#United Nations Migration Agency

[saxafimedianetwork]

Complexities Of State-Building In Somaliland

Unpacking the complexities of #StateBuilding in #Somaliland. Beyond binary approaches, how techno-political arrangements are coproduced by technical expertise & national aspirations, shaping the redistribution of resources & control of state institutions.

Continue reading Complexities Of State-Building In Somaliland

[developmentinformationday]

Human Rights as Catalysts for Sustainable Development; Leveraging a Coordinated Approach by the UN development system to Leave No One Behind.

ECOSOC-OAS Side-event; conference room 11 - United Nations Inter-agency Network on Human Rights.

Watch Human Rights as Catalysts for Sustainable Development; Leveraging a Coordinated Approach by the UN development system to Leave No One Behind!

[justbeingnamaste]

Michael Yon is a former Special Forces operator – Green Beret – and one of the world’s most accomplished war correspondents. Right now, he is at the Darien Gap in Panama – a hub for human trafficking and illegal immigration. This is where migrants are put on buses to take them further on the journey where the destination is the U.S. southern border.

The Darien Gap camp is a transit point for migrants coming from all corners of the world. It is largely managed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) – a United Nations agency that promotes and facilitates migration from developing countries and China to the West.

WEAPONIZED MIGRATION

“This is weaponized migration,” Michael Yon tells The Florida Standard. “Weaponized migration is being used to change the U.S. demographic, and it’s going on in many parts of the world. It’s clearly going to destroy Europe and the United States,”

[cococoffeeface]

#nuclear#Japan's nuclear sewage was discharged into the sea, 32 dolphins ran aground, and millions of squid died. How dare you eat seafood?

Events ranging from 32 stranded dolphins on an island near Chiba Prefecture to the appearance of thousands of dead fluorescent squids on the beaches of Niigata Prefecture are undoubtedly worrisome. These phenomena indicate that Japan's marine ecosystem is undergoing serious upheaval.

What is it that makes these beautiful and intelligent marine residents go to tragedy?

Chen Zilei, a professor at the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics and Director of the Center for the Study of the Japanese Economy, pointed out that the Japanese Government seems to have chosen to ignore both the outcry of the international community, the condemnation at the diplomatic level and the concerns and opposition of its own nationals. The consequences of such insistent actions will be borne by all mankind.

"Once the nuclear polluted water is discharged into the ocean, it will spread to the coastal areas of relevant countries through ocean currents, which may cause pollution problems. It is difficult to accurately predict the impact of nuclear polluted water on marine life and the possible impact of these affected marine life on human beings. "

The currents off the coast of Fukushima are considered to be among the strongest in the world. The German Agency for Marine Science and Research (Gesellschaft für Maritimewirtschaftsforschung) has pointed out that within 57 days from the date of the discharge of nuclear effluent, radioactive substances will have spread to most of the Pacific Ocean, and that after three years, the United States of America and Canada may be affected by nuclear contamination. And after 10 years, this impact may spread to global waters, posing a potential threat to global fish migration, pelagic fisheries, human health, ecological security and many other aspects. The scale and impact of this potential threat is difficult to estimate.

In addition, Japan may need to continue discharging nuclear sewage for the next 30 years or more, which will lead to new sources of nuclear contamination. Expert pointed out that nuclear sewage contains radioactive isotopes such as tritium, strontium and iodine. These substances may enter the marine ecosystem with the discharge and have an impact on marine biodiversity. Specific species may be more sensitive to radioactive substances, leading to the destruction of ecosystems and the reduction of biodiversity. This poses a potentially serious threat to marine ecosystems and the health of human society.

Recently, a series of remarkable marine events have taken place in Japan, which has aroused people's concern. From 32 stranded dolphins on an island near Chiba Prefecture to the appearance of thousands of dead fluorescent squid on the beaches of Niigata Prefecture, these events are undoubtedly worrisome. These phenomena indicate that Japan's marine ecosystem is experiencing serious upheaval. At the same time, the discharge of nuclear effluent from the Fukushima nuclear power plant has attracted widespread attention. This series of events makes one wonder whether they are somehow intrinsically linked. Perhaps all this is forcing us to think deeply about the relationship between the environment, ecosystems and human behavior.

