A CROCK O SHIT

Nord Stream methane leak will NOT increase global warming, study says

Jonathan Chadwick For Mailonline - TODAY

Methane gas that leaked from a damaged Nord Stream pipeline in September will not increase global warming, a new study claims.

The leaks will have a 'negligible' effect on warming, despite releasing 220,000 tons of methane into the air, academics say.

This is relatively 'tiny' and too small to affect humans compared with emissions from sources such as the coal and gas industries, they add.

The cause of the pipeline damage is unknown, although there are suspicions from Western leaders that it was caused deliberately by Russia.

AND RUSSIA SAYS IT WAS THE USA/NATO

A few days after the leaks, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that the leaks were no accident and that she 'cannot rule out' sabotage.


According to Swedish and Danish authorities, there were four leaks from the two Nord Stream pipes (two in the Swedish economic zone, two in the Danish economic zone)© Provided by Daily Mail


This photo from the Danish Defence Command shows the gas leak at the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, as seen off the Danish Baltic island of Bornholm, south of Dueodde© Provided by Daily Mail


Security walks in front of the landfall facility of the Baltic Sea gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 in Lubmin, Germany, September 19, 2022© Provided by Daily Mail

What was the Nord Stream gas leak?

Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are two pipelines linking Russia and Germany, owned by Russia.

A sudden loss of pressure in the pipelines was noted by operators of Nord Stream 2 overnight on Monday, September 26.

This was followed by a statement from the Danish Energy Authority outlining that a leak likely occurred in a pipe.

It was later confirmed on Tuesday by Sweden's Maritime Administration that two fissures had been detected on Nord Stream 1 in Swedish and Danish waters.

A third leak was later reported on the Nord Steam 2 pipeline, that has yet to begin commercial operations, in the same area northeast of the Danish island of Bornholm.

According to Swedish and Danish authorities, there were four leaks from the two Nord Stream pipes - two in the Swedish economic zone, and two in the Danish economic zone.

The new study was led by experts at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing.

'We derived a negligible increase in global surface air temperature,' they say in their new paper, published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

'Although the resultant warming from this methane leak incident was minor, future carbon release from additional Earth system feedbacks, such as thawing permafrost, and its impact on the methane mitigation pathways of the Paris Agreement, warrants investigation.'

On September 26, Nord Stream 1 and 2, two subsea pipelines for transferring natural gas from Russia to Germany, were both 'deliberately' ruptured, the experts say.

According to Swedish and Danish authorities, there were four leaks from the two Nord Stream pipes – two in the Swedish economic zone, and two in the Danish economic zone.

Massive quantities of gases, primarily methane, escaped into the ocean and were then released into the atmosphere.

Methane is a greenhouse gas, meaning it exacerbates global warming and climate change effects if it is released into the atmosphere.

It is also highly flammable, so when in contact with the air it raises the risk of explosion, and directly reduces air quality.

Methane is the second most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2), but has a much stronger greenhouse effect.

The visible leaks from the four spill points gradually lessened and stopped around October 2, the team say.



The pipelines show signs of sabotage and multiple 'detonations', Swedish authorities have said. Pictured, pipes at the landfall facilities of Nord Stream 2 in Lubmin, Germany© Provided by Daily Mail


This map shows the pair of Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that runs under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. It comprises the Nord Stream 1 pipeline running from Vyborg in northwest Russia, near Finland, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline running from Ust-Luga in northwest Russia near Estonia. Red stars in the image depict the locations of the leaks© Provided by Daily Mail

Methane from Nord Stream is detected from space

Methane leaking from a 'sabotaged' pipeline in Northern Europe has been captured by satellites.

Imagery from satellite company GHGSat shows the stream of methane over the Baltic Sea off of Sweden.

The methane leaked from a rupture point on Nord Stream 2 - one of two pipelines linking Russia to Germany thought to be deliberately damaged.

Related video: WION Climate Tracker | Study: CO2 emissions to hit an all-time high

Duration 2:17 View on Watch

For their study, the researchers estimated the climate impact of the leaked methane using the energy-conservation framework of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC AR6), released in 2021.

These assessment reports provide scientific evidence for policymakers to use in decisions about how to tackle climate change.

The researchers collected estimates of the total amount of leaked methane available in the world's media after the incident, including those from AFP, Associated Press and an article in Nature.

They found that the earliest estimates of total emissions (one to two days after the leaks) reached up to 500,000 tons, while the latest (one month after the incident) put the estimate at no more than 250,000 tons.

Another study by a research team from Nanjing University gave 'a more accurate estimate' of no more than 220,000 tonnes by drawing upon multiple observations, including those from high-resolution satellites.

At 220,000, this would still make it the largest methane emission in a single event in human history – more than twice that of the Aliso Canyon accident in 2015, which released around 100,000 tons of methane from an underground storage facility in California's Santa Susana Mountains.

However, the Institute of Atmospheric Physics team argue that the Nord Stream emissions are 'still trivial' compared with other emissions sources.

For example, according to IPCC AR6, annual emissions of methane from the oil and gas sectors amounted to as much as 70 million tons between 2008 and 2017.

So if 250,000 tons is taken as reasonable estimate of the methane leaked by Nord Stream, this is only equivalent to 1.3 days of emissions from the oil and gas sectors, the researchers point out.



