AU CONTRAIRE

Nicaragua’s Opposition Media Welcome Trump’s New Tariffs

And ignore how they were calculated

by John Perry / April 7th, 2025

Five countries in Central America, together with the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean, have a free trade agreement with Washington, but this didn’t protect them from the punitive tariffs announced on President Trump’s “Liberation Day.”

A minimum 10 per cent tariff on exports to the US will hit low-income countries throughout the region. But exports from Nicaragua have been saddled with an even higher tariff of 18 per cent. Delighted opponents of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government have blamed it, rather than Trump, for the country receiving this additional penalty. However, simple examination of the figures shows that Nicaragua’s tariff was calculated in the same way as every other country’s.

Before examining the opposition media’s error-strewn reports, this article first explains the background: how the tariff was set, whether it is legitimate and how US-Nicaragua trade is changing. Then it turns to the opposition’s mistakes and explains how they are using Trump’s actions to bolster their attacks on Nicaragua’s government and people.

How the tariffs were set

Trump’s chart of tariffs has two sets of figures for each country: the “tariffs charged to the USA” and the “reciprocal tariffs” to be imposed this month. Bizarrely, the “tariffs charged to the USA” do not relate to actual tariffs charged on US imports. Instead, they are the product of a calculation based on each country’s trade gap with the US. For most countries, the value of these “tariffs charged” has been set at 10 per cent, on the basis that the US has no trade deficit with them, or only a small one. All of these countries (including Nicaragua’s neighbors) are hit with a “reciprocal tariff” of 10 per cent on their exports to the US, from this month onwards, even if they buy more from the US than they sell to it.

However, a higher “tariff charged” is calculated for countries with which the US is judged to have a bigger trade deficit. For each country, the White House looked up the deficit for its trade with the US in goods for 2024, then divided that by the total value of the country’s exports to the US. Trump, to be “kind”, said he would offer a discount, so halved that figure. The calculation was distilled into a formula.

For example, these are the figures for China:

1. Goods trade deficit (exports from the US minus imports): – $291.9 billion
2. Total goods imported to the US from China: $438.9 billion
3. A ÷ B = – 0.67, or 67 per cent
4. Half of this is 34 per cent, the new tariff being applied to China.

Based on this formula, the small African country of Lesotho was saddled with the highest “reciprocal tariff” of 50 per cent, while several major SE Asian countries were also hit with very high tariffs.

How Nicaragua’s tariff was calculated

Nicaragua’s “reciprocal tariff” was calculated in the same way. According to US trade figures, in 2024 US goods exports to Nicaragua were $2.9 billion, while US goods imports from Nicaragua totaled $4.6 billion. The US goods trade deficit with Nicaragua was therefore – $1.7 billion in 2024.

The calculation was therefore: trade deficit (- $1.7 billion) ÷ imports ($4.6 billion) = – 0.37, or 37 per cent, halved to produce a “reciprocal tariff” of 18 per cent.

This means that from April 9, there will be a new tax of 18 per cent on Nicaraguan goods sent to the US, payable as a customs duty on their arrival by the company or agency importing the goods.

How Nicaragua might contest the tariff

It seems unlikely that Trump will bend to pressure on the tariffs. However, at least in theory, there are three ways in which Nicaragua might argue that the tariff is wrongly imposed:

1. Nicaragua’s Central Bank shows a smaller trade gap with the US. According to the Central Bank’s figures for 2024, Nicaragua’s exports to the US totaled $3.7 billion, not $4.6 billion, while its imports from the US totaled $2.7 billion, giving a trade gap of $1 billion, not $1.7 billion. On the basis of Trump’s tariff formula, the result should have been a 14 per cent tariff, not 18 per cent, if Nicaragua’s trade figures are correct. (A possible explanation for the difference may be the way that goods, originating in Nicaragua, are processed in other Central American countries before arrival in the US.)
2. Although most Central American countries import more from the US than they export to it, Costa Rica also has a trade surplus with the US, amounting to $2 billion, bigger than Nicaragua’s, yet it is only being penalized by the standard “reciprocal tariff” (10 per cent).
3. Most importantly, as the Guatemalan government pointed out, under the CAFTA-DR trade treaty new tariffs are illegal (under both US federal and international law). The treaty prohibits new tariffs or customs duties between the seven member countries. Therefore, all six of the other countries that are parties to CAFTA-DR are entitled to challenge the US for breaching it.

Action by CAFTA-DR members is complicated by the fact that Nicaragua is not only worst hit by the tariffs but is also a country that the US would like to exclude from the treaty completely, a point picked up below.

Changing significance of Nicaraguan exports to the US

Nicaragua’s Central Bank divides its trade figures between “merchandise” and products from free trade zones (principally, apparel). This, as we will see, confused the opposition media. This is the breakdown:

• Exports of merchandise (e.g. gold, coffee, meat, etc.) totaled $4.2 billion in 2024, with the US accounting for 38.7 per cent of these, or $1.62 billion.
• Exports from free trade zones were lower ($3.5 billion) but the proportion going to the US was much higher (59 per cent, or £2.08 billion).
• Of Nicaragua’s total exports, at $7.7 billion, $3.7 billion went to the US (48 per cent).
• Exports provide 39 per cent of Nicaragua’s annual income or GDP.
• Exports to the US therefore account for a significant 18 per cent of GDP.

