UK cargo ship sinking in Red Sea after Houthi attack
NewsFeed A UK-registered cargo ship can be seen partially submerged in the Red Sea after it was hit in an attack by Yemen’s Houthis. Published On 28 Feb 202428 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
China lauds Russia relations and calls for strengthened Asia-Pacific role
Beijing official said relations with Moscow are at an historic high. China has heralded historically strong relations with Russia as it called for the pair to coordinate on security, stability and development in the Asia-Pacific region. China and Russia should play a “better role as an anchor of stability in the changing circumstances of the century,” the foreign ministry in Beijing said in a statement issued on Wednesday following a visit to Moscow by Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong. Although wary of damaging ties with the West, Beijing has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and relations between the two BRICS states have remained warm amid the war. Sun said in the statement that “under the strategic guidance of President Xi Jinping and President Putin … relations between the two countries are at the best period in history”. Suspicion Such statements will do little to quell suspicion in the West, which has viewed Moscow and Beijing with increased anxiety over the past two years as they ramp up ties in trade and defence. Beijing has responded with anger as Chinese companies have been blacklisted by the United States and European Union for their role in helping Russia evade trade sanctions. Moscow has looked to Beijing as a crucial economic lifeline amid the sanctions, while China has benefitted from cheap energy imports and access to vast natural resources. At the same time, China’s interest in Russia’s sparsely populated, resource-rich, far-eastern region has long been viewed with some concern in Moscow, which sits 11 time zones westwards. Sun stressed Chinese hopes of deepening “coordination” in the Asia-Pacific region, extolling the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a Eurasian political, economic, international security and defence organisation established in 2001. “Both sides should promote the SCO to better play its role as a ‘stabilizing anchor’ in the century-old changes, strengthen communication and coordination in Asia-Pacific regional affairs, and jointly safeguard regional security, stability and development,” he said. During his trip to the Russian capital, the Chinese official also exchanged views with Moscow’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on the Ukraine crisis, the situation on the Korean peninsula, and other international and regional matters, the statement noted, without offering details. Separately, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said on Wednesday that its special representative for Eurasian affairs will tour Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Germany and France in early March to promote a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. Adblock test (Why?)
Apple parks electric car project
As enthusiasm for the tech wanes, markets approve of company’s decision to shift employees to burgeoning AI sector. US tech giant Apple has reportedly pulled the plug on its electric car project after a decade of investment into the technology, devoting more resources to artificial intelligence (AI). The halt on the decade-old project, which was reported on Tuesday and will see employees shifted to the firm’s AI division, was welcomed by markets. Apple kicked off Project Titan 10 years ago, at a time when the promise of self-driving vehicles was all the rage in Silicon Valley. It originally said it hoped to release a self-driving vehicle as early as 2024. But the project got stuck in the slow lane, hampered by factors including the COVID-19 pandemic. Billions were reportedly sunk into research and development but plans to create a radical, autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel were scaled down to focus on a more conventional car with advanced driver-assistance features. The company laid off 190 workers from the group in 2019. Apple is not alone. Several leading automakers, including electric vehicle (EV) market leader Tesla, have decided to pull back on investments, with some shifting plans to focus on hybrids instead of fully battery-powered cars. Tesla has projected slumping sales this year. Billionaire Elon Musk, who leads Tesla, greeted the news of Project Titan’s demise with a tweet featuring emojis of a salute and a cigarette. 🫡 🚬 https://t.co/f5wn0y95gx — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 27, 2024 The sector has struggled to flourish in a sluggish global economy. High interest rates have increased the cost of borrowing, leading to a slowdown in demand for usually pricier electric vehicles, prompting the industry as a whole to cut jobs and reduce production. Adblock test (Why?)