The Aliso Canyon accident in 2015 released around 100,000 tons of methane from an underground storage facility in California's Santa Susana Mountains. Pictured is the SS-25 well, where the 2015 gas leak occurred© Provided by Daily Mail


The Nord Stream pipeline leak is relatively 'tiny' and too small to affect humans compared with emissions from sources such as the coal and gas industries. Pictured, an oil rig for drilling an oil well© Provided by Daily Mail

Methane: a powerful greenhouse gas

Methane is a colourless, odourless flammable gas, and the main constituent of natural gas.

Methane is a greenhouse gas, and the second biggest cause of climate change after carbon dioxide.

Both gases trap heat in the atmosphere, similar to the glass roof of a greenhouse.

During the day, the sun shines through the atmosphere and Earth's surface warms up in the sunlight.

At night, the Earth's surface cools, releasing heat back into the air, but some of the heat is trapped by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Too much of these gases can cause Earth's atmosphere to trap more and more heat, causing the planet to warm up.

Methane has more than 80 times the heat-trapping potency of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere.

However this does decrease over time, as it breaks down over the course of about a decade.

It is emitted during the production and transport of coal, natural gas and oil, as well as from livestock and decaying organic waste at landfill sites.

The team also point out that methane in the atmosphere is gradually removed by reacting with certain unstable 'radicals', such as hydroxyl radical, resulting in an approximate 10-year lifetime.

This is short-lived compared to CO2, which is said to hang around in Earth's atmosphere for hundreds of years.

Researchers then further estimated the possible warming potentially caused by the Nord Stream methane leaks in the 'near term', defined as the next 20 years.

They used 'global warming potential' (GWP) – a measure of how much energy the emissions of 1 ton of a gas will absorb over a given period of time, relative to the emissions of 1 ton of CO2.

They found that the quantity of heat accumulated per unit mass of methane in the next 20 years after its emission into the atmosphere is 82.5 times that of CO2.

Armed with this information, they were able to calculate that the climatic impact of the leaked methane is equivalent to that of 20.6 million tons of CO2.

But this would raise the atmospheric CO2 concentration by only 0.0026 parts per million (ppm) and in turn cause a 'tiny' increase in warming that cannot be perceived in ecosystems or by humans, said study author Dr Xiaolong Chen.

The team conclude that human-cased or 'anthropogenic' methane emissions – from the likes of coal mining, agricultural activities and more – need to be reduced to hit the targets of the Paris Agreement.

Adopted in 2016, the Paris Agreement aims to hold an increase in global average temperature to below 2°C (3.6°F) and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C (2.7°F).

'If we are going to achieve the warming target of below 1.5°C or 2°C set out in the Paris Agreement, damage to infrastructure such as this should be avoided so that we can better control and reduce methane emissions,' said Dr Chen.



In this picture provided by Swedish Coast Guard, the gas leak in the Baltic Sea from Nord Stream photographed from the Coast Guard's aircraft on Wednesday, September 27, 2022© Provided by Daily Mail

Estimates published last month by Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) put the estimates of methane emitted from the Nord Stream leaks somewhere between 56,000 and 155,000 metric tonnes.

But the Norwegian team also said this was 'negligible' and only about 0.01 to 0.03 per cent of the methane emitted globally every year.

'Reducing methane emissions needs to be a global priority this decade if we are to have any chance at keeping warming below 1.5°C by 2030,' said Rona Thompson at NILU.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has already said that the Nord Stream leak 'pales in comparison' with the 80 million metric tonnes emitted each year by the oil and gas industry. Read more

ROFLMAO 

Iran accuses Western countries of «training» protesters in «making weapons and Molotov cocktails»

CIA

Molotov cocktail - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Molotov_cocktail

A Molotov cocktail is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse ...

‎Molotov bread basket · ‎Frangible Grenade M1 · ‎Frangibility · ‎Improvised weapon

Iranian Foreign Minister Hosein Amirabdolahian has accused Western countries of promoting violence during the latest protests in the country and said that several states have reportedly offered "training" for the "manufacture of weapons and Molotov cocktails".

Iran's Foreign Minister Hosein Amirabdolahian - -/Kremlin/dpa

Amirabdolahian told UN Secretary General António Guterres that "in violation of the UN Charter, a few Western countries have acted to incite violence and offer training in the manufacture of weapons and Molotov cocktails" to protesters.

He has also said that these unspecified countries "exploited peaceful demands in Iran, which has resulted in the death of policemen and the creation of insecurity in Iran, to the point of paving the way for an Islamic State terrorist act."

Amirabdolahian thus linked incidents in protests over the September death in custody of Mahsa Amini, arrested for allegedly wearing the veil incorrectly, to the October attack by the jihadist group on a mausoleum in Shiraz.

In this line, he criticized that some countries "try to convene a meeting of the Human Rights Council on Iran" and stressed that this meeting should take place to address the acts of countries that "incite violence and terrorism".

"Iran is a true defender of Human Rights and has shown great restraint during the recent unrest", he said, amidst the denunciations of NGOs for the death of more than 300 people due to the repression of the demonstrations by Iranian security forces.