These figures exclude services, such as tourism and transport, where trade between Nicaragua and the US is roughly in balance (unlike Guatemala and Honduras, with whom the US has a strong trade surplus in services).

Exports to the US have fallen slowly from over 50 per cent of the total two years ago, as the government looks for other markets. Exports to the Republic of China, for example, were four times higher in 2024 than in 2022, but (at $68 million) are still a small proportion. There are other growing export markets, of which the most notable is Canada (now the second biggest buyer of Nicaraguan merchandise).

The Nicaraguan government’s response to the tariffs is likely to involve continued efforts to diversify trade and keeping a watchful eye on the effects on different sectors of the economy. Producers of products like coffee and gold may be less affected as they already have diverse markets. On the other hand the apparel sector, which until this month enjoyed zero tariffs on its $2 billion exports to the US, is geared to the US market and might find greater difficulty in mitigating the tariff’s effects.

Celebration and misinformation in opposition media

Nicaragua’s opposition media, long financed by the US government, admit that they have been hit by Elon Musk’s cuts. How they are now funded is unclear. However, prominent opposition activists enjoy salaried employment in US universities and think tanks, where they call for sanctions that would hit poor Nicaraguans. Naturally, they welcomed Trump’s announcement.

Errors in reporting on the tariffs showed opposition journalists’ unfamiliarity with Nicaragua’s economy. Confidencial, in a piece translated and reproduced in the Havana Times, claimed that the tariff imposed on Nicaragua ignored a trade surplus “of $484 million in favor of the US” which “has been growing in recent years.” This completely ignored exports to the US from the free trade zones. The same error was made a day later by Despacho 505.

According to Confidencial, the reason for the higher tariff on Nicaragua (and on Venezuela, hit with a 15 per cent tariff) was to punish their authoritarian governments. In reality, the higher tariffs on both countries resulted from the application of Trump’s formula, but this deliberate misrepresentation was to be repeated.

In an “analysis” for Confidencial on April 4, Manuel Orozco painted the 18 per cent tariff as specifically aimed at the Nicaraguan “dictatorship” (again, linking it with Venezuela). Orozco is a former Nicaraguan now living in Washington, working for the Inter-American Dialogue, an NGO funded by the US government and its arms industry. It is most unlikely that he was unaware of how the tariff was calculated; misleading his readers strengthened his argument that the higher tariff was a purely political move.

Further articles in Despacho 505 and Articulo 66 also blamed political factors without explaining the arithmetic behind the tariff. In La Prensa, activist Felix Maradiaga wrongly remarked that the US accounts for over 60 per cent of Nicaragua’s exports. According to him, the supposed weakness of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government means the country will struggle to cope (he disregards its remarkable resilience in dealing with the much heavier economic consequences of the 2018 coup attempt and the 2020 pandemic).

Then, also in Confidencial, opposition activist Juan Sebastián Chamorro made the claim that the new tariffs, which of course he welcomes, are entirely compatible with the CAFTA-DR trade treaty. He argued that Washington’s action is justified on grounds of “national security.” This echoes the absurd classification of Nicaragua (during the first Trump administration, continued by Biden) as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

Opposition media are trying to present the new tariff as the first round of the stronger sanctions on Nicaragua that they have been urging Washington to adopt. They do this regardless of their illegality under the CAFTA-DR trade treaty or wider international law. The possibility of going further – excluding Nicaragua from the treaty – was trailed by Trump’s Latin America envoy, Mauricio Claver-Carone, in January, although he was careful to note the difficulties. But if this were to happen it would delight the opposition even further.

Obsessed with promoting regime change in Managua, these anti-Sandinista activists disregard the effects of tariffs and trade sanctions on ordinary Nicaraguans. On “Liberation Day” Trump showed his indifference to the millions of people in low-income countries whose livelihoods depend on producing food and other products for export to the US. The likes of Orozco, Maradiaga and Chamorro behave in just the same way.

Image credit: Trump on “Liberation Day” [Photo: White House]

FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

John Perry is based in Masaya, Nicaragua and writes for several independent media. Read other articles by John.

 

Student Protests Continue in Indonesia

by Max Lane / April 7th, 2025

Over the last several weeks, demonstrations have erupted across Indonesia. They were reported  in Medan (North Sumatra), Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Solo, Malang, Surabaya, Makassar and, no doubt, they erupted in other towns as well. Although these demonstrations have not been massive, – ranging from a few hundred to one or two thousand people, they have been notably militant. The incidents include a police post being set on fire, street clashes between students and police, students breaking down gates of government buildings and shattering the Parliament’s compound walls, and the use of few Molotov cocktails. The police have used water cannons and resorted to beatings  to disperse some demonstrations. Meanwhile, the government, unanimously backed by the Parliament, has been downplaying the unrest, yet it is unable to ignore the uprising. The demonstrations, which have been going on for several weeks, continue as we near the end of March.

Agus Suwage (Indonesia), Circus of Democracy I, 1997.

The protests are not limited to students, they reflect the broader sentiment among the public. Coalitions of non-government organisations, trade unions, and other civil society groups have issued statements echoing the concerns of the students. Academics and public intellectuals have also articulated similar criticism.