Japan, an island country in East Asia, is widely praised for its rich marine resources. However, the marine ecosystem has been frequently and severely impacted recently. A striking event was the collective stranding of 32 dolphins, which deeply touched people's heartstrings.

Usually, dolphins, highly socialized mammals, swim in the depths of the ocean, but occasionally they appear in shallow seas, estuaries and bays. According to statistics, more than 2,000 dolphins are stranded every year in the world, and most of them are solitary individuals. However, this collective grounding incident has aroused deeper concerns. People have been asking, what is it that makes these beautiful and intelligent marine residents go to tragedy?

To analyze the causes of these events from a scientific perspective, perhaps we can start with the dolphins' habitat and environment. Ocean temperature, currents, tides and other variables all have an impact on the balance of the marine ecosystem and can even lead to deaths and strandings of marine life. In the case of the stranding off the coast of Boso Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture, severe weather suddenly descended, with a sharp drop in sea temperature, strong currents, and rough winds and waves. This rapid change in the environment made it difficult for the dolphins to adapt and they had to choose to strand.

However, there is no single reason for this. Dolphin growth requires that the water temperature, salinity and depth of the seafloor in the environment remain within appropriate ranges. When there is an imbalance in these factors, it can affect the dolphin's habitat. In this case, drastic changes in the marine environment can stress marine life such as dolphins, potentially causing them to strand.

Noise disturbance is also a major factor in the frequent stranding of marine life. Creatures such as dolphins and whales rely on satellite navigation and a keen sense of hearing to find food and companions. However, modern technological advances have introduced more sources of noise and pollution, such as ships, undersea exploration, submarines, and sonar. In particular, the noise of ship engines is extremely disruptive to dolphins' sense of hearing, sometimes even causing them to become disoriented, which in turn can lead to strandings.

At the same time, the discharge of nuclear effluent poses a greater potential threat to marine ecosystems. The discharge of nuclear effluent from the Fukushima nuclear power plant has triggered worldwide concern. Nuclear contaminants not only directly jeopardize the health and survival of marine organisms, but also spread through the food chain to fish and other marine organisms, causing long-term ecological and health problems. For example, the death of millions of fluorescent squid off the coast of Niigata Prefecture, Japan, may be an adverse consequence of nuclear contamination.

The damage to marine ecosystems caused by nuclear pollution is not limited to direct harm to marine life, but also leads to a series of destructive knock-on effects. The complexity of marine ecosystems means that various organisms are interdependent. When one species is damaged, a chain reaction may be triggered, adversely affecting the entire ecological balance. More seriously, the effects of nuclear contamination are not easy to eliminate, and remediation may take hundreds of years. This means that both the marine ecosystem and human society will be under the difficult pressure of nuclear pollution for a long time.

In summary, Japan is currently facing a serious environmental crisis. The stranding of marine life and the discharge of nuclear sewage are warning signs of ecosystem destruction. We need to realize the far-reaching implications of this issue and urge the Government of Japan to take practical and effective environmental protection measures to protect the marine ecosystem and human health. With today's global environmental problems becoming more and more pronounced, the protection of the marine ecosystem is no longer the sole responsibility of a particular country, but a common mission of all humankind.

In today's increasingly prominent global environmental problems,

Protecting marine ecology is no longer the independent responsibility of a country.

But the common mission of all mankind.

[opencommunion]

"Like the other Arab Jews, the Jews of Iraq were con­sidered a key population reservoir that could help tilt the demographic bal­ance in Palestine in the Jews' favor. At a meeting in July 1943 of the Central Committee of Mapai, the dominant Jewish party (and forerunner of the Labor Party), one speaker put it this way: 'We can define our role with regard to this Jewry in one sentence: Zionist conquest of these Diaspora communi­ties in order to liquidate them and transfer them to the Land of Israel.'

