UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, addressing the UN Conference on The Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, said it was “660 days since the Israeli hostages were first cruelly taken by Hamas terrorists. There is no possible justification for this suffering.” Lammy had spent most of that time deliberately misinterpreting the Genocide Convention and insisting that no genocide was being committed.

“Our support for Israel, its right to exist and the security of its people is steadfast,” he said. Considering Israel’s massacres and other crimes against humanity since the first day of its statehood in 1948 this frequently repeated statement has never convinced anyone.

“However, the Balfour declaration came with the solemn promise ‘that nothing shall be done, nothing which may prejudice the civil and religious rights’ of the Palestinian people’…. This has not been upheld and it is a historical injustice which continues to unfold.” True, but he misquotes Balfour even here. That part of the declaration actually reads: “… it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine….”

The Balfour declaration also came with dire warnings. Lord Edwin Montagu, the only Jew in the Cabinet at the time, called Zionism “a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom”. Lord Sydenham remarked: “What we have done, by concessions not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, is to start a running sore in the East, and no-one can tell how far that sore will extend.”

Well, we know now. And it will stain Britain’s reputation forever.

Lammy continued: “Hamas must never be rewarded for its monstrous attack on October 7.” Of course, he said nothing about Israel having been continuously rewarded for its monstrous attacks on Palestinians over the last 77 years and will likely be rewarded again for its genocide.

“It [Hamas] must immediately release the hostages, agree to an immediate ceasefire, accept it will have no role in governing Gaza and commit to disarmament.” Coincidentally Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have also called on Hamas to disband. Along with a number of other countries they’ve just signed a statement saying, “Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State.” Quite how this squares with international law isn’t clear, and no-one explains. It is for the Palestinian people to decide who governs their sovereign state.

Lammy: “His Majesty’s Government therefore intends to recognise the State of Palestine when the UN General Assembly gathers in September…. unless the Israeli government acts to end the appalling situation in Gaza, ends its military campaign and commits to a long-term sustainable peace based on a two-state solution. Our demands on Hamas also remain absolute and unwavering.” So what happens if Israel actually complies, or appears to comply? Does HMG then see no reason to recognise statehood? That would suit Israel very well. Note that there’s no requirement in all this for Israel to immediately end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, which is central to the whole problem. So the Starmer-Lammy proposal purposely misses the point.

Lammy maintains “there is no better vision for the future of the region than two states. Israelis living within secure borders, recognised and at peace with their neighbours, free from the threat of terrorism. And Palestinians living in their own state, in dignity and security, free of occupation.” Just a minute: how about Palestinians, whose land this is, “living within secure borders, free from the threat of Israeli terrorism and occupation”, the terrorists being (as if he didn’t know) the Israelis and their backers the US? Furthermore, UK leaders have banged the drum about a two-state solution for decades without ever describing what it would look like – especially now that Israel has been allowed to establish irreversible ‘facts on the ground’ that make a proper, workable Palestinian state almost impossible.

“The decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians cannot be managed or contained,” he says. True, and that’s been obvious for decades.

“It must now be resolved.” True, and that too has been obvious for decades.

That same day, 29 July, Prime Minister Starmer was delivering “words on Gaza” from Downing Street.

“On the 7th of October 2023 Hamas perpetrated the worst massacre in Israel’s history. Every day since then, the horror has continued.” He makes it sound like the 660 days of horror have been Hamas’s doing.

“Ceasefire must be sustainable and it must lead to a wider peace plan, which we are developing with our international partners. This plan will deliver security and proper governance in Gaza and pave the way for negotiations on a Two State Solution”. Yes, but under international law Palestinians should not have to ‘negotiate’ their freedom and independence, it’s theirs by right regardless of what other nations think or say.

“Our goal remains a safe and secure Israel, alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.” Oh dear, the same old lopsided spiel. Parity isn’t on the West’s agenda.

“Now, in Gaza because of a catastrophic failure of aid, we see starving babies, children too weak to stand: Images that will stay with us for a lifetime.” The horror is not due to “a catastrophic failure of aid” but failure over the years to end Israel’s illegal occupation and, in particular, its cruel 18-year siege and blockade of Gaza and the sickening practice of ‘mowing the grass’. The UK especially has been complicit in enabling Israel to maintain its stranglehold.

Starmer: “I’ve always said we will recognise a Palestinian state as a contribution to a proper peace process, at the moment of maximum impact for the Two State Solution.” UK governments have been saying that for years. Britain was supposed to grant Palestinians provisional statehood under its Mandate responsibilities back in 1923 and failed to do so. We’ve been ducking the issue ever since while eagerly recognising Israeli statehood with their terrorist militia and Ben-Gurion’s plan to take over the entire Holy Land by force.

“This is the moment to act,” Starmer continued. “So today – as part of this process towards peace I can confirm the UK will recognise the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a Two State Solution. And this includes allowing the UN to restart the supply of aid, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank.” This is unbelievable vague and gives Israel endless wriggle-room. Much of the West Bank, of course, is already annexed. To give peace any kind of chance conditions must include Israel withdrawing its squatters, quitting all annexed lands and ending its illegal military occupation forthwith.

Starmer ends with the familiar mantra: “Our message to the terrorists of Hamas is unchanged and unequivocal. They must immediately release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza.” No mention of the Israeli terrorists disarming and no ban on Likud (Netanyahu’s demented party) from any future government of Israel.

Starmer and Lammy never use the terms ‘international law’ or ‘justice’. Don’t they understand that there can be no peace without justice? Perhaps they do but won’t admit it because their friends and allies Israel and the US, for selfish strategic reasons, don’t want peace and never have.

Starmer and Lammy compromised and untrustworthy

Starmer told The Times of Israel, “I support Zionism without qualification”. Lammy has made similar declarations. The Ministerial Code and Principles of Public Life state very clearly (seer ‘Integrity’): “Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.” How do they get away with it?

So it’s hardly surprising that Lammy and Starmer show no concern for the 7,200 Palestinian hostages, including 88 women and 250 children, held in Israeli jails on 7 October under appalling conditions. Over 1,200 were under ‘administrative detention’ without charge or trial and denied ‘due process’. Or the fact that in the 23 years up to October 7 Israel had been slaughtering Palestinians at the rate of 8:1 and children at the rate of 16:1. Actual figures: Palestinians killed by Israelis 10,651 including 2,270 children and 6,656 women. Israelis killed by Palestinians 1,330 including 145 children and 261 women (source: Israel’s B’Tselem). Were they and their friends in Israel expecting Palestinians to take all that lying down?

Our dynamic duo were not so appalled by the sight of “starving babies and children too weak to stand” that they provided protection for the British-flagged aid vessel Madleen and the Handala bringing much-needed supplies to Gaza. They allowed these vessels to be hijacked in international waters, their cargo stolen and crews abducted by Israel’s thugs, just as the Mavi Marmara, the Al-Awda and other mercy ships had been similarly assaulted. Israeli piracy is the new normal in the eastern Mediterranean and Western nations don’t give a damn. The British government are more than happy, though, to instruct the RAF to fly surveillance missions over Gaza in support of Israel’s genocide programme and to continue sharing intelligence with the apartheid regime.

And if their concerns about the suffering and devastation were ever genuine, why didn’t they proposed forming a UN multi-nation intervention force to take over the Gaza crossings to ensure aid gets through as it should? They have now been shamed and their ‘no genocide’ stance utterly discredited by two of Israel’s own human rights organisations – B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – who declare that Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza and its Western allies have a legal and moral duty to put a stop to it. B’Tselem’s summing-up of the situation is worth sharing:

Since October 2023, Israel has shifted its policy toward the Palestinians. Its military onslaught on Gaza, underway for more than 21 months, has included mass killing, both directly and through creating unlivable conditions, serious bodily or mental harm to an entire population, decimation of basic infrastructure throughout the Strip, and forcible displacement on a huge scale, with ethnic cleansing added to the list of official war objectives.

This is compounded by mass arrests and abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, which have effectively become torture camps, and tearing apart the social fabric of Gaza, including the destruction of Palestinian educational and cultural institutions. The campaign is also an assault on Palestinian identity itself, through the deliberate destruction of refugee camps and attempts to undermine the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

An examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The term genocide refers to a socio-historical and political phenomenon involving acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Both morally and legally, genocide cannot be justified under any circumstance, including as an act of self-defense.

Genocide always occurs within a context: there are conditions that enable it, triggering events, and a guiding ideology. The current onslaught on the Palestinian people, including in the Gaza Strip, must be understood in the context of more than seventy years in which Israel has imposed a violent and discriminatory regime on the Palestinians, taking its most extreme form against those living in the Gaza Strip. Since the State of Israel was established, the apartheid and occupation regime has institutionalized and systematically employed mechanisms of violent control, demographic engineering, discrimination, and fragmentation of the Palestinian collective. These foundations laid by the regime are what made it possible to launch a genocidal attack on the Palestinians immediately after the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023.

The assault on Palestinians in Gaza cannot be separated from the escalating violence being inflicted, at varying levels and in different forms, on Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the West Bank and within Israel. The violence and destruction in these areas is intensifying over time, with no effective domestic or international mechanism acting to halt them. We warn of the clear and present danger that the genocide will not remain confined to the Gaza Strip, and that the actions and underlying mindset driving it may be extended to other areas as well.

The recognition that the Israeli regime is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and the deep concern that it may expand to other areas where Palestinians live under Israeli rule, demand urgent and unequivocal action from both Israeli society and the international community, and use of every means available under international law to stop Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.

President Trump is pushing for a major redrawing of Texas’s congressional districts to favor Republicans and shape the outcome of future elections, including next year’s midterms. Voting rights expert Ari Berman says this “unprecedented” Republican gerrymandering scheme manipulates an already-gerrymandered map that “limits democratic representation. It already limits representation for communities of color, and now that would be much worse.” The map was released this week, and a hearing is underway today as Republicans try to ram it through.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

For the past few years, governments across the world have paid close attention to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. There, it is said, we see the first glimpses of what warfare of the future will look like, not just in terms of weaponry, but also in terms of new technologies and tactics.

Most recently, the United States-Israeli attacks on Iran demonstrated not just new strategies of drone deployment and infiltration but also new vulnerabilities. During the 12-day conflict, Iran and vessels in the waters of the Gulf experienced repeated disruptions of GPS signal.

This clearly worried the Iranian authorities who, after the end of the war, began to look for alternatives.

• READ MORE: Aid Israel allowing into Gaza still a ‘drop in the ocean’, says UN
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

“At times, disruptions are created on this [GPS] system by internal systems, and this very issue has pushed us toward alternative options like BeiDou,” Ehsan Chitsaz, deputy communications minister, told Iranian media in mid-July. He added that the government was developing a plan to switch transportation, agriculture and the internet from GPS to BeiDou.

Iran’s decision to explore adopting China’s navigation satellite system may appear at first glance to be merely a tactical manoeuvre. Yet, its implications are far more profound. This move is yet another indication of a major global realignment.

For decades, the West, and the US in particular, have dominated the world’s technological infrastructure from computer operating systems and the internet to telecommunications and satellite networks.

This has left much of the world dependent on an infrastructure it cannot match or challenge. This dependency can easily become vulnerability. Since 2013, whistleblowers and media investigations have revealed how various Western technologies and schemes have enabled illicit surveillance and data gathering on a global scale — something that has worried governments around the world.

Clear message
Iran’s possible shift to BeiDou sends a clear message to other nations grappling with the delicate balance between technological convenience and strategic self-defence: The era of blind, naive dependence on US-controlled infrastructure is rapidly coming to an end. Nations can no longer afford to have their military capabilities and vital digital sovereignty tied to the satellite grid of a superpower they cannot trust.

This sentiment is one of the driving forces behind the creation of national or regional satellite navigation systems, from Europe’s Galileo to Russia’s GLONASS, each vying for a share of the global positioning market and offering a perceived guarantee of sovereign control.

GPS was not the only vulnerability Iran encountered during the US-Israeli attacks. The Israeli army was able to assassinate a number of nuclear scientists and senior commanders in the Iranian security and military forces. The fact that Israel was able to obtain their exact locations raised fears that it was able to infiltrate telecommunications and trace people via their phones.

On June 17 as the conflict was still raging, the Iranian authorities urged the Iranian people to stop using the messaging app WhatsApp and delete it from their phones, saying it was gathering user information to send to Israel.

Whether this appeal was linked to the assassinations of the senior officials is unclear, but Iranian mistrust of the app run by US-based corporation Meta is not without merit.

Cybersecurity experts have long been sceptical about the security of the app. Recently, media reports have revealed that the artificial intelligence software Israel uses to target Palestinians in Gaza is reportedly fed data from social media.

Furthermore, shortly after the end of the attacks on Iran, the US House of Representatives moved to ban WhatsApp from official devices.

Western platforms not trusted
For Iran and other countries around the world, the implications are clear: Western platforms can no longer be trusted as mere conduits for communication; they are now seen as tools in a broader digital intelligence war.

Tehran has already been developing its own intranet system, the National Information Network, which gives more control over internet use to state authorities. Moving forward, Iran will likely expand this process and possibly try to emulate China’s Great Firewall.

By seeking to break with Western-dominated infrastructure, Tehran is definitively aligning itself with a growing sphere of influence that fundamentally challenges Western dominance. This partnership transcends simple transactional exchanges as China offers Iran tools essential for genuine digital and strategic independence.

The broader context for this is China’s colossal Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While often framed as an infrastructure and trade project, BRI has always been about much more than roads and ports. It is an ambitious blueprint for building an alternative global order.

Iran — strategically positioned and a key energy supplier — is becoming an increasingly important partner in this expansive vision.

What we are witnessing is the emergence of a new powerful tech bloc — one that inextricably unites digital infrastructure with a shared sense of political defiance. Countries weary of the West’s double standards, unilateral sanctions and overwhelming digital hegemony will increasingly find both comfort and significant leverage in Beijing’s expanding clout.

This accelerating shift heralds the dawn of a new “tech cold war”, a low-temperature confrontation in which nations will increasingly choose their critical infrastructure, from navigation and communications to data flows and financial payment systems, not primarily based on technological superiority or comprehensive global coverage but increasingly on political allegiance and perceived security.

As more and more countries follow suit, the Western technological advantage will begin to shrink in real time, resulting in redesigned international power dynamics.

Jasim Al-Azzawi is an analyst, news anchor, programme presenter and media instructor. He has presented a weekly show called Inside Iraq.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Yet recent research from Food & Water Watch details the immense and potentially catastrophic impact on water and energy resources an unfettered AI industry could have on communities across the country – especially those in the West that are already suffering through a decade or more of extreme drought. Energy demand from AI servers and data centers in the U.S. is expected to increase up to threefold between 2023 and 2028. Among the report’s findings, by 2028 AI in the United States could consume:

• 720 billion gallons of water annually just to cool AI servers — equal to more than 1 million Olympic-size swimming pools, or enough water to meet the indoor needs of 18.5 million American households.
• 300 terawatt-hours (TWh) of energy annually — enough electricity to power over 28 million American households.

Meanwhile:

• As of 2024, ChatGPT used over half a million kilowatts of electricity each day, equivalent to the daily power use of 180,000 U.S. households.
• One Meta-owned data center consumes as much power as 7 million laptops running for eight hours each day.
• In Santa Clara Ca., 50 data centers account for 60 percent of the city’s electricity use, while receiving discounted rates on electricity compared to residential rates.

In response, Food & Water Watch’s managing director of policy and litigation, Mitch Jones, made the following statement:

“At its core, President Trump’s AI agenda is nothing more than a thinly-veiled invitation for the fossil fuel and corporate water industries to ramp up their exploitation of our environment and natural resources – all at the expense of everyday people. In communities across the country we are already seeing precious water and energy supplies being diverted to massive data centers, while homes and small businesses are paying ballooning costs for their regular utility needs.

“The expanding data center industry is being leveraged as an excuse to prolong the life of filthy, climate-killing fossil fuel power and dangerous nuclear plants, and even build new ones.

“America’s technological advancements must not come at the expense of everyday families’ water, energy and economic security – plain and simple.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The letter notes the persistence of serious issues in Greece, including surveillance, threats, harassment, physical attacks, and murders of journalists. It also cites government pressure on editorial and media independence, including Greece’s public broadcaster, as well as legal threats, such as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) and criminal defamation.

The organizations asked national authorities to provide, in writing, an overview of the steps being considered to address the concerns, and to establish a national action plan.

Read the full letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The official death toll in Gaza has topped 58,000, with Israeli forces continuing to shoot at Palestinians seeking aid and talks over a ceasefire agreement stalled in Doha. This morning’s injured were taken to Nasser Hospital, the largest functioning hospital in Gaza, facing fuel shortages and a widening Israeli offensive in the area. Democracy Now! spoke with Dr. Tarek Loubani, an emergency room medical doctor who has been volunteering in Nasser Hospital in Gaza since June, live from Gaza.

“Every day seems to be a new exercise in the depths of human depravity in terms of targeting men, boys, women and children, especially in terms of the youngest children,” says Loubani. “I think every doctor who operates and works in Palestine will tell you that that’s the most jarring, the most terrible part of our job, is just the war on children on every level.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

As thousands of architects and planners flocked to New Orleans in 2014 for the world’s largest sustainable design conference, the city saw a chance to prove it belonged in the green building big leagues.

City leaders announced at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo that New Orleans would join Minneapolis, Seattle and a vanguard of other cities in developing a program requiring large building owners to track and disclose their energy use.

New Orleans’ embrace of “energy benchmarking” drew praise at the conference, with one green building expert declaring that the city was “paving the way” for the rest of the country to follow. 

But New Orleans lost momentum, waiting more than a decade before finally approving its benchmarking ordinance on Thursday. In the meantime, New Orleans fell behind about 50 other cities that have approved energy tracking and disclosure requirements for most large buildings.

“The benchmarking ordinance — finally!” New Orleans City Council member Helena Moreno said. “After many, many years, we’re finally getting there.” 

Benchmarking can both shame the power hogs and extol the virtues of the frugal. The data spurs investment in older, inefficient buildings and encourages more climate-conscious design in new ones, advocates say. 

“It’s well understood that one cannot change what one does not measure,” said Christopher Johnson, a board member with the New Orleans chapter of the American Institute of Architects. By passing the ordinance, the city is “empowering owners to take matters into their own hands to improve their buildings.”  

Buildings are responsible for 40 percent of total energy use in the U.S., and about 35 percent of the country’s carbon emissions, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Compared to much of the country, buildings in New Orleans tend to be older and less energy-efficient, with high air conditioning use and little insulation. 

Under the city’s plan, owners of buildings 50,000 square feet and larger would need to report annual energy use starting in 2026. In 2027, the requirement would expand to buildings more than 20,000 square feet. Noncompliance could result in fines between $1,000 and $3,000. 

The fines aren’t for inefficiency, Council President JP Morrell said. “They’re for failing to report the data.”

Energy use will be tracked on an interactive map and published in an annual report. 

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Joseph Winters

The ordinance covers about 1,500 properties. While buildings over 20,000 square feet make up just 1 percent of all structures, they account for nearly 40 percent of the city’s total building area, said Greg Nichols, the city’s deputy chief resilience officer. 

Nearly 80 percent of the buildings covered under the ordinance are categorized as commercial, and about 20 percent are residential. Of the commercial buildings, a quarter are warehouses, 16 percent are hotels and 12 percent are offices.  

Funding for implementing the ordinance is covered with $1.5 million from a $50 million greenhouse gas reduction grant awarded to the city by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year. Much of the money for the program would support a full-time employee tasked with promoting it and helping property owners with compliance. 

While President Donald Trump has been canceling or reclaiming many climate-related grants awarded by former President Joe Biden’s administration, the EPA grant appears secure, Nichols said. 

“Climate action is under threat right now from the Trump administration,” he said. “But this is an action that the City Council can take right now to show leadership at a time when other efforts are being imperiled.” 

Benchmarking is a key component of the city’s climate action plan. Updated in 2022, the plan aims to cut the city’s greenhouse gas emissions in half before 2035 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The benchmarking ordinance was supposed to be passed by the end of last year, according to the plan. 

“We are a city that’s committed to significant climate goals,” Morrell said. “It is nigh impossible to do that without benchmarking.” 

Cities with similar ordinances have seen building energy use drop by an average of 2.4 percent annually, according to the EPA. At that rate, the agency calculates that a 500,000-square-foot office building can save about $120,000 per year. 

Utility bill envy can be a potent motivator for property owners, Morrell said.

“It encourages a person to say, ‘Wait a second, we have similarly situated buildings, and I’m paying triple the cost in utility fees,’” he said. “‘It might be worth seeing how we can reduce those costs.’”  

New Orleans can look to its city-owned buildings for further proof of benchmarking’s effectiveness. The city began tracking each building’s energy use more than a decade ago. Between 2018 and 2021, energy use fell by about 23 percent, Nichols said. 

Most cities that require energy consumption tracking are concentrated in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast. Austin, Atlanta, Orlando and Miami are the only other Southern cities with benchmarking ordinances, according to the Institute for Market Transformation. 

“I’d love (New Orleans) to be one of the leading cities in the South in this area,” Nichols said. 

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Tristan Baurick

Concerns about privacy and fines hindered the ordinance’s progress, city leaders said. To ease those worries, the city will now require property owners to disclose a building’s total energy use, not that of its tenants or other occupants. The ordinance would also waive penalties during the first year and cap fines at $3,000. 

Councilmember Oliver Thomas expressed doubts about the ordinance, saying it may do little more than burnish New Orleans’ image. He cited the city’s recycling program, which diverts only about 2 percent of household waste from landfills — a rate that’s less than a tenth of the national average. 

“We have to be more cautious because we keep producing investments and more money that comes from the public to create a lot of trendy things,” he said. “I don’t want to make the same mistakes we made with recycling and some other initiatives.” 

Morrell called the comparison to recycling “inappropriate.” While recycling may be a costly solution for conserving some materials, benchmarking is a low-cost means of conserving both money and energy, he said. 

 “We’re showing that if you’re more energy efficient, you’ll see a direct reduction in costs,” said. 

Tracking the energy consumption of buildings can also spur economic growth, Nichols said. As property owners recognize the savings from energy upgrades, demand for the skilled workers who implement them will grow, he said.

Energy efficiency is projected to be Louisiana’s top clean energy job creator, with about 9,300 new roles for architects and heating, air conditioning and related tradespeople expected by 2030, according to a recent NREL report. The solar industry was expected to create up to 8,300 jobs, and wind energy would add nearly 600 positions during the same period. 

“While solar and wind have huge potential, it’s actually energy efficiency that has the most job potential,” Nichols said. “And that’s because it includes a wide range of jobs, such as HVAC (technicians), electricians and insulation contractors.” 

Benchmarking could also ease demand on the city’s outage-prone power grid, said Jesse George, the New Orleans policy director for the Alliance for Affordable Energy. A spike in power use during the sweltering Memorial Day weekend overwhelmed transmission lines and triggered rolling blackouts that cut the lights and AC for more than 100,000 households. 

“That showed we need every possible tool in our toolbox to reduce our energy load and demand,” George said. “This ordinance, in terms of the cost to implement versus the potential benefit, is a no-brainer.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Inside New Orleans’ plan to fix its energy-hogging buildings on Jul 11, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Tristan Baurick.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump this week in Washington, D.C. Trump and Netanyahu are discussing Israel’s war in Gaza, with Netanyahu suggesting that new plans for the forced relocation of refugees to other countries would give Palestinians the “freedom” to choose. But what Palestinians actually want is “the freedom to return to the places from which their families were expelled,” says Peter Beinart, editor-at-large at Jewish Currents and the author of Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. “What kind of freedom is it when you have an area where most of the buildings and the hospitals and the schools and the bakeries and the agriculture have all been destroyed, where you have more child amputees than any other place on Earth?”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

So what happens if the states can’t agree before that deadline?

There’s no roadmap for exactly what would happen next, but policy experts and former officials can give us some ideas. It would likely be complicated, messy and involve big lawsuits.

“I think people are looking for a concise answer here,” said Brenda Burman, former commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. “But there isn’t a concise answer.”

While the details of that hypothetical future are fuzzy, experts generally agree on one thing: the states should do everything they can to avoid missing that deadline and heading into uncharted territory.

“It’s our job to make sure that we are setting the path for the next 20 or 30 years of stability,” said Burman, who now manages the Central Arizona Project. “And if we fail in that job, shame on us.”

Former federal officials can give some of the best insight into what might happen without a state deal, because federal agencies would likely step in to make sure reservoirs and dams stay functional. The Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water infrastructure across the West, and its parent agency, the Department of the Interior, would become major power players.

Falling back to a ‘nightmare scenario’

For more than a century, the Colorado River has been governed by a legal agreement called the Colorado River Compact. It was signed in 1922, when the river — and the West — looked a lot different. Over the years, policymakers have added a patchwork of temporary rules to adapt to modern times.

In this century, climate change has driven the need to adapt. The river has been in a megadrought that goes back to 2000. With less water in the river, states have had to cut back on demand, even though the compact promises more water to users than the river itself could ever provide naturally. Drought conditions have become the new normal over the past two decades, and temporary rules that were implemented to rein in water demand aren’t keeping up with the pace of drying.

The current rules for managing water were first implemented in 2007. They were slightly modified in 2012 and then expanded in 2019. All of those rules are set to expire in 2026. That expiration is the reason states are in a pinch to draw up new rules right now.

The absolute last-chance deadline to implement new guidelines is October 1, 2026. If the states fail to submit a plan for managing water by then, the Colorado River would fall back to management rules from the 1970s.

Experts say those rules, known as the Long Range Operating Criteria, or LROC, are “woefully insufficient” to deal with today’s drier, smaller river.

“That’s a nightmare scenario,” said Anne Castle. “And I don’t think that the states or the federal government would allow that to happen.”

Castle, a longtime water lawyer who served as assistant secretary for water and science at the Interior Department, said releasing water in accordance with those 1970s rules would quickly drain the nation’s largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. That would jeopardize hydropower generation at major dams and could make it impossible to pass water from one side of those dams to the people and businesses downstream.

Interior, which would presumably prefer to avoid failure at the dams it runs — Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam — would likely get involved to stop reservoirs from losing their water. In the absence of guidance from the states, the Secretary of Interior could use his authority as the river’s “water master,” a role that gives him some legal power to make decisions about who gets how much water.

And this administration has already made it clear that the current chief — Doug Burgum — would take advantage of that position. Scott Cameron, one of the highest ranking Colorado River officials in the Trump Administration, said as much to a conference of water experts gathered in Colorado in early June.

“Secretary Burgum is prepared to exercise his responsibility as water master,” Cameron said. “He’s not looking forward to that, but in the absence of a seven state agreement, he will do it.”

Federal action and likely lawsuits

Say the Interior Secretary becomes water master and has to pull some levers on the Colorado River. The next big question is, which levers would he pull?

His first option is the path of least resistance — sticking with those 1970s rules. They would send a lot of water from the top half of the river to the bottom. So the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico might want to take Interior to court.

“No one could possibly come up with a set of rules that pleases everyone,” Castle said. “And [Interior will] do what they think they have the authority to do. But we all know that lawyers may disagree.”

His second option is a little more involved, but would also likely result in a lawsuit. There’s a catch with Interior’s power on the Colorado River. It is mostly able to make changes in the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada.

If Interior wanted to act boldly and force cutbacks to water use, cuts would likely hit those states disproportionately.

“In either situation,” said Mike Connor, another former Reclamation commissioner. “Somebody is going to object and say, ‘You’re not acting consistent with the law’ and sue the Secretary to say ‘You made a bad decision.’”

Connor, who served from 2009 to 2014, said Interior’s authority has never been specifically defined, but it mostly comes from the 1928 Boulder Canyon Project Act. That legislation created Hoover Dam, which creates Lake Mead, and the All-American Canal, which supplies water to California’s Imperial Valley. That gives the federal government some control of the nation’s largest reservoir and the water supply for the Imperial Irrigation District, the river’s single largest water user.

There are a few other options besides Interior’s two paths, but they’re much harder to predict.

While states hold most of the planning power on the Colorado River, other big entities could try to go around them. For example, the water department in a major city, or a large farm group could use their big budgets and legal teams to influence lawmakers and get a form of Colorado River rules passed by the U.S. Congress.

States could also ask for an extension, kicking the can down the road by another year or two. The extended deadline could give them more time to coalesce around new rules, but policy experts say states should try to avoid that and agree on rules that are urgently needed to manage the shrinking river.

“That sort of takes the foot off the accelerator and we haven’t really done anything,” Castle said.

Will the states agree before the deadline?

There is at least some reason to believe the states will steer the Colorado River away from collapse or court. For all of their disagreements, state water negotiators do seem to be on the same page about one thing: keeping their situation out of the Supreme Court.

Amy Haas, executive director of the Colorado River Authority of Utah, told KUNC in February that it would be “folly” to take their negotiations to court.

“We are the ones who should really shape the outcome here,” she said. “We’re the experts. We’re the water managers. We understand the system. Why would we want to relinquish that control and that responsibility?”

States appear to be moving closer to implementing new Colorado River rules without any messy court battles. Early details of a proposal to distribute water cutbacks are emerging, and it appears that it could push states long mired in disagreement toward consensus.

Instead of those states leaning on old rules that don’t account for climate change, they’re proposing a new system that divides the river based on how much water is in it today.

State leaders were quick to emphasize that the plan is in its early stages, but cast it as a way to agree before the 2026 deadline.

“I was very pessimistic that we were on a path towards litigation,” said Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s top water negotiator. “I’m more optimistic now that we can avoid that path if we can make this work.”

This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC and supported by the Walton Family Foundation.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A deadline looms for a new Colorado River plan. What happens if there isn’t one? on Jul 5, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Alex Hager, KUNC.

The final text—the product of a legislative process coordinated by Republicans that seemed designed to do the most harm possible to working families—would expand on- and off-shore drilling, end nearly all clean energy tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, gut fuel efficiency standards for cars, stifle industrial innovation, and give massive handouts to fossil fuel companies and polluters.

Several studies of the legislation found that termination of the clean energy tax credits repealed in this bill could raise the average American family’s energy bills by as much as $400 per year by 2035. Additional analyses released earlier this week by the non-partisan CBO estimates that the bill will add $3.4 trillion in debt and result in more than 12 million Americans losing their health care coverage.

In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous released the following statement:

“This is a sad and scary day for all who work to build up our communities, care for our friends and neighbors, and wish to leave this planet in a better place for future generations. Instead of working to make life better for American families and communities, what Donald Trump and his loyalists in Congress have delivered today will mean higher energy costs for working families and small businesses, the end of life-saving health care that millions rely on, and ceding the race to build the clean energy economy of tomorrow to China. Trump and Congressional Republicans have advanced the most anti-environment, anti-job, and anti-American bill in history. The Sierra Club will not forget it. America will not forget it.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

If approved by the House of Representatives and signed by Trump, the legislation will make the deepest cuts to America’s social safety net in decades and unravel the country’s only existing federal plan to diminish the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change. 

“This sweeping legislation is the most anti-environmental bill of all time and will do extreme harm to our communities, our families, our climate, and our public lands,” the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental advocacy group, said in a statement. 

The estimated cost of the GOP’s top policy priority — extending tax cuts from 2017 — is more than $4 trillion over 10 years. In order to offset those tax cuts, Senate Republicans sought to slash spending on green energy approved by Democrats during former president Joe Biden’s term, among other programs such as food stamps and Medicaid. The clean energy subsidies formed the heart of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, the largest climate spending bill in American history.

The legislation now goes back to the House of Representatives, which passed a less expensive version of the megabill in May, before it goes to Trump’s desk for his signature. The House legislation would have sunsetted the IRA’s investment and production tax credits for wind and solar power within 60 days of the bill’s enactment, an aggressive timeline that renewable energy groups said would weaken their their industry and disincentivize new renewable projects. Fears over regulatory changes have already led to the cancellation of $15.5 billion in clean energy investments this year. 

The Senate legislation is only marginally less punitive to the clean energy industry. Wind and solar projects that either start construction before July 2026 or are placed in service by 2027 would be able to take full advantage of existing tax credits. Under the IRA, those credits were set to continue in some form until the country achieved substantial emissions reductions.

An earlier version of the Senate bill also included an extra “excise” tax on wind and solar, which an analysis by the American Clean Power Association showed would increase consumer energy prices up to 10 percent and cost clean energy businesses as much as $7 billion by 2036. That tax was removed from the legislation before the final vote on Tuesday. Conservative lawmakers disclaimed responsibility for the tax’s initial inclusion in the text. “I don’t know where it came from,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina, told NBC. 

The earlier House bill placed strict limits on using Chinese components in renewable energy projects. The Senate version eased that proposal to include fewer penalties for moderate use of China-linked hardware. But Senate Republicans sped up the House’s proposed phaseout for consumer tax credits for new and previously owned electric vehicles by two months, from the end of this year to September 30. Consumers previously had until 2032 to take advantage of them. 

The bill does not include the massive and controversial sell-off of public lands championed by Senator Mike Lee, from Utah, who withdrew that amendment after facing backlash in his state and across the country. 

The Senate-approved phaseout of tax credits for wind and solar comes at a time when demand for industrial power is skyrocketing in the U.S. as energy-hungry data centers and clean technology factories crop up across the country. “The intentional effort to undermine the fastest-growing sources of electric power will lead to increased energy bills, decreased grid reliability, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs,” the American Clean Power Association, a clean energy lobbying group, said in a statement. “We can’t afford to pick winners and losers when it comes to reliable, American-made energy.” 

The changes made by the Senate during a 24-hour period of intense debate could set up many more hours of debate in the lower congressional chamber. The House squeaked through its version of the bill by striking a balance between moderate Republicans from blue states like California and New York who wanted higher caps on state and local income tax deductions and fiscal hawks from deep-red states who wanted deeper spending cuts. The Senate’s version is about $800 billion more expensive, an increase that could tee up a fight over clean energy tax credit timelines and more. Chip Roy, Republican lawmaker from Texas who wants deeper cuts to green spending, already called it “a deal-killer of an already bad deal.”

Some Republican senators think that’s a good thing. 

Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska who sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune this April asking him to preserve the clean energy tax credits, was the last holdout in the Senate after Paul, Tillis, and Collins made it clear they were going to vote against the Senate bill. Despite the bill’s consequences for clean energy, Murkowski agreed to support the bill after obtaining a set of carveouts for her state on food stamp work requirements and healthcare cuts. 

After voting for the bill, Murkowski expressed misgivings about its contents. “My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet,” she told reporters.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Senate Republicans just voted to dismantle America’s only climate plan on Jul 1, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Zoya Teirstein.

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The Trump administration has launched a major reorganization of the U.S. fight against drug traffickers and other transnational criminal groups, setting out a strategy that would give new authority to the Department of Homeland Security and deepen the influence of the White House.

The administration’s plans, described in internal documents and by government officials, would reduce federal prosecutors’ control over investigations, shifting key decisions to a network of task forces jointly led by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations, the primary investigative arm of DHS.

Officials said the plan to bring law enforcement agencies together in the new Homeland Security Task Forces has been driven primarily by President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, who is closely overseeing the project’s implementation.

Current and former officials said the proposed reorganization would make it easier for senior officials like Miller to disregard norms that have long walled off the White House from active criminal investigations.

“To the administration’s credit, they are trying to break down barriers that are hard to break down,” said Adam W. Cohen, a career Justice Department attorney who was fired in March as head of the office that coordinates organized crime investigations involving often-competing federal agencies. “But you won’t have neutral prosecutors weighing the facts and making decisions about who to investigate,” he added of the task force plan. “The White House will be able to decide.”

The proposed reorganization would elevate the stature and influence of Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement among law enforcement agencies, while continuing to push other agencies to pursue immigration-related crimes.

The task forces would at least formally subordinate the Drug Enforcement Administration to HSI and the FBI after half a century in which the DEA has been the government’s lead agency for narcotics enforcement.

Trump’s directive to establish the new task forces was included in an Inauguration Day executive order, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which focused on immigration.

The new task forces will seek “to end the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs and transnational criminal organizations throughout the United States,” the order states. They will also aim to “end the scourge of human smuggling and trafficking, with a particular focus on such offenses involving children.”

Since that order was issued, the administration has proceeded with considerable secrecy. Some Justice Department officials who work on organized crime have been excluded from planning meetings, as have leaders of the DEA, people familiar with the process said.

A White House spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, did not comment on Miller’s role in directing the task force project or the secrecy of the process. “While the Biden Administration opened the border and looked the other way while Americans were put at risk,” she said, “the Trump Administration is taking action to dismantle cross-border human smuggling and trafficking and ensure the use of all available law enforcement tools to faithfully execute immigration laws and to Make America Safe Again.”