The demonstrations were broadly  held under the banner or slogan: “Indonesia Gelap” (Indonesia is Dark), reflecting the bitter and angry sentiments about the state of the country.

What has triggered the demonstrations? What lies behind this sentiment?

The demonstrations were triggered by the accelerated passing of a new law in the Parliament, regarding the Indonesian Army. The part of the new law that has attracted the most hostility is the expansion of the list of civil institutions where military officers can be appointed. While the list has not been drastically increased, to 16, it comes at a time when more military officials, often cronies of President Prabowo, are being placed key positions, both within and outside the scope of the Law.  Some of the military cronies have also been placed in crucial economic of business positions. These moves are perceived by the protesters as the first steps towards returning to the military-backed crony capitalist rule, one that ruled Indonesia from 1965 until 1998. This period began with the mass slaughter of Indonesia’s communists and Sukarnoist leftists, it led to a near totalitarian rule for 32 years. It is under such a rule that  a class of crony capitalists emerged throughout the country, with bog conglomerates at the top of the crony pyramid.

Taring Padi (Indonesia), in the name of resistance we fight till the end, 2023.

The students, NGOs and academics are protesting against the moves of the ruling elite who are turning back in that direction.

The banner “Indonesia is Dark” is not only a reflection of anger because people believe Indonesia is sliding back into the corrupt, militarist, crony capitalist period of the past. It is an expression that the “darkness” has already  arrived for the mass of the people and for democracy. Over the past several weeks, many horrific corruption scandals have come to light. The scandals mount to hundreds of millions of dollars, involving the Pertamina (the state oil company) as well as operations in the banking sector, palm oil sector, import and export segments and others. These cases were suddenly exposed by the Attorney-General’s Department and by the Corruption Eradication Commission.

Being exposed one after the other, without any pause, over the past several weeks, these scandals have widely revealed the extent of corrupt relations between government officials and the private sector. In December, the Corruption Eradication Commission raided the residence of an official of the Supreme Court, who accused of taking bribes from business interests, and found tens of millions of dollars’ worth of cash and 51 kilograms of gold. The exposure of these cases 25 years after the fall of the notoriously corrupt President Suharto has deepened the sense of worsening “darkness” with absolutely no signs of lessening corruption.

The fear that the situation would worsen has intensified with President Prabowo’s announcement of the creation of a new state-holding company, Danantara which he will directly oversee. It would include a company owned by his own brother, and members of his cabinet and close business associates , will hold key positions within the Danantara. Former Presidents Yudhoyono and Widodo, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin have been appointed as advisors. This includes the plan that dividends from all public companies, estimated to be US$980 billion, will need to be surrendered to the company. The company’s funds are supposed to be used to finance more upstream production projects in the country. Given that it is under the direct control of Prabowo and his close circle, however fantastic the idea may seem on paper, it is viewed as a situation of never-ending corruption and cronyism, and people do not trust the government’s plans. This decision comes after almost a year of the government, first under Widodo and then Prabowo, granting coal mining licences to secure political support from private players, including religious organisations and universities.

Meanwhile, Prabowo gains military backing by making the currently serving and ex-military officers in-charge of government project with large budgets. Such as the welfare program providing lunch to school students or a major Food Estate project in Papua.

Heri Dono (Indonesia), Bull VS Pistol, 1984.

At the same time, the feeling of engulfing “darkness” is exacerbated by the sudden announcement of huge budget cuts in the name of efficiency, which have affected the functioning of several ministries. It has worsened the working conditions of public servants who lose lighting and air-conditioning for some parts of the day or have fewer equipment to work with. The funds from these cuts have been diverted to some private sectors for their services to the ministries, such as the transport sector.

Meanwhile, the state has imposed more burdens on the people, such as increasing the application fee for two-wheeler license.. These trends are accompanied by increase in unemployment. There have been announcements of layoffs in manufacturing and textiles industries as the businesses are shutting shop due to loss. Media reports estimate 40,000 layoffs over the past several weeks.

The “Indonesia in Darkness” protests, petitions and statements are not the only manifestation of the sense of “darkness” and political despair. Another response that went viral on social media, was the cry “Kabur aja dulu” (Let’s Get of Here First), suggesting an escape overseas. Of course, this sentiment resonates with the millions of Indonesia’s poor who have been forced to seek work abroad, often working as maids or coolies in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Middle East for several decades. However, there is a positive side to “Indonesia in Darkness,” it is accompanied by a word popularised in the poetry of the disappeared poet of the 1990s, Wiji Thukul: “Lawan!” (Resist!). While one side of the darkness is answered with Escape, the other side bravely calls for Fight!

The most recent wave of demonstrations has shared the call: “The Army Should Stay in Their Barracks”. Notably, the first wave of the “Indonesia in Darkness” protests had no specific demands. But the following waves have so far raised nine demands under the Dark Indonesian banner, which include: review President Prabowo’s budget cuts; change the Mineral and Coal Mining Law that allowed arbitrary allocation of mining licences; reject the Army’s interference in civilian affairs, and more transparency in development projects and taxes and imposts on the common people.

Agung Kurniawan (Indonesia), Very, Very Happy Victims, 1996.

