JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
WHAT IS A MULTIPOLAR WORLD.
A FALSE PROPHET COMES FROM THE VATICAN ALSO AT THIS TIME.
ISAIAH 23:15-17
15 And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot.
16 Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered.
17 And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.(COULD THIS BE 70 YEARS AFTER ISRAEL BECAME A NATION IN 1948)(IF SO THIS SATANIC ONE WORLD WHORE CHURCH WILL MINGLE TOGETHER BY 2018)(AND NOW ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY AND ALL RELIGIONS ARE MINGLING AS ONE PEACE-LOVE-JOY-GET ALONG RELIGION LEAD BY THE VATICAN RIGHT NOW 4 YEARS FROM THE 70 YEAR TIME WHEN ISRAEL BECAME A NATION).AND IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM.
REVELATION 13:11-18
11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth;(FALSE VATICAN POPE) and he had two horns like a lamb,(JESUS IS THE LAMB OF GOD) and he spake as a dragon.(HES SATANICALLY INSPIRED,HES A CHRISTIAN DEFECTOR FROM THE FAITH)
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him,(WORLD DICTATOR) and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.(THE WORLD DICTATOR CREATES A FALSE RESURRECTION AND IS CROWNED LEADER OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER).
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM
REVELATION 17:1-18
1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication,(VATICAN IN POLITICS) and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
4 And the woman (FALSE CHURCH) was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour,(VATICAN COLOURS)(ANOTHER REASON WE KNOW THE FALSE POPE COMES FROM THE VATICAN) and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:(THE VATICAN GOES AGAINST A PRIEST MARRING A WOMAN-LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS-AND WHATS AN ABOMINATION AGAINST GOD-HOMOSEXUALITY AND PEDOPHILIA JUST LIKE THIS SCRIPTURE SAYS-FORNICATION IS THE SINGLE HOMOSEXUAL PRIESTS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAVING UNMARRIED FORNICATION OR SEX WITH SINGLES-IN THIS CASE ITS SEX WITH CHILDREN OR PEDOPHILIA)
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.(THE VATICAN IS BUILT ON 7 HILLS OR MOUNTAINS)
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen,(1-ASSYRIA,2-EGYPT,3-BABYLON,4-MEDO-PERSIA,5-GREECE) and one is,(IN POWER IN JOHNS AND JESUS DAY-6-ROME) and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.(7TH-REVIVED ROMAN EMPIRE OR THE EUROPEAN UNION TODAY AND THE SHORT SPACE IS-THE EUROPEAN UNION WILL HAVE WORLD CONTROL FOR THE LAST 3 1/2 YEARS.BUT WILL HAVE ITS MIGHTY WORLD POWER FOR THE FULL 7 YEARS OF THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION PERIOD.AND THE WORLD DICTATOR WILL BE THE BEAST FROM THE EU.AND THE VATICAN POPE WILL BE THE WHORE THAT RIDES THE EUROPEAN UNION TO POWER.AND THE 2 EUROPEAN UNION POWER FREAKS WILL CONTROL AND DECIEVE THE WHOLE EARTH INTO THEIR DESTRUCTION.IF YOU ARE NOT SAVED BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS.YOU WILL BE DECIEVED BY THESE TWO.THE WORLD POLITICIAN-THE EUROPEAN UNION DICTATOR.AND THE FALSE PROPHET THAT DEFECTS CHRISTIANITY-THE FALSE VATICAN POPE.
11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.
15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.(VATICAN-CATHOLICS ALL AROUND THE WORLD OVER 1 BILLION)
16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast,(WORLD DICTATOR) these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.(GOD HIMSELF GIVES THE OK TO NUKE THE VATICAN)
17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.(VATICAN)
Israel holding off on digital shekel until other advanced economies launch currencies-Currency innovation still being researched; convincing public to adopt it could streamline payments system, puncture Israel’s banking duopoly, says BOI deputy governor-By Steven Scheer 10 July 2024, 7:36 pm
Reuters — The Bank of Israel remains committed to plans for a digital shekel currency to improve Israel’s payments system and foster innovation, but is unlikely to launch one ahead of other advanced economies.“We’re all waiting for the first Western central bank to pull the trigger, which is almost certainly going to be the European Central Bank. And then you may see a rush of countries going forward with it,” Bank of Israel Deputy Governor Andrew Abir told Reuters.As of March, 134 countries — representing 98% of the global economy — were exploring digital versions of their currencies, which would eventually replace cash. Some countries, such as China, are in advanced stages of pilot programs, while the United States Federal Reserve is lagging.The BOI first began looking into a possible central bank digital currency, or CBDC, in 2017 as a way to create a more efficient payments system. The central bank stepped up its research and preparation in November 2020.The bank has been experimenting with a digital shekel along with its Hong Kong, Swedish and Norwegian counterparts, as well as the Bank for International Settlements. The BOI has invited companies from both traditional finance and financial technology, or fintech, to participate in its project, known as the “Digital Shekel Challenge,” to demonstrate possible use cases.Despite the planning and an increasingly digital global economy, the BOI still says it cannot be sure it will ultimately launch a digital shekel. Its experiment is considered an “action plan” to be ready when the bank deems it appropriate and necessary.????????"Banks Shall offer Rate of Interest on Holding Currency in Retail CBDC!! "- Andrew Abir – Bank of Israel pic.twitter.com/mEO52txA4D— Flip The Chain (@flipthechain) October 26, 2023-Similarly, the ECB has said it is likely, but not inevitable, that a digital euro would be introduced in Europe, which depends on cross-border payment services from elsewhere, particularly US giants Visa and Mastercard.“The big question is whether the public will adopt a digital currency,” Abir said, adding that the BOI is doing a behavioral study on the subject.“There’s a big jump from some study to persuading people to use it. You have to have a good set of use cases.”Questions over take up-Abir wants an eventual digital currency to pay interest to create competition with bank deposits and provide an incentive for the public to hold it.Israel’s banking system is highly concentrated, with two large banks dominating more than 60% of the market.“The main incentive for us is to create a level playing field for payment providers and allow them to compete with the banks,” he said.“An advantage of a CBDC is that the payment provider does not hold your money so you don’t [have] a credit exposure to that company,” Abir added. “This allows a lower level of supervision and capital requirement than a traditional payments provider that holds your money, even for brief moments in time.”A digital shekel, Abir said, will allow the public to pay with the central bank’s money “everywhere and in any transaction we choose.”Should the BOI decide to launch a digital shekel, it would most likely need approval from the finance and justice ministries.“It will take time before it enters all of our lives if we decide to implement it,” Abir said. “But it has the potential to be the next revolution in payment systems.”
Fingerprint Cards sells $1M in biometric components for FIDO security keys-Jul 10, 2024, 5:03 pm EDT | Chris Burt
A FIDO-certified provider of security keys for logical access control has placed a volume purchase order worth more than $1 million in fingerprint sensor modules with Fingerprint Cards, the company has announced.The unnamed customer is building biometric authentication into its product to enable organizations to avoid the cybersecurity vulnerabilities associated with passwords. Fingerprint Cards identifies the customer only as a global provider of FIDO-certified solutions.This is becoming a pattern at Fingerprint Cards, which announced a licensing deal for biometric wearables with a “major global company” in May. Both agreements mark progress for Fingerprint Cards as it shifts its business focus from mobile biometrics to other areas like access control.“We have recently seen a growing demand for biometric logical access solutions, and specifically FIDO certified solutions,” says Fingerprint Cards CRO Hila Meller. “Zero Trust networks put secure identities at the core of their Security controls and drive a need for strong password-less authentication solutions.”Biometrics technology from Fingerprint Cards was built into a family of FIDO-certified hardware security keys from India-based Ensurity earlier this year.
Primer on digital identity wallets from DHS breaks down W3C standards-Jul 10, 2024, 4:00 pm EDT | Joel R. McConvey
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is forging ahead with its plan for digital credentials, this week publishing a feature article that offers an overview of digital identity and digital wallet systems.“The Question of Who You Are” follows in the wake of the DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T)’s announcement that it has awarded contracts to six firms to develop digital credential wallets based on open standards through its Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP). It explains how S&T and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) have come together to issue mobile digital identity credentials such as green cards, using free, open internet standards.Together, S&T and USCIS’s Office of Intake and Document Production (OIDP), which designs and secures vendors to produce immigration documents, decided to use two open global standards – the Verifiable Credentials Data Model (VCDM) and Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs).“Created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a global standards development organization, with the support of S&T, USCIS, and many other like-minded partners, these standards describe how a secure, privacy respecting digital credentialing process can be implemented,” the article says.It goes on to explain how DIDs, as unique identifiers, cannot be used for ID verification; “that role is deliberately separated and implemented using public key cryptography.”VCDM, meanwhile, is defined as “a way to express credentials in a way that is cryptographically secure, privacy respecting and machine verifiable.A selling feature is how digital credentials enable selective disclosure, in accordance with the principle of data minimization – sharing only the personal information that is necessary, while all other data remains hidden. In this scenario, someone looking to buy alcohol could show a digital credential that has been biometrically verified to prove they are of age, without even having to share a birth date. This, says DHS, is a major step toward putting data privacy in the control of individuals.SVIP Managing Director Melissa Oh says that “by helping implement these standards in our digital credentialing efforts, S&T, through SVIP, is helping to ensure that the technologies we use make a difference for people in how they secure their digital transactions and protect their privacy.”Jared Goodwin, chief of the document management division within USCIS, says that “going forward, the government wants to ensure individuals have agency and control over their digital interactions. The user should be able to own their identity and decide when to share it, and we don’t want a system that has to reach back to a government agency for verification.”
Digital ID, account security boosts to support financial health in APAC-Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore and Vietnam-Jul 10, 2024, 3:44 pm EDT | Masha Borak
Hong Kong and Australia have made efforts to introduce digital identity – the former by supporting the iAM Smart app and the latter by investing in the World Bank’s digital ID infrastructure plan. Meanwhile, Singapore and Vietnam fight banking scammers, including those trying to capture customers’ biometrics.Digital ID essential for Hong Kong’s financial center status, says FSDC-Digital identity is “crucial” for Hong Kong’s strategy to become a leading international financial center, according to a new report published by a government-founded advisory body which may give wind to the city’s iAM Smart digital ID.The Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) says that introducing digital IDs would ensure transaction security, improve efficiency and increase inclusivity“As Hong Kong progresses, it is crucial to prioritize digital ID opportunities and ensure that our digital infrastructure and regulatory frameworks are robust to support this transformative journey,” says Laurence Li SC, Chairman of the FSDC. “Digital ID solutions are at the core of this expansion, facilitating secure and efficient online engagements. It is essential for Hong Kong to thrive in the evolving global landscape.”The report, published in late June, offers recommendations to adopt digital ID systems focusing on collaboration with the financial services industry. Among FSDC’s advice is implementing Hong Kong’s iAM Smart, a smartphone biometrics-based digital identity platform, and developing private digital ID wallets. Other recommendations include establishing a digital ID ecosystem trust framework to ensure interoperability and harmonizing digital ID standards for cross-border interactions.The iAM Smart has amassed 2.6 million users since its launch in 2020. Hong Kong has been exploring how the platform could interact with systems in mainland China under the Cross-boundary Public Services initiative. The initiative allows Hong Kong residents to log into the government service network in the neighboring Guangdong province. In April, the government announced a significant upgrade of the iAM Smart mobile app and the establishment of a data-sharing platform.Singapore banishes OTPs for bank logins-Hong Kong’s main rival for the status of Asia’s most important financial hub, Singapore, is also making moves to protect identity in banking.The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) announced that Singaporean banks will start phasing out One-Time Passwords (OTPs) for bank account logins as a measure against phishing.OTPs were introduced as a multi-factor authentication option in the 2000s but since then, fraudsters have gotten more proficient in obtaining customers’ OTPs through scams like fake bank websites. Customers should instead activate digital tokens on their mobile devices, MAS says.Australia backs World Bank’s digital ID infrastructure in PacificPacific counties surrounding Australia have been affected by a wave of financial institutions withdrawing or reducing banking services. To combat this issue, Australia’s Treasury has pledged AU$6.3 million (US$4.2 million) aimed at incentivizing banks to continue their operations – including AU$2.9 million ($1.9 million) that will be allocated to the World Bank to help develop digital identity infrastructure.Aside from the World Bank, funding will go to the Asian Development Bank which will receive AU$1.7 million ($1.1 million) for boosting anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing compliance. Another AU$1.7 million will be given to criminal justice and law enforcement agencies.“Our strategy is to build more resilient banking infrastructure, bolster its integrity and boost private sector investment,” Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers said at the Pacific Banking Forum in Brisbane on Tuesday.Due to banking issues, foreign workers in Australia have been facing difficulties in sending money home. Another reason for maintaining Australian banks’ presence in the Pacific is concerns that China may seize the opportunity to spread its influence in the region, according to News Corp Australia.Vietnam biometric banking introduction of attracts scammers-Since implementing a new rule in July mandating authentication with face biometrics for transactions above a certain amount, Vietnamese banks have been rapidly onboarding their customers using biometric verification. Scammers, however, are finding new ways to trick bank customers and access their biometrics.Fraudsters have been impersonating bankers and guiding customers through biometric authentication in order to gain access to their funds and personal information such as identity cards, Saigon News reports.Police in Ho Chi Minh City have uncovered scammers impersonating bankers, making video calls for facial verifications and collecting voice and gestures. The fraudsters also sent unknown links to download apps and collect biometrics on smartphones.Ho Chi Minh police forces recommend bank customers not to provide OTP codes, bank account passwords, or personal information to anyone, including banks. The Cu Chi District Police will cooperate with the Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB Bank) to support customers in setting up biometrics authentication in banking apps.Last week, Vietnamese banks announced they had completed biometric verification for over 13 million customers in just two days.
The fallacy of hacked face biometrics’ vulnerability-Templates are safer than social media profiles-Jul 10, 2024, 2:10 pm EDT | Chris Burt
Biometric data is personal data. It is sensitive personal information. It can be used by hackers to open accounts using another person’s face, and in combination with a breached ID document, using a victim’s identity.You cannot change your face if an image of it is stolen.These facts are sometimes presented together as an argument that face biometrics should not be used, or that biometric templates are among the most dangerous type of data that can be breached.These arguments are invalid. Their conclusions do not follow from the facts. Stolen face biometrics templates are not a greater risk to the privacy and account security of the subject than the photo on their social media profile; in fact, quite the opposite.What’s in a hack?The form of face biometrics that is most useful to hackers is raw photographs, like the kind found on many social media profiles. In other words, public Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn accounts are a larger, more useful trove of face biometrics data for hackers than any database in the world.Many media pundits and policymakers are confused on this point.The familiar argument came up recently, when U.S. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky noted “You can’t change that information” in criticizing what she sees as a lack of consumer protections in the proposed American Privacy Rights Act (APRA).Data breaches are major contributors to fraud, primarily because they furnish cybercriminals with the non-biometric data they need to complete applications for fraudulent public benefits, bank accounts, or other services. And there are incidents when biometric data has been left unencrypted and exposed to cybercriminals.But in most cases, properly stored biometric data has no value, for two different reasons.The first is that biometric matches in and of themselves typically play only part of the role of confirming an identity claim, one which on its own is insufficient. The way many identity security professionals explain the distinction is by comparing the biometric to a username, and the liveness test to a password.The second reason is that biometric systems architected and managed according to best practices only store biometric data in encrypted form, meaning that unlike the aforementioned social media images, they cannot be simply resubmitted as a spoof of the subject’s identity.What’s in the honeypot?As David Birch points out in Forbes, templates “are much more secure because they do not store the biometric itself but an abstraction of it.” It does not eliminate the risk, he notes, but it dramatically reduces the ease, cost-effectiveness and scalability of attacks based on stolen templates.For systems that require large numbers of biometric templates to be collected together in a giant honeypot, there are template protection methods on offer, with more in development. These include advanced technologies like homomorphic encryption and multi-party computation which could provide protection against future attacks. In the meantime, standard template encryption, while theoretically breakable, has proven sufficient in practice to keep them off of the dark-web marketplaces where breached data proliferates.The other reason listed above refers to a best practice that literally every organization using biometrics for security should follow: the implementation of biometric liveness and presentation attack detection.Some policymakers and members of the media steadfastly avoid mentioning these technologies, even when discussing the problem they address. An article from TechRadar last year refers to a NordVPN report citing the immutability of fingerprints, and recommends two-factor authentication and strong passwords over biometrics for app security. Liveness and PAD are conspicuously absent.Awareness of how biometrics work in practice does appear to be rising, however. The Register asked Gartner VP Analyst Akif Khan about the security of selfie authentication, and he noted that liveness checks make even the improperly stored facial images Resecurity recently discovered of Singaporeans on the dark web useless. Even TechRadar seems to have caught on to the role of liveness, just not its implications.
Worldcoin opens developer access to World Chain for digital ID integrations-Jul 10, 2024, 1:52 pm EDT | Abhishek Jadhav
Following the initial announcement of World Chain, a blockchain platform from Worldcoin, earlier this year, the company has launched a limited access Developer Preview program. This program provides developers from around the globe with an opportunity to interact with the platform, explore its digital ID integration capabilities, develop applications, and test functionalities.For the developers at Worldcoin, this program will provide feedback essential for optimizing the World Chain platform ahead of its public release later this summer. Developers can set up their deployments in preparation for the anticipated migration of over 10 million users from the OP Mainnet to World Chain.The OP Stack, situated behind the World Chain, is a modular framework specially created for L2 scaling. It integrates with the Worldcoin protocol and is backed by the Ethereum blockchain for a secure environment. In the developer preview phase, Reth, a high-performance Ethereum execution client, will operate in shadow mode.“We’re beyond excited to have Worldcoin, one of the largest projects in our space, build World Chain using Optimism’s OP Stack, joining the Superchain and working alongside other core development groups to push the OP stack forward while contributing sequencer revenue to the Optimism Collective,” says Ryan Wyatt, chief growth officer, Optimism Unlimited.The World Chain has been introduced to prioritize transactions from verified human users, identified as such by their WorldID and iris biometrics, over bots. This ensures an improved user experience with low fees and reliable transactions, the company says. This approach aims to tackle common scalability issues and excessive resource usage by bots in the blockchain.Through the World Chain, transactions from verified users will be given priority and processed faster when the chain is at full capacity. The goal is to ensure that real people who conduct only a few transactions a month can have a better experience. This means that bots or even verified users who frequently use the chain may experience longer wait times.In addition, “verified humans” receive a small amount of free gas (transaction fuel) every month when using the World Chain. This allows new users to interact with on-chain applications without the complexities of token conversion or KYC processes. “Power users” who use up their free gas allocation, have the option to use Worldcoin tokens to cover additional gas fees.Recently, Worldcoin partnered with Alchemy, for the launch of World Chain with the plans to integrate the World ID digital identity and promote its growth as an internet infrastructure.In addition, the company says that the World Chain blockchain platform is supported by many partners, including Safe and Elliptic. The company further highlights upcoming partnerships with node providers, analytics companies, wallet infrastructure providers, block explorers, and bridges, among others.
