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COVID-19 vaccine booster drive is faltering in the US

By MAE ANDERSON

Riley Bredbeck, 13, from Westminster, Vt., looks away when getting the Pfizer COVID-19 booster during a vaccine clinic that was hosted by Rescue Inc. at Bellows Falls Fire Department, Friday, Jan. 14, 2022, in Bellows Falls, Vt. The COVID-19 booster drive in the U.S. is losing steam, worrying health experts who have pleaded with Americans to get an extra shot to shore up their protection against the highly contagious omicron variant. (Kristopher Radder/The Brattleboro Reformer via AP)


NEW YORK (AP) — The COVID-19 booster drive in the U.S. is losing steam, worrying health experts who have pleaded with Americans to get an extra shot to shore up their protection against the highly contagious omicron variant.

Just 40% of fully vaccinated Americans have received a booster dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the average number of booster shots dispensed per day in the U.S. has plummeted from a peak of 1 million in early December to about 490,000 as of last week.

Also, a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that Americans are more likely to see the initial vaccinations — rather than a booster — as essential.

“It’s clear that the booster effort is falling short,” said Jason Schwartz, a vaccine policy expert at Yale University.

Overall, the U.S. vaccination campaign has been sluggish. More than 13 months after it began, just 63% of Americans, or 210 million people, are fully vaccinated with the initial rounds of shots. Mandates that could raise those numbers have been hobbled by legal challenges.

Vaccination numbers are stagnant in states such as Wyoming, Idaho, Mississippi and Alabama, which have been hovering below 50%.

In Wyoming, 44% are fully vaccinated, up just slightly from 41% in September. To boost numbers, the state has been running TV ads with health care workers giving grim accounts of unvaccinated people struggling with COVID-19.

“Certainly we would like to see higher rates. But it would be wrong for anyone to think that the rates we have are due to lack of effort,” Wyoming Health Department spokeswoman Kim Deti said Tuesday.

And in neighboring Idaho, which also has one of the country’s lowest vaccination rates, the number of people getting their first vaccine dose has remained under 1,000 almost every day this year and the number getting booster shots is also declining. Still, officials say they won’t give up.

“I don’t like to use the word ‘resigned,’” said Elke Shaw-Tulloch, administrator of the Idaho Division of Public Health. “I think we just need to keep saying it over and over again, how important it is.”

At the other end of the spectrum, Vermont is a national leader in the percentage of people who have been fully vaccinated and received a booster shot. About 60% of the population over 18 has gotten a booster. But it’s not enough, said Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine.

“I’d love to see that percentage much closer to 90%,” Levine said.

The U.S. and many other nations have been urging adults to get boosters because the vaccine’s protection can wane. Also, research has shown that while the vaccines have proved less effective against omicron, boosters can rev up the body’s defenses against the threat.

As for why an estimated 86 million Americans who have been fully vaccinated and are eligible for a booster have not yet gotten one, Schwartz said public confusion is one important reason.

“I think the evidence is now overwhelming that the booster is not simply an optional supplement, but it is a foundational part of protection,” he said. “But clearly that message has been lost.”

The need for all Americans to get boosters initially was debated by scientists, and at first the government recommended only that certain groups of people, such as senior citizens, get additional doses. The arrival of omicron, and additional evidence about falling immunity, showed more clearly a widespread need for boosters.

But the message “has been lost in the sea of changing recommendations and guidance,” Schwartz said.

The AP-NORC Center poll found that 59% of Americans think it is essential that they receive a vaccine to fully participate in public life without feeling at risk of COVID-19 infection. Only 47% say the same about a booster shot.

Keller Anne Ruble, 32, of Denver, received her two doses of the Moderna vaccine but hasn’t gotten her booster. She said she had a bad reaction to the second dose and was in bed for four days with a fever and flu-like symptoms.

“I believe in the power of vaccines, and I know that’s going to protect me,” said Ruble, the owner of a greeting card sending service. But the vaccine “just knocked me out completely and freaked me out about getting the booster.”

She said she does plan to get the booster in the next few weeks and in the meantime wears an N95 mask and tries to stay home.

“I just don’t want to get COVID in general,” she said. “It does scare me.”

Blake Hassler, 26, of Nashville, Tennessee, said he doesn’t plan to get the booster. He received Pfizer’s two doses last year after having a mild case of COVID-19 in 2020. He said he considers himself to be in a low-risk category.

“At this point, we need to focus on prevention of serious illness at the onset of symptoms rather than creating a new shot every six weeks and more divisive mandates,” he said.

___

AP writers Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colorado; Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vermont; Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

Private group works to free Americans, locals loyal to U.S. from Afghanistan

By Zoya Mirza, Medill News Service

Some of those who were helped in fleeing Afghanistan by Task Force Argo board a Kam Air plane that is about to leave Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport in October. Photo courtesy of Task Force Argo

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- In the late hours of a cold Saturday evening, Sadia Ali and her family sat huddled together in a car parked outside of a defunct federal office situated west of the Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Holding hands and clutching onto overstuffed backpacks that carried their most-precious belongings, they awaited a phone call that would give them a green light to approach the heavily armed Taliban who were guarding this checkpoint.

This was the family's third attempt of fleeing Afghanistan after the formal withdrawal of the U.S. military and subsequent Taliban takeover. After two near-death experiences amid the chaos at the airport, Ali was determined to make this one work.