Fishy business: After Russia invaded Ukraine, its seafood industry thrived
After Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the West’s reaction was swift and decisive, with unanimous decisions by the European Union and the United States to support Ukraine and punish Russia with economic sanctions. Two years on, the war continues while Russia’s economy remains resilient. “Sanctions work. And there is hardly any alternative that would work more effectively. But they are not working at full capacity,” Agiya Zagrebelska, a department manager at the Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention, told Al Jazeera. While parts of the Russian industry were sanctioned immediately, some important industries were not. The Russian fishing industry was only partially blocked by Washington and marginally by the European bloc, which continues to import about $1bn worth of seafood from its aggressive neighbour. “Are the lives of a few hundred Ukrainians worth a crab or salmon?” said Zagrebelska. Since February 2022, when the invasion started, the EU has passed 13 sanction packages on Russia targeting President Vladimir Putin and people close to him, Russian banks, media companies, political parties and paramilitary groups. However, the European sanctions excluded most food products from Russia. The bulk of Russia’s billion-dollar seafood business, such as Alaskan pollock or cod, kept flooding EU and US fish markets and restaurants. The US included Russian seafood in sanctions in March 2022. And late last year, the government issued an executive order, taking additional steps by banning any Russian-origin seafood that had been incorporated or substantially transformed into another product in a third country. The new sanctions aimed at closing loopholes. With Russia was unable to export its seafood directly to the US, it sent ships to South Korea or China for processing. According to Stephanie Madsen, the head of the US-based At-Sea Processors Association, Russian fish made it through EU and US borders ultimately in disguise, under another country’s label. Madsen testified in front of the US Congress that Russian fish exports also directly funded Moscow’s war in Ukraine. In 2023, newly-added Russian fish export duties and $3.97bn from auctions distributing pollock and crab fishing quota reportedly went to support Putin’s warfare. “The majority of American consumers do not support the war in Ukraine,” said Sally Yozell, the director of the environmental security programme at the Stimson Center, a think tank. “I think they would feel very uncomfortable if they thought that their fish sticks that they’re eating at home or the [fish] sandwich that they’re eating at lunch was made up of Russian pollock that was supporting the Russian regime in its war against Ukraine.” Fish laundering Even if fish sanctions are in place, ensuring the fish does not enter European or US markets can be difficult because seafood is not always easily traceable. One representative from the Environmental Justice Foundation, a United Kingdom NGO, said that “many EU member states do very little verification of seafood imports, providing opportunities for the products of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing to enter the EU market”. Yozell said, regarding the US system, that mandatory catch licenses showing where the fish is coming from are easily manipulable PDF files. She added that while the US has been monitoring illegally-harvested seafood that enters the US market through the Seafood Import Monitoring Program since 2018, the scheme only focuses on 13 species and does not include some of the Russian seafood that enters the US market like pollock and halibut. That means that even in the US, where Russian seafood is directly banned, the fish served in restaurants or sold in supermarkets might be supporting the Russian economy. The result is that the EU imports about 740,000 tonnes of Alaskan pollock, a third of which comes directly from Russia, while another third gets it from China, of which 95 percent is of Russian origin, said Guus Pastoor, the president of the EU Fish Processors and Traders Association (AIPCE). In 2022, Russia ramped up its fish exports to the EU – despite tensions over the war in Ukraine, Russia’s Kommersant daily reported, citing trade data. Volumes increased by 18 percent that year, and by another 13 percent in 2023, reaching an all-time high. Before reaching Western markets, many Russian catches make a pit stop at the Busan harbour in South Korea, one of the world’s biggest shipping ports. Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the port has seen significant increases in Russian seafood. Data obtained for this investigation, in part from the Environmental Justice Foundation, shows that the Russian side of the harbour has been busier than ever. The numbers are staggering. For example, in 2021, no halibut – a highly-priced white-fleshed fish often caught in the Russian/Norwegian Barents Sea – was brought into the Busan harbour by Russian vessels. But in 2023, after the war started, the harbour imported more than 11,000 tonnes. While some of that fish might end up in the South Korean market, halibut exports from Korea to the US and China increased significantly in the same year. In 2023, South Korea imported 213,000 tonnes of seafood from Russia, compared with 439,000 in 2022 and 185,000 in 2020. Korean exports of fish to Europe and the US surged. From 2021 to 2022, exports of frozen herring to the US increased by 99 percent, while fillet exports to Germany skyrocketed by 541 percent. For most of the war, as well as being exempt from sanctions, Russian seafood producers enjoyed some privileges. Some fish arrived in the EU free of duties or at a reduced tariff. In January 2024, the Council of the European Union ended these perks. But not everyone was happy about the increased tariffs on Russian fish. “This, of course, will mean that the price [of fish] will go up because these tariffs are calculated into the final price for the consumer,” said Guus Pastoor, the president of the EU Fish Processors and Traders Association. “We understand the political reasons behind this but we think it sets a dangerous precedent.” Back in Ukraine, Zagrebelska is working around the clock to campaign for stricter sanctions.