EU4Digital cross-border digital ID interoperability pilot successful-Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova conduct tests-Jul 10, 2024, 12:54 pm EDT | Abigail Opiah
Public agencies in Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova have successfully tested connecting to foreign digital services using their national digital IDs as part of EU4Digital’s cross-border electronic identification (eID) pilot activities between the Eastern Partnership countries.The pilot project involved the implementation of the eIDAS-node software, which is used by European Union Member States for cross-border authentication. The updated EUDI regulation, which builds on eIDAS, aims to facilitate digital transactions across the EU.During the pilot, successful tests were conducted between Armenia and Georgia, Armenia and Moldova, and Georgia and Moldova. This initiative emulates the EU’s model but has been adapted to meet local needs and capabilities. These pilots test the ability of digital ID-holders to access digital services in another country.Artur Reaboi, chief enterprise architect at Moldova’s e-Government agency, highlights the significance of the pilot for Moldova’s EU aspirations. He notes that since the implementation of the MPass single sign-on (SSO) service in 2012, Moldova has aimed to align with European standards.“We have chosen the European authentication standard used back then by European Project STORK, namely SAML v2. This resulted in some minor changes to Mpass to transform it to a real eIDAS node for authentication, which we successfully tested with Estonian, Armenian, and Georgian eIDAS nodes during the pilot project. Now we can clearly state that the technical side of European Union integration for electronic authentication is ready,” Reaboi adds.In January 2023, EU4Digital launched the second phase of the project to establish mutually recognized digital identity across the Eastern Partnership (EaP) and the EU. EKENG, Armenia’s e-governance agency, led the project with guidance from the EU team.The second phase of the EU4Digital facility will focus on several initiatives including mutual recognition of digital ID and trust services, interoperable cross-border eID pilots, and data governance strategies.These efforts build on the successes of the first phase, which included testing technical interoperability of digital signatures between countries, conducting an assessment of cross-border eServices interoperability, developing a comparative analysis of digital ID maturity, as well as establishing a framework for digital data interoperability to support public administration reforms.The EU4Digital eTrust stream is also working on developing a unified approach for mutual trust and recognition of digital IDs and trust services among EaP countries. This effort includes comparing local legislation with the 2014 eIDAS regulation, evaluating the level of assurance provided by digital IDs, and establishing mutual recognition agreements between Eastern Partner countries.The European Union is driving forward the development of secure digital identification and trust services across the EaP region and the EU through its EU4Digital Initiative.
SoftBank integrates NEC’s biometrics for tailored digital transformation-Jul 10, 2024, 9:45 am EDT | Abhishek Jadhav
SoftBank is integrating NEC Corporation’s multimodal biometric authentication, Bio-IDiom, with its extensive range of communication networks and security services. By combining their expertise in the jointly developed platform, the companies aim to broaden their market presence, particularly focusing on smart building physical access control applications.The partners state that incorporating biometric authentication into digital transformation will bolster security measures and help them in various ways. This partnership will facilitate the development of tailored biometric systems to address the specific requirements of different industries and use cases, they say.“We are confident that this partnership will create new value by combining NEC’s world-class biometric authentication technology with SoftBank’s diverse solutions, including smart buildings and security. The two companies will develop innovative solutions to further accelerate digital transformation for Japanese companies and local government customers,” says Hayato Sakurai, executive vice president and corporate head of SoftBank Corporation.Sales of NEC’s biometric authentication by SoftBank will start in the fall, the announcement says.SoftBank is set to join NEC’s co-creation partner program for digital ID, part of the latter’s BluSteller initiative. This initiative focuses on creating future-oriented solutions through collaboration with various partners.“NEC is evolving its co-creation programs under its new brand, BluStellar, and we are confident that our collaboration with SoftBank in the biometric authentication field, which is NEC’s focus, will further accelerate these efforts,” says Toshifumi Yoshizaki, executive corporate senior EVP, CDO, and digital platform business unit head of NEC Corporation.Last year, NEC announced the development of a biometric matching system that leverages homomorphic encryption, ensuring the protection of data during usage. This system is purported to facilitate one-to-many (1:N) searches. NEC has indicated that the system will be incorporated into its Bio-IDiom portfolio.
Digital ID and AI are drivers of UK’s economic future, says Tony Blair-Former PM’s institute says technology is Britain’s only hope for growth and prosperity-Jul 9, 2024, 5:20 pm EDT | Joel R. McConvey
The Economic Case for Reimagining the State is the latest technology-focused paper from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, published through its Future of Britain initiative. The report is an equal mix of sugar-coated bitter truths and outright bemoaning of the current state of the UK – “this is not 1997,” it says up-front, referencing the year Blair took office as prime minister. But it does propose a solution.The answer involves AI and digital ID, among other emergent technologies. The economic environment in the UK is “woeful,” it says, and so “the new government therefore needs to tap into the only structural tailwind that is pushing in a positive direction: technological progress.”The report’s definition of positive is deeply rooted in traditional economic measures. “We are at the dawn of a new artificial-intelligence era of technology that is already producing large financial and productivity gains among businesses at the frontier of adoption,” says the report. “If these gains scale up to the wider economy, they could boost UK growth by up to 1.5 percentage points per year for a decade, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”“Under a plausible albeit rapid AI-uptake scenario, AI-enabled growth could generate sufficient tax revenues (up to £40 billion per year within a decade and £100 billion by 2040) to offset all the extra fiscal pressure facing the UK up to 2040.”The “radical-yet-practical” solutions that the Institute are predictably calibrated around cost-benefit analysis, more aligned with the quick deployments of the tech world than with the traditionally slogging speeds of government policy. “The new government,” it says, “will need to lean in to support the diffusion of AI-era tech across the economy by adopting a pro-innovation, pro-technology stance.”The word “regulation” does not appear once across the report’s six lengthy chapters.‘The world is moving to digital ID’Digital ID, however, does make an appearance, and Blair himself has been a vocal advocate for a national digital identity for the UK. In a recent (paywelled) Sunday Times article humbly entitled “Tony Blair: My Advice to Keir Starmer,” the former PM says “we should move as the world is moving to digital ID,” citing immigration control as a key benefit.In the Institute’s report, digital ID is highlighted as a system that “could significantly improve the way that citizens interact with government, saving them time, easing access and creating a more personalized service.” For these reasons alone, it says, digital identity is worth the investment.Beyond that, consider the savings: “a digital ID could create about £2 billion per year in extra fiscal space,” says the document, by cutting benefit fraud, simplifying tax procedures to reduce costly errors, and targeting support during crises.The Institute estimates that the necessary infrastructure for implementing a digital identity scheme would cost about £1 billion to set up and £100 million to run every year. “Based on international experience, we think it is achievable for the government to fully roll out a digital ID within one parliamentary term,” it says.“A rapid rollout would see the scheme cover its initial setup costs within three years of operation and, from that point on, it could raise just under £2 billion per year for the Exchequer. This means a digital ID could result in net savings of almost £4 billion over the course of the current parliamentary term and nearly £10 billion over the next term.”The “move fast” ethos is on equal display in its enthusiasm for AI-enabled education, which it questionably claims could improve the quality of teaching by giving teachers AI co-pilots, and increase student’s ability to learn by giving them tutor-bots.That said, there is real urgency underneath the Institute’s numbers. A report in the Guardian details how, as the EU prepares to finally introduce its biometric exit/entry system (EES) travel registration scheme requiring facial and finger scanning for border crossings, Britons face their first significant restriction on continental freedom of movement as a result of Brexit.UK unites three departments into DSIT-The UK is responding to technological change, albeit more slowly than Blair might like. A press release from the home office says the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is expanding in both scope and size by adding experts in data, digital and AI from the Government Digital Service (GDS), the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) and the Incubator for AI (i.AI), “to unite efforts in the digital transformation of public services under one department.”Secretary of State Peter Kyle will lead the revamped department, which he says will become “the center for digital expertise and delivery in government, improving how the government and public services interact with citizens.”“Britain will not fully benefit from the social and economic potential of science and technology without government leading by example. We will act as a leader and partner across government, with industry and the research communities, to boost Britain’s economic performance and power up our public services to improve the lives and life chances of people through the application of science and technology.”ID cards, however, do not appear to be a priority for the new unit. In an interview with ITV, Kyle says that instead, the key issue is making access to services easier and safer while preventing fraud – through effective identity verification.“Right now, the priority when it comes to accessing digital services and online services is actually about verification,” he says. While a digital identity card cannot be ruled out for future exploration, at present, “we are talking about expanding the verification system so that people can have an easier experience of verifying their identity when they access government services.”
SITA hits record sales and plans further biometrics expansion-Jul 9, 2024, 3:03 pm EDT | Chris Burt
SITA is reporting nearly $1.5 billion in 2023 revenues, up 7 percent from the year before, from record sales its airport biometrics, digital identity projects, and deployments of software and IT infrastructure for the aviation industry.EBITDA and profit margin also improved in SITA’s fiscal 2024 year, according to the company’s “Activity Report 2023.” Spending on research and development, design and testing was up 26 percent year-over-year, according to SITA.SITA reported revenue of $1.7 billion back in 2018, before the aviation industry was clobbered by the Covid pandemic.SITA has passed 4,600 biometric touchpoints at 22 locations where its Smart Path system is deployed, and the company says there are 470 airports around the world ready to adopt Smart Path biometrics. Elsewhere the company says it is the top biometrics player in the industry, with more than 40 airports “biometrically enabled” with Smart Path. Smart Path alone represents over 3,000 biometric touchpoints just in Asia, including 1,200 in Bangkok, the largest deployment of SITA’s biometrics in the world.SITA CEO David Lavorel says the company “over-achieved the first year goals of our business plan to grow SITA. As a result, we entered 2024 with a strong tailwind.”Highlights during the past year flagged by SITA include the Digital Travel Credential trial in collaboration with Aruba and the acquisition of Materna IPS.The report also refers to SITA’s biometrics partnership with NEC, Frankfurt and Star Alliance, the expansion of Digi Yatra, and work on biometrics for maritime and rail travel as major developments.
UK needs new biometrics strategy: Scotland Biometrics Commissioner-Jul 9, 2024, 11:49 am EDT | Chris Burt
The Scottish Biometrics Commissioner wants the UK government to reset its biometrics strategy and develop a framework for national biometrics interoperability with independent oversight.An article by Dr. Brian Plastow was published in the UK Security Journal explaining why he thinks a shift is needed to manage expected changes in the technology and how it is used, in particular by UK police.The announcement of the call also sets out his opposition to recent plans from the previous government to share passport and driving license images with police so they could be matched with facial recognition and to eliminate the Biometrics Commissioner position in England and Wales. His opposition to both changes has been previously registered. Plastow is also in the midst of a dispute over the legality of Scotland police using U.S.-based cloud computing services to share biometric evidence.The UK Home Office’s Biometrics Strategy document was published in 2018, and has not been refreshed, Plastow notes.Meanwhile a report published by The Alan Turing institute’s Centre for Emerging Technology and Security (CETaS) in March suggests that the types of biometrics available to UK police will grow dramatically over the next five to ten years. “The Future of Biometric Technology for Policing and Law Enforcement: Informing UK Regulation” refers to the development of more behavioral biometrics and multimodal systems.“The research reinforces my own view that the UK’s legal framework (and strategy) for biometrics is inadequate and in need of reform principally because it is failing to keep pace with rapid changes to biometric technology,” Plastow writes. “The research also highlights evidence of public anxiety over the adequacy of safeguards to protect individuals from a range of risks, such as data misuse and the discriminatory implications of certain ‘novel’ emerging use cases.”Along with addressing these risks, a new national biometrics strategy and interoperability framework could help the government improve public services, border security and criminal investigations, he says, citing Australia as an example.Plastow says the Biometrics Institute’s “Three Laws of Biometrics” can provide a basis for the strategy the UK needs.
Biden sees some political gain in hostage deal, says Israel’s ambassador to US-According to Michael Herzog, the president is eager to show success ahead of election — but that is not the main reason he is putting effort into securing the release of captives-By Lazar Berman-10 July 2024, 8:56 pm
There is a political aspect to US President Joe Biden’s push for a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, Israel’s Ambassador to the US Mike Herzog told Army Radio on Wednesday.“Biden will see it as an achievement and will want to take credit — as everyone knows, we are approaching the elections,” said Herzog.“The ability to show an achievement on an issue he worked on for a long time is of course important to him,” the ambassador continued.“I’m not saying this is the main reason he wants a deal,” Herzog said. “Even when there wasn’t a political mess, he was very focused on this. But there is of course a political dimension as well.”A summit between Israel and Egyptian, Qatari and American mediators on a potential deal was held Wednesday in the Qatari capital of Doha. The three countries have been striving to hammer out an agreement between Israel and Hamas for the release of over 100 hostages that the Palestinian terror group abducted from Israel during its devastating October 7 assault and who are still held by the group.Biden has put significant diplomatic muscle behind the effort to find a formula that both sides accept. In May, he revealed Israel’s latest proposal in a White House address. It took weeks of pressure for Hamas to issue a response that sparked renewed talks in Cairo and Doha.“Americans are saying both that there is movement in Hamas’s position and that there are still gaps that we need to work to close, and that is what they are working on right now,” said Herzog.The ambassador also denied that the Biden administration blamed Israel for the months of fruitless attempts to close a deal.“They understand the complexity, they understand the difficulty,” he said.Herzog insisted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned address to a joint session of Congress on July 24 would be seen as a bipartisan initiative, and would not be viewed as an intrusion into US politics.“Most people in the government and in Congress understand that Israel is in a time of war,” he said, adding that the speech would focus on that.Herzog acknowledged disputes between Washington and Jerusalem regarding the Israel-Hamas war but asserted that overall relations are “strong.”“Most of the things that we are dealing with are not disclosed to the public, but are very important,” he added.Netanyahu will likely meet with Biden when the Israeli premier is in Washington, the White House confirmed last week.“The president has known Prime Minister Netanyahu for three decades. They will likely see each other when the prime minister is here over the course of that week, but we have nothing to announce at this time,” a White House official told The Times of Israel.The meeting will come against the backdrop of another fraught point in ties between the two governments, sparked by a video Netanyahu issued last month in which he accused the Biden administration of withholding significant amounts of weapons from Israel.The US has vehemently denied the claim, insisting that it has only delayed one shipment of heavy bombs it doesn’t want Israel using in densely populated parts of Gaza. The White House acknowledged that some bottlenecks had accumulated in the US weapon transfer system, but insisted that it wasn’t intentional and that they were being addressed following Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s visit to Washington.
Kamala Harris: Campus protesters over Gaza war ‘showing what human emotion should be’US vice president also notes that she rejects some of the university demonstrators’ rhetoric, amid focus on her as potential replacement for Biden if he quits campaign-By ToI Staff 10 July 2024, 12:46 pm
United States Vice President Kamala Harris has expressed sympathy with the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters who have been staging campus encampments in colleges around the country, while adding that she doesn’t agree with all of their positions, as speculation grows that she could potentially end up as the Democratic presidential candidate.Young Americans protesting Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza are “showing exactly what the human emotion should be,” Harris said in an interview with the left-wing magazine The Nation, an excerpt of which was published on Monday.She noted, however, that “there are things some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject, so I don’t mean to wholesale endorse their points. But we have to navigate it. I understand the emotion behind it.”The comments came amid widespread talk of Harris possibly replacing US President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate for president in November, though the interview was conducted before the president’s poor debate performance last month that ignited many of the calls for him to step aside.The US has seen many anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests over the war in Gaza, which erupted on October 7, when thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, prompting a still ongoing war aimed at vanquishing the terror group.Protests have been especially common at universities, where they have largely taken the form of unauthorized encampments and frequently included slogans against the existence of the State of Israel, as well as calls for “intifada” and expressions of support for Hamas and other terror groups. They have also sometimes veered into antisemitism.The Biden administration repeatedly condemned extremist elements of the protests and has continued to support Israel’s war effort, but it has also expressed concern over the war’s effect on Gazan civilians.In her interview with The Nation, Harris also recounted drawing attention to specific details of the humanitarian situation on the ground in Gaza.“Okay, the trucks are taking flour into Gaza. [But] I like to cook. So I said to my team: You can’t make shit with flour if you don’t have clean water. So what’s going on with that?” Harris said.“Similarly, I was asking early on, what are women in Gaza doing about sanitary hygiene. Do they have pads? And these are the issues that made people feel uncomfortable,” she added.Though Harris has not deviated from the administration’s policy positions on the war, she has taken what some identify as a sharper tone in her criticism of Israel.In March, Harris said that “the Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid,” invoking reports of “families eating leaves or animal feed” and “children dying from malnutrition and dehydration,” and calling for “an immediate ceasefire.”At the time, NBC reported that administration officials had “toned down” parts of Harris’s speech, which the vice president’s office denied.Later that month, Harris declined to rule out “consequences” should Israel enter the southern Gazan city of Rafah, echoing comments that Biden had previously made and then walked back, when he called major operations in Rafah a “red line.”Her comments have taken on a new relevance in the weeks since Joe Biden’s historically weak debate performance last month, which prompted widespread calls for the president to step aside as his party’s nominee in November’s general election.Biden, who would have to voluntarily step aside, has since repeatedly doubled down on his reelection bid.
Team led by heads of Mossad, Shin Bet lands in Doha-Hostage talks resume in Qatar amid cautious optimism, though wide gaps remain-US official says significant progress was made in meetings already held in Cairo, but source and Israeli officials note much work still needed before deal can be reached-By Jacob Magid-and ToI Staff 10 July 2024, 12:16 pm
Significant progress was made during Tuesday’s hostage negotiations held in Cairo by Israeli, Egyptian and American officials, a United States official told The Times of Israel, as talks resumed Wednesday in the Qatari capital of Doha.The US official said the talks had focused on issues regarding the implementation of the first phase of the potential hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and the Hamas terror group, and clarified that there was still a long road ahead before an agreement can be reached.Egyptian, Qatari and American mediators have been striving to hammer out a deal between Israel and Hamas for the release of over 100 hostages that the Palestinian terror group abducted from Israel during its devastating October 7 assault and who are still held captive. The onslaught, in which some 1,200 were killed and 251 were kidnapped in total, caused an ongoing war in which Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas’s military and governance capabilities in the Gaza Strip.In a more cautious assessment, a senior Israeli source was quoted by Channel 12 news Tuesday night as saying that “Egyptian reports of progress are premature,” and cautioning that “difficult and complex negotiations are expected.”The unnamed source also noted that “there are still unresolved issues to deal with that are not simple.”Nonetheless, the source said, “an immense effort will be made to achieve a breakthrough,” and “there is a genuine opportunity to reach a deal. The goal is to produce the best deal possible within a few weeks.”A senior unnamed Israeli official told Haaretz that “there is a feeling that the sides want to reach a deal, but there are significant gaps.”The official warned that media reports of progress are likely to create a false sense of hope among the families of hostages that a deal is imminent, the report said.A foreign diplomat, not named in the report, said the key point of contention was over the question of ending the war.“It is doubtful if it will be possible to achieve the release of the hostages when the two sides are entrenching their positions on the matter,” he said.The renewed negotiations in both Egypt and Qatar come after Hamas said on Saturday that it was ready to discuss a hostage deal and an end to the war in Gaza without an upfront commitment by Israel to a “complete and permanent ceasefire.” That statement constituted a shift in the position Hamas has held in all previous negotiations since November, though Hamas officials also reportedly said the terror group is instead demanding guarantees from mediators that Israel will end the war.The Israeli delegation that landed in Doha Wednesday ahead of the talks is led by Mossad chief David Barnea, Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, and the IDF’s chief negotiator Nitzan Alon. CIA head Bill Burns is expected to attend, as are Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani.According to the Channel 12 report, the talks will focus on the latest Israeli proposal, parts of which were detailed by US President Joe Biden at the end of May, which was followed by an initial Hamas rejection and more recent reported Hamas flexibility.The report said the sides are broadly agreed on a three-stage deal, with a 42-day halt to the war in the first stage, and on the “categories” of Israeli hostages to be released — with the designated “humanitarian” hostages to be freed in stage one to include women, the elderly and the sick. It said there was also agreement, crucially, that there would be no upfront Israeli commitment to end the war. Without Hamas’s consent to this, it said, the talks would not be going ahead.Among the areas yet to be finalized, it added, are the question of how many Palestinian security prisoners will be freed for each hostage, and the identity of those prisoners; whether Israel will have a veto on specific prisoners; and the procedures surrounding the halt in fighting in the first phase and specifics of troop withdrawal.Most importantly, the sides do not agree on core aspects of the transition from the halt in fighting in the first stage to a potential permanent ceasefire. Israel is demanding “an exit point” between the two stages, in line with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence that the war will not end until Hamas is destroyed. Hamas, by contrast, wants the initial ceasefire maintained for as long as is needed until negotiations are finalized on a permanent ceasefire and end to the war, which Jerusalem says could enable Hamas to drag out the talks indefinitely.The report also said that there was “a certain amount of progress” in Tuesday’s talks in Cairo, which focused on the Rafah border crossing and the Philadelphi Route along the Gaza-Egypt border, both of which are now under Israel control having been captured by the advancing army.“Israel will have a hard time agreeing to withdraw from the Philadelphi Route,” an unnamed senior Israeli official was quoted as saying by Channel 13 news.An additional complication is the potential political fallout in Israel from the proposal. According to the Haaretz report, Israeli officials have assessed that if the framework advances with the existing key terms, it will cause the collapse of the government, with far-right parties bolting the coalition over any agreement to end the war.A political source told Haaretz that if the hostage proposal advances toward an agreement, Netanyahu will “have to make a political decision and not just a diplomatic one, and it is not clear how he will act.”Both Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionism party, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who heads the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, have repeatedly threatened to bolt the coalition in recent months in an effort to prevent Jerusalem from agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza.They have painted any deal that would end the war before the elimination of Hamas as a failure and a defeat.Earlier this week, ahead of the talks in Cairo and Doha, Netanyahu issued a list of four nonnegotiable Israeli demands, including a guarantee that Israel could resume fighting, which would need to be met in any hostage release and ceasefire deal with Hamas.Netanyahu’s statement, at a crucial phase ahead of the resumption of talks, sparked anger in Israel and among mediators, with some accusing him of attempting to sabotage hard-won progress.The other three demands were to end weapons smuggling to Hamas across the Gaza-Egypt border, that thousands of “armed terrorists” not be permitted to return to northern Gaza, and that Israel would seek the release of the maximum number of still living hostages.War erupted on October 7 when Hamas led thousands of Gaza terrorists in a cross-border attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The 3,000 terrorists who burst into the country also abducted 251 people of all ages who were taken as hostages to Gaza.Israel responded with a military offensive to destroy Hamas, topple its Gaza regime, and free the hostages.It is believed that 116 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 19 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 42 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.One more person has been listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.Hamas ahs also been holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)(HAMAS IN HEBREW IS VIOLENCE)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM)(HAMAS) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.