Soon, the phone rang, and a breathless woman's voice pierced through the anxious silence: "OK, one of you go approach them. Make sure you speak English because they're going to be communicating in different languages, and you want them to believe you're a U.S. citizen. And if they get aggressive in any way, don't argue. Just leave!"

Ali approached the armed men with her husband, waving her blue passport and gesturing toward the car that was packed with her two children, siblings and parents, urging the Taliban militant to let them through. After a tense back and forth, the man signaled for the gate to open.

Ali and her family were just some of the 2,216 people who were evacuated safely from Afghanistan through the coordinated efforts of Task Force Argo, a network of American veterans and private citizens working toward rescuing Americans and vulnerable Afghans who previously assisted the U.S. government and are stuck in a country now under a Taliban regime.

These evacuations came before countries clamped down on accepting people from Afghanistan and before many nations required reassurances from the United States to let planes with those fleeing land on their soil.

The operation completely relies on volunteer contributions made by people who have separate full-time jobs, but enter the realm of a self-described "Digital Dunkirk" at the end of their workday.

These volunteers coordinate with other members spread across the country, most of whom are veterans, through the signal app to keep messages secure, and help to compile an ever-growing database of people left behind in Afghanistan through communication relayed by trusted informants with years of active service.

"Task Force Argo is one of the subgroups of the Digital Dunkirk effort, and we link it to operation Dunkirk from World War II because it, too, was a group of civilians rescuing soldiers on their private boats," said Rebecca, a veteran who is one of the lead organizers of the rescue mission, and a current federal employee who requested anonymity for her last name.

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"We're carrying out a similar mission, except it's all done over the phone. We're essentially doing the U.S. government's job alongside our daily day jobs -- with very little resources and very little money."

Rebecca was one of the two Task Force Argo members who coordinated Ali and her family's escape from Kabul in August.

She said that the idea of the rescue operation grew out of the distress she experienced after she saw the horrific footage of Afghans hanging onto a U.S. Air Force transport jet in a desperate attempt to escape, some falling to their death shortly after the plane took off.

What started out as a plan of action scribbled on a legal pad soon materialized into a whole organization once Rebecca started to reach out to her contacts in the military, the Department of Defense and other agencies.

But her largest recruitment of volunteers came through a post she made on the Air Force Office of Special Investigations page on Facebook.

"I put out a request asking for handlers who could coordinate with Afghan families on the ground, data entry specialists, data scientists, people who could reach out to donors for funds. And, within a few hours, I had around 60 volunteers," Rebecca said.

By the first week of September, Task Force Argo had more than 184 people contributing to the operation, who had now curated a presence on social media and within the broader network of privately funded rescue operations being carried out in Afghanistan.

Currently, the operation serves to evacuate American citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents, Special Immigrant Visa and P1/P2 visa holders and applicants -- visa designations for Afghans who were affiliated with or worked for the U.S. government at any point -- plus their immediate families.

Only in rare circumstances does Task Force Argo help individuals who don't qualify for either of these categories, but are at-risk targets under the Taliban regime, such as journalists and female educators, according to Rob Tackett, a veteran and firefighter based in South Carolina who serves as a handler.

Despite the organization's success in safely getting vulnerable Afghans onto a departing flight and their rigorous vetting process, it has not been able to win the full support of the U.S. State Department.

Jesse Jensen, co-president of Task Force Argo and a decorated veteran who served two years of combat tours in Afghanistan, said the State Department wasn't even aware of the total number of Americans and qualifying immigrant visa holders stuck in Afghanistan.

Moreover, he said, the State Department was hesitant to issue a "Do Not Object" letter or a "Non-Object Cable" that would allow these privately chartered planes to land in foreign host countries that were willing to take in Afghan refugees.

Though Secretary of State Antony Blinken did issue a blanket diplomatic letter Aug. 24 stating that the U.S. government had no objections to foreign governments accepting individuals from these flights and providing assistance to them, it also said the "United States does not make determinations of the immigration status of the individuals transported by these private or non-governmental organizations."

According to Jensen, many foreign heads of state were hesitant to accept refugees on the basis of just this letter and requested direct correspondence from the U.S. government or State Department.

"Specific countries, rightfully so, want to make sure that they're not going to upset the United States government by accepting people from a foreign country that they're being asked by a private group of citizens to take. It's a completely rational concern," Jensen said.

As of now, the State Department has not agreed to issue country-specific letters directed to these foreign governments, leaving rescue operations such as Task Force Argo with people who could fill planes, but with no destination for them.

When asked for comment, a spokesperson for the State Department said these flights posed significant challenges, as no military personnel were on the ground to ensure the immigration eligibility of the passenger names provided by private rescue groups.

The spokesperson added that identity checks carried out upon the arrival of these planes also revealed that many passengers were not eligible for relocation to the United States and, in some cases, did not match the list of names provided by these groups, despite their best efforts.

However, the spokesperson did not provide any insight into the State Department's issuance of a Non-Object Cable, and called the evacuation and relocation effort a "monumental task."

Despite these obstacles, Task Force Argo remains committed to helping those in need and aims to keep raising more funds to sustain the objective of its mission.

"My country has been in the headlines since my earliest memories, and I just had to watch it get bombed every day, and see Afghan lives reduced to numbers that didn't exist anymore," said Aishah Bostani, an Afghan-American based in New York whose extended family is trapped in Afghanistan.

"How do you make those numbers intimate to other people? You can't just manufacture care."

Bostani hopes that, like Ali's, her family, too, can make it out someday, and that people don't just stop caring.