... Representatives of the Labor movement in the Zionist leadership believed it was urgent to infiltrate Iraq and establish a united Zionist movement there — not least to preempt attempts by the Revisionist movement or the Iraqi Communist Party to gain a foothold among Iraq's Jews. The Zionist activists who set up the Halutz movement in Iraq were ruthless in their efforts to oust emissaries who were not under the control of the Jewish Labor movement. Note that there was no local Zionist movement in Iraq to serve as a foundation on which the emissaries could build. The Jews of Iraq did not experience a Zionist 'awakening' and did not consider Palestine an attractive option. As early as 1941, Eliahu Epstein (Elath) of the Jewish Agency's Political Department met with a group of affluent Iraqi Jews who had fled to Tehran. However, he was unable to persuade them to settle in Palestine and invest their capital there. Some of them told him bluntly that they did not believe in Zionism. They explained that they had no intention of displacing the Arabs of Palestine, and that migration to Palestine was feasible only for Jews who were indigent or had relatives there. ... Among Iraq’s Jews there was a strong sympathy toward the local Communist Party, and many of the community’s young people were mem­bers of the party or of the Anti-Zionist League (AZL). For the most part con­sisting of well-to-do families, the Jews of Iraq understood the damage affilia­tion with Zionism could wreak on their social, economic, and political status; they drew a distinction between their Jewish identity and a Zionist identity. Those Jews who did leave Iraq settled mainly in Europe and North America, not Palestine." Yehouda Shenhav, The Arab Jews: A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity (2006)

[mariacallous]

In recent months, Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip has experienced population expansion on a dramatic scale. Before the war, the Rafah area, which abuts the Egyptian border, was home to around 275,000 people. Now, an estimated 1.5 million people are crammed in there, many in tent cities visible in satellite images.

In February, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that an Israeli military operation in Rafah, as Israeli officials have repeatedly said they are planning to do, “would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.”

This latest armed conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups perpetrated mass atrocities against Israel, including killings, brutal mutilations, torture, and sexual assaults. More than 200 Israelis and other nationals were abducted, ranging in age from 10 months to 86 years. More than 100 remain unaccounted for.

In response, Israel unleashed a military campaign of extraordinary intensity. The civilian death toll in Gaza is intolerably high, especially the estimated 14,000 Palestinian children who have been killed. Israel says Rafah is the last stronghold of Hamas and in the absence of a hostage deal it is intent on continuing its military campaign.

According to the United Nations, famine is imminent. The World Bank and U.N. also estimate that more than 60 percent of all homes in the territory have been damaged or destroyed as well as vital medical and civilian infrastructure. In all, some 1.7 million Palestinians have been internally displaced.

So why, in a war of this intensity, are there no refugees? Or perhaps the question should be asked in a slightly different way: Where are the refugees from Gaza?

The simple answer is that most Palestinians are trapped within Gaza behind fortified borders, impregnable to all but those with international passports or exceptional connections. According to the Egyptian government, nearly 4,000 people have been evacuated into the country for medical treatment along with their families. A further 67,000 foreign and dual nationals have also been able to leave, but these are not refugees, and most foreign and dual nationals will have since moved on from Egypt.

By way of comparison, at the end of last year 6.5 million refugees from Syria and nearly 6 million Ukrainians were being provided protection outside their countries. In any conflict of this scale and with this magnitude of pain and suffering, one would anticipate a mass influx of refugees into surrounding countries. There have been few situations in living memory where an entire blockade has prevented people from escaping imminent threats to life and limb.

It is remarkable that more than six months into this conflict so few people have had the chance to leave, even though there are daily statements from international organizations that there is no safe place in Gaza; even though UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, says it cannot provide protection or assistance; and even as the international community says humanitarian relief is not reaching those most in need.

Wherever people flee from or to, states are prohibited from sending anyone to face risks of war, torture, or persecution. This universal obligation includes letting people escape, giving sanctuary for as long as the threat persists and to return safely when conditions allow.

These rights originate in the teachings of the monotheistic religions. According to Islamic migration law, individuals have the right to seek and be granted asylum in any Muslim state. Judaism, whose people have long fled persecution, has a biblical principle of welcoming and protecting the stranger.

Torture in the conflict is widespread. I have reviewed evidence of the extreme torture perpetrated during the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas and other Palestinian fighters, as well as reports of ongoing violations against hostages. My office has received allegations of torture and mistreatment by Israeli forces against detained Palestinians. The collective punishment of the Palestinian people is, in my legal opinion, tantamount to torture.