A defining feature of these demonstrations is their largely spontaneous character, organised by local coalitions of students and NGOs, with each town having its distinct pattern. However, the slogans and demands are shared nationally, with no national organisation of mass resistance or opposition. The political opposition in the country remains dispersed, lacking unified organisation, strong leadership or a clear ideological perspective. Many are aware of this challenge, and the constructive discussions are unfolding among student groups, workers and farmers unions, democratic rights campaign organisations, feminist groups, political formations and others. Their discussions also focus on the unity of progressive forces. Some of this discussion is already formal, while others underway are informal in setting. The emergence of a national leadership and organisations would accelerate the current ferment and could alter the whole political framework. As of now, Indonesia, without a progressive opposition, is in a state of hiatus, waiting for the necessary jolt for the next step.

FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Max Lane is an Australia based writer and activist. He is a Founding Member of the Red Spark. Dr Lane is also a Senior Fellow at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Read other articles by Max.

 

Mainstream Undercounting 0.6 Million Gaza Deaths

Open Letter To Australian MPs

by Gideon Polya / April 7th, 2025

Dear Honorable Member,

Australians will vote to elect a new Federal Government on 3 May 2025. For decent Australians the major issue is the Gaza Genocide, the US-backed, Zionist Israeli mass murder of about 0.6 million Indigenous Palestinian children, mothers, women and men,  and unforgivable Mainstream Australian complicity in this appalling and ongoing atrocity. The Australian Labor Government with Coalition support has been complicit in the Gaza Genocide in 20 ways and lies for Apartheid Israel in 35 ways.

Mainstream media (with the exception of the Guardian and the Independent) undercount Gaza deaths by a factor of 10 – egregious genocide-ignoring, genocide-denial, holocaust-ignoring and holocaust-denial. Holocaust-ignoring is far, far worse than repugnant holocaust-denial because the latter at least permits public refutation and public debate (subject to Mainstream gate-keepers of course).

As of 20 January 2025, the expertly estimated 553,000 Gaza deaths from violence and imposed deprivation included 391,000 children, 52,000 women and 112,000 men. Palestinian deaths in the century-long Palestinian Genocide and Palestinian Holocaust now total 2.7 million, with 0.2 million being from violence and the remainder from imposed deprivation. Deaths in the WW2 Jewish Holocaust from violence and deprivation totalled 5-6 million (eminent Jewish Zionist British historian Professor Sir Martin Gilbert, Oxford University, Jewish History Atlas and Atlas of the Holocaust).

2025 Australian Election Fraud: Mainstream Australia ignores, minimizes and threatens truth-telling about the Gaza Genocide and Palestinian Holocaust.

Australia has an excellent compulsory and preferential voting system in which a valid vote for candidates for the government-determining  House of Representatives means recording preference for all candidates in numerical order, with second preferences being considered if a candidate fails to gain 50% or more of the primary vote. Australians will choose between Labor (presently in Government), the Liberal Party-National Party Coalition (presently in Opposition), pro-climate action Teal Independents, other Independents, and those protesting the Gaza Genocide — the Greens, Senator Lidia Thorpe, Senator Fatima Payman’s  Australia’s Voice party, and Socialists.

Of the present 226 Federal MPs (75 Senators and 151 Members of the  House of Representatives or MHRs) it appears that only the 15 Greens, ex-Green Senator Lidia Thorpe and ex-Labor Senator Fatima Payman  strongly demand an immediate end to the Killing and Occupation by genocidally racist Apartheid Israel – shame, Australia, shame. Labor voted at the UNGA for a Ceasefire and an end to the Occupation, for which it was condemned by the fervently pro-Israel Coalition and was also falsely condemned as “anti-Israel” and “anti-semitic” by Apartheid Israeli PM  Benjamin Netanyahu (for whom the International Criminal Court [ICC] has issued an arrest warrant for war crimes). However Labor shamefully Abstained from a UNGA Resolution demanding Israeli withdrawal within 1 year. The Coalition is far worse than Labor on the Gaza Genocide and unforgivably declared (like the US and Hungary) that it would not enforce ICC arrest warrants  for child-killing  Zionist Israeli war criminals Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.

Decent Australians are speaking out about the Gaza Genocide. Thus, for example, (1) Professor Stuart Rees (founder of the internationally prestigious Sydney Peace Prize and author of Cruelty or Humanity ) and colleagues ask that Australians should Vote for Humanity. (2) The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN): “Vote with Palestine. Palestine is on the ballot this election. With the federal election just weeks away, we have a crucial opportunity to elect representatives who will take a stand for justice and accountability. Together we can make ending Australia’s support for Israel’s genocide, apartheid and illegal occupation a priority at the ballot box. Sign the People’s Pledge for Palestine today, and your local election candidates will be notified.” (3) The anti-racist Jewish Council of Australia demands an end to the Killing and Occupation. (4) Over 500 anti-racist Jewish Australians endorsed a full-page Mainstream newspaper advertisement stating “Jewish Australians say NO to ethnic cleansing.” (5) For details of prominent anti-racist Jews including such Australian Jews, Google “Jews Against Racist Zionism.” (6) Hundreds of  anti-racist Jewish Australians protested the Gaza Genocide outside the Victorian Parliament wearing T-shirts stating (White text on Black): “JEWS for a FREE PALESTINE” – I wear this T-shirt everywhere and am gratified by the enthusiastic public support from total strangers, decent men and women of Australia. (7) Senator Fatima Payman’s “Australia’s Voice” party. (8) “Muslim Votes Matter.”