JESUS SHED HIS BLOOD FOR US THAT WE CAN BE SAVED FOREVER.AND DURING WW3 PEOPLES BLOOD WILL BE SHED AS A JUDGEMENT FOR HATING HIM AND ISRAEL.GOD IS NOT MOCKED.
ZEPHANIAH 1:2-3
2 I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the LORD.
3 I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumblingblocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the LORD.
PSALMS 97:3
3 A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.
EZEKIEL 5:15-17
15 So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the (ARAB/MUSLIM) nations that are round about thee,(ISRAEL) when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it.
16 When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread:
17 So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts,(WHEN RUSSIA/MUSLIMS GET DEFEATED THIER BODIES GET EATEN BY BIRDS,ANIMALS IN ISRAEL MIGRATION SEASON) and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee;(NUKES) and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the LORD have spoken it.
REVELATION 14:18-20
18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city,(JERUSALEM) and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.(200 MILES) (THE SIZE OF ISRAEL)
ISAIAH 66:15-18
15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire,(NUKES) and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.
ISAIAH 26:21
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity:(GOD/ISRAEL HATE AND BRAKING OF HIS COMMANDMENTS) the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.(WW3,1/2 earths population die - 3 BILLION).
ISAIAH 13:6-13 KJV
6 Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:(FROM FRIGHT)
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
ISAIAH 24:17-23 KJV
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
18 And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.
23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
JOEL 2:3,30
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
REVELATION 9:18
18 By these three was the third part of men killed,(2 BILLION) by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(ATOMIC BOMBS)(RUSSIA CHINA DESTROYED BY ISRAELS ATOMIC BOMBS)
REVELATION 16:12-16
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates;(WERE WW3 STARTS IN IRAQ OR SYRIA OR TURKEY) and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon,(SATAN) and out of the mouth of the beast,(WORLD DICTATOR) and out of the mouth of the false prophet.(FALSE POPE)
14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.(WERE 2 BILLION DIE FROM NUKE WAR)
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
PROOF HALF ON EARTH DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD (8 BILLION ON EARTH)
REVELATION 6:7-8 (8 BILLION- 2 BILLION = 6 BILLION)
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 BILLION) to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
REVELATION 9:15,18 (6 BILLION - 2 BILLION = 4 BILLION)
15 And the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels were loosed,
18 By these three was the third part of men killed,(2 BILLION) by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMBS)
HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
LUKE 17:34-37 (8 TOTAL BILLION - 4 BILLION DEAD IN TRIB = 4 BILLION TO JESUS KINGDOM) (HALF DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD JUST LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS)(GOD DOES NOT LIE)(AND NOTICE MOST DIE IN WAR AND DISEASES-NOT COMETS-ASTEROIDS-QUAKES OR TSUNAMIS)
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other shall be left.(half earths population 4 billion die in the 7 yr trib)
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES.BECAUSE NOT HALF OF PEOPLE ON EARTH ARE CHRISTIANS.AND THE CONTEXT IN LUKE 17 IS THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION OR 7 YR TREATY PERIOD.WHICH IS JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH.NOT 50% RAPTURED TO HEAVEN.
MATTHEW 24:37-42 (THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-SURE NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)(50% OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE)
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
42 Watch therefore:(FOR THE LAST DAYS SIGNS HAPPENING) for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 32:18-29 (NOTICE ALL THE COUNTRIES LAND PROMISED ISRAEL BY GOD ARE IN THE JORDAN VALLEY BURIED)
18 “Son of man, wail for the multitudes of Egypt, and consign her and the daughters of the mighty nations to the depths of the earth with those who descend to the Pit:
19 Whom do you surpass in beauty? Go down and be placed with the uncircumcised! (IN HELL FIRES)
20 They will fall among those slain by the sword. The sword is appointed! Let them drag her away along with all her multitudes.
21 Mighty chiefs will speak from the midst of Sheol about Egypt and her allies: ‘They have come down and lie with the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword.’
22 Assyria (SYRIA) is there with her whole company; her graves are all around her. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword.
23 Her graves are set in the depths of the Pit, and her company is all around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword—those who once spread terror in the land of the living.
24 Elam (IRAN) is there with all her multitudes around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword—those who went down uncircumcised to the earth below, who once spread their terror in the land of the living. They bear their disgrace with those who descend to the Pit.
25 Among the slain they prepare a resting place for Elam with all her hordes, with her graves all around her. All of them are uncircumcised, slain by the sword, although their terror was once spread in the land of the living. They bear their disgrace with those who descend to the Pit. They are placed among the slain.
26 Meshech and Tubal (RUSSIA) are there with all their multitudes, with their graves all around them. All of them are uncircumcised, slain by the sword, because they spread their terror in the land of the living.
27 They do not lie down with the fallen warriors of old, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were placed under their heads, whose shields rested on their bones, although the terror of the mighty was once in the land of the living.
28 But you too will be shattered and lie down among the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword.
29 Edom (JORDAN) is there, and all her kings and princes, who despite their might are laid among those slain by the sword. They lie down with the uncircumcised, with those who descend to the Pit.THIS IS RIGHT FROM 93:
SECOND ANGEL: MIDDLE EAST
Then I saw that the second angel had a sickle in his hand, such as is used in harvesting.The second angel said: "Harvest time has come in Israel and the countries all the way to Iran."I saw those countries in a few split seconds."All of Turkey and those [inaudible] countries that have refused me and refused my message of love shall hate each other and kill one another."I saw the angel raise the sickle and come down on all the Middle East countries. I saw Iran, Persia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, all of Georgia - Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, all of Asia Minor - full of blood. I saw blood all over these countries. And I saw fire; Nuclear weapons used in many of those countries. Smoke rising from everywhere. Sudden destruction – men destroying one another. I heard these words:"Israel, Oh Israel, the great judgment has come." The angel said, "The chosen, the church, the remnant, shall be purified. The Spirit of God shall prepare the children of God."I saw fires rising to heaven.The angel said: "This is the final judgment. My church shall be purified, protected and ready for the final day. Men will die from thirst. Water shall be scarce all over the Middle East. Rivers shall dry up, and men will fight for water in those countries."The angel showed me that the United Nations shall be broken in pieces because of the crisis in the Middle East. There shall be no more United Nations. The angel with the sickle shall reap the harvest.
PSALMS 83:1-8 (GODS LAND PROMISED TO ISRAEL)
1 O God, do not remain silent;do not turn a deaf ear,do not stand aloof, O God.
2 See how your enemies growl, how your foes rear their heads.
3 With cunning they (ARAB,MUSLIMS) conspire against your people;they plot against those you cherish.(ISRAELIS)
4 “Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation, so that Israel’s name is remembered no more.”
5 With one mind they plot together;(TREATIES) they form an alliance against you—
6 the tents of Edom (JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites, (EGYPTIAN ARABS SO CALLED PALESTIANS) of Moab (JORDAN) and the Hagrites,(EGYPT)
7 Byblos,(HEZBOLLOH) Ammon (JORDAN) and Amalek,(SYRIAN ARABS IN THE SINAI) Philistia,(ARABS) with the people of Tyre (LEBANON).
8 Even Assyria (SYRIA) has joined them to reinforce Lot’s descendants.
US sending Israel some heavy bombs that Biden withheld ahead of Rafah op-American official confirms 500-pound munitions en route to Israel, while transfer of 2,000-pound bombs remains frozen over concerns their use could harm civilians-By Jacob Magid-Today, 2:04 am-JUL 10,24
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has released about half of the shipment of heavy bombs it has withheld from Israel since May over concerns the IDF would use them in densely populated areas of Gaza, a US official told The Times of Israel on Wednesday.In May, the White House announced a decision to withhold a shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, with US President Joe Biden threatening to freeze additional offensive weaponry if Israel launched a major military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah where over one million Palestinians were sheltering at the time.Israel subsequently tailored its operations to account for the administration’s concerns about mass-civilian casualties, and the sides were on track to resolving the issue of the withheld shipment, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.But last month, Netanyahu publicly claimed the US had adopted a broader policy of withholding weapons shipments from Israel, infuriating the Biden administration and setting back efforts to at least partially release the withheld shipment of high-payload bombs, according to the Israeli official.Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and other officials from his office managed to smooth some of the disagreements during visits to Washington in late June, the Israeli official added, pointing to the US decision to now release the 1,700 500-pound bombs.Netanyahu has claimed that he only went public with the dispute over weapon transfers after months of efforts to solve the issue privately failed. The US after Gallant’s visit acknowledged that some bottlenecks had accumulated in the weapon transfer system but insisted bureaucracy, not politics were behind them and that they have since been addressed.Confirming that the 500-pound bombs were en route to Israel, the US official indicated the primary reason those particular munitions were held up in the first place was that they happened to have been part of a shipment with the more lethal 2,000-pound bombs.“We’ve been clear that our concern has been on the end-use of the 2,000-pound bombs, particularly in advance of Israel’s Rafah campaign, which they have announced they are concluding,” the US official said.Israel has said it plans to wrap up its tailored Rafah operation in the coming weeks and shift to lower-intensity fighting that will largely feature pinpointed raids in areas of Gaza where Hamas tries to regroup.“Because of how these shipments are put together, other munitions may sometimes be co-mingled. That’s what happened here with the 500-pound bombs,” the US official continued.“Since our main concern had been and remains the potential use of 2,000-pound bombs in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza, the 500-pound bombs are moving forward as part of the usual process,” the US official said, offering no indication if or when the heavier munitions will be released.
US activists begin to grapple with repercussions of their anti-Israel college protests-Some students and faculty members who took part in events are facing disciplinary action and other penalties-By Reuters and ToI Staff 10 July 2024, 10:29 pm
VIRGINIA — Sam Law, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, was one of roughly 80 people arrested and charged with criminal trespassing for protesting the war in Gaza on his campus at the end of April.Someone had apparently read a dispersal order over a loudspeaker at that April 29 protest, Law said, citing his arrest affidavit, but he doesn’t remember hearing one.“I was on my own campus exercising my right to speak,” he said.US universities have been rocked by waves of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests, with police and protesters clashing at times and questions raised over forceful methods used to disperse the rallies and encampments.On Law’s campus, officers clad in riot gear and mounted on horseback swept away demonstrations in late April, arresting dozens of people days before the graduate student was himself arrested.Now many students fear they will be penalized academically or even professionally as they prepare to enter the workforce or return to classes in the coming months.Law and those arrested with him had their criminal trespass charges dropped but now they face the prospect of disciplinary action from the university itself.In recent weeks, they have received messages from college authorities asking them why they didn’t disperse, if they agreed their conduct on the day was disruptive, and what they would tell a fellow student “who had their lives or education negatively impacted by your conduct,” according to emailed questions seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.Some now face the prospect of disciplinary action like probation or suspension, according to local media.“Lots of people are deeply worried,” Law said.Dylan Saba, staff attorney with Palestine Legal, said the advocacy group responded to more than 1,000 requests for help between October 7 — when Hamas-led terrorists stormed into Israel, murdering around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages — and the end of last year.“Key among them are doxxing in relation to pro-Palestine advocacy and expression, disciplinary actions and charges from universities, and then also issues of employment discrimination,” he said.Law found himself a target of doxxing — the malicious posting of personal information — after his image ended up online.“I was sort of soft-doxxed where a lot of random right-wing Twitter accounts were just like, ‘This is Sam Law. He’s a graduate student at University of Texas. Do you support this pro-Hamas graduate student studying in your department? We need answers.’ That kind of thing,” he said.At the same time, many Jewish students and faculty members have been dealing with antisemitic abuse and discrimination as Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza has continued.In response to the Hamas-led attack, Israel launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health authorities. The toll cannot be verified, has come under question and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 terror operatives.“There are students who have told us that they are planning to transfer or who have transferred out of their universities because of antisemitism,” said Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the nonprofit Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a Jewish rights advocacy group that has filed a number of civil rights complaints against universities since October 7.“That’s something we’ve heard from time to time over the years, but we’re hearing more of it — by far — lately,” he said. “Jewish students also have been physically assaulted, they’ve been threatened. They’ve been verbally assaulted.”‘Individualized targeting’The nationwide campus protests, spurred in part by encampments that began in April at Columbia University and elsewhere, have led to more than 3,000 arrests in recent months.Even as classes wound down and many students headed home for the summer, the protests continued. More than a dozen students were arrested in June at Stanford University after they occupied the president’s office.Saba said the situation on campuses could be a watershed moment for the pro-Palestinian movement.“The disciplinary actions are happening on such a wide scale and in such a public fashion that I do think that a lot of people recognize this as a major political, cultural moment,” he said.The University of Texas at Austin confirmed it had issued discipline notices to students for rules violations but a spokesperson said it does not administer “professional or academic consequences” for protesting.“The actions and stated intentions of those participating (on April 24 and 29) stand in stark contrast to no fewer than 13 previous pro-Palestinian free speech events on our campus since October, which took place largely without incident,” the university said in a statement.“The University of Texas at Austin will continue to support the Constitutional rights to free speech of all individuals on our campus and will also enforce our rules while providing due process and holding students, faculty, staff and visitors accountable.”Corey Saylor, research and advocacy director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said the most recent iteration of pushback on the protests has been different from previous waves.“It has standouts to it that we haven’t seen before. One of them is the very explicit doxxing and targeting of students and very individualized, and the same is with employees,” he said.“And with employees, what we’ve seen is people will go to a pro-Palestine rally and then get called into HR (human resources) two days later.”Marcus from the Brandeis Center acknowledged that participants in pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel rallies and events were seeing professional consequences.“But it’s also true that some of their actions have been unlawful and also violent,” he said.“It’s not unusual for human resources departments to raise a red flag about candidates who have a history of hate or bias activity, especially if that history has been adjudicated by a court or resulted in conduct violations assessed by a university judicial body,” he said.For Law’s part, he said his university’s handling of the situation could also make some students think twice about participating in on-campus protests in the future, though he predicted the movement could continue.“I never really felt that what I did was wrong. I felt that I was standing up and expressing myself in the midst of genocide in a way that felt effective — and I think it was effective,” he said.“We got a lot of attention in Austin — it really sort of sparked something that’s, I think, going to continue.”
Rescued hostage sues US nonprofit with ties to Gaza journalist who held him captive-Almog Meir Jan takes Palestine Chronicle and its tax-exempt benefactor, People Media Project, to court for giving Abdallah Aljamal platform to ‘disseminate Hamas propaganda’By ToI Staff 10 July 2024, 8:56 pm
Rescued hostage Almog Meir Jan is suing the People Media Project, a United States-based nonprofit that has ties to the journalist who held him captive, Fox News reported on Tuesday.Meir Jan, 22, was held by Abdallah Aljamal, a spokesman for the Hamas-run labor ministry in Gaza who has contributed to several news outlets in the past, and who was a correspondent for the Palestine Chronicle, which is run by the nonprofit.Meir Jan, along with hostages Shlomi Ziv, 40, and Andrey Kozlov, 27, was rescued from Aljamal’s home in central Gaza’s Nuseirat on June 8. Hostage Noa Argamani, 26, who was held some 180 meters (200 yards) away, was also rescued. Despite their buoyant appearance upon their return, the four were said to have faced harsh conditions in captivity.The four were abducted from the Reim-area Nova music festival on October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages. Three-hundred and sixty people were killed at the Nova massacre.Aljamal, his wife Fatma and his father Ahmad Aljamal were all killed during the hostage rescue mission. The family’s children survived.The family was said to be known to have ties to Hamas, but residents told The Wall Street Journal they were unaware that hostages were being held at the Aljamal’s family home.“Under the leadership of Defendants [editor-in-chief] Ramzy Baroud and [People Media Project governor] John Harvey, Defendant Palestine Chronicle employed Hamas Operative Aljamal and offered him its US platform to write and disseminate Hamas propaganda, ultimately subsidized, through its status as a tax-exempt charitable organization, by US taxpayers,” the Fox News report quoted Meir Jan’s court filing as saying. It was submitted to Washington state’s Western District court on Tuesday, the report said.The filing alleges the defendants “knowingly and willfully procured and disseminated Hamas propaganda to the Palestine Chronicle’s readers in the United States.“Following the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, while Hamas Operative Aljamal imprisoned Plaintiff, Defendants permitted Hamas Operative Aljamal to use their platform to whitewash Hamas’s crimes and attract international support for its terrorist cause.“By providing this platform to Hamas Operative Aljamal and compensating Hamas Operative Aljamal for his propaganda, Defendants aided, abetted and materially supported both Hamas Operative Aljamal and Hamas itself in their acts of terrorism, including kidnapping and holding Plaintiff hostage for 246 days, in violation of international law,” the filing adds, according to the report.While Meir Jan, Kozlov and Ziv were being held captive in his home, Aljamal published numerous articles in the Palestine Chronicle. In an article published days before the hostage raid, headlined “My House Will Always Be Open,” Aljamal said he was willing to take in those Palestinians displaced by the war from other areas of Gaza.Meir Jan’s lawsuit follows others filed by victims of October 7 in US courts. On July 1, October 7 victims sued Iran, North Korea and Syria, seeking at least $4 billion in damages from the countries for aiding and abetting Hamas’s terror onslaught. A week before, victims sued for $1 billion in damages from UNRWA, the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees, accusing it of funneling money into Hamas’s coffers and letting the terror group use the agency’s facilities.