The task force project was described in interviews with current and former officials who have been briefed on it. ProPublica also reviewed documents about the implementation of the task forces, including a briefing paper prepared for Cabinet-level officials on the president’s Homeland Security Council.

The Homeland Security Task Forces will take a “coordinated, whole-of-government approach” to combatting transnational criminal groups, the paper states. They will also draw support from state and local police forces and U.S. intelligence agencies.

Until now, the government has coordinated that same work through a Justice Department program established by President Ronald Reagan, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces — which the Trump administration is shutting down.

Known by the ungainly acronym OCDETF (pronounced “oh-suh-def”), the $550-million program is above all an incentive system: To receive funding, different agencies (including the DEA, the FBI and HSI) must come together to propose investigations, which are then vetted and approved by prosecutor-led OCDETF teams.

The agents are required to include a financial investigation of the criminal activity, typically with help from the Treasury Department, and they often recruit support from state and local police. The OCDETF intelligence center, located in the northern Virginia suburbs, manages the only federal database in which different law-enforcement agencies share their raw investigative files.

While officials describe OCDETF as an imperfect structure, they also say it has become a crucial means of law enforcement cooperation. Its mandate was expanded under the Biden and first Trump administrations to encompass all types of organized crime, not just drug trafficking.

As recently as a few months ago, the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, declared that OCDETF would play a central role in stopping illegal immigration, drug trafficking and street gangs. He even suggested that it investigate the governments of so-called sanctuary cities for obstructing immigration enforcement.

But just weeks after Blanche’s announcement, the administration informed OCDETF officials their operations would be shut down by the end of the fiscal year in September. In a letter to Democratic senators on June 23, the Justice Department confirmed that the Homeland Security Task Forces would absorb OCDETF’s “mission and resources” but did not explain how the new structure would take charge of the roughly 5,000 investigations OCDETF now oversees.

“These were not broken programs,” said a former Homeland Security official who, like others, would only discuss the administration’s plans on condition of anonymity. “If you wanted to build them out and make sure that the immigration side of things got more importance, you could have done that. You did not have to build a new wheel.”

Officials also cited other concerns about the administration’s plan, including whether the new task force system will incorporate some version of the elaborate safeguards OCDETF has used to persuade law enforcement agencies to share their case files in its intelligence database. Under those rules, OCDETF analysts must obtain permission from the agency that provided the records before sharing them with others.

Many officials said they worried that the new task forces seem to be abandoning OCDETF’s incentive structure. OCDETF funds are conditioned on multiple agencies working together on important cases; officials said the monies will now be distributed to law enforcement agencies directly and without the requirement that they collaborate.

“They are taking away a lot of the organization that the government uses to attack organized crime,” a Justice Department official said. “If you want to improve something, great, but they don’t even seem to have a vision for how this is going to work. There are no specifics.”

The Homeland Security Task Forces will try to enforce interagency cooperation by a “supremacy clause,” that gives task force leaders the right to pursue the cases they want and shut down others that might overlap.

The clause will require “that any new or existing investigative and/or intelligence initiatives” targeting transnational criminal organizations “must be presented to the HSTF with a right of first refusal,” according to the briefing paper reviewed by ProPublica.

“Further,” it adds, “the supremacy clause prohibits parallel or competitive activities by member agencies, effectively eliminating duplicative structures such as stand-alone task forces or specialized units, to include narcotics, financial, or others.”

Several senior law enforcement officials said that approach would curtail the independence that investigators need to follow good leads when they see them; newer and less-visible criminal organizations would be more likely to escape scrutiny.

In recent years, those officials noted, both Democratic and Republican administrations have tried at times to short-circuit competition for big cases among law enforcement agencies and judicial districts. But that has often led to as many problems as it has solved, they said.

One notable example, several officials said, was a move by the Biden administration’s DEA administrator, Anne Milgram, to limit her agency’s cooperation with FBI and HSI investigations into fentanyl smuggling by Los Chapitos, the mafia led by sons of the Mexican drug boss Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as “El Chapo.”

Although the DEA eventually indicted the Chapitos’ leaders in New York, officials from other agencies complained that Milgram’s approach wasted months of work and delayed the indictments of some traffickers. Later, when the FBI secretly arranged the surrender of one of the sons, Joaquín Guzmán López, DEA officials were not told about the operation until it was underway, officials said. (Guzmán López initially pleaded not guilty but is believed to be negotiating with the government. Milgram did not respond to messages asking for comment.)

As to the benefits of competition, prosecutors and agents cite the case of El Chapo himself. Before he was extradited to the United States in January 2017, Guzmán Loera had been indicted by seven U.S. attorneys’ offices, reflecting yearslong investigations by the DEA, the FBI and HSI, among others. In the agreement that the Obama Justice Department brokered, three offices led the prosecution, which used the best evidence gathered by the others.

Under the new structure of the Homeland Security Task Forces, several officials said, federal prosecutors will still generally decide whether to bring charges against criminal groups, but they will have less of a role in determining which criminals to investigate.

Regional and national task forces will be overseen by “executive committees” that are expected to include political appointees, officials said. The committees will guide broader decisions about which criminal groups to target, they said.

“The HSTF model unleashes the full might of our federal law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to deliver justice for the American people, whose plight Biden and Garland ignored for four years,” a Justice Department spokesperson said, referring to former Attorney General Merrick Garland. “Any suggestion that the Department is abandoning its mission of cracking down on violent organized crime is unequivocally false.”

During Trump’s first term, veteran officials of the FBI, DEA and HSI all complained that the administration’s overarching focus on immigration diverted agents from more urgent national security threats, including the fentanyl epidemic. Now, as hundreds more agents have been dispatched to immigration enforcement, those officials worry that the new task forces will focus on rounding up undocumented immigrants who have any sort of criminal record at the cost of more significant organized crime investigations.

The first task forces to begin operating under the new model have not assuaged such concerns. In late May, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced that the Virginia Homeland Security Task Force had arrested more than 1,000 “criminal illegal aliens” in just two months, but the authorities have provided almost no details connecting those suspects to transnational criminal organizations.

On June 16, the Gulf of America Homeland Security Task Force, a new unit based in Alabama and Georgia, announced the arrests of 60 people, nearly all of them undocumented immigrants, at a cockfighting event in northern Alabama. Although cockfighting is typically subject to a maximum fine of $50 in the state, a senior HSI official claimed the suspects were “tied to a broader network of serious crimes, including illegal gambling, drug trafficking and violent offenses.” Once again, however, no details were provided.

It is unclear how widely the new task force rules might be applied. While OCDETF funds the salaries of more than a thousand federal agents and hundreds of prosecutors, thousands more DEA, FBI and HSI agents work on other narcotics and organized crime cases.

In early June, five Democratic senators wrote to Bondi questioning the decision to dismantle OCDETF. That decision was first reported by Bloomberg News.

“As the Department’s website notes, OCDETF ‘is the centerpiece of the Attorney General’s strategy to combat transnational-organized crime and to reduce the availability of illicit narcotics in the nation,’” the senators wrote.

In a June 23 response, a Justice Department official, Daniel Boatright, wrote that OCDETF’s operations would be taken over by the new task forces and managed by the office of the Deputy Attorney General. But Boatright did not clarify what role federal prosecutors would play in the new system.

“A lot of good, smart people are trying to make this work,” said one former senior official. “But without having prosecutors drive the process, it is going to completely fracture how we do things.”

Veteran officials at the DEA — who appear to have had almost no say in the creation of the new task forces— are said to be even more concerned. Already the DEA has been fighting pressure to provide access to investigative files without assurances that the safeguards of the OCDETF intelligence center will remain in place, officials said.

“DEA has not even been invited to any of the task force meetings,” one former senior official said. “It is mind-boggling. They’re just getting orders saying, ‘This is what Stephen Miller wants and you’ve got to give it to us.’”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Tim Golden.

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, held talks with France, Germany, and the United Kingdom yesterday in Geneva as Israel’s attacks on Iran entered a second week.

A US-based Iranian human rights group reports the Israeli attacks have killed at least 639 people. Israeli war planes have repeatedly pummeled Tehran and other parts of Iran. Iran is responded by continuing to launch missile strikes into Israel.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have protested in Iran against Israel. Meanwhile, President Trump continues to give mixed messages on whether the US will join Israel’s attack on Iran.

On Wednesday, Trump told reporters, “I may do it, I may not do it”. On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered a new statement from the President.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: “Regarding the ongoing situation in Iran, I know there has been a lot of speculation among all of you in the media regarding the president’s decision-making and whether or not the United States will be directly involved.

“In light of that news, I have a message directly from the president. And I quote, ‘Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.’”

AMY GOODMAN, The War and Peace Report: President Trump has repeatedly used that term, “two weeks,” when being questioned about decisions in this term and his first term as president. Leavitt delivered the message shortly after President Trump met with his former adviser, Steve Bannon, who has publicly warned against war with Iran.

Bannon recently said, “We can’t do this again. We’ll tear the country apart. We can’t have another Iraq,” Bannon said.

This comes as Trump’s reportedly sidelined National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard from key discussions on Iran. In March, Gabbard told lawmakers the intelligence community, “Continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”

But on Tuesday, Trump dismissed her statement, saying, “I don’t care what she said.”

Earlier Thursday, an Iranian missile hit the main hospital in Southern Israel in Beersheba. After the strike, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened to assassinate Ayatollah Khamenei, saying Iran’s supreme leader, “Cannot continue to exist.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the hospital and likened Iran’s attack to the London Blitz. Netanyahu stunned many in Israel by saying, “Each of us bears a personal cost. My family has not been exempt. This is the second time my son Avner has cancelled a wedding due to missile threats.”

We’re joined now by William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His new article for The National Interest is headlined, “Don’t Get Dragged Into a War with Iran.”

Can you talk about what’s going on right now, Bill, the whole question of whether the U.S. is going to use a bunker-buster bomb that has to be delivered by a B-2 bomber, which only the US has?

Another Iraq: Military expert warns US has no real plan    Video: Democracy Now!

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Yeah. This is a case of undue trust in technology. The US is always getting in trouble when they think there’s this miracle solution. A lot of experts aren’t sure this would even work, or if it did, it would take multiple bombings.

And of course, Iran’s not going to sit on its hands. They’ll respond possibly by killing US troops in the region, then we’ll have escalation from there. It’s reminiscent of the beginning of the Iraq War, when they said, “It’s going to be a cakewalk. It’s not going to cost anything.”

Couple of trillion dollars, hundreds of thousands of casualties, many US veterans coming home with PTSD, a regime that was sectarian that paved the way for ISIS, it couldn’t have gone worse.

And so, this is a different beginning, but the end is uncertain, and I don’t think we want to go there.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about the GBU-57, the bunker-buster bomb, and how is it that this discussion going on within the White House about the use of the bomb — and of course, the US has gone back and forth — I should say President Trump has gone back and forth whether he’s fully involved with this war.

At first he was saying they knew about it, but Israel was doing it, then saying, “We have total control of the skies over Tehran,” saying we, not Israel, and what exactly it would mean if the US dropped this bomb and the fleet that the US is moving in?

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Yes, well, the notion is, it’s heavy steel, it’s more explosive power than any conventional bomb. But it only goes so deep, and they don’t actually know how deep this facility is buried. And if it’s going in a straight line, and it’s to one side, it’s just not clear that it’s going to work.

And of course, if it does, Iran is going to rebuild, they’re going to go straight for a nuclear weapon. They’re not going to trust negotiations anymore.

So, apparently, the two weeks is partly because Trump’s getting conflicting reports from his own people about this. Now, if he had actual independent military folks, like Mark Milley in the first term, I think we’d be less likely to go in.

But they made sure to have loyalists. Pete Hegseth is not a profile in courage. He’s not going to stand up to Trump on this. He might not even know the consequences. So, a lot of the press coverage is about this bomb, not about the consequences of an active war.

AMY GOODMAN: Right, about using it. In your recent piece, you wrote, “Israeli officials suggested their attacks may result in regime change in Iran, despite the devastating destabilising impact such efforts in the region would have.”

Can you talk about the significance of Israel putting forward and then Trump going back and forth on whether or not Ali Khamenei will be targeted?

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Yeah, I think my colleague Trita Parsi put it well. There’s been no example of regime change in the region that has come out with a better result. They don’t know what kind of regime would come in.

Could be to the right of the current one. Could just be chaos that would fuel terrorism, who knows what else.

So, they’re just talking — they’re winging it. They have no idea what they’re getting into. And I think Trump, he doesn’t want to seem like Netanyahu’s pulling him by the nose, so when he gets out in front of Trump, Trump says, “Oh, that was my idea.”

But it’s almost as if Benjamin Netanyahu is running US foreign policy, and Trump is kind of following along.

AMY GOODMAN: You have Netanyahu back in 2002 saying, “Iran is imminently going to have a nuclear bomb.” That was more than two decades ago.

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Exactly. That’s just a cover for wanting to take out the regime. And he spoke to the US Congress, he’s made presentations all over the world, and his intelligence has been proven wrong over, and over, and over.

And when we had the Iran deal, he had European allies, he had China, he had Russia. There hadn’t been a deal like that where all these countries were on the same page in living memory, and it was working.

And Trump trashed it and now has to start over.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the War Powers Act. The Virginia Senator Kaine has said that — has just put forward a bill around saying it must be — Congress that must vote on this. Where is [Senator] Chuck Schumer [Senate minority leader]? Where is [Hakeem] Jeffries [Congress minoroity leader] on this, the Democratic House and Senate leaders?

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Well, a lot of the so-called leaders are not leading. When is the moment that you should step forward if we’re possibly going to get into another disastrous war? But I think they’re concerned about being viewed as critical of Israel.

They don’t want to go out on a limb. So, you’ve got a progressive group that’s saying, “This has to be authorised by Congress.” You’ve got Republicans who are doubtful, but they don’t want to stand up to Trump because they don’t want to lose their jobs.

“Risk your job. This is a huge thing. Don’t just sort of be a time-server.

AMY GOODMAN: So, according to a report from IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, released in May, Iran has accumulated roughly 120 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, which is 30 percent away from weapons-grade level of 90 percent. You have Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA, saying this week that they do not have evidence that Iran has the system for a nuclear bomb.

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Yes, well, a lot of the discussion points out — they don’t talk about, when you’ve got the uranium, you have to build the weapon, you have to make it work on a missile.

It’s not you get the uranium, you have a weapon overnight, so there’s time to deal with that should they go forward through negotiations. And we had a deal that was working, which Trump threw aside in his first term.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the foreign minister of Iran, Araghchi, in Geneva now speaking with his counterparts from Britain, France, the EU.

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Well, I don’t think US allies in Europe want to go along with this, and I think he’s looking for some leverage over Trump. And of course, Trump is very hard to read, but even his own base, the majority of Trump supporters, don’t want to go to war.

You’ve got people like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon saying it would be a disaster. But ultimately, it comes down to Trump. He’s unpredictable, he’s transactional, he’ll calculate what he thinks it’ll mean for him.

AMY GOODMAN: And what impact does protests have around the country, as we wrap up?

WILLIAM HARTUNG: Well, I think taking the stand is infectious. So many institutions were caving in to Trump. And the more people stand up, 2000 demonstrations around the country, the more the folks sitting on the fence, the millions of people who, they’re against Trump, but they don’t know what to do, the more of us that get involved, the better chance we have of turning this thing around.

So, we should not let them discourage us. We need to build power to push back against all these horrible things.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, if the US were to bomb the nuclear site that it would require the bunker-buster bomb to hit below ground, underground. Are we talking about nuclear fallout here?

WILLIAM HARTUNG: I think there would certainly be radiation that would of course affect the Iranian people. They’ve already had many civilian deaths. It’s not this kind of precise thing that’s only hitting military targets.

And that, too, has to affect Iran’s view of this. They were shortly away from another negotiation, and now their country’s being devastated, so can they trust us?

AMY GOODMAN: Bill Hartung is senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His new piece for The National Interest is headlined, “Don’t Get Dragged Into a War with Iran.”

Republished from Democracy Now! under Creative Commons.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

As Israeli warplanes continue to pummel Tehran and other parts of the country, President Trump has given mixed messages on whether the U.S. will join Israel’s war on Iran. Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered a message on Thursday that Trump will decide on direct U.S. involvement in the next two weeks. Leavitt delivered the message shortly after Trump met with his former advisor Steve Bannon who has publicly warned against war with Iran. The U.S. is reportedly considering dropping “bunker buster” bombs on underground Iranian nuclear facilities. “It’s reminiscent of the beginning of the Iraq War, when they said it’s going to be a cakewalk,” says William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

A U.S.-based Iranian human rights group reports that the Israeli attacks have killed at least 639 people in Iran, while Iran’s retaliatory strikes in Israel have killed an estimated two dozen.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Secretary Rubio’s proposed plan, announced in May, would drastically downsize the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), which is responsible for documenting and responding to press freedom violations and providing assistance to journalists at risk around the world. In addition, the reorganization plan would significantly cut staff working on human rights policy, including those supporting journalists and press freedom. These changes would significantly degrade the U.S. government’s capacity to address press freedom violations of press freedom and support journalists at risk globally.

“The U.S. government’s diplomatic capacity, built over decades of bipartisan collaboration and sustained by dedicated expert staff, is instrumental in defending fundamental freedoms and democratic values worldwide, including press freedom. Its strength is critical for America’s national security and global standing, and provides a consequential lifeline for journalists and media outlets who find themselves in the crosshairs for their reporting,” said CPJ’s U.S. Advocacy Representative Loghman Fattahi in a joint press release.

CPJ therefore urges Congress to reject this proposed reorganization and ensure the continued strength of U.S. efforts to protect fundamental freedoms, including press freedom and journalists globally.

Read the letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Secretary Rubio’s proposed plan, announced in May, would drastically downsize the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), which is responsible for documenting and responding to press freedom violations and providing assistance to journalists at risk around the world. In addition, the reorganization plan would significantly cut staff working on human rights policy, including those supporting journalists and press freedom. These changes would significantly degrade the U.S. government’s capacity to address press freedom violations of press freedom and support journalists at risk globally.

“The U.S. government’s diplomatic capacity, built over decades of bipartisan collaboration and sustained by dedicated expert staff, is instrumental in defending fundamental freedoms and democratic values worldwide, including press freedom. Its strength is critical for America’s national security and global standing, and provides a consequential lifeline for journalists and media outlets who find themselves in the crosshairs for their reporting,” said CPJ’s U.S. Advocacy Representative Loghman Fattahi in a joint press release.

CPJ therefore urges Congress to reject this proposed reorganization and ensure the continued strength of U.S. efforts to protect fundamental freedoms, including press freedom and journalists globally.

Read the letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Israeli tanks opened fire last Sunday on a crowd of thousands of starving Palestinians at an aid distribution center in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The victims had gathered in hopes of finding food for themselves and their families, following a nearly three-month total Israeli blockade of the territory. At least 31 people were killed; one Palestinian was also killed by Israeli fire the same day at another distribution site in central Gaza.

On Monday, June 2, three more Palestinians lost their lives to Israeli projectiles while trying to procure food, and on Tuesday there were 27 fatalities at the aid hub in Rafah. This brought the total number of Palestinian deaths at the newly implemented hubs to more than 100 in just a week.

‘Not possible to implement’

Al Jazeera‘s Hind Khoudary (6/3/25): ““The Israeli forces just opened fire randomly, shooting Palestinians…using quadcopters and live ammunition.”

Mass killing in the guise of food distribution is occurring under the supervision of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a sketchy-as-hell organization registered in Switzerland and Delaware. It boasts the participation of former US military and intelligence officers, as well as solid Israeli endorsement and armed US security contractors escorting food deliveries.

Jake Wood—the ex-US Marine sniper who had taken up the post of GHF executive director—recently resigned after reasoning that “it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.”

Indeed, the GHF, which has temporarily suspended operations to conduct damage control, has managed to align its activities entirely with the genocidal vision of the state of Israel, whose military has killed more than 54,600 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. In May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu determined that “minimal” aid should be let into Gaza, lest mass starvation force the US to scale back its support for genocide (which is somehow less problematic than enforced famine).

By entrusting the delivery of this “minimal” aid to the brand-new GHF, rather than the United Nations and other groups that have decades of experience doing such things, the Israelis have in fact been able to call the shots in terms of strategic placement of the aid hubs. Only four are currently in place for a starving population of 2 million, requiring many Palestinians to walk long distances—those that are able to walk, that is—across Israeli military lines.

The hubs are mainly in southern Gaza, which is conveniently where Israel has schemed to concentrate the surviving Palestinian population, in order to then expel them in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s dream of a brand-new Palestinian-free “Riviera of the Middle East” in the Gaza Strip. Even as he authorized the resumption of aid, Netanyahu reiterated his vow to “take control” of all of Gaza. As UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has observed, “Aid distribution has become a death trap.”

Leading with denials

The Washington Post headline (6/2/25) puts Israel’s rebuttal ahead of the charge it’s responding to.

And yet despite all of this, Western corporate media have somehow found it difficult to report in straightforward fashion that the food-distribution massacres have left Palestinians with a rather bleak choice: either die of starvation or die trying to obtain food aid.

So it is that we end up with, for example, the Washington Post’s Tuesday dispatch (6/2/25) from Jerusalem, headlined “Israel Says It Fired ‘Warning Shots’ Near Aid Site; Health Officials Say 27 Dead,” which charitably gave Israel the privilege of refuting what the health officials have said before they even say it. The article quoted the Israeli army as claiming that its soldiers had fired at suspects “who advanced toward the troops in such a way that posed a threat.” It also quoted the following statement from the GHF:

While the aid distribution was conducted safely and without incident at our site today, we understand that [Israeli army] is investigating whether a number of civilians were injured after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone.

Anyway, that’s what happens when you put your aid distribution site in the middle of an Israeli military zone.

Then there was the BBC report (5/31/25) on Sunday’s massacre, headlined “Israel Denies Firing at Civilians After Hamas-Run Ministry Says 31 Killed in Gaza Aid Center Attack,” which went on to underscore that the ministry in question was the “Hamas-run health ministry.” Given Hamas’s role as the governing authority in the Gaza Strip, this is sort of like specifying that the US Department of Health & Human Services is “run by the US government”—except that, in Gaza’s case, the “Hamas-run” qualifier is meant to cast doubt on the ministry’s claims. Never mind that said ministry’s death counts have over time consistently “held up to UN scrutiny, independent investigations and even Israel’s tallies,” as the Associated Press (11/6/23) has previously acknowledged.

The BBC headline (5/31/25) likewise presents Israel’s defense before revealing the charge made by the “Hamas-run ministry.”

On Tuesday, though, the AP (6/3/25) chimed in with its own headline, “Gaza Officials Say Israeli Forces Killed 27 Heading to Aid Site. Israel Says It Fired Near Suspects.” The text of the article details how Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is “led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government,” has calculated that the majority of the more than 54,000 Palestinian fatalities in Israel’s current war on Gaza are women and children, but hasn’t said “how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.”

Meanwhile, Reuters (6/1/25) reported that an Israeli attack near a GHF-run aid distribution point had “killed at least 30 people in Rafah, Palestinian news agency WAFA and Hamas-affiliated media said on Sunday.” In a separate article on Sunday’s massacre, the news wire (6/1/25) wrote that

the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry said 31 people were killed with a single gunshot wound to the head or chest from Israeli fire as they were gathered in the Al-Alam district aid distribution area in Rafah.

The latter dispatch was headlined “Gaza Ministry Says Israel Kills More Than 30 Aid Seekers, Israel Denies.”

‘No shortage’

Israel’s most absurd denials can turn into headlines (Le Monde, 4/8/25).

There is pretty much no end to the crafty sidelining by Western corporate media of truthful assertions by “Hamas-run” entities—and the simultaneous provision of ample space to the Israeli military to continue its established tradition of propagating outright lies. Recall that time not so long ago that Israeli officials insisted that there was “no shortage” of aid in the Gaza Strip, despite a full-blown blockade, and the glee directly expressed by various Israeli ministers about not letting an iota of food, or anything else necessary for survival, into the besieged enclave (FAIR.org, 4/25/25).

It is furthermore perplexing why there is even a perceived need to cast doubt on massacres of 31 or 27 or three individuals, in the context of a genocide that has killed more than 54,600 people in 20 months—a war in which Israel has exhibited no qualms in slaughtering starving people, as in the February 2024 incident when at least 112 Palestinians were massacred while queuing for flour southwest of Gaza City (FAIR.org, 3/22/24). Against a backdrop of such wanton slaughter, what are 100 more Palestinian deaths to Israel? Indiscriminate mass killing is, after all, the objective here.

Just as GHF is now engaged in micro-level damage control operations vis-à-vis their militarized distribution of food in Gaza, Israel, too, appears to be in a similar mode, since it’s a whole lot simpler—and helpfully distracting—to bicker over dozens of casualties rather than, you know, a whole genocide.

And the Western establishment media are, as ever, standing by to lend a helping hand. Perhaps we should start calling them the “Israel-affiliated media.” 

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Belén Fernández.

In March the Air Force announced plans to begin reviewing the potential environmental harms of landing dozens of commercial rockets in the Johnston Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, which lies within the protected Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. This project is part of an Air Force program called Rocket Cargo Vanguard intended to experiment with the use of commercial rockets for military logistics and materiel transport.

“Landing massive rockets in one of the most isolated and valuable habitats for seabirds would be as destructive and irresponsible as it sounds. That’s exactly why the military and SpaceX are trying to keep this project’s details hidden from the public,” said Maxx Philips, Hawai‘i and Pacific Islands director at the Center. “This project threatens to destroy a site that millions of seabirds need for nesting and overwintering, all in the name of military logistics and Elon Musk’s profit.”

The Johnston Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and the surrounding Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument protect vital nesting habitat for seabirds, shallow coral reefs and marine habitat for endangered species like green sea turtles and Hawaiian monk seals.

This plan would allow SpaceX and the U.S. Space Force to land up to 10 rockets per year over the next four years on Johnston Atoll.

The military is preparing a shortened version of an environmental analysis required by the National Environmental Policy Act to assess potential harms from the project, including the harms that rocket landings could have on fish habitat and migratory birds. However, there is a history of inadequate environmental review and recurring harm to sensitive and ecologically critical habitat on national wildlife refuge lands from SpaceX’s activities, including several explosions.

On April 20, 2023, a SpaceX rocket exploded next to the Boca Chica Wildlife Refuge in south Texas. The accident ignited a 3.5 acre brush fire and hurled concrete and metal into tidal flats. All shorebird nests surveyed after the accident showed damage or missing eggs, consistent with being hit with debris.

The Center responded by suing the Federal Aviation Administration for allowing the expansion of such operations without more detailed environmental study.

In April the Center submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for public records documenting the Trump administration’s plans to construct and operate the two Johnston Atoll landing pads. The requested records would help the public understand the project’s scope and whether the government’s environmental study adequately examines the project’s risks.

Since the start of Trump’s second term, the Center has pursued numerous strategic Freedom of Information Act lawsuits seeking public records about the administration’s destructive anti-environment agenda. The records sought include emails and other documents detailing plans to accelerate logging in national forests, carry out mass firings and dismantle protections for the nation’s wetlands.

The lawsuit was filed late Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii. The Center expects to receive records from the suit in the next two to three months.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“The point of this is to lure Palestinians as though they’re animals going into a cage, lure them with the bait of promise of aid, and then entrap them in the south of Gaza.” As starving Palestinians in Gaza compete for the limited trickle of supplies admitted into the enclave by a new U.S.- and Israeli-backed humanitarian aid scheme, journalist Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News says the sparse aid is actually another Israeli military tactic “meant to serve as part of Netanyahu’s war of annihilation. … They’re using food as a weapon of war in an effort to further dehumanize Palestinians.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“The point of this is to lure Palestinians as though they’re animals going into a cage, lure them with the bait of promise of aid, and then entrap them in the south of Gaza.” As starving Palestinians in Gaza compete for the limited trickle of supplies admitted into the enclave by a new U.S.- and Israeli-backed humanitarian aid scheme, journalist Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News says the sparse aid is actually another Israeli military tactic “meant to serve as part of Netanyahu’s war of annihilation. … They’re using food as a weapon of war in an effort to further dehumanize Palestinians.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Fiji cannot compete with Australia and New Zealand to retain its teachers, the man in charge of the country’s finances says.

The Fijian education system is facing major challenges as the Sitiveni Rabuka-led coalition struggles to address a teacher shortage.

While the education sector receives a significant chunk of the budget (about NZ$587 million), it has not been sufficient, as global demand for skilled teachers is pulling qualified Fijian educators toward greener pastures.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji education reports

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Biman Prasad said that the government was training more teachers.

“The government has put in measures, we are training enough teachers, but we are also losing teachers to Australia and New Zealand,” he told RNZ Pacific Waves on the sidelines of the University of the South Pacific Council meeting in Auckland last week.

“We are happy that Australia and New Zealand gain those skills, particularly in the area of maths and science, where you have a shortage. And obviously, Fiji cannot match the salaries that teachers get in Australia and New Zealand.

According to the Education Ministry’s Strategic Development Plan (2023-2026), the shortage of teachers is one of the key challenges, alongside limited resources and inadequate infrastructure, particularly for primary schools.

Hundreds of vacancies
Reports in local media in August last year said there were hundreds of teacher vacancies that needed to be filled.

However, Professor Prasad said there were a lot of teachers who were staying in Fiji as the government was taking steps to keep teachers in the country.

“We are training more teachers. We are putting additional funding, in terms of making sure that we provide the right environment, right support to our teachers,” he said.

“In the last two years, we have increased the salaries of the civil service right across the board, and those salaries and wages range from between 10 to 20 percent.

“We are again going to look at how we can rationalise some of the positions within the Education Ministry, right from preschool up to high school.”

Meanwhile, the Fiji government is currently undertaking a review of the Education Act 1966.

Education Minister Aseri Radrodro said in Parliament last month that a draft bill was expected to be submitted to Cabinet in July.

“The Education Act 1966, the foundational law for pre-tertiary education in Fiji, has only been amended a few times since its promulgation, and has not undergone a comprehensive review,” he said.

“It is imperative that this legislation be updated to reflect modern standards and address current issues within the education system.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The Black Bolts came out of some free writing I was doing. It was a pretty heavy time while I was making it as far as grief and subsequent depression kicked in. Working on art or music is a good way to organize the messier or abstract feelings, it’s a place you can put those so you’re not just a person in the world swimming in all these thoughts.

The Black Bolts is a metaphor viewing that depression or grief as storm clouds, when they coalesce, whatever positive or negative electrons or neutrons that smash together can yield lightning, which can illuminate a path forward that also shows you the beauty in all of that darkness, which to me is the other side of grief. You only feel so bad when you lose something because you loved them so much, or you may lose someone because it’s directly proportional to the amount of love and unspoken love that you had for this person.

Maybe the black bolts are these songs, or the impetus for these songs is just jotting down or documenting those flashes of inspiration that helped me go forward. This record is a way to honor those people that I’ve lost who really helped me along the way. It is strange when it’s the people who directly inspired me to want to make art or music, many of those people are the ones who passed. This was a good way to keep them in the world for myself. And also the songs are multi-purpose, whoever needs to use them, that’s the way I hope it lands in the world.

You’ve said the importance of making art is that when you walk away, you’ve altered, gotten rid of, or imported something. I’m assuming that was the case with this one.

Absolutely. If you live long enough you’re going to lose someone, you’re going to experience, I hope it’s not clinical depression, but you’ll experience extreme periods of sadness or things not going your way. Even just looking at the world and wondering, is this it? All we got is just being fucking hateful, murderous people, that’s it? It’s just life, but I feel as someone who’s making art or has this mechanism to process, and when I say process, it can be therapeutic. The act of someone throwing a bunch of dust at you and you’re just like, “Okay, I’m going to turn this into little mud balls and place them over here so they make some kind of sense and I’m not swimming in this mist.”

How does seeing your ideas through as a solo artist differ from operating with a band?

I have no problem telling people what to do now. I also want to make it as easy for them as possible. I want to help them out by saying, “Here’s the storyboards, here’s the map that we can all collaborate on.” Much in the same way as it goes with a band. You find people who are better than you at what they do and say, “I would love for you to have fun with this because I know that you’re great at what you do, and I want to see what that yields.”

In terms of demo writing and going from 80 to 100 percent, it was good, because it was the way I started making music on a four-track, just beatboxing, a cappella and a little bit of keyboard. Back then I would make demos and burn a CD of them and give it to a friend or make copies. We’d trade stuff, without having the idea they would be more realized. I didn’t have any idea I would be in a band.

It was going back to that, making a strong enough demo for people to get ideas and springboard off of instead of, as I would with the band, knowing that I’m going to get to here, but I know for sure that Jaleel’s going to have a great idea here, Dave’s going to have a great idea, or Kyp will do something awesome here. That part was exciting, the uncertainty, not knowing who I was going to collaborate with and how.

You used a “dry paint/wet paint” framework for deciding which ideas needed elaboration and which to leave as is. How did that play out?

The wet paint, dry paint shorthand developed between Wilder Zoby and I. l have a tendency, if something doesn’t feel exactly right, I can go back to the point of obsessing. Lyrically or with harmony. Since that’s my department on the song, I’ll just be like, “That’s not right. I don’t know what’s not right about it.” It’s almost like a painting, sometimes you get to a point and you think that area over there, something’s not sitting right with me so I’m going to keep working on it. Then you realize you’ve completely fucked it up and it’s a mess. Maybe if you’d just gone for a walk or something, you would’ve come back and not even noticed it. So we had a shorthand with the songs where we’d get them to a certain point and just feel like, okay, that’s done. We’ve taken that to a point where we both looked at each other and gone, “This feels right, this feels good in the moment.” When we were doing a final review of all of the songs there were some things that were obvious, where it was just like, “I’m going to go in and fix that because this sounds weird,” or there was a technical thing wrong with it. There were other things that were more feelings-based or lyrics I was unsure about. You get in your head about lyrics more than anybody who hears the final will, because they have no idea what the 20 versions of this thing were before they hear it.

I forget that every time I’m making a record.

We do forget it. There’s songs in the past with TV on the Radio, where as soon as it’s out in the world, I hear it and I’m just like, “Why didn’t I change that?” No one cares or knows. So the wet paint, dry paint thing showed up. It’s great to have a collaborator or somebody who’s aware of what you’re doing that you can use as a sounding board. Even while we were mastering it, I was like, “I think I want to add that thing that I’ve been thinking of.” And Wilder would go, “I’m going to say it’s dry paint.”

Then we’d take a little survey with whoever else was in the room, and they’re like, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, I think that’s fine.” Even if I felt uncomfortable about it, on this record more than anything else I shrugged and said, “You know what? I feel weird about that.” But also I love things that are kind of awkward, I like the handmade nature of things. Increasingly I like to see a human hand in something, imperfections.

How long have you had your journaling practice?

I am not as disciplined about it as I would like to be every day. I don’t remember when the first edition came out, but The Artist’s Way, the Julia Cameron book. Someone gave it to me, and the first thing I thought was, come on, this is a workbook. It was like, no, I get up and I’m bummed out. I go to my job at The Angelika and I’m sad, I come home and I do what I’m going to do. You just fuck around wonder where the time is going.

So they gave it to me and I was like, “I’ll try it out for a week.” I ended up going through the whole thing and doing the morning pages where she encourages you to write three notebook pages a day, to free-write and not look back at it. You don’t look at it for maybe a month as a way to clear everything out of your head in the morning and put it in a place, put all your messy and serious thoughts in one place and then don’t look at it.

It’s almost like going for a run in the morning. You’re like, I’m going into the world and getting ready to go and be a person without having all of these little knots tied up. I’ve tried to do that since I got that book, which was probably in the late 90s. I have gone back to some of those journals, I’ve got a box of them over there for ideas. I also draw in the margins of some of those. Some of those little dumb sketches can end up as drawings or a painting. I took that idea and did a lot of free writing and drawing in this book, specifically for this record. This started May 16th, 2021 as a way to reorganize my thoughts and have a master plan to go into this record.

About a week after I signed to Sub Pop, there was another part of this whole, what do I like about making music? I had gone to all these labels and no one cared. Then I thought, what about Sub Pop? Maybe they’d be interested. They’re definitely in that pantheon of labels that put out music that made me realize I could probably make music, and influenced the way I thought about music, scenes ,and who I wanted to be around. I brought the demos to them and they were super on board immediately, which was a big lift for me. A week after that, my sister passed away suddenly.