In 2024 I published a huge book, Gideon Polya, Free Palestine. End Apartheid Israel, Human Rights Denial, Gaza Massacre, Child Killing, Occupation & Palestinian Genocide. The sub-title lists 6 key actions for a Free Palestine for all its Jewish, Indigenous Palestinian and other inhabitants as well as the 7 million Exiled Palestinians who should be permitted to return to the country of their forebears for 4 millennia. Decent Australians simply cannot support candidates rejecting these humane propositions. The key action is “End… Human Rights Denial”: all human rights  can and should be immediately restored to all the Indigenous Palestinians by the simple stroke of a pen and this would be utterly unexceptional to decent people. However, the genocidally racist Zionists won’t agree to this: they want all the land of Palestine, plus other lands between the Nile and the Euphrates, but not the Indigenous inhabitants who are to be killed, expelled or confined forever to  crowded concentration camps.

Instead of demanding an immediate end to the Killing and Occupation, Federal and New South Wales Labor Government and Coalition Opposition MPs have excited “antisemitism hysteria”, and “terrorism hysteria” and passed draconian laws threatening critics of Australia-violating and genocidally racist  Apartheid Israel and its Zionist supporters with fines and imprisonment. The fervently Zionist  Victorian Labor Government and Coalition Opposition MPs promise more of the same. To Coalition-supported war criminal Netanyahu “anti-Israel” is “anti-Semitism” and support for “terrorism.” However, Australians criticizing  Apartheid Israel and its supporters now do so under the cloud of  a potential 2 years’ mandatory imprisonment for  asserted “anti-Semitism” and 6 years’ mandatory  imprisonment for asserted support for ”terrorism.” For 57 years Apartheid Israel has denied Occupied Palestinians all the human rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human  Rights and is now successfully threatening the free speech of Australians. With the collaboration of university vice chancellors this Zionist threat to free speech now extends to the academics and students of all 39 taxpayer-funded Australian universities, this also jeopardizing Australia’s huge A$40 billion per annum Education Export industry.

Backed by both Labor and the Coalition, Australia belongs to the all-European, genocide-complicit, anti-Semitic and holocaust-ignoring International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) that is anti-Jewish anti-Semitic and anti-Arab anti-Semitic by falsely defaming anti-racist Jews, Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims as assertedly “anti-Semitic” for condemning Apartheid Israeli crimes. The IHRA is also egregiously holocaust denying by ignoring all WW2 holocausts other than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust, notably (deaths from violence and imposed deprivation in brackets)  the WW2 Sinti and Roma Holocaust (1 million), the WW2 Polish Holocaust (6 million), the WW2 Soviet Holocaust (23 million), the European Holocaust (30 million), the WW2 Chinese Holocaust (35-40 million Chinese deaths under the Japanese, 1937-1945), and the WW2 Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Indian Holocaust, WW2 Bengal Famine; 6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death fort strategic reasons in Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Odisha by the British with food-denying Australian  complicity). Indeed the IHRA ignores some 70 genocides and holocausts (Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”, “US-imposed, Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” and “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”). Over 40 anti-racist Jewish organizations have rejected the  IHRA Definition of Antisemitism.

Instead of listening to the humane and expert opinions of numerous outstanding and patriotic anti-racist Jewish Australians from Sir Isaac Isaacs (first Australian-born  Governor General of Australia) to Professors Peter Singer, Dennis Altman and Eva Cox (Google “Jews Against Racist Zionism”), Labor, the Coalition and the Mainstream  (cowardly, stupid and ignorant at best) pander to the false and racist assertions of mendacious and fanatical Zionists with fervent support for Australia-violating Apartheid Israel. Of course those supporting Apartheid Israel are supporting the vile, neo-Nazi crime of Apartheid. Those supporting Apartheid are utterly unfit for decent company, public life and public office in a one-person-one-democracy like Australia.

I am a Jewish Holocaust-impacted,  anti-racist, Jewish Australian with a sole national allegiance to the land of my birth, Australia. I come from a very famous Ashkenazi Jewish Hungarian family (ask any mathematician or surgeon). Ashkenazi Jews represent most Jews and are not Semitic, descending from  non-Semitic Turkic Khazar converts to Judaism in about the 9th century CE. Indeed DNA analysis shows that I am mostly Ashkenazi Jewish but with zero Middle Eastern (Semitic)  contribution. Like other anti-racist Jews in Australia I am subject to vile, false and damaging defamation by Zionist fanatics. Anti-racist Jewish Australian are also subject to false defamation by Mainstream media and politicians who shamelessly ignore anti-Jewish anti-Semitism against anti-racist Jews (the very best of Jews) and routinely indulge in anti-Jewish anti-Semitism themselves by falsely conflating the  grossly human rights-violating and genocidal actions of Apartheid Israel with all Jews (this falsely defaming anti-racist Jews and tarnishing the wonderful 3 millennial Jewish humanitarian  tradition from the Ten Commandments and Jesus’ “love thy neighbour as thyself” to wonderful present-era Jewish humanitarians from Hannah Arendt to Howard Zinn).