Reports: Prime Minister’s Office advancing embargo on Turkish imports-Officials warn move could prompt sanctions against Israel from World Trade Organization and lead to higher cost of living; PMO denies it plans total embargo-By ToI Staff 10 July 2024, 7:22 pm
The Prime Minister’s Office is advancing an embargo on the import of goods from Turkey, according to Hebrew media reports on Wednesday.A draft resolution that was distributed to various ministers on Tuesday night explained that the import embargo was a response to a boycott on trade with Israel that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in May, according to Calcalist, The Marker and Walla.Israel has since been forced to import Turkish goods through third-party countries.Turkish exports to the Palestinian Authority are still allowed, however, which the draft resolution said violated customs agreements between the two countries.“Turkey’s unilateral actions could set a precedent for other countries and harm Israel’s national security, especially at a time when the State of Israel is at war,” the draft resolution said.“Furthermore, the violation could damage Israel’s economy because of the integration between the Israeli and Palestinian markets.”If approved, the Israeli ban would only apply to imports from Turkey and not to products made in Turkey and imported from elsewhere.The move is being discussed among a team of officials from the PMO and the Economy, Foreign and Finance ministries, according to Calcalist.According to the draft resolution, trade between Israel and Turkey stood at $6.2 billion in 2023. Imports from Turkey were worth $4.6 billion, and exports to Turkey were worth $1.6 billion.Officials in the inter-ministerial team warned that placing an embargo on imports from Turkey could constitute a violation of the World Trade Organization’s rules because Israel does not have a sufficient reason to boycott Turkish imports.According to Calcalist, Israel for its part did not have the basis to file a complaint with the WTO against Turkey’s boycott, because banning imports from a country over a war is considered in keeping with the organization’s regulations.Erdogan said Turkey was boycotting Israeli imports in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza where Israel is at war with Hamas, after the terrorist organization’s October 7 attack in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered, and 251 were taken hostage.If Israel was seen to be violating the organization’s regulations, the officials said, it could lead to sanctions against the country and other countries may stop imports from Israel too.The head of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce, Gilit Rubinstein, told Calcalist that another concern was that “any decision made by the government will directly influence the cost of living.”Rubinstein explained that an in-depth survey conducted by the federation revealed that importers in Israel were dealing with 10%-30% rises in prices.“In the competitive market, if one avenue is closed, supply goes down, leading to rising prices. Creating alternative markets is a process that takes time, which the government is not allowing for,” she said.The PMO denied advancing a full embargo on imports from Turkey, however.Responding to a request for comment from Calcalist, it said that “the inter-ministerial team headed by the PMO is debating several possible alternatives to managing trade relations with Turkey as a result of unilateral violations and the discriminatory steps Turkey took against the State of Israel.”
Turkish Islamist party proposes bill punishing citizens who serve in IDF-Proposal by extremist party calls for revoking citizenship of Turkish nationals who fought in Gaza and for confiscating their assets-By ToI Staff 10 July 2024, 7:22 pm
The extremist Kurdish Islamist party in Turkey proposed a bill in parliament on Tuesday that would revoke the citizenship of Turkish nationals who served in the Israeli military in Gaza and allow for the confiscation of their assets.“We believe that Turkish-Israeli dual citizens who join the Israeli army and commit crimes against humanity should be stripped of their citizenship and have their assets confiscated,” Serkan Ramanli, a member of the Turkish Free Cause party said in a statement. “Therefore, we are presenting this bill.”“According to international agreements, we must actively combat genocide and crimes against humanity. However, the Ministry of Justice has not taken any steps in this direction so far,” he continued. “Why have we been waiting for nine months?”Ramanli added that confiscated assets would be donated to a “Family and Youth Fund,” a government welfare program that deals with stabilizing families and supporting at-risk youth.It is unclear how many soldiers the bill could potentially affect, as there is no official figure regarding the number of Turkish nationals in the IDF.In January, the Turkish Minute news site reported that two Turkish-Israeli women were investigated by Turkish authorities after enlisting in the IDF in the wake of the Hamas October 7 massacres.South Africa also proposed measures against its citizens who had served in the IDF, threatening to arrest them if they were to return to the country.The Free Cause party is considered an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development party, having supported the incumbent in the country’s last two elections.The party, which has four seats out of the 600 in the Grand National Assembly, is seen as the political wing of the Iranian-backed Kurdish Hezbollah terrorist group, which is unrelated to the Lebanese terror group of the same name.Since war broke out between Israel and Hamas, Erdogan has been one of the most outspoken world leaders against Israel among countries who hold diplomatic relations with it.Under Erdogan’s leadership, Turkey halted all trade with Israel in May. The Turkish leader has also been unabashedly supportive of the terror group Hamas and has compared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.Turkey also arrested an Israeli soccer player in January who played in the Turkish league for making a public gesture in solidarity with hostages held by Hamas. In May, Turkish airport workers refused to refuel an Israeli plane that made an emergency landing in Ankara.War broke out on October 7 when Hamas terrorists carried out a massacre in Israel, which saw some 1,200 people killed, mostly civilians, and 251 kidnapped.The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 38,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
Justice and finance ministers refuse to fund legal defense for Hamas terrorists-Smotrich says request by courts shows ‘loss of values,’ as Courts Administration says law requires it to provide legal counsel for detainees-By Jeremy Sharon-10 July 2024, 5:13 pm
Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have both blasted the Israel Courts Administration over its request for funding for legal representation for captured combatants suspected of carrying out the October 7 atrocities in southern Israel.Their comments came after it emerged that courts dealing with Palestinian detainees captured during the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza ruled that the prisoners needed legal representation when appearing before them.Since the Public Defender’s Office has refused to represent these detainees, who are among the approximately 2,000 suspected Palestinian terrorists caught inside Israel or in Gaza since October 7, the courts ordered that they be given private counsel in accordance with Israeli law, which also stipulates that funding for such legal representation come from the state.Levin said in a statement to the press on Wednesday: “I stand by my decision made at the beginning of the war: The Justice Ministry will not finance [this]; the Public Defender’s Office will not represent the Nukhba terrorists.”Smotrich made similar comments, noting that his ministry had received a request to find a source of funding for “the Nukhba terrorists who massacred, slaughtered, raped and murdered Israeli citizens on October 7,” describing the request as “insane.”Hamas’s Nukhba force spearheaded the October 7 assault on southern Israel, which saw some 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostage, amid numerous acts of brutality.Smotrich said he had instructed officials in the Finance Ministry not to provide any funding for the purpose of legal representation for the alleged terrorists.“We are losing our sense of values,” said the finance minister. “Israeli citizens will not fund from their money the legal defense for such disgusting enemies.”He noted that the current economic conditions amid the war meant the state was scraping together funds for various societal needs while cutting budgets for many pressing matters.The suspected terrorists captured by Israel since the start of the war, numbering around 2,000, have yet be charged. But some have appeared before courts, either physically or by video link, to deal with requests by the state to extend their detention.According to Hamoked, which provides legal representation to Palestinian detainees from the West Bank, there are 171 detainees from Gaza who are currently in the midst of legal proceedings, while the rest of the detainees are being held under the terms of the 2002 Unlawful Combatants Law, where they have to come before a judge after 75 days of detention and must be given access to a lawyer after 90 days of detention.The Israel Courts Administration said in response to the uproar on Wednesday that the courts are empowered to appoint defense attorneys for those who do not have legal representation under the Law for Criminal Proceedings of 1982, and that suspects who appear before the court are required by law to have legal representation in order to hold such a hearing under the terms of a 2023 temporary law passed following the outbreak of the war.The courts processing these cases therefore issued decisions based on those laws to appoint private defense attorneys for the suspected terrorists, after the Public Defender’s Office refused to provide them with legal counsel.The funding for such representation must come from state funds, the law stipulates.“The Israel Courts Administration turned to the Justice Ministry to examine how these judicial decisions will be implemented, and to find a funding source, and the issue is still under discussion,” the administration said.The administration underlined that the decisions were made because the law requires it. “The courts are not the ones that determined the legal situation,” the administration said.The state has yet to decide what to do with Palestinian terrorists caught during the course of the war. They are defined as unlawful combatants under the 2002 Unlawful Combatants Law for holding terrorists and combatants from terror groups fighting Israel, and are not entitled to “prisoner of war” status under international humanitarian law, since they are not members of the legal armed forces of a sovereign state.Some of the possible charges against the operatives held by Israel include assisting an enemy in war, acts of mass terrorism, murder with exceptional cruelty, murder as a member of a terror organization, and rape as an act of terror.The acts of murder with which the Hamas terrorists could be charged all provide for a life sentence without eligibility for parole.However, a 2014 law allows the government to release prisoners from Israeli jails for three purposes: to secure the release of Israeli hostages from captivity; as a foreign policy gesture; or as part of a foreign policy agreement or treaty.
eport: UAE deported student who shouted ‘Free Palestine’ at NYU Abu Dhabi graduation-Students, activists pan university for allowing censorship; Arab monarchy does not permit protests, has clamped down on speech about Gaza war-By Agencies and ToI Staff 10 July 2024, 4:51 pm
The United Arab Emirates deported a student who wore a Palestinian-style keffiyeh scarf and shouted “Free Palestine!” as he crossed the stage to receive his diploma while graduating from New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus in May, according to a report by Washington Square News, an NYU student newspaper.The reported deportation comes as the UAE navigates its response to the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas terror group. Although it has offered aid to the Palestinians, the UAE, a federation of seven emirates that tightly controls speech and where political parties are illegal, has not allowed any mass demonstrations against the war of the sort that have swept the rest of the Arab world as well as much of the West.The government’s protest policy has come into conflict with students at NYU Abu Dhabi, only about a fifth of whom originally hail from the Emirates. Students say activities over the war have been barred, and report repression at cultural events in the country’s capital, where those wearing the keffiyeh have been stopped from entering.“I think the government and the laws of the country don’t necessarily align with wanting to create an environment that appeals to the West as well, if we’re talking about freedom of speech and so on,” said one student, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.Responding to questions from AP, NYU Abu Dhabi said it has been “guaranteed academic authority” on campus but that “in none of our locations… are members of the NYU community immune from local law.”“NYU has no authority over any nation’s immigration or law enforcement actions or decisions,” the school said. It added it advised students “clearly and repeatedly about expectations, obligations, and boundaries, including the protocols for the NYU Abu Dhabi graduation.”The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment.Before the May 22 graduation ceremony, reportedly attended by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, students had been told that “displaying the Palestinian flag anywhere on campus is not permitted,” another student said, similarly speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.“This was strictly executed, even in residential buildings,” the student added.In total, five students speaking on condition of anonymity described similar circumstances leading up to the graduation affecting those who earlier sought to bulk-buy keffiyehs as a fundraiser and organize vigils for the dead in Gaza.Jacqueline Hennecke, an NYU Abu Dhabi alumna who graduated in May, told the AP that the university sent an email prior to graduation banning all “cultural attire” at the commencement — including scarves.The student who disregarded the order and yelled “Free Palestine!” on stage ultimately found himself in police custody prior to his deportation, according to NYU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which supports free speech and academic freedom efforts.The university “has been unable to protect students, staff and faculty from being taken into custody and interrogated at government security offices and has failed to prevent the deportation of one academic staff member and a graduate student,” a statement from the organization alleged.The organization also claimed that staff and students from non-Western countries had been “detained, intimidated, and deported based on surveillance.” It did not elaborate.This is not the first time NYU Abu Dhabi has faced criticism when trying to bring the ideas of an American liberal arts education to the UAE, which has strict rules governing speech.Human rights groups criticized the school for using migrant workers to build the campus. Workers allege they were forced to pay recruitment fees that were never reimbursed, made to live in overcrowded conditions and forced to work overtime.Following those reports, NYU commissioned an investigation, which found a number of workers hadn’t been protected by the fair labor practices the school had said would be in place. The school promised reimbursement, though some workers later claimed they never received it.The journalism department at New York University in 2017 told the school it was cutting its ties to NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus over two professors being denied work visas by the UAE, as well as the school’s handling of the situation.But NYU Abu Dhabi’s actions come as the UAE maintains its diplomatic ties with Israel, which runs both a consulate in Dubai and an embassy out of Abu Dhabi.Daily flights to Israel have also gone on, even as Western airlines have been slow to resume flights after canceling them at the start of the war.When Dubai hosted the UN COP28 climate talks in November, the UAE had to allow pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the event’s UN-controlled “Blue Zone,” but security officials closely monitored the activities.Additionally, at the recent Abu Dhabi Comedy Festival, an AP journalist saw security guards stop people from entering the event unless they removed their keffiyehs and handed them over. However, one woman shouted “Free Palestine!” during a set by American comedian Dave Chapelle, who called what was happening in Gaza a “genocide.”In stark contrast to the Abu Dhabi controversy, the university’s flagship campus in New York continues to face allegations of fostering antisemitism in the months since October 7.On Monday, the school settled a lawsuit with three Jewish students accusing the school of violating civil rights law by allowing chants on campus such as “Gas the Jews” and “Hitler was right,” giving students and professors “carte blanche to harass and intimidate NYU’s Jewish population.”On October 9, two days after the attack, NYU appointed Prof. Eve Tuck to establish a new Center for Indigenous Studies. On October 11, Tuck described the Hamas attack as “life and future affirming,” referring to its perpetrators as “Palestinian resistance.” The university did not censure Tuck, though it did issue a statement in November condemning Hamas.The school’s New York campus was also the site of an unauthorized protest encampment, set up by students calling on the university to sever ties with Israel and divest from any companies connected to the country’s war effort. The encampment, like others across the United States, was the site of frequent inflammatory protests calling for “intifada” and “revolution.”The encampment was ultimately removed by force in May, when police arrested 13 protesters, though NYU ultimately dropped its criminal charges against those detained.
Shejaiya is at least partly uninhabitable, but troops here say Hamas will return if it can-It’s walking distance from Kibbutz Nahal Oz to this Gaza neighborhood. That proximity proved deadly on October 7. Soldiers are now operating ‘in fifth gear’ to try to prevent a recurrence-By David Horovitz-10 July 2024, 2:12 pm
This Editor’s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI’s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor’s Notes as they’re released, join the ToI Community here.SHEJAIYA, Gaza Strip — We clamber into the back of an IDF Humvee, and set off for Gaza from next to the fields of Kibbutz Nahal Oz. There’s a soldier with a machine gun seated up front, but this is a vehicle whose sides are open to the elements; presumably, the IDF does not anticipate that we will be in any danger.Assaf, the officer responsible for us, adds further reassurance: “We’ll hear lots more of those thudding noises,” he says. “It’s the Air Force hitting terror targets. It might sound close, but it’ll be at least 50 meters away. And 50 meters is a long way off when you’re in Gaza.”Bumping along the dirt road, dust rising everywhere around us, we cross into the Strip through one of the many gaps in what proved to be the catastrophically irrelevant border fence on October 7. (The barrier’s highly sophisticated sensors were intended to detect the approach of invading terrorists, but its flimsy construction was not designed to stop them. For that, you needed actual troops.)-Almost immediately, we find ourselves entering what, in this area at least, is a wasteland. First, we cross open land scarred with the twisted metal remains of buildings, unidentifiable machines and vehicles, in what we are told was farmland and an industrial area, but also the site of two “Hamas facilities” and a training center. And then we enter what were residential areas, marked by disconnected slabs of concrete and rubble, where multistory buildings stood nine months ago.We’re in Shejaiya, a northern Gaza neighborhood immediately adjacent to Nahal Oz — the IDF base, where Hamas-led terrorists killed some 60 soldiers; and the kibbutz, which Hamas occupied for 12 hours, murdering a dozen residents; it also took hostages from both places.In the four hours I spent with other journalists on an IDF-overseen visit here on Monday, we saw no sign of non-IDF human life. But there are some noncombatants around, we were told, and there are certainly Hamas and other gunmen — emerging above ground in areas not far from where we were, and, potentially, in the vast underground tunnel networks.**We make two main stops on our trip — the first for a briefing by Lt. Col. Ron Sayag, the commander of the 7th Armored Brigade’s 75th Battalion, in an area surrounded by tanks and other IDF vehicles from which we can still see some of the Nahal Oz buildings perhaps two kilometers away.A father of three who lives in the Jezreel Valley, Sayag spent the first two months of the war up north, and has been in Gaza ever since. He last got home a month ago. He sends little video clips to his family but was pleasantly surprised that his son, the youngest of the three, still recognized him last time he was there.Sayag takes us partway up a little incline and points to an area — between us and the border — where he says a 1.5-kilometer section of tunnel was blown up just a few hours earlier. He calls it “the closing of a circle,” since, 10 years ago this month, during an earlier round of conflict known as Operation Protective Edge, Hamas terrorists emerged from this tunnel, inside Israel, and killed five soldiers at an army position south of Nahal Oz. We can’t go any closer, he cautions, just in case…Shouldn’t Israel have strategically tackled Hamas back then, I ask him pointlessly. Sayag is plenty diplomatic enough not to answer.Asked by another of the reporters whether he has a message for the politicians, Sayag offers: “You do your job faithfully, and we’ll do ours.”He’s pushed again, on whether it’s frustrating to be back in Shejaiya; wasn’t the IDF supposed to have taken operational control here months ago? (The IDF ended high-intensity conflict in this area in December, and announced that the Hamas battalion here had been dismantled. It began more targeted operations in April, and launched its current campaign here about 10 days ago.)Here, Sayag feels comfortable explaining: “We’re doing things this time that were facilitated by the first, [high-intensity] operation.” In those earlier months, the IDF was fighting an organized Hamas army, he indicates. “Now, we’re focusing more on the infrastructure,” notably including destroying tunnels.Operating constantly “in fifth gear,” he says, “we are changing the reality, we hope, for decades.”Like every soldier we speak to, Sayag says he and his troops simply have no time to worry about internal divisions at home over the direction of the war and potential hostage deals. “Here, there’s unity,” he says. “We’re busy working. You might have three seconds to kill a terrorist. You must be focused.”He says he and his troops have found “astonishing” quantities of weapons in some of the homes in the area. And they are necessarily wary of anybody they encounter. “But if they’re not attacking us, we treat them with respect. We hand them over to whoever should be responsible for them.“In one case,” he says, “49 people came out of a single home. What were they doing there…?” He doesn’t complete the thought.Sayag, soft-spoken, patient and likable, says he sees October 7 as “a turning point in Israeli identity.” He realized the scale, he says, “when I saw the white Hamas pickup trucks on the streets of Sderot.”“Israel must be able to exercise its sovereignty to the very edge of its borders,” he says, thinking not only of the Gaza envelope communities where he and his troops are part of the effort to restore security but also of the north, where tens of thousands of residents have been displaced for nine months, many living in hotels. “People need to go home,” he says. “The north would be a different enemy,” he says of Hezbollah, “but we will know how to deal with it.”“It’s a War of Independence,” says Sayag: “That last line in Hatkivah [the national anthem]: “To be a free people in our land.”‘Israel must be able to exercise its sovereignty to the very edge of its borders,’ says Sayag. ‘It’s a War of Independence: To be a free people in our land’Sayag is adamant that the IDF is doing everything in its power to save the hostages, and takes pride that he and his troops were involved in the extraction and return to Israel of the bodies of three hostages from Jabaliya in northern Gaza; “I only wish we had been able to rescue them alive,” he says. “We saw how important Operation Arnon — when four hostages were rescued alive from central Gaza last month — “was for the nation.”Asked if more such operations are possible, he says: “People made high-risk decisions. The outcome could have been different. Wherever it’s possible, we’ll do it.”We are speaking with Sayag just five days after one of his own soldiers was killed in the fighting here — Cpt. Elay Elisha Lugasi, 21 — and he mourns him as a man of great courage, who had been injured in earlier fighting and insisted on coming back.Along with the government’s declared aims of destroying Hamas’s capacities and bringing back all the hostages, Sayag adds another imperative: “Making sure my soldiers get home safely.”**Our second stop is deeper in Shejaiya, in the heart of what we are told was a neighborhood of multistory buildings. You’d never know it. While the shells of residential buildings are not far away, there’s nothing remotely habitable in this immediate vicinity. Even the roads are gone, torn up for fear of buried explosive devices.Soldiers are clustered around a slope of dark-brown soil descending perhaps 10 meters into the earth. At the bottom, a tunnel is visible — or rather a small section of a tunnel has been cut away to reveal openings on either side.“Two days ago, you’d have just seen flat earth,” Lt. Aleph, who can be identified only by his Hebrew first initial, tells us. And before that, before the bombardment in the earlier months of war, “there were houses where we are standing. And shafts going down into the tunnel,” he says, from the residential buildings, the mosques and schools along its route. “Hard to believe that the families above didn’t know about it,” he says in answer to a question.Lt. Col. Gidon Eliastam, the deputy commander of the Paratroopers Brigade who has also been accompanying the journalists on the trip, elaborates that the IDF has hit this tunnel several times in the past, but this part has only just been found and uncovered. “We’ve cleared the area. Now we’ll complete its demolition.”The tunnel did not cross into Israel, says Eliastam, but seven IDF soldiers were killed in a Hamas attack about 150 meters from where we are now, also during Operation Protective Edge 10 years ago this month, and the body of one of them, Oron Shaul, was seized and is still being held. The terror group, he says, “used this tunnel to move forces.”“We’re working fast, clearing the ground of the infrastructure of Hamas,” Eliastam had told us earlier. “We’ll keep going until the mission is completed. And we’ll be here for as long as is necessary to return the hostages and restore security. As I speak to you right now, there are operations. [Indeed so.] We’re ensuring the enemy can’t act again.”Eliastam, a father of four from Kibbutz Ginegar in the north, readily acknowledges that the area is not free of threats. “We haven’t killed them all. They return, and whenever they return, we’ll handle it,” he says. “The enemy is moving around. The enemy does not surprise us, but we don’t underestimate them. The enemy prepared for years. We’re learning all the time.”Eliastam hails “the amazing people” of nearby Kibbutz Nahal Oz. He says a very few of them are starting to come home but, more broadly, “they need to feel secure in order to be able to return,” and he can’t offer a timetable. “It will take a while,” he says.And if there is to be a halt for a deal to secure the return of hostages, he says, the IDF will “need to return for as long as there’s terror.”**As we are leaving the area of the tunnel entrance, climbing back into the Humvee to head back to Israel, one of the soldiers breaks diplomatic discipline and calls out to us, “Don’t stop it!” Presumably, he was expressing concern that the war would end in circumstances he would consider to be premature.Some of the more senior officers we’d spoken to conveyed, carefully and diplomatically, a related concern that Hamas will return, recruit and rearm whenever and wherever it is given breathing space.Four hours in Gaza, in ultra-safe circumstances, offered only the most limited insight into the war, but it was more than enough time to recognize that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declared goal of “complete victory,” in the natural interpretation of the phrase, is no imminent “step away.”And more than enough time, too, to internalize the resilience and courage of the troops in Gaza, nine months into a war against an amoral terrorist-army, amid an at least partially complicit populace, where death lurks around every corner, in every doorway, and beneath every footfall.**We begin that astonishingly short journey home along the dirt roads, past tunnels found and yet to be found, toward the pointless border fence and the fields of Nahal Oz. The dust rises to envelop us again. But we quickly come to a halt. There’s some chatter on Assaf’s radio. Black smoke is rising above a building. We hear the rattle of gunfire, perhaps 50 meters away.“Our gunfire,” Assaf assures us. “Some confrontation with a terrorist,” he says.Fifty meters is a long way off when you’re in Gaza.