Brazil’s Fordlandia: Tracing the roots of Amazon deforestation
Aveiro, Brazil – The flames roared higher than a hundred feet, sending smoke billowing across the jungle. Boars scattered from the underbrush. Toucans shot from the trees. And thousands of acres of Amazon rainforest soon crumbled into ash. It was 1928, and a vast stretch of land in north-central Brazil was being cleared for a monumental undertaking: Fordlandia, a $20m city dreamed up by the richest man in the world at the time, American industrialist Henry Ford. From the charred earth rose a hospital, a cinema, schools and bungalows. A golf and tennis courts were built for the arriving Americans to feel at home. The sawmill and factory floors, meanwhile, were the purview of the local workers. But over the past eight decades, Fordlandia has lain largely abandoned, slowly falling into disrepair. Still, smoke continues to hang in the air, as Brazil contends with an ongoing legacy of deforestation and fortune-seeking in its world-renowned rainforest. About 2,000 people remain residents of Ford’s utopian experiment, a decaying reminder of the ambitions that shape the forest. Plagued by poverty, these residents find themselves caught between competing pressures: to protect the environment that surrounds them — or exploit it to make ends meet. “Yes, I deforest. How else am I going to farm?” said Sadir Moata, a 31-year-old resident of the area. A muscular farmer with dark, bushy eyebrows, Moata took it upon himself to rehabilitate one of Fordlandia’s larger houses, originally intended for American expats. He mucked out the bat droppings and tamed the overgrowth in the garden so that his father could use it as a home. But his income from farming is meagre, and clearing the land through fire allows him to grow more crops. “I get 600 reals [$120 per month] from a government programme. There’s me, my wife, two children and a brother who eats with us. What kind of life am I going to have with 600 reals?” But experts, advocates and other residents warn that the cost of Amazon deforestation will inevitably be higher than any gains. Adblock test (Why?)
Thousands of artists call for Israel’s exclusion from Venice Biennale
Art Not Genocide Alliance says that any works that represent Israel are an ‘endorsement of its genocidal policies’ in Gaza. Thousands of artists, curators and museum directors have called for Israel to be excluded from this year’s Venice Biennale art fair and accused the exhibition of “platforming a genocidal apartheid state”. Israel has been facing mounting international criticism, including in the art world, over its military offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians since October 7. The Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) said the Biennale – a major international art exhibition – had two years ago banned anyone linked to the Russian government following the invasion of Ukraine, but not taken action against Israel as it continues its war on Gaza. “The Biennale has been silent about Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians. We are appalled by this double standard,” ANGA said in an online letter that had been signed by more than 12,500 people as of Tuesday. It said the Biennale had also previously banned South Africa under its system of apartheid and white minority rule and pointed to the fact that leading human rights groups today deem Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands “a cruel system of apartheid and a crime against humanity”. “Platforming art representing a state engaged in ongoing atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza is unacceptable,” the international collective of artists and cultural workers said. It called “any official representation of Israel on the international cultural stage” and “any work that officially represents the state of Israel” an “endorsement of its genocidal policies”. Israel rejects any accusation that its actions amount to genocide. The International Court of Justice has found that it is “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and ordered Israel to take all possible measures to prevent genocide. ‘Shameful’ Italy’s culture minister condemned the ANGA letter as “unacceptable” and “shameful”, saying it “threatens freedom of thought and creative expression”. “Israel does not only have the right to express its art, but has the duty to bear witness to its people at a moment like this, when it has been hit by surprise by merciless terrorists,” Gennaro Sangiuliano said in a statement. Palestinian group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,139 people, mostly civilians, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on official Israeli figures. Israel responded with a relentless bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza. More than 29,000 people have been killed in the Israeli assault, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Sangiuliano said that the Biennale, set to begin on April 20, “will always be a space of freedom, of meetings and dialogue, and not a space of censorship and intolerance”. ANGA said: “Art does not happen in a vacuum (let alone a “pocket”), and cannot transcend reality.” “There is no free expression for the Palestinian poets, artists, and writers murdered, silenced, imprisoned, tortured, and prevented from travelling abroad or internally by Israel. There is no free expression in the Palestinian theatres and literary festivals shut down by Israel. There is no free expression in the museums, archives, publications, libraries, universities, schools, and homes of Gaza bombed to rubble by Israel. There is no free expression in the war crime of cultural genocide,” it said. Signatories of the appeal include Palestine Museum US Director Faisal Saleh, activist US photographer Nan Goldin and British visual artist Jesse Darling, who won last year’s Turner Prize. Dubbed the “Olympics of the art world”, the Biennale is one of the main events in the international arts calendar. This year’s edition, “Foreigners Everywhere”, is due to host pavilions from 90 countries between April 20 and November 24. Adblock test (Why?)