I’m the only immediate family in the country. My mom’s in Nigeria, it was just me. I had to go and deal with all of that, doing a ceremony, everything. I came back and just essentially was like, “I don’t want to do anything ever again. This is the closest person in my life.” It was mid-pandemic, so it was all of that stuff you have to do when somebody passes, in masks, you set up a Zoom funeral. It was a pretty heavy time. That was in March, and this says, May 16th, 2021.

Three months after, I was like, “You know what, not only do I owe someone a record.” Sub Pop was just like, “Take as much time as you want.” And I was like, “I don’t want to hear that because I’d like to get it done, and I feel like it’s the best use of my time in the middle of this grief and everything surrounding it.” It’s good to have a place to land. I had the record title already, and here in my journal it says, “Bolts Master Plan, May 16th.” Then it said, “May 17th to June 4th, demo and organize. June, July, August, work. Turn the record in in September.

I wrote, “cohesion, a strict schedule, unplug everything to work, make a sonic bed. The sonic bed is where you rest now until the years end, all other projects get turned off.” That starts, then I have a page here that essentially says, “Focus on demos first, new batches every week. I want violins, some digital, mostly organic sounds. Look it up, make a mixtape of how you’d like things to go.”

This record has the feeling of a mixtape that a friend would’ve given to me in high school, and of a mixtape that friends did give to me in high school. There are all these inspirations, and this was just on one day. The first tier of inspiration–Fever Ray, Little Dragon, Bjork, Homogenic. Gary Newman, Stooges, Raw Power, Rain Dogs, Odelay, Mellow Gold, Nation of Ulysses, Nick Drake. Second layer, Tinariwen, Howlin’ Wolf, Choirs, bones in a stone room, which is not a band, it’s just a feeling and sound.

Organic, Super Onze, which is a Malian Griot band. Listen to Bahia, Manu Chao, Congotronics. Then the third layer, words, sound, spoken word, glitch. There are sketches for what the album art might look like. Then it says for dance tracks, listen to some house, footwork, techno. Apply that to Conga and Calypso, mix and match. Eight songs, three interludes. That was the first deal of this is what I want to fucking do.

What are some creative throughlines that allow you to stay engaged in your work?

When I started out, I thought I would be a comic artist, specifically an underground cartoonist. Then I wanted to make films, short films and music videos, and acting came out of that. Then making stop motion was also sort of a, “I can do this,” just make the thing that I want to see.

Which by the way, it never turns out exactly the way I want to see it. But also accepting that. It’s going to be something close to the idea or completely different, which is also totally fine. It’s in collaboration, finding people who are in a lot of ways better than you at what they’re doing. Bringing them in and getting to a place of play. Everybody tries to be their best selves creatively when you bring people in who are very good at what they do, and you encourage them to go in a direction that makes the most sense for them. And push it to be like, “If we all get down on this one mural,” whatever, the technical mural, whether it’s a record or a video or something, and we’re all excited to see it, then that’s the best place we can possibly be.

It’s also trusting this mechanism of processing the world. As long as I’m still in the world and as long as I’m moving forward. A friend of min, a sculptor named Jenny Beck, we’re thinking about life in terms of you get born then you’re shoved along by this invisible hand, all of these things come at you and you have to figure out a way to reconfigure them so they get out of your way. Or reconfigure them so that they become a part of you, or so that you can use them to help other people.

Mostly it’s realizing that you’re going to be pushed forward, and that time is here and we’ve got to spend it. We don’t have anything, there’s nothing we can do but spend that time. The throughline is that it all feels like a doable collage. All of these separate elements of your outside life and your inner life and the events of the wordl. It’s all stuff to pull from and turn into something else. Sometimes that’s a job and you get paid for it, and sometimes it’s just what you do.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Jeffrey.

Reading an NBC News report a couple of days ago about a Trump administration plan to relocate 1 million Gazans to Libya reminded me of a conversation between the legendary Warsaw Ghetto leader Marek Edelman and fellow fighter and survivor Simcha Rotem that took place more than quarter of a century ago.

In the conversation, first reported in Haaretz in 2023, Rotem said the Jews who walked into the gas chambers without a fight did so only because they were hungry.

Edelman disagreed, but Rotem insisted. “Listen, man. Marek, I’m surprised by your attitude. They only went because they were hungry. Even if they’d known what awaited them they would have walked into the gas chambers. You and I would have done the same.”

• READ MORE: Israel slammed over ‘cynical’ sidestep of global rulings on Gazan humanitarian aid
• Israel defiant as pressure mounts over ‘war of annihilation’ in Gaza
• NZ joins call for Israel to allow full resumption of aid to Gaza
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

Edelman cut him off. “You would never have gone” [to the gas chamber.] Rotem replied, “I’m not so sure. I was never that hungry.”

Edelman agreed, saying: “I also wasn’t that hungry,” to which Rotem said, “That’s why you didn’t go.”

The NBC report claims that Israeli officials are aware of the plan and talks have been held with the Libyan leadership about taking in 1 million ethnically cleansed Palestinians.. The carrot being offered is the unfreezing of billions of dollars of Libya’s own money seized by the US more than a decade ago.

The Arabic word Sumud — or steadfastness — is synonymous with the Palestinian people. The idea that 1 million Gazans would agree to walk off the 1.4 percent of historic Palestine that is Gaza is inconceivable.

Equally incomprehensible
But then the idea that my great grandmother and other relatives walked into the gas chambers is equally incomprehensible. But we’ve never been that hungry.

The people of Gaza are. No food has entered Gaza for 76 days. Half a million Gazans are facing starvation and the rest of the population (more than 1.5 million people) are suffering from high levels of acute food insecurity, according to the UN.

Last year, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was widely condemned when he suggested starving Gaza might be “justified and moral”.

The lack of outrage and urgency being expressed by world leaders — particularly Western leaders — after nearly 11 weeks of Israel actually starving the inhabitants of what retired IDF general Giora Eiland has called a giant concentration camp — is an outrage.

As far as I’m aware there’s been no talk of cutting off diplomatic relations, trade embargos or even cultural boycotts.

Israel — which last time I looked wasn’t in Europe — just placed second in Eurovision. “I’m happy,” an Israeli friend messaged me, “that my old genocidal homeland (Austria) won and not my current genocidal nation.”

A third generation Israeli, she’s one of a tiny minority protesting the war crimes being committed less than 100km from her apartment.

Honourable exceptions
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Irish President Michael Higgins are honourable exceptions to the muted criticism being expressed by Western leaders, although this criticism has finally been stepped up with the threatened “concrete actions” by the UK, France and Canada, and the condemnation of Israel by 22 other countries — including New Zealand.

Sanchez had declared Israel a genocidal state and said Spain won’t do business with such a nation.

And peaking at a national famine commemoration held over the weekend Higgens said the UN Security Council had failed again and again by not dealing with famines and the current “forced starvation of the people of Gaza”.

He cited UN Secretary-General António Guterres saying “as aid dries up, the floodgates of horror have re-opened. Gaza is a killing field — and civilians are in an endless death loop.”

Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen argued in his 1981 book Poverty and Famines that famines are man-made and not natural disasters.

Unlike Gaza, the famines he wrote about were caused by either callous disregard by the ruling elites for the populations left to starve or the disastrous results of following the whims of an all-powerful leader like Chairman Mao.

He argued that a famine had never occurred in a functioning democracy.

A horrifying fact
It’s a horrifying fact that a self-described democracy, funded and abetted by the world’s most powerful democracy, has been allowed by the international community to starve two million people with no let-up in its bombing of barely functioning hospitals and killing of more than 2000 Gazans since the ban on food entering the strip was put in place. (Many more will have died due to a lack of medicine, food, and access to clean water.)

After more than two months of denying any food or medicine to enter Gaza Israel is now saying it will allow limited amounts of food in to avoid a full-scale famine.

“Due to the need to expand the fighting, we will introduce a basic amount of food to the residents of Gaza to ensure no famine occurs,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained.

“A famine might jeopardise the continuation of Operation Gideon’s Chariots aimed at eliminating Hamas.”

If 19-months of indiscriminate bombardment, the razing to the ground of whole cities, the displacement of virtually the entire population, and more than 50,000 recorded deaths (the Lancet estimated the true figure is likely to be four times that) hasn’t destroyed Hamas to Israel’s satisfaction it’s hard to conceive of what will.

But accepting that that is the real aim of the ongoing genocide would be naïve.

Shamefully indifferent Western world
In the first cabinet meeting following the Six Day War, long before Hamas came into existence, ridding Gaza of its Palestinian inhabitants was top of the agenda.

“If we can evict 300,000 refugees from Gaza to other places . . .  we can annex Gaza without a problem,” Defence Minister Moshe Dayan said.

The population of Gaza was 400,000 at the time.

“We should take them to the East Bank [Jordan] by the scruff of their necks and throw them there,” Minister Yosef Sapir said.

Fifty-eight years later the possible destinations may have changed but the aim remains the same. And a shamefully indifferent Western world combined with a malnourished and desperate population may be paving the way to a mass expulsion.

If the US, Europe and their allies demanded that Israel stop, the killing would end tomorrow.

Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based journalist and his Towards Democracy blog is at Substack.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

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Two days before President Donald Trump announced dramatic plans for “reciprocal” tariffs on foreign imports, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sold stock in almost three dozen companies, according to records reviewed by ProPublica.

The Feb. 11 sales occurred near the stock market’s historic peak, just before it began to slide amid concerns about Trump’s tariff plans and ultimately plummeted after the president unveiled the details of the new tariffs on April 2.

Disclosure records filed by Duffy with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics show he sold between $75,000 and $600,000 of stock two days before Trump’s Feb. 13 announcement, and up to $50,000 more that day.

Transportation secretaries normally have little to do with tariff policy, but Duffy has presented himself as one of the intellectual forefathers of Trump’s current trade agenda. As a congressman in 2019, his last government position before Trump elevated him to his cabinet post, Duffy introduced a bill he named the “United States Reciprocal Trade Act.” The proposed legislation, which did not pass, in many ways mirrors Trump’s reciprocal tariff plan. Duffy worked on that bill with Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro. Trump’s tariffs were “the culmination of that work,” Duffy posted online, referring to his own bill in the House.

Trades by government officials informed by nonpublic information learned in the course of their official duties could violate the law. However, it’s unclear whether Duffy had any information about the timing or scale of Trump’s reciprocal tariff plans before the public did.

Trump had repeatedly promised to institute significant tariffs throughout the campaign. But during the first weeks of his term, investors were not panic selling, seeming to assume Trump wouldn’t adopt the far-reaching levies that led to the market crash following his “Liberation Day” announcement.

In response to questions from ProPublica, a Transportation Department spokesperson said an outside manager made the trades and Duffy “had no input on the timing of the sales” — a defense that ethics experts generally consider one of the strongest against questions of trading on nonpublic information.

His stock transactions “are part of a retirement account and not managed directly by the Secretary. The account managers must follow the guidance of the ethics agreement and they have done so.”

“The Secretary strongly supports the President’s tariff policy, but he isn’t part of the administration’s decisions on tariff levels,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson dismissed the notion that knowledge of Trump’s coming tariffs could constitute insider knowledge because “President Trump has been discussing tariffs since the 1980s.”

Duffy is the second cabinet secretary to have sold stock at an opportune time.

Last week, ProPublica reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi sold between $1 million and $5 million worth of shares of Trump Media, the president’s social media company, on April 2. A government ethics agreement required Bondi to sell the shares within 90 days of her confirmation, a deadline that would have given her until early May, but why she sold on that date is unclear. After the market closed that day, Trump presented his tariffs, sending the market reeling.

Following ProPublica’s story, at least two Democratic members of Congress called for investigations. Bondi has yet to answer questions about whether she knew anything about Trump’s tariff plans before the public did. The Justice Department has not responded to questions about the trades.

Disclosure forms for securities trading by government officials do not require them to state the exact amount bought or sold but instead to provide a broad range for the totals of each transaction.

Duffy's disclosure records show he sold 34 stocks worth between $90,000 and $650,000 on Feb. 11 and Feb. 13. Per the ethics agreement he signed to avoid conflicts of interest as head of the Transportation Department, he was required to sell off stock in seven of those companies during his first three months in office. Cabinet members are typically required to divest themselves of financial interests that intersect with their department’s oversight role, which in Duffy’s case involve U.S. roadways, aviation and the rest of the nation’s transportation network. The ethics agreement was dated Jan. 13, and Duffy was confirmed by the senate on Jan. 28, meaning he had until late April to sell. His spokesperson said he provided his account manager with the ethics agreement on Feb. 7.

The stocks he sold in the other 27 companies were not subject to the ethics agreement. Those shares were valued somewhere between $27,000 and $405,000, according to the records. Among them were Shopify, whose merchants are impacted by the tariffs, and John Deere, the agricultural machinery manufacturer that has projected hundreds of millions of dollars in new costs because of Trump’s tariffs.

Other companies Duffy sold, like gambling firm DraftKings and food delivery service DoorDash, are less directly vulnerable to tariff disruptions. But even those companies will be impacted if Americans have less disposable cash to spend. Few stocks were not hit hard by Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcements. The S&P 500, a broadbased index, fell almost 19% in the weeks that followed Duffy’s sales and 13% specifically after Trump unveiled the details of his reciprocal tariff plan. Since Trump unexpectedly walked back much of those initial tariffs, the market has rebounded.

There’s no indication that the cash from Duffy’s sales was immediately reinvested. He appears to have held on to parts of his portfolio, including a Bitcoin fund, treasuries, S&P 500 funds and stock in Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, an American biopharma company. (Duffy also purchased some Microsoft shares, one of the stocks he’s prohibited from holding, days earlier on Feb. 7, only to sell them on Feb. 11 with the rest of his sales.)

Trades by government officials informed by nonpublic information learned through their jobs could violate the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge, or STOCK, Act. The 2012 law clarified that executive and legislative branch employees cannot use nonpublic government information to trade stock and requires them to promptly disclose their trades.

But no cases have ever been brought under the law, and some legal experts have doubts it would hold up to scrutiny from the courts, which in recent years have generally narrowed what constitutes illegal insider trading. Current and former officials have also raised concerns that Trump’s Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission would not aggressively investigate activities by Trump or his allies.

The president’s selection of Duffy to lead the Department of Transportation was somewhat unexpected. Duffy, who came to fame when he starred in the reality show “The Real World” in the late 1990s, had last held public office in 2019 during Trump’s first term when he served as a Wisconsin congressman.

As a lawmaker, Duffy introduced the bill that would have made it easier for Trump, or any president, to levy new tariffs, a role that had long been largely reserved for Congress. The bill would have allowed the president to impose additional tariffs on imported goods if he determined that another country was applying a higher duty rate on the same goods when they were coming from America.

The bill did not pass, but Trump has essentially assumed that power by justifying new tariffs as essential to national security or in response to a national emergency. His Feb. 13 announcement called on his advisers to come up with new tariff rates on goods coming from countries around the world based on a number of restrictions he said those countries were placing on American products — not just through tariffs, but also with their exchange rates and industry subsidies.

Even the public rollout of Duffy’s bill and Trump’s tariffs were similar. Duffy released a spreadsheet showing how other countries tariffed particular goods at a higher rate than the U.S. Trump also used a spreadsheet during his rollout to show that his new tariffs were the same or lower than the trade restrictions other countries had placed on American goods.

More recently, Duffy has been a booster of Trump’s trade policies.

“LIBERATION DAY!!We’re not gonna take it anymore!,” he tweeted two days after Trump unveiled his reciprocal tariffs on April 2. “This week, @POTUS took a historic step towards stopping other countries from ripping off the American worker and restoring Fair Trade. In Congress, I helped lead the US Reciprocal Trade Act with @RealPNavarro and the @WhiteHouse to expand the President’s tariff powers in his first term. I am so proud to have been able to share the culmination of that work, Liberation Day, with my family this week. Thank you at POTUS!”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Robert Faturechi and Brandon Roberts.

A new report in The New York Times takes a deep dive into Project Esther, a policy blueprint to crush the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States from the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank best known for spearheading Project 2025. Project Esther was formed during the Biden administration and lays out plans for surveilling, silencing and punishing pro-Palestinian activists, including deporting non-U.S. citizens and withholding funds from universities. Many of the Heritage Foundation’s proposals appear to have been taken up by the Trump administration.

“Project Esther aims to rebrand all critics of Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters as providing material support for terrorism,” says investigative reporter Katie Baker. “They’re very explicit that this is what they’re doing. … This is all laid out online, and it has been for months.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Israel has imposed a complete block on humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 2, with hundreds of trucks with lifesaving aid waiting at the border. Now many of Gaza’s kitchens have closed, and Palestinians face mass starvation as rations run low. We speak with Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine. “The majority of people in Gaza are facing emergency or catastrophic levels of food insecurity,” says de Waal. “Rations are getting low, and the poorest and most vulnerable are beginning to starve and die.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

• Newsom budget plan would cap health program for undocumented Californians to help close $12 billion Trump Slump deficit
• Deadly Israeli air strikes continue in Gaza amid ceasefire talks in Doha
• Californians rally at hospitals across state to protest Medicaid cuts, Mayor Elect Barbara Lee joins rally at Oakland’s Highland Hospital
• SF workers rally against Mayor Lurie’s cuts to services
• Rashida Tlaib D-MI introduces resolution to recognize 77^th anniversary of Naqba expulsion of Palestinians
• Republican lawmakers propose measure to label as “terrorist” non-profits that oppose Trump policies

The post Newsom budget plan would cap health program for undocumented Californians; Deadly Israeli air strikes continue in Gaza amid ceasefire talks in Doha – May 14, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

President Donald Trump last month signed an executive order to speed development of the contentious deep sea mining industry, including in off-limits international waters governed by a treaty most nations are signatory to. The order said action is needed to “counter China’s growing influence over seabed mineral resources.”

Unilateral action on deep sea mining by the U.S., legal experts said, also has the potential to weaken its legitimacy in attempting to enforce international law generally, including freedom of navigation in flashpoint waters such as the South China Sea or in combating illegal fishing.

“It is hazardous for the U.S. to throw out the rule book,” said Duncan Currie, an international lawyer, who advises conservation groups and testified to Congress last month on the risks of deep sea mining.

Foreshadowing the executive order, Nasdaq-traded The Metals Company, or TMC, which has been at the forefront of ambitions to exploit the seabed, in March applied for exploration and mining permits under the U.S. umbrella for areas in the Pacific Ocean.

It is attempting to bypass the International Seabed Authority, or ISA, a U.N. organization mandated to set rules by consensus for deep sea mining in international waters. Under ISA jurisdiction, TMC has worked with Tonga and Nauru to explore their allocated areas in a vast swath of the Pacific, but now says the ISA has failed by not agreeing rules after several decades of effort.

(Stephen Wright/RFA)

Critics of the nascent industry say the copper, cobalt, manganese and nickel found in the potato-sized nodules that carpet parts of the seafloor is already abundant on land. They warn that hoovering the nodules up from depths of several kilometers will cause irreparable damage to an ocean environment still poorly understood by science.

Amid a general retreat by large corporations from commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, deep sea mining companies have recently emphasized defense uses and security of mineral supply. Previously the nodules were touted as a source of metals needed for green technologies, such as electric vehicles, that would reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

According to Currie’s congressional testimony, the arguments for deep sea mining rest on fallacies. China’s dominance in the cobalt and nickel markets is due to it processing those minerals imported from Congo and Indonesia and deep sea mining would not significantly change that equation. Also a growing proportion of batteries in electric vehicles no longer rely on cobalt and nickel

“TMC promised the people of Nauru jobs and prosperity,” said Shiva Gounden, head of Greenpeace’s Pacific chapter. “But it has taken the first chance it got to turn its back on Nauru and it will do the same to any other Pacific country,” Gounden said in a statement.

Gerard Barron, TMC‘s chief executive, said the company’s partnerships with Tonga and Nauru remain “rock solid.”

“They too have been let down by the lack of performance at the ISA,” he told Radio Free Asia.

The case made by Barron and the Trump administration is that deep sea mining is a legitimate freedom in waters beyond national jurisdiction – an idea that has become antiquated as international law evolved over decades.

The U.S. has not ratified the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs international waters and also established the seabed authority, but in practice recognizes and attempts to enforce its principles.

The U.S. in 1970 also formally recognized that a law of the sea treaty accepted by most countries would establish the rules even for states not a party to it.

“For the last thirty years, the United States has engaged in acts that uphold the object and purpose” of the law of the sea treaty, said Coalter G. Lathrop, director of international law firm Sovereign Geographic, in a blog post this month for the European Journal of International Law.

Even so, the Trump executive order appears to be a new lease on life for The Metals Company.

At the end of March, it had only US$2.3 million cash in the bank and short-term debt of US$10 million. This week it announced a sale of shares in the company that will raise about US$37 million, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. TMC said the money would keep it afloat until it gets a U.S. license for commercial mining.

Its U.S. application has been criticized by France, China and other countries. A coalition of Pacific island civil society organizations called for TMC to be blacklisted by the seabed authority and for Nauru and Tonga to end their agreements with the company.

(Stephen Wright/RFA)

Currie said the U.N. treaty presents numerous obstacles to TMC realizing its ambitions.

“This casts doubt on whether any metals brought up by TMC under a unilateral permit could be sold,” he told Radio Free Asia.

TMC is a Canadian company while Allseas, the company that owns the ship and mining equipment used by TMC, is Swiss. Both countries, Currie told RFA, have obligations under the U.N. treaty to ensure their nationals don’t participate in breaches of it.

TMC also has an agreement for metals processing with a company based in another treaty signatory nation – Japan.

TMC‘s prospectus for its share sale acknowledges the possibility of legal consequences if it gets a U.S.-issued mining permit.

The ISA and many nations that are signatories to the law of the sea treaty “are likely to regard such a permit as a violation of international law,” it said.

This could “affect international perceptions of the project and could have implications for logistics, processing and market access” including legal challenges in the court systems of treaty member nations.

Attempting a unilateral route to mine the international seabed risks severe geopolitical repercussions “and it could be U.S. interests that get burnt,” said Greenpeace deep sea mining campaigner Louisa Casson.

“Going against the Law of the Sea could trigger impacts far beyond deep sea mining - for maritime boundaries, freedom of navigation and other security interests,” she told RFA.

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Stephen Wright for RFA.

We speak with Robert Weissman, co-president of the advocacy group Public Citizen, about President Donald Trump’s “corrupt deal” to accept a $400 million jumbo luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar — possibly the most valuable such gift a foreign government has ever given. Under the plan, the Boeing 747 known as the “flying palace” would be retrofitted for use as Air Force One, then donated to Trump’s presidential library at the end of his term in order to allow him continued use of the jet even after he leaves office. “The first Trump administration was the most corrupt in American history by far. What’s going on now is literally orders of magnitude worse,” says Weissman.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“The House GOP has revealed in broad daylight that their tax bill is a clear scam—one that hands out massive giveaways to their billionaire and corporate donors off the backs of their constituents with a price tag of over $5 trillion,” said David Kass, ATF Executive Director. “The plan’s massive cuts to vital programs like Medicaid and SNAP will drive up healthcare and food prices for millions of workers and families, while billionaires pocket the money and the national debt soars. Working and middle-class families—and future generations—shouldn’t have to pay higher prices simply to enrich billionaire elites and the politicians in their pocket.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

A group of New Zealand academics at Otago University have drawn up a “Declaration on Palestine” against genocide, apartheid and scholasticide of Palestinians by Israel that has illegally occupied their indigenous lands for more than seven decades.

The document, which had already drawn more than 300 signatures from staff, students and alumni by the weekend, will be formally adopted at a congress of the Otago Staff for Justice in Palestine (OSJP) group on Thursday.

“At a time when our universities, our public institutions and our political leaders are silent in the face of the daily horrors we are shown from illegally-occupied Palestine, this declaration is an act of solidarity with our Palestinian whānau,” declared Professor Richard Jackson from Te Ao O Rongomaraeroa — The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.

• READ MORE: How Israel’s war on Gaza is destroying Palestinian education
• Gaza: An expression of conscience
• Other Gaza scholasticide reports

“It expresses the brutal truth of what is currently taking place in Palestine, as well as our commitment to international law and human rights, and our social responsibilities as academics.

“We hope the declaration will be an inspiration to others and a call to action at a moment when the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is accelerating at an alarming rate.”

Scholars and students at the university had expressed concern that they did not want to be teaching or learning about the Palestinian genocide in future courses on the history of the Palestinian people, Professor Jackson said.

Nor did they want to feel ashamed when they were asked what they did while the genocide was taking place.

‘Collective moral courage’
“Signing up to the declaration represents an act of individual and collective moral courage, and a public commitment to working to end the genocide.”

In an interview with the Otago Daily Times published at the weekend, Professor Jackson said boycotting academic ties with Israel was among the measures included in a declaration.

The declaration commits its signatories to an academic boycott as part of the wider Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanction (BDS) campaign “until such time as Palestinians enjoy freedom from genocide, apartheid and scholasticide”, they had national self-determination and full and complete enjoyment of human rights, as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The declaration says that given the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled there is a “plausible” case that Israel has been committing genocide, and that all states that are signatory to the Genocide Convention must take all necessary measures to prevent acts of genocide, the signatories commit themselves to an academic boycott.

BDS is a campaign, begun in 2005, to promote economic, social and cultural boycotts of the Israeli government, Israeli companies and companies that support Israel, in an effort to end the occupation of Palestinian territories and win equal rights for Palestinian citizens within Israel.

It draws inspiration from South African anti-apartheid campaigns and the United States civil rights movement.

The full text of the declaration:

The Otago Declaration on the Situation in Palestine

We, the staff, students and graduates, being members of the University of Otago, make the following declaration.

We fully and completely recognise that:
– The Palestinian people have a right under international law to national self-determination;
– The Palestinians have the right to security and the full enjoyment of all human and social rights as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

And furthermore that:
– Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinian nation, according to experts, official bodies, international lawyers and human rights organisations;
– Israel operates a system of apartheid in the territories it controls, and denies the full expression and enjoyment of human rights to Palestinians, according to international courts, human rights organisations, legal and academic experts;
– Israel is committing scholasticide, thereby denying Palestinians their right to education;

We recognise that:
– Given the International Court of Justice has ruled that there is a plausible case that Israel has been committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, that all states that are signatory to the Genocide Convention, which includes Aotearoa New Zealand, have a responsibility to take all necessary measures to prevent acts of genocide;

We also acknowledge that as members of a public institution with educational responsibilities:
– We hold a legal and ethical responsibility to act as critic and conscience of society, both individually as members of the University and collectively as a social institution;
– We have a responsibility to follow international law and norms and to act in an ethical manner in our personal and professional endeavours;
– We hold an ethical responsibility to act in solidarity with oppressed and disadvantaged people, including those who struggle against settler colonial regimes or discriminatory apartheid systems and the harmful long-term effects of colonisation;
– We owe a responsibility to fellow educators who are victimised by apartheid and scholasticide;

Therefore, we, the under-signed, do solemnly commit ourselves to:
– Uphold the practices, standards and ethics of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in terms of investment and procurement as called for by Palestinian civil society and international legal bodies; until such time as Palestinians enjoy freedom from genocide, apartheid and scholasticide, national self-determination and full and complete enjoyment of human rights, as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
– Adopt as part of the BDS campaign an Academic Boycott, as called for by Palestinian civil society and international legal bodies; until such time as Palestinians enjoy freedom from genocide, apartheid and scholasticide, national self-determination and full and complete enjoyment of human rights, as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

• The Otago Declaration congress meeting will be held on Thursday, May 15, 2025, at 12 noon at the Museum Lawn, Dunedin.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Australia’s plan to recruit from Papua New Guinea for its Defence Force raises “major ethical concerns”, according to the Australia Defence Association, while another expert thinks it is broadly a good idea.

The two nations are set to begin negotiating a new defence treaty that is expected to see Papua New Guineans join the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

Australia Defence Association executive director Neil James believes “it’s an idiot idea” if there is no pathway to citizenship for Papua New Guineans who serve in the ADF

• READ MORE: Other defence pact reports

“You can’t expect other people to defend your country if you’re not willing to do it and until this scheme actually addresses this in any detail, we’re not going to know whether it’s an idiot idea or it’s something that might be workable in the long run.”

However, an expert associate at the Australian National University’s National Security College, Jennifer Parker, believes it is a good idea.

“Australia having a closer relationship with Papua New Guinea through that cross pollination of people going and working in each other’s defence forces, that’s incredibly positive.”

Parker said recruiting from the Pacific has been an ongoing conversation, but the exact nature of what the recruitment might look like is unknown, including whether there is a pathway to citizenship or if there would be a separate PNG unit within the ADF.

Extreme scenario
When asked whether it was ethical for people from PNG to fight Australia’s wars, Parker said that would be an extreme scenario.

“We’re not talking about conscripting people from other countries or anything like that. We’re talking about offering the opportunity for people, if they choose to join,” she said.

“There are many defence forces around the world where people choose, people who are born in other countries, choose to join.”

However, James disagrees.

“Whether they’re volunteers or whether they’re conscripted, you’re still expecting foreigners to defend your society and with no link to that society.”

Both Parker and James brought up concerns surrounding brain drain.

James said in Timor-Leste, in the early 2000s, many New Zealanders in the army infantry who were serving alongside Australia joined the Australian Army, attracted by the higher pay, which was not in the interest of New Zealand or Australia in the long run.

Care needed
“You’ve got to be real careful that you don’t ruin the Papua New Guinea Defence Force by making it too easy for Papua New Guineans to serve in the Australian Defence Force.”

Parker said the policy needed to be crafted very clearly in conjunction with Papua New Guinea to make sure it strengthened the two nations relationship, not undermined it.

Australia aims to grow the number of ADF uniformed personnel to 80,000 by 2040. However, it is not on track to meet that target.

Parker said she did not think Australia was trying to fill the shortfall.

“There are a couple of challenges in the recruitment issues for the Australian Defence Force.

“But I don’t think the scoping of recruiting people from Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, if it indeed goes ahead, is about addressing recruitment for the Australian Defence Force.

“I think it’s about increasing closer security ties between Papua New Guinea, the Pacific Islands, and Australia.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

“Trump may have enjoyed having his ego stroked by Starmer and Lutnick fawning over him for ‘closing’ a deal – one that is obviously not actually done – but his con on American workers continues.

“The American and British people need to see whatever text there is or is developed in ongoing talks – and no deal should be approved or go into effect without going through proper on-the-record public comment processes and congressional oversight.

“We need to know, for instance, when they claim to address “non tariff barriers,” just what giveaways for Big Tech may be inserted on behalf of Elon Musk and Trump’s other tech-bro billionaire buddies, given that he waved around Big Tech’s wish list when he announced the tariffs.

“With claims of dozens more ‘deals’ in progress, Congress must act swiftly to demand transparency and accountability in any trade deal before Trump and his team sell off our country for parts behind closed doors.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Israel: after 19 months of non-stop genocide where do you stand Mr Cooper?

ku.tnemailrapnull@pm.repooc.nhoj

Dear Mr Cooper,

In your communications to me in February and October last year some remarks were misleading and sounded as if penned by Israel’s propaganda scribblers in Tel Aviv. Given your journalistic background it was hoped you would sniff out and reject such disinformation. With the situation in Gaza now so horrific a more considered reply would be welcome, please, from our representative at Westminster.

• You said: “Israel has suffered the worst terror attack in its history at the hands of Hamas.”

But you omitted the context. In the 23 years prior to October 7 Israel had been slaughtering Palestinians at the rate of 8:1 and children at the rate of 16:1. Why overlook this? 7,200 Palestinian hostages, including 88 women and 250 children, were held in Israeli jails on that fateful day. Over 1,200 were under ‘administrative detention’ without charge or trial and denied ‘due process’ (B’Tselem figures). October 7 was therefore a retaliation against extreme provocation. Or were we expecting the Palestinians to take all that lying down?

Evidence is now emerging that the IDF inflicted many of the casualties on their own people that day in order to provide a pretext for their long-planned genocidal assault.

Early in the genocide JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace), the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world, described the situation leading up to October 7 rather well:

The Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago. Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence…. For the past year, the most racist, fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege and daily humiliation….

For 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under a draconian air, sea and land military blockade, imprisoning and starving two million people and denying them medical aid. The Israeli government routinely massacres Palestinians in Gaza; ten-year-olds who live in Gaza have already been traumatized by seven major bombing campaigns in their short lives.

For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, operating an apartheid regime. Palestinian children are dragged from their beds in pre-dawn raids by Israeli soldiers and held without charge in Israeli military prisons. Palestinians’ homes are torched by mobs of Israeli settlers, or destroyed by the Israeli army. Entire Palestinian villages are forced to flee, abandoning the homes orchards, and land that were in their family for generations.

The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to US complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation. The US government consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the US enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime.

• You said: “I support Israel’s right to defend itself, in line with international humanitarian law.”

The UN itself has made it clear that “Israel cannot claim self-defence against a threat that emanates from the territory it occupies”, and many law experts have said the same.

On the other hand the Palestinians’ right to resist is confirmed in UN Resolution 3246 which calls for all States to recognize the right to self-determination and independence for all peoples subject to colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, and to assist them in their struggle, and reaffirms the Palestinians’ right to use “all available means, including armed struggle” in their fight for freedom.

Furthermore UN Resolution 37/43 gives them an unquestionable right, in their struggle for liberation, to “eliminate the threat posed by Israel by all available means including armed struggle”. And as China reminded everyone at the ICJ, “armed resistance against occupation is enshrined in international law and is not terrorism”.

• You said “There is no moral equivalence between Hamas and the democratically elected Government of Israel.”

How right you are! Under international law Palestinians have an inalienable right to self-determination. They properly elected Hamas under international scrutiny in 2006, at the last permitted election. Hamas are the lawful and legitimate rulers in Gaza.

Israel is not the Western-style democracy it pretends to be. It is a deeply unpleasant ethnocracy with recently enacted discriminatory nation-state laws to emphasise its apartheid ‘bottom line’. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, an Israeli human rights organization, has documented entrenched discrimination and socioeconomic differences in “land, urban planning, housing, infrastructure, economic development, and education.”

• You said: “Leaving Hamas in power in Gaza would be a permanent roadblock to a two-state solution…..A sustainable ceasefire must mean that Hamas is no longer there, able to threaten Israel.”

The US and UK have no right to attempt coercive regime change. Besides, Israel has been a fatal threat to Gaza and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) since well before Hamas was even founded.

Sections 16 and 20 of Hamas’s 2017 Charter are in tune with international law while the Israeli government pursues policies that definitely are not.

(s.16) “Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.

(s.20) “Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.”

The correct and lawful way to deal with the threat posed by Hamas is (and always has been) by requiring Israel to immediately end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, theft of Palestinian resources, and destruction of Palestinian heritage.

• You said: “I support all steps to bring about a negotiated settlement leading to a safe and secure Israel living alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state, based on 1967 borders.”

Palestinians should not have to negotiate their freedom and self-determination. Under international law it’s their basic right and doesn’t depend on anyone else, such as Israel or the US, agreeing to it. The UK disrespects that, otherwise we would long ago have recognised Palestinian statehood along with the vast majority of nations that have already done so. And why is only Israel allowed to be “safe and secure”?

Britain’s refusal to recognise Palestine is disgraceful. We promised the Palestinian Arabs independence in 1915 in return for their help in defeating the Turks but reneged in 1917 (in favour of the shameful Balfour Declaration). We should have granted Palestine provisional independence in 1923 in accordance with our responsibilities under the League of Nations Mandate Agreement, but didn’t. In 1947 the UN Partition Plan allocated the Palestinians a measly portion of their own homeland and, without consulting them, handed the lion’s share to incomer Jews with no ancestral connection to it… thanks in large part to the Balfour betrayal.

The following year Britain walked away from its mandate responsibilities leaving Palestinians at the mercy of Israel’s vicious plan for annexing the Holy Land by military force – “from the river to the sea” – which they’ve pursued relentlessly ever since in defiance of international and humanitarian law, bringing terror, misery, wholesale destruction and ruination to the Palestinians. And now genocide.

Today Britain still refuses to recognise Palestinian independence although 138 other UN member states do.

• You said: “Settler violence and the demolition of Palestinian homes is intolerable, and I expect to see Ministers firmly raising these issues with the Israeli Government, and taking robust action where necessary.”

The Israeli regime has long ignored representations on such issues, so where is the “robust action” you speak of?

According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, “The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence…. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.”

Law expert Ralph Wilde provides this opinion:

There is no right under international law to maintain the occupation pending a peace agreement, or for creating ‘facts on the ground’ that might give Israel advantages in relation to such an agreement, or as a means of coercing the Palestinian people into agreeing on a situation they would not accept otherwise.