Zionist and pro-Zionist holocaust denial: Mainstream undercounting of 0.6 million Gaza Genocide deaths from violence and deprivation. 

Data published by expert epidemiologists in the leading medical journal The Lancet  indicate that 64,260 Gazans had been killed violently in 9 months i.e. 110,670 by 20 January 2025 (after 15.5 months of killing). However  also estimated in The Lancet, deaths from imposed deprivation may exceed violent deaths by a factor of 4 times i.e. 442,680 by 20 January 2025 (the start of the now Israeli-broken Ceasefire). It is thus estimated that deaths from violence and imposed deprivation total 553,000 (23% of the pre-Gaza Massacre Gaza population of 2.4 million).

Because infants are highly vulnerable, under-5 infant deaths represent 70% of avoidable deaths from deprivation in impoverished countries (Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”), and it can be estimated that  the 553,000 Gazan deaths from violence and imposed deprivation by 20 January 2025 include 391,000 children, 52,000 women and 112,000 men. Indeed US President Trump  informed by the immense informational resources of the American State has asserted that only 1.7 million Gazans  remain and because 0.1 million have fled to Egypt this implies that 0.6 million have been killed, this being in agreement with the estimates from data published in The Lancet.

Danish analyst and author Søren Roest Korsgaard has estimated 810,204 Gaza deaths by 4 April 2025 using the median value of 5.2 non-violent deaths per violent death from 13 conflicts, this corresponding to 698,000 Gaza deaths by 20 January 2025 (Søren Roest Korsgaard, “Quick analysis: Counting the Dead in Gaza,” Rethink Government, April, 2025).

However Western Mainstream media ignore the estimate of about 0.6 million Gaza deaths deriving from the data of expert analyses published in the leading medical journal The Lancet and instead overwhelmingly presently report a 10-fold underestimate of about 50,000 Gaza deaths.

Famed American consumer advocate and social analyst Ralph Nader has commented cogently on this extraordinary “undercounting” of Gaza deaths in interview with famed anti-racist Jewish American journalist Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!)  and in an analysis published in the August/September 2024 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen and placed on the US Congressional Record: “The following probative evidence and professional assessments point to a death toll of over 300,000 Palestinians in Gaza with that number at least doubling by end of the year. Why then is the reviled Hamas’ official death count now at about 41,000, accepted by the mass media and most governments, regardless of their view for or against the genocide in Gaza? Hamas is vested in an undercount to temper accusations by their own people that it has not protected them. (Hamas badly under-estimated the total savagery of the Israeli response to its October 7 attack through a mysteriously collapsed multitiered Israeli border security complex.) The Israeli government also prefers an undercount to temper the rising level of international condemnation and boycotts”   (EXPOSING THE GAZA DEATH UNDERCOUNT, BY RALPH NADER. HON. JOHN B. LARSON OF CONNECTICUT IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Tuesday, October 1, 2024)

Notable exceptions to this genocide-complicit Mainstream Media “undercounting” are The Guardian (Professor Devi Sridhar, chair, global health, University of Edinburgh, “Scientists are closing in on the true, horrifying scale of death and disease in Gaza,” Guardian, 5 September 2024:  ) and The Independent Australia (Dr Gideon Polya, “For science’s sake, vote the Coalition last,” Letters, Independent, 3 April 2025:

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. For science’s sake, vote the Coalition last.

Nearly 2,000 top scientists, all members of the prestigious U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, including Nobel Prize winners, have just issued an open letter urgently warning about the Trump Administration’s “wholesale assault on U.S. science”.

They are saying that the actions threaten America’s health, economy and global leadership in research.

In Australia, the anti-science, anti-universities, climate criminal and Trumpist Coalition promises to sack 41,000 public servants (many of whom are scientists or science-informed) and, when previously in office, sacked 40,000 university staff by cutting university funding.

Further, the Coalition refuses to act on International Criminal Court (ICC)-issued war crimes arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, threatens exiting the ICC, and has praised pathologically mendacious Trump as a “big thinker” over his plan to completely ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Indigenous Palestinian inhabitants.

Trump estimates 1.7 million surviving Gazans from a pre-war population of 2.4 million in agreement with expert estimates in the leading medical journal The Lancet of about 0.6 million killed by violence and imposed deprivation.

Kindness and truth constitute the key ethos of humanity, and decent Australians will be compelled to put the Coalition last.

Dr Gideon Polya
Macleod, VIC

Final comments.

The World must respond to the shocking 10-fold “undercounting” of the Gaza Genocide deaths by US, Western and Australian Mainstream media. As a Jewish Holocaust-impacted Jewish scholar I am inescapably bound by the key moral imperatives of the WW2 Jewish Holocaust and indeed of some 70 genocides and holocausts: “zero tolerance for lying”,  “zero tolerance for racism”, “bear witness” and “never again to anyone”. Silence is complicity. The silence of Mainstream journalists is shocking but understandable – they submit to management or get sacked. However in Gaza extraordinarily courageous Palestinian journalists are being killed at a frightening rate by the genocidal Zionist Israelis.