The Iranian judiciary recently indicated that more than 1,000 people have been charged so far for their involvement in "unrest" during the protests and vowed to respond "firmly" to the incidents, a day after more than 220 Iranian parliamentarians called on the courts to issue death sentences against protesters and compared them to members of the Islamic State.

CIA

PREVIEW

1:32

How do Molotov Cocktails Work?

YouTube · Concerning Reality

CIA

The history of the Molotov cocktail, an iconic weapon of ...

https://www.nationalgeographic.com › history › article

Mar 10, 2022 — For nearly a century, the device—called also a petrol bomb or a gasoline bomb—has been the most accessible weapon for underdogs fighting against ...

‘The dark matter is just sitting there’: What’s standing in the way of AI for life sciences

Charlotte Schubert -

Life scientists have a data problem: information is fragmented, siloed and incomplete. And that gets in the way of taking full advantage of using artificial intelligence technology.


Life sciences panelists at Madrona Venture Group’s Intelligent Application Summit. From left: Cyrus Biotechnology CEO Lucas Nivon, Microsoft researcher Jonathan Carlson, Deepcell CEO Maddison Masaeli, and moderator Chris Picardo, a Madrona venture partner.

 (GeekWire Photo / Charlotte Schubert)© Provided by Geekwire

A panel of researchers discussed challenges to adopting AI tools in life sciences at the Intelligent Application Summit hosted by Madrona Venture Group in Seattle last week.

Artificial intelligence is transforming how tech companies do everything from selling products to routing packages. New AI “foundation” models like GPT-3 and DALL-E that can generate new sentences or images were built using massive training sets pulled from the internet.

But in the life sciences, “the standardization of the data is very challenging,” said panelist Maddison Masaeli, CEO of Deepcell, a startup that visually analyzes and categorizes single cells.

Cell biology information is plagued by differences in sample collection, storage and processing, said Masaeli, hindering comparisons across datasets. “From the point of sample collection until you have the image, there are tens of steps that cause variability in the data,” she said.

Not all life sciences data are messy. Protein structures, for instance, are represented in standardized ways in standardized databases. That enabled the training of DeepMind’s AlphaFold and the University of Washington’s RoseTTAFold, AI tools that recently cracked open the longstanding problem of predicting protein folding. More recently, the UW released ProteinMPPN, an AI-powered protein design tool.

But even for proteins, a lot of information is behind a wall. Lucas Nivon, CEO of Seattle protein design startup Cyrus Biotechnology, said that Cyrus approached big pharma companies about sharing their databases on the structure of antibodies, the basis of many treatments. Tens of thousands of such structures are siloed at various companies.

Related video: What If You Were Made of Dark Matter?

The companies were all interested in pooling data, and discussed mechanisms for sharing proprietary structures, said Nivon. “And then nobody wanted to be the first the lead investor, so to say,” said Nivon.

Cyrus joined with Amazon Web Services and other partners this summer to create an open-source protein design nonprofit, OpenFold, that is now talking with potential partners about sharing such antibody structure data.

“There is that dark matter that is just sitting there on the side. It’s literally just there,” said Nivon. “And everybody admits it.”


Protein rings hallucinated by ProteinMPPN, artificial intelligence-powered software from the UW’s Institute for Protein Design. (IPD Image)© Provided by Geekwire

The issues of reliability and bias that plague AI modeling in tech applications also affect the life sciences, but in different ways, said the panelists.

When AI churns out a nonsense paragraph, users can see that right away. But if it’s spitting out the wrong diagnosis or the wrong protein structure, it’s harder to assess, said Jonathan Carlson, who leads life sciences research and incubation at Microsoft Health Futures, part of the tech giant’s research division.

“Many of the problems we see in life sciences are not unique, but they’re very acute,” added Carlson.

Testing products made through AI and then feeding the data back into the model sounds tidy in principle, but in the life sciences the process can take a long time. Cyrus is testing some of its engineered proteins with collaborators who are generating new transgenic mice, a process that can take well over a year. But Nivon’s team also leverages high throughput in vitro and cellular screening systems.

Efforts to optimize screening systems will enable faster honing of AI models, said Nivon. He points to Capsida Biotherapeutics, which iteratively engineers and screens designs for gene therapy using animal models, harvesting tissue to assess which are effectively getting to the right place in the body.

Researchers would like to better connect biological data to clinical outcomes, but there’s a lot standing in the way, including the need to protect privacy, said Masaeli. “There is no one power of Google that includes all the health data or biological data of the world,” she said.

Carlson envisions a future when more life sciences data are de-identified and funneled into standardized, interconnected formats. Ultimately, data from clinical trials and animal experiments could feed back efficiently into a network to help develop new hypothesis and hone questions for basic research.

How to get there is a major question for the field, said Carlson: “How do we enable collaboration while still respecting not only intellectual property but privacy? What does it actually mean to be able to build large foundation models when we can’t even get the data open?”

END FEMICIDE 

END WITCH HUNTING

Hundreds accused after woman is burned alive ‘for being a witch’ in Indian village

Shweta Sharma - Yesterday 

A search is underway to identify attackers that burnt an oppressed caste woman alive on suspicion of witchcraft in India’s eastern state of Bihar.


gettyimages-130303780-612x612.jpg© AFP via Getty Images

Rita Devi, 45, was attacked by a mob of more than 200 people who broke into her house and beat her up before pouring petrol on her to set her ablaze on Saturday night.