UNICEF calls for children to be evacuated from Syrian prison

By Simon Druker

Syria Democratic Forces take up position at Ghweran district in Hasaka, northeastern Syria Friday after Islamic State fighters attacked a prison in the area. UNICEF said Tuesday close to 850 children remain in the prison and the agency called on the international community to evacuate them from the facility. Photo By Ahmed Mardnli/EPA-EFE

Jan. 25 (UPI) -- The United Nations Children's Fund on Tuesday called on the international community to help more than 800 children imprisoned in a military detention facility in northeast Syria.

The organization -- known as UNICEF -- made the appeal in a news release, saying it has received "deeply worrisome reports of fatalities among children in the Ghwayran military detention facility, in al-Hasakah."

The former school is the country's largest facility for suspected members of the Islamic State, housing around 3,000 prisoners in poor conditions, according to The Washington Post.

An attack on the prison Sunday killed more than 25 members of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which are backed by the U.S.-led Operation Inherent Resolve.

The U.S. State Department said the Islamic State had been attempting a siege on the prison for more than a year. It also praised SDF forces for their ability to thwart previous attacks and minimize the severity of the attack.

The SDF said almost 160 Islamic militants were killed during the attack, according to The Washington Post.

"We are also deeply concerned by reports that children trapped inside the facility may be forced to play an active part in the ongoing clashes between detainees and security forces. These children should never have been held in military detention in the first place. The violence they are subjected to may amount to war crimes," UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement.

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"Almost 850 children, some as young as 12 years old, are currently in detention in northeast Syria, most of them are held in the Ghwayran facility. The majority of these children are Syrian and Iraqi boys while the rest are of 20 other nationalities. None of them has been charged with any crime under national or international law. The children of foreign nationals have received little to no support from their home countries."

The organization is appealing for immediate international help.

"The time to act is long overdue," Fore said.

"We urge the actors currently in control of the detention facility and the detaining authorities to unconditionally release all children, starting with the youngest and those with urgent medical and other needs.

"If and when children are evacuated to a safe location, humanitarian actors, without any distinction, should be granted unimpeded and sustained access to the children for emergency care and assistance. We also plead with member states to do everything in their power to repatriate children who are their citizens or born to their nationals, in line with international child protection and human rights standards. Member states who can support these efforts should do so."

EXPLAINER: Why Yemen’s war has spilled into the Emirates

By SAMY MAGDY

FILE - A Yemeni fighter backed by the Saudi-led coalition fires his weapon during clashes with Houthi rebels on the Kassara frontline near Marib, Yemen, Sunday, June 20, 2021. In January 2022, Yemen’s rebels have launched attacks with missiles and drones on the United Arab Emirates, a major escalation for one of the world’s most protracted conflicts. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)


CAIRO (AP) — Twice in the past week, Yemen’s rebels have launched attacks with missiles and drones on the United Arab Emirates, a major escalation for one of the world’s most protracted conflicts.

The attacks underscore how the war that has ground on for over seven years in the corner of the Arabian Peninsula can flare into a regional danger. One of this week’s attacks targeted an Emirati military base hosting U.S. and British forces.

Already, the conflict has killed tens of thousands of civilians and fighters in Yemen and created a yearslong humanitarian disaster in the Arab world’s poorest country.

The war pits the internationally recognized government, backed by a coalition including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. It began in September 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen. At the time with American backing, the coalition entered the war in March 2015 to support the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, whose forces and other loosely allied militias hold the south.

Here’s a look at the latest developments.

WHY HAS THE WAR ESCALATED?

The Houthis blame the Emirates for significant recent battlefield losses inside Yemen, that have virtually ended their efforts to complete control of the country’s north.

Primarily, they are looking to retaliate after their offensive aiming to seize the crucial central Yemeni city of Marib floundered.

The Houthis launched the offensive last year, and at times it looked like they might succeed in taking the city from the government. Capturing Marib would have sealed their control over the entire north of Yemen, brought the province’s relative wealth into their hands and given them leverage in future peace negotiations.

Despite suffering heavy casualties from coalition airstrikes, the Houthis reached just outside the city. The coalition stepped up ground support to the city’s defenders. But the tide only really turned when Emirati-backed forces known as the Giants Brigade made a concerted push in the southern province of Shabwa this month. They pushed out the Houthis and reclaimed Shabwa, then cut off key Houthi supply lines in Marib province and are now advancing into the province.

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The escalation prevented Marib from falling into Houthi hands but “it required some political realignments” within the coalition, said Peter Salisbury, a Yemen expert at the International Crisis Group. The Saudis, he said, had to allow the empowering of Emirati-backed forces, undermining allies of Hadi, who has had a longtime rivalry with the UAE.

HOUTHI REACTION

The Houthi’s reply has been to fire ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones, first on Saudi Arabia and now on the UAE.
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On Monday, the UAE and U.S. militaries said they intercepted two ballistic missiles over Abu Dhabi. The rebels said they targeted the Al-Dhafra Air Base, which hosts both American and British forces.

Last week, the rebels claimed another attack on Abu Dhabi that targeted the airport and a fuel depot. The strike killed three people and wounded six others.

The attacks threaten the Emirates’ business-friendly, tourism-focused reputation.

Earlier this month, the Houthis also seized an Emirati ship in the Red Sea, off the coast of Hodeida, a rebel-held port that the two sides have long battled over. They claimed the vessel carried weapons. The coalition said it carried medical equipment from a dismantled Saudi field hospital on the Yemeni island of Socotra. The coalition has threatened to attack Houthi-held ports if they don’t release the vessel.

