowest points – $20 – at the end of 2001 but then, over the course of six years, it tripled before a new oil shock saw prices surpass those of the 1970s, reaching a record $145 a barrel on 3 July 2008.

Uruguay imports its oil, so it had a problem. Demand for energy in the country had grown by 8.4% the previous year and household energy bills were increasing at a similar rate. The 3.4 million-strong population was becoming restless. Lacking alternatives, President Tabaré Vázquez was forced to buy energy from neighbouring states at higher prices, even though Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay had a mutual aid agreement in case of emergency conditions.

To escape the trap, Vázquez needed rapid solutions. He turned to an unlikely source: Ramón Méndez Galain, a physicist who would transform the country’s energy grid into one of the cleanest in the world.


Today, the country has almost phased out fossil fuels in electricity production. Depending on the weather, anything between 90% and 95% of its power comes from renewables. In some years, that number has crept as high as 98%.

Phasing out fossil fuels was a central issue at Cop28. After a week of tense negotiations in Dubai, countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels within energy systems – but campaigners, governments and environmental experts continue to debate how to make that transition.

One answer could lie in what Uruguay has achieved within a decade and a half.

“I had been working abroad for 14 years, and when I came back, there was this energy crisis, but the only solution people were giving was to install a nuclear power plant – that was it,” Galain remembers. “I was a nuclear physicist, so I thought I could understand a little about this problem.”

The more Galain researched the issue, the more he became convinced that nuclear power was not the answer for Uruguay. Instead, he argued, it was renewables. He published his findings in a paper that laid out his belief that the country should go all in on wind power. Soon after, he received a phone call inviting him to become Uruguay’s energy secretary and to implement his plan.

“Imagine my surprise,” Galain says. “This was crazy. But I did something even more crazy: I accepted.”

Uruguay is a small country – about 26% smaller than the UK by area – wedged between two giants. Argentina’s sprawling capital, Buenos Aires, lies 31 miles (50km) south of the mouth of the Rio Plata, which forms part of the border between the two countries, while Uruguay shares its northern border with Brazil.



No one believed we could do it. We needed new solutions. We needed to do things differently

Ramón Méndez Galain

In this context, the country is easily overlooked. However, economically it is a South American success story. Its GDP per capita was £16,420 in 2022, according to the World Bank, the highest on the continent; only a tiny fraction of its population lives in extreme poverty. The country has a burgeoning middle class – accounting for about 60% of the population – and there are high expectations for lifestyle and opportunities.

Such demographic change has driven demand for the trappings of a contemporary, 21st-century lifestyle. Homes are fitted with washing machines and dishwashers, and air conditioning units have become commonplace, as have vast flat-screen TVs and connected devices.

All of that requires power. Over the course of about a decade, Uruguay, under the stewardship of Galain, installed about 50 windfarms across the country, decarbonised the grid and bolstered its hydropower.

The biggest challenge, however, was to change the “narrative” about renewables. Back then, sustainable energies were still surrounded by many misconceptions, says Galain: they were too expensive, too intermittent or would raise unemployment – and changing these stories proved vital to getting buy-in from all levels of society.

“No one believed we could do it. We needed new solutions. We needed to do things differently,” he says. “Today, even members of that cabinet say to me: ‘When you were saying those things on TV in 2008, we were thinking, how are we going to explain this when we fail?’”

Galain says there needed to be a “strong national narrative” to make it work. “I told people this was the best option even if they don’t believe climate change exists. It’s the cheapest and not dependent on crazy fluctuations [in oil prices].”

With that narrative, the government set about winning over a sceptical populace. One initial concern was that jobs would be lost in the energy sector. Instead, about 50,000 new jobs were created – a large number in a country with such a small population. The idea of a “just transition”, in which nobody was left behind, became central, and some workers were offered places on retraining schemes to adapt to the new normal.

Others were able to play the changes to their advantage. Santiago Ravello, 52, owns a beef farm in central Uruguay, about 175 miles north of the capital, Montevideo. Beef production is a primary industry across the country, owing to its vast swathes of grasslands.

In 2009, the Ravello family was debating whether to sell its farm. That was when Ravello met Fernando Schaich, who ran what was previously a small energy-efficiency consultancy, and had learned about the country’s transition to renewables.

Schaich had spotted an opportunity in the transition plan early on. His company had previously made its money by advising businesses on how they could cut their energy usage, but it moved into windfarm development. He told Ravello that his family’s farm could be a site for an onshore windfarm – and that building one need not affect his cattle.

The pair prepared a bid for a contract and went to a developer, but lost. “Fernando was gutted by this,” Ravello says. “He told me: ‘You can go with another company.’ But he had always been honest with me, so I told him: ‘It’s not all about money.’”

Today, Ravello’s farm is home to 22 wind turbines, a side business that gives the family a healthy source of income.

***

Uruguay’s green transition has not been without its challenges, however. One was logistics, according to Gonzalo Casaravilla, who served as president of the state energy company UTE between 2010 and 2020.