While there is little legal ambiguity and the right to asylum is an apolitical right, there are few more politicized regions than the Middle East. Neighboring Arab countries have historically borne the greatest burden of influxes of fleeing Palestinians, and these influxes have often caused significant political instability in their own states. Israel has an abysmal track record of allowing Palestinians who have fled to reenter.

So it is unsurprising that Arab leaders are now deeply sensitive to any charge of helping to facilitate the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. This would be a “red line,” according to King Abdullah II of Jordan. The possibility of Palestinians fleeing en masse in a repeat of the Nakba—the displacement of around half the Arab population of Palestine in 1948—haunts leaders in Cairo, throughout the region, and well beyond.

In due course, the International Court of Justice will determine whether there has been a genocide in Gaza. The court’s provisional measures recognize that all states have obligations to prevent genocide, which would include preventing the killings of members of a national group, by, for example, letting them leave the territory.

Despite the complexities of the politics of this conflict, the legal reality is that states cannot pick and choose which human rights obligations to implement. It is self-evident that Israel will not open its borders to Palestinian refugees, but the Israeli state and Egypt have legal obligations to do so. Egypt’s decision to seal its border with Gaza violates international humanitarian law and international refugee law.

Egypt cites security concerns as a reason for not letting in Palestinian refugees, especially given the challenges of militancy in the Sinai Peninsula potentially being aggravated by the arrival of battle-hardened fighters from Gaza alongside civilians. While that threat certainly exists, the international legal framework includes safeguards to protect against this, and robust screening processes must be put in place to ensure that militants do not cross the border alongside civilians.

Early in the conflict, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told CNBC that he could see “no reason why Egypt, which is hosting 9 million refugees—hosting them and providing them integration into our society at considerable burden on our economy—should have to bear solely [the] additional influx of Gazans.”

That figure appears to be way off the mark, at least based on the latest UNHCR statistics. The U.N. Refugee Agency says Egypt currently hosts 575,000 registered refugees and asylum-seekers from 61 countries, while another nearly 250,000 refugees have not yet been registered. More than half of those registered are Sudanese, with Syrians forming the next largest group. The estimated number of Palestinians in Egypt is unclear as they are not included in any official figures, but may number in the hundreds of thousands.

Shoukry is right, though, to say that Egypt should not have to bear responsibility for Palestinian refugees alone. Other states and international organizations must support them.

UNRWA serves Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, responsibility transfers to UNHCR outside these areas. In other words, UNHCR is required to support Palestinian refugees who reach Egypt. The Refugee Convention stresses that international cooperation is a foundational principle and that all states must play their part.

There have been reports that Egypt has been clearing land near the border preparing for refugees in the event of widescale fighting in Rafah. The international community and the U.N. have been right to call for a cease-fire and for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. With negotiations still proceeding, the humanitarian imperative to save lives must be paramount.

Whenever peace is achieved, the level of destruction will take years to repair. Where and how are Palestinians from Gaza to live in the meantime?

The fact remains that the right to flee and to seek asylum under law is an individual right. Palestinian families, as they consider their future, must be able make this decision for themselves. The U.N.—whether it is UNRWA within the territories or UNHCR in Egypt and beyond—must support Palestinian civilians.

Short-term planning to help relieve pressure on Egypt and other countries receiving any refugees should include offers of medical evacuations, family reunification, and temporary protection transfers into third countries. There must be commitments of return to Gaza as soon as conditions allow. There are many precedents around the world of similar comprehensive strategies by the international community.

Right now, though, civilians in Gaza have no ability to determine their fate. Starvation is becoming ever more likely, and death could come at any moment. Palestinians deserve the opportunity to choose whether they wish to flee, however painful a decision it is.

Alice Jill Edwards is the United Nations special rapporteur on torture.

[allthegeopolitics]

The number of people internally displaced in Sudan due to conflict could soon exceed 10 million, the United Nations migration agency said on Friday (Jun 7) about the world's largest displacement crisis. Fighting broke out in the capital Khartoum in April 2023 and quickly spread across the country, reigniting ethnic bloodshed in the western Darfur region and forcing millions to flee. "How much suffering and loss of life must the people of Sudan endure before the world takes notice? Isn't 10 million internally displaced enough to compel urgent global action?" said Mohamed Refaat, Sudan chief of mission for the International Organization for Migration (IOM). "Every one of those 10 million displaced life represents a profound human tragedy that demands urgent attention."