The rebels also fired missiles and drones at government-held areas in Yemen, often landing on civilian facilities.

In seeming retaliation, the coalition has launched intense airstrikes on Sanaa and other rebel-held areas. The strikes killed dozens of civilians, including over 80 people in a detention center in the northern province of Saada.

Another coalition airstrike on a telecommunications building knocked Yemen off the internet for days before being restored early Tuesday.

Raiman al-Hamdani, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the Houthis are trying to draw the UAE back into a conflict from which it has been trying to extricate itself.

The fighting is “an example of the lack of willingness on all sides to come to any consensus,” he said.

STALLED PEACE EFFORTS

The escalation on both sides has brought condemnation from Western powers, who have grown tired of trying to broker a peace in Yemen. Most of that frustration now seems focused on the rebels.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is considering reversing a decision last year that lifted the Houthi’s terrorist designation.

That de-listing, along with an official end to U.S. support for the coalition, had aimed to calm tensions in hopes of boosting peace efforts and addressing humanitarian needs. Yemeni and Saudi officials have maintained that the U.S. measures only emboldened the Houthis.

The U.S. and U.N. diplomatic moves failed to bring the two sides to negotiations as the Houthis pressed their Marib offensive. In July, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the Biden administration was “beyond fed up” with the Houthis.

The Houthis have also taken a hard line on other fronts. They have not allowed the U.N. special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, to visit since he was appointed in August. The rebels seized the now-closed U.S. Embassy in Sanaa and detained dozens of local employees. They also detained two U.N. staffers working for the U.N. human rights office and UNESCO.

Some speculate that Iran could be playing a role in their Houthi allies’ escalations.

Al-Hamdani, the analyst, is reluctant to give too much credence to the idea that Iran is pulling strings.

The Houthis may owe Iran for its support, but Iran can’t just order them to do something, he said. “This only occurs when it’s convenient for both.”

Indigenous town in Mexico survives on remittances from US

The Mexican government believes remittances last year will surpass $50 billion for the first time.

By MARK STEVENSON

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A community police officer stands guard at the main gate to the Purepecha Indigenous community of Comachuen, Michoacan state, Mexico, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022. In Comachuen the whole town survives because of the money sent home by migrants working in the United States. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

COMACHUEN, Mexico (AP) — In Comachuen, a Purepecha Indigenous community of about 10,000 inhabitants nestled high in the pine-clad mountains of the western state of Michoacan, the whole town survives because of the money sent home by migrants working in the United States.

That money, known as remittances, kept families fed after local woodworking sales dropped off a decade ago when pine lumber started to become scarce. The money has allowed their families to remain in Comachuen rather than moving to other parts of Mexico for work. That — and the fact kids spend much of the year with their mothers and grandparents — has helped preserve the Purepecha language among almost everyone in town.

The traditional textiles, woodworking and construction live on, largely because such enterprises are funded by migrants who send money home to build houses here. Many things here — the church, the bull ring, the charity donations — are paid for by migrants.

The Mexican government believes remittances last year will surpass $50 billion for the first time. But whether the remittances allow families to just survive or progress enough so their kids won’t have to emigrate varies, reflecting a person’s plans and outlook.

The cold winter mornings in Comachuen are a throwback to another era. The men are back in town because of the seasonal lull in agricultural work in the United States.

Many workers from Comachuen get H2A temporary U.S. work visas, while others go without documents. Hundreds of men here work at the same vegetable farm in upstate New York every year, planting onions, harvesting squash, cabbage and beans. Porfirio Gabriel, an organizer who recruits workers to go north, estimates that one farm alone has brought $5 million into the town over three years, by far its largest single source of income.

Inhabitants exchange greetings in Purepecha as they pass each other in the narrow streets. At one end of town, three drovers head their teams of oxen through the streets and into the surrounding hills to haul down freshly cut pine trunks on narrow carts. The tree trunks are laid in the street in front of the homes of those who purchase them, to be sawn down in backyard workshops.

The whir of wood lathes mixes with the shouts of men hauling bricks and wheelbarrows of sand and gravel into half-built houses. Comachuen comes alive in winter.

Tranquilino Gabriel — it is a common last name here — is turning out decorative wood spindles on a primitive lathe. The 59-year-old does this only on his downtime from working in the U.S., to keep his decades-old family business alive. The 5 pesos (25 cents) he gets for each is just supplementary income.

He says wood is getting scarce and it’s unclear how much longer they will be able to do it. “More people are clearing land and planting avocado trees,” Gabriel says.

Gabriel is resigned to working in the United States as long as he can. He sends home about $7,500 each year from what he earns working the fields. That money is largely used to fund his children’s education, paying private college fees so his eldest son can be a registered nurse.

His hope is that his children will get university degrees and not have to emigrate. “I am paying for their studies, so that they don’t have to do what we had to do,” Gabriel says.

Apart from spindles, which are shipped to a nearby town to be assembled into bookcases and shelves, the economy here largely involves migrants selling to other migrants.

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– Mexico's remittances pass $50 billion, surge during pandemic

José González, 55, works at the corner shop that he remodeled, stocked and extended with money he has earned over a decade working in the United States.

González, who has the stern, thoughtful face of an Indigenous drill sergeant, says he used to do woodworking, “but it wasn’t enough to meet our basic needs.” After working the fields in Mexico for a while, he had to emigrate. Now his well-stocked store sells canned goods and food to the families of migrants.