US burger chain Wendy’s plans to test ‘surge pricing’ next year
Company to try raising and lowering prices throughout the day based on demand, prompting backlash. Wendy’s, a United States fast food chain, is looking to test having the prices of its menu items fluctuate throughout the day based on demand, a strategy that has already taken hold with ride-sharing companies and ticket sellers. During a conference call this month, Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said the Dublin, Ohio-based burger chain will start testing dynamic pricing, also known as surge pricing, as early as next year. “Beginning as early as 2025, we will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing and daypart offerings along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling,” he said. “As we continue to show the benefit of this technology in our company-operated restaurants, franchisee interest in digital menu boards should increase, further supporting sales and profit growth across the system.” Wendy’s plans to invest about $20m to launch digital menu boards at all of its US company-run restaurants by the end of 2025. It also plans to invest about $10m over the next two years to support digital menu enhancements globally. Tanner, a longtime PepsiCo executive, became Wendy’s CEO this month. He succeeded Todd Penegor, who had served as Wendy’s president and CEO since 2016. Last year, Penegor announced a restructuring intended to speed decision-making and invest more in new restaurant development, particularly overseas. The chain and its franchisees operate about 7,000 restaurants worldwide. Shares of Wendy’s fell slightly in Tuesday morning trading as the move led to a backlash with the New York Post plastering the news across its front page, calling it “inflation’s next frontier”. On the social media website X, previously known as Twitter, many users rounded on Wendy’s with some saying they would not be eating from the burger chain again. “Surge pricing works for Uber because they’re about the only choice. You’re not. Rest assured I won’t be returning to your restaurant … if this is something you move forward with,” one user said. “Bye, Wendy’s,” another said. “Predatory pricing isn’t an option for commodity fast food.” Adblock test (Why?)
Palestinian singer running to represent Iceland at Eurovision contest
Bashar Murad said he wants to use his song to ‘illustrate’ the difficulties Palestinians face in order to be heard. Palestinian pop singer Bashar Murad is hoping to represent Iceland at the Eurovision Song Contest in May and bring “a Palestinian voice to the main stage”. Iceland is expected to pick its contestant on Saturday for the annual song competition, which is being held in the Swedish city of Malmo. Murad is competing in the national final with a song co-written by Einar Stefansson of the Icelandic band Hatari, known for raising a banner showing Palestinian flags during the 2019 Eurovision Contest. While the competition bills itself as a non-political event and can disqualify those it considers to be in breach of the rule, the global political backdrop frequently weighs in on decisions. In 2022, Russia was banned from participating in the contest after several countries called for its removal due to its invasion of Ukraine. In light of the war in Gaza, some artists have called on the competition organisers to also exclude Israel from the competition. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises the competition, said last week that they were scrutinising the lyrics of Israel’s song submission for possible references to the October 7 Hamas attack, which would go against the rules of the competition. Israel has threatened to drop out of the competition if its song, Eden Golan’s, October Rain, is rejected. Protesters take part in a demonstration organised by ‘Together for Palestine’ to demand a ceasefire and exclude Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest, in Stockholm, Sweden, February 17, 2024 [TT News Agency/Fredrik Persson via Reuters] But in Iceland’s domestic qualification, singers of any nationality can participate if they sing their song in the first semifinal in Icelandic. Murad, who was born in and lives in occupied East Jerusalem, said it was difficult to learn the song in Icelandic, but he found some similarities to Arabic. His entry, Wild West, tells the story of challenging boundaries and chasing dreams against all odds. “I wanted to illustrate how many obstacles as Palestinians we have to go through in order to be heard … we’re excluded from every mainstream platform,” he said. “Everyone has theories about my participation. And everyone is politicising my existence when I’m really just a human who had a dream and applied for this competition fair and square.” When asked if Murad wants Israel to participate in the competition, he said, “Of course, I don’t want my occupier to be there.” “But my main focus right now is to be able to bring, for the first time in history, a Palestinian voice to the main stage.” Israel has won the competition four times and sees the contest as a barometer of its standing internationally. Adblock test (Why?)
American Muslims helped Biden win in 2020. Will they abandon him now?