Implanting settlers in the hope of eventually acquiring territory is a violation of occupation law by Israel and a war crime on the part of the individuals involved. And it is a violation of Israel’s legal obligation to respect the sovereignty of another state and a violation of Israel’s legal obligation to respect the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people; also a violation of Israel’s obligations in the international law on the use of force. Ending these violations involves immediate removal of the settlers and the settlements from occupied land and an immediate end to Israel’s exercise of control, including its use of military force….

• You said: “The UK is doing everything it can to get more aid in and open more crossings, and we played a leading role in securing the passage of UN Security Council resolution 2720, which made clear the urgent demand for expanded humanitarian access.”

That went well, didn’t it? It’s sickening how Westminster still won’t accept the truth – that Israel is a depraved and repulsive regime, devoid of humanity, and we should not be supporting it in any way, shape or form.

For decades before October 7 Israel’s illegal control over the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza and military aggression, ethnic cleansing, restrictions on movement of goods and people, dispossession of prime lands, theft of Palestine’s key resources and destruction of its economy have bordered on slow-motion genocide.

And now the International Court of Justice has clarified that “a State’s obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed. From that moment onwards, if the State has available means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent, it is under a duty to make such use of these means as the circumstances permit”.

The many means available to the British Government include sanctions – which it readily applies to other delinquent nations – and withdrawal of favoured-nation privileges, trade deals, scientific/security collaboration, and cessation of arms supplies. In Israel’s case the British Government, far from using its available deterrent means, has militarily assisted Israel in its genocide.

So let’s remind ourselves of the UK Lawyers’ Open Letter Concerning Gaza of 26 October 2023 which arrived at the UK Government with important warnings regarding breaches of international law — for example:

⦁ The UK is duty-bound to “respect and ensure respect” for international humanitarian law as set out in the Four Geneva Conventions in all circumstances (1949 Geneva Conventions, Common Art 1). That means the UK must not itself assist violations by others.

⦁ The UK Government must immediately halt the export of weapons from the UK to Israel, given the clear risk that they might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law and in breach of the UK’s domestic Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, including its obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty.

The Department for Business and Trade (whose committee I believe you now sit on) dismissed a petition calling for all licences for arms to Israel to be revoked. Their excuse was that “we rigorously assess every application on a case-by-case basis against strict assessment criteria, the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria (or SELC)…. The SELC provide a thorough risk assessment framework for export licence applications and require us to think hard about the impact of providing equipment and its capabilities. We will not license the export of equipment where to do so would be inconsistent with the SELC.”

But they didn’t explain how Israel managed to satisfy those “strict assessment criteria” and survive such a “rigorous” process. Were we supposed to take it all on trust? There are 8 criteria and, on reading them, any reasonably informed person might conclude that Israel fails to satisfy at least 5.

• You said: “In the longer term, I will continue to support the UK’s long held-position, that there should be a credible and irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution of Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security for both nations and the wider region.”

Why the longer term? Why not now? If Palestinian statehood had been recognised at the proper time (in 1923, or at least by 1948 when Israeli statehood was ‘accepted’) these unspeakable atrocities would never have happened.

QME and Plan Dalet

These are the never-mentioned driving forces behind the evil that poisons the Holy Land.

In 2008 Congress enacted legislation requiring that US arms sales to any country in the Middle East other than Israel must not adversely affect Israel’s “qualitative military edge” (QME). It ensures the apartheid regime always has the upper hand over it neighbours. This is central to US Middle East policy and guarantees the region is kept at or near boiling point and ripe for exploitation.

Sadly the UK has superglued itself to America’s cynical partnership with Israel for ‘security’ and other dubious reasons.

Plan D, or Plan Dalet, is the Zionist terror blueprint for their brutal takeover of the Palestinian homeland written 77 years ago. It was drawn up by the Jewish underground militia, the Haganah, at the behest of David Ben-Gurion, then boss of the Jewish Agency and later to become the first president of ‘New Israel’. .

Plan D was a carefully thought-out, step-by-step plot choreographed ahead of the British mandate government’s withdrawal and the Zionists’ declaration of Israeli statehood. It correctly assumed that the British authorities would no longer be there to prevent it. As Plan D shows, “expulsion and transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing) has always been a key part of the Zionists’ scheme, and Ben-Gurion reminded his military commanders that the prime aim of Plan D was the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

The Deir Yassin massacre signalled the beginning of a deliberate programme to depopulate Arab towns and villages – destroying churches and mosques – in order to make room for incoming Holocaust survivors and other Jews. In July 1948 Israeli terrorist troops seized Lydda, shot up the town and drove out the population. They massacred 426 men, women, and children. 176 of them were slaughtered in the town’s main mosque. The remainder were forced to walk into exile in the scalding July heat leaving a trail of bodies – men, women and children – along the way. Of all the blood-baths they say this was the biggest. Israel’s great hero Moshe Dayan was responsible.

By 1949 the Zionists had seized nearly 80 percent of Palestine, provoking the resistance backlash we still see today. The knock-on effects have created around 6 million Palestinian refugees registered with the UN plus an estimated 1 million others worldwide.

Israel Lobby

Considering Britain’s obligations towards the Holy Land since WW1, would you please let me know what you and your colleagues are now doing to stop this appalling extermination of the Palestinian people? And I do mean action not empty words. And would you please explain why Conservative Friends of Israel, which works to promote and support Israel in Parliament and at every level of the Party and claims 80% of Conservative MPs as signed-up members, are allowed to flourish at Westminster?.

MPs who put themselves under the influence of an aggressive foreign military power are surely in flagrant breach of the principles of public life (aka the Nolan Principles) which are written into MPs’ code of conduct and the ministerial code.

Being a Friend of Israel, of course, means embracing the terror on which the state of Israel was built, approving the dispossession of the innocent and the oppression of the powerless, and applauding the discriminatory laws against non-Jews who resisted being ejected and inconveniently remain in their homeland.

It means aligning oneself with the vile mindset that abducts civilians — including children — and imprisons and tortures them without trial, imposes hundreds of military checkpoints, severely restricts the movement of people and goods, and interferes with Palestinian life at every level.

And it means giving the thumbs-up to Israeli gunboats shooting up Palestinian fishermen in their own territorial waters, the strangulation of the West Bank’s economy, the cruel 19-year blockade on Gaza and the bloodbaths inflicted on the tiny enclave’s packed population. Also the religious war that humiliates the Holy Land’s Muslims and Christians and prevents them visiting their holy places.

I prefer to think that you know all this but must be mindful that the Israel lobby have Conservative Central Office in their pocket.

Stuart Littlewood

8 May 2025

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.

As the conflict chugs along in pools of blood and bountiful gore, the confused shape of Israel’s intentions continues in all its glorious nebulousness.  Pretend moderation clouds murderous desire.  There is no sense that those unfortunate Israeli hostages captured by Hamas in its assault on October 7, 2023, matter anymore, being merely decorative for the imminent slaughter.  There is even less sense that Hamas will be cleansed and removed from the strip, however attractive this idea continues to be.

Such evident limits have not discouraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet, who have decided that more force, that old province of the unimaginative, is the answer.  According to the PM, the cabinet had agreed on a “forceful operation” to eliminate Hamas and salvage what is left of the hostage situation.

A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Brigadier-General Effie Defrin, has explained on Israeli radio that the offensive will apparently ensure the return of the hostages.  What follows will be “the collapse of the Hamas regime, its defeat, its submission”.  Anywhere up to two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza will be herded into the ruins of the south.  Humanitarian aid will be arranged by the Israeli forces to be possibly distributed through approved contractors.

The IDF chief of staff, Lt. General Eyal Zamir, confirmed that the approved plan will involve “the capture of the Strip and holding the territories, moving the Gazan population south for its defence, denying Hamas the ability to distribute humanitarian supplies, and powerful attacks against Hamas.”

Within the Israeli cabinet, ethnocentric and religious fires burn with bright fanaticism.  The Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich remains a figure who ignores floral subtlety in favour of the blood-stained sledgehammer.  He remains that coherent link between cruel lawmaking and baffling violence.  “Within a few months,” he boasts, “we will be able to declare that we have won.  Gaza will be totally destroyed.”  With pompous certitude, he also claimed that the next six months would see Hamas cease to exist.

Such opinions, expressed at the “Settlements Conference” organised by the Makor Rishon newspaper in Ofra, a West Bank settlement, give a sense of the flavour.  Palestinians are to be “concentrated” on land located between the Egyptian border and the arbitrarily designated Morag Corridor.  As with any potential abuser keen to violate his vulnerable charges while justifying it, Smotrich tried to impress with the idea that this was a “humanitarian” zone that would be free of “Hamas and terrorism”.

The program here is clear in its chilling crudeness.  Expulsion, relocation, transfer.  These are the words famously used to move on populations of a sizeable number in history, often at enormous cost.  That this should involve lawmakers of the Jewish state adds a stunning, if perverse, poignancy to this.  They, the moved on in history, the expelled and the condemned wanderers, shall expel others and condemn them in turn.  Smotrich also points the finger at desperation and hopelessness, the biting incentives that propel migration.  The Palestinians will feel blessed in their banishment.  “They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.”

Impossible to ignore in Smotrich’s steaming bile against the Palestinians is the broader view that no Palestinian state can arise, necessitating urgent, preventative poisoning.  In addition to the eventual depopulation of Gaza, plans to reconstitute the contours of the West Bank, ensuring that Israeli and Palestinian traffic are separated to enable building and construction for settlements as a prelude to annexation, are to be implemented.

The issue of twisting and mangling humanitarian aid in favour of Israel’s territorial lust has raised some tart commentary.  A statement from the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a forum led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), does not shy away from the realities on the ground.  All supplies, including those vital to survival, have been blocked for nine weeks.  Bakeries and community kitchens have closed, while warehouses are empty.  Hunger, notably among children, is rampant.  Israel’s plan, as presented, “will mean that large parts of Gaza, including the less mobile and most vulnerable people, will continue to go without supplies.”

The UN Secretary General and the Emergency Relief Coordinator have confirmed that they will not cooperate in the scheme, as it “does not adhere to the global humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality.”

The foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany have made the same point.  Despite all being solid allies of Israel, they have warned that violations of international law are taking place.  “Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and a Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change”.

To date, a promise lingers that the offensive will only commence once US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar takes place.  But no ongoing savaging of Gaza with some crude effort at occupation will solve the historical vortex that continues to drag the Jewish state to risk and oblivion.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

After 19 months of conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and drawn accusations of war crimes against Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is once more preparing to escalate Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

The latest plan puts Israel on course for full occupation of the Palestinian territory and would drive Gazans into ever-narrowing pockets of the shattered strip.

It would lead to more intensive bombing and Israeli forces clearing and holding territory, while destroying what few structures remain in Gaza.

• READ MORE: Israeli attacks kill at least 40 as Gaza blockade accelerates starvation
• Too many journalists remain silent over the Gaza genocide, a threat to our media credibility — David Robie
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

This would be a disaster for 2.2 million Gazans who have already endured unfathomable suffering.

Each new offensive makes it harder not to suspect that the ultimate goal of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is to ensure Gaza is uninhabitable and drive Palestinians from their land. For two months, Israel has blocked delivery of all aid into the strip.

Child malnutrition rates are rising, the few functioning hospitals are running out of medicine, and warnings of starvation and disease are growing louder. Yet the US and European countries that tout Israel as an ally that shares their values have issued barely a word of condemnation.

They should be ashamed of their silence, and stop enabling Netanyahu to act with impunity.

In brief remarks on Sunday, US President Donald Trump acknowledged Gazans were “starving”, and suggested Washington would help get food into the strip.

But, so far, the US president has only emboldened Netanyahu. Trump returned to the White House promising to end the war in Gaza after his team helped broker a January ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Under the deal, Hamas agreed to free hostages in phases, while Israel was to withdraw from Gaza and the foes were to reach a permanent ceasefire.

But within weeks of the truce taking hold, Trump announced an outlandish plan for Gaza to be emptied of Palestinians and taken over by the US.

In March, Israel collapsed the ceasefire as it sought to change the terms of the deal, with Washington’s backing. Senior Israeli officials have since said they are implementing Trump’s plan to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza.

On Monday, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip.”

Netanyahu insists an expanded offensive is necessary to destroy Hamas and free the 59 remaining hostages. The reality is that the prime minister has never articulated a clear plan since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack killed 1200 people and triggered the war.

Instead, he repeats his maximalist mantra of “total victory” while seeking to placate his extremist allies to ensure the survival of his governing coalition.

But Israel is also paying a price for his actions. The expanded offensive would imperil the lives of the hostages, further undermine Israel’s tarnished standing and deepen domestic divisions.

Israel has briefed that the expanded operation would not begin until after Trump’s visit to the Gulf next week, saying there is a “window” for Hamas to release hostages in return for a temporary truce.

Arab leaders are infuriated by Netanyahu’s relentless pursuit of conflict in Gaza yet they will fete Trump at lavish ceremonies with promises of multibillion-dollar investments and arms deals.

Trump will put the onus on Hamas when speaking to his Gulf hosts. The group’s murderous October 7 attack is what triggered the Israeli offensive.

Gulf states agree that its continued stranglehold on Gaza is a factor prolonging the war. But they must stand up to Trump and convince him to pressure Netanyahu to end the killing, lift the siege and return to talks.

The global tumult triggered by Trump has already distracted attention from the catastrophe in Gaza. Yet the longer it goes on, the more those who remain silent or cowed from speaking out will be complicit.

This editorial was published by the London Financial Times under the original title “The west’s shameful silence on Gaza: The US and European allies should do more to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu” on May 6, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

The Republican plan calls for ramping up oil and gas lease sales on public lands and waters, opening at least 4 million acres of public lands for new coal leasing, reinstating multiple highly contested mining leases, authorizing a massive road to aid mining in some of the most pristine wilderness areas in the country, and legislating increased timber production on public forests.

“This extreme proposal shows that House Republicans are hellbent on following Trump’s plan to sell out America’s public lands and offshore waters to the world’s worst polluters,” says Ashley C. Nunes, public lands policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Republicans are treating our most precious wild places as nothing more than opportunities for industry to plunder, profit and pollute.”

The bill would overturn several landmark decisions made by the Biden administration to prevent irreparable harm to sensitive resources. The bill mandates the following:

• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska: Four more oil leases that would disrupt polar bear habitat, caribou calving grounds, and the migration patterns of other wildlife.
• Cook Inlet, Alaska: Six oil lease sales, putting fragile endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales at risk from seismic testing and oil spills.
• Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Minnesota: Reverses a mining ban on 225,000 acres of federal land and opening it to Twin Metal’s sulfide mining, which threatens to pollute the adjacent Boundary Water wilderness.
• Brooks Range Wilderness, Alaska: Reverses a ban on the 211-mile Ambler mining road that would stretch across the vast unspoiled wilderness of the Brooks Range, to facilitate an industrial mining complex on behalf of a foreign mining company. Caribou migrations may also be affected as the road intersects their migration paths.

The bill includes other provisions that expand extractive industries and undermine environmental protections. For example, it reduces royalties for oil producers, establishes rental fees for renewables on public lands, and directs agencies to increase timber harvests by 25%. It also allow project sponsors to pay a fee to cover environmental review and receive expedited completion.

“From oil drilling in the Arctic and Gulf, to coal mining in the Boundary Waters, to chopping down majestic old-growth trees across the country, a slew of ruinous projects are fast-tracked by this pay-to-play reconciliation package,” Nunes said. “This is nothing short of a plan to let Trump’s friends get rich by destroying our landscapes, coastal waters and wildlife habitat.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Organizers across the United States are planning a massive day of May Day protests against the Trump administration. Organizers say that they have broad support from groups targeted by the administration, including immigrants, federal workers and more. “Instead of attacking only one community … they are attacking everybody at the same time, and that enabled us to gather a really broad coalition,” says Jorge Mújica, strategic organizer for Arise Chicago.

In New York, organizers are calling on people to march alongside them in Foley Square. “We need to fight this corporate takeover,” says Nisha Tabassum, lead organizer for worker issues at Make the Road New York. “We are the many; they are the few.”

Los Angeles organizers are expecting hundreds of thousands of protesters to join them in opposition to Trump’s policies. “We are taking our power back,” says Georgia Flowers Lee, National Education Association vice president for United Teachers Los Angeles.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

In their legal submission, they say “the proscription has hindered the group’s ability to broker a political solution to the conflict, stifled conversations in securing a long-term political settlement, criminalised ordinary Palestinians residing in Gaza, and undermined the possibility of a peaceful settlement”.

They also argue that being branded terrorists infringes fundamental rights and has a disproportionate impact on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and open debate and political expression, which makes sensible journalism and public discourse on Israel’s actions in Palestine impossible.

Hamas’s submission also points out that Britain’s Terrorism Act “covers all groups and organisations around the world that use violence to achieve political objectives, including the Israeli armed forces, the Ukrainian Army and, indeed, the British armed forces”.

And it claims proscription obstructs humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip because any form of assistance can be labelled “terrorism” if it is “seen as supporting a group that has been labelled a terrorist organisation”.

On the other hand, proscribing Hamas was a clever move because it makes it so much easier for Israel’s stooges at Westminster to avoid having to explain that regime’s far worse war crimes and crimes against humanity. We have to thank Priti Patel who, while International Development Secretary, was so taken-in by Zionist claptrap and so adoring of Israel that, in 2017, she reportedly had around a dozen meetings with Israeli politicians and organisations during a family holiday in Israel without telling the Foreign Office, her civil servants or her boss Theresa May, and without government officials present. This was not only a middle finger to the Ministerial Code of Conduct but a gross breach of security.

She was also said to have tried persuading colleagues to send British taxpayers’ money as aid for an Israeli forces project in the Golan Heights…. and she actually visited the Golan. As everyone and his dog knows, the Golan Heights is Syrian territory stolen in 1967 by the Israelis who have illegally occupied it ever since. Touring it with the thieving occupation army was another serious diplomatic blunder.

Patel’s meetings are said to have been arranged by Lord Polak, an official of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in the 1980s who joined the Conservative Friends of Israel in 1989, and served as its director for 26 years until appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for political service and made a life peer. It’s difficult to see what political service Polak performed for anyone other than the Israeli regime.

Patel was forced to resign but later restored to favour and promoted to Home Secretary. She proscribed Hamas’s political wing in 2021 with hardly a murmur of opposition. There seemed no legitimate reason for doing so unless it was part of the UK/US/Israel axis aim to bring about coercive regime change. But would that be legal? Are the Palestinians to be denied self-determination and the right to choose their own government? Well, yes, so it seems.

What’s to fear from Hamas?

No-one in the UK Government has properly explained, probably because no-one has bothered to sit down and shoot the breeze with them. Instead they eagerly welcome Netanyahu and his thugs with red-carpet hugs, handshakes and vows of affection and endless co-operation, and soak up the nonsense they talk.

And has anyone at Westminster bothered to read Hamas’s 2017 Charter? If so, did they notice Sections 16 and 20? They are reasonably in tune with international law while the Israeli government pursues policies that definitely are not.

16. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
17. Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.

Under international law the correct way to deal with the threat posed by Hamas is (and always has been) by requiring Israel to immediately end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and theft of Palestinian resources.

JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace), who claim to be the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world, said of the genocide in Gaza: “We’re organizing a grassroots, multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of US Jews into solidarity with Palestinian freedom struggle.” Here’s an extract from their no-nonsense statement on the hostilities in Palestine.

“The Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago. Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence. Reality is shaped by when you start the clock.

For the past year, the most racist, fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege and daily humiliation. In recent weeks, Israeli forces repeatedly stormed the holiest Muslim sites in Jerusalem.

For 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under a draconian air, sea and land military blockade, imprisoning and starving two million people and denying them medical aid. The Israeli government routinely massacres Palestinians in Gaza; ten-year-olds who live in Gaza have already been traumatized by seven major bombing campaigns in their short lives.

For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, operating an apartheid regime. Palestinian children are dragged from their beds in pre-dawn raids by Israeli soldiers and held without charge in Israeli military prisons. Palestinians’ homes are torched by mobs of Israeli settlers, or destroyed by the Israeli army. Entire Palestinian villages are forced to flee, abandoning the homes orchards, and land that were in their family for generations.

The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to US complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation. The US government consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the US enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime.”

The Zionists’ Dalet Plan, or Plan D

It’s not just America’s complicity and Britain’s 110-years of betrayal that have brought us to this appalling situation. Plan D was the Zionists’ terror blueprint for their brutal takeover of the Palestinian homeland drawn up 77 years ago by the Jewish underground militia, the Haganah, at the behest of David Ben-Gurion, then boss of the Jewish Agency, and relentless pursued by the Israeli regime to this day.

Plan D was a carefully thought-out, step-by-step plot choreographed ahead of the British mandate government’s withdrawal and the Zionists’ declaration of Israeli statehood. It correctly assumed that the British authorities would no longer be there.

It’s a sign of the shoddy times we live in that the lawyers involved in the appeal case felt obliged to state that Hamas did not pay them or the experts who provided evidence for their submission, as it is illegal to receive funds from a group designated as a terrorist organisation.

Hopefully their appeal will skewer the Government’s utter hypocrisy and undying support for the real terrorists in the Holy Land. Priti Patel will have to reckon with the consequences of her actions in terms of the huge numbers of innocent lives lost or reduced to unimaginable misery.

I hasten to add that I am no supporter of Hamas. I support truth and justice, simple as that. And of course the Laws of Cricket.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.

Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

When President Trump ran for office in 2024 he promised to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine within 100 days of taking office.  The unofficial centerpiece of his plan was the proposals raised publicly by US General Kellogg earlier in 2024. While Trump in 2024 did not officially adopt the Kellogg proposals as his plan to end the war, it is clear in retrospect he unofficially embraced the Kellogg plan. One of his first unofficially appointments before even taking office in January was to task Kellogg to explore responses to his—Kellogg’s— proposals among the interested parties.

It is important to note that the Trump plan to negotiate an end to the war during his first 100 days in office has been the Kellogg Plan, revised somewhat to represent a US political compromise within the Trump administration between the Trump neocons—Rubio, Walz, etc.—and those in the administration who advocate a faster US extrication from the costly and unwinnable war—i.e. Vance, Witkoff, et. al. Thus a ‘Kellogg Plus’ US plan.

At this past week’s EU/UK meeting in London, however, ‘Kellogg Plus’ died and was buried. Put on the table for discussion by the USA as a possible unified west/NATO solution to end the Ukraine war by a  compromise with Russian positions, the Kellogg plan was never even discussed by the Europeans or the Ukrainian delegation sent to London. It was rejected and ‘killed off’ by a unified Europe & Ukraine opposition.

As others have reported, the Europeans and Ukraine had developed their own set of proposals over the past few weeks in the flurry of their meetings in Europe, the most recent occurring in Paris. London was the meeting in which the Europeans expected the US delegation to discuss the Euro-Ukraine plan which differed substantially from the US ‘Kellogg Plus’ proposals. The US reportedly caught the Europeans by surprise, presented their plan for discussion in lieu of the Europeans’.  The latter then refused to discuss the Kellogg plan and, in return, the US delegation left the meeting..

Having had a copy of the US plan just before the London meeting, Zelensky publicly, and in somewhat insulting language, rejected the US plan outright. He followed up after the meeting with another public statement to the media declaring “There is nothing to talk about”.  His European supporters, notably Macron of France and Starmer of UK, quickly joined him and publicly declared the same. It is now clear the US proposals are rejected in their entirety, both by Ukraine and the Europeans

The US had announced its plan was its ‘best and final offer’ to all the parties as the basis for starting negotiations, including Russia, and threatened to exit the negotiations process altogether if not accepted by all.  Whether it does has yet to be determined.

Today, April 25, 2025, Trump special envoy meets with Putin in Moscow to discuss the same Kellogg proposals. It is highly likely Putin will not accept the offer in its entirety either, but may accept some elements and declare it a basis to continue discussions—unlike Zelensky or the Europeans who have rejected it outright and completely.

Given that total rejection—and regardless of the outcome of the Witkoff-Putin meeting in Moscow, it is clear the first phase of the Trump administration’s attempt to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict has come to an abrupt end.

So what was the Kellogg Plan proposed by the USA that was so abruptly shot down by Zelensky and the Europeans? And what was their alternative proposal that they thought the US would accept as the starting point of negotiations with the Russians—a move by the Europeans to put them back in the negotiations game alongside the Americans as equals, a role so far denied them to their great consternation?

Here are the main elements of the Kellogg Plus American plan:

+ No NATO membership offered to Ukraine nor Ukraine to seek membership, although Ukraine could join the European Union

+ Recognition de jure of Crimea as part of Russia and Lughansk province now fully occupied by Russia

+ Ceasefire implementation details to be worked out by Russia & Ukraine, without Europe or US participation

+ Recognition de facto the other three east Ukraine regions (Donetsk, Zaporozhie, Kherson) now occupied by Russian forces along the current combat line

+ Lifting of US sanctions since 2014 on Russia, leaving Europe sanctions to Europe to decide

+ Europe could offer Ukraine security guarantees if it wanted but the USA would not

+ US and Russia would continue to explore joint deals on energy and industry

+ The US would operate the Zaporozhie nuclear power plant and distribute its resources to both Ukraine and Russia

+ Russia also gives up its control of the dam on the Dnipr, its territory in Kherson where the nuclear power plant is located, its occupation of far western ‘spit’ of Kherson on the river, and the area in the Kharkov province Russia also now occupies

+ US & Ukraine conclude a minerals deal, with participation by Europe as well

+ The Plan said nothing about the size of Ukraine’s army after the war’s end

In negotiations of agreements, sometimes what’s left out intentionally is as important as what’s included. Here’s some key omissions in the US plan:

+ No reference to the size of the Ukrainian military as part of a peace deal, or whether Ukraine could build up its forces while ceasefire and negotiations continued

+ No reference to whether NATO troops were to participate in any peacekeeping operations in Ukraine after the war

+ No mention of whether or how Ukraine might be compensated and rebuilt, by whom, or whether Russia’s $260 billion assets in European banks would be used

The Europeans were shocked, reportedly, by the provisions of the Kellogg Plus plan. They had expected the US to attend London to discuss the plan they had alternatively hammered out in the preceding weeks with the assumed approval of Ukraine.  That alternative plan was fundamentally different from the USA’s. In fact, it is better described not as a plan to reach some kind of a compromise settlement to the conflict, but a plan that amounted to a capitulation of Russia in the conflict.

The Europeans proposed something historically similar to the France-Britain 1918 armistice agreement on Germany that ended world war I.  That armistice was a ceasefire after which the victors—France and Britain—imposed impossible terms on Germany, which were eventually forced on Germany and which, in the end historically, led to the continuation of the world war in 1939. The 1918 negotiations was an agreement forced by victors on the defeated. The problem in Ukraine today, is that the Russians are clearing winning militarily and it is the Ukrainians and Europeans who are likely the defeated before this year’s end on the battlefield.

Here’s the elements of the Europeans-Ukraine 2025 ‘Armistice Plan’, which they had hoped, were the USA to accept as basis for negotiations, would put them—the Europeans—back on an equal footing in negotiations with the USA that the latter has thus far denied them since discussions between the US and Russia were opened in Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in March.

The Main Elements of the European Armistice Plan:

+ Russia & Ukraine accept an unconditional ceasefire. Details of the implementation of the ceasefire subsequently negotiate by all four parties together: Russia, Ukraine, Europe and USA

+ Russia required to return all prisoners, troops and children allegedly kidnapped but no mention of Ukraine similar release of prisoners, etc.

+ Security Guarantees to Ukraine provided by US and Europe, along lines of NATO article 5 language; Ukraine may join NATO at a later date

+ No limits or restrictions on Ukraine’s size of military. Ukraine allowed to rebuild army and weapons during ceasefire negotiations

+ Europe and other States may send troops to Ukraine as part of peacekeeping force

+ No reference made to Russia right to Crimea or other occupied territories

+ Ukraine to control the Zaporozhie nuclear power plant, with US only assisting. Also Ukraine control Dnipr river and Kharkov dam

+ Russian assets in European banks remain frozen until Ukraine compensation for damages is determined by negotiations

+ Sanctions on Russia remain in place. Any relief of sanctions reinstated if Russia breaches agreement in any way

It should be noted this European proposal is not the plan Ukraine has been proposing the last two and a half years. Ukraine/Zelensky’s position to end the war hasn’t changed since late 2022.

Ukraine’s Terms for Ending the War:

Almost three years to the day this April, following Russia’s initial invasion in February 2022 and territorial gains across Ukraine, Russia and Ukraine representatives met in Istanbul, Turkey and worked out details of terms tentatively to end the conflict. The terms of Istanbul I, as it is called, included Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO, Crimea remaining in Russia but the other four provinces of east Ukraine remaining in Ukraine providing assurances were given its almost total Russian population be allowed to practice its Russian Orthodox religion, speak Russian, and continue other cultural practices—all of which were being denied by the Kiev regime at the time in the hands of ultra-nationalist, proto fascist forces intent on denying the same to its eastern Russian population. The shelling of cities in the east by Ukraine forces also had to stop.

Ukraine tentatively agreed to Istanbul I, took the terms back to Zelensky in Kiev, who reportedly was considering signing them—until then UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, flew into Kiev and convinced Zelensky that unlimited NATO funds and weaponry would be forthcoming, that Russia would collapse politically and economically if Ukraine resisted militarily and the war with Russia should therefore continue.  Zelensky ultimately agreed. Istanbul was abandoned and, after the initial Ukrainian tactical victories in the summer of 2022, Zelensky and Ukraine adopted the following hard line positions for negotiations that Ukraine formally retains to this day:

+ Russia should immediately exit all Ukraine territories, including Crimea

+ After exit, Ukraine will commence negotiations with Russia

+ Negotiation topics to focus on reparations paid to Ukraine by Russia

+ War crime tribunals of Russia leaders in Europe to follow

+ Ukraine never to cede control of the Zaporozhie nuclear plant to anyone

+ It will never agree to any limits or reductions of its military forces

+ Europe must agree to let Ukraine into NATO or else provide it Article 5 NATO equivalent security guarantees

Russia’s Terms for Ending the War

As Ukraine’s position evolved in the course of the first year of the war, so too did Russia’s.  After its initial offer in Istanbul in April 2022, and its retreat from areas around Kiev and in the south in Kherson Russian demands stiffened as well. That fall 2022, as Ukraine demands total capitulation by Russian forces, Putin established a new Russian position:

At the center of that was that now after referenda were conducted in the four regions of East Ukraine showing over-whelming voting to join Russia, the four provinces were now legally part of Russia and were non-negotiable.

Other Russian demands were Ukraine must not join NATO, must become neutral between Europe and Russia, and its government must be purged of fascist elements to ensure the same.

In early 2024 Putin gave an interview with US journalist, Tucker Carlson. In it he made an interesting remark which has largely been ignored by western media and which may yet be raised as part of any ultimate negotiations.  In it he described the far west Ukraine as not really part of the Slavic homeland of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.  He noted that territory was formerly Poland and Romania and was given by Stalin to Ukraine at the end of World War II. It was an historic hotbed of fascism and the region had strongly supported the Nazis in the world war, often doing their dirty work on the local resistance and the jews.  Putin then suggested if the west wanted this region, he didn’t have any great opposition to it, if they were that foolish to accept its inherent pro fascist elements.

Later in June 2024 Putin established Russia’s most recent position for a negotiated end of the conflict which has remained to this day. These terms include:

+ No NATO membership for Ukraine

+ Political neutrality by Ukraine

+ Ukraine government remove neo-nazi politicians from its government

+ Recognize that Crimea and the four provinces are now legally part of Russia

+ To ensure Ukraine is no threat to Russia, it must reduce its military force to around 80,000

Why European Obstinacy Toward Continuing the War?

Many observers in America and elsewhere in the world have been perplexed about why the European leadership—especially those of the larger countries Britain, France and now Germany—have been so consistently in favor of continuing the war?  They ask questions like: don’t they (European leaders) see that the war cannot be won? That Ukraine is losing? That it may mean an irrevocable split between the USA and Europe and break up of NATO itself? Can Europe actually go it alone, providing the massive funding to Ukraine and weapons it clearly does not have the economic base to produce by itself?

Here’s some possible explanations for the European obstinate support for Zelensky, Ukraine and for continuing the war:

1) European leaders are politically committed in terms of their personal careers to the war, both at national and Euro-wide institutional (EU Commission, EU Council, etc.) levels. Should the war end on Russian terms, it will be perceived as a personal defeat for them with repercussions for their personal careers

2) War is often a convenient diversion by politicians from problems at home in their own constituencies. It’s not the first time in history politicians start and continue wars to stay in office

3) Some European/NATO have a visceral bias against and hate for anything Russian. This is especially true of the Baltics states’ leaders and also to some extent for Poland, Finland, and even for Britain

4) The War continuance serves to keep NATO from falling apart (while it also has the opposite effect). So long as the war continues, perhaps US and Trump can not leave NATO so quickly or completely

5) The War is clearly pushing Europe toward building its own defense industry and independent military force. For decades it’s been overly dependent on the US for weapons provision and massive funding of NATO operations in Europe which has meant significant US dollars inflow to Europe. Europe leaders now talk of spending trillions of Euros on defense, important for boosting an otherwise slowing stagnating real economy for almost two decades now. Without the war—and media manufactured threat of an eventual Russia invasion of Europe should it win in Ukraine—it is impossible for Europe to spend trillions Euros planned for a new defense industry.

6) One must assume some European leaders—especially those less competent in the umbrella EU Commission, EU Council, etc—actually believe Russia will invade Europe after Ukraine with a Russian army barely a million when it took 15 million Russians to take east Europe and Germany during world war II at the cost of 20 million killed.

7) Some European generals and no doubt politicians have stated and believe that Russia will lose the war if NATO just stays committed and fights for another year. This is the original argument that dominated NATO thinking back in 2022: that Russia’s economy can sustain a war for long and opposition to Putin will quickly result in his overthrow. How that view succeeds today after three years of evidence to the contrary is difficult to understand.

Ukraine’s and Zelensky’s obstinacy and existential commitment to continue the war is more understandable and rational, notwithstanding its inevitable failure.

Zelensky must continue to war in order to continue martial law and, in turn, remain in office given that his authority as president expired in May 2024 and he’s no longer actually the president.  Should the war end elections in Ukraine will be held and he will almost certainly be forced out of his current role.

Without the protection of his office he then becomes personally vulnerable from several directions. He’ll be blamed by the radical nationalists for losing Ukraine territory and the death of hundreds of thousands Ukrainians will have been in vain. They’ll come after him. The Russian secret services may do the same indirectly. Or perhaps some everyday Russian, or Ukrainian, citizen who’ll blame him for their family losses. He won’t have the level of personal protection he enjoyed from the Americans, and now the British, while in office.

The War keeps the radical nationalists on his side so long as the fighting continues and he remains obstinate about any negotiations with the prospect of even the slightest compromise.

There’s also the question of wide spectrum of Ukraine society and political-social forces that have grown dependent on the flow of money from the west. Many politicians and political interests have been sharing in that western funds injection. Per Zelensky himself, Ukraine must spend $8 billion a month just as government workers wages and pensions. Ukraine’s broken economy cannot generate that. Then there are the hordes of shadowy arms traders making money off the flow of funds and weapons. And Ukraine companies and their western investors as well.

Trump’s Next Moves?

There’s been much conjecture in the US media, and talk by Trump administration team assigned to the war, that should the parties not accept the Trump Kellogg Plus plan then the US will simply walk away from the negotiations.  That’s not likely. There’s many ways to continue negotiations. In the case of Russia and US that’s simple as part of the future meetings planned to discuss restoring diplomatic relations and defining economic deals and cooperation.

Some clarity where Trump’s going next may emerge from the WItkoff-Putin meeting now underway.  Trump needs Putin to agree to something to keep the ball rolling and keep at bay US critics who’ll say it’s futile to negotiate with Putin and Russia. On the other hand, Putin cannot embrace too much a plan that clearly is designed to get Russia to de facto freeze the war in place or even slow Russian offensives.

The war cannot be concluded by negotiations designed to end the fighting; it can only be concluded on the battlefield that leads to negotiations that then conclude the conflict.

The most likely outcome of the war is a military one.  Russia will have to take more territory in order to convince Ukraine and Europe allies that if it doesn’t agree to Russia’s fundamental demands Ukraine may lose even more territory. Russia will need to succeed in major new offensives in the north and south to create that realization and scenario.