Omar Gabriel, 28, sells sand, gravel, cement and rebar to migrants who are building or expanding their homes in Comachuen with money they earn in the U.S. Gabriel, one of the younger and better educated of the migrant workers, studied accounting at a university nearby. He has plans that don’t include forever going north to plant onions each spring.

His money from U.S. farm work goes to expand the family firm, Don Beto Materials, and pay for his younger brother’s university education as an architect. The family just bought a used bulldozer with money he earned in the north. Previously they bought a dump truck.

“My goal is to work for five more years (in the United States) to get together enough capital to get the company going right” as a full-services construction firm, from blueprints to excavation to building, he says.

But even if Gabriel will no longer have to migrate some day, it appears his business will probably always be dependent on a steady stream of migrant customers with dollars in their pockets.

The next generation is the key: Will the influx of remittances allow Comachuen’s young adults to build a life in Mexico, instead of doing stoop labor in U.S. fields?

Andrés Reyes Baltazar, 20, is studying business administration at a public university in the state capital, Morelia. On winter break, he was helping his father, Asención Reyes Julian, 41, in the family’s furniture workshop, where they’re building a huge wooden cupboard about six feet wide and eight feet tall. (Many Mexican homes don’t have closets.)

The father has been going north to work since 2011 because, he says, in the furniture trade “sometimes there are customers, and sometimes there aren’t.” Reyes Julian spends much of the money he earns in New York to pay for his son’s education.

Andrés has dreams of using his education to build the business, perhaps buying a truck to reach broader markets and get better prices for their furniture. Making finished pieces brings better profit margins than turning out furniture parts, and the Reyes family is one of the few here that still do it.

But when asked whether he too will someday go north to work in the United States, Andrés is evasive. “I might, perhaps. But first I’m going to finish my education.”

Andrea Sánchez, 21, speaks perfect English. She migrated without documents to California with her family as a young child in 2002 and studied at U.S. schools through the sixth grade.

When her family returned to Comachuen, she said, “it was a big shock ... it was really different.” In the decade since, she has learned to love her hometown, even if it doesn’t have the large homes and well-kept yards she saw in her childhood. “This is home. This culture calls to me.”

Even though she is studying here to be a teacher, and helping her mother with the family’s traditional embroidered textile business, she still holds dreams of returning to the United States someday.

“If there is that possibility, I would,” she said, adding: “I would rather do things legally. That would be the goal.”

ZIONIST TERRORISM
At a West Bank outpost, Israeli settlers flaunt their power

By JOSEPH KRAUSS

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The Palestinian village of Burqa is seen as an Israeli flag is placed in the Jewish West Bank outpost of Homesh, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. Palestinian residents of Burqa say the settlers' continued presence in Homesh, which was officially dismantled in 2005, makes it difficult to access their land and move safely in and out of their village.

 (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

A damaged young olive tree belonging to Palestinians lies on the ground after it was vandalized by Israeli settlers near the West Bank village of Burqa, north of Nablus, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

BURQA, West Bank (AP) — The Jewish settlement of Homesh, built on privately owned Palestinian land deep inside the occupied West Bank, was dismantled in 2005 and cannot be rebuilt.

At least, that’s what Israeli law says.

But when a group of settlers drove up to the site last week, they were waved through army checkpoints that were closed to Palestinian vehicles and arrived at a cluster of tents on the windy hilltop. There, dozens of settlers were studying in a makeshift yeshiva, or religious school.

Empty wine bottles and bags of trash stood out for collection, the remains of a holiday feast attended by hundreds of settlers the night before and documented on social media.

The settlers’ ability to maintain a presence at Homesh, guarded by a detachment of Israeli soldiers, is a vivid display of the power of the settler movement nearly 55 years after Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war.

Their strength has also been on display in a wave of attacks against Palestinians and Israeli peace activists in recent months, many in plain view of Israeli soldiers, who appear unable or unwilling to stop them, despite Israeli officials’ promises to maintain law and order. The worst of the violence has been linked to hard-line settler outposts like Homesh.

That Israeli authorities have not cleared Homesh — which under Israeli law is blatantly illegal — makes it nearly impossible to imagine the removal of any of Israel’s 130 officially authorized settlements as part of any future peace deal. Nearly 500,000 settlers now live in those settlements, as well as dozens of unauthorized outposts like Homesh.

The Palestinians view the settlements as the main obstacle to any two-state solution to the century-old conflict, and most countries view them as a violation of international law. But in an increasingly hawkish Israel, the settlers enjoy wide support.

“We are privileged, thank God, to live here and study Torah, and we shall continue to do so with God’s help,” said Rabbi Menachem Ben Shachar, a teacher at the yeshiva.

“The people of Israel need to hold onto Homesh, to study Torah here and in every other place in the Land of Israel,” he said, using a biblical term for what is today Israel and the West Bank.

Israel dismantled the settlement in 2005 as part of its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and the law prohibits Israeli citizens from entering the area. Israel’s Supreme Court has acknowledged that the land belongs to Palestinians from the nearby village of Burqa.

But the settlers have repeatedly returned, setting up tents and other structures on the foundations of former homes, now overgrown with weeds.

The army has demolished the structures on several occasions, but more often tolerates their presence. The Jan. 16 party was just the latest in a series of marches, political rallies and other gatherings held at the site over the years, some attended by Israeli lawmakers.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it did not approve the event and took steps to prevent civilians from reaching the area, including setting up checkpoints. The settlers appear to have walked around them. The military declined to discuss the larger issues around Homesh, and a government spokeswoman declined to comment.