In 2020, Joe Biden won the state of Michigan by a much closer margin over then-incumbent President Donald Trump than the polls and pundits had predicted: just more than 150,000 votes. Two partly overlapping sets of voters helped tip Biden over the line in Michigan and other vital swing states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin: Muslim Americans and Arab Americans. Now, four years later, as Biden and Trump head towards a rematch in November, the current Democratic Party incumbent faces the mounting prospects of a backlash from those very same voters, many of whom are seeking to bleed his re-election bid. Growing outrage over Washington’s support for Israel in its unprecedented bombardment of Gaza is many prompting Arab-American and Muslim voters to declare that they intend to stay away from the polls. As the US continues military funding for Tel Aviv, the number of Palestinians killed in the war on Gaza has risen to nearly 30,000 since October 7, many of them children. In Michigan, where early primaries begin this week, one-time Biden voters have promised to send his administration a strong message by sabotaging the elections, even as the president’s aides have scrambled to meet and mend broken ties with community leaders. Here’s what American Arab and Muslim communities want, why the two voting blocs are important for Biden, and the parts of the US where they are most influential: Residents of Detroit and the Arab Community of Dearborn march in support of Palestinians on October 14, 2023, in Dearborn, Michigan [Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images via AFP] What are Arab Americans demanding? Arab and Muslim communities say they’ve called on the Biden administration to speak up and halt the killings in Gaza with no results. Some are Palestinians with families and friends in the besieged strip. These communities have diverse demands, the main ones being that: The US support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and work to see Palestinian political prisoners, as well as Israeli captives, freed. Washington stops military funding to Israel. The US pushes for sufficient aid to Palestinians and resumes paused humanitarian funding to UNRWA, the UN aid agency under investigation amid accusations its staff members took part in Hamas’s October 7 attacks when 1,200 Israelis were killed. The US government do more to fight rising anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian hate. However, many say they’re not being heard and that Washington’s stance is particularly painful because of how they’ve supported Biden in the past. Communities in Dearborn, Detroit, and other major cities with significant Arab-American populations have successfully lobbied their local council leaders to pass unilateral resolutions for a ceasefire in Gaza. While the local laws do not weigh on US foreign policy, Mai El-Sadany, director of the DC-based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP) told Al Jazeera that local resolutions are symbolic and are pointers to the concerns and priorities of American citizens. “These spaces provide a platform for citizens to explain why this issue matters and how it affects them and their families,” El-Sadany said. “[Local councils] have the potential to be mobilising spaces to bring like-minded individuals together, to create a larger sense of urgency and pressure on policymakers who do have foreign policy influence to reconsider their approach.” What’s the ‘uncommitted’ option some voters want to go with? Some Arab-American voters are choosing to pull a no-show in state primaries, and – if Biden does not call for a ceasefire – at the November polls. Community leaders in Minnesota launched the #AbandonBiden campaign in October. Others say they plan to write “Free Palestine” on their unticked ballot papers. Still others, particularly in Michigan, are planning to turn out for the Democratic primaries — not to tick Biden’s name, but rather to choose the “uncommitted” option on ballots. The option signifies that voters support the party but are not attached to any of the listed candidates. An uncommitted vote will not count for Biden. At the same time, since Trump is not on the Democratic Party ballot, it will not count for him either. While there won’t be an uncommitted option in November in the general ballots, no-show votes and ballot papers not properly ticked from former Democratic Party supporters could reduce the vote count for Biden. Lexis Zeidan of Listen to Michigan, a group that has organised call-a-thons to get thousands of “uncommitted” Michigan voters on board, told Al Jazeera the effort was “to put President Biden on notice” after protests had failed to change the White House’s stance on Gaza. “You can’t weaponise this whole notion that because you’re not Republican, you’re the better party especially when you’re aiding a genocide and even more when you’re taking our taxes that could be reinvested in the communities that are suffering and you claim to care about,” said Zeidan, a Palestinian Christian who promises not to vote for Biden in November. The group is aiming for at least 10,000 people to vote uncommitted in the primaries, the same number of votes that helped Trump win Michigan in the 2016 elections, over Hillary Clinton. “For us, at the minimum, that’s the margin of votes that we can showcase that we are able to swing Michigan in any direction,” she said. Some 30 elected state leaders in Michigan have joined the movement, including Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the US Congress. Dearborn city mayor Abdullah Hammoud in a New York Times opinion confirmed that he’d vote ‘uncommitted’ in the primaries, saying that in doing so, he was choosing “hope that Mr. Biden will listen”. Which states are Arab-American voting strongholds? There are approximately 3.5 million Arab Americans according to the Arab American Institute, making up around 1 percent of the US population. About 65 percent are Christians, approximately 30 percent are Muslim, and a small number practise Judaism. While these groups tend to vote based on varying interests, “there’s almost unanimous consensus on the need for a Gaza ceasefire,” said Youssef Chouhoud, a race and religion researcher with Virginia’s Christopher Newmark University (CNU). Dearborn,
Kharkiv’s metro stations are housing schools
NewsFeed Children in Kharkiv are now being taught in underground schools inside metro stations, to stay safe from Russian airstrikes. The Ukrainian city has been one of Russia’s main bombing targets since the war began. Published On 27 Feb 202427 Feb 2024 Adblock test (Why?)