The question is whether Russia’s Special Military Operation, SMO, is sufficiently large enough to do so. 800,000 men and voluntary recruits may not prove sufficient. It should not be forgotten that Ukraine was ‘conquered’ in 1944-45 by a force of more than three million in arms. Modern technology perhaps does not require that many but nonetheless requires more than 800,000 given the scope of the front lines and the fact Russia, while it has an advantage of 2 to 1 in combat manpower, that ratio is probably not enough for a complete military victory.

However, one more proviso is relevant. It’s not impossible that Ukraine’s army collapses later this summer, especially if the USA and Trump pull out of weapons deliveries and discontinue surveillance and targeting support for Ukraine forces. But that depends on Trump’s next after next move.

Returning with a token concession from the Witkoff-Putin meeting is not sufficient. To end the war, as Trump says he wants to do, will require a hard break of US involvement militarily, logistically and financially—and soon.  He will have to ‘bite the bullet’ no later than June and cut Ukraine loose. And perhaps ‘stick a stake’ in the political heart of those Europeans who have been playing the USA to provide them their military toys and games for almost eighty years now.

The post Why Trump’s Ukraine War ‘Kellogg Plan’ Collapsed appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jack Rasmus.

Western Apache have gathered at Oak Flat, or Chi’chil Biłdagoteel in Apache, since time immemorial for sacred ceremonies that cannot be held anywhere else, as tribal beliefs are inextricably tied to the land. The tribe believes the landscape located outside present-day Superior, Arizona, is a direct corridor to the Creator, where Gaan—called spirit dancers in English, and akin to angels—reside. The site allows the Western Apache to connect to their religion, history, culture and environment, tribal members told Inside Climate News.

But beneath the ground at the site of Oak Flat lies one of the world’s largest untapped copper deposits. Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of two of the biggest mining companies in the world, Rio Tinto and BHP, has worked for decades to gain access to the location to utilize what’s called “block cave mining.” 

The method, used to access low-grade ore, requires undermining the surface of the land so it collapses under its own weight to reveal the copper. At some point, the proposed mine would create an open pit 1.8 miles wide and 1,000 feet deep, big enough to fit the Eiffel Tower and nearly as large as the local town, according to environmental review documents for the project.

Three lawsuits against the project are still working their way through the courts. Apache Stronghold v. United States, decided by a federal appeals court in favor of the mine, was appealed by plaintiffs more than a year ago to the Supreme Court, which has not yet decided whether to take it up. That case argues the destruction of Oak Flat violates the Apache’s religious freedom, and is a threat to other religions.

The other two cases are awaiting the Supreme Court decision before they advance through the federal court system.

Environmentalists, local opponents and members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe lambasted the administration’s decision to move forward without a ruling from the court.

“The U.S. government is rushing to give away our spiritual home before the courts can even rule—just like it’s rushed to erase Native people for generations,” Wendsler Nosie Sr. of Apache Stronghold, the religious group leading the fight against the mine, and former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, said in a statement. “This is the same violent pattern we have seen for centuries. We urge the Supreme Court to protect our spiritual lifeblood and give our sacred site the same protection given to the holiest churches, mosques, and synagogues throughout this country.”

The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment.

Last week’s decision to move forward with the Resolution Copper mine is the latest in the Trump administration’s efforts to boost the U.S. domestic mining industry as part of its “energy dominance” agenda. 

Already this year, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to streamline the permitting of mines across the country and make mineral extraction the top use of public lands that hold needed minerals. All mining projects for copper, uranium, potash, gold and any critical mineral, element, compound or material identified by the chair of the new National Energy Dominance Council are included under the order. One public comment period regarding an exploration plan for a lithium mine was already drastically reduced, but a fierce pushback from the public prompted an extension.

Mine will bring “devastation and pollution,” opponents say

The news about the mine came in legal filings for the three court cases and on the U.S. Forest Service’s website for the project, which states that it intends to publish the final environmental impact statement and a draft decision for the land transfer and mine within 60 days.

The filing said that if the Supreme Court declines to hear the religious freedom case, federal authorities will move forward with approval of the project. If the court hears the case and rules against the federal approval, the government will reevaluate how to proceed, it says.

“The feds are barreling ahead to give Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, even as the Supreme Court considers whether to hear the case,” Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing Apache Stronghold in its case, said in a statement. “This makes the stakes crystal clear: if the Court doesn’t act now, Oak Flat could be transferred and destroyed before justice can be served.”  

Minerals like copper are critical to everything from transmission lines to batteries for electric vehicles. And mines for such minerals can bring coveted jobs to rural regions. But they often destroy local lands and waters. 

The federal government’s initial environmental impact statement for Resolution Copper’s mine concludes that the project will destroy sacred oak groves, sacred springs and burial sites, resulting in what “would be an indescribable hardship to those peoples.” It would also use as much water each year as the city of Tempe, home to Arizona State University and 185,000 people. It would pull water from the same tapped-out aquifer the Phoenix metro area relies on, where Arizona has prohibited any more extraction except for exempted uses like mines. 

The proposed mine would also leave behind a 500-foot-tall pile of mine tailings filled with 1.5 billion tons of toxic waste that would have to be constantly maintained to prevent the contamination from spreading.

Though Superior town leaders have backed the mine, not every local is supportive of it. Henry Muñoz, a lifelong miner who worked at the town’s previous copper mine until it shut down and is now the chairman of the Concerned Citizens and Retired Miners Coalition, said the administration’s decision is premature but that “money talks in Washington.”

One of the National Mining Association’s top priorities has been moving the stalled project forward.

“Rio Tinto and BHP, they have billions and billions of dollars,” Muñoz said. “They couldn’t care less about the environment, about the health and safety of people. Money is the motivator.”

In a statement, Vicky Peacey, general manager at Resolution Copper, said the company was “encouraged to hear” the Forest Service was proceeding with the project. 

“This world-class mining project has the potential to become one of the largest copper mines in America, adding up to $1 billion a year to Arizona’s economy and creating thousands of local jobs in a region of rural Arizona where mining has played an important role for more than a century,” she said. “A decade of feedback from local communities and Native American Tribes has shaped this project every step of the way, and we remain committed to maintaining an open dialogue to ensure the Resolution Copper project moves forward responsibly and sustainably as we transition into the next phase of the permitting process.”

All of the project’s impacts, Muñoz said, are out in the open, available for the public to read in the hundreds of pages of permitting documents. He likened Resolution Copper’s public messaging of the project to the Devil telling someone not to read the Bible, as it would change how they felt about him. In this case, he said, the public would realize the project is not in the best interest of Americans.

“They’re talking a 40-year mine life,” Muñoz said, questioning what will happen to Superior after that time. “We’re going to be like all the other former mining towns. We’re going to have that big old toxic toilet on the hill. We’re going to have that big waste dump, and then we’re going to end up wasting 250 billion gallons of water that was meant for the American taxpayer, for the benefit of two foreign mining companies. There’s nothing good for us in this project that I can see. Nothing but temporary jobs. But at the end, devastation and pollution.”

A decades-long fight

Since the 1950s, Oak Flat has been under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service and listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Legislators for years pushed to have the land made available for mining via a land transfer, where a company typically offers up environmentally important land it owns in exchange for lands better suited for extraction but unavailable for development. 

Each attempt failed until 2014, when the late Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake attached a last-minute rider to that year’s defense bill that required Oak Flat to be transferred to Resolution Copper. The transfer launched one of the country’s most controversial and high-profile environmental fights, with the San Carlos Apache and environmentalists fighting to stop the transfer and save the sacred land.

The land Resolution Copper would exchange for Oak Flat includes an old-growth mesquite forest located in southern Arizona’s San Pedro Valley, near the town of Mammoth. Although that 3,000-acre site is treasured by birders, critics of the transfer say the site is not enough to compensate for the loss of Oak Flat, which is also habitat for multiple species listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The two other lawsuits over the mine that will go through the court system after the Apache Stronghold case reaches its final resolution include one from the San Carlos Apache tribe itself that argues, under a treaty between the tribe and the U.S. government, the land still belongs to the Apache tribe. 

The other lawsuit, filed by the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club and the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona, alleged the Forest Service failed to analyze and mitigate the proposed mine’s potential damage to the environment and failed to comply with multiple laws and regulations. 

“Once we destroy this,” Muñoz asked of Oak Flat, “what do we have left?” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Oak Flat is sacred to Western Apache. The Trump administration intends to approve a plan to destroy it on Apr 23, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Wyatt Myskow, Inside Climate News.

“They’re mending the soil one week, and then the next week they’re going to start to see these little seedlings pop through the soil, because they’re healthy and they’re happy and they have sunshine, and they’ve watered them,” said Erica Krug, farm-to-school director at Rooted, a Wisconsin nonprofit community agricultural organization that helps oversee the garden. 

Krug stopped by the school that day to join the class, which her team runs together with AmeriCorps. Outdoor programming like this, said Krug, positions students to learn how to grow food — and take care of the planet that bears it. 

First established some 25 years ago, in a historically underserved area that has long struggled with access to healthy food, the small but thriving garden is now a mainstay in the Mendota curriculum. The produce grown there is routinely collected and taken to local food pantries. Later this spring, the third grade class plans to plant watermelon and pumpkin seeds. Come summer, the garden will open to the surrounding community to harvest crops like garlic, tomatoes, zucchini, collards, and squash, and take home what they need.

Farm-to-school work, said Krug, isn’t limited to partnering with farmers to get locally grown foods into school meals, but also includes supporting schools in lower-income neighborhoods with working gardens, and providing students with agricultural and health education they won’t get otherwise. That can take the shape of after-school gardening clubs, field trips to local farms, and cooking classes. “We want kids to understand where their food comes from. We want them to be able to have that experience of growing their own food,” she said. “It’s really, really powerful.” 

Back in January, the Rooted team applied for a $100,000 two-year grant through the Department of Agriculture’s Patrick Leahy Farm to School program, intended to provide public schools with locally produced fresh vegetables as well as food and agricultural education. Rooted had plans to “use a huge chunk of those funds” to continue supporting school garden activities and food programming at three local schools, including Mendota. 

Then, late last month, the United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA, sent them an email announcing the cancellation of funding for grants through the program. The email, shared with Grist, noted that the cancellation is “in alignment with President Donald Trump’s executive order ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government and DEI Programs and Preferencing.’” 

The loss of the funds is “so upsetting,” said Krug, and the reasoning provided, she continued, is “ridiculous.” 

“When they talk about ‘Make America Healthy Again,’” Krug argued, “they don’t mean everybody. Because if they’re saying that they’re canceling this program because it’s ‘radical’ and ‘wasteful’ and ‘DEI,’ then that means that they don’t want non-white kids having access to fruits and vegetables.” 

Scenarios like these are playing out across the nation as the USDA, working with the initiative known as the Department of Government Efficiency, continues to cancel funding for multiple food and farm programs. Five USDA programs have had their funding pulled since President Trump’s inauguration, while at least 21 others remain frozen. 

Last month, the agency terminated some $1.13 billion slated to be distributed through the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program and Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program. The move has had a resounding impact on the livelihoods of thousands of people, as charitable organizations have shuttered food donations, regional food hubs cut staff, and small farmers have gone bankrupt. The cancellation of this year’s farm-to-school funding was announced roughly two weeks after the USDA ended the billion-dollar funding stream. 

In prior years, Krug said, “we were being asked ‘What are you doing to address equity? To address diversity? How are you making sure your project is for everyone?’ And now we’re going to be penalized for talking about that.”

The team at Rooted is now working overtime to find other funding sources to continue the work, including hosting a fundraising drive and benefit concert next month at their urban farm site. Krug hopes the proceeds will help offset some of the loss. “We’re not ready to say, without this funding, that we’re going to abandon this program, because we believe so strongly in it,” she said. 

First established by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, passed in 2010, the Patrick Leahy Farm to School program was created by the Obama administration to address rising hunger and nutritional needs in public schools. The program has since awarded over $100 million in grants to schools that support millions of students in tribal, rural, and urban communities nationwide. 

Nutrition advocates and legislators are calling the USDA’s decision to cancel the farm-to-school funding contradictory to the stated goals of the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again commission. Many see it as a sign that the government is dismantling local food systems — hurting people and the planet. The fallout, experts say, will be gradual, but no less devastating. 

Advocates are also questioning whether it’s legal.  

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“This program is authorized. It’s a direction from Congress for USDA to carry it out. So carrying it out is not optional,” said Karen Spangler, policy director of the nonprofit National Farm to School Network, which advocated for the program. 

From its inception, the program has had a $5 million baseline allocation every year that the legislation mandates, and lawmakers have the ability to add discretionary funds. A total of $10 million was allocated to it for this fiscal year. 

To some policymakers, watching as the USDA revoked the funding came as a shock. A letter penned by federal lawmakers on April 4 urged Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to clarify why the administration “abruptly” cancelled the grants. The letter, spearheaded by longtime anti-hunger advocate Representative James McGovern of Massachusetts, and signed by 37 other House Democrats, also asked Rollins to explain the scope of the cancellation and to clarify “the authority” the agency is using to terminate funding, “given that Congress directed USDA to carry out this program.” 

Though an April 11 deadline for response was given, McGovern told Grist that, as of the time of this story’s publication, they have not received an answer. 

“The Trump Administration is slashing programs that help support our farmers and provide people in communities across the country with better access to local food. It’s pathetic,” said McGovern, who is also a senior member of the House Agriculture Committee. “Termination of these programs has caused tremendous uncertainty for schools, food banks and pantries, farmers, and hardworking families.” 

Grist reviewed the official notice shared with grantees and applicants from the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, which stated that the agency will not review applications, nor will it award grants this year. The agency did, however, note that it was “making plans for an improved competition funding opportunity.”

In an email, a USDA spokesperson told Grist that, in alignment with Trump’s executive order, the agency had “paused” this year’s Patrick Leahy Farm to School Program competition, and is now “revising the application” for the next fiscal year. 

“Secretary Rollins and the Food and Nutrition Service are committed to creating new and greater opportunities to connect America’s farmers to nutrition assistance programs and Farm to School is a critical component of this work,” the spokesperson added. They also noted that the “updated” application will provide “opportunities to support bold innovations in farm to school that encourage more applicants and better impacts, which reflect the realities of the intent and tremendous progress in farm to school made by states and communities over the past 15 years.” 

The USDA did not address Grist’s requests for clarification about the authority the agency is using to withhold the money, and did not clarify when or how it plans to award it. 

Sophia Kruszewski, a lawyer and deputy policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, explained that the USDA may technically have the legal authority to cancel this year’s grants through the program. In both the underlying statute and the appropriations text, there is language indicating that the funding for this program is to be “available until expended,” which, in most cases, gives the agency the ability to roll over unobligated funding from year to year. 

But Kruszewski isn’t convinced the move is in line with the spirit of the law. “It seems highly doubtful that Congress intended to give the agency carte blanche to simply choose not to spend any of the money directed toward the program,” said Kruszewski, “particularly when the call for proposals has already happened and applicants have spent significant time developing and submitting proposals.”

All the while, Rollins has publicly championed the president’s national nutrition overhaul. Earlier this month, the agriculture secretary joined Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at an elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia. The two spoke to students, staff, and onlookers about the importance of advancing nutrition in public schools. The event took place a little more than a week after the cancellation of the farm-to-school funding. 

“Secretary Kennedy and I have a unique once-in-a-generation opportunity to better align our vision on nutrition-related programs to ensure we are working together to advance President Trump’s vision to make our kids, our families, and our communities healthy again,” said Secretary Rollins in a press release. “Our farmers, ranchers, and producers dedicate their lives to growing the safest most abundant food supply in the world and we need to make sure our kids and families are consuming the healthiest food we produce. There is a chronic health problem in our country, and American agriculture is at the core of the solution.” 

Kennedy, for his part, championed the end of ultra-processed foods in public schools and tightening nutrition program restrictions. During the visit, Rollins underscored how the USDA should be supporting “moving farm-fresh produce, as much as is possible, into the schools.”

Katie Wilson, former Obama administration USDA Deputy Under Secretary of Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, and executive director of the Urban School Food Alliance, argues that the event, and the USDA’s bigger MAHA campaign, are nothing more than a “facade” to distract from the agency’s subtler efforts to do the opposite. “Having these little kids around you — it’s a camera opp. So that’s the distraction, while I’m over here slicing and dicing the program, right?” Wilson said. “Just remember this funding was for unprocessed, local, fresh food, and so it’s about as healthy and as wonderful as it can get.” 

As for Rollins’ stated goal to bring more local food into schools, Wilson only sees more contradictions. “We’ve been doing that, but you just took the rug completely out from under us,” she said. For larger school districts, planning for budgets, programs, and things like meals runs typically a year out. The loss of the farm-to-school grant and uncertainty about the future of the program means that schools across the country are now scrambling to find money, said Wilson. “Contracts don’t go away just because your funding got cut. Where does that money come from? Do you raise the price of school meals for kids? I mean, what do you do? Do you cut staff?”

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For decades, advocates and policymakers have looked to strengthen local food systems as a plausible solution to rising hunger rates. Localized food systems have also been championed as a climate solution.

The climate footprint of transportation in the food supply chain, or the movement of crops, livestock, and machinery, contributes considerably to global agricultural emissions. Long-distance shipping of perishable fruit and vegetables in particular ramps up the amount of CO2 emissions generated. The same goes for emissions-intensive food waste: The longer the supply chain, the larger the proportion of food typically lost or thrown away. 

According to Jenique Jones, executive director at global nonprofit WhyHunger, small and regional producers are not only much less of a strain on the planet, but they also address systemic issues caused by the “monopoly” that a handful of national producers have on America’s food supply. Localized food systems allow for small farmers to be paid fair wages, she said, and healthier, better quality food to be made accessible to their communities. 

The gutting of grants through this program, along with other recent funding decisions by the USDA, signals to Jones that the administration is intentionally dismantling local food systems — which she believes will bring in big costs. The legislation that underwrote the Leahy program, for one, mandated that the agency prioritize geographic diversity and equitable distribution among tribal, rural, and urban communities. Between 2013 and 2024, roughly one in every 20 farm-to-school projects supported Native communities. 

These cuts show the administration’s priority, she said, which is “definitely not local food systems, and more importantly than that, it’s not people.” 

Among those that may feel some of the harshest burdens from the loss of farm-to-school funding are communities in lower-income, rural swaths of America. One such place is just outside of Bolivar County, in the heart of the Mississippi River Delta, where Sydney Bush has to travel 20 or so miles just to buy fresh vegetables. The closest grocery store is a 40-minute drive from her house. 

Bush works in food justice with the nonprofit Mississippi Farm to School network. Early this year, in partnership with the Cleveland School District, the organization submitted an application for almost $50,000 in a farm-to-school grant. That money would have been used to launch a pilot project to establish procurement plans between regional farmers growing fresh food and the district’s 10 local schools. It would have supported more than 2,800 students. 

The cancellation of the funding pot, a crucial lever in achieving truly local food sovereignty and remedying nutrition inequity across America’s resource-strapped rural communities, said Bush “isn’t just about this pilot not happening, it’s about what comes after.” Without it, groups like hers will have to work twice as hard to fill in the gaps. “Food is power,” she said. “There are folks in this country that don’t have the same access to nutrition as everyone else. It’s a systemic problem.”

Now, because of the rescinded grant, that dream of a localized food chain, the culmination of work that started in 2020, appears to be over before it even began. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump’s latest USDA cuts undermine his plan to “Make America Healthy Again” on Apr 22, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Ayurella Horn-Muller.

Image by 열음 최.

The administration of Donald Trump is making an unbridled push to block renewable energy projects—including last week halting the placement of 54 wind turbines in the ocean south of Long Island, New York—and is pushing fossil fuels, among them coal. The burning of fossil fuels is the leading cause of climate change. Trump has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax.”

Meanwhile, a Long Island resident, Lee Zeldin of Shirley, who Trump named administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is cancelling on a sweeping basis environmental regulations, discharging EPA employees and, last week, stopping the collection of greenhouse gas emission data.

Further, on April 8^th Trump issued an executive order directing the U.S. attorney general to identify “illegal” state and local climate, energy and environmental justice laws that “impede” domestic energy production and use and “take all appropriate action to stop” their enforcement. The order is titled: “Protecting American Energy From State Overreach.” It opens: “My Administration is committed to unleashing American energy.”

Reacting, “New York State leaders say environmental protects and policies will remain on track” despite Trump’s order “attempting to undo state climate laws,” began a piece in the Long Island newspaper Newsday headlined: “NY Won’t Alter Renewable Energy Policy.” It said: “State Attorney General Letitia James, Gov. Kathy Hochul and other state leaders pushed back, saying efforts will continue including…and building out renewable energy sources, as the state aims to get all electricity from emission-free sources by 2040 and reduce economywide emissions by 85% from 1990 levels by 2050.”

Also, Hochul and the governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, the co-chairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of 24 governors, issued a statement saying: “The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority. We are a nation of states—and laws—and we will not be deterred. We will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis that safeguard Americans’ fundamental right to clean air and water, create good-paying jobs, grow the clean energy economy, and make our future healthier and safer.”

New York Attorney General James declared: “The Trump administration cannot punish states that protect their residents” and “we’re not going to back down.”

Also on April 8th, Trump issued an order “to allow some older coal-fired power plants set for retirement to keep producing electricity” and to “lift barriers to coal mining and prioritize coal leasing on U.S. lands,” the Associated Press reported. It quoted Trump at the signing ceremony saying: “I call it beautiful, clean coal. I told my people, never use the word coal unless you put beautiful, clean before it.” Zeldin was present as Trump signed the order at the White House.

The Trump administration last week halted the building of the Empire Wind project 15 to 30 miles in the Atlantic south of the line between the Long Island counties of Nassau and Suffolk counties, and 14 miles southeast of Manhattan. Its builder, Norway-based Equinor, says on its website that is devoted to the project, that “the Empire Wind Project will be the first offshore wind project to deliver power directly to New York City” and “potentially” provide electricity to 500,000 New York City homes.

“Just as construction was starting on a massive wind farm off the coast of Long Island, the Trump administration ordered an immediate halt,” said The New York Times. It noted that the Empire Wind project had “received all of the permits it needed to get underway.”

Hochul said she would “fight this decision every step of the way.”

On his first day in office Trump issued an executive order removing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, the principal international treaty on climate change. As for wind turbines, he has insisted that noise from them causes cancer, despite the American Cancer Society saying this is untrue.

Zeldin on April 11th speaking at a Long Island Association event in Woodbury, Long Island said: “The president has made it crystal clear…he is not approving new wind permits.”

Zeldin at the event boosted instead new gas pipelines including for New York State one carrying fracked natural gas from Pennsylvania to a hub in Albany. He noted that there is “a ban in New York” on fracking, but pointed to Pennsylvania where “all parties work together and they tap into the extraction of natural gas.”

Zeldin is a former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives with a district that included much of eastern and central Long Island. He left the post to run unsuccessfully against Democrat Hochul for New York governor.

There long was a major push to allow fracking in New York State drawing from the same Marcellus Shale formation that extends from Pennsylvania. Adding to the challenge to fracking—a term for hydraulic fracturing which uses fluids under high pressure and 600 chemicals to extract oil and gas from deep underground rock formations—were journalistic investigations, most prominently two HBO TV documentaries, “Gasland,” by Josh Fox.

They found how fracking regularly leads to gas and oil migrating into water. In “Gasland,” there are many scenes of people turning on water faucets, holding a lighter to what’s coming out, and flames erupting because of fracking. In New York State, fracking was banned in 2014.

The burning of coal emits carbon the worst, followed by combustion of oil and gas—including fracked gas, extreme in methane.

ProPublica, the nonprofit news platform, last week disclosed that the EPA “is planning to eliminate long-standing requirements for polluters to collect and report their emissions of the heat-trapping gases that cause climate change. The move, ordered by a Trump appointee [Zeldin], would affect thousands of industrial facilities across the country, including oil refineries, power plants and coal mines as well as those that make petrochemicals, cement, glass, iron and steel, according to documents reviewed by ProPublica.”

“The Greenhouse Gas Reporting program documents the amount of carbon dioxide, methane and other climate-warming gases emitted by individual facilities. The data…guides policy decisions….Losing the data will make it harder to know how much climate-warming gas an economic sector or factory is emitting and to track those emissions over time,” said ProPublica.

It quoted Professor Edward Maibach of George Mason University in Virginia saying it was “like unplugging the equipment that monitors the vital signs of a patient that is critically ill. How in the world can we possibly manage this incredible threat to America’s well-being and humanity’s well-being if we’re not actually monitoring what we’re doing to exacerbate the problem.”

The Guardian newspaper in January cited an analysis by the group Climate Power as key to Trump pro-fossil fuel policies. The Guardian reported: “Big oil spent a stunning $445 million through the last election cycle to influence Donald Trump and Congress, a new analysis has found” and which projected that the “investments” are “likely to pay dividends.”

The post Blowing Smoke: Trump’s Energy Plan appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Karl Grossman.

Last month, the Interior Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced a plan to make large tracts of government land available to developers. “As we enter the Golden Age promised by President Trump,” Burgum wrote on March 17, “this partnership will change how we use public resources.”

Little has been shared so far about the process for identifying parcels or how they might be sold or transferred. Burgum told CNBC the Interior Department would consider selling hundreds of thousands of federally-managed acres within 3 miles of urban areas. Jon Raby, the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, told Bloomberg News the initiative would consider land within 10 miles of towns of 5,000 people. “Either they are making this up as they go along, or the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a nonpartisan conservation group. 

The task force said it will deliver a report to the National Economic Council by today, identifying parcels and outlining how much housing would be built. It also will offer recommendations to “reduce the red tape behind land transfers or leases” by “[s]treamlining the regulatory process.” The Interior Department declined an interview but said in a statement to Grist that “all options are being explored.”

Burgum’s connection to the Yellowstone Club demonstrates the potential conflicts of interest that can arise with federal land transfers. According to documents filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, which declined to comment, Burgum has not divested his financial interest in the Yellowstone Club. The luxury real estate investment firm owns an exclusive community that covers about 14,000 acres and includes a members-only ski resort. Burgum owns two homes and additional financial interests in the development, which is about an hour south of Bozeman, Montana.

Over the last 30 years, the Yellowstone Club has used public land transfers and sales to amass holdings that include a private mountain, trophy trout waters, and an exclusive resort that caters to the wealthy and powerful. Its most recent deal saw the company, which declared bankruptcy in 2009 and was acquired by private equity firm CrossHarbor Capital for a fraction of its value, embark on a controversial land swap in southwestern Montana.

That deal was finalized January 17, during the last days of the Biden administration and two months after President Trump nominated Burgum to lead the Interior Department. The Yellowstone Club received 3,855 acres from the U.S. Forest Service in the readily accessible foothills of the Crazy Mountains. In exchange, it gave the Forest Service, which is part of the Department of Agriculture, 6,110 acres of land with fewer recreational opportunities and less valuable wildlife habitat high in the Crazies and the Madison Range. The value of the exchange, which critics argued dramatically reduced access to the mountains by eliminating access to established trails, was never disclosed. 

“The version they approved was purposely meant to make it harder for the public to access what remains,” said Nick Gevock, a campaign organizer for the Sierra Club. “By strategically trading lands you can restrict access to thousands of acres of public land, and effectively make them private.”

A representative of the Yellowstone Club said in a statement that Burgum “has nothing to do with Yellowstone Club development nor does he have anything to do with the land exchange.” The statement also said that “the Yellowstone Club is one of numerous private landowners involved in the exchange in two mountain ranges,” and noted the Club saw a net reduction in its land holdings with the deal. It also said the swap included conservation easements to protect land on Crazy Peak and in the Madison Range, and that the Forest Service received several tracts it had long sought. The Forest Service declined to comment.

Opponents, including conservative hunting and angling groups, claimed the process violated environmental regulations and misled the public about the Yellowstone Club’s involvement as a neutral party when it paid the bulk of the transaction costs. Gevock, who started following the Club’s business dealings 24 years ago as a reporter for the Bozeman Chronicle, said more than 80 percent of public comments submitted to the Forest Service opposed the deal. That land, which was popular with skiers, hunters, anglers, and hikers, is now beyond the public’s grasp. 

“Once the title is transferred, you never get it back,” he said.

The Yellowstone Club — which, through its subsidiary development manager Lone Mountain Land Company, is the de-facto governing structure for the town of Big Sky, Montana — sits close to a great deal of prime federal real estate, including parcels managed by the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Forest Service. Critics fear that land may now become available to industry and developers. 

Richard Painter, who served as the chief ethics lawyer to President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007, told Grist there are several ways that any acquisition of federal land by the Yellowstone Club could affect Burgum’s financial interests, including changing the value of his properties or potentially lowering fees that the club’s homeowners pay. If the joint task force sets legal precedent to streamline or reduce regulations around federal land swaps, that could impact the Yellowstone Club’s future dealings. If Burgum helps facilitate or speed up future land swaps between the Department of Interior and the club, it would be a direct ethics violation. As a result, “I would strongly urge that he recuse himself from any land swap regulations,” Painter said.

Painter told Grist the Interior Department has been a “problem child in ethics” for years, and he testified to Congress about it last April. He warned about the longstanding close ties between senior Interior Department officials and private industry, and the growing influence of corporations. Congress and the Interior, he said, have a “fiduciary obligation to oversee the administration of federal land for the American people, not just for whoever wants to go and get preferential access to land.”

Burgum has used the Yellowstone Club in his political role, hosting a fundraiser with Trump last August there that donors paid $100,000 to attend. He also is not the only politician with ties to the club. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is a member, as are Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, U.S. Representative Troy Downing, and U.S. Senator Tim Sheehy. “This is the billionaire class wanting to run the country,” Gevock said, “and their vision for the Rocky Mountain West is privatization.” 

In its March announcement, the Interior Department positioned its joint task force on selling public land as a chance “to build affordable housing stock.” But experts question whether anything that comes of this plan would be accessible to low-income families or actually lower housing prices.

Supply constraints are not the primary factor for the country’s housing crisis. Housing stock has risen steadily since 1980, according to a 2023 Congressional Research Service report, although not always where it’s most needed or at the right prices. “On a national level, it is not necessarily obvious that there is a shortage of housing units,” the report found. 

“We actually have more of a supply mismatch than a supply problem,” said Karen Chapple, director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. A generation of empty nesters is deciding to stay put rather than move into smaller homes, reducing the national supply of single-family homes in urban areas, she said, even as rural communities see vacancies created by people moving in search of opportunities. And high mortgage rates have recently led people to stay put, reducing the overall supply of homes for sale. 

Much of the acreage the government manages is in the West and Alaska, often far from jobs and essential infrastructure like roads, water, sewer, and schools. “Everyone who can’t afford housing in Massachusetts is not just going to move to the middle of nowhere in Idaho,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity. 

Instead, the proposal reflects a history of Republican attempts to dismantle public lands that dates to the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s, when conservatives opposed to federal regulations argued states could better manage Western land. (President Reagan named one of the movement’s allies, James Watt, as Secretary of the Interior in 1981.) The idea still enjoys support among developers, ranchers, and others interested in profiting from the land.

The general public largely opposes the idea. A recent Colorado College poll of Western voters found 82 percent disapproved of selling federal land to address the region’s housing problems. “The land seizure movement is wildly unpopular across party lines,” Weiss said. “You’re getting to the point where the polling is as obvious as asking if people like apple pie.”

On top of widespread opposition, basic math has gotten in the way. The federal government often operates public lands at a loss: The Bureau of Land Management, for instance, regularly spends 10 times as much managing grazing lands as it collects in fees. If states took over, they would bear the cost of essential services like wildfire management. That is noteworthy, Weiss said, because the areas under consideration lie in “the wildland-urban interface, the most dangerous place to build.” 

That hasn’t kept the idea from resurfacing. During Trump’s first term, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke held a closed-door meeting to discuss transfers with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative think tank that favors giving states control of federal land. Zinke opposed the notion, but still oversaw the largest giveaway of the modern era. (One of the scandals that eventually led to his resignation involved a real estate deal with the chairman of oil services company Halliburton while it benefited from unprecedented federal leases.) 

Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee has emerged as a leading advocate for reducing federal land ownership. In 2022 and again in 2023, he introduced legislation authorizing the sale of government land to developers. He also supported a lawsuit seeking state control of 18.5 million acres held by the Bureau of Land Management; the Supreme Court declined to hear the case in January. 

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Meanwhile, Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term, laid the groundwork for the latest push. The chapter on the Interior Department was written by William Pendley, who led the Bureau of Land Management during Trump’s first term and once argued that the “Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold.” It calls the government “a bad manager of the public trust” and proposes sweeping changes, including weakening environmental protections and increasing drilling, mining, and logging on public land. 

Kathleen Sgamma, who was Trump’s pick to lead the bureau until she withdrew from consideration last week, also contributed to the chapter. The oil and gas lobbyist previously signaled her support to offload the country’s land. When a dispute over federal grazing fees prompted a standoff between ranchers and the bureau in Oregon, she said the incident “arises from too much federal ownership of land in the West.”  

In the meantime, Katharine MacGregor, vice president of fossil fuel-focused NextEra Energy, was confirmed as a deputy interior secretary in April. During her nomination hearing, MacGregor promised support for over a decade of oil and gas leases. (Watchdog group Fieldnotes found she had systematically concealed public records during her previous time at the Interior, concealing information about her extensive interactions with oil and gas executives.) Burgum also told oil and gas executives in March that selling public land could eliminate the $35 trillion (and growing) national debt. 

Even as Burgum positions such deals as a solution to the nation’s woes, critics warn that the lack of safeguards could lead to unintended consequences. There is nothing to suggest the joint task force or the Trump administration will take steps to “prevent those [housing developments] from just turning into vacation homes for billionaires,” Weiss said. And many of the federal employees who would oversee the venture have recently been fired. The Trump administration intends to cut Housing and Urban Development by 84 percent, and has frozen $60 million in funding for other affordable housing developments, stalling hundreds of projects.

“At every level, it’s a scam and a con,” Hartl said, “and the only people that will benefit from it are the people that already benefit from the housing crisis.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Public lands, private profits: Inside the Trump plan to offload federal land on Apr 15, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Lois Parshley.

• Senate to vote Saturday on Republican budget measure, Dems plan amendments against “bailout for billionaires”
• Thousands expected to join Saturday march on Washington against Trump agenda, other rallies in Oakland, San Francisco and across nation
• UN blasts killings of 15 medics and aid workers in Gaza, apparently shot exection-style
• Supreme Court hears challenge to South Carolina plan to block Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood
• Myanmar earthquake amid civil war leads to calls for international action, UN calls for peace and international solidarity

The post Senate plans Saturday vote on Republican budget plan; Thousands expected at Saturday rallies against Trump agenda – April 4, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

President Donald Trump’s first-term push to open the Gulf of Mexico and other federal waters to fish farming has come to a halt in the early days of his second term. 

A federal judge in Washington state ruled against a nationwide aquaculture permit the Trump administration sought in 2020. The wide-ranging permit would have allowed the first offshore farms in the Gulf and the likely expansion of the aquaculture industry into federally managed waters on the East and West coasts. 

The ruling, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Kymberly K. Evanson on March 17, was applauded by several environmental groups.

“A nationwide permit isn’t at all appropriate because our federal waters are so different,” said Marianne Cufone, executive director of the New Orleans-based Recirculating Farms Coalition, a group opposed to offshore aquaculture. “Florida is not Maine. California is not Texas. And in just the Gulf of Mexico, there are significantly different habitats [and] different fish species that could be affected.”

Offshore aquaculture, which involves raising large quantities of fish in floating net pens, has been blamed for increased marine pollution and escapes that can harm wild fish populations. In the Gulf, there’s particular concern about the “dead zone,” a New Jersey-size area of low oxygen fueled by rising temperatures and nutrient-rich pollution from fertilizers, urban runoff and sewer plants. Adding millions of caged fish would generate even more waste and worsen the dead zone, Cufone said. 

Fish farming is an “existential threat” to the Gulf’s fishing industry, said Ryan Bradley, executive director of the Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United. Besides the “cascading negative impacts” on the environment, offshore aquaculture often undercuts the prices of wild-caught fish and shrimp, he said. The Gulf’s fishers are already facing intense competition from foreign fish farms. 

“Offshore aquaculture poses too much risk and not enough reward,” Bradley said. 

The aquaculture industry says fish farming is the only way to meet surging demand for seafood, particularly high-value species like salmon and tuna. As wild fish stocks struggle under climate change, offshore farming could help the U.S. adapt, producing food in a managed environment less affected by ecological conditions, aquaculture advocates say.