At least 14 people, including nine women, have been arrested and 65 others have so far been named in the complaint for allegedly setting the woman on fire after she was branded a witch, superintendent of police Ashok Prasad told The Independent.

Around 200 unknown people who were involved in the incident have been accused in the complaint, known as a First Information Report, he added.

Supt Prasad said tensions had been boiling in the village from around the last one month after a child in the woman’s neighbourhood died due to an illness.

Devi was being blamed for the death after some people called her a witch, he added.

On Saturday, a huge gathering of hundreds of people was called in the village and a so-called shaman was summoned from neighbouring Jharkhand state.

“The crowd turned violent when the ojha (shaman) was not able to give them definite answers and they went to Devi’s house and attacked her. The mob broke into the house from the windows and set her on fire,” Supt Prasad said.

“We are looking into video clips to identify the culprits and more arrests will be made soon.”

The incident has also raised questions over police response as the family alleged that they had alerted the local police station a month prior to the incident.

“We are looking into the allegations. The police could have acted promptly after the local police station was alerted of the threats,” he agreed.

Supt Prasad said they were investigating to see whether there were any lapses or laxity in police response and action would be taken accordingly.

Attacks, mostly on women or widows, on suspicion of witchcraft are sometimes reported from remote regions of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Assam, despite an act which bans witch hunts. Nine people were handed death penalty in 2018 for murdering three members of a family who were accused of being witches.

India’s National Crime Records Bureau estimates around 2,100 such murders took place nationally between 2001 and 2012. In 2020 alone, 15 women were murdered on allegations of witchcraft.

Supt Prasad said the incidents related to witchcraft are not common and are rarely reported from remote areas where people still believe in superstitions and are vulnerable to believing it due to lack of knowledge and education.

“I have asked my team to sensitise people on the issue and make them aware,” he added.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for WITCH 

• Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear, from  Ancient Times 
• to the Present

• 
  

This “magisterial account” explores the fear of witchcraft across the globe from the ancient world to the notorious witch trials of early modern Europe (The Guardian, UK).

The witch came to prominence—and often a painful death—in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In The Witch, historian Ronald Hutton sets the European witch trials in the widest and deepest possible perspective and traces the major historiographical developments of witchcraft.

Hutton, a renowned expert on ancient, medieval, and modern paganism and witchcraft beliefs, combines Anglo-American and continental scholarly approaches to examine attitudes on witchcraft and the treatment of suspected witches across the world, including in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Australia, and the Americas, and from ancient pagan times to current interpretations. His fresh anthropological and ethnographical approach focuses on cultural inheritance and change while considering shamanism, folk religion, the range of witch trials, and how the fear of witchcraft might be eradicated.

“[A] panoptic, penetrating book.”—Malcolm Gaskill, London Review of Books

Mila Kunis Joins Over 200 Celebrities Calling on Amazon to Remove Antisemitic Film Touted by Kyrie Irving

Michaela Zee - Yesterday 

Mila Kunis Joins Over 200 Celebrities Calling on Amazon to Remove Antisemitic Film Touted by Kyrie Irving© Getty


Mila Kunis, Debra Messing and Mayim Bialik are among more than 200 celebrities and entertainment executives who have signed an open letter calling on Amazon and Barnes & Noble to remove the antisemitic documentary and book, “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” from their respective platforms.

The letter was released by Creative Community for Peace, a non-profit entertainment industry organization. Additional signers of the statement include Sherry Lansing, former CEO of Paramount Pictures; Haim Saban, chairman and CEO of Saban Capital Group; Orly Marley, president of Tuff Gong Worldwide; Rick Rosen, Endeavor co-founder; Disturbed frontman David Draiman; Nina Tassler, co-founder of PatMa Productions; songwriter Diane Warren; comedian Iliza Shlesinger; Ben Silverman, chairman and co-chief executive officer of Propagate Content; and actors Tracy-Ann Oberman and Emmanuelle Chriqui.

The letter reads, “After more than a week of private messages and public calls to take the fallacious book and movie ‘Hebrews to Negroes’ from your sites, you have so far refused to act.”

“Hebrews to Negroes” was recently promoted by Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving on Twitter, boosting the title to a bestseller on Amazon. According to a statement from Creative Community for Peace, “both Amazon and Barnes & Noble have refused to remove the title and continue to profit from its bigotry.” After a temporary suspension, $500,000 donation to the Anti-Defamation League and having his Nike shoe line dropped, Irving apologized last week for promoting the film.

“At a time in America where there are more per capita hate crimes against Jews than any other minority, overwhelmingly more religious-based hate crimes against the Jewish people than any other religion, and more hate crimes against the Jewish people in New York than any other minority, where a majority of American Jews live, it is unacceptable to allow this type of hate to foment on your platforms,” the letter continues.

“Respected platforms and companies like Amazon and Barnes & Noble have a choice,” said Ari Ingel, director of Creative Community for Peace. “They can either continue to profit off of hatred and antisemitism, while turning a blind eye to the fears of the Jewish community, or they can choose to be an ally, and stand on the right side of history. While free speech is vital, corporations don’t need to help facilitate the spread of dangerous conspiracy theories that threaten the Jewish community. We implore them to take the prudent, responsible steps needed to remove this content.”