IDF calls on all Palestinians in Gaza City to evacuate-IDF commando killed in fresh Gaza City op; Gallant: 60% of Hamas terrorists killed-Sgt. First Class Tal Lahat, 21, was among those who rescued Nahal Oz residents on Oct. 7; troops raid UNRWA HQ as military says dozens of gunmen killed in Shejaiya-By Emanuel Fabian-and Agencies 10 July 2024, 11:17 amUpdated at 8:15 pm
An Israeli soldier was killed during fighting in Gaza City, the military announced Wednesday morning, raising Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against terror group Hamas and military operations along the border with the Strip to 327.Sgt. First Class Tal Lahat, 21, of the Maglan commando unit, was killed on Tuesday afternoon, in a Hamas-claimed sniper attack in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City.Separately on Wednesday, two reservists with the Alexandroni Brigade were seriously wounded during fighting in Gaza City. According to an initial military probe, the pair were hit by an explosive device.Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, told the Knesset on Wednesday that 60 percent of Hamas terror operatives have been killed after nine months of war in the Gaza Strip, adding that the military has eliminated most of the terror group’s 24 battalions.The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday morning dropped leaflets calling on “everyone in Gaza City” to evacuate and head south toward shelters in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, amid a new operation there.The flyer provided instructions on safe routes to evacuate Gaza City, via the Salah a-Din road or the coastal road.“Gaza City will be a dangerous combat zone,” the leaflets warned.The IDF in recent days had issued evacuation warnings for several areas in Gaza City as troops carried out operations in its western and southern neighborhoods, as well as in the eastern Shejaiya neighborhood.The latest warning covered all of Gaza City.The IDF in a morning update said troops, including Maglan, had raided UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City — located near the Rimal and Tel al-Hawa neighborhoods — which the military said had been used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to carry out attacks against troops.The raid was carried out by the Commando Brigade and elite Multi-Domain Unit, which had on Tuesday joined the IDF’s 99th Division in a new operation in southern and western areas of Gaza City.The IDF said it first opened a humanitarian corridor for civilians to leave the UNRWA facility area.During the raid against the UN site, troops killed and detained several gunmen and located a large amount of weapons, according to the IDF.On Monday, the Israeli military launched the new operation in Gaza City. It said at the time that it was operating in the area of the UNRWA headquarters, where the IDF previously found significant Hamas tunnel infrastructure and killed and captured numerous gunmen.The IDF was pursuing Palestinian terror operatives in Gaza City, six months after it said it had dismantled Hamas’s “military framework” in the territory’s north.Large parts of Gaza City and urban areas around it have been flattened or left a shattered landscape after nine months of fighting. Much of the population fled earlier in the war, but around 200,000 Palestinians remain in the north, according to IDF assessments.“The fighting has been intense,” said Hakeem Abdel-Bar, who fled Gaza City’s Tuffah district to the home of relatives in another part of the city. He claimed Israeli warplanes and drones were “striking anything moving” and that tanks had moved into central districts.Hamas’s military wing on Tuesday, described the latest fighting in Gaza City as “the most intense in months.”The UN said tens of thousands of civilians have been affected by the surge in fighting since the first of three evacuation orders for Gaza City was declared on June 27.Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, UNRWA, said that “we have around 350,000 people again on the road,” but “basically, there is absolutely no safe space in Gaza.”Visiting troops in Gaza City on Tuesday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said Israel was applying military pressure on Hamas in different ways across the Gaza Strip, and that it was not “treading water.”“We are applying military pressure in various forms. What is being done in Rafah is different from what you are doing here,” he said to officers of the 99th Division.“What you are doing here is different from what is happening right now in Shejaiya, or the mission of the [Netzarim] corridor or the security area along the border,” Halevi said.“The common denominator between the different places… is determination. There is no treading water or being at a standstill. You are bringing about important achievements daily,” Halevi told the officers.“We are planning ahead… looking for opportunities [to target] senior officials, infrastructure, and operatives, and we do it with all kinds of methods,” he added.Came to the rescue at Nahal Oz-The slain soldier, Lahat, from Kfar Saba, was to be laid to rest on Wednesday evening.Haaretz journalist Amir Tibon identified Lahat as one of a group of soldiers who came to Kibbutz Nahal Oz to save residents from terrorists who had overrun the border community on October 7.“His team arrived in my neighborhood and took us out of the secure rooms after long hours of being in mortal danger, and stayed with us until the organized evacuation of the community at night,” Tibon wrote in a post on social media platform X.On October 7, Palestinian terror group Hamas led a massive cross-border assault on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, amid numerous atrocities. The 3,000 terrorists who burst into the south of the country also abducted 251 people of all ages who were taken as hostages to Gaza.From the early morning, gunmen rampaged murderously through southern Israel areas, overrunning towns, communities and military posts while slaughtering those they found. Terrorists invaded Nahal Oz and an adjacent military base, killing over 60 soldiers and 12 residents of the kibbutz. During the battle to retake control of the kibbutz, in which Lahat participated, three Maglan soldiers were killed. Tibon and his family, who took refuge in the home’s secure room, were saved by the soldiers and by others who included his own father, retired army general Noam Tibon, who had rushed to the kibbutz to rescue his son.Ongoing Gaza operations-Also in the past day, the IDF said troops with the 98th Division killed dozens of gunmen in Gaza City’s eastern Shejaiya neighborhood, amid a separate operation there.A tunnel was also demolished in Shejaiya, the military said. On Tuesday, the IDF announced it had demolished at least six tunnels in Shejaiya, and that several more were being investigated.The IDF has been operating in Shejaiya for the past two weeks.Meanwhile, operations also continued in southern Gaza’s Rafah, where the IDF said troops with the 162nd Division killed several terror operatives, located weapons, and destroyed tunnels in the past day. The offensive in Rafah began in early May.Separately, several drone strikes were carried out against Hamas operatives in the central Gaza Strip, who according to the IDF were involved in digging tunnels and launching missiles at troops in Gaza.Israel responded to the Hamas October 7 attack with a military offensive to destroy the terror group, topple its Gaza regime, and free the 120 remaining hostages in Gaza.The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 38,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
Actors tied to Iran’s government pose as activists online'White House: Iran is funding, emboldening anti-Israel protests in US to sow discord-Press secretary, intel chief say that while demonstrators are acting in good faith, they can still be exploited by foreign actors; actions said set to intensify as election nearsBy Jacob Magid-and Reuters 10 July 2024, 12:34 amUpdated at 8:17 am
The White House accused Tehran on Tuesday of trying to take advantage of a wave of anti-Israel protests in the United States and described such behavior as unacceptable, following a warning by the top US intelligence official that Iran was trying to stoke discord in American society.The warning, issued earlier on Tuesday by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, said actors tied to Iran’s government had posed as activists online, sought to encourage protests regarding the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and even provided demonstrators with financial support.The statements are likely to embolden those calling for American authorities to take a harder line on the Gaza war protests that swept across college campuses toward the end of the spring semester and that have continued at other locations into the summer.They also could expose the administration to criticism by defenders of those demonstrations, who may argue that the government is dismissing them as inauthentic.The White House and Haines both sought to address this potential pushback in their Tuesday statements.White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said freedom of expression was vital to American democracy, but the government also had a duty to warn citizens about foreign influence operations.“Americans across the political spectrum, acting in good faith, have sought to express their own independent views on the conflict in Gaza. The freedom to express diverse views when done peacefully is essential to our democracy,” she said.“At the same time, the US government has a duty to warn Americans about foreign malign influences. … We will continue to expose attempts to undermine our democracy in our society just as we are today,” Jean-Pierre added.Haines, in her earlier statement, said: “We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests and even providing financial support to protesters.“I want to be clear that I know Americans who participate in protests are, in good faith, expressing their views on the conflict in Gaza. This intelligence does not indicate otherwise,” she clarified.“But it is also important to warn of foreign actors who seek to exploit our debate for their own purposes,” the US intel chief added, urging Americans to remain vigilant when engaging with online actors they don’t know.In May, Haines warned in congressional testimony that Iran was becoming increasingly aggressive in its efforts to undermine confidence in American democratic institutions, particularly in the lead-up to presidential and congressional elections.“They continue to adapt their cyber and influence activities, using social media platforms and issuing threats. It is likely they will continue to rely on their intelligence services in these efforts, as well as Iran-based online influencers, to promote their narratives,” Haines said on Tuesday.Tehran had no immediate comment.An official with the Office of the US Director of National Intelligence said the warning on Iran showed how countries tried to take advantage of controversial issues in the run-up to elections, both to embarrass the US and “inflame social division.”The official, who asked not to be named, said Iran had a longstanding interest in exploiting US political and social tensions, including through social media.“In particular, we are monitoring Iranian actors who are seeking to exacerbate tensions on the Israel-Gaza conflict,” the official said.The statements came one day after US Vice President Kamala Harris expressed some praise for the young pro-Palestinian protesters.“They are showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza. There are things some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject, so I don’t mean to wholesale endorse their points. But we have to navigate it. I understand the emotion behind it,” Harris told The Nation in an interview.US President Joe Biden has at times been more critical of the protests.“There’s a right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos,” Biden said in a May White House speech about the demonstrations.“Destroying property is not a peaceful protest — it’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations — none of this is a peaceful protest,” he asserted, referring to the range of actions taken by anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University, the University of Southern California, the University of California, Los Angeles, and other schools.“There should be no place on any campus — no place in America — for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students,” he said, referring to widespread documentation of antisemitic and pro-terror expressions during the protests, before subsequently condemning all forms of discrimination.
Israel rejects accusations by UN rights experts that it weaponized starvation in Gaza-Jerusalem rebuts claims, pointing to its facilitation of large amounts of aid and various predictions of famine by independent studies being proven untrue-By AFP and ToI Staff 9 July 2024, 9:50 pm
A number of officials reporting to the United Nations on human rights matters accused Israel on Tuesday of carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” that has resulted in the deaths of children in Gaza.“Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” the 10 independent experts said in a statement.The UN has not officially declared a famine in the Gaza Strip, but the experts, including the UN special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri, insist there is no denying famine is underway.“Thirty-four Palestinians have died from malnutrition since October 7, the majority being children,” said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva slammed the statement, charging that “Mr. Fakhri, and many so-called ‘experts’ who joined [him], are as much accustomed to spreading misinformation as they are to supporting Hamas propaganda and shielding the terrorist organization from scrutiny.”The Israeli mission pointed to the latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which determined that famine had not materialized after aid access had improved somewhat.“Israel has continuously scaled up its coordination and assistance in the delivery of humanitarian aid across the Gaza Strip,” it said, alleging that Hamas operatives “intentionally steal and hide aid from civilians.”The IPC report also indicated that predictions made in March by UN agencies regarding the spread of famine turned out to be overblown.Throughout the war, Israel has increasingly stepped up delivery of humanitarian aid through multiple crossings into Gaza in its north and south. But NGOs say distribution within Gaza is lagging due to anarchic conditions and lack of security for teams.The allegations of approaching famine have formed a central part of the legal processes against Israel’s conduct of the war against Hamas in both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the latter of which has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly using starvation as a method of war against the Palestinians.Amid these allegations, the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza has become a key concern, with UN agencies and some aid groups criticizing Israel for not allowing enough aid in and not doing enough to facilitate its transfer to the Gazan population.Israel has persistently claimed that it has facilitated the transfer of tens of thousands of aid trucks with enough food to provide for Gaza’s nutritional needs, and has blamed the UN for not scaling up its logistics and distribution operations. Israeli officials have pointed to aid piling up on the Gaza side of border crossings as agencies refuse to distribute it over fears of looting and violence.Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
GOP platform pledges to stand with Israel, deport ‘pro-Hamas radicals’ from US-Document promises ‘largest deportation in American history,’ declares plan to seek Mideast peace and replicate Iron Dome, though US doesn’t face cross-border rocket threatBy JTA and Jacob Magid-9 July 2024, 8:25 pm
The 2024 Republican Party platform pledges to fight antisemitism and to keep Israel safe. It promises to fight anti-Christian bias as well as “gender insanity.”And it vows, in all-caps, to “DEPORT PRO-HAMAS RADICALS AND MAKE OUR COLLEGE CAMPUSES SAFE AND PATRIOTIC AGAIN.”Parties traditionally publish platforms in election years ahead of their national conventions, as a statement of its values and a wish list of policies should their candidate win the White House.The Republican platform, posted Monday and subject to a vote at next week’s convention in Milwaukee, is heavily influenced by the priorities and language of the nominee, former United States president Donald Trump — down to the capitalization style he’s favored in his social media posts. It also repeatedly attacks the Biden administration.While quarrels over platforms have sometimes made waves among party insiders, they are largely symbolic, non-binding documents that have little practical implication.The debate regarding language surrounding Israel in the Democratic Party’s document could be more intense, given the progressive wing’s increasingly hostile approach to the Israeli government. But with US President Joe Biden still in control of the party, those pushing for more critical rhetoric on Israel will likely be sidelined for at least one more election. Moreover, parley over the platform has largely been sidelined as the party focuses on deciding whether or not to stick with Biden as its nominee following his disastrous debate performance last month.The 16-page GOP document, titled “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” is the Republicans’ first platform since Trump’s election victory in 2016. It includes proposals that would reverse domestic policies long embraced by Jewish Americans, including by enervating church-state separations and massively cracking down on immigration. Notably, it says that abortion should be left up to the states and promises to protect birth control and fertility treatments, which have been targeted by some Republicans.Other policies, including pledges to fight antisemitism and to keep Israel secure, dovetail with the longstanding Republican ambition to erode the Democrats’ large historical advantage among Jewish voters.The platform, echoing Trump’s campaign trail pledges, promises the “largest deportation in American history.” The plan — to deport “millions of illegal migrants” — would likely alarm the broad range of Jewish groups that have historically advocated on behalf of immigrants and decried such plans in the past, including the Anti-Defamation League, HIAS and the American Jewish Committee.In particular, the platform says the party will bring back Trump’s travel ban, which banned entry to citizens of several Muslim-majority countries. In 2017, the ban was the rare domestic policy that drew criticism from all four major American Jewish denominations.The platform pledges specifically to deport non-citizens who support terror, something long promoted by Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, who is Jewish. The platform includes that promise in its section on antisemitism.“Republicans condemn antisemitism, and support revoking visas of foreign nationals who support terrorism and jihadism,” it says. “We will hold accountable those who perpetrate violence against Jewish people.”Republicans in Congress have undertaken a number of investigations into universities where Jewish students have reported feeling unsafe and have drawn plaudits even from their liberal critics for fighting antisemitism.The effort to claim the mantle of fighting antisemitism comes after years during which Trump’s Jewish critics have accused him of encouraging age-old antisemitic conspiracy theories and declining to condemn his antisemitic and extremist supporters. In 2022, he dined with Kanye West, the rapper who went on an antisemitic tirade, and Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier, although he later disavowed the men.Trump’s Jewish supporters counter that he worked to bolster protections for Jews on campus, and elevated Jews in his administration — including his daughter and son-in-law. More than anything, they point to his fulfilling longstanding Israeli wishes — including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and facilitating normalization agreements with several Arab countries.The new platform doubles down on that support for Israel.“We will stand with Israel, and seek peace in the Middle East,” it says. “We will rebuild our alliance network in the region to ensure a future of peace, stability, and prosperity.”In 2016, the GOP platform went further regarding Israel, pledging an “unequivocal” commitment to Israel — “an exceptional country that shares our most essential values.”Another allusion to Israel comes in the pledge to replicate the Iron Dome missile defense system that Israel deploys to repel cross-border missile attacks. The platform says Iron Dome will be used as a means of protecting American borders. It is not clear what threat this is referring to, as Iron Dome is only capable of intercepting short-range rockets — not a danger the US has ever faced along its borders.“We will invest in cutting-edge research and advanced technologies, including an Iron Dome missile defense shield, support our Troops with higher pay and get woke leftwing Democrats fired as soon as possible,” it says.Other passages pledge to undercut the historical Jewish embrace of church-state separations, although the platform purports to embrace all faiths. In particular, the platform says the party “will champion the First Amendment right to pray and read the Bible in school” — values advanced recently by Republican-led states that have mandated displaying the Ten Commandments or teaching the Bible in public school classrooms.In addition, it wades into the culture-war debates that have roiled schools across the country — and which have sometimes ensnared books with Jewish themes, such as the diary of Anne Frank.“CUT FEDERAL FUNDING FOR ANY SCHOOL PUSHING CRITICAL RACE THEORY, RADICAL GENDER IDEOLOGY, AND OTHER INAPPROPRIATE RACIAL, SEXUAL, OR POLITICAL CONTENT ON OUR CHILDREN,” the platform declares.More broadly, the platform promises to fight bias against Christians.“Our ranks include men and women from every faith and tradition, and we respect the right of every American to follow his or her deeply held beliefs,” it says. It immediately adds, “To protect religious liberty, Republicans support a new federal task Force on fighting anti-Christian bias that will investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America.”Aside from antisemitism, bias against other faith groups is not mentioned.