Late last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration identified five areas in the Gulf that the agency said are best suited for offshore aquaculture. The development of these “aquaculture opportunity areas” near the coasts of Texas and Louisiana received a strong push during Trump’s first term but slowed under President Joe Biden. Evanson’s decision blocks what might have been a speedy approval process for fish farms in opportunity areas.

A cumbersome permitting process and opposition from environmentalists and catchers of wild seafood had long stymied plans for fish farms in the Gulf, which Trump recently renamed the Gulf of America. In 2020, the aquaculture industry got a big boost when Trump signed an executive order that directed federal agencies to “identify and remove unnecessary regulatory barriers” restricting farming in federal waters. 

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Trump’s order led the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to issue the sweeping national permit to open nearly all federal ocean waters to aquaculture. The Center for Food Safety and other environmental groups sued, arguing that the permit failed to analyze fish farming’s threats to water quality and marine life, including several species protected under the Endangered Species Act. 

In October, an initial decision by Evanson, who was appointed by Biden, faulted the Corps for failing to acknowledge aquaculture’s adverse environmental impacts. Evanson’s latest decision vacates, or sets aside as unlawful, the nationwide permit. 

The Corps declined to comment on the decision.

Federal courts have also struck down efforts to establish offshore aquaculture in the Gulf in 2018 and 2020. 

The repeated legal setbacks should send a clear signal to the industry, said George Kimbrell, the Center for Food Safety’s legal director. 

“It has no place in U.S. ocean waters,” he said.

The aquaculture industry isn’t giving up. Paul Zajicek, executive director of the National Aquaculture Association, said expanding U.S. fish farming is critical for meeting the growing American appetite for seafood. He noted that the U.S. consumed nearly 7 billion pounds of seafood in 2022, the most recent year data was available. About 83 percent of the seafood was imported, contributing to a trade deficit of about $24 billion, Zajicek said. 

“The heavy reliance on imports for a foodstuff critical to people’s health not only creates a massive trade imbalance, it also creates food security and food safety issues for our country,” he wrote in an email. 

Tilting the balance of international trade is a keen interest for Trump, who on Wednesday announced far-reaching and expensive tariffs that the president says will help U.S. producers and boost the country’s economy.

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The U.S. has a robust land-based aquaculture industry, producing pond-raised catfish, trout and other fish. No fish are raised commercially in federal waters, and fish farming operations are increasingly rare in state-managed marine waters. Washington state once had a large salmon farming industry, but large-scale escapes of non-native Atlantic salmon and concerns about pollution and the spread of disease led to a halt on fish farm leases in 2022 and a full ban in January. Hawaii’s state waters host the only offshore fish farm in the U.S.

Other countries have embraced offshore aquaculture on a large scale. China accounts for more than half of global aquaculture production, according to NOAA. Asian countries and Ecuador supply most of the shrimp consumed in the U.S., while farms in Canada, Norway and Chile produce two-thirds of the salmon Americans eat. 

Companies have tried to open the Gulf to aquaculture for more than a decade, yet none of the proposals for floating pens filled with redfish, amberjack and other high-value species have managed to take hold. In 2017, the federal government helped fund a pilot project that would have placed a floating farm about 45 miles from Sarasota, Fla. The project was derailed after regulators received nearly 45,000 public comments opposing it, according to Zajicek. 

Proposed farms face “a permitting system that is too lengthy, too costly, and too subject to legal challenges from groups opposed to commercial aquaculture,” he said. 

Last month’s court decision means companies may now narrow their focus and seek permits for individual projects, Zajicek said. 

That approach also won’t be easy, Cufone warned. The process for permitting each project will likely be slower and more deliberative, giving more consideration to a proposed farm’s impacts on the surrounding environment and nearby communities. 

“Claiming one size fits all doesn’t seem realistic, and the court agreed,” she said. “Now they can’t use one big permit to speed these things through.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A federal judge just hit the brakes on Trump’s plan to fast track industrial fish farming in the Gulf on Apr 4, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Tristan Baurick.

Photograph Source: Karadan1804 – CC0

For nearly five months, Serbia has lived in a state of limbo – one that cannot be described as either political paralysis or transformation. Since the tragic railway station accident in Novi Sad, where the collapse of an awning claimed 16 lives (including children), time seems to have stretched endlessly, yet nothing substantial has been done. The mayor of Novi Sad and the prime minister have resigned, triggering deadlines for forming a new parliamentary majority or calling early elections. However, the protest wave continues.

After countless creative performances, marches, and rallies, they now appear to be entering a new phase – the formation of so-called zborovi (citizen assemblies). This is presented as a legal and legitimate form of civic participation, even guaranteed by the Law on Local Self-Government. Some enthusiasts claim this marks a unique model of direct democracy, a radical awakening of citizens from apathy, from the ground up and in all places. Leftists see it as a step toward communal organisation, drawing parallels with the 1871 Paris Commune or the wartime people’s liberation councils that laid the foundations for the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. At the same time, the term zbor also carries a strong right-wing connotation. Thus, the situation remains unclear to observers and the people of Serbia: What’s the next step?

The students’ initial demands seemed modest – though difficult to achieve in deeply corrupt societies like those in the Balkans (and much of Europe as well): the consistent rule of law and institutions that function competently within their legal mandates. This leaderless movement, with no explicit calls for regime change and no Euro-enthusiasm, has successfully distanced itself from political parties. This is precisely what makes it appealing to the broader public: its innocence, youth, and detachment from the repulsive and deeply distrusted world of party politics. Ordinary people no longer believe in fairy tales – neither about the European Union nor about multiparty democracy, which, as an old proverb suggests, is merely about switching ‘Kurto’ for ‘Murto’, while everything stays the same. Some voices call for systemic change, but no one knows what kind of system they want – if the liberal parliamentary model is seen as so repulsive, does this lead to a politics of anti-politics?

After years of President Aleksandar Vučić’s rule, his party has not only established capillary governance (boring into and controlling society from the ground up, a metastasis of power, one might say) but has also disarmed the opposition – leaving it amorphous, uninspired, compromised, and weak. It is no surprise that some intellectuals dream of a Serbian Zaev, referring to the leader of Macedonia’s Social Democrats, who came to power after the 2016–2017 ‘colorful revolution’. But no such figure has emerged – at least not yet. Zaev himself was neither exceptional, nor intelligent, nor charismatic. He was simply a businessman who owned the (essentially financially bankrupt) party he led. But he had massive international backing: PR advisors, media funded by foreign money, an entire network of NGOs, and students rallying to ‘save’ the country from the alleged regime.

Croatian leftist activist Srećko Horvat recently called the Serbian student movement ‘geopolitical orphans’. And that is the key difference from Macedonia, which was adopted by the West when it needed a cooperative government in Skopje to push the country into NATO – at any cost, even at the price of changing the country’s name and selling off its identity. Vučić now resembles Milošević, who was tacitly supported by the West when they needed a signatory and guarantor for the Dayton Agreement. As the old saying goes: ‘He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch’. The fear was that if Milošević fell, someone even worse and less cooperative might take power. The same logic applies to Vučić, whether the issue is Kosovo or lithium mining.

The geopolitical landscape has changed. The political West is fracturing (as Richard Sakwa elaborates), leaving Serbia’s protest movement truly orphaned. They have no leader, and none of the existing political figures seem trustworthy enough to sustain the Balkan model of stabilitocracy. More significantly, these orphans are not only without overt foreign patrons but also without an ideology. They form a mixed bag, perhaps united in their desire to take centre stage and be the ‘darlings of the public’ (a status that can quickly backfire), but they lack the experience and knowledge to build a new system.

Historically, leftist movements have been more visionary. Yet, even plenums(student assemblies) are little more than a passing trend, copied from the same cookbook and past initiatives in Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia. The cycle repeats itself. (In Macedonia, after the disaster in Kočani, there was an unsuccessful attempt to revive the plenums of the Faculty of Philosophy. Today, another loosely organised movement protests under the slogan ‘Who’s Next?’). In theory, plenums resemble direct democracy, an agora, but in practice, when it comes to systemic solutions, it becomes painfully clear that these ‘orphans’ lack even a rudimentary understanding of alternative systems. They are children of transition – a period when unfinished liberal systems seemed to be ‘Europeanising’ and heading toward democracy (which, ironically, is now in decline across Europe, where fascism and militarisation are on the rise). They know nothing about leftist (Marxist, socialist) thought and practice.

For some intellectual circles, these events are fascinating – a light in the darkness of transition to nowhere (as Boris Buden puts it) – but they remain focused on the political and media spectacle. What about economic democracy in countries that have become mere colonies of Western capital? How do you build a new political home when the very foundations are imperialist?

The most telling sign of this dynamic is the (allegedly independent) media, which desperately seek to awaken Western interest in Serbia’s ‘orphans’. They seem almost ready to shed tears over the fact that neither European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen (Frau Genocide), nor French President Emmanuel Macron, nor any other Western leader shows the slightest concern for the protests. Few would deny that a call for ‘more Europe’ today de facto means more warfare, less welfare.

As someone not far from the epicenter, I can only assume that Serbia’s ‘spring’ will soon lead to a dead end. It will fizzle out soon, not just due to fatigue but also because of existential pressures. Recently, a young, enthusiastic protester expressed on a leftist YouTube channel her excitement about spending all her free time at plenums and citizen assemblies (since the universities are under blockade). These students likely have parents who provide for them. What about those who don’t have the luxury to strike and debate – those in precarious jobs, the working class, or rural farmers? How long can the poor citizens offer them homemade bread and meals?

Any leftist desires systemic change – a complete overhaul. Multiparty democracy is merely a facade for corporate power and neocolonialism. But with the world at a dangerous crossroads, there is no time for experiments doomed to fail. A student’s post is not a profession – it’s a temporary status. Once they graduate (whenever that may be), they will return to reality, to practical concerns. The revolution will remain a fond memory.

The real question is: Who will fight for those who don’t have the luxury of indefinite protest? Without a concrete vision for systemic (political and economic) transformation or even a lesser evil of elections, the movement’s impact may remain superficial – another cycle of resistance that leads nowhere. Or, if Branko Milanović is right, it may end up in chaos or overt dictatorship.

The post Serbia’s Political Deadlock: Do Students Have a Plan? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Biljana Vankovska.

Democratic lawmakers are calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz to resign, after they discussed bombing Yemen in a group chat that also included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Waltz had set up the chat on the messaging app Signal and appeared to accidentally add Goldberg, who then got a front-row seat as top officials, including Vice President JD Vance, discussed classified information. The attacks ultimately killed dozens of people in Yemen, including children. Journalist Safa Al Ahmad, who has been reporting on Yemen since 2010, says that while Washington is obsessing over the U.S. national security implications of the group chat, there is almost no criticism of the bombing campaign at the heart of the scandal. “They are killing Yemenis with no recourse for Yemenis themselves,” says Al Ahmad, who notes that U.S. involvement in attacks on Yemen started almost exactly 10 years ago, when a Saudi-led coalition began bombing the country with support from the Obama administration.

“There was actually no legal rationale under the Constitution for doing these strikes,” adds Branko Marcetic, staff writer for Jacobin. “Only Congress is actually able to declare war.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“Trump and Musk want to defund public schools so they can give their fellow billionaires a bigger tax break. We won’t let them rob us of a good education,” said 19 year old Adah Crandall of DC. “I’ll be at my desk all day. If Musk and his goons want to destroy the futures of millions of students across the country, they’ll have to come through us.”

Abolishing the Department of Education would have severe impacts on students, teachers, and parents. Schools will face larger class sizes, fewer teachers, and severe underfunding, making it even harder for students to get the education they deserve. Pell Grants would be eliminated, putting higher education out of reach for millions. Programs that support students with disabilities, English learners, and low-income families—as well as funding for school safety, mental health services, and building repairs —will be slashed.

“The department of education is a human right. We are responsible as the youth to take the torch from our ancestors to continue the fight.” said Wanya Allen, a college student from Philadelphia. “The Pell Grant that allowed me to attend college is only made possible by the Department of Education. Trump and his billionaire cabinet are stealing from everyday people like me and our opportunities to access education.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In response, Laura Shindell, New York State Director at Food & Water Watch, issued the following statement:

“For years now, New Yorkers have demanded an end to new fossil fuel infrastructure throughout our state. Yet Governor Hochul has caved to fossil fuel interests in recent months by approving the Iroquois pipeline expansion, failing to back the NY HEAT clean energy bill and dragging her feet on state climate goals. Now, with Trump trying to force this long-dead fracked gas pipeline down New Yorkers’ throats, Hochul has a ripe opportunity to demonstrate a renewed commitment to clean energy by reaffirming her unequivocal opposition to this foolish, antiquated pipeline plan.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The Social Security Administration is considering drastic new anti-fraud measures that could disrupt benefit payments to millions of Americans, according to an internal memo first obtained by the political newsletter Popular Information. The changes would force millions of customers to file claims in person at a field office rather than over the phone. An estimated 75,000 to 85,000 elderly and disabled adults per week would be diverted to field offices. This comes even as the Trump administration slashes jobs and closes offices at the agency. Officials in the Social Security Administration who spoke with reporter Judd Legum, founder of Popular Information, have told him that there is an “effort to break the organization.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

European leaders meeting in an “Emergency War Summit” in Brussels have agreed on huge increases in arms spending. On entering the meeting, Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, declared “Spend, spend, spend on defense and deterrence.” And in response to an interviewer’s question, French Prime Minster Francois Bayrou dismissed the idea that the French public should have any say in this decision, adding “We can’t let the country be disarmed.” (CNews and Europe 1). French President Macron asserts that peace will come only when Russia is “pacified” and Zelensky, Macron and Starmer will try to meet with Trump once again to hear him reiterate, “No, Non, Hi (Ukrainian) and Nyet.

European leaders have been junior partners, via NATO, with US imperialism (think Libya and Iraq) but now the section of the US ruling class that’s behind Trump is openly severing the partnership. These leaders are bobbing and scrambling to hang on to their old role or find a new one for themselves. Reputations and institutions are at stake and it’s not clear that they can finesse their way out because they’ve always counted on an official narrative about Russia that will be put to the test.

As Alexander Mercouris has noted, the real fear among European leaders is if the US and Russia achieve peaceful relations and a Great Power reset, the fictional “Russia threat” that’s been perpetrated on ordinary Europeans will gradually diminish and people will realize they’ve been lied to all along. For now, we can hope that ordinary Europeans will resist how Europe’s ruling elite try to create hysteria, double down on stupidity (“going batshit crazy” in Mark Sleboba’s words) and eviscerate social programs.

Europeans, as well as their US counterparts, who are unwilling to swallow the official propaganda are subjected to unrelenting Putin-baiting — including from liberals and even self-identified leftists — but we refuse to be silenced. We need to do a better job of using our access to social media to show people that the “Ukraine project” was a proxy war as a prelude to attacking Russia. Finally, we can hope that this will lead to an actual left rising in Europe and the United States.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Gary Olson.

Observers on Monday dismissed plans announced by Myanmar’s junta to hold elections in the war-torn country by January, saying the military won’t be able to hold the vote in territory it doesn’t control — about half the country — and that the public will view the results as a sham.

On March 7, while on a visit to Russia and Belarus, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced that the elections are “slated for December 2025, with the possibility of ... January 2026,” according to a report by the official Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

On Sunday, a day after Min Aung Hlaing returned to Myanmar from his March 3-9 trip, junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Htun confirmed the timing of the ballot in a briefing to military-controlled media outlets.

The generals who seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat hope that elections will end widespread opposition to their grip on power politics.

But opponents say any vote under the military while the most popular politicians are locked up and their parties are banned will be illegitimate.

Additionally, the junta is in control of only about half the country after significant losses to pro-democracy and ethnic minority insurgents fighting to end military rule, and observers on Monday questioned how the results of such a limited vote could be seen as legitimate.

Sai Leik, the general secretary of the ethnic Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, which has not yet filed its party registration, told RFA Burmese it is “uncertain whether the election will take place at all.”

Even if it happens, it will likely be limited to cities such as Yangon, Naypyidaw, and Mandalay, he said. “This will create significant tensions between areas where the election is held and those where it is not.”

Sai Leik said that a limited election that fails to reflect the will of the people “will only worsen the conflict between opposing sides.”

He noted that the junta has repeatedly vowed to hold an election since August 2022, but has been unable to implement one.

Less than half of townships under junta control

Voting is expected to be held in fewer than half of Myanmar’s 330 townships in the first phase of a staggered vote, a political party official said late last year after discussion with election organizers.

In Myanmar’s last election in 2020, voting was held in 315 out of the 330 townships.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, or NLD, party swept the vote, as it did in a 2015 election, but the army complained of cheating and overthrew her government. The junta jailed her in the aftermath of its coup and has since sentenced her to 27 years in prison.

Political commentator Than Soe Naing said that the people of Myanmar won’t trust a junta-run election.

“Even if the junta attempts it, it will never happen,” he said.

(Myanmar Military)

Than Soe Naing said that past attempts by the junta had been stymied by its lack of territorial control, the ongoing conflict across Myanmar, the lack of security for representatives and campaigns, and the restrictions of the junta-backed election commission.

Rather than taking those concerns into account, Hla Thein, a spokesperson for the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party told RFA that Min Aung Hlaing likely chose the end of the year for elections so that political parties and the election commission “will have more time to prepare.”

Independent observers?

Meanwhile, Min Aung Hlaing said on Sunday that Russia and Belarus had committed to sending officials to observe the elections in Myanmar.

But a vote monitored by those two countries cannot be considered “free and fair,” an election observer who requested anonymity for security reasons said.

“Russia and Belarus are not really countries with a good reputation for democratic, free and fair elections,” the observer said. “And since they have stood with and supported the junta in various ways, their observers won’t be fair. They are meant only for political support.”

So far, more than 50 parties have registered with and been approved by Myanmar’s election commission. Nearly all of them are military-aligned, while the country’s most popular party — the NLD — was banned in the aftermath of the coup and cannot be added to the ballot.

Tun Myint, an NLD Central Working Committee member, warned that the junta’s elections would be nothing more than a “sham.”

“No one ... who wants justice will accept the junta’s elections,” he said.

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

Seven weeks into the Gaza ceasefire deal, Israel has openly resumed its war crimes in Gaza — blocking humanitarian aid — with the tacit support of the international mainstream media, reports Al Jazeera’s media watchdog programme The Listening Post.

“Seventeen months into the Israeli genocide in Gaza we have reached another critical stage — Israel has resumed its blockade of humanitarian aid and has threatened to cut of the supply of water and power to desperate Palestinians,” says presenter and programme founder Richard Gizbert.

“All because Hamas has refused to change the deal the two sides signed seven weeks ago and free more Israeli captives.

• WATCH MORE: Other Gaza programmes at The Listening Post
• Other Gaza genocide reports

“The headlines now coming out of the international media would have you believe that Hamas and not the Netanyahu government had demanded these changes to the ceasefire agreement.

“Israeli officials somehow insist there is enough food in Gaza and you will not see many Israeli news outlets reporting on the undeniable evidence of malnutrition.”

Presented by Richard Gizbert

Lead contributors:
Daniel Levy – President, US/Middle East Project
Saree Makdisi – Professor of English and comparative literature, UCLA
Samira Mohyeddin – Founder, On the Line Media
Mouin Rabbani – Co-editor, Jadaliyya

On our radar:

The LA Times’ new AI “bias meter” — which offers a counterpoint to the paper’s opinion pieces, has stirred controversy. Tariq Nafi explores its role in a changing media landscape that’s cosying up to Donald Trump.

Are the ADL’s anti-Semitism stats credible?
The Anti-Defamation League is one of the most influential and well-funded NGOs in the US — and it’s getting more media attention than ever.

The Listening Post’s Meenakshi Ravi reports on the organisation, its high-profile CEO, and its troubling stance: Conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Featuring:
Omar Baddar – Political and media analyst
Eva Borgwardt – National spokesperson, If Not Now
Emmaia Gelman – Director, The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism

This programme was first broadcast on 8 March 2025 and can be watched on YouTube. 

‘Hell plan’ – Israel’s scheme for Gaza.   Video: AJ The Listening Post

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Seven weeks into the Gaza ceasefire deal, Israel has openly resumed its war crimes in Gaza — blocking humanitarian aid — with the tacit support of the international mainstream media, reports Al Jazeera’s media watchdog programme The Listening Post.

“Seventeen months into the Israeli genocide in Gaza we have reached another critical stage — Israel has resumed its blockade of humanitarian aid and has threatened to cut of the supply of water and power to desperate Palestinians,” says presenter and programme founder Richard Gizbert.

“All because Hamas has refused to change the deal the two sides signed seven weeks ago and free more Israeli captives.

• WATCH MORE: Other Gaza programmes at The Listening Post
• Other Gaza genocide reports

“The headlines now coming out of the international media would have you believe that Hamas and not the Netanyahu government had demanded these changes to the ceasefire agreement.

“Israeli officials somehow insist there is enough food in Gaza and you will not see many Israeli news outlets reporting on the undeniable evidence of malnutrition.”

Presented by Richard Gizbert

Lead contributors:
Daniel Levy – President, US/Middle East Project
Saree Makdisi – Professor of English and comparative literature, UCLA
Samira Mohyeddin – Founder, On the Line Media
Mouin Rabbani – Co-editor, Jadaliyya

On our radar:

The LA Times’ new AI “bias meter” — which offers a counterpoint to the paper’s opinion pieces, has stirred controversy. Tariq Nafi explores its role in a changing media landscape that’s cosying up to Donald Trump.

Are the ADL’s anti-Semitism stats credible?
The Anti-Defamation League is one of the most influential and well-funded NGOs in the US — and it’s getting more media attention than ever.

The Listening Post’s Meenakshi Ravi reports on the organisation, its high-profile CEO, and its troubling stance: Conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Featuring:
Omar Baddar – Political and media analyst
Eva Borgwardt – National spokesperson, If Not Now
Emmaia Gelman – Director, The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism

This programme was first broadcast on 8 March 2025 and can be watched on YouTube. 

‘Hell plan’ – Israel’s scheme for Gaza.   Video: AJ The Listening Post

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

These are just a few of the reasons that about 12,000 of the 212,000-odd public electric vehicle chargers scattered around the United States are inoperable right now. Some are down for scheduled maintenance, but many more are simply broken, with nobody coming to fix them.

The Biden administration wanted to remediate this epidemic of broken chargers, which is why it implemented the first-ever federal reliability standards for EV chargers. These standards meant that owners who received government subsidies were obligated to repair broken chargers — or risk losing their funding.  

On February 6, the Trump administration suspended the Department of Transportation program behind those standards, freezing billions of dollars of unawarded funds intended to strengthen the country’s EV charging network. The future of the program is now uncertain, and some experts believe the funding suspension is illegal. But if the Trump administration winds up permanently shrinking or scrapping the program, it will not only mean fewer chargers getting built along highways, but more chargers failing to get fixed.

There’s “a measurable difference in reliability” between chargers that have been built according to the federal government’s standards and those installed outside of the program, Bill Ferro, co-founder of the EV charging analytics company Paren, told Grist in an interview.

The transportation sector is responsible for roughly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, and electrifying most or all of it is considered essential for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. But for Americans to swap the hundreds of millions of gas-powered cars they own for electric replacements, many experts believe that charging a battery needs to be as convenient as filling a gas tank. The first step is building lots more public chargers, which is what then-president Joe Biden and Congress tried to do when they enacted the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. The legislation included $5 billion for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, or NEVI, program, a U.S. Department of Transportation-led effort to build a network of public chargers around the country. 

NEVI is focused on building DC fast chargers — which can fill a battery in as little as 30 minutes — along key highway corridors to enable long-distance EV travel. The program requires states to develop and submit EV infrastructure deployment plans to the federal government. Once those plans are approved, the Department of Transportation allocates funds to the states, which then award contracts to private companies or other entities to build EV chargers. 

The program was considered integral to the Biden administration’s goal of developing a national network of half a million public EV chargers by 2030, as well as to the larger objective of getting Americans off gas-powered cars. “This program is really trying to build that fundamental backbone of longer-distance fast charging,” Beth Hammon, a senior advocate for EV infrastructure at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Grist.

But installing enough chargers to support tens of millions of EV drivers doesn’t mean much if they aren’t kept in good working order. That’s something the EV charging industry has a rocky track record with so far, but that NEVI sought to address with its charger reliability standards. 

NEVI stipulates that chargers funded through the program meet a 97 percent “uptime” requirement. Put another way, a charger built with NEVI funds can only be offline 11 days out of the year (with exceptions for situations like natural disasters and vandalism). If a company fails to meet this requirement, then depending on the terms of its contract, the state distributing funds might withhold future maintenance revenue.

Early data shows that NEVI-funded charging stations — of which there are only 60 open so far — score about 10 points higher than non-NEVI-funded ones on Paren’s in-house reliability metric, which gives charge point operators a grade out of 100 based primarily on whether a customer can successfully charge their car on the first attempt.

The program’s 97 percent uptime requirement is “very important” for ensuring EV chargers are fit for purpose, Oregon Department of Transportation spokesperson Matt Noble told Grist in an email. “Many Oregon EV drivers have told us that they no longer have ‘range anxiety’ about their EV but rather ‘will-the-public-charger-be-working anxiety.’” Noble added that Oregon’s Department of Transportation is continuing to advance its NEVI program with the $26.1 million in funding that the state has already awarded, which is enough to cover a first round of NEVI-funded EV chargers slated to be built along three separate highways.

Outside of NEVI’s relatively tiny existing network, the reliability of EV chargers varies from location to location and company to company. Tesla, which owns and operates about half of all DC fast chargers in the country and is the second-largest recipient of NEVI funds to date, is widely considered to have the most reliable charging network out there. Ferro said that Tesla consistently achieves top marks on Paren’s reliability metric.

“Love or hate Tesla, the charging experience is very successful,” Dan Bowermaster, the senior program area manager of electric transportation at the clean energy research firm EPRI, told Grist. Tesla’s streamlined charging experience is one reason it has dominated the U.S. EV market to date, although public opinion of the firm is falling rapidly due to the actions of CEO Elon Musk, who has spent the last several weeks leading Trump’s efforts to cut government staffing and expenditures in ways that many law professors and policymakers say are illegal.

Bowermaster and Ferro cited several reasons for Tesla’s success, including its pattern of routinely maintaining its chargers and the vertically integrated nature of the company. As both a carmaker and power supplier, Tesla collects reams of data on the status of its chargers and Tesla drivers’ habits, which can help inform charger maintenance and repair plans.

The dozens of non-Tesla charging networks put differing resources into maintaining and repairing their equipment. Some, like Electrify America and EVgo, have repair and renew programs and are on a “continued mission to replace older equipment,” according to Ferro. Others contract out maintenance to a third party that specializes in repair, like ChargerHelp. (Grist reached out to over half a dozen leading charge point operators and EV charger maintenance companies, including Tesla, Electrify America, EVgo, and ChargerHelp for comment for this article. None of them responded.)

Outside of dedicated charging networks, a wide variety of other entities install and maintain public chargers, including utilities, municipalities, and commercial businesses. When a hotel, restaurant, or mall owner decides to put a handful of EV chargers in the parking lot, it’s typically “up to that site owner to have a maintenance contract,” Ferro said. 

“They can choose to have a maintenance contract with the [manufacturer] that put them in, or they can choose another company,” he added. “Or they can do nothing.”

When station operators neglect to plan for maintenance and repair, chargers start to break down. Ferro said that sometimes, private business owners will fail to renew their maintenance contract after a few years. Some early EV charger manufacturers have gone out of business, while others have switched to newer equipment and stopped making the components needed to service older chargers. “That’s the reality,” Ferro said.

The NEVI program, which kicked off in 2022 and runs through 2026, has already allocated about $3.3 billion to states. But because of delays getting the program up and running, so far only $616 million has been awarded to companies to build just over 1,000 charging sites that will contain over 4,500 individual charge ports. 

On Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order that sought to “terminate” Biden-era climate programs, which he referred to as the “Green New Deal.” Since then, his administration has frozen “obligated” spending related to all manner of projects funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. “Obligated” means that a government agency has signed a contract with a business, tribe, nonprofit group, or other entity promising to pay a certain amount of money to support, say, bridge repairs or a climate resilience hub. The funding freeze, which legal experts (including judges) say is a violation of contract law and the Constitution, has thrown climate and infrastructure projects into chaos around the country.

The portion of the $616 million that NEVI has promised to companies but not yet paid out appears to be unaffected by Trump’s abrupt suspension of contractually obligated funding. Oregon’s Department of Transportation told Grist that it has had no issues accessing its already-obligated federal funds. A spokesperson for Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation told Grist they anticipate that 91 projects currently under federal contract “will continue to move forward.” New York State is also continuing to make progress on NEVI projects for which funding has already been obligated, a spokesperson told Grist.

But the more than $2.6 billion that states have not awarded in contracts now appears frozen. On February 6, the Federal Highway Administration — the Department of Transportation subagency administering the program — wrote a letter informing states that their plans for how to spend NEVI funds are being scrapped and that no new funds can be obligated at this time.

The letter states that the federal government is developing new NEVI program guidance for the states that is aligned with “current U.S. [Department of Transportation] policies and priorities.” A public comment period on the new draft guidance will be held later this spring, according to the letter. No information is available on when the guidance will be finalized, and the Federal Highway Administration didn’t respond to Grist’s request for comment. 

Although the Federal Highway Administration appears to be honoring its legal obligation to reimburse states that have NEVI contracts with charger companies, many legal experts believe the freeze on NEVI’s unspent funds is also illegal, since the president doesn’t have the constitutional authority to interfere with spending authorized by Congress. Furthermore, Hammon said that the funding freeze comes at a moment when the NEVI program was finally “hitting its stride.” An overhaul of the rules underpinning the program, or a lengthy court battle over its fate, will at the very least delay the rollout of many projects that were nearing installation, she said.

And it could permanently tamp down on EV charger deployment in states that were less enthusiastic about the program to begin with. As Inside Climate News reported in February, some states are spending all the federal funds they have obligated and remain committed to building more chargers with or without federal support. But others pressed pause on their charger deployment plans even before the Federal Highway Administration issued its letter. 

Hammon is concerned that the Trump administration’s letter — on top of the earlier executive order — signals an intent to do more than merely review and revise the program. 

“To me, it feels a little bit like this is an indefinite pause,” she said. “I can’t say that with certainty, but that’s the fear that I have.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Biden had a plan to keep America’s EV chargers in good working order. Trump pulled the plug. on Mar 7, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Maddie Stone.

• Representative Al Green censured by Congress for disrupting Trump speech, Dems sing “We Shall Overcome” as House speaker reads censure resolution
• California attorney general sues Trump administration for 6th time in 6 days, this time over $148 million cut to education grants
• Producers of Broadway musical Hamilton cancel next year’s performance at Kennedy Center,citing Trump take-over and purge of staff at the cultural center
• Democratic lawmakers say Republican budget-cutting plan would devastate Medicaid health care for millions
• World Health Organization says US aid cuts threaten decades of progress against Tuberculosis, world’s deadliest communicable disease

The post Democrats say Republican budget-cutting plan would devastate Medicaid; AG Bonta sues Trump admin for 6th time in 6 weeks – March 6, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas has accused Israel of “blackmail” over aid and urged the US government to act more like a neutral mediator in the ceasefire process.

“We call on the US administration to stop its bias and alignment with the fascist plans of the war criminal Netanyahu, which target our people and their existence on their land,” Hamas said in a statement.

“We affirm that all projects and plans that bypass our people and their established rights on their land, self-determination, and liberation from occupation are destined for failure and defeat.

• READ MORE: Israel blocks entry of aid into Gaza after first phase of truce ends
• Israel’s genocide is expanding into the West Bank – but Western media ‘ignores’ it
• Other war on Palestine reports

“We reaffirm our commitment to implementing the signed agreement in its three stages, and we have repeatedly announced our readiness to start negotiations on the second stage of the agreement,” it said.

Al Jazeera Arabic reports that Israel sought a dramatic change to the terms of the ceasefire agreement with a demand that Hamas release five living captives and 10 bodies of dead captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and increased aid to the Gaza Strip.

It also sought to extend the first phase of the ceasefire by a week.

Hamas informed the mediators that it rejected the Israeli proposal and considered it a violation of what was agreed upon in the ceasefire.

Israel suspends humanitarian aid
In response, Israel suspended the entry of humanitarian aid until further notice and Hamas claimed Tel Aviv “bears responsibility” for the fate of the 59 Israelis still held in the Gaza Strip.

Reports said Israeli attacks in Gaza on Sunday have killed at least four people and injured five people, according to medical sources.

“The occupation [Israel] bears responsibility for the consequences of its decision on the population of the Strip and for the fate of its prisoners,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement.

Under the agreed ceasefire, the second phase of the truce was intended to see the release of the remaining captives, the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and a final end to the war.

However, the talks on how to carry out the second phase never began, and Israel said all its captives must be returned for fighting to stop.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, an analyst said that although the fragile ceasefire seemed on the brink of collapse, it was unlikely that US President Donald Trump would allow it to fail.

“I think the larger picture here is Trump is not interested in the resumption of war,” said Sami al-Arian, professor of public affairs at Istanbul Zaim University.

“He has a very long agenda domestically and internationally and if it is going to be dragged by Netanyahu and his fascist partners into another war of genocide with no strategic end, he knows this is going to be a no-win for him.

“And for one thing, Trump hates to lose.”

No game plan
In another interview, Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg told Al Jazeera that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was caught between seeing the Gaza ceasefire through and resorting to a costly all-out war that may prove unpopular at home.

“I’m not sure Netanyahu has a game plan,” Goldberg said.

“The reason he hasn’t made a decision is because . . . Israel is not equipped to go to war right now. Resilience is at an all-time low. Resources are at an all-time low.”

In December, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees reported that more than 19,000 children had been hospitalised for acute malnutrition in four months.

In the first full year of the war — ending in October 2024 — 37 children died from malnutrition or dehydration.

Last September 21, The International Criminal Court (ICC) said there was reason to believe Israel was using “starvation as a method of warfare” when it issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said all efforts must be made to prevent a return to hostilities, which would be catastrophic.

He urged all parties to exercise maximum restraint and find a way forward on the next phase.

Guterres also called for an urgent de-escalation of the violence in the occupied West Bank.

Almost 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli war on Gaza since 7 October 2023.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed the challenge on February 19 in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals under the Clean Air Act. The advocacy group says the federal agency has prohibited the use of phosphogypsum, a radioactive, carcinogenic, and toxic waste generated by the fertilizer industry, in road construction since 1992, citing an “unacceptable level of risk to public health.”

The legal challenge is centered on a road project proposed at the New Wales facility of Mosaic Fertilizer, a subsidiary of The Mosaic Company, some 40 miles east of Tampa. The EPA approved the project in December 2024, noting the authorization applied only to the single project and included conditions meant to ensure the project would remain within the scope of the application. But Ragan Whitlock, Florida staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, feared the project could lead to more roadways built with the toxic waste.

“Part of what makes this process so alarming, it’s not just a one-off science experiment,” he said. “It’s being billed as the intermediate step between laboratory testing and full-scale implementation of the idea. So our concern is that whatever methodology is used for this project will be used for national approval down the road.”

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Phosphogypsum contains radium, which as it decays forms radon gas. Both radium and radon are radioactive and can cause cancer. Normally, phosphogypsum is disposed of in engineered piles called stacks to limit public exposure to emissions of radon. The stacks can be expanded as they reach capacity or closed, which involves draining and capping. More than 1 billion tons of the waste is stored in stacks in Florida, with the fertilizer industry adding some 40 million tons every year, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

Mosaic aims to construct a test road near its Florida stack with four sections, each made with varying mixtures of phosphogypsum. The waste would be used in the road base, which would be paved over with asphalt. University of Florida researchers would be involved in the study.

Most of the comments the EPA received in response to the proposal opposed the use of phosphogypsum in road construction in general and criticized the current methods for managing the waste, but the federal agency said these comments were outside the scope of its review. The agency declined to comment on pending litigation.

“The review found that Mosaic’s risk assessment is technically acceptable, and that the potential radiological risks from the proposed project meet the regulatory requirements,” the EPA stated in the Federal Register dated December 23, 2024. “The project is at least as protective of public health as maintaining the phosphogypsum in a stack.”

Mosaic has faced scrutiny in the past after a pond at its Piney Point site leaked and threatened to collapse in 2021, forcing the release of 215 million gallons of contaminated water into Tampa Bay. Mosaic did not respond to a request for comment on the new litigation.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Plan to build a road with radioactive waste in Florida prompts legal challenge against the EPA on Mar 1, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Amy Green, Inside Climate News.