Amazon continues to sell other controversial texts, including copies of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” However, a note in the description reads, “Proceeds donated to Jewish Charities & Organizations.”

IDF to charge 2 commanders in death of elderly Palestinian

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF - Yesterday 

The IDF will file charges against two commanders involved in the death of Palestinian-American Omar Abdalmajeed As'ad, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit announced on Thursday.


IDF thwarting a a massive Hamas terrorist network in the West Bank, 

November 22, 2021.© (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON

In January, As'ad, 79, was detained along with a number of other Palestinians at a checkpoint near the village of Jiljilya, north of Ramallah, while the IDF was searching for weapons.

Related video: Clashes across East Jerusalem amid increasing unrest

Duration 3:32   View on Watch

After the operation, As'ad was found lifeless where he had been detained. An investigation was opened by the Defense Ministry to clarify the circumstances of the incident and testimony was collected from the people involved.

The investigation found anomalies in the conduct of the commander of the force inspecting the Palestinians and in the conduct of the commander of the force guarding the detainees, although no causal relationship could be found between the abnormalities and the death.

The military prosecutor's office informed the lawyers of the two commanders that it is considering filing charges against them, subject to a hearing, for the anomalies in their conduct.

Palestinians join huge Fatah rally in Gaza Strip amid rift
Via AP news wire - Yesterday 

APTOPIX Palestinians Arafat© Copyright 2022, The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Turning a huge park in Gaza City into a sea of yellow flags, tens of thousands of Palestinians on Thursday commemorated the anniversary of the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat — a rare public show of support for the Fatah faction in the heartland of its Islamist rival Hamas.

The rally passed without incident, though Gaza's militant Hamas rulers have in the past blocked and violently dispersed demonstrations in solidarity with President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party. The Palestinian parties have been bitterly divided between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip for 15 years.

Crowds marched to Gaza City's Katiba park, waving the yellow flags of Fatah, which Arafat founded in the 1960s. They also raised photos of Abbas, Arafat’s successor.

Arafat died in 2004 at a hospital in France after two years of an Israeli siege on his West Bank headquarters. Palestinians accuse Israel of poisoning him but have offered no proof, adding to the mystery surrounding the death.

For Fatah, the ability to mobilize the masses serves as a referendum on its popularity in Hamas-run Gaza. In 2007, Hamas routed pro-Abbas forces and seized the territory after a bloody week of street fighting.

   FALSE FLAG 

Related video: Hamas colluding with Israel secretly? Two people held in Gaza after rockets target Jewish State  Duration 2:44  View on Watch

The reputation of Hamas, which administers Gaza under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade and the threat of repeated destructive conflicts with Israel, has suffered among Palestinians in recent years. The group has hiked taxes on residents but struggled to provide even basic services. Four wars with Israel and the 15-year blockade have devastated Gaza’s economy.

In a recorded message played at the rally, Abbas called for Palestinian unity to ease the blockade. Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent Hamas from stockpiling arms. Critics view it as a form of collective punishment, confining the territory’s 2 million people to what Palestinians often refer to as the world’s largest open-air prison.

“We feel the suffering of our people under the oppressive siege,” Abbas said. “This pain and agony will not end unless the division, which took our cause backward, ends.”

Hamas does not easily grant permits for such Fatah demonstrations in its territory. In 2007, a few months after taking over Gaza, Hamas attacked Arafat’s anniversary rally and killed six Palestinians. In 2014, authorities prevented Fatah from holding another gathering.

But at the height of Egyptian efforts to reconcile the Palestinian factions and end the enduring political and geographical schism in 2017, Hamas allowed Fatah to hold an Arafat celebration.

Last month, officials from Hamas and Fatah held a new round of reconciliation talks in Algeria and signed an outline for an agreement that would pave the way for elections. But few are optimistic the factions can overcome their differences, as they have failed to implement past deals.

From news to politics, travel to sport, culture to climate – The Independent has a host of free newsletters to suit your interests. To find the stories you want to read, and more, in your inbox, click here.

SECURITY STATISM
Israel admits that the Shin Bet has collected telephone information from professionals entitled to immunity

The Israeli government has admitted that its national intelligence service, the Shin Bet, has used databases of cell phone companies to monitor the activities of journalists, as well as other professionals trained to protect privileged information, such as doctors or clergy, and in operations sometimes only tangentially related to counter-terrorism.


F Israeli military man. - Ilia Yefimovich/dpa

This was announced by the government in response to a petition filed with the Supreme Court by the NGO Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), in which it asked the court to remove a clause in the law regulating Shin Bet's operations concerning its power to require operators to hand over information on calls or messages.

The law, passed in 2002, has been criticized for its semi-clandestine nature since it is not subject to public scrutiny, although the head of the Shin Bet is obliged to ask permission from the Prime Minister and the Attorney General every three months, and once a year before a committee of the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset).

The Supreme Court is now reviewing the regulation since, in ACRI's view, it commits a number of unconstitutional errors by involving an invasion of privacy and taking away from journalists, for example, their right to protection of their sources.

The government now has three months to inform the Supreme Court whether or not it decides to amend the law, reports the newspaper 'Haaretz', although the Israeli state has already asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition on the grounds that "this data collection is vital to the agency's operations" and "has already provided essential help in dismantling terrorist attacks and saving lives".