The killing of a yeshiva student by a Palestinian gunman near the outpost last month has become a rallying cry for the settlers, who say evacuating Homesh now would amount to appeasing terrorism. But the survival of the outpost after 16 years is rooted in a deeper shift in Israel that makes it nearly impossible to rein in even the settlers’ most brazen activities.

Israel’s parliament is dominated by parties that support the settlers. The current government, a fragile coalition reliant on factions from across the political spectrum, knows that any major confrontation with the settlers could spell its demise. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is a former settler leader and is opposed to Palestinian statehood.

The consequences are felt by Palestinians in Burqa and surrounding villages.

Over the weekend, masked settlers descended on another village in the northern West Bank, attacked a group of Palestinians and Israeli peace activists with stones and clubs, and set a car on fire. Israel’s public security minister, Omer Barlev, called the attackers “terrorists” but said police have struggled to catch them because they flee before authorities arrive.

The owners of the land where Homesh was built risk being attacked by settlers if they try to access it. Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group that represents the residents of Burqa in court, has documented at least 20 attacks and seven incidents of property damage since 2017.

A 15-year-old Palestinian said he was kidnapped and tortured by settlers in August. Six farmers were hospitalized after settlers attacked them with metal batons and stones in November, according to B’Tselem, another Israeli rights group.

Ben Shachar, the teacher at the yeshiva, said farmers should coordinate their entry with the Israeli military. He said he’s open to dialogue with “any Arab who accepts that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people,” but that terrorism is “part of the DNA of Arab society.”

Yesh Din is currently petitioning the Supreme Court on behalf of the Palestinians, hoping it will pressure authorities to remove the outpost and allow them to access their land.

“It’s a funny petition, right?” said Lior Amihai, the director of Yesh Din. “We have a petition to enable Palestinians to enter their land, but according to the law they (already) have access to their land.”

Ghalib Hajah, who was born and raised in Burqa and now runs a prosperous construction firm inside Israel, is putting the finishing touches on what he had hoped would be a quiet country home for him and his wife. The balconies look out over rolling hills and olive terraces.

The day after the yeshiva student was killed, a group of settlers pelted Hajah’s house with stones, shattering several of the newly installed windows as well as tiles from Italy stacked outside. Others smashed gravestones in the village cemetery.

“I hid inside, like a thief in my own house,” he said. “It’s not the first time they’ve been here ... Before you leave your house, you have to see whether there are settlers outside. They block the roads, they throw stones at cars.”

He and other residents say settlers have attacked the village on more than a dozen occasions in recent years, with the army appearing powerless to stop them.

Instead, he has turned his new home into a fortress, with cameras mounted on the roof and heavy aluminum shutters on all windows and doors.

“There’s no stability here,” he said.

___

Associated Press Writer Alon Bernstein contributed to this report.

Indonesia’s capital is sinking, polluted and now moving

By EDNA TARIGAN and NINIEK KARMINI

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A young boy plays as high rise buildings at the main business district are seen in the background, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022. Indonesian parliament last week passed the state capital bill into law, giving green light to President Joko Widodo to start a $34 billion construction project this year to move the country's capital from the traffic-clogged, polluted and rapidly sinking Jakarta on the main island of Java to jungle-clad Borneo island amid public skepticism. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Jakarta is congested, polluted, prone to earthquakes and rapidly sinking into the Java Sea. Now the government is leaving, and moving the country’s capital to the island of Borneo.

President Joko Widodo envisions the construction of a new capital as a panacea for the problems plaguing Jakarta, reducing its population while allowing the country to start fresh with a “sustainable city” that has good public transportation, is integrated with its natural environment and is in an area that’s not prone to natural disasters.

“The construction of the new capital city is not merely a physical move of government offices,” Widodo said last week ahead of parliament’s approval of the plan. “The main goal is to build a smart new city, a new city that is competitive at the global level, to build a new locomotive for the transformation ... toward an Indonesia based on innovation and technology based on a green economy.”

Skeptics worry, however, about the environmental impact of plunking a sprawling 256,000-hectare (990 square mile) city down in Borneo’s East Kalimantan province, which is home to orangutans, leopards and a wide array of other wildlife, as well as committing $34 billion to the ambitious project amid a global pandemic.

“The new capital city’s strategic environmental study shows that there are at least three basic problems,” said Dwi Sawung, an official with the WALHI environmental group.

“There are threats to water systems and risks of climate change, threats to flora and fauna, and threats of pollution and environmental damage,” she said.

First proposed in 2019, Widodo’s plan to establish the city of Nusantara — an old Javanese term meaning “archipelago” — will entail constructing government buildings and housing from scratch. Initial estimates were that some 1.5 million civil servants would be relocated to the city, some 2,000 kilometers northeast of Jakarta, though ministries and government agencies are still working to finalize that number.

It will be located in the vicinity of Balikpapan, an East Kalimantan seaport with a population of about 700,000.

Indonesia is an archipelago nation of more than 17,000 islands, but currently 54% of the country’s more than 270 million people live on Java, the country’s most densely populated island and where Jakarta is located.

Jakarta itself is home to about 10 million people and three times that number in the greater metropolitan area.

It has been described as the world’s most rapidly sinking city, and at the current rate, it is estimated that one-third of the city could be submerged by 2050. The main cause is uncontrolled ground water extraction, but it has been exacerbated by the rising Java Sea due to climate change.