The Papua New Guinea government wants to have everyone on their National Identity (NID) card system by the country’s 50th anniversary on 16 September 2025.

While the government has been struggling to set up the NID programme for more than 10 years, in January the Prime Minister, James Marape, announced they aimed to have 100 percent of Papua New Guineans signed up by September 16.

However, an academic with the University of PNG, working in conjunction with the Australian National University, Andrew Anton Mako, said there was no chance the government could achieve this goal.

• READ MORE: Other PNG identity card reports

Anton Mako spoke with RNZ Pacific senior journalist Don Wiseman:

ANDREW ANTON MAKO: The NID programme was established in November 2014, so it’s 10 years now. I wouldn’t know the mechanics of the delay, why it has taken this long for the project to not deliver on the outcomes, but I can say a lot of money has been invested into the programme.

By the end of this year, the national government would have spent about 500 million kina (over NZ$211 million). That’s a lot of money to be spent on a particular project, and then it would have only registered about 30 to 40 percent of the total population. So there’s a serious issue there. The project has failed to deliver.

DON WISEMAN: Come back to that in a moment. But why does the government think that a national ID card is so important?

AAM: It’s got some usefulness to achieve. If it was well established and well implemented, it would address a number of issues. For example, on doing business and a form of identity that will help people to do business, to apply for jobs in Papua New Guinea or elsewhere, and all that. I believe it has got merit towards it, but I think just that it has not been implemented properly.

DW: Does the population like the idea?

AAM: I think generally when it started, people were on board. But when it got delayed, you see a lot of people venting frustration on the NID Facebook page. I think [it’s] popularity has actually fallen over the years.

DW: It’s money that could go into a whole lot of other, perhaps, more important things?

AAM: Exactly, there’s pressing issues for the country, in terms of law and order, health and education. Those important sectors have actually fallen over the years. So that 500 million kina would have been better spent.

DW: So now the government wants the entire country within this system by September 16, and they’re not going to get anywhere near it. They must have realised they wouldn’t get anywhere near it when the Prime Minister made that statement. Surely?

AAM: It’s not possible. The numbers do not add up. They’ve spent more than 460 million kina over the last 10 years or so, and they’ve only registered 36 percent of the total — 3.3 million people. And then of the 3.3 million people, they’ve only issued an ID card to about 30 to 40 perCent of them . . .

DW: 30 to 40 percent of those who have already signed up. So it’s what, 10 percent of the country?

AAM: That’s right, about 1.2 million people have been issued an ID card, including a duplicate card. It is not possible to register the entire country, the rest of the country, in just six, seven or eight months.

DW: It’s not the first time that the government has come out with what is effectively like a wish list without fully backing it, financially?

AAM: That’s right. The ambitions that the government and the Prime Minister, their intentions are good, but there is no effective strategy how to get there.

The resources that are needed to be allocated. It’s just not possible to realise the the end results. For example, the Prime Minister and his government promised that by this year, we would stop importing rice. That was a promise that was made in 2019, so the thing is that the government has not clearly laid out a plan as to how the country will realise that outcome by this year.

If you are going to promise something, then you have to deliver on it. You have to deliver on the ambitions. Then you have to set up a proper game plan and proper indicators and things like this.

I think that’s the issue, that you have promised something [and] you must deliver. But you must chart out a proper pathway to deliver that.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Janine Jackson interviewed the University of Guelph-Humber’s Gregory Shupak about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine for the February 21, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

New York Times (12/23/21)

Janine Jackson: When a Los Angeles police officer killed a child in a department store, the New York Times ran the story with the headline “Stray Bullet Kills Girl as Officers Fire at Suspect in Los Angeles Store.” A later headline from the Times referred to the ”Officer Whose Bullet Killed a 14-Year-Old Girl.”

That used to be thought of as just newspaper speak, but we can now recognize how that distorted, passive-voice language is a choice that obscures agency and undermines accountability. It’s not just words.

We see that obscuring of agency, and undermining of accountability, writ larger when crimes are committed by governments corporate media favor, against populations they don’t care much about. Here, journalistic language takes on another level of import, because calling those crimes by their name brings on particular legal and political responses. New research from our guest explores that question in Gaza and the West Bank.

Gregory Shupak is a media critic and activist. He teaches English and media studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto, and he’s author of the book The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, from OR Books. He joins us now by phone from Toronto. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Gregory Shupak.

Gregory Shupak: Hi, how are you?

JJ: Well, I’m OK. When Trump declared his plans for Gaza: “You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” and then later he declared that the US would “take over the Gaza Strip” and “own it,” if you still have an outrage bone in your body, you may have thought, surely this will be seen as the wildly illegal, immoral move that it is.

How can it be resisted? Who can counter it? What bodies do we have to protect Palestinians in the face of this? All of those would be questions for journalists to pursue, but you can’t challenge something that you won’t name. Which brings us to the research that you’ve just been working on. Tell us about that.

Politico.eu (2/9/25)

GS: Sure. So this plan that Trump has put forth and stuck to for quite some time—I thought perhaps it would just be one of his many deranged statements that would be later walked back by, if not him, then others in administration, but he keeps pressing on this—it was widely described as ethnic cleansing by people who are positioned to make that assessment. So people like António Guterres of the United Nations, their secretary general, or Navi Pillay, who is another UN official focusing on Palestine. This plan that Trump brought forth was denounced by them and by others, like Human Rights Watch, as ethnic cleansing.

And yet that term has seldom found its way into the coverage. I looked at coverage of the first, just over a week, since Trump’s racist fever dream, and I found that 87% of the articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post did not include the term “ethnic cleansing.” And, in fact, only 26% of the coverage included a term like “ethnic cleansing,” or something similar that captures the violence of what he is proposing. So terms like “forced displacement” or “expel” or “expulsion” or “forced transfer.”

Just automatically, you have a whitewashing of what he’s proposing to do, even in coverage that is critical of it. And that’s really leaving audiences, who’re maybe not terribly well-versed in international law, not in a very strong position to understand just how egregious of a crime it is that Trump is advocating.

JJ: And ethnic cleansing is almost like just a pejorative, as though it had no actual meaning. In fact, I think it was the Wall Street Journal, you found, put it in scare quotes, like it’s an accusation and not a phenomenon.

New York Times (2/11/25)

GS: Exactly. And I talk in my piece about Bret Stephens and a couple of Wall Street Journal pieces that endorsed Trump’s plan. However, I didn’t mention that Stephens had a second piece that addressed Trump’s plan in passing, and he blatantly lied and said that Trump’s plan does not involve forcing Palestinians to leave Gaza. But Trump has been quite clear that that’s exactly what he has in mind. So not only do we have a widespread failure to properly name this plan for ethnic cleansing, we also have quite a few cases of endorsements of what Trump is calling for.

JJ: We know that for many US media—and you illustrated it—US exceptionalism, just the idea that, “Oh, sure, we can do this anywhere in the world,” extends to the point where they don’t even really acknowledge international law. And this is a longstanding problem, where the UN is just kind of meddling in US power, and that sort of thing. But it really comes to the point where they don’t even invoke the idea that there is something called international law.

GS: Yeah, that’s quite important. Only 19% of the coverage of Trump’s proposal for Gaza, if you can even call it that, only 19% include the term “international law,” which is really a key paradigm through which this, and any kind of international armed conflict, needs to be understood. But it’s just not even being presented to the audience as something that they need to think about.

Al Jazeera (2/26/24)

And it put me in mind of Richard Falk and Howard Friel, [who] wrote a book 20 years ago or so, called The Record of the Paper, and it talked about how in coverage of the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, international law was totally absent from New York Times editorials that were in various ways endorsing or at least giving credibility to the concept of the attack. And we still see the same pattern with regard to Gaza, as well as the West Bank, where patterns of ethnic cleansing are also unfolding.

JJ: And yet we know they will invoke international law when it suits, when it seems like something that bolsters the US case.

You found, finally, similar issues with coverage of the West Bank, and I think it’s important for folks to understand this is not just a story of Gaza anymore, obviously; this is an expansive story. And when we talk about the West Bank here, as is often the case, you can find an example of an outlet or a journalist who is doing straightforward, informative witnessing, and you can actually use that to contrast with what many powerful, better resourced outlets are doing. And that’s the case in coverage of the West Bank, right? It’s not that everyone is refusing to witness or acknowledge.

GS: No, I think that one of the main problems I see in the way that the events unfolding in the West Bank are being portrayed is that there’s a refusal, you might call it, to connect how each “individual” event or incident connects to others.

So you’ll have reports that’ll say, Israel’s invasion of Jenin refugee camp that has unfolded in recent weeks has largely emptied out the entire area. But the coverage of that fails to situate that in relation to the fact that we are seeing similar types of violence unfolding in other parts of the West Bank that Israel is attacking, particularly the lower West Bank, and that these are part of a longer-term trend towards, as several observers that I cite in the article have pointed out, of ethnic cleansing the territory.

So, for example, I talk about how in October of last year, the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese put forth a report in which she describes escalated patterns of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. And she talks about how, since October 7, 2023, at least 18 West Bank communities have been depopulated under the threat of force.

So what she and others have observed is that this is not a matter of, OK, there’s a couple days of fighting, and people go back to their homes when it’s safe. It’s part of a longer-term trajectory whereby it’s becoming difficult, and often impossible, for people in West Bank towns to go back to their homes once Israel drives them out. So not at all unlike what we have seen in Gaza.

Gregory Shupak: “What we’re talking about is driving out the indigenous population so that settlers can take over their land.”

JJ: But the refusal to connect those dots, and to make it seem as though, oh, a skirmish happened over here today, and oh, a skirmish happened over there yesterday, and not telling the bigger story, is the failure.

GS: Exactly. And as is so often the case with coverage of Palestine, and other issues as well, we get a muddying of the agency of the perpetrators of the violence, right? Everything’s reduced to just “clashes” and “conflict,” rather than efforts to enforce colonial subjugation, and resistance to that. So that kind of power dynamic is completely glossed over, when you get this anodyne language about just conflicts and clashes. There’s no space within that language for communicating that what we’re talking about is driving out the indigenous population so that settlers can take over their land.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Gregory Shupak. He’s a media critic, activist and teacher; his book The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media is available from OR Books. And his research on “Media Afraid to Call Ethnic Cleansing by Its Name” can be found on FAIR.org. Gregory Shupak, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

GS: Thanks for having me.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Palestine has strongly condemned Fiji’s decision to open a Fiji embassy in Jerusalem, calling it a violation of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry and the Hamas resistance group that governs the besieged enclave of Gaza issued separate statements, urging the Fiji government to reverse its decision.

According to the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, the Fijian decision is “an act of aggression against the Palestinian people and their inalienable rights”.

• READ MORE: UN rights expert calls for Gaza medical director Dr Abu Safia’s release
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

The Palestinian group Hamas said in a statement that the decision was “a blatant assault on the rights of our Palestinian people to their land and a clear violation of international law and UN resolutions, which recognise Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory”.

Fiji will become the seventh country to have an embassy in Jerusalem after the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea, and Paraguay.

• The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on 18 September 2024 (124-14) to adopt a resolution that demands Israel “brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

Fiji has reaffirmed its commitment to establishing an embassy in Israel, with plans to open the embassy in Jerusalem, despite global condemnation of Tel Aviv over the war in Gaza.

This announcement came as the Coalition Cabinet prepared to discuss the matter in Suva next week, reports Fiji One News.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka made these remarks during a bilateral meeting with Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Sa’ar Gideon Moshe on the sidelines of the 61st session of the Munich Security Conference, which opened yesterday in Germany.

• READ MORE: Hamas, PIJ free three Israeli captives in Gaza’s Khan Younis – 369 Palestinians to be freed
• Fiji human rights group condemns ‘troubling’ support for Israel at ICJ
• Fiji’s position over Israeli war on Gaza – international blunder or a domestic strategy? — Richard Naidu
• Other Fiji and Israel reports

The discussions between the two leaders focused on deepening the partnership in various areas of mutual interest, including agriculture, security and peacekeeping, and climate action initiatives.

Prime Minister Rabuka expressed gratitude to the Israeli government for their continued support over the years.

Fiji and Israel have maintained diplomatic relations since 1970, and their cooperation has spanned areas such as security, peacekeeping, and climate change.

In recent years, Israeli technology has played a crucial role in Fiji’s efforts to combat climate change.

Invitation to Rabuka to visit Israel
During the meeting, Minister Moshe extended an invitation to Prime Minister Rabuka to visit Israel as part of ongoing efforts to strengthen diplomatic ties.

The Israeli government also expressed readiness to assist Fiji in its plans to establish an embassy in Jerusalem.

Additionally, in response to a request from Prime Minister Rabuka, Minister Moshe offered support for providing patrol boats to enhance Fiji’s fight against illicit drugs.

The last time Israel provided patrol boats to Fiji was in 1987, when four Dabur-class boats were supplied to the Fiji Navy.

Both leaders acknowledged significant opportunities for collaboration and expressed optimism about further strengthening bilateral relations in the future.

Fiji defies UN, global condemnation of Israel
Asia Pacific Report comments: Fiji has been consistently the leading Pacific country supporting Israel, in defiance of United Nations resolutions and global condemnation of Tel Aviv in the 15-month war on Gaza that has killed at least 47,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children.

Israel currently faces allegations of genocide in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by South Africa and a growing number of other countries, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minster Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Last September, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in a resolution (124-43) that Israel end its “unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and demanded that it withdraw without delay.

Vanuatu was the only Pacific island country to vote for this resolution.

East Jerusalem is planned to become the capital of an independent Palestinian state.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

COMMENTARY: By Gideon Levy

And what if US President Donald Trump suggested setting up death camps for the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip? What would happen then?

Israel would respond exactly as it did to his transfer ideas, with ecstasy on the right and indifference in the centrist camp.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid would announce that he would go to Washington to present a “complementary plan”, like he offered to do with regard to the transfer plan.

• READ MORE: Hamas says 3 Gaza captives to be freed on Saturday as Israel warns of war
• New Zealand, one state for two nations — Gideon Levy via Pacific Media Centre
  
• On the skewed media coverage of Gaza

Benny Gantz would say that the plan shows “creative thinking, is original and interesting.” Bezalel Smotrich, with his messianic frame of mind, would say, “God has done wonders for us and we rejoice.” Benjamin Netanyahu would rise in public opinion polls.

The issue is no longer a hypothetical one. Trump will not explicitly suggest death camps, but he has already consented to Israel’s continuing a war that is not a war but rather a barbaric assault on a desolate stretch of land. From there, the road to annihilation is short, and Israel will not bat an eye. Trump approved it.

After all, no one In Israel rose up to tell the president of the United States “thank you for your ideas, but Israel will never support the expulsion of the Gaza Strip’s Palestinians.”

Hence, why be confident that if Trump suggested annihilating anyone refusing to evacuate Gaza, Israel would not cooperate with him? Just as Trump exposed the transfer sentiment beating in the heart of almost every Israeli, aimed at solving the problem “once and for all,” he may yet expose a darker element, the sentiment of “it’s us or them.”

A whitewasher of crimes
It’s no coincidence that a shady character like Trump has become a guide for Israel. He is exactly what we wanted and dreamed about: a whitewasher of crimes. He may well turn out to be the American president who caused the most damage ever inflicted on Israel.

There were presidents who were tight-fisted with aid, others who were sour on Israel, who even threatened it. There has never been a president who has set out to destroy the last vestiges of Israel’s morality.

From here on, anything Trump approves will become Israel’s gold standard.

Trump is now pushing Israel into resuming its attacks on the Gaza Strip, setting impossible terms for Hamas: All the hostages must be returned before Saturday noon, not a minute later, like the mafia does. And if only three hostages are returned, as was agreed upon? The gates of hell will open.

They won’t open only in Gaza, which has already been transformed into hell. They will open in Israel too. Israel will lose its last restraints. Trump gave his permission.

But Trump will be gone one day. He may lose interest before that, and Israel will be left with the damage he wrought, damage inflicted by a criminal, leper state.

No public diplomacy or friends will be able to save it if it follows the path of its new ethical oracle. No accusations of antisemitism will silence the world’s shock if Israel embarks on another round of combat in the enclave.

How would Israel respond if Trump called for death camps in Gaza? https://t.co/oYiMlp3PnE.

— Gideon Levy (@gideonle) February 13, 2025

A new campaign must begin
One cannot overstate the intensity of the damage. The renewal of attacks on Gaza, with the permission and under the authority of the American administration, must be blocked in Israel. Along with the desperate campaign for returning the hostages, a new campaign must begin, against Trump and his outlandish ideas.

However, not only is there no one who can lead such a campaign, there is also no one who could initiate it. The only battles being waged here now, for the hostages and for the removal of Netanyahu, are important, but they cannot remain the only ones.

The resumption of the “war” is the greatest disaster now facing us, heralding genocide, with no more argument about definitions.

After all, what would a “war” look like now, other than an assault on tens of thousands of refugees who have nothing left? What will the halting of humanitarian aid, fuel and medicine and water mean if not genocide?

We may discover that the first 16 months of the war were only a starter, the first 50,000 deaths only a prelude.

Ask almost any Israeli and he will say that Trump is a friend of Israel, but Trump is actually Israel’s most dangerous enemy now. Hamas and Hezbollah will never destroy it like he will.

Gideon Levy is a Ha’aretz columnist and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board. He joined Ha’aretz in 1982, and spent four years as the newspaper’s deputy editor. He is the author of the weekly Twilight Zone feature, which covers the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza over the last 25 years, as well as the writer of political editorials for the newspaper. Levy visited New Zealand in 2017.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

“Prices are rising and yet the Trump Administration has ‘no timeline’ and no plan to lower costs for families. Americans are taking notice, with consumer sentiment at its lowest since July, and consumers expect inflation to go even higher.

“Instead of bringing down prices, Trump and his billionaire buddy Elon Musk are laser-focused on shutting down consumer protection enforcers like CFPB, which has returned more than $20 billion to defrauded Americans, and trying to defund Social Security and Medicare. Targeting people’s health care and exposing them to financial scams does nothing to lower the cost of living.”

Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with one of Groundwork’s experts about today’s CPI report and the high cost of living.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Prices are rising and yet the Trump Administration has ‘no timeline’ and no plan to lower costs for families. Americans are taking notice, with consumer sentiment at its lowest since July, and consumers expect inflation to go even higher.

“Instead of bringing down prices, Trump and his billionaire buddy Elon Musk are laser-focused on shutting down consumer protection enforcers like CFPB, which has returned more than $20 billion to defrauded Americans, and trying to defund Social Security and Medicare. Targeting people’s health care and exposing them to financial scams does nothing to lower the cost of living.”

Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with one of Groundwork’s experts about today’s CPI report and the high cost of living.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

I watched US President Donald Trump’s joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week in utter disbelief. Not that the idea, or indeed the practice, of ethnic cleansing of Palestine is new.

But at that press conference the mask has fallen. Recently, fascism has been on the march everywhere, but that press conference seemed to herald an age of naked fascism.

So the Palestinians have just been “unlucky” for decades.

• READ MORE: Fear, anxiety in Gaza as Trump gives Hamas ultimatum to release captives
• Other Israel’s war on Palestine reports

“Their lives have been made hell.” Thank God for grammar’s indirect speech. Their lives have been made hell. We do not know who made their lives hell. Nothing to see here.

Trump says of Gaza: “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings — level it out and create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area . . . ”

I wonder who are those lucky “people of the area” he has in mind, once those “unlucky” Palestinians have been “transferred” out of their homeland.

Trump speaks of transforming Gaza into a magnificent “Riviera of the Middle East”. Obviously, the starved amputees of Gaza do not fit his image of the classy people he wants to see in the Riviera he wants to build, on stolen Palestinian land.

No ethnic cleansing questions
After the press conference, I did not hear a single question about ethnic cleansing, genocide, occupation or international law.

Under the new fascist leaders, just like under the old ones, those words have become old-fashioned and are to be expunged from the lexicon.

The difference has never been more striking between the meek who officially hold the title “journalist” and the brave who actually work to hold the powerful to account.

Now, more than ever, independent journalists are a threatened species. We should treasure them, support them and protest every attempt to silence them.

Gaza is now the prototype. We can forget international laws and international organisations. We have the bombs. You do as we wish or you will be obliterated.

Who now dares say that the forced transfer of a population by an occupying power is a war crime under the Geneva Convention? But then again, Trump and Netanyahu are not really talking about “forced transfer”. They are talking about “voluntary transfer”.

Once the remaining Israeli hostages have been freed, and water and food have been cut off again, those unlucky Palestinians will climb voluntarily onto the buses waiting to transport them to happiness and prosperity in Egypt and Jordan.

Or to whatever other client state Trump manages to threaten or bribe.

Can the International Criminal Court (ICC) command a shred of respect when Netanyahu is sharing the podium with Trump? Or indeed when Trump is at the podium?

Dismantling the international order
Recently, fascist leaders have been dismantling the international order by accusing its organisations and officials of being “antisemitic” or “working with terrorists”. Tomorrow they will defund and delegitimise these organisations without the need for an excuse.

I listen to Trump speak of combatting antisemitism and deporting Hamas sympathisers and I hear, “We will combat anti-Israel views and we will deport those who protest Israel’s crimes.

“And we will continue to conflate antisemitism and anti-Israel’s views in order to silence pro-Palestinian voices.”

I watch Trump and Netanyahu, the former reading the thoughts of a real estate developer turned into a president’s speech and the latter grinning like a Cheshire cat — and I am gripped by fear. Not just for the Palestinians, but for all humanity.

If we think fascism is only coming for people on a distant shore, we ought to think again.

I watch Netanyahu repeating lies that investigative journalists have spent months debunking. Why would he care? The truth about his lies will not make it to mainstream media and the consciousness of the majority of people.

Hamas suspends the release of Gaza captives, accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire by continuing to kill Palestinians and blocking humanitarian aid.

Follow our LIVE coverage: https://t.co/OXOBADdF6T pic.twitter.com/h4vf4GM9W7

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) February 11, 2025

Lies taking hold, enduring
And the more he repeats those lies, the more they take hold and endure.

I wonder how our political leaders will spin our allies’ new, illegal and immoral plans. For years, they have clung to the mantra of the two-state solution while Israel continued to make every effort to render this solution unfeasible.

What will they say now? With what weasel words will they stay on the same page as our friends in the US and Israel?

Netanyhu praises Trump for thinking outside the box. Here is an idea that Israel has spent billions on arms and propaganda to persuade people that it is dangerously outside the box.

Instead of asking Egypt and Jordan to take the Palestinians, why not make Israel end the occupation and give Palestinians equal rights in their own homeland?

Sawsan Madina is former head of Australia’s SBS Television. This article was first published by John Menadue’s public policy journal Pearls and Irritations and is republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

World leaders are rebuking Donald Trump’s proposal for the United States to take over the Gaza Strip, ethnically cleansing the region of Palestinians. “There’s no question that even though the entire region would reject it … the fundamental reality is that we are heading to the complete destruction of Palestinian society in Gaza as a matter of status quo,” says our guest Omar Baddar. Baddar, a Palestinian American political analyst and member of the National Policy Council of the Arab American Institute, also discusses Trump’s recent statements signaling a potential breakdown of the official ceasefire in Gaza.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Before Guantánamo became what it’s known for — the “forever prison in the war on terror” — its “ambiguous sovereignty” as a U.S. military base was long utilized to incarcerate Caribbean asylum seekers to the U.S. We speak to scholar Miriam Pensack, who researches the history of Guantánamo, in light of President Trump’s recent proposal to once again imprison asylum seekers at the base’s prison complex. Pensack says that existing racist anti-migration policies in the Caribbean, including the Dominican Republic’s detention and deportations of people with Haitian ancestry, suggest a likely collaboration with Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Sultan Barakat, a professor at Qatar’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University, says the release of Palestinian prisoners is a “symbolic win” rather than a victory for the Palestinians, primarily showing the inhumane conditions they live under.

“Israel can capture people in the West Bank and Gaza because they all live in a confinement area under the control of Israel,” he told Al Jazeera.

Dr Barakat discussed the way Palestinians were “arbitrarily rounded up, taken to prison and treated badly” by Israel.

• READ MORE: ‘Ignore Trump’s bully’ and take stand over genocide, PSNA tells Peters
• UN rapporteur welcomes ‘best news’ — Hague Group coalition pushing for Palestinian state
• Moral bankruptcy, Israel’s genocide and the betrayal of the Palestinians
• Other Palestine reports

A total of 183 Palestinian prisoners were released today from Israeli jails as part of the exchange for three Israeli hostages under the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.

They included 18 serving life sentences and 54 serving lengthy sentences, as well as 111 detained in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

Dozens of Palestinians released from Israeli jails showed signs of torture and starvation, said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

Barakat stressed that the release of prisoners also “shows the unity of the Palestinians in the face of occupation”.

“The prisoners are not all necessarily Hamas sympathisers — some were at odds with Hamas for a long time,” the academic said.

“But they are united in their refusal of occupation and standing up to Israel,” he added.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The Indonesian government’s proposal to grant amnesty to pro-independence rebels in West Papua has stirred scepticism as the administration of new President Prabowo Subianto seeks to deal with the country’s most protracted armed conflict.

Without broader dialogue and accountability, critics argue, the initiative could fail to resolve the decades-long unrest in the resource-rich region.

Yusril Ihza Mahendra, coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Corrections, announced the amnesty proposal last week.

• READ MORE: Wenda calls for international inquiry into film claim that Indonesia is using chemical weapons in West Papua
• Other West Papua reports

On January 21, he met with a British government delegation and discussed human rights issues and the West Papua conflict.

“Essentially, President Prabowo has agreed to grant amnesty . . .  to those involved in the Papua conflict,” Yusril told reporters last week.

On Thursday, he told BenarNews that the proposal was being studied and reviewed.

“It should be viewed within a broader perspective as part of efforts to resolve the conflict in Papua by prioritising law and human rights,” Yusril said.

‘Willing to die for this cause’
Sebby Sambom, a spokesman for the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) rebels, dismissed the proposal as insufficient.

“The issue isn’t about granting amnesty and expecting the conflict to end,” Sambom told BenarNews. “Those fighting in the forests have chosen to abandon normal lives to fight for Papua’s independence.

“They are willing to die for this cause.”

Despite the government offer, those still engaged in guerrilla warfare would not stop, Sambon said.

Papua, Indonesia’s easternmost region that makes up the western half of New Guinea island, has been a flashpoint of tension since its controversial incorporation into the archipelago nation in 1969.

Papua, referred to as “West Papua” by Pacific academics and advocates, is home to a distinct Melanesian culture and vast natural resources and has seen a low-level indpendence insurgency in the years since.

The Indonesian government has consistently rejected calls for Papua’s independence. The region is home to the Grasberg mine, one of the world’s largest gold and copper reserves, and its forests are a critical part of Indonesia’s climate commitments.

Papua among poorest regions
Even with its abundant resources, Papua remains one of Indonesia’s poorest regions with high rates of poverty, illiteracy and infant mortality.

Critics argue that Jakarta’s heavy-handed approach, including the deployment of thousands of troops, has only deepened resentment.

Yusril, the minister, said the new proposal was separate from a plan announced in November 2024 to grant amnesty to 44,000 convicts, and noted that the amnesty would be granted only to those who pledged loyalty to the Indonesian state.

He added that the government was finalising the details of the amnesty scheme, which would require approval from the House of Representatives (DPR).

Prabowo’s amnesty proposal follows a similar, albeit smaller, move by his predecessor, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who granted clemency to several Papuan political prisoners in 2015.

While Jokowi’s gesture was initially seen as a step toward reconciliation, it did little to quell violence. Armed clashes between Indonesian security forces and pro-independence fighters have intensified in recent years, with civilians often caught in the crossfire.

Cahyo Pamungkas, a Papua researcher at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), argued that amnesty, without prior dialogue and mutual agreements, would be ineffective.

“In almost every country, amnesty is given to resistance groups or government opposition groups only after a peace agreement is reached to end armed conflict,” he told BenarNews.

No unilateral declaration
Yan Warinussy, a human rights lawyer in Papua, agreed.

“Amnesty, abolition or clemency should not be declared unilaterally by one side without a multi-party understanding from the start,” he told BenarNews.

Warinussy warned that without such an approach, the prospect of a Papua peace dialogue could remain an unfulfilled promise and the conflict could escalate.

Usman Hamid, director of Amnesty International Indonesia, said that while amnesty was a constitutional legal instrument, it should not apply to those who have committed serious human rights violations.

“The government must ensure that perpetrators of gross human rights violations in Papua and elsewhere are prosecuted through fair and transparent legal mechanisms,” he said.

Papuans Behind Bars, a website tracking political prisoners in Papua, reported 531 political arrests in 2023, with 96 political prisoners still detained by the end of the year.

Only 11 linked to armed struggle
Most were affiliated with non-armed groups such as the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) and the Papua People’s Petition (PRP), while only 11 were linked to the armed West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB).

The website did not list 2024 figures.

Anum Siregar, a lawyer who has represented Papuan political prisoners, said that the amnesty proposal has sparked interest.

“Some of those detained outside Papua are requesting to be transferred to prisons in Papua,” she said.

Meanwhile, Agus Kossay, leader of the National Committee for West Papua, which campaigns for a referendum on self-determination, said Papuans would not compromise on “their God-given right to determine their own destiny”.

In September 2019, Kossay was arrested for orchestrating a riot and was sentenced to 11 months in jail. More recently, in 2023, he was arrested in connection with an internal dispute within the KNPB and was released in September 2024 after serving a sentence for incitement.

“The right to self-determination is non-negotiable and cannot be challenged by anyone. As long as it remains unfulfilled, we will continue to speak out,” Kossay told BenarNews.

Victor Mambor and Tria Dianti are BenarNews correspondents. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

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One of the hallmarks of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was a promise of sweeping tax cuts, for the rich, for working people and for companies alike.

Now congressional Republicans have the job of figuring out which of those cuts to propose into law. In order to pay for the cuts, they have started to eye some targets to raise money. Among them: cutting benefits for single mothers and poor people who rely on government health care.

The proposals are included in a menu of tax and spending cut options circulated this month by House Republicans. Whether or not Republicans enact any of the ideas remains to be seen. Some of the potential targets are popular tax breaks and cuts could be politically treacherous. And cutting taxes for the wealthy could risk damaging the populist image that Trump has cultivated.

For the ultrawealthy, the document floats eliminating the federal estate tax, at an estimated cost of $370 billion in revenue for the government over a decade. The tax, which charges a percentage of the value of a person’s fortune after they die, kicks in only for estates worth more than around $14 million.

Among those very few Americans who do get hit with the tax, nearly 30% of the tax is paid by the top 0.1% by income, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center think tank. (Many ultra-wealthy people already largely avoid the tax. Over the years, lawyers and accountants have devised ways to pass fortunes to heirs tax free, often by using complex trust structures, as ProPublica has previously reported.)

Another proposal aims to slash the top tax rate paid by corporations by almost a third.

Trump promised such a cut during the campaign. But Vice President JD Vance came out against it before Trump picked him as his running mate. “We’re sort of in line with the OECD right now,” he said in an interview last year, referring to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 38 wealthy developed nations. “I don’t think we need to be cutting the corporate tax rate further.”

In Trump’s first term, he brought the top corporate rate down from 35% to 21%, where it’s at now, taking the U.S. from a high rate compared to other OECD nations to about average. The proposed cut to 15% would make the United States’ rate among the lowest of such countries.

To pay for new tax cuts, the House Republicans’ proposal floats a series of potential overhauls of government programs. One major focus is possible cuts to Medicaid, the health care program for people with low incomes that is administered by the states. Medicaid expansion was a key tenet of the Affordable Care Act, passed under President Barack Obama. Many Republican governors initially chose not to take advantage of the new federal subsidies to expand the program. In the intervening years, several states reversed course, and the program has expanded the number of people enrolled in Medicaid by more than 20 million, as of last year.

The deep cuts to the program floated in the document include slashing reimbursements to the states. States would need to “raise new revenues or reduce Medicaid spending by eliminating coverage for some people, covering fewer services, and (or) cutting rates paid to physicians, hospitals, and nursing homes,” according to an analysis by KFF, a health policy organization.

Trump has been inconsistent in his position on Medicaid over the years. He sought to slash the program in his first term. But he has also made statements about protecting it over the years.

As recently as a 2023 campaign event, Trump promised that “we’re not going to play around with Medicare, Medicaid.” But it’s not clear whether the comment was a throwaway: While preserving Medicare, the program that covers health care for the elderly, has been a focus for Trump, maintaining Medicaid has not. The official GOP platform rolled out by Trump last year, for example, promised not to cut “one penny” from Medicare but was silent on Medicaid. In separate remarks during the campaign last year, Trump appeared to endorse cuts to "entitlements," after an interviewer asked about Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Other proposals would eliminate tax breaks for families with children.

Currently, parents can get a tax credit of up to $2,100 for child care expenses. The House Republican plan floats the elimination of that break. The cut is estimated to save $55 billion over a decade.

Vance, in particular, had promised economic policies that would lessen the load on parents. “It is the task of our government to make it easier for young moms and dads to afford to have kids,” he said last week. (He campaigned on a proposal to more than double the child tax credit.)

Another proposal in the list of options takes aim squarely at parents raising children on their own. The provision would eliminate the “head of household” filing status to collect almost $200 billion more in taxes over a decade from single parents and other adults caring for dependents on their own.

The “head of household” status was created in the 1950s under the rationale that single parents should have a lighter tax burden. Eliminating it would affect millions of Americans, largely women. (The after-tax pay of people with incomes between the 20th and 80th percentiles, those making between about $14,000 and $100,000, would fall by the highest percentage, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation.)

Democrats have criticized the proposals as a gift to the wealthy at the expense of the working class. “Republicans are gearing up for a class war against everyday families in America,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a statement.

A White House spokesperson did not respond to questions about the specifics in the House GOP document but said in an email that “This is an active negotiation and process one that the President and his team are working productively with congress. His visit to the House Retreat [Monday] was a sign that he wants to prioritize unity and a good deal for American that achieves his campaign promises.”

A spokesperson for the House Budget Committee declined to answer specific questions but said “this is a menu of policy options for authorizing committees to consider as members navigate the reconciliation process.”

Some of the proposals would fulfill Trump’s campaign promises geared toward the working class.

The document includes a plan to eliminate income taxes (but maintain payroll taxes) on tips, at a cost of $106 billion over a decade. The proposal is one Trump touted while campaigning in Las Vegas to win support from the city’s huge contingent of service workers. Trump’s Democratic opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, later pledged to do the same. Economists have criticized the idea as one that unfairly benefits one group of working-class employees over others who get paid the same but work in other industries that don’t deal in tips.

Another Trump campaign promise included in the document is ending taxes on overtime pay, at a price of $750 billion over a decade. That proposal has also been criticized by tax experts as an inefficient way to provide relief for lower-paid workers who are eligible for overtime because they’re paid hourly and perform repetitive tasks. The provision, critics say, would invite gaming and further complicate tax reporting by creating new reporting requirements about the hours a taxpayer worked.

One of the biggest-ticket proposals to raise new revenue in the House Republicans’ document would hit a tax break cherished by upper-income Americans: eliminating the mortgage interest deduction. The document estimates $1 trillion in savings over 10 years by eliminating the break. Because of a complex interplay of different features of the tax code, an estimated 60% of the value of this deduction flows to Americans making over $200,000 per year, according to the Tax Foundation.

Eliminating the mortgage interest deduction would have an uneven geographic impact: analyses have found the tax break is more valuable to Americans in Democratic-dominated states such as California, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

Pratheek Rebala contributed research.

Do you have any information about the tax proposals that we should know? Robert Faturechi can be reached by email at robert.faturechi@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 213-271-7217. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Robert Faturechi and Justin Elliott.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

As survivors in Gaza begin to return to their homes during the first ceasefire in over a year, we speak to Sharif Abdel Kouddous of Drop Site News about the future of those who have been displaced. As Palestinians are “returning to a devastated landscape … determined not to leave their land” in defiance of “plans of ethnic cleansing that have dated back to the 1950s for Israel,” President Trump told reporters that he wants to “clean out” Gaza, suggesting that Palestinian Arabs should be ethnically cleansed into Egypt and Jordan. Both countries have “rejected this, and they’ve done so since the beginning of this genocidal assault,” says Kouddous.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

ANALYSIS: By David Hearst

When push came to shove, it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who blinked first.

For months, Netanyahu had become the main obstacle to a Gaza ceasefire, to the considerable frustration of his own negotiators.