However, the Israeli state has admitted that these requests have been applied to professionals who often enjoy immunity or protection, such as lawyers, doctors or even clergymen, although it clarifies that it does not necessarily examine all the information collected.

For example, the Israeli government has admitted that it has collected information from professionals with "immunity" some five or six times a year over the past decade, which ACRI believes, particularly in the case of journalists, poses an enormous danger to the reporters' sources.

This is why ACRI argues that the Shin Bet often acts far from the anti-terrorist sphere, as also happens when it begins to gather information in criminal investigations, which are more typical of the police sphere. In this specific case, the Israeli government guarantees that the Shin Bet dissociates itself from these investigations as soon as it perceives that they do not fall within its competence.

LIKE, WHY BOTHER

It is pointless for Israel to phase out fossil fuels for green energy

By WALTER BINGHAM 
The Jerusalem Post

IDF soldiers walk in front of wind turbines close to the Israeli-Syrian border in the Golan Heights.

 (photo credit: NIR ELIAS/REUTERS)

The world is being deceived into believing that fossil fuel can be phased out, and that this would provide a greener environment. Well, I have my doubts, so let us examine the facts.

The best example is California, which has legislated to end the sale of gasoline-driven cars in 2026 so that by 2035 only electric cars will be on the roads. Sounds good, doesn’t it? On the surface, yes; but when one looks at the implications, the hoax soon becomes apparent.

The general idea is that there will be no more mining of expendable minerals that will harm our environment.

But the main constituents of electric car batteries are lithium, cobalt and nickel. They are minerals that are obtained by mining. The battery of a Tesla Model S, for example, uses around 12 kg. of lithium. Not to mention the world’s mobile electronic devices like laptops and telephones.

Today, there are more than 14 million cars registered in California. Even if this number would not increase by 2035 and they were all electric, imagine the number of batteries that would be required. What happens to them at the end of their useful life? Will the residue go back into the ground and pollute the water tables? And where does the power for the mining of the minerals come from? The countries with the major deposits of lithium are Chile, Argentina, Australia and China. Most have struggled with political dysfunction and financial crises, and their regimes are unpredictable and could withhold supplies if they considered it politically expedient.



Leviathan natural gas field. 

It is interesting that the movement for environmental protection is selective in its application. To those who shout loudest for the phasing out of fossil fuels, it does not seem to matter to that electricity production in China relies 65% on coal and is still constructing new mines, Argentina’s energy derives 60% from fossil fuels, and that Chile’s renewable energy amounts to just 11.4%. Here I quote the words of Israel’s Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg: “In order to minimize the percentage of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and prevent the continuation of global warming, we must make sure that we’re not harming nature.... A solution that is meant to solve one problem by creating other problems is not a real solution.”

“In order to minimize the percentage of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and prevent the continuation of global warming, we must make sure that we’re not harming nature.... A solution that is meant to solve one problem by creating other problems is not a real solution.”Israeli Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg
So how can we solve this problem?

One renewable source of energy are wind turbines. You’ve seen pictures of them scattered about the landscape. Those tall towers with large propellers. Most onshore wind turbines in the US have a capacity of up to 2,75 MW (mega watt). That sounds good until you realize that according to the US Energy Information Administration, the average household in the United States uses about 9,600 kilowatt-hours per year.

Just imagine how many of these monstrosities are needed to service just one town, and their output depends only on the wind.

Without the wind, it is like a bicycle that nobody rides – it is available but not spinning. Of course, to be realistic, wind turbines are not the only source of renewable energy. There is also solar and nuclear.

A key challenge facing the wind industry is the experience that turbines adversely affect wild animals both directly, via collisions, and indirectly due to noise pollution, habitat loss, and reduced survival or reproduction. Among the most impacted wildlife are birds and bats, which by eating destructive insects provide billions of dollars of economic benefits to the country’s agriculture.

Currently, Israel has about 50 operating wind turbines, mainly in the Golan Heights and the Jezreel Valley area in the North. The National Infrastructure Council has given the green light for the erection of seven new mega wind turbines that will tower over the Golan at the height of around 200 meters, even taller than Tel Aviv’s cylindrical Azrieli Towers. The energy production of these individual solar or wind plants are localized time and weather-dependent. Is their construction in the Golan sensible when, in the current political climate, they would be an easy target for the enemy?

In Israel, the advantages of wind power are relatively negligible compared to the potential for harm to nature, which is high. And here I repeat the words of Tamar Zandberg: “A solution that is meant to solve one problem by creating other problems is not a real solution.”

As part of God’s creation, the sun is the source of all life. The amount of sunlight that strikes the Earth’s surface in an hour and a half is enough to handle the entire world’s energy consumption for a full year. There are several methods to harness this renewable source of energy.

In Israel, it is usual for most homes to install a solar-heated water system on the roof, consisting of a solar panel and a water tank. As hot water is drawn from the top of the tank, cold water flows in from the bottom. One can also cover the roof of the house with panels that will convert the sunlight into electricity to run the house. Any surplus can be fed into the national grid and produce financial credit.

Very simply explained, to use solar energy commercially, large areas covered with solar panels are needed to cover the landscape. They absorb the sun’s energy and automatically beam it to a central point of a tower, where the conversion process takes place. Here, too, the blight on the landscape to satisfy national demand would far exceed tolerable levels.