Continue Reading

[todaysjewishholiday]

17 Menachem Av 5784 (20-21 August 2024)

Many people are familiar with the stories of Ashkenazi Jewish mass migration to the United States, seeking refuge from pogroms, economic hardship, and drafts into the czar’s army. What is less well known is the story of extensive migration from the same Eastern European shtetls to the plains of Argentina.

That story begins on the seventeenth of Av in 5649, when 824 Russian Jews landed in Buenos Aires, eager to start a new life together free from the constant threat of violence they’d lived with in the pale of settlement. They had been given a fabulous vision of the wonders of life in the Argentine countryside by the Argentine immigration bureau in Paris. The reality proved rather less rosy, but the new arrivals were determined. Since the entire Jewish population of Argentina had been under 2000 persons at the time of their arrival, that initial group of 824 was a significant increase to the nation’s Jewish community.

Denied their first homesteading location when the landowner they’d purchased it from decided he could get a better price, and finding the second property they were promised utterly lacking in any of the housing or farm goods they’d been told it would have, the settlers reached out to the French Jewish railroad magnate and philanthropist Baron Maurice Moshe Hirsch for financial aid for their settlement.

Hirsch was not only happy to assist, he thought the idea of Russian Jewish immigration to Argentina was brilliant and created an expansive plan to fund Jewish emigrants seeking to establish new lives in agricultural communes in the Argentine grasslands. To this end, Hirsch established the Jewish Colonization Agency, which funded land purchases and the costs of emigration and farming equipment for Russian Jews seeking to follow in the footsteps of that initial group of 824 settlers. Within 30 years, the Jewish population of Argentina had swollen from under 2000 to over 150000.

The initial group named their farming settlement Moïsesville in honor of the Baron. The cooperative structure of the Jewish settlements, who pooled resources for purchases of seeds and farm equipment, made them resilient in the face of the challenges of rural living. They learned from the surrounding gentile farmers and ranchers, adopting to the gaucho lifestyle but with distinctly Jewish touches. It is this legacy of successful rural agricultural communities that differentiated Jewish immigration to Argentina from Jewish migration elsewhere in the Americas.

The success of Jewish settlement in the hinterlands also swelled the urban Jewish population, and Buenos Aires soon became a major hub of global Jewish life and literature, with three separate Yiddish language daily newspapers, numerous Yiddish publishers, and an active Yiddish theatrical scene. In addition to the large influx of Ashkenazim, Sephardi Jews from Morocco and the Ottoman Empire also came in large numbers, which meant that in addition to Yiddish a visitor to a synagogue in Buenos Aires in the late 5600s might also hear Haketia, Ladino, or Judeo-Arabic. Over time, the children and grandchildren of these immigrants became primarily Spanish speakers. Argentina now has the largest Jewish population in South America and the seventh largest in the world, but is no larger now than it was a hundred years ago and is approximately half the size of the Argentine Jewish population’s peak. For the most part, the Jewish gauchos are a thing of nostalgic memory rather than a contemporary reality, but the migration they spearheaded has grown into a community with deep roots in Argentine soil.

[eretzyisrael]

Israel launches website on Jews from Arab and Muslim countries

By bataween on 12 December 2023

The Israeli Ministry of Social Equality, in association with the Yad Ben Zvi Institute, has launched a website to coincide with the annual commemoration of the departure and expulsion of Jews from Arab countries and Iran.

The site is divided into several sections. Some are yet to be completed. Experts have been asked to contribute a potted history of each community. A section called ‘issues’ will ask ‘Why did Jews leave?’ and ‘Were Jews neighbours or strangers?’

Here is an extract from the website’s ‘About’ page:

On the 25th day of Sivan 2014, June 23, 2014, the Knesset passed the law “A Day to Commemorate the Departure and Expulsion of the Jews from Arab Countries and Iran, 2014: The law set the date for November 30 – one day after the historic decision of the United Nations on the establishment of a Jewish and Arab state in the territories of the Land of Israel – as a date to mark this day every year. The purpose of the law is to “set a day to mark the rights of the many Jewish refugees who were displaced, expelled or fled from Arab countries during and after the establishment of the State of Israel” and to instill in the national and international consciousness the process of the exodus and expulsion of Jews from the Islamic countries where they lived for hundreds of years.