On 27 March 2025 I sent the following letter to major Mainstream Australian media (it was not published but is published here as an example of what Mainstream Australian media don’t want their readers to see, hear about or think about: “Australian Mainstream media lying & censorship”:

“The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports 1,671 journalists killed worldwide in the 32 year period 1993-2025 for which the average world population was 6,800 million, this indicating “0.0077 journalists killed per year per million of population”. The anti-racist Jewish American web magazine Mondoweiss reported (25/3/2025): “Hossam Shabat and Mohammad Mansour were the latest Palestinian journalists to be assassinated in Gaza. Responsibility for their killings rests in part on their Western colleagues who have failed to accurately cover Israel’s genocidal assault… Since October 2023, at least 208 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli forces… it is a systematic campaign to eliminate witnesses”. The average population of Gaza in the 1.46 year period of 7 October 2023- 25 March 2025 was 2.4 million (pre-war) + 1.7 million (now, according to Trump) /2 = 2.05 million, this indicating “69.5 journalists killed per year per million of population”,  9,026 times greater than the world average. A scientist and prolific humanitarian writer, I have been rendered invisible in Australia by Zionist defamation, but I am proud that I have defended (necessarily overseas) some 40 humanitarian and variously eminent and maltreated Australian truth-tellers. World silence permits the Gaza Genocide. Silence is complicity”.

The World responded to the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre by Apartheid South Africa (69 Africans killed) by imposing rigorous and ultimately successful global sanctions on the neo-Nazi Apartheid regime. In response to the mass murder of 600,000 Gazans so far (about 9,000 times more than the 69 killed in the Sharpeville Massacre) the World must likewise apply rigorous Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) not just against genocidal Apartheid Israel but against all people, politicians, parties, collectives, companies and countries supporting this genocidally racist and child-killing Apartheid pariah state.

In the 3 May 2025 Australian elections decent Australians will vote topmost for candidates supporting Palestinians human rights (the Greens, Socialists, Lidia Thorpe, and Fatima Payman’s Australia’s Voice), put the Coalition last (for the unforgivable crime of refusing to enforce ICC arrest warrants on  war criminal mass murderers of 0.6 million Gazans) and put Zionist-subverted Labor in between.

Yours sincerely, Dr Gideon Polya, Melbourne.

FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He has published the following huge books Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950, Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History, US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide (2020), and Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions (2020). Read other articles by Gideon.

 

Will the U.S. Build Sea Walls?

by Robert Hunziker / April 7th, 2025

Antarctica is coming apart, crumbling into the sea, much, much faster than anybody ever thought possible. After all, it was only a couple of months ago when polar scientists called an extraordinary emergency meeting to discuss shocking developments: “Runaway ice loss causing rapid and catastrophic sea level rise is possible within our lifetimes.” (Source: Our Science, “Your Future: Next Generation of Antarctic Scientists Call for Collaborative Action,” Australian Antarctic Research Conference, November 22, 2024).

Another more recent new study using data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program is now overshadowing those panicky voices of polar scientists in November 2024. The new study should rattle the cages of every political leader in the world: “This simultaneous decline across both poles reinforces fears that Earth’s polar regions may be undergoing synchronized climate destabilization.” (“Antarctica’s 2025 Sea Ice Collapse Shocks Scientists and Raises Fears of a New Climate Normal,” Daily Galaxy, April 3, 2025)

“While Antarctica’s summer ice was hitting rock bottom, the Arctic was also seeing near-record-low winter ice… with multiple low-ice years piling up, the question of whether this represents a tipping point is gaining traction in the scientific community.” Ibid.

Irreversibility of Cascading Ice Sheets

The tools that once revealed subtle changes in Antarctica are now capturing dramatic losses, lending weight to concerns that Antarctica’s sea ice system is approaching irreversibility. The polar scientists’ emergency meeting in November 2024 sent a chilling message to the world; “The experts’ conclusion, published as a press statement, is a somber one: if we don’t act, and quickly, the melting of Antarctica ice could cause catastrophic sea levels rise around the globe.” (Source: “Emergency Meeting Reveals the Alarming Extent of Antarctica’s Ice Loss,” Earth.com, Nov. 24, 2024)

“Truth be known, before very long we’ll see cities inundated and catastrophic flooding events, especially in low-lying coastal cities. All of these changes, we can plot them and if we look exponentially, we see really catastrophic effects in the next few years, certainly in the next decade or two the world will be completely different than it is now.” (Peter Wadhams, professor emeritus, Ocean Physics, Cambridge University, author of A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic)

Extensive research into how to stop this cascading freight train barreling down the mountainside concludes that the only salvation that’ll work soon enough is to stop burning fossil fuels, for example, gasoline-powered cars.

Building Sea Walls?

“Last year, when the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a vast network of seawalls and gates to shield NY and New Jersey Harbor, it argued that the fifty-three-billion dollar ($53B) project was a very good deal, although it ‘will not totally eliminate flood risks’ in the area, it would cost much less than repairing the city after every storm, Hurricane Sandy caused an estimated nineteen billion dollars in damage to NYC alone.” (Source: “Can Sea Walls Save Us?” The New Yorker, Nov. 5, 2023) Alas, $53B “will not totally eliminate flood risks.”

Across the globe, there is no organized worldwide mitigation plan underway to prevent both poles from crashing much faster and faster yet, which requires an immediate stop to burning fossil fuels. Good luck with that! Therefore, massive flooding is almost guaranteed to hit the world’s coastal megacities, like Miami, New York, and London. But nobody knows how soon, which, in and of itself, dictates taking immediate action to fund, engineer, start building seawalls, tall seawalls.