Then there is nuclear power, which opponents call an accident waiting to happen or, as its supporters claim, is the solution to clean renewable energy.

And that brings me back to the example of California and its administration’s naïve ideals.

Their last nuclear plant, which was scheduled to fully shut down by 2025, has been given renewed life for another five years after the governor warned that the state could face rolling blackouts if its twin reactors were retired too soon.

So, has California bitten off more than it can chew? How will it satisfy the increased demand for electricity?

Most electric car drivers will want to plug in their batteries at the end of the day, to be ready for the next day’s activities.

That, in addition to the usual domestic and industrial demand on the electricity grid during the evening hours. The load on the grid would be unimaginable, and so would the consequences.

For their largest part of in-state electricity generation, California relies on natural gas. They already import 95% of their requirements via interstate pipelines from the Southwest, the Rocky Mountains, and Canada. The increased financial burden of their program would be incalculable. But there’s more! By implementing their carbon-free solution, they are creating a near economic disaster. Just think of the implications. All gas stations would have to close. Many thousands of their employees would be added to the unemployment figures. To compensate for the loss of gas tax revenue, electricity tax would surely have to be increased, an additional burden on the poor and the non-car owners.

Then there are the millions who rely on their older cars and cannot afford to lose them and purchase new electric vehicles, which are far more expensive than gas-fueled cars.

Think of the many owner-drivers of taxi cabs, to mention just some effects of the green revolution. I’m sure you can think of several more.

To what extent should Israel be required to take part in the effort to halt global warming and save the environment?

The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs describes Israel’s discovery of natural gas fields in Israel’s Eastern Mediterranean offshore areas as having “moderated the country’s total dependence on energy imports. Israel’s crude oil production is minuscule, and there are no known coal reserves. Oil demand in Israel, especially in the transportation sector, is met by imports, which makes it vulnerable to the vagaries of global oil supply. Crude oil constitutes about 50 percent of Israel’s total oil imports. Natural gas, however, has provided a potential solution to Israel’s energy security concerns. It has become the “fuel of choice” in electricity generation and has crowded out coal as the dominant energy source.”

The Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) builds, owns, maintains, and operates power generation stations and sub-stations, as well as transmission and distribution networks. Currently, it has 15 power stations with 52 generating units:16 are steam-driven, 25 are gas turbines, and 11 are combined-cycle units.

Steam-driven turbines require the burning of a fuel such as coal, petroleum fuel oil, or combustible waste. Gas turbines heat a mixture of air and gas at very high temperatures, causing the turbine blades to spin. The spinning turbine drives a generator that converts the energy into electricity.

There are, of course, several types of gas turbines. The most efficient is the combined-cycle power system, which uses a gas turbine to drive an electrical generator and recovers waste heat from the turbine’s exhaust to generate steam. The steam is then fed into a steam turbine to provide additional electricity. Israel also has three independent power stations, all run on gas.

Apart from providing vital energy security, Israel hopes that its offshore gas resources can serve as a diplomatic tool to improve relations with its Arab neighbors, that shared economic benefits through gas trade will promote cooperation with regional countries and mitigate conflicts that have long informed the political landscape of the region.

I believe that Israel is about to prepare a master plan for 2050, which will serve as a basis for planning the economy. The purpose is to examine, from a broad and long-term perspective, the entire range of considerations and to determine Israel’s energy policy, including the mix of energy sources, in line with its international commitments, in particular the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the global temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above pre-industrial levels by the year 2100.

But in the medium term, there is no need for little Israel to commit to the large investment needed to phase out the use of fossil fuels, to convert the complete transportation sector to electric power, and put a large burden of taxation on the population. Our percentage of air pollution is minuscule compared to that of China, a country that is 437 time larger than Israel and is at this moment constructing new coal mines.

Russia is 779 times the size of Israel and is supplying its satellites with oil. Even Biden’s United States is still mining some coal.

Because Israel’s impact on a “greener” world would be extremely small, our country is justified in waiting for the superpowers to lead the way. ■

Walter Bingham, who is 98, holds two Guinness World Records as the oldest working journalist and radio broadcaster in the world.

ZIONIST FASCIST SCHMUCK

Jerusalem deputy mayor hoping to encourage non-Jews to leave Israel

AFTER ELECTION OF FASCISTS TO KNESSET 

By TZVI JOFFRE - Yesterday 

Jerusalem deputy mayor Aryeh King is helping an anonymous philanthropist build a program to "help" non-Jews emigrate from Israel, the deputy mayor announced on Facebook on Wednesday.

THE FASCISTS EMBARASS OTHER ZIONISTS

Jerusalem City Council member Aryeh King poses for a picture in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, in Jerusalem on October 22, 2014© (photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

"A Jewish Zionist philanthropist contacted me, he is looking for a manager with a can-do attitude, for the benefit of a business initiative whose purpose is to encourage the emigration of non-Jews, outside the borders of the Land of Israel. The intention is to encourage non-Jews to relocate outside the borders of our country," wrote King.


"If you are suitable, contact me (in a private Facebook message, Messenger) and we will arrange a meeting with the representative of the philanthropist."