Mass evacuations draw international protests-IDF demolishes 6 Gaza City tunnels, including Islamic Jihad’s ‘flagship’ passageway-At least two tunnels neared Israeli border, just across from Nahal Oz; military says 150 gunmen killed in Shejaiya, dozens more in other areas of Gaza City-By Emanuel Fabian-9 July 2024, 3:24 pm
Israeli troops operating in Gaza City’s eastern Shejaiya neighborhood have demolished six Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad tunnels amid the latest raid there, launched less than two weeks ago, the Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday.At least three more tunnels have been located and were in the process of being mapped out and demolished, military sources said.One of the destroyed tunnels is considered by the IDF to be Islamic Jihad’s “flagship” tunnel in Gaza City.The recently discovered 2.5-kilometer (1.5-mile) tunnel was used by the terror group for command and control, according to military assessments.Troops found laptops, weaponry, and intelligence material inside, indicating it was still being used by the terror group recently.The operation carried out by the 98th Division in Shejaiya, launched on June 27, came after the IDF said it had identified Hamas operatives regrouping in the area, as well as new intelligence on the terror group’s existing infrastructure.The IDF first operated in Shejaiya during the initial months of the ground offensive against Hamas, announcing that it had dismantled the terror group’s local battalion there in December. It last returned to the Gaza City neighborhood in April, as the military shifted its operations in the Strip to targeted raids against attempts by terror operatives to regroup.Other tunnels found by the 98th Division in Shejaiya included a significant Hamas tunnel within the heart of the neighborhood and several attack tunnels that were dug toward Israel, at least two of which reached close to Israel’s border barrier — just across from Nahal Oz — according to the IDF.Those tunnels did not cross into Israel and were not believed to have been used by terrorists during the October 7 onslaught.In all, at least six kilometers’ worth of tunnels have so far been demolished in the latest operation in Shejaiya.Military sources said the latest operation in Shejaiya has so far been highly effective, highlighted by the fact that troops managed to locate around nine significant tunnels in just 12 days.The operation in Shejaiya began with a raid against a school complex that according to the IDF had been used by Hamas.Around 100 gunmen were hiding at the school, among around 1,000 civilians. The terror operatives mostly fled the area as the IDF reached the school, leaving behind weapons and valuable intelligence material, according to the military.Intelligence obtained by troops in Shejaiya has provided the IDF with insights on Hamas’s attempts to regroup, as well as its infrastructure in the area, the IDF sources said.More than 150 gunmen have been killed by troops in Shejaiya since the start of the latest raid, according to the military.Four IDF soldiers have been killed in the operation in Shejaiya.On Tuesday the IDF said that dozens of gunmen had been killed by Israeli troops so far in a new operation launched a day earlier in Gaza City.Amid the raid, carried out by the 99th Division, the military said forces also located weaponry.The IDF said on Monday that it launched the operation in southern and western neighborhoods of Gaza City after identifying Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad infrastructure and operatives in the area.In tandem, the army extended its evacuation warning to cover most of Gaza City, eliciting a protest from the United Nations on Tuesday.Israel has issued three evacuation orders for Gaza City and one for the south of the Palestinian territory since June 27 in a new stepping-up of its military operations. The UN says tens of thousands of civilians have fled.Gaza City residents have now been told to move to the central district of Deir al-Balah, which the UN Human Rights Office said “is already seriously overcrowded with Palestinians displaced from other areas of the Gaza Strip.”The UN department said it was “appalled” at new orders to civilians, “many of whom have been forcibly displaced multiple times, to evacuate to areas where IDF military operations are ongoing and where civilians continue to be killed and injured.”The Palestinian Red Crescent also said Tuesday that due to the evacuation orders, all of its medical clinics were out of service in Gaza City, including the Al-Ahli Arab Anglican Hospital.The Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East protested the closure of Al-Ahli. A statement issued in the name of the Diocese of Jerusalem said the hospital has been “compelled to close by the Israeli army.”Contacted by Reuters, the IDF said in a statement that it had called on civilians in specific areas of Gaza City to move out, to minimize the risk to them, but that it had told Palestinian health officials and the international community that there was no need to evacuate hospitals in the area.Fadel Naeem, the director of the Al-Ahli Hospital, said patients fled the facility even though there was no evacuation order for the surrounding area. He said those in critical condition had been evacuated to other hospitals in northern Gaza.Separately, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, dozens more gunmen were killed over the past day, in close-quarters combat and in airstrikes, the military said.Across Gaza, the Israeli Air Force struck numerous targets over the past day, including buildings used by terror groups, tunnel shafts, and other infrastructure, according to the IDF.Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday killed six people in a house in Gaza City, nine in two houses in central Gaza’s Al-Nuseirat and Deir Al-Balah, and three in Rafah.An Israeli strike against a group of Palestinians in Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza killed at least seven people, including children, medics told The Associated Press.The war in Gaza broke out on October 7 with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel, in which thousands of terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.In response, Israel launched a ground invasion in Gaza with the declared objectives of dismantling Hamas and getting the hostages back.The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 38,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and terrorists. Israel says it has killed more than 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 326.Agencies and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Starmer signals Ukraine can use UK missiles to strike Russia- AFP Staff Writers.
London (AFP) July 10, 2024-Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer indicated on Wednesday that Ukraine can use long-range missiles supplied by the UK to strike military targets in Russia during their war.Starmer told reporters on his flight to Washington for NATO's 75th anniversary summit that decisions on the use of British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles were for the Ukrainian armed forces.UK military aid is "for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes", said Starmer, who became UK leader last Friday following a landslide election win for his Labour party.The comments confirm that Labour is pursuing the same stance on the air-launched missiles as the previous Conservative governments led by Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and earlier Boris Johnson.Britain has been one of Kyiv's staunchest allies since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022.The UK has provided money, weapons and troop training to Ukraine's fight.Britain was the first country to provide longer-range weapons to the Ukrainian military, announcing last May that it would send Storm Shadow missiles.Starmer was due to reaffirm Britain's support for Ukraine and its "unshakeable commitment" to the western military alliance NATO during the summit, where he is due to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Philippines says US mid-range missile system to be pulled out-by AFP Staff Writers
Manila (AFP) July 4, 2024-A US mid-range missile system deployed in the Philippines for annual joint military exercises -- to the annoyance of China -- will be pulled out of the country, a Philippine Army spokesman said Thursday.The US Army said in April it had deployed the Mid-Range Capability missile system which can fire the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile in the northern Philippines.Philippine troops have been taught how to use and maintain the Typhon missile system, but it was not used in live-fire exercises, Colonel Louie Dema-ala told AFP."As per plan... it will be shipped out of the country in September or even earlier," Dema-ala said."The US Army is currently shipping out their equipment that we used during Balikatan and Salaknib (exercises)."The presence of the mid-range missile system on Philippine soil had angered Beijing.Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun warned in June there were "limits" to Beijing's restraint on the South China Sea and over the deployment of ballistic missiles in the Asia-Pacific region.Dong's remarks at a security forum in Singapore were a clear reference to the Philippines and the United States, which have been boosting defence ties in the face of China's growing military might and influence.The deployment of "medium-range ballistic missiles" was "severely damaging regional security and stability", Dong said."Acting in this way will ultimately burn oneself."
37 Chinese aircraft skirt Taiwan on way to drill: Taipei-By Amber WANG, with Dene-Hern CHEN in Hong Kong.
Taipei (AFP) July 10, 2024-Taiwan's defence ministry said 37 Chinese aircraft were detected around the self-ruled island Wednesday as they headed to exercises with an aircraft carrier in the western Pacific.China claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and maintains a near-daily presence of fighter jets, drones and warships around the island, which is 180 kilometres (110 miles) from the southern Chinese coast.Taiwan is also a crucial part of a chain of islands that military strategists say serve as a gateway from the South China Sea -- which China claims in nearly its entirety -- to the Pacific Ocean.At around 9:30 am (0130 GMT) Wednesday, Taipei said that "since 0520 today, the Ministry of National Defence detected a total of 37 Chinese aircraft", including fighter jets, bombers and drones.Thirty-six of the aircraft crossed the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait -- which bisects the narrow waterway separating the island from China."(The aircraft) headed to the Western Pacific via our southern and southeastern airspace to cooperate with the aircraft carrier the Shandong in conducting 'joint sea and air training'," the defence ministry said in a statement.Defence Minister Wellington Koo told reporters the Shandong "did not pass through the Bashi Channel", the area off Taiwan's southern tip where Chinese ships typically transit en route to the Pacific Ocean.Instead, it "went further south through the Balingtang Channel towards the Western Pacific," he said, referring to a waterway just north of the Philippines' Babuyan Island -- about 250 kilometres south of Bashi.The Chinese flights came a day after Japan's Joint Staff Office said four PLA navy vessels -- including the Shandong -- were sailing 520 kilometres southeast of Miyako Island.The Shandong "was observed landing and departing fighter aircraft and helicopters on board," it said.The Philippines' military public affairs chief said they had received reports of a China-Russia exercise taking place in the Philippine Sea, though he did not comment about the Shandong directly."We will continue to monitor this situation to ensure (the Philippines') sovereign rights are not violated," Colonel Xerxes Trinidad said Wednesday.Tensions between Manila and Beijing have ramped up following a series of escalating confrontations over the hotly disputed South China Sea.- 'China's repeated provocation' -China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control and has increased military and political pressures on the island in recent years.In May, days after Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te took office, China launched war games around the island as "punishment" for an inauguration speech that Beijing called a "confession of Taiwan independence".Beijing's aircraft and vessels have also edged closer to the island, according to Taiwan's defence ministry.An illustration released Wednesday showed that some of the aircraft came 39 nautical miles off Taiwan's southern tip.On Wednesday Lai met with Raymond Greene, new director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de-facto US embassy.He emphasised their "solid partnership... in the midst of China's repeated provocation and attempts to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait".While the United States, like many other countries, does not officially recognise Taiwan diplomatically, it is Taipei's key partner and major provider of weapons -- a point of consternation for Beijing which has repeatedly called on Washington to stop arming the island.Greene said Washington would continue to "strongly support Taiwan's ability to defend itself"."We have a long-term and shared interest to maintain the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. This is vital to the prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region, as well as to global security," he said.burs-dhc/mtp
What is a 'multipolar' world? Experts aren't so sure-By Fabien ZAMORA
Warsaw (AFP) July 10, 2024-The leaders of Russia, India and China often wax poetic about establishing a "multipolar" world -- though it is far from clear what such a system would entail.The three countries along with Iran and North Korea regularly lead calls for a new world order that sees a reduced role for the United States and its Western allies.But beyond their shared desire to see a reduction in Western domination in global affairs, proponents offer few strands that actually bind their vision of the future, according to experts.Regardless, the term -- and the sentiment -- is likely to be here to stay."We must jointly advocate for an equal and orderly multipolar world," China's President Xi Jinping said during a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) this month."All participants... are committed to the formation of a fair multipolar world order," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the same summit.And in late 2023, India's Narendra Modi declared: "The new world order is multipolar".- 'Contradictory interests' -In speeches, Putin often frames the invasion of Ukraine as less a war of conquest and more a fight to beat back American hegemony in Europe.The idea is likely to strike a chord with Beijing, which has been steadily expanding its footprint across the Asia-Pacific region where the US has long been dominant."There is the common vision of pushing for the end of the Western age," said French political analyst Jean-Marc Balencie.But how exactly that will be achieved remains largely undefined, and "this allows for several scenarios, because leaders often have contradictory interests", Balencie said."Many of the BRICS and SCO countries say they wish to build a multipolar world and are taking significant actions to that end," Stephen Wertheim from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told AFP, referring to groupings of countries from the so-called Global South."I doubt that these countries know exactly what kind of order, especially what kind of institutional forms, they seek to realise in 20 years' time," Wertheim said.Official doctrines published by the Kremlin, New Delhi and China are often full of striking promises about shaking up geopolitics."We must build partnerships in which countries treat each other on an equal footing" reads one statement from China in 2023, framing its proposals "for a shared future".Russia, meanwhile, says it wants to promote "the world majority" against the so-called "golden billion" of the West -- a conspiracy theory, popular in Russia, that a secret global elite hoards the world's resources.Russian political scientist Sergei Karaganov says developing more institutions like BRICS and SCO for countries representing the majority of the global population is vital.Increased cooperation across tech platforms and deepening ties in the education and scientific fields were also necessary, he adds.But such simplistic formulas often ignore geopolitical fault lines across the globe.In Southeast Asia, China's growing influence has worried its smaller neighbours, while the West has increasingly turned to India to act as a hedge against Beijing's growing boldness.In the former Soviet states, Russia's influence is also a source of anxiety for many.And while Russia has chosen a total break with Washington and Europe after invading Ukraine, no other power has been as keen to follow its path.The "Global South encompasses so many countries and blocs with their own interests", said Yun Sun, a co-director of the China and East Asia programme at the Stimson Center in Washington.- Tricky alternatives -What a multipolar world looks like in practice is fraught with unknowns.On the economic front, the Kremlin and China remain keen to see a new currency replace the dollar as the primary vehicle for trade.But will New Delhi be eager to exchange greenbacks for the yuan? And is there any country ready to build substantial reserves with the unstable Russian ruble?For many countries, multipolarity offers "alternatives to going head-to-head with the West", Balencie said."Small countries want to maintain their sovereignty while obtaining security and economic assistance from larger powers," Wertheim added.Faced with joining competing Cold War-style alliances, they "may be able to play the blocs off each other, but they will also be vulnerable to falling under the control of their patron", he said.Yun noted that "the word multipolarity suggests equality, but it is misleading".China, India and Russia "might be unhappy with certain aspects of the US dominance, but it doesn't mean they share the exact same vision as for what the alternative should look like".
Https://www.ft.com/content/5a1a5d17-d37b-4242-8241-d81daa7467fc (EDUCATIONAL ONLY)
A ‘multipolar’ world defies the ‘rules-based’ order.
In the battle for global influence, all sides have their jargon. The US and allies talk of the “rules-based international order” (RBIO). Russia and China prefer a “multipolar” world. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s astute foreign minister, recently split the difference by talking about the need for a “multilateral rules-based international order”.For the west, the RBIO underpins peace and stability. It demands respect for territorial integrity and international law, and the protection of minorities, small nations, democratic norms and the global trading system.Russia — often supported by China — argues this is hypocritical. The US, in Moscow’s view, writes the rules, imposes them on others and ignores them when convenient. Other nations that emphasise the RBIO are, from Moscow’s perspective, basically US vassals.Russia and China believe the decline of US global power is necessary and inevitable — the result being a more just world in which US power is constrained and multiple centres of power operate. According to the Russians and Chinese, this will allow different civilisations to live by their own rules, rather than having to hew to a Washington consensus.For the US and allies, these arguments are dishonest. The US and the EU believe that, while the idea of multipolarity can sound appealing, it often boils down to a demand from autocracies, in Moscow and Beijing, to have their own poles of influence. That means imposing their will on democratic neighbours like Ukraine and Taiwan.In different ways, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza — as well as the tensions in the South China Sea and the battle for opinion in the Global South — all involve this rhetorical struggle to shape the world order and the power realities that underpin it.For the US and the EU, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine broke one of the most fundamental tenets of the RBIO — the prohibition against invading your neighbours and annexing their territory. Russia’s justification, by contrast, leans heavily on the idea that Ukraine was being dragged into the western civilisational space, thus becoming a tool of the US-dominated world order. Attacking a pro-western, pro-Nato government in Kyiv was — Russia claims — not an act of aggression or a breach of global rules, but an effort to protect Russia’s security interests and strike a blow for a multipolar world.Russia has not had huge success in pressing this argument. It has been hit by western economic sanctions and experienced ostracism beyond anything Moscow encountered in the cold war. Russian teams have, for example, been excluded from sporting events such as the World Cup and the Olympics. President Vladimir Putin has been indicted by the International Criminal Court, making it difficult for him to travel.Very few countries have voted to defend Russia’s actions at the UN. However, important Global South nations, notably India, have abstained on votes condemning Russia.South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, India’s Narendra Modi, and Xi Jinping of China attend the Brics Summit in Brasilia in 2019-As well as reflecting such interests as a desire to buy cheap Russian oil and weapons, India’s UN votes reflect sympathy with Moscow’s argument that the world order is too shaped by western colonialism’s legacy. But India is increasingly wary of China, which has killed Indian troops on the countries’ disputed border and led New Delhi to increase military co-operation with Washington. Thus, India endorses both multipolarity and the RBIO.One country steadfast in backing Russia is China. Cushioning the blow of western sanctions, Chinese economic support has essentially kept the Russian economy afloat. On a 2023 trip to Moscow, President Xi Jinping told Putin, in front of the cameras, that Russia and China were together making fundamental changes to the global order. Without spelling it out, Xi had in mind the emergence of a multipolar world order and the breaking of US power. Some US analysts believe that China ultimately has a vision of achieving another unipolar system, with the pole in Beijing.The Putin and Xi Moscow exchange was much discussed in western capitals, which fear the Ukraine war could be the first major breach in the RBIO. The next could come in east Asia — if China uses its growing military power to invade or blockade Taiwan, or push even harder its claims of sovereignty over most of the South China Sea.But, while many western strategists see Asia as the fulcrum of competition between rules-based and multipolar visions, war in the Middle East continues to command enormous attention.The west’s support for Israel’s attack on Hamas in Gaza has hugely complicated the battle of narratives. For many in the Global South, western support for Israel in Gaza, when combined with condemnation of Russia in Ukraine, proves western RBIO talk is hypocrisy.The west responds that there is clear distinction between the two cases: Israel was attacked by Hamas and is exercising its right to self-defence; Russia is waging a war of aggression. That does not mean every Israeli action in Gaza is justified. Western leaders have become increasingly open in condemning the devastating level of civilian casualties.For now, while the Gaza war is an embarrassment for the west, in the battle of narratives not much evidence exists that world opinion will be tipped decisively in either direction. Countries that align with Washington, Moscow or Beijing, usually do so based on hard-headed assessment of their interests.But those views are strongly linked to underlying values. Democracies are clearly more likely to buy into the US-led RBIO. What happens to the RBIO if Donald Trump is re-elected is a huge question weighing on the global system.