Outside cities, Uruguay’s roads are small, with few motorways. The parts of wind turbines are anything but small, and moving them into position a difficult undertaking. This was achieved by means of rolling roadblocks and convoys to create minimum disruption when new windfarm projects were built.



People are wondering what happened and why their bill isn’t lower. But in that same time period, we had 40% poverty; now it’s 10%

Ramón Méndez Galain

“It was funny. In the beginning, the technical people in my company were saying: ‘Whoa, be careful.’ A year and a half later, they said: ‘OK, it’s a good idea,” says Casaravilla. “There was friction at the beginning, but then it was the best team we could have had.”

The transition has not been universally popular. There are occasional grumbles from people who wonder why their energy bills have not fallen if renewable energy is “free”. This is a complaint that Galain shrugs off. “People are wondering what happened and why their bill isn’t lower,” he says. “But in that same time period, we had 40% poverty; now it’s 10%, and extreme poverty has almost disappeared.

“People now have air conditioning that they didn’t have before, using more and more electricity.”

Xavier Costantini, a partner at the consultancy McKinsey, based in Montevideo, says that the idea that renewable energy is free is a misconception. There are maintenance costs – although relatively modest – but crucially, the initial investment needs to be paid back.

Related: Africa can become a renewable energy superpower – if climate deniers are kept at bay

The question of whether Uruguay’s transition provides a vital blueprint for the world is not a simple one. Some characteristics gave the country an advantage, Costantini says. It is “blessed by nature” with strong winds and considerable hydropower, which is sometimes sold to Brazil when in surplus.

An alternative energy source such as hydropower is vital to plug gaps in a renewable grid as wind and solar are intermittent.

Unlike some countries in the region, Uruguay is very stable politically, which made investing for the long term much more palatable for foreign companies, Costantini says. It also had relatively high tax rates on imports, a lever it was able to use to encourage foreign investment.

However, such conditions can be found elsewhere. In the UK, for example, Scotland has considerable hydropower potential. “Full decarbonisation is expensive, but you could get to a high level of decarbonisation,” Costantini says. “I’d say by the end of the next decade, there’s certainly [scope] for a country such as the UK to have a highly decarbonised grid at a very cost-competitive rate.”

Uruguay, meanwhile, has moved on to what is becoming known as the second stage of its transition. It is gradually moving its buses and public vehicles over to electric, and incentivising taxi and minicab drivers to switch. How well this works could provide a global roadmap for how other countries can decarbonise their economies.

‘Queen of trash’ and employees arrested over Sweden’s ‘largest environmental crime’

Miranda Bryant Nordic correspondent
Thu, 28 December 2023 

Photograph: Anna Ringstrom/Reuters

Eleven people have been charged by a Swedish court in what is being billed as potentially the country’s worst environmental crime in half a century.

NMT Think Pink – a previously celebrated waste management company known for its trademark pink rubbish bags – is accused of illegally burying and dumping tens of thousands of tonnes of waste at 21 sites across 15 municipalities around Sweden, in what prosecutors described as a “very serious crime”.

Harmful levels of arsenic, dioxins, lead, zinc, copper and petroleum products were found during the investigation. Three years ago, parts of Stockholm were shrouded in smoke caused by a fire in an abandoned rubbish heap run by the company.

At the centre of the case is successful entrepreneur Bella Nilsson – who previously crowned herself the “queen of trash” and has since changed her name to Fariba Vancor – and her ex-husband, Thomas Nilsson.

They are accused of handling significantly more rubbish than permitted and illegal management, allegedly causing several fires and exposing nearby residents to toxic waste. All of the accused deny wrongdoing.

At a hearing at Värmland district court in Karlstad on Thursday, five people – including Vancor and Nilsson – were charged with serious environmental crime, one with aiding and abetting serious environmental crime and five with environmental crime.

Court documents show that the five charged with serious environmental crime were accused of managing waste “in a way that caused or could cause pollution that was or had been harmful to human health, animals or plants”.

They are accused of storing waste “at various properties in Sweden unsorted, crushed, ground and/or without adequate protective measures”, transporting it between properties and burying waste or using it as filler material, wrapping it in bales and relinquishing control over the waste.

Senior prosecutor Anders Gustafsson said the preliminary investigation, which is 45,000 pages long, “is the largest environmental crime in Sweden in terms of scope and organisation”.

The trial is expected to take several weeks and involve an estimated 150 witnesses.

An investigation into eco-crime is also under way. Senior prosecutor Linda Schön said that at one site alone, 48,000 tonnes of waste had been stored.

“The scary thing about environmental toxins is that many times we don’t see the effects immediately, but it is the next generation that has to pay the price,” she said.

According to an estimate by the newspaper Göteborgs-Posten, at least 200,000 tonnes of waste have allegedly been dumped by the company, though the true amount could potentially be much higher.

Think Pink is accused of carrying out Sweden’s worst environmental crime since the company BT Kemi buried barrels of poison in southern Sweden in the 70s.