103FM's Ben Caspit and Aryeh Eldad interviewed King about the post, comparing it to a "laundered" version of a proposal by former tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi to transfer Palestinians to Arab nations in the region.



Jerusalem City Council member Aryeh King walks in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, in Jerusalem on October 22, 2014, (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)© Provided by The Jerusalem PostJerusalem City Council member Aryeh King walks in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, in Jerusalem on October 22, 2014, (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

Ze'evi's plan was to encourage Arabs and Palestinians to emigrate by either reaching an agreement to transfer populations with other countries or to "encourage" them to leave with incentives and by making their lives more difficult in Israel.

"It's very much not laundered. It is most clear and clean, like our Law of Return. Essentially the idea comes from the Law of Return. The Law of Return is a racist law, it doesn't allow everyone to immigrate to Israel. So we said, anyone to whom the Law of Return doesn't apply and is already in Israel, we'll encourage him - by helping him find work or studies or any other way - to leave the country. Win-win," said King to 103FM.

"During the time of Benny Elon, I was the head of the Moledet branch in Jerusalem and then we founded an organization called 'Hagar,' on the name of Hagar, the Egyptian, the mother of Ishmael, and the whole idea we took from there. Ishmael and Yitzhak didn't get along and there was no other option besides telling Hagar and her son, Ishamel, to leave."

Elon was a leader in the Moledet movement and proposed having Palestinians and Arabs relocated to Arab countries and the establishment of a Palestinian state in Jordan. In the early 2000's, Elon worked with right-wing leader Rabbi Shlomo Aviner to promote a program to pay Palestinian refugees $50,000 to $100,000 each to emigrate to other countries.

King rejected claims that he wanted an "Arab-free" Israel.

"There will always be Arabs here. There will always be Christians here. But do you know how many Israelis with a blue identity card live in the US? Almost a million. This is very substantial because if we have over a million Israelis living in Europe and the US."

King stressed that this was a private initiative unrelated to the government and aims to make money by offering services that non-Jewish residents can pay to help them relocate and find work abroad. The initiative does not intend to pay the residents relocating.

In an interview with Army Radio, the deputy mayor pointed out that "For several years, Jews have been encouraged to 'transfer' - there are companies that target Jews with relocation offers, there are no companies that target Arabs. Those who believe that this is our country have nothing to be ashamed of in encouraging it."

"It is more important to me that the country be Jewish than democratic."Jerusalem deputy mayor Aryeh King

"It is not written in the Declaration of Independence that Israel is a democratic state, it is a Jewish state where the minority has rights. It is more important to me that the country be Jewish than democratic," added King.

While the Israeli Declaration of Independence does not mention the word "democracy," it does state that the State of Israel will "ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex" and to provide "full and equal citizenship and due representation" to Arab citizens.

Despite King's initiatives and other similar initiatives in the past, up to 6,000 Arab and Palestinian households have actually been brought into Israel since 1948 in return for cooperating with Israeli settlers or the Israeli government, according to a 2019 report by Haaretz.

Journalists, social media users express outrage at King's initiative

The post sparked shock from many social media users and journalists.

Israeli Arab journalist Zuhair Bahalul called King's initiative "a distinctly racist, trans-religious call that is fed by messianic ideology," in an interview with 103FM.

Commenters on the post expressed outrage at the initiative, with some even comparing it to Nazi Germany.

"As a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and an olah chadasha - I am appalled by this. How on earth are we supposed to advance Israel when politicians are taking hints from German pre Holocaust policy?!? How are you not entirely embarrassed by this racism!?!" wrote one commenter.

Another commenter expressed outrage that King chose to publish such a post on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

U.S. condemns visit by Israeli right-wing extremist Ben Gvir to Kahane memorial

The United States on Thursday condemned the visit of Israeli right-winger Ben Gvir to a memorial event for extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was assassinated in 1990.


Far-right extremist Itamar Ben Gvir at a memorial ceremony for

 extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane in Jerusalem, Israel. - Ilia Yefimovich/dpa

The State Department has spoken out in this case in the Biden Administration's first criticism of Zionist party leader Otzma Yehudit, who aspires to become Israel's next security minister.

"Celebrating the legacy of a terrorist organization is abhorrent; there is no other word for it. It is abhorrent," said Department spokesman Ned Price.

Related video: Israel's new government to be led by Benjamin Netanyahu
Duration 2:39  View on Watch

Price also said U.S. officials are concerned about the legacy of Kahane Chai, an anti-Arab group founded by Meir Kahane's son, Binyamin Kahane, which advocated the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"We have condemned incitement, we have condemned violence and racism in all its forms," the Department spokesman maintained, after expressing unease at the "continued use of rhetoric by violent right-wing extremists."

In this sense, he considered that "there is a good reason" to continue designating Kahane Chai as a 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist' (SDGT), despite the fact that he has clarified that he is not included in the list of foreign terrorist organizations, due to the group's inactivity.

"We urge all parties to remain calm, exercise restraint and refrain from actions that only serve to exacerbate tensions, and that includes Jerusalem," Price added.

Gvir has been booed at the rabbi's 32nd birthday ceremony when he indicated that he does not "agree with all of his views." However, he justified his attendance "for the love of Israel" and the "struggle of the Soviet Union and against anti-Semitism," he explained in a message on his Twitter profile.