According to the above-referenced polar scientists’ emergency meeting: “The services of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica — oceanic carbon sink and planetary air-conditioner — have been taken for granted. Global warming-induced shifts observed in the region are immense. Recent research has shown record-low sea ice, extreme heatwaves exceeding 40°C (104°F) above average temperatures, and increased instability around key ice shelves. Shifting ecosystems on land and at sea underscore this sensitive region’s rapid and unprecedented transformations. Runaway ice loss causing rapid and catastrophic sea-level rise is possible within our lifetimes. Whether such irreversible tipping points have already passed is unknown.”

That paragraph contains the formula for rising sea levels beyond anybody’s imagination!

According to Earth.org, coastal megacities are at serious risk, e.g., Bangkok, Amsterdam, Ho Chi Minh City, Cardiff (UK), New Orleans, Manila, London, Shenzhen, Hamburg, and Dubai as well as megacities Miami and New York City. Many Florida and East Coast cities are high risk, e.g., Ft. Lauderdale, Norfolk, Hampton, Charleston, Cambridge, Jersey City, Chesapeake, Boston, Tampa, Palm Beach. It’s a long list.

What’s the likelihood of the Trump administration building seawalls to protect coastal cities? It can’t happen soon enough.

In the year 2020: “Trump Blocked Over Plans to Build Wall Around Irish Golf Resort,” CNN World, March 12, 2020: “Donald Trump’s hopes to protect his coastal Irish golf resort from erosion with a protective wall have been dashed by planning authorities.”

FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

 

Ancient fossil sheds big light on evolution mystery: Solving a 100-year arthropod mystery

Harvard University, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsApEmail

 

image: 

Artistic reconstruction of the Burgess Shale concilitergan Helmetia expansa by Marianne Collins.

view more 

Credit: Marianne Collins

For over a century, the Cambrian arthropod Helmetia expansa remained a mystery. Discovered by paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott in 1918, it was initially classified as a crustacean. Despite frequent mentions in research papers, this species has never been formally described, and only one specimen has ever been illustrated.

Now, in a new study published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, Harvard researchers led by Sarah Losso, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, formally describe Helmetia expansa, offering new insights into its anatomy, behavior and evolutionary relationships.

Helmetia expansa belongs to a rare group of early arthropods called concilitergans, close relatives of trilobites. Unlike trilobites, concilitergans lacked calcified exoskeletons, so their remains only fossilized under exceptional conditions—like those in the 508-million-year-old Burgess Shale of Canada, where even soft tissues like guts, legs, and gills were preserved.

Although more specimens were collected, only one individual of Helmetia expansa had been figured and no study examined additional material in detail to formally describe the species or clarify concilitergan evolution. “We need to study more than one specimen to see the species’ full range of morphology and preservation,” said Losso.

The team examined 36 specimens, at the Smithsonian Institution and the Royal Ontario Museum, from the Cambrian Period of the Burgess Shale of Canada. They photographed the specimens, both wet and dry, using a polarizing filter that can better reveal subtle features and extinction phases, and compared them to related species found in the Chengjiang biota in China, and one from the early Cambrian Sirius Passet in Greenland.

Helmetia had a leaf-like exoskeleton, with some specimens preserving eyes, medial eyes, digestive systems and limbs. Early arthropods had limbs with a walking leg for locomotion and food capture, and a gill used for respiration. On the holotype, only the gills are visible – leading past researchers to believe Helmetia lacked legs and swam exclusively. But, the team found broad gills and walking legs in several specimens, showing it likely walked like trilobites.

Even more surprising were two specimens caught in the early stages of molting, a behavior never before documented in concilitergans.

“Molting strategies have never been known in any concilitergan,” said Losso. “All arthropods molt their hard exoskeletons to grow, but no one had seen this behavior before in a concilitergan because you have to catch a specimen in the act of molting, and it’s difficult to get just the right timing.”

The molting specimens show the new exoskeleton closer to the edge of the head, suggesting the animal exited front the front of the body – similar to horseshoe crabs, which use an anterior exit strategy, unlike most crabs that exit from the rear of the body.

The researchers also discovered a wide range of adult body sizes as Helmetia grew. While the smallest specimen was only 92 millimeters long, one exceeded over 180 millimeters. “These patterns tell us not only how these 508-million-year-old animals grew, but how big they could get,” Losso said.

Based on updated interpretations of Helmetia expansa’s morphology, the researchers confirmed two main helmetiids groups: the Helmediidae, which includes Helmetia expansa and is characterized by segment boundaries and side spines, and Tegopeltidae, which is marked by segment fusion and a lack of spines. The researchers also assigned Arthroaspis bergstroemi, known from Greenland since 2013, to the group Conciliterga.

“Our findings give a much fuller picture of what Helmetia looked like, how it lived, and how concilitergans are related to each other,” Losso said, “which is very important for future studies on Conciliterga and other early arthropods.”

---

Journal

Journal of Systematic Palaeontology

DOI

10.1080/14772019.2025.2468195 

Article Title

Helmetia expansa Walcott, 1918 revisited – new insights into the internal anatomy, moulting and phylogeny of Conciliterga

Article Publication Date

4-Apr-2025