Beyond that, its air and ground water are heavily polluted, it floods regularly and its streets are so clogged that it is estimated congestion costs the economy $4.5 billion a year.

Motorists are stuck in the morning rush hour traffic in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022. Indonesian parliament last week passed the state capital bill into law, giving green light to President Joko Widodo to start a $34 billion construction project this year to move the country's capital from the traffic-clogged, polluted and rapidly sinking Jakarta on the main island of Java to jungle-clad Borneo island amid public skepticism. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

In constructing a purpose-built capital, Indonesia will be taking a path that others have in the past, including Pakistan, Brazil and Myanmar.

The committee overseeing the construction is led by Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan — no stranger to ambitious building projects at home in the United Arab Emirates — and also includes Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder and chief executive of Japanese holding company SoftBank, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who currently runs the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

State funds will pay for 19% of the project, with the rest coming from cooperation between the government and business entities and from direct investment by state-run companies and the private sector.

Public Works and Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono said initial planning had been carried out by clearing 56,180 hectares (138,800 acres) of land to build the presidential palace, the national parliament and government offices, as well as roads linking the capital to other cities in East Kalimantan.

The idea is to have the core government area done by 2024, Hadimulijono said. Current plans are for about 8,000 civil servants to have moved to the city by then.

Widodo previously said he expected the Presidential Palace would be moved to the new capital city before he ends his second term in 2024, along with the Home, Foreign, and Defense Ministries and the State Secretariat.

The whole relocation process is scheduled to be completed by 2045.

What effect it will have on Jakarta and the people who stay behind is unclear, said Agus Pambagio, a public policy expert from the University of Indonesia, who urged that anthropologists be brought on to study the issue.

“There will be very big social changes, both for people who work as civil servants, society in general and local residents,” he said.

HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD

Ukraine crisis could reverse decline of U.S. military presence in Europe

By Michael A. Allen & Carla Martinez Machain & Michael E. Flynn

Large green containers arrived in Ukraine on Friday night from the United States, carrying "200,000 pounds of lethal aid" to defend against "growing Russian aggression," according to the U.S. Embassy. 

Photo courtesy of U.S. Embassy Kiev/Twitter

Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Up to 8,500 U.S. troops could soon be heading to Eastern Europe -- bolstering an American military presence on the continent that has been in decline since the end of the Cold War.

News of the possible deployment, announced Monday by the Pentagon, comes as Russia and the United States continue to maneuver in the face of an escalating crisis in Ukraine.

We are a team of researchers who study U.S. troop deployments and how they affect the security, perceptions, economy, social sphere and environment of host countries. Understanding the changing U.S. military commitment to European countries helps us understand what is at stake in Europe and U.S. credibility in the region.

U.S. President Joe Biden signaled during a press conference on Wednesday that the United States would increase its troop presence in NATO countries in Eastern Europe if Russia invades Ukraine as it seems poised to do. Just days later, he directed Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to place thousands of U.S. troops on heightened alert for deployment to Eastern Europe.

RELATEDU.S. puts 8,500 troops on heightened alert amid Russia-Ukraine tensions

The decision was framed by the Pentagon as the U.S. carrying through with its obligations to protect the security of NATO allies.

While Biden acknowledges that Ukraine is not a member of NATO, he emphasized that neighboring countries Poland and Romania are, and that the United States has an obligation to protect them. A large troop deployment -- potentially to bolster NATO's existing presence in those two countries -- would meet that obligation.

The United States and Russia have historically been cautious in not placing troops in places that would be considered a provocation. They generally avoid each other's sphere of influence, even when responding to the other's deployments. Yet the NATO allies in Eastern Europe, many of which were once Soviet satellite states, provide a gray area that the United States and Russia may view as within their own sphere of influence.

U.S. military history in Europe

Since the end of World War II, the United States has deployed hundreds of thousands of service members to Europe. These deployments were vital in not only stabilizing Western Europe following the war, but also in exerting U.S. influence in the postwar environment.

Interactions between the U.S. and European countries during this period involved the creation of a series of institutions to help structure the rules and norms of international relations. These organizations have persisted in part because the United States provides security commitments to countries that accept and promote them. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance established in 1949 as a bulwark to Soviet expansionism, was central to these efforts.

At its height in the late 1950s, U.S. presence in Europe consisted of about 430,000 troops, stationed in places like West Germany and the United Kingdom.

After the end of the Cold War, NATO sought to redefine its mission from one that checked Russian aggression to European stability more generally. This change in mission came with the expansion of NATO membership to Central and Eastern European countries, such as Hungary and Poland, and the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. With NATO membership came new deployments of U.S. service members to these countries.

NATO has also sought to expand its relationships with non-member states throughout Eastern and Central Europe through the Membership Action Plan, which provides advice and assistance to countries wishing to join NATO.

This eastward push came with objections from Russia in the 1990s, which has long worried about the security of its western borders with Europe. Russia's concern about NATO expanding to its border continues, as seen in President Vladimir Putin's demand that NATO forces pull back from deploying in former Soviet states.

Shift away from Europe?

If the United States follows through with beefing up its military presence in Eastern Europe, it would reverse a trend that has seen American troop numbers dwindle in Europe significantly since the end of the Cold War.

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in particular marked a dramatic shift in where the United States focused its troop deployments and security concerns. The beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq brought massive changes in the United States' military position globally as it shifted focus to Central Asia and the Middle East.