That much was made explicit more than two months ago by the departure of his Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant. The chief architect of the 15-month war, Gallant said plainly that there was nothing left for the army to do in Gaza.

• READ MORE: Israel delays cabinet vote on ceasefire deal; dozens killed in Gaza
• Global watchdog calls for ‘open’ probe into crimes against Gaza media as ceasefire agreed
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• Israel’s planned expulsion of UNRWA – time for UN to walk the talk and invoke Security Council action
• Other war on Gaza reports

Still Netanyahu persisted. Last May, he rejected a deal signed by Hamas in the presence of CIA director William Burns, in favour of an offensive on Rafah.

In October, Netanyahu turned for salvation to the Generals’ Plan, aiming to empty northern Gaza in preparation for resettlement by Israelis. The plan was to starve and bomb the population out of northern Gaza by declaring that anyone who did not leave voluntarily would be treated as a “terrorist”.

It was so extreme, and so contrary to the international rules of war, that it was condemned by former Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon as a war crime and ethnic cleansing.

Key to this plan was a corridor forged by a military road and a string of outposts cutting through the centre of the Gaza Strip, from the Israeli border to the sea.

The Netzarim Corridor would have effectively reduced the territory’s land mass by almost one third and become its new northern border. No Palestinian pushed out of northern Gaza would have been allowed to return.

Red lines erased
No-one from the Biden administration forced Netanyahu to rethink this plan. Not US President Joe Biden himself, an instinctive Zionist who, for all his speeches, kept on supplying Israel with the means to commit genocide in Gaza; nor Antony Blinken, his Secretary of State, who earned the dubious distinction of being the least-trusted diplomat in the region.

Even as the final touches were being put on the ceasefire agreement, Blinken gave a departing news conference in which he blamed Hamas for rejecting previous offers. As is par for the course, the opposite is the truth.

Every Israeli journalist who covered the negotiations has reported that Netanyahu rejected all previous deals and was responsible for the delay in coming to this one.

It fell to one short meeting with US President-elect Donald Trump’s special Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to call time on Netanyahu’s 15-month war.

In a war of liberation, the weak and vastly outgunned can succeed against overwhelming military odds. These wars are battles of will

After one meeting, the red lines that Netanyahu had so vigorously painted and repainted in the course of 15 months were erased.

As Israeli pundit Erel Segal said: “We’re the first to pay a price for Trump’s election. [The deal] is being forced upon us . . . We thought we’d take control of northern Gaza, that they’d let us impede humanitarian aid.”

This is emerging as a consensus. The mood in Israel is sceptical of claims of victory.

“There’s no need to sugarcoat the reality: the emerging ceasefire and hostage release deal is bad for Israel, but it has no choice but to accept it,” columnist Yossi Yehoshua wrote in Ynet.

The circulating draft of the ceasefire agreement is clear in stating that Israel will pull back from both the Philadelphi Corridor and the Netzarim Corridor by the end of the process, stipulations Netanyahu had previously rejected.

Even without this, the draft agreement clearly notes that Palestinians can return to their homes, including in northern Gaza. The attempt to clear it of its inhabitants has failed.

This is the biggest single failure of Israel’s ground invasion.

Fighting back
There is a long list of others. But before we list them, the Witkoff debacle underscores how dependent Israel has been on Washington for every day of the horrendous slaughter in Gaza.

A senior Israeli Air Force official has admitted that planes would have run out of bombs within a few months had they not been resupplied by the US.

It is sinking into Israeli public opinion that the war is ending without any of Israel’s major aims being achieved.

Netanyahu and the Israeli army set out to “collapse” Hamas after the humiliation and shock of its surprise attack on southern Israel in October 2023. They demonstrably haven’t achieved this goal.

Take Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza as a microcosm of the battle Hamas waged against invading forces. Fifteen months ago, it was the first city in Gaza to be occupied by Israeli forces, who judged it to have the weakest Hamas battalion.

But after wave upon wave of military operations, each of which was supposed to have “cleansed” the city of Hamas fighters, Beit Hanoun turned out to have inflicted one of the heaviest concentrations of Israeli military casualties.

Hamas kept on emerging from the rubble to fight back, turning Beit Hanoun into a minefield for Israeli soldiers. Since the launch of the most recent military operation in northern Gaza, 55 Israeli officers and soldiers have perished in this sector, 15 of them in Beit Hanoun in the past week alone.

If any army is bleeding and exhausted today, it is Israel’s. The plain military fact of life in Gaza is that, 15 months on, Hamas can recruit and regenerate faster than Israel can kill its leaders or its fighters.

“We are in a situation where the pace at which Hamas is rebuilding itself is higher than the pace that the [Israeli army] is eradicating them,” Amir Avivi, a retired Israeli brigadier general, told the Wall Street Journal. He added that Mohammed Sinwar, the younger brother of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, “is managing everything”.

If anything demonstrates the futility of measuring military success solely by the number of leaders killed, or missiles destroyed, it is this.

Against the odds
In a war of liberation, the weak and vastly outgunned can succeed against overwhelming military odds. These wars are battles of will. It is not the battle that matters, but the ability to keep on fighting.

In Algeria and Vietnam, the French and US armies had overwhelming military advantage.

Both forces withdrew in ignominy and failure many years later. In Vietnam, it was more than six years after the Tet Offensive, which like the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 was perceived at the time to be a military failure. But the symbol of a fightback after so many years of siege proved decisive in the war.

In France, the scars of Algeria last to this day. In each war of liberation, the determination of the weak to resist has proved more decisive than the firepower of the strong.

In Gaza, it was the determination of the Palestinian people to stay on their land — even as it was being reduced to rubble — that proved to be the decisive factor in this war. And this is an astonishing feat, considering that the 360 sq km territory was entirely cut off from the world, with no allies to break the siege and no natural terrain for cover.

Hezbollah fought in the north, but little of this was any succour to Palestinians in Gaza on the ground, subjected to nightly bombing raids and drone attacks shredding their tents.

Neither enforced starvation, nor hypothermia, nor disease, nor brutalisation and mass rape at the hands of their invaders, could break their will to stay on their land.

Never before have Palestinian fighters and civilians shown this level of resistance in the history of the conflict — and it could prove to be transformative.

Because what Israel has lost in its campaign to crush Gaza is incalculable. It has squandered decades of sustained economic, military and diplomatic efforts to establish the country as a liberal democratic Western nation in the eyes of global opinion.

Generational memory
Israel has not only lost the Global South, in which it invested such efforts in Africa and South America. It has also lost the support of a generation in the West, whose memories do not go back as far as Biden’s.

The point is not mine. It is well made by Jack Lew, the man Biden nominated as his ambassador to Israel a month before the Hamas attack.

In his departing interview, Lew, an Orthodox Jew, told the Times of Israel that public opinion in the US was still largely pro-Israel, but that was changing.

With the enormous cost in lives, every family has been touched by loss. But what Gaza has achieved in the last 15 months could well transform the conflict

“What I’ve told people here that they have to worry about when this war is over is that the generational memory doesn’t go back to the founding of the state, or the Six Day War, or the Yom Kippur War, or to the intifada even.

“It starts with this war, and you can’t ignore the impact of this war on future policymakers — not the people making the decisions today, but the people who are 25, 35, 45 today and who will be the leaders for the next 30 years, 40 years.”

Biden, Lew said, was the last president of his generation whose memories and knowledge go back to Israel’s “founding story”.

Lew’s parting shot at Netanyahu is amply documented in recent polls. More than one-third of American Jewish teenagers sympathise with Hamas, 42 percent believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and 66 percent sympathise with the Palestinian people as a whole.

This is not a new phenomenon. Polling two years before the war showed that a quarter of American Jews agreed that “Israel is an apartheid state”, and a plurality of respondents did not find that statement to be antisemitic.

Deep damage
The war in Gaza has become the prism through which a new generation of future world leaders sees the Israel-Palestine conflict. This is a major strategic loss for a country that on 6 October 2023 thought that it had closed down the issue of Palestine, and that world opinion was in its pocket.

But the damage goes further and deeper than this.

The antiwar protests, condemned by Western governments first as antisemitism and then legislated against as terrorism, have created a global front for the liberation of Palestine. The movement to boycott Israel is stronger than ever before.

Israel is in the dock of international justice as never before. Not only are there arrest warrants out for Netanyahu and Gallant on war crimes, and a continuing genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but a myriad of other cases are about to flood the courts in every major western democracy.

A court action has been launched in the UK against BP for supplying crude oil to Israel, which is then allegedly used by the Israeli army, from its pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkiye.

In addition, the Israeli army recently decided to conceal the identities of all troops who have participated in the campaign in Gaza, for fear that they could be pursued when travelling abroad.

This major move was sparked by a tiny activist group named after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old killed by Israeli troops in Gaza in January 2024. The Belgium-based group has filed evidence of war crimes with the UCJ against 1000 Israelis, including video, audio, forensic reports and other documents.

A ceasefire in Gaza is thus not the end of Palestine’s nightmare, but the start of Israel’s. These legal moves will only gather momentum as the truth of what happened in Gaza is uncovered and documented after the war has ended.

Internal divisions
At home, Netanyahu will return from war to a country more divided internally than ever before. There is a battle between the army and the Haredim who refuse to serve.

There is a battle between secular and national religious Zionists. With Netanyahu’s retreat on Gaza, the settler far right are sensing that the opportunity to establish Greater Israel has been snatched from the jaws of military victory.

All the while, there has been an unprecedented exodus of Jews from Israel.

Regionally, Israel is left with troops still in Lebanon and Syria. It would be foolish to think of these ongoing operations as restoring the deterrence Israel lost when Hamas struck on 7 October 2023.

Iran’s axis of resistance might have received some sustained blows after the leadership of Hezbollah was wiped out, and after finding itself vastly overextended in Syria. But like Hamas, Hezbollah has not been knocked out as a fighting force.

And the Sunni Arab world has been riled by the Gaza genoicide and the ongoing crackdown in the occupied West Bank as rarely before.

Israel’s undisguised bid to divide Syria into cantons is as provocative to Syrians of all denominations and ethnicities, as its plans to annex Areas B and C of the West Bank are an existential threat to Jordan.

Annexation would be treated in Amman as an act of war.

Deconfliction will be the patient work of decades of reconstruction, and Trump is not a patient man.

Hamas and Gaza will now take a backseat. With the enormous cost in lives, every family has been touched by loss. But what Gaza has achieved in the last 15 months could well transform the conflict.

Gaza has shown all Palestinians — and the world — that it can withstand total war, and not budge from the ground upon which it stands. It tells the world, with justifiable pride, that the occupiers threw everything they had at it, and there was not another Nakba.

Gaza tells Israel that Palestinians exist, and that they will not be pacified until and unless Israelis talk to them on equal terms about equal rights.

It may take many more years for that realisation to sink in, but for some it already has: “Even if we conquer the entire Middle East, and even if everyone surrenders to us, we won’t win this war,” columnist Yair Assulin wrote in Haaretz.

But what everyone in Gaza who stayed put has achieved is of historic significance.

David Hearst is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He is a commentator and speaker on the region and analyst on Saudi Arabia. This article has been republished from the Middle East Eye under Creative Commons.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

More than 1,000 reporters, editors and administrative staff from state-controlled Vietnamese broadcasters, including Voice of Vietnam’s VTC Digital Television, lost their jobs on Wednesday as the channels were taken off the air, state media reported.

VTC’s 13 channels, along with others unconnected to Voice of Vietnam such as People’s Television and Vietnam News Agency Television, stopped broadcasting on the morning of Jan. 15. National Assembly Television had already shut down on Jan. 1. While regional broadcasters are still on air, the goal is to make Vietnam Television the country’s only channel.

The closures are part of a plan by the Communist Party’s top decision making body the Politburo to streamline the political system and cut costs as outlined in Resolution 18, which aims to eliminate overlap in government enterprises and reduce the number of civil servants by a fifth.

VTC Digital Television was established in 2004 and became a non-business unit under the Ministry of Information and Communications in 2014. The following year, it was merged into the state Voice of Vietnam news agency.

VTC, Vietnam’s second most-watched station behind Vietnam Television, broadcast nationwide, disseminating party propaganda.

One staff member, who worked for VTC for 20 years, told Radio Free Asia she and her colleagues were shocked and confused by its abrupt closure.

“They don’t know where to go and what to do,” said the woman, who didn’t want to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. “Employees haven’t been informed about any [compensation] policies. Any decision should consider workers’ interests.”

“ We have dedicated many years to the job, are financially independent, and are not paid by the state budget. Why do they shut down our channels so abruptly without a proper roadmap?”

(Nhac Nguyen/AFP)

Administrative staff described the closure of VTC as “destructive,” wasting millions of dollars of machinery and equipment – state assets now idle.

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Ho Chi Minh City-based independent journalist Nam Viet said he wouldn’t miss the propaganda channels, often considered the “lifeblood of the government.”

“Quite a few reporters have taken to social media to lament and regret that they have dedicated many years [to the state]. Now they’re being forced out but their sharing is more ironic than pity-inducing, because they have been the henchmen of a propaganda system that is nothing to be proud of … not journalists who dared to speak up for people’s suffering and fight for justice.”

Academic Nguyen Hoang Anh, who has worked on programs for VTC and other broadcasters, said relying on a single channel would likely lead to many important issues being overlooked.

“Shutting down VTC will scale down the dissemination of information and leave viewers with fewer choices,” she said, adding that Vietnam Television mainly focuses on politics, whereas VTC covered social issues such as women’s rights and education.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Vietnamese.

The controversial policy, which essentially makes it more expensive to drive into the busiest part of Manhattan, has been floated as a way to reduce traffic and raise money for the city’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s subways and buses, since the 1970s. But it wasn’t until 2017 that it seemed like it might finally catch on. 

Still, getting it implemented has been an uphill battle. Last summer, New York Governor Kathy Hochul abruptly paused a carefully crafted plan that would have implemented $15 tolls on drivers heading into Manhattan below 60th Street, a mere 25 days before the plan would have gone into effect. Months later, in November, she said she would unpause the plan with lower tolls: $9 for passenger vehicles during peak hours and $2.25 during off-peak. After all the hubbub, New York City made history just after midnight on Sunday, January 5, when the cameras used to enforce the tolls turned on. 

With this move, New York City becomes the first U.S. city to experiment with congestion pricing tolls, and joins a small cohort of other major cities — London, Stockholm, and Singapore — trying to disincentivize driving in order to unlock safer streets and a host of other environmental benefits.

Environmental and public transit advocates praise congestion pricing because it pushes drivers to reconsider whether getting behind the wheel is really the easiest way to get around the city. With fewer cars on the road, congestion pricing promises shorter commute times for those who do drive — and better public transit options, since the money raised by congestion pricing will fund capital improvements by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or MTA. 

But the policy has not been without its naysayers. One New York City councilmember — Republican Vickie Paladino — appeared to encourage her followers on X (formerly Twitter) to damage the tolling cameras with lasers. Congestion pricing detractors say that tolls are burdensome. Of course, in some way, this is the point: to make driving slightly less appealing and incentivize alternative modes of transportation. 

Proponents say these are worthwhile costs to fund meaningful improvements to New Yorkers’ lives — like safer streets and cleaner air. 

“At this point, across much of the country, cars are so ingrained into American culture that we don’t always think of them as environmental hazards, but of course they are,” said Alexa Sledge, director of communications for Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group focused on street safety in New York City. “So a major goal of our climate policy has to be getting people out of cars and on public transit, onto buses, onto bikes, onto trips on foot.” These less carbon-intensive modes of transit, she says, are “always going to be substantially more environmentally friendly.”

One of the main selling points of congestion pricing, besides reducing traffic, is improving air quality. Fewer cars on the road means fewer cars emitting exhaust in the nation’s most densely populated city — and less traffic also means that less time spent idling. 

An environmental assessment of congestion pricing published in 2023 estimated the impact tolls would have on a number of air pollutants, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and benzene. These chemicals have been linked to health problems including heart disease, respiratory issues, cognitive impairment, and increased risk of cancer. The assessment also looked at the impact tolls would have on greenhouse gases. It analyzed these impacts at a regional level, looking at 12 different counties across New York and New Jersey, and projected how big or small the change in pollutants would be by 2045. 

The report found that, with congestion pricing, Manhattan would see a 4.36 percent reduction in daily vehicle-miles traveled by 2045. This would lead to sizable reductions in air pollutants in Manhattan, especially in the central business district (the area drivers must pay a toll to enter). For example, per the environmental assessment’s modeling, the central business district would see a 10.72 percent drop in carbon dioxide equivalents by 2045, as well as a similar drop in fine particular matter, and slightly lower drops in nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide (5.89 percent and 6.55 percent, respectively). 

When you zoom out, the benefits become sparser, but are still meaningful: The assessment found that, across the 12 New York and New Jersey counties included in its analysis, carbon dioxide equivalents would fall by 0.8 percent by 2045. Those 12 counties have a collective population of roughly 14 million.

It’s worth noting that real-life impacts will likely differ from these estimates — and it will take robust data collection to see exactly how. The environmental assessment based these projections off a congestion pricing scenario that’s actually slightly more ambitious than the one in place today, with peak tolls for passenger vehicles priced at $9 and off-peak tolls at $7. But the tolls for drivers that Hochul signed off on will ramp up over time. By 2028, peak tolls will be $12, and by 2031, they’ll reach $15.

“The most important thing is to start,” said Andy Darrell, regional director of New York at the Environmental Defense Fund, who was optimistic that real-life benefits may surpass these projections over time. “And it’s important to monitor the effects going forward and then be able to adjust the program as we go. And I think that’s exactly what’s happening now.”

Eric Goldstein, the New York City environmental director at the National Resources Defense Council, was similarly confident about congestion pricing’s benefits. Over email, he said, “Even if the reduction in traditional air pollutants and global warming emissions are modest from implementation of congestion pricing, the indirect air quality benefits will be substantial over the long term,” adding that congestion pricing will “provide a jolt of adrenaline to the region’s subway, bus, and commuter rail system that moves the overwhelming majority of people into and out of Manhattan.”

The environmental assessment also found that, as a result of congestion pricing, traffic may increase in other parts of the city, like the Bronx, where neighborhoods like the South Bronx already suffer from disproportionately high rates of asthma. To offset this, the MTA has promised to fund several mitigation efforts, such as replacing diesel-fueled trucks around Hunts Point, a bustling food distribution facility, with cleaner models. It will also install air filtration systems at schools located near highways, plant more trees near roads, and establish a Bronx asthma center. 

These efforts, however, have done little to reassure local community members. In November, South Bronx Unite, a coalition centered on social and environmental justice, called New York City’s revived congestion pricing plan a “death blow” for the South Bronx and said the mitigation efforts do not go far enough to address the root causes of pollution in the area. “We welcome all pollution mitigation measures for the South Bronx and for any pollution-burdened community, but they should not be dangled in front of us as a bargaining chip for adding more pollution to the area,” Arif Ullah, the group’s executive director, told reporters.    

Beyond cleaner air for most of the region, congestion pricing is likely to have other environmental and climate benefits. For example, the money raised by congestion pricing tolls will allow the MTA to access $15 billion in financing for capital improvements, such as making subway stations more accessible. These sorts of upgrades, while not technically designed with climate change in mind, make the subway safer and more efficient to use — and that matters when extreme weather strikes. Sledge, from Transportation Alternatives, said: “People really do rely on our subway system to get them where they need to go, and if there is a mass weather event, then that’s really scary and really difficult.”

In September 2023, rainstorms caused flash flooding in New York City, overwhelming the subway system in many places. After Hochul declared a state of emergency due to the extreme rainfall, the MTA warned of disruptions “across our network” and advised people to stay home if they could. Climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely because rising ocean temperatures lead to more water evaporating into the air. As Sledge notes, these weather events are “obviously only getting more and more common” as global temperatures keep rising. “So anything we can do to mitigate this is going to be extremely important as we move forward.”

Technically speaking, the funds raised by congestion pricing will only be spent on capital improvements included in the MTA’s 2020-2024 capital plan; the agency will likely need to raise another $6 billion to fund its climate resilience roadmap, which includes things like elevating subway vents to prevent storm surges from flooding subway stations. 

But experts agreed that improving the public transit system is critical to achieving New York City’s climate goals. “For a very densely populated region like the New York metropolitan region, that investment in transit is fundamental to achieving our climate goals and our air quality goals,” said Darrell from the Environmental Defense Fund. 

The National Resources Defense Council’s Goldstein agreed: “Ultimately, if we can’t adequately fund this public transit system so that it provides safe, reliable and efficient service, the region’s environment, as well as its economy, is certain to decline.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The climate benefits of NYC’s hard-won congestion pricing plan on Jan 10, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Frida Garza.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.

After spending more than two years drafting a plan to manage and protect the nation’s old-growth forests as they endure the ravages of climate change, the Biden administration has abruptly abandoned the effort.

That decision by the U.S. Forest Service to shelve the National Old Growth Amendment ends, for now, any goal of creating a cohesive federal approach to managing the oldest trees on the 193 million acres of land it manages nationwide. Such steps will instead be taken at the local level, agency chief Randy Moore said.

“There is strong support for, and an expectation of us, to continue to conserve these forests based on the best available scientific information,” he wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to regional foresters and forest directors announcing the move. “There was also feedback that there are important place-based differences that we will need to understand in order to conserve old growth forests so they are resilient and can persist into the future, using key place-based best available scientific information based on ecological conditions on the ground.”

President Biden launched a wide-ranging effort to bolster climate resilience in the nation’s forests in an executive order he issued on Earth Day in April, 2022. In complying with the order, the Forest Service sought to bring consistency to the protection of mature and old-growth trees in the 154 forests, 20 grasslands, and other lands it manages. Such a change was warranted because the agency defines “old growth” differently in each region of the country depending on the characteristics of the local forest, but generally speaking they are at least 100 years old. 

Much of the nation’s remaining ancient forests are found in places like Alaska, where some of the trees in the Tongass National Forest are more than 800 years old, and California. In the East, much old-growth is concentrated in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and North Carolina. All told, old-growth forests cover about 24 million acres of the land the Forest Service manages, while mature forests cover about 67 million.

The plan would have limited logging in old-growth forests with some exceptions allowed to reduce fire risk. The Forest Service spent months gathering public comment for the proposal, which the Associated Press said was to be finalized any day now. Many scientists and advocates worried the amendment would have codified loopholes that allow logging in old-growth forests. On the other side, Republican legislators, who according to the AP introduced legislation to block any rule, and timber industry representatives argued that logging is critical to many state economies and they deserved more input into, and control over, forest management. Such criticism contributed to the decision to scuttle the plan, the AP reported.

Ron Daines, the Republican senator from Montana, issued a statement calling the Forest Service decision “a victory for commonsense local management of our forests” and said “Montana’s old growth forests are already protected by each individual forest plan, so this proposal would have simply delayed work to protect them from wildfire, which is the number one threat facing our old growth forests.”

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Political disagreements over old growth conservation are not new. Jim Furnish, a former deputy director of the Forest Service who retired in 2002, said that the Forest Service has become more responsive to calls for old growth protection over the years. In the 1950s and ’60s, “they typically looked at old growth for us as the place to get the maximum quantity of wood for the highest value,” Furnish said. The debate over conservation of the spotted owl, and the 2001 Roadless Rule, helped paved the way for more dedicated protection of virgin forest, and the creation of “new” old growth through the conservation of mature second-growth forests. 

Ultimately, Furnish said, the Forest Service’s failure to move quickly after Biden issued his executive order doomed the amendment. Under the Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to review and potentially overturn regulations issued by federal agencies, the new Republican-controlled Congress could have killed any new regulation within 60 days, precluding any future efforts to adopt such an amendment.

Will Harlan, the Southeast director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the plan’s death may be for the best, as old-growth protection can continue at the local level under current regulations while leaving room for future protections. 

“Probably for the next few years it’s going to be a project-by-project fight, wherever the Forest Service chooses a logging project,” he said. “Advocates and conservation groups are going to be looking closely at any old growth that might be in those projects and fighting to protect them.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Biden administration axes controversial climate plan for old growth forests on Jan 9, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Katie Myers.

New Caledonia’s territorial government has been toppled on Christmas Eve, due to a mass resignation within its ranks.

Environment and Sustainable Development Minister Jérémie Katidjo-Monnier said he was resigning from the cabinet, with immediate effect.

Katidjo-Monnier was the sole representative from Calédonie Ensemble (a moderately pro-France party), one of the parties represented at the Congress.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

He also said in a letter that all other people from his party’s list who could have replaced him, had also resigned as a block.

The letter was sent to government President Louis Mapou and copied to the French Pacific territory’s Congress President Veylma Falaeo.

The government of New Caledonia is made up of the parties represented at the Congress, under a proportional principle of “collegiality” — implying that all of its members and the parties they represent are supposed to work together.

In his letter, Katidjo-Monnier elaborated on growing tensions between Mapou’s government and the Congress MPs.

The tensions came to a head over the past few months, following the deadly pro-independence riots that started on May 13.

One particular point of contention was Mapou’s efforts to secure a loan of up to €1 billion (NZ$1.9 billion) from France, under a “PS2R” (reconstruction, refoundation and salvage) plan to rebuild New Caledonia after the riots damage estimated at some €2.2 billion (NZ$4 billion) and the subsequent thousands of job losses.

Congress vs government: two opposing recovery plans
At the same time, the Congress has been advocating for a different approach: a five-year reconstruction plan to secure funds from France.

A bipartisan delegation was last month sent to Paris to advocate for the plan — not in the form of reimbursable loans, but non-refundable grants.

The bipartisan delegation’s “grant” approach was said to be supported not only by Congress, but also by provincial assemblies and New Caledonia’s elected MPs in both houses of the French Parliament

The delegation was concerned that the loan would bring New Caledonia’s debt to unprecedented and unsustainable levels; and that at the same time, funds for the “PS2R” would be tied to a number of pre-conditioned reforms deemed necessary by France.

Katidjo-Monnier said neither the “obligation” for Congress and the government to act in “solidarity”, nor the “spirit of the Nouméa Accord”, had been respected.

Approached by local media on Tuesday, Mapou declined to comment.

‘Lack of solidarity’
The block resignation from Calédonie Ensemble entails that the whole government of New Caledonia is deemed to have resigned and should now act in a caretaker mode until a new government is installed.

The election of a new government must take place within 15 days.

One of the initial stages of the process is for the Congress to convene a special sitting to choose how many members should make up this new government (between five and 11) and then to proceed with their election.

The cabinet then elects a president.

Several governments have fallen under similar mass resignation circumstances and this “mass block resignation” ploy.

It has now been used 11 times since 1999, each time causing the downfall of the government.

Louis Mapou’s government was the 17th since New Caledonia’s autonomous government system was introduced in 1999.

He came to office in July 2021, months after the list of government members was chosen on 17 February 2021.

This was the first time a local territorial government’s leader belonged to the pro-independence camp.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

An international pressure group is calling on governments and financial institutions to reconsider funding a plan to help Vietnam transition from fossil fuels to clean energy while it jails climate activists.

The Just Energy Transition Partnership, or JETP, was unveiled two years ago by Vietnam and the International Partners Group, comprising the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Japan and Canada.

The partners committed to provide US$15.5 billion in loans, along with technical assistance to support the elimination of fossil fuels. Under the plan, Vietnam has obtained $2.75 billion so far in concessional loans from international financial institutions, according to the Coalition for Human Rights in Development, a grouping of more than 100 non-governmental organizations from over 50 countries.

But Vietnam has also cracked down on environmental activists, as it does on almost anyone who questions the authority of the ruling Communist Party, invariably for spurious reasons, government critics say.

“The Vietnamese government has been criminalizing environmental and climate leaders on false charges,” the rights coalition said in a report released last month and posted on social media platform X on Dec. 16.

“Although the resulting Just Energy Transition Partnership agreement includes references to the importance of holding consultations and ensuring broad social consensus, the authorities have targeted climate and environmental leaders who were conducting legitimate policy and advocacy work around the just transition, and the need to phase out coal and scale-up renewable energy alternatives,” the group said.

It cited environmentalists Dang Dinh Bach, Nguy Thi Khanh, Hoang Thi Minh Hong, Mai Phan Loi and Bach Hung Duong who were convicted of “tax evasion” and sentenced to terms of as much as five years in prison.

It also mentioned Ngo Thi To Nhien, who was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for “appropriating documents.” Nhien was executive director of the Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition Social Enterprise, which worked with Vietnamese authorities, foreign governments and corporations to try to reform the energy sector and accelerate its transition to carbon neutrality.

The JETP says that in order for a transition to clean energy to be just and equitable “regular consultation is required, including with media, NGOs and other stakeholders to ensure broad social consensus.”

The Coalition for Human Rights in Development argues that Hanoi’s imprisonment of activists sends a different message.

“The criminalization of these six environmental and climate leaders, along with broader civic space restrictions, indicate that it is not safe for local human rights defenders and community members to meaningfully participate, seek information, or raise concerns about just energy transition plans,” it said.

Radio Free Asia emailed Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking for comment on the statement but did not receive a response by time of publication.

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The 2023 Goldman Environmental Prize laureate Diane Wilson said she agreed that international financiers needed to think again about providing funds to Vietnam.

“As a grassroots environmental activist in the United States and a fourth-generation fisherman in the Gulf of Texas, I support the coalition in urging international partners and donors to reconsider their plans to support the communist regime in its clean energy transition,” Wilson said.

Thuc Quyen, a German-Vietnamese activist, said the Vietnamese government should improve its human rights record, protect the environment, and fight corruption in order to receive international attention and assistance.

“Vietnam needs to release Dang Dinh Bach and other environmental activists, and establish minimum standards that protect civil space, protect fundamental human rights and transparency, and respect independent oversight,” she told RFA.

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Vietnamese.

• • House votes down Trump-backed government funding plan as deadline to avoid shutdown approaches.
  • Luigi Mangione appears in Federal court in New York, he faces federal murder and stalking charges.
  • Amazon workers stage holiday season nationwide strike. 

• Californians file class action lawsuit against congressmembers over support for Israel arms sales.
• Anti-abortion activists testify before Congress on law against blocking abortion clinic entrances.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – December 19, 2024 House votes down Trump-backed government funding plan as deadline to avoid shutdown approaches appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

If enacted, it would be the most sweeping changes that the Vietnamese government system has seen in decades, involving ministerial restructuring, the elimination of parliamentary committees, the shuttering of government offices and party committees, and some consolidation within the state-owned media, educational and research sectors.

At the government level, five of 21 ministries will be eliminated through mergers and closures.

The Ministry of Finance will absorb the Ministry of Planning and Investment, while the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Construction will merge, and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will merge with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The Ministry of Information and Communications will merge with the Ministry of Science and Technology, while the Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs will be dissolved with individual components parceled out to other ministries.

Three central-level government agencies will be dissolved. The Ministry of Finance and the State Bank will assume the responsibilities of the State Capital Management Committee and the National Financial Supervisory Commission.

Lam is making his mark

The Religious Affairs Committee and Ethnic Minority Affairs Committees will merge.

Other consolidation will occur within the state education and research sectors and broadcast media. Even ministries that are not affected by the restructuring will be required to streamline their own activities.

The National Assembly will eliminate four committees and one agency that reside beneath the legislature’s Standing Committee.

The proposal calls for the merger of the Economic and Finance Committees, the Social and Culture Committees, and the Judicial and Legal Committees, with the complete dissolution of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

A matter of concern is that the Legislative Research Institute, which was modeled on the U.S. Congressional Research Service to provide technical expertise on legislation, will be eliminated altogether.

Within the CPV, the Central Propaganda and Education Committee will merge with the Central Mass Mobilization Committee, while the External Relations Committee will be dissolved, with its functions transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Health Care Committee will likewise be dissolved with its authorities split between the Ministry of Health and the Organization Commission.

The new central-level committee will be established to oversee other central agencies, the judiciary, including the Supreme People’s Procuracy and the Supreme People’s Court.

Lam is clearly trying to make his mark just five months after being elected CPV general secretary.

Cumbersome bureaucracy

While his predecessor Nguyen Phu Trong sought to legitimize the party in the eyes of an increasingly disgusted and apathetic public through his “Blazing Furnace” anti-corruption campaign, Lam seeks to legitimize the party through rapid economic growth.

An impediment to performance-based legitimacy is Vietnam’s cumbersome bureaucracy.

In his speech to the Central Committee, Lam reiterated that “In parallel, administrative reforms must be accelerated to create the most favorable conditions for citizens and businesses, which will contribute to improving the living standards of the people.”

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Trong was a career ideologue, who spent much of his 13 years rebuilding the party apparatus in order to serve as a check on technocrats.

Lam is charting a completely different path, seeking to do away with some key communist party offices, and trying to streamline the “dual-hatted” system whereby every government and military organization has both a civil executive and a parallel party leadership structure.

The one place where this dual hat system will not be touched is the military: The party always controls the gun.

Lam knows that the country is entering into a “new revolutionary era” with significant challenges.

Labor productivity is slipping and while Vietnam attracted $36 billion in pledged foreign investment in 2024, it remains an assembler. There is an insufficient production ecosystem in the country.

There is a reason that Vietnam’s trade deficit with China is almost the same as its surplus with the United States: Vietnamese exports are made from imported components. Lam is acutely aware of the dangers of being caught in the middle income trap.

Rising star Hung

The man behind all of this is Le Minh Hung, a rising star within the Communist Party and a key ally of Lam, who oversaw his recent promotion to the Politburo.

Hung was the governor of the state bank of Vietnam, the youngest man to hold that position.

He is currently in charge of the CPV’s Organization Commission, which is in charge of all personnel issues, a key assignment ahead of the 14th Congress.

Hung’s father was the former Minister of Public Security and in that role a mentor to Lam during his rise through the security bureaucracy.

And this shakeup was orchestrated by the CPV Secretariat, which Lam has stacked with his allies.

Lam’s big plan appears to have the backing of the majority of the Central Committee. Editorials in state-owned media have endorsed the proposal, striking notes of urgency. But clearly not everyone in the party is on board.

Normally, we see very little change or policy implementation in the year preceding a CPV Congress.

That Lam is willing to push this is a strong indication that he is confident of the Central Committee’s faith in his leadership. He is much less of an ideologue, and more of a state-led capitalist authoritarian.

The ambitious move also speaks to Lam’s personal confidence that he will be elected to a full term at the 14th Congress in early 2026.

Empowering technocrats

Lam has called on all party organizations to complete their internal review and draft guidelines for reform by the end of the year.

The reports will be studied in mid February, and submitted by the steering committee to the Politburo in early March ahead of the next Central Committee Plenum scheduled for mid March.

But that also means no government body will be working until at least March 2025.

There is not just efficiency at play with the government and party reorganization. This is clearly a way to get rid of some dead wood and neutralize some rivals.

But more importantly, the reorganization can be seen as a way for Lam to empower close allies and true technocrats.

It is believed that the head of the Central Committee’s External Relations Committee, Le Hoai Trung, who sits on the CPV Secretariat and is a close advisor to Lam, will become the next foreign minister.

Hung is clearly being set up for a key economic position. While many had seen him being groomed for the prime ministership, the consolidation will turn the Ministry of Finance into a super-ministry, which he would be well poised to lead.

After Trong’s war against technocrats, Lam is empowering them, aware that they are needed to take Vietnam to its next stage of development.

A clear winner in this is the Ministry of Public Security, which not only came out unscathed, but with some additional autonomy.

But while this reorganization may look good to foreign investors, Vietnamese citizens don’t see how the reforms will impact or improve their day-to-day interactions with the government. Shouldn’t they be the primary beneficiaries?

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.

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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zachary Abuza.

Tyson Slocum, Energy Program Director at Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:

“The President has no authority whatsoever to waive statutory public health and safety protections based upon a dollar value of capital investment. Trump’s claim deserves ridicule for being so outlandishly illegal and wrong, and it will not come to pass, no matter what Trump fantasizes.

“However, the statement does highlight Trump’s utter disregard for protecting the environment or human health and the imminent peril that he and his cronies will push policies that jeopardize health, safety and planetary well-being.

“Of special importance, Public Citizen has noted Trump’s efforts to use national security designations to force bailouts of coal power plants during his firm term — which Trump may seek to expand to all domestic oil and gas production, transportation, and export, especially with Trump’s declaration that his Interior Secretary nominee Doug Burgum would have a seat on the National Security Council.

“This, along with other moves the administration is likely to take starting January 20, offers a more realistic and insidious Trump scheme to allow Big Oil to sidestep an array of environmental laws by designating domestic fossil fuel production and export as essential for national security.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.