Editorials-The emerging multipolar world order: A preliminary analysis-Michael A. Peters-ORCID Icon
Pages 1653-1663 | Received 15 Nov 2022, Accepted 15 Nov 2022, Published online: 05 Dec 2022
Cite this article https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2022.2151896 CrossMark Logo CrossMark
The model of world order has changed dramatically in the postwar era from the bipolarity between the US and Soviet Russia that characterized the Cold War, to a period of unipolarity after the fall of Soviet Russia in 1989 when the US became the world’s sole superpower, to complex multipolarity following the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. This is how Josef Borell (2021), Vice President of the European Commission, describes the transition:Over the last three decades, we have seen a rapid transformation in the distribution of power around the world. We went from a bipolar configuration between 1945 and 1989 to a unipolar configuration between 1989 and 2008, before entering in what we today could call ‘complex multipolarity’.He indicates that world economic order is comprised of ‘three dominant poles: the United States, China and the European Union’ although politically the world structure is more complex because 1. ‘an emerging Sino-American bipolarity is increasingly structuring the world system’; 2. there are strong regional political and military powers like Russia and Turkey that do not wield world economic power; and 3. there are world actors between the two like the EU that ‘carry a strong economic weight but who are political poles in the making’ struggling ‘to close to close the gap between economic power and geopolitical influence’.There are some missing pieces in Borrell’s analysis that seem to ignore the dynamism of emerging blocs that cohere and help to amplify the existing poles as well as the development of strategic partnerships both military and political. The first point is more a perspective about the historical process of the construction of ‘poles’ and the way that they are no longer determined by western dominant influences. Here I mention two obvious examples: the Asian inflection of world capitalism and the consequences of the final overcoming of the legacy of the colonial world system, especially evident in the growing solidarity and expansion of BRICs and the G77. No one doubts that there has been a shift in the centre of economic gravity from the rich trans-Atlantic democracies to Asia that helps to define the rise of China within a dense network of bilateral trading relationships, with ASEAN as its largest trading partner. The capitalist world system has the power to create new poles and power blocs. Nor do most commentators discount the history of the decline of the world colonial system that profited Europe and the US but now defines the dynamic nature of the process of economic development of ex-colonies, particularly demographically large Asian countries like China, India and Indonesia that support very large and growing mass domestic markets.One might argue that there are not two systems but only one system of world capitalism in its different historical phases or moments: a colonial and postcolonial phase. The latter also adds a moral perspective to the argument that has a historical effectivity in terms of UN bloc voting as well as the solidarity of the Global South. As Morgan Stanley research group expresses it in ‘Five Reasons for the Trend towards Multipolarity’: ‘In a multipolar economic world, you have groups of nations with enough influence and incentive to pursue economic strategies that, if achieved, do not substantially follow the same direction of other global power centres’. Among the continued geopolitical tensions between the US and China the rest of the world is forced to strike a balancing act and while multilateralism is in retreat new development models are being offered: ‘Improved Sino-Russian relations, the emergence of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the New Development Bank (previously the BRICS Bank) are clear signs of a shift to a multipolar world, providing alternatives to the Bretton Woods institutions and setting up a competition for influence between the US and China’.Footnote1 This account pays attention to both political alliances and also the underlying institutional infrastructure. Wallerstein’s world systems theory as an approach to explain the development and dynamics of the capitalist world economy analysing it in term of international trade and changing relationships between the periphery and the core economies is a better conceptualisation because it incorporates Braudel’s notion of world history (the longue durée, the medium time of economies, societies, and cultures, and histoire événementielle) such that it can theoretically entertain a reversal or modification of the core/periphery relation through BRICs solidarity as the latest incipient phase. In the not too distant future it is possible that we will see China and India as poles in the international system with European countries increasingly consigned to the periphery.The EU as a regional bloc, not a country, is also an important world player although it is tethered to the US in terms of NATO and committed to NATO expansion with prospective new memberships of Sweden and Finland, and the Ukraine pending. Under the circumstances, even with the promotion of integration in Europe, it is not clear that the EU can fulfill its ambition to become a global power, able to function as one of the poles in the new multipolar global order when its security strategy is determined and largely financed by Washington.The United Kingdom has now permanently separated and left the EU in a weakened state significantly damaging its own economy in the process. The disastrous failure of the neoliberal Truss government which took office for a mere 45 days, offering unfunded tax cuts for the rich during a cost-of-living crisis, plunged the UK’s financial markets into disarray and reputedly losing some 50 billion pounds. The Conservatives have settled down with Sunak but still face declining polls that will intensify after Jeremy Hart’s substantial cuts to welfare services. Its plans to become a ‘science superpower’ again through its universities have fallen behind, deprived of EU public good science funding. The post-Elizabethan UK faces further relative decline with India pipping it as the fifth world’s leading economy.Germany and France increasingly act independently to protect their national interests. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholtz on his one-day trip to China, the first European leader to visit since the Covid pandemic, risking criticism from the US and his own party, stated the new pragmatism: ‘New centers of power are emerging in a multipolar world, and we aim to establish and expand partnerships with all of them’. Some smaller European powers including Hungary and Serbia have begun to operate outside the EU immigration mandates, displaying strong sympathies with Russia, and have become part of the broad far-right reassertion of power across Europe represented in Italy recently electing a party under Giorgia Meloni with strong roots in Italian Fascism. This political shift will make it more difficult to pursue coordinated and joint action by member states and raise questions whether the EU can cultivate a shared vision of foreign policy in confronting the major challenges of the 21st century including the consequences of climate change, the energy and food crisis, and rising geopolitical tensions. The Russian war against the Ukraine unexpectedly provided a source of inspiration for European integration, a clarification of western values, and promoted the greatest sense of unity with the US than any time in recent years.The Russian Federation militarily a world ‘land’ power has become more problematic as an economic pole as the effects of sanctions and the war against Ukraine has begun to bite and deplete its economy and military resources. Much will be determined by responses to Europe’s energy crisis, the US continued funding of Ukraine and the willingness of both sides to accept efforts at peacebuilding. The objections to NATO’s eastward expansion against explicit statements of intention meant that the US has achieved its strategic goals more easily than it dreamed possible only a couple of years ago. At the same time the Ukraine war and Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and eastern states of the Donbas have diminished Russia’s chances of occupying a powerful pole in a multipolar 21st century as a single power operating by itself. Even with its newly strengthened relationship with China –Xi says ‘China-Russia cooperation has no limits’—its economic union in the form of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and a revitalised and enlarged Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Russia is in a much weaker state as a consequence of Putin’s actions, at least at this point in early November 2022. It is likely that the Ukraine war will end with a negotiated peace before the European winter.The tripartite multipolarity of Borrell’s analysis is well illustrated in the following graphic of the $100 trillion world economy, that makes clearly evident the size of Russia’s and UK’s economies relative to that of the EU. In terms of geopolitics the graphic includes within China’s Asian geography both Japan and South Korea, allies of the US, and also India which is non-aligned, while the US includes Canada and Mexico both autonomous states allied with the US. What appears as the third ‘European’ space includes Russia, Switzerland, the Nordic states of Sweden and Norway, and the UK which is no longer part of the EU. When these states are taken away the EU space its relative small size is obvious compared to either the US or China which are clearly the dominant poles, with EU a distant third. In terms of geopolitical dynamics Asia includes India and Indonesia both of which have strong economic growth rates, and ASEAN countries which is emerging as the Asian EU with growth prospect that may well put it in the same league before the end of the decade.The Middle East is divided but holds the prospect of becoming a Muslim pole through the leadership of Turkey and Iran, with relationships to other Muslim states in the Asia-Pacific, demonstrating that it is not always a matter of geographical contiguity but may also embrace elements of religion, language and ideology. Australia and Brazil are significant as regional powers in South America and Oceania respectively, although unlikely ever to comprise poles in themselves, although may become influential components of larger blocs. Africa while economically becoming more significant demonstrates little unity or power to act as a sovereign power, although Nigeria is emerging as a powerful leading economy within Africa and the continent is the source of strong demographic growth. The graphic does not indicate growth rates, spheres of influence, alliances, or trading partnerships but it does suggest three poles and a lesser group of regional powers, structured through the superpower status of China and the US. What it does not show are the relationships among nation states, often multiple and based on shared histories, politics and trade. In these terms we can note a clear opposition: the US pole with the EU and NATO countries, together with neoliberal states, UK, Australia, Canada and NZ on the one hand; and the China pole based on closer Sino-Russian relations, the Belt and Road Initiative with over seventy countries, the six founding Eurasian states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation also including India and Pakistan, and a series of memoranda of understanding and bilateral trade agreements with ASEAN, Asia and the rest of the world.The Ukraine war has had the effect of unifying the US and the EU through the expansion of NATO, creating one pole while promoting closer Sino-Russian relations as the other pole, that between them structure the international system. The war against Ukraine seems to have accelerated a process of bipolarity within multipolarity, with only five countries opposing the UN censure of Russia with fifty-one abstentions. The Ukrainian defence and retaking of Kherson has had positive effects for the west, emboldening the US which taunted China recently over Taiwan with a provocative visit by Nancy Pelosi. It temporarily strengthens the US position and highlights Joe Biden’s point of inflection between democracies and autocracies. It also provides a two superpowers and a regional conflict of Ukraine-NATO, driven between Russia and Europe, with emerging strong regional powers in Asia. The G20 meeting in Indonesia with a face-to-face meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden displaying a willingness to engage in dialogue with agreement not to start a new Cold War in Asia and ‘to chart the right course’, as Xi put it, to elevate the relationship and seek the right direction for bilateral ties.The concept of multipolarity has a history in China and has been part of debate for several decades going back to the Cold War era. Leonid Savin (Citation2018) traces the Chinese concept of multipolarity to Huan Xiang, Deng’s advisor, in the mid 1980s who perceived that the old order was disintegrating and that the military power of US and Russia was declining. Against internal criticism quintipolar multipolarity (US, Russia, China, Japan and Germany) was seen as inevitable. In the 1990s three approaches had been developed: 1. One superpower and four strong powers (Yang Dazhou); 2. One super, many strong powers to be completed (Yan Xuetong); 3. ‘multipolarity is formed’ (Song Baoxian and Yu Xiaoqiu).Footnote2 Five principles of peaceful coexistence which formed the basis of the 1954 treaty with India have become the basis for China’s multipolar strategy: 1. Mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty; 2. Non-aggression; 3. Non-interference in internal affairs; 4. Equality and mutual benefit; 5. Peaceful coexistence. The criticism held in the later 1990s by Yang Dazhou that China did not possess sufficient qualification at that point to be a pole and that the US will maintain its superpower status for at least three decades, seems misconceived in retrospect. It was a view that underestimated the spectacular growth of China during the first decades of the 2000s and the relative decline of the US. Predictions at the end of the 1990s did not mature although there was also some experimentation with the concept of poles and units (yuan) based on the Cold War standard of two poles of the United States and Soviet Union (Savin, Citation2018). In the G20 meeting in Indonesia both leaders Xi and Biden, and their host Joko Widodo reflecting the concern of other leaders, strongly indicated that they did not want to return to the old Cold War bipolar structure and mentality that could put global governance at risk at a time when increased international cooperation was called in order to manage economic recovery and sustainability in the post-pandemic era. Local sentiment indicated support for recovery and development and a step back from increasing trade protectionism and the US’ aggressive monetary tightening.While perhaps too focused on nation states at the exclusion of the changing nature of the capitalist digital system and the emergence of non-state global multinational actors, Borrell’s description stands in stark contrast to President Joe Biden’s analysis that the world faces a clear choice between the politics of democracy or autocracy which appears as tired American rhetoric.In the National Security Strategy (October, 2022) Biden prefaces the document by claiming ‘our world is at an inflection point’ and ‘this decisive decade’ ‘is a strategic competition to shape the future of the international order’. As he pitches the official narrative:The People’s Republic of China harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit, even as the United States remains committed to managing the competition between our countries responsibly.Biden frames the future in terms of an opposition between ‘autocracies’ and ‘democracies’—an extension of the same old binary logic of the Cold War: ‘autocracies are working overtime to undermine democracy and export a model of governance marked by repression at home and coercion abroad’ while ‘the United States will continue to defend democracy around the world’ ready to partner ‘with any nation that shares our basic belief that the rules-based order must remain the foundation for global peace and prosperity’. Biden talks of rebuilding the US economy, upgrading infrastructure, reinvigorating alliances and partnerships, deepening NATO and AUKUS, and developing creative ways of working ‘with the European Union, the Indo-Pacific Quad, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity’. In this context Biden talks of ‘The United States will continue to prioritize leading the international response to these transnational challenges’.The National Security Strategy (NSS, Citation2022) comprises five parts: I. The Competition For What Comes Next, including ‘the nature of the competition between democracies and autocracies’; II. Investing In Our Strength; III. Our Global Priorities, ‘out-competing China and constraining Russia’ while ‘cooperating on shared challenges’ around climate and energy, pandemic and biosecurity, food insecurity, arms control, non-proliferation, and terrorism; IV. Our Strategy By Region; V. Conclusion. Large sections of the NSS, are tantamount to a point/counterpoint response to China’s initiatives such as the BRI based increasingly on state-led federal support for infrastructural renewal, subsidies for strategic technologies such as the semiconductor industry, and continued systems of tariffs on Chinese goods, especially those in the high-tech area plus an increasing array of economic sanctions aimed at individuals, institutions and countries. Jeffrey D. Sachs (2016) indicated some time ago that American foreign policy was at a crossroads: ‘facing China’s rise, India’s dynamism, Africa’s soaring populations and economic stirrings, Russia’s refusal to bend to its will, its own inability to control events in the Middle East, and Latin America’s determination to be free of its de facto hegemony, US power has reached its limits’. He argued:The only sane way forward for the US is vigorous global cooperation to realize the potential of twenty-first-century science and technology to slash poverty, disease, and environmental threats. The rise of regional powers is not a threat to the US, but an opportunity for a new era of prosperity and constructive problem solving.Footnote3-Nonetheless, despite Washington’s same old Cold War narrative concerning a historic ‘inflection point’ this is no new Cold War. Putin has called the formation of a multipolar world ‘irreversible’ calling for a ‘democratic, more just world order should be based on mutual respect, trust, and the generally accepted principles of international law and the UN Charter’. In bitterly ironic terms, Putin suggests ‘A multipolar system of international relations is now being formed. It is an irreversible process; it is happening before our eyes and is objective in nature’.Footnote4In their watershed landmark communique, China and Russia announced a strengthened political and military alliance, on February 4th 2022, before Russia invaded Ukraine, giving strong credibility the idea of a new world order, a term used half a dozen times in the document. The ‘Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development’ begins:Today, the world is going through momentous changes, and humanity is entering a new era of rapid development and profound transformation. It sees the development of such processes and phenomena as multipolarity, economic globalization, the advent of information society, cultural diversity, transformation of the global governance architecture and world order; there is increasing interrelation and interdependence between the States; a trend has emerged towards redistribution of power in the world; and the international community is showing a growing demand for the leadership aiming at peaceful and gradual development. At the same time, as the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection continues, the international and regional security situation is complicating and the number of global challenges and threats is growing from day to day. Some actors representing but the minority on the international scale continue to advocate unilateral approaches to addressing international issues and resort to force; they interfere in the internal affairs of other states, infringing their legitimate rights and interests, and incite contradictions, differences and confrontation, thus hampering the development and progress of mankind, against the opposition from the international community.Footnote5-In response to the perceived growing interference and provocation by the United States, China and Russia announced their intention to develop a ‘polycentric world order’. The document begins by declaring that ‘democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of States, and that its promotion and protection is a common responsibility of the entire world community’. It upholds the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as setting forth fundamental principles, ‘which all the States must comply with and observe in deeds’ and suggest that ‘peace, development and cooperation lie at the core of the modern international system’. The joint statement supports the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the ‘call on the international community to take practical steps in key areas of cooperation such as poverty reduction, food security, vaccines and epidemics control, financing for development, climate change, sustainable development, including green development, industrialization, digital economy, and infrastructure connectivity’. It is clear that the joint China-Russia communique details an international system with the UN at its core with the aim of working with the Global South to tackle the multiple world crises that currently face the world including climate change and the pandemic.One source reminds us that strictly speaking there is only one capitalist system that embraces the world and that since China admitted capitalism into the system really it is only a matter of style in the way it is constructed to meet national interests:Currently there is no concrete ideological or intellectual competition between Russia, China and the US. All three are stuck within the paradigm of capitalism’s political-economic framework and secular-liberalism intellectual foundations. They merely define these differently and aim to frame both in a manner best suited to their geopolitical interests.Footnote6-Yet it seems that the neoliberal version of world capitalism has shifted again, this time towards a double and parallel system of state-led capitalism that is further defined in terms of trading and security relations and partnerships. The same system might be said to define prospects for the EU. But it is not simply a more efficient and productive system but also a set of differences that depend on state and international policies that enhance the digital moment of capitalism while encouraging better redistributive and environmental results. At a deeper level there are questions about whether capitalism can overcome its industrial past to practically embrace environmental sustainability and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The other major element that distinguishes ‘the current multipolar global order from the Cold War era is the presence of far more assertive and resistance-minded Muslims in the world’, led by Turkey and Iran, which while not a cohesive force is also ‘not a lackey of big powers anymore’ (ibid). Indonesia, the largest country in Southeast Asia and the fourth most populous country in the world at 275 million people, as a presidential representative democratic republic has a GDP expected to grow by 5.4% in 2022 and 5% in 2023, compared to the S.E. Asian ‘tiger’ economies of the Philippines (6.5%), Vietnam (6.0%) and Malaysia (6.0%).Footnote7 As an original member of both ASEAN and the Asian Development Bank, Indonesia is committed to eradicate extreme poverty and move toward establishing a green and resilient economy.The Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) increased by 8.0% in 2020 (DDI Rp 112.7 T, FDI Rp 98 T) with Asian countries (Singapore, China, HK, Japan, Malaysia) as the top five investors in transportation, basic metals, electricity, gas & water supply, housing, industrial and office building, and food crops, plantation and livestock. This explains why the G20 2022 meeting is being held in Bali with President Joko Widodo as host and dealmaker. He expects Indonesia to become the seventh largest economy by 2030 (Vaswani, Citation2022).There is a slow revolution of the global economy that has been taking place since WWII that presages development noted by a range of social and economic theorists who were the first to mention the postindustrial economy. There is a fundamental shift away from principles of classical industrial economy that held sway since the industrial revolution based on industrial production, capital/labor oppositional politics, mining of raw materials and use of fossil fuels within the confines of the nation-state. The international order was largely a reflection of such a collection of industrial nation-states that build on the international colonial trade favoring western great powers. Slowly this arrangement has given way to a new international economic order centered on the rise of global corporations focused on the new digital technologies and renewable energy sources with the rise of a new global ruling elite who became the leaders of a transnational capitalist class (TCC). This process is not complete. It is fragmentary, largely led by the US, China and the EU, and by no means assured as it faces strong anti-globalist, strengthening nationalist and anti-market forces both domestically and internationally. The older nation states-based elites who controlled the liberal world order established at the end of WWII have been