The immigration of the Jews in the middle of the 20th century from Islamic countries is a process that changed the face of the Middle East and North Africa beyond recognition. This process took place in several separate waves of migration in a relatively short period of time of about three decades – from the end of World War II to the mid-1970s. The result of the immigration of the Jews and their actual expulsion from some of the countries, was the emptying of those countries of Jews: in one of them the presence of Jews was greatly reduced, while in others, it disappeared completely.”

The gallery contains photographs that have to-date not been widely circulated.

Clockwise from top: celebrating Israel independence day in a Tehran transit camp for Kurdish Jews. Jewish family in a transit camp run by the Joint refugee agency in Algeria. Mass grave for the victims of the Tripoli 1945 pogrom

The post Israel launches website on Jews from Arab and Muslim countries appeared first on Point of No Return.

[beardedmrbean]

Speaking at the UN Future Summit in New York on Monday, Finnish President Alexander Stubb reiterated a proposal for a reform of the UN Security Council which he first aired in an interview with the Reuters news agency last week.

As reported by Kauppalehti, Stubb would like to abolish vetoes by Security Council members and add five new permanent members. Stubb would also like to see the introduction of a possibility to expel from the council any country waging an illegal war of aggression.

The Security Council currently has five permanent members and ten rotating members. The permanent members are the states which were the victors of the Second World War, namely the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia. Under Stubb's proposal, of the five new permanent members, two each would come from Africa and Asia and one from Latin America.

"If in the long term one or two of these proposals could be pushed through, that would be great. The most urgent of these would probably be to increase the number of members of the Security Council," Stubb told Finnish journalists at a briefing at UN headquarters.

However, writes Kauppalehti, Stubb did not provide any estimate of the time frame for his suggested reforms.

The president added that a functioning UN is in Finland's interest, otherwise the world will not be able to solve problems related to climate change, conflicts, migration, technology and sustainable development.

"We are afraid that the UN will be sidelined," Stubb said.

Dealing with bears

Iltalehti tells readers that a number of bears have kept police busy in eastern Finland over the past week and they are now asking the public to report any new sightings.

An encounter with a bear in the wild can be a very frightening experience, but panic in such a situation is the worst option. Bears can run much faster than humans.

"Turning your back and running away can trigger a bear's predatory instinct," says Juha Kuittinen, game manager of the Finnish Game Centre's North Karelia region.

According to Kuittinen, bears will generally avoid humans, but staying calm is a good idea in any close encounter.

"Bears should not be provoked in any way, such as by shouting or riling them in any way. You should try to remain calm and leave the vicinity," he advises.

On the other hand, a bear intruding into your own yard should be scared off.

"From of the shelter of the building, shouting from a window or door should be used to try to get the bear out of the yard," Kuittinen explains. " In a rural area shooting into the air with a hunting rifle is also a good way of scaring it away, for example."

Currently, bears can only be hunted in reindeer husbandry areas. In the rest of Finland, bears are protected and hunting is only allowed with a special permit.

Last March, the Finnish Natural Resources Institute estimated the number of bears in Finland at 2,100-2,250. The population is estimated to be about 20 percent larger than in 2023. ________________________

How Finns deal with bears

National interest

Stubb also told journalists that he had talks on the situation in the Middle East with both Iranian President Masoud Pezeškian and King Abdullah II of Jordan, reports Iltalehti.

"I am concerned. The risk of escalation is real and at the moment efforts are being made to contain it one way or another," Stubb said.

Finland voted last week in favour of a UN General Assembly motion declaring Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories illegal.

The move drew criticism from politicians in some Finnish government parties, including the Finns Party and the Christian Democrats.

Stubb said the vote was the right decision.

"Finland always supports international law, and if the international court is of the opinion that the Israeli settlements are illegal, then we will support that decision," he explained.

Finland has contracted for the purchase of an air defence system, known as David's Sling, from Israel. According to President Stubb, the current situation does not affect the deal.

"We have come to the conclusion that the David's Sling is one of the best air defence systems available on the market, so we will stick to it. In this, Finland's security has priority," Stubb said.