In 1989, the United States had 248,621 permanent troops stationed in West Germany, 27,639 in the United Kingdom, 15,706 in Italy and 3,382 in Greece. By September 2021, U.S. troop numbers had fallen to 35,457 in Germany, 9,563 in the United Kingdom, 12,434 in Italy and 429 in Greece.

While the size of U.S. deployments to Europe have declined dramatically since their Cold War heights, they are still very large relative to most other U.S. deployments.

Without the threat of the Soviet Union, though, public opposition to foreign deployments has also increased in the post-Cold War era.

However, rising tensions with Russia have in the recent past prompted U.S. presidents to dedicate additional military aid and deployments to Poland and the Baltic States.

This trend looks set to continue if the Pentagon does indeed deploy thousands of troops to Eastern Europe in the face of a threatened invasion by Russia of Ukraine

Michael A. Allen is an associate professor of political science at Boise State University; Carla Martinez Machain is a professor of political science, and Michael E. Flynn is an associate professor of political science at Kansas State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

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Slovakia certifies flying car as airworthy

Slovakia's state transport agency has given the green light for a new flying car to take to the skies.



The vehicle's wings are retractable and fold away when it is set for use on the roads

The company behind a Slovakian hybrid half-car, half-plane vehicle said in a press release that it had received certification of airworthiness for its innovation.

KleinVision claims that approval for its AirCar opens the path for the "mass production of very efficient flying cars."

Aircraft mode at the touch of a button

The transformation from the vehicle's road-going setup to its flight mode takes less than 3 minutes. The process is entirely automated — with the push of a single button needed to start it.

Before it could be certified, the car had to complete 70 hours of flight testing — having successfully completed more than 200 takeoffs and landings.

Powered by a 1.6-liter BMW engine, the futuristic vehicle needs a runway of only 300 meters (nearly 1,000 feet) long to take off.

It can reach flight speeds of up to 170 kilometers per hour (just over 100 mph) and has a range of roughly 1,000 kilometers.

AirCar completed its first intercity flight in June 2021.

Watch video 07:26 Flying cars: the future of mobility?

What happens next?

KleinVision will still have to obtain the certification of type of aircraft to launch the commercial exploitation of its aircraft from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

"This is an official confirmation of our ability to permanently transform medium-distance travel," said the car's developer, Stefan Klein.

The airworthiness certification for the flying car was confirmed to the AFP news agency.

In the company press release, Rene Molnar, the director of the Civil Aviation Division, praised the vehicle as a breakthrough.

"It defines a new category of a sports car and a reliable aircraft. Its certification was both a challenging and fascinating task."

KleinVision is not the only firm looking to open up the skies to flying cars. German flying-taxi startup Lilium has attracted total investments of more than $375 million (€330 million) to date, and Uber unveiled its giant dronelike flying-taxi prototype in 2018.

Edited by: Mark Hallam.

Rare eagle seen in Maine, wowing birders, might stay a bit

By PATRICK WHITTLE

In this Dec. 31, 2021 photo provided by Zachary Holderby, a Steller's sea eagle is seen off Georgetown, Maine near a crow. The rare eagle has taken up residence thousands of miles from its home range, delighting bird lovers and baffling scientists.

 (Zachary Holderby, Downeast Audubon via AP)


GEORGETOWN, Maine (AP) — A rare species of eagle that has thrilled bird lovers and baffled scientists since arriving in Maine last month might not be in a hurry to leave.

The Steller’s sea eagle arrived in Maine in late December after a brief stop in Massachusetts more than a month ago. It has stuck to Maine’s middle coast, eating fish and ducks and attracting hundreds of birdwatchers from all over the world.

The sea eagle numbers only a few thousand worldwide and is native to northeastern Asia, including Russia and Japan, and has wingspans of up to 8 feet (2.4 meters). The bird is far off course, and it’s still unclear why it came here at all, said Doug Hitchcox, staff naturalist at Maine Audubon.

But the bird doesn’t appear to be in any kind of danger, Hitchcox said. It has an ample food supply and is living in habitat that is similar enough to its native range, he said. It’s possible it could eventually return to its home range, but for now it’s comfortable in Maine, Hitchcox said.

“This one is so far off course, it’s just purely speculation to say it could go back and then return. There is no reason it couldn’t make its way back to Japan or Russia,” he said. “It seems to be doing OK.”

It’s not uncommon for vagrant bird species to return year after year to places far from their typical range. A single red-billed tropicbird, a species commonly seen in the Caribbean and tropical oceans, has been seen off Maine in the summer for years. Birders affectionately call it “Troppy.”

Maine’s lone Steller’s sea eagle is an adult, and its sex is not confirmed. It is sometimes seen around bald eagles, dwarfing the national symbol. The Steller’s, named for German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, is one of the largest eagles in the world, often weighing 13 to 20 pounds (6 to 9 kilograms) — twice as much as a bald eagle.

The bird drew dozens of onlookers to Reid State Park in Georgetown when it was first seen in Maine, and birdwatchers have continued to come to the state for weeks with no sign of stopping.



Allison Black, a birder from Connecticut, made the four-hour drive to see the bird Monday. Many bird fans are relying on websites and social media channels set up to help people track the eagle.

“I took my mom with me, too, who isn’t a birder, but heard the story about the eagle and wanted to see it. We actually tried to see it back in December when it was in Massachusetts, but missed it by 10 minutes. That hurt,” she said. “I saw in the alerts that it flew not too long after we left, so I’m thankful we were at the right place at the right time to finally see it!”