increasingly replaced by a new global elite on the one hand and an older-styled liberal international world agency-based bureaucratic elite on the other. The latter, an elite based on a new social contract, seek to mediate in the conflicts among nation-states, especially between Global North and Global South, through a world architecture that reflects older-style liberal internationalist leanings supported by institutions set up at Bretton-Woods.At the center of this revolutionary transformation of the global economy are a set of new digital technologies including the internet, 5 G, supercomputing, and soon quantum computing that have since the 1970s encouraged a greater world interconnectivity in trade and finance. The corporations that developed new digital technologies as scalable businesses that exploit global markets led to first-wave financialization of capitalism and the extensive development of the structure of world capital markets strongly encouraged by monetarism and neoliberalism that promoted deregulation and financial liberalization. It made possible foreign direct investment flows, economic interpenetration, inter-bank lending as well as the phenomenal growth of transnational investment in the new stock markets opening up in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Shanghai. This world expansion was aided by after China joined the WTO in 2001 and Chinese banks gained greater autonomy. The Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and the Agricultural Bank of Bank ranked among the largest in the world as among the seven top largest in assets terms. In 2020 Chinese stocks constituted about one-third of global gains as transnational investors poured over a $1 trillion into Chinese capital markets.Financialization as a systematic high-tech transformation of capitalism based on (i) the massive expansion of the financial sector where finance companies have taken over from banks as major financial institutions and banks have moved away from old lending practices to operate directly in capital markets; (ii) large previously non-financial multinational corporations have acquired new financial capacities to operate and gain leverage in financial markets; (iii) domestic households and students have become players in financial markets (the ascendancy of shareholder capitalism) taking on debt and managing assets; and (iv) in general, represents the dominance of financial markets over a declining production of the traditional industrial economy.The rise of neoliberalism is explained by the growing role and power of finance in the political economy of capitalism and the growth of a new global finance class but financialization is result of neoliberal restructuring but has deeper roots in a change in the nature of corporations that jettisoned its traditional loan-making functions to pursue the creation and sale of its own financial instruments. Neoliberalism, beginning 1980 in the US under Reagan, encouraged the shift to a deregulated neoliberal global capitalism symbolized by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.The US as the world’s largest economy is still also the world’s most powerful military with an annual budget of $780B (est.) and some 800 military bases worldwide. After the war in Afghanistan it now faces strict limits to its power and in the face of multiple strategic partnerships and relationships that stand against it the US no longer holds a position as sole hegemonic power. The US also faces huge domestic problems at home including the savage split between political parties, the erosion of its democratic institutions and the prospect of more political violence after the Trump-inspired insurrection and attack on the Capitol. The 2024 presidential election, possibly between Biden and Trump, will prove to be an historic moment for the stability and survival of American-style neoliberalism and will likely determine its continued world status and its rate of decline. Biden’s efforts at rebuilding liberal internationalism after Trump’s ‘America First’ withdrawal from various world bodies, commitments and protocols, including the Paris Accord and RCEP, seem frantically too little too late. The hurried convening of the Quad (US, Japan, India, South Korea) as a bulwark to China and the AUKUS, based on providing Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, seem of limited value in the White House effort to ‘out-compete’ and contest China’s spreading influence in the Asia-Pacific. The much-vaunted ‘pivot to Asia’ by the US dressed up in terms of ‘Indo-Asia’ considered as a measure of Indian sub-continental democracy alongside the Quad, is deliberately ambiguous and contests its ‘one China policy’, edging the world closer to conflict than diplomacy. It is an action that seems likely to increase geopolitical tensions in the Asian region and tests the ‘loyalty’ of US traditional allies, splitting allegiances with smaller countries balancing and playing off US against China for strategic gains, especially in ASEAN countries and the Pacific Islands.The problem is that the world’s democracies are not performing very well. The Blacklivesmatter# movement protesting police brutal racism and the political insurrection that resulted in an attack on the Capitol justifies the US slipping well down the Freedom Democracy Index ranking. According the Economist Group’s Democracy Index 2021 less than half the world’s population live in a democracy either in a full democracy (6.4%) or a flawed democracy (39.3%) that includes the US, with 17.2% living in hybrid and 37.1% living in authoritarian regimes.Footnote8-Neoliberalism as an economic doctrine seems to have reached its limits such that free market fundamentalism has been ditched for heavy levels of Federal support costing the US taxpayers trillions of dollars since Biden became president, which together with an elaborate and comprehensive system of subsidies and economic sanctions against individuals, institutions and countries, tips the scale in the US’s favor. In this transition we should not forget the way in which the world’s financial system is propped up by the US dollar reserve system although there are efforts to bypass it through reciprocal currency trading and the norming of a basket of alternative currencies.By contrast, committed to a form of openness and trade based economic globalization China has become the world’s largest trading nation building up a succession of bilateral trade agreements with over 120 countries over the last twenty years, enhanced further since the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was established in 2013 as Xi’s ‘project of the century’ that links the Eurasian landmass. China’s globalization does not neglect poverty elimination at home and works to assist economic development in the Global South, with an increasingly strong focus on Africa. President Xi has been reelected as leader of the CCP at the 20th Congress for an exceptional third term and the country is assured of political stability at a time of world crisis. It’s continued high growth rate, while now surpassed by India, Indonesia and Vietnam, will assure it of being the world’s leading economic power by the end of the decade. With the relative decline of the US, and the increasing ascendency of China as the world’s second largest economy and world’s largest trading nation. China has emerged as the major pole along with the US in structuring the new multipolar world order comprised of emerging world powers including India, Egypt, Iran, Brazil, Indonesia and Nigeria, and the existing world players, Russia, the EU and Japan.At the BRIC’s conference in June Putin talked of creating an international reserve currency. Leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa with a combined population of 2.88 billion estimated to overtake the G7 contribution to the global economy in under 15 years demanded a fairer international system.Footnote9 The New Development Bank (NDB) was proposed in the 4th BRICS Summit (2012) with the objective of financing the BRICS association for sustainable development of projects and infrastructure, specifically designed to help developing economies. The G77 established in 1964 with increased membership of 134 countries also has positioned itself as a counterbalance to the G7.Footnote10 It is the largest intergovernmental organization of developing countries in the UN with the aim ‘to articulate and promote their collective economic interests and enhance their joint negotiating capacity on all major international economic issues within the United Nations system, and promote South-South cooperation for development’. The G77 is not only the largest bloc within the UN system but also sponsors projects on South-South cooperation through the Perez-Guerrero Trust Fund (PGTF) established by the UN in 1983 and ‘a South-South network linking scientific organizations, research institutions and centres of excellence to further expand South-South cooperation in the field of science, technology, and innovation’.Footnote11Rather than using the nation state as the only unit for making judgements concerning the international system, in addition, it is also necessary to understand the emerging system in relational terms defining a new complexity of multipolarity. There are many different levels of analysis of an emerging dynamic complexity including the interaction of demographic, economic, political factors and geo-environmental factors best conceived of as overlapping ecologies defined by their organizational memberships, economic alliances and trading relationships rather than individual nation state units that structure the main lines of multipolarity:Western relative decline (the decolonization thesis): The ongoing relative decline of countries (nation states), mostly previous European ‘great powers’ through decolonization in the 19th and 20th centuries with the US since reaching its zenith and peaking in the early twentieth century, while others countries including ex-colonies are ‘rising’ or ‘emerging’ in relative terms (‘declining’, ‘rising’ and ‘emerging’).The strategic regrouping of the West, US and EU through NATO security; the US ‘pivot to Asia’ and development of the Quad and AUKUS; Brexit the UK and the Commonwealth.The rise of China within a network of trading and security relationships in the Asia-Pacific; ASEAN is China’s largest trading in 2020 for the first time and China is ASEAN is also China ‘s largest with two-way investment exceeding $340 billion at the end of July, 2020; China’s BRI and bilateral trade with Africa.The China-Russia axis, Eurasian Economic Union, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, & the BRI. At the SCO Summit 2022 Xi emphasized time to reshape the international system and ‘abandon zero-sum games and bloc politics’ to ‘work together to promote the development of the international order in a more just and rational direction’.Footnote12-The pivotal position of India as a member of both SCO and the Quad, and as a country with the strongest growth rate of 6.8 in 2022; a middle power status and a rising power that under Modi has followed the path of liberalisation and repositioned itself as a global actor (Kukreja, Citation2020).The construction of the global interconnected digital economy with the flow of digital goods and services and an acceleration of digitization during the Covid years creating greater level of digital interconnectivity and digital trade (‘digitalization’).The development of global ‘transnational’ corporations often larger than all but the largest countries with a new ruling elite with more power than most smaller nation-states (‘transnationalization’).The narrative reconstruction of the Global South and rising levels of South-South cooperation with the development of G77 countries no longer seen as ‘passive receivers’ of Global North international aid, structural adjustment policies and increasing levels of structural indebtedness (‘new Global South activism’).G77 and BRICs as increasingly influential blocs within the UN and international system.The growth, expansion and institutionalization of world agencies and NGOs based on traditional liberal international order, including the UN and the UN Family of Organizations,Footnote13 some 16 autonomous organizations linked to the UN (eg. FAO, IAEA, ILO, IMF, UNESCO, WHO, WTO, WB) (‘liberal international architecture’).The regionalization of territories for reasons of trade and security including EU, NATO, SCO, RCEP, APEC, ASEAN, Quad, AUKUS etc. (‘regionalization’).The appalling fact that ‘the 26 richest people in the world hold as much wealth as half the global population’ in a world where ‘multiple inequalities intersect and reinforce each other across the generations’ and where ‘the world’s richest 1 per cent captured 27 per cent of the total cumulative growth in income’ in the period 1980–2016 demonstrates the world structural inequalities that need urgent attention at a time when both the planet and humanity are striving for survival in the face of multiple challenges (Guterres, Citation2020).Michael A. Peters-Beijing Normal University, Beijing, P.R. China-mpeters@waikato.ac.nz-Disclosure statement-No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes-1 https://www.morganstanley.com.au/ideas/five-reasons-for-the-trend-towards-multipolarity-2 https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/china-and-multipolarity-3 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/multipolar-world-faces-american-resistance-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2016-12?utm_term=&utm_campaign=&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=1220154768&hsa_cam=12374283753&hsa_grp=117511853986&hsa_ad=499567080225&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=aud-1249316001557%3Adsa959388920&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1vSZBhDuARIsAKZlijSk73gYc79kC6QA4nTveUJJi6WjIVKozyeZ5_G5x2KffjUUI-4EKigaAoZLEALw_wcB4 https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/01/08/multipolarity-in-practice-understanding-russia-s-engagement-with-regional-institutions-pub-807175 http://www.lawinfochina.com/display.aspx?id=8215&lib=tax&SearchKeyword=&SearchCKeyword=6 https://crescent.icit-digital.org/articles/the-structure-of-multipolar-world-order7 https://www.adb.org/countries/indonesia/economy-8 https://www.economistgroup.com/group-news/economist-intelligence/democracy-index-2021-less-than-half-the-world-lives-in-a-democracy-9 https://infobrics.org/page/history-of-brics-10 https://www.g77.org/11 https://www.g77.org/costis/documents/COSTIS_Final_Print.pdf-12 http://eng.sectsco.org/secretariat/-13 https://www.un.org/en/model-united-nations/un-familyrganizationsReferences-Borell, J. 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Europe's Ariane 6 rocket successfully launches for first time-By Mathieu Rabechault with Daniel Lawler in Paris.
Kourou (AFP) July 10, 2024-Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket successfully blasted off for the first time on Tuesday, releasing satellites into orbit and restoring the continent's independent access to space.European space efforts have suffered a series of blows, including four years of delays to Ariane 6, that have robbed the continent of its own way to launch missions into space for the past year.But with the successful inaugural flight of Europe's most powerful rocket yet, European space chiefs were keen to move on from recent setbacks."It's a historic day for Europe," European Space Agency head Josef Aschbacher said."Europe is back," announced Philippe Baptiste, head of France's CNES space agency.Surrounded by jungle on the South American coast, the rocket launched from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at 4 pm local time (1900 GMT).Initially delayed for an hour by a small problem that was noticed in the morning, the rocket lifted off into clear skies.The mission faced a slight setback as the rocket deviated from its trajectory towards the end of the flight, failing to carry out its planned re-entry into the earth's atmosphere and landing in the Pacific.But that did not dampen the spirits of European space chiefs, whose objective was to put satellites into orbit."It's a great success despite the slight disappointment" at the end, said Walther Pelzer, head of Germany's DLR space agency.- 'Not yet complete' -The crew in the Jupiter control room, located 17 kilometres (10 miles) from the launch site, portrayed calm at first.Then head of operations Raymond Boyce announced "propulsion nominal", meaning that the launch was going as planned.Applause rang out in the room.Even louder applause came a little over an hour later when the rocket successfully delivered microsatellites into orbit.NASA chief Bill Nelson on X welcomed the "giant leap forward" for the ESA.But Martin Sion, the CEO of the rocket's manufacturer ArianeGroup, emphasised that "the mission is not yet complete".It will only be fully completed when the reusable Vinci engine in the rocket's upper stage has fallen back into Earth's atmosphere.That was expected around three hours after liftoff.- 'Magical' -When it launched, Ariane 6 carried with it the hopes of European sovereignty in space.Since the last flight of its workhorse predecessor, Ariane 5, a year ago, Europe has had to rely on rivals such as Elon Musk's US firm SpaceX.Selected by the ESA back in 2014, Ariane 6 will able to place satellites in geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometres above Earth, as well as satellite constellations a few hundreds of kilometres up.The first flight was carrying a payload of university microsatellites, various experiments and two atmospheric re-entry capsules that will be jettisoned near the end of the mission.The last of three ignitions of the Vinci engine will be to shoot the Vinci engine back down into the Pacific Ocean, so it does not contribute to the space debris cluttering Earth's orbit.Successful inaugural flights are by no means guaranteed.Historically, nearly half of the first launches of new rockets have ended in failure. That includes Ariane 5, which exploded moments after liftoff in 1996.But out of 117 launches over nearly 20 years, only one other Ariane 5 flight completely failed.On the other side of the world, thousands of people in the French city of Toulouse watched the lift-off on a big screen while sitting on a lawn at the Cite de l'Espace museum.Catherine Gerard, 56, said she was delighted to witness "something a bit magical".- Skyrocketing competition -Space has become big business and competition is soaring, particularly from SpaceX's fully re-usable Falcon 9 rockets, which now launch around twice a week.Yet Europe has recently found itself without an independent way to give lucrative satellites a ride into space.Russia pulled its Soyuz rockets, long used for European launches at Kourou, after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.Later that year, Europe's Vega-C light launcher was grounded after a launch failure. Ariane 6 delays compounded the crisis.After months of analysing the rocket's inaugural launch, a first commercial flight is expected before the end of the year.The next challenge will be to "successfully ramp up" the number of flights, ESA space transportation director Toni Tolker-Nielsen said.Six launches are scheduled for next year, and eight for 2026.The rocket has an order book of 29 missions, many of which are to deploy some of Amazon's Kuiper constellation of internet satellites.But just weeks before the launch, the programme suffered a surprise setback. Europe's weather satellite operator EUMETSAT cancelled plans to use Ariane 6 in favour of SpaceX's Falcon 9, citing "exceptional circumstances".ESA chief Josef Aschbacher said the European operator's decision to ditch the European rocket was "difficult to understand".
Lockheed Martin Secures $4.6 Million DARPA Contract for AI Development-The new DARPA program will leverage AI/ML technology to support dynamic, airborne missions-by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jul 09, 2024-Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) has received a $4.6 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to create AI tools for dynamic, airborne missions under the Artificial Intelligence Reinforcements (AIR) program. This initiative aims to develop advanced Modeling and Simulation (M&S) approaches and dominant AI agents for live, multi-ship, beyond visual range (BVR) missions, emphasizing the importance of investing in new technologies for national security and customer needs.The DARPA AIR program seeks to enhance the speed and predictive capabilities of government-provided baseline models, aligning them more closely with the performance of Department of Defense systems in real-world scenarios. Over the 18-month project, Lockheed Martin will utilize AI and Machine Learning (ML) techniques to develop surrogate models of aircraft, sensors, electronic warfare, and weapons in dynamic and operationally realistic environments."In complex airborne missions, our customers need access to advanced technologies that connect critical systems quickly across all domains. The DARPA AIR program will use state-of-the-art scientific ML technology and Lockheed Martin's ARISE infrastructure to deliver unprecedented amounts of data that service members can use to make faster and more informed decisions," said Gaylia Campbell, vice president of Engineering and Technology for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control."This will provide significant cost savings opportunities for the Department of Defense and serve as a foundation for future AI defense solutions, ensuring the U.S. and its allies maintain their competitive advantage no matter the circumstances."
Spire Global Secures CA 1.41 Million Canadian Government Contract for Ship Tracking-by Robert Schreiber.
Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jul 09, 2024-Spire Global, Inc. (NYSE: SPIR), a leader in space-based data, analytics, and space services, has been awarded a CA $1.41 million contract by the Government of Canada (GoC) to provide global automatic identification system (AIS) ship tracking data. The one-year agreement includes options for two additional years, potentially increasing the total value to nearly CA $4.23 million."We are proud to continue our partnership with the Government of Canada, providing them with our AIS data services to gain unrivaled coverage of the open ocean and shores," said John Lusk, general manager of maritime, Spire. "This contract reflects the trust that government agencies worldwide place in our technology and our commitment to delivering reliable, near real-time data that meets their stringent requirements."Under the contract, Spire will supply real-time global ship tracking data, offering comprehensive visibility in both open oceans and high-traffic areas. The company will also provide historical AIS data and AIS position validation capabilities, utilizing its expertise in radio frequency geolocation to accurately determine a ship's location even if its signal is tampered with.The data will support various Canadian government agencies and departments, including the Canadian Space Agency, the Department of National Defense, Transport Canada, and the Canadian Coast Guard. Spire tracks the highest volume of AIS messages via satellite.
NATO leaders express 'profound concern' over China-Russia ties.
Washington, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024-NATO leaders on Wednesday said China's deepening ties with Russia are a cause of "deep concern" and accused Beijing of playing a key role in helping Moscow's assault on Ukraine.China "has become a decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine through its so-called 'no limits' partnership and its large-scale support for Russia's defense industrial base," NATO leaders said in a declaration from their summit in Washington.NATO leaders urged China "to cease all material and political support to Russia's war effort.""This includes the transfer of dual-use materials, such as weapons components, equipment, and raw materials that serve as inputs for Russia's defense sector," the declaration said.China "cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation," the alliance said.The statement came before the leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea are set to attend the NATO summit on Thursday.Washington represents the third year in a row that leaders from the four Asia-Pacific partners will be at a NATO summit.Beijing has already angrily rejected the accusations from NATO, and says the US-led alliance is seeking an excuse to expand its influence eastwards.The United States has been pushing its European allies for years to pay closer attention to the threats posed by China."I think the message sent from NATO from this summit is very strong and very clear, and we are clearly defining China's responsibility when it comes to enabling Russia's war," NATO's outgoing Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
Spain PM at NATO summit rejects 'double standards' on Gaza.
Washington, July 10 (AFP) Jul 10, 2024-Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday urged the West to reject "double standards" regarding the conflict in Gaza as he joined NATO leaders in supporting Ukraine.Spain under Sanchez has infuriated Israel's right-wing government by recognizing a Palestinian state and criticizing Israel's conduct of its war against Hamas."If we are telling our people that we are supporting Ukraine because we are defending the international law, this is the same to what we have to do towards Gaza," he said at NATO's 75th anniversary summit in Washington.The socialist leader said there should be a "consistent political position" in which "we don't have double standards."Sanchez said the world needed to press to "stop this terrible humanitarian crisis" affecting the Palestinians and called for an international peace conference to push for a Palestinian state."We need to create the conditions for an immediate and urgent ceasefire," he said. "There is a real risk of escalation to Lebanon."Sanchez said he also supported "democracy, freedom and the right to exist of a country such as Ukraine."NATO leaders at the summit issued a declaration that said Kyiv was on an "irreversible" path to join the alliance.