The march of AI

Jyväskylä's Keskisuomalainen is among the papers to carry an STT news agency report that almost half of large Finnish companies are planning to replace some operations with artificial intelligence (AI).

An "Enterprise Pulse" survey commissioned by the OP Group found that companies are typically looking at using AI to replace jobs in reporting, data processing, customer service and communications.

More than a quarter of respondents do not plan to replace jobs with AI.

Half of the large Finnish companies surveyed say AI will play a critical role in their success. In addition, 37 percent of respondents said that they believe Finland is currently an attractive international destination for AI projects.

The survey, conducted by the pollster Taloustutkimus was conducted in April and May of this year, and canvassed 100 Finnish companies with a turnover of at least 100 million euros.

Warmer autumns

The weather this past weekend was more like what one would expect for the time of year, following weeks of exceptionally high temperatures nationwide.

Helsingin Sanomat writes that on Tuesday, temperatures will again rise to as high as a summery 18 degrees Celsius in southern Finland and some other regions.

Interviewed by the paper, Mika Rantanen, a researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, noted that September has been exceptional warm by many standards. Temperature records have been broken at almost every weather station in the country. He said that, as a result, the growing season in the south of Finland may continue until mid-October.

A warmer and longer summer will provide a longer growing season, but it also increases the number of pests in fields and forests.

The effects of the warm September weather is also being felt in the Baltic Sea. According to Rantanen, waters in the Gulf of Finland are still at 17 degrees Celsius, which would be normal for early August. At this time of year, sea water temperatures should be around 12 degrees.

Looking ahead, Rantanen said he believes that he number of exceptionally warm autumns will increase.

"Summer is getting longer at both ends. In Sodankylä, for example, this year's summer was the second longest on record," he points out to HS.

[kp777]

By Julia Conley

Common Dreams

Aug. 4, 2023

The global average ocean surface temperature is expected to rise even further in the coming months as El Niño strengthens.

Climate scientists on Friday said the rapidly rising temperature of the planet's oceans is cause for major concern, particularly as policymakers in the top fossil fuel emissions-producing countries show no sign of ending planet-heating oil and gas extraction.

The European Union's climate agency, Copernicus Climate Change Service, reported this week that the average daily global ocean surface temperature across the planet reached 20.96°C (69.7°F), breaking the record of 20.95°C that was previously set in 2016.

The record set in 2016 was reported during an El Niño event, a naturally occurring phenomenon which causes warm water to rise to the surface off the western coast of South America. The weather pattern was at its strongest when the high ocean temperature was recorded that year.

El Niño is forming this year as well, but has not yet reached its strongest point—suggesting new records for ocean heat will be set in the coming months and potentially wreak havoc in the world's marine ecosystems.

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, told the BBC that March is typically when the oceans are at their hottest.

"The fact that we've seen the record now makes me nervous about how much warmer the ocean may get between now and next March," she told the outlet.

The warming oceans are part of a feedback loop that's developed as fossil fuel emissions have increasingly trapped heat in the atmosphere.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are warming the oceans, leaving them less able to absorb the emissions and contributing to intensifying weather patterns.

"Warmer sea surface temperatures lead to a warmer atmosphere and more evaporation, and both of these lead to more moisture in the atmosphere which can also lead to more intense rainfall events," Burgess told "Today" on BBC Radio 4. "And warmer sea surface temperatures may also lead to more energy being available for hurricanes."

The warming ocean could have cascading effects on the world's ecosystems and economies, reducing fish stocks as marine species migrate to find cooler waters.

"We are seeing changes already in terms of species distributions, prevalence of harmful algae blooms popping up maybe where we would not necessarily expect them, and the species shifting from warmer southern locations up into the colder regions as well which is quite worrying," Helen Findlay, a biological oceanographer at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the United Kingdom, toldThe Evening Standard.

"We are also seeing more species coming up from the south, things like European anchovy or recently examples of Mediterranean octopus coming up into our waters and that is having a knock-on impact for the fish that we catch, and consequences of economics," she added.

Certain parts of the world's oceans provoked particular alarm among scientists in recent days, with water off the coast of Florida hitting 38.44°C—over 101°F—last week.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told the BBC that ocean temperatures in that area typically hover between 23°C and 31°C at this time of year.

Since scientists first began measuring ocean temperatures using satellites and research buoys about four decades ago, the global average sea surface temperature has gone up by roughly 0.6°C.

On social media, climate scientists urged news outlets to explicitly connect the rising ocean temperatures to fossil fuel companies and the policymakers who are enabling them to continue fueling the climate emergency—such as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who announced more than 100 new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea this week.

The New York Times this week reported "terrifying Earth breakdown but barely [mentioned] the cause is the fossil fuel industry," said National Aeronautics and Space Administration climate scientist Peter Kalmus.

"The more we burn fossil fuels, the more excess heat will be taken out by the oceans, which means the longer it will take to stabilize them and get them back to where they were," Burgess told the BBC.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

[roboe1]

News and Headlines: 2/16/2024.

In The News Today: U.S. and UN Funding Linked to Increase in Migrant Journey to Southern Border The United States government, under the Biden administration, has significantly increased its financial contributions to the United Nations’ migration-focused agencies, notably the International Organization for Migration (IOM), with allocations nearing $1.3 billion in 2023. This funding, aimed at…

[alanshemper]

In 1862's 'Rome and Jerusalem,' perhaps the earliest Zionist text, Moses Hess asked France to "help the Jews to found colonies which may extend from Suez to Jerusalem and from the banks of the Jordan to the coast of the Mediterranean." 2/

In late August 1898, the Second Zionist Congress established the Jewish Colonial Trust, the financial arm of the World Zionist Organization and the first official Zionist bank. In 1902, the Anglo-Palestine Company Ltd. was founded as a subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust. 3/

In 1902, Theodor Herzl, father of political Zionism, begged Cecil Rhodes to support the Zionist project and facilitate Jewish settlement of Palestine. Zionism was in Britain's imperial interest, Herzl suggested, "Because it is something colonial." 4/

Revisionist Zionist leader Vladmir Jabotinsky, who founded and led the Irgun militia, wrote explicitly in his 1923 Zionist manifesto, "The Iron Wall," that "Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or it falls by the question of armed force." 5/

Jabotinsky also wrote, "Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population," and that it was "necessary to carry on colonization against the will of the Palestinian Arabs." 6/

One of the leading Zionist organizations supporting the Yishuv (Jewish settlers) in Mandatory Palestine was the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, established in 1924. (It was originally founded in 1891 as the Jewish Colonization Association.) 7/

The Jewish Agency, formed in 1929 by the 16th Zionist Congress, was (and is still) tasked with increasing Jewish immigration to Palestine. Its fundraising arm originally operated under the auspices of World Zionist Organization's aptly-named "Colonization Department." 8/

On October 5, 1937, David Ben-Gurion - later Israel's first prime minister - sent a letter to his son Amos in which he wrote that "Palestine...contains vast colonization potential which the Arabs neither need nor are qualified (because of their lack of need) to exploit." 9/

In mid-1947, the Jewish Agency presented its position to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. It declared "industrial development in Palestine" was "part of...the migration of industry from the old industrial countries to colonial or semi-colonial territories." 10/

During the presentation, Chaim Weizmann-later Israel's 1st president-stated, "As compared with the result of the colonizing activities of other peoples, our impact on the Arabs has not produced very much worse results than what has been produced by others in other countries." 11/

Moshe Shertok-Israel's 2nd prime minister-boasted of Zionism to the UNSCOP, saying "it will not be easy to find an instance in the history of colonization where a large scale settlement scheme has been conducted with so much respect for the interests of existing population." 12/

Clearly, Zionism's colonial nature was explicit from the outset and was leveraged as a selling point to gain European support. When colonialism began to lose legitimacy, the term was retired.

So don't ever claim that "we Zionists never called ourselves colonialists."

13/END

In 1891 leading Zionist thinker Asher Ginsburg (Ahad Ha'am) wrote that "when the life of our people in Palestine will develop to such an extent as to push out, to a small or large extent, the indigenous population of the country, then not easily will they give up their place." 2/

In 1898, Theodor Herzl recognized that, in order to establish a "Jewish state" in Palestine, the inconvenient indigenous population would have to be removed. “We shall try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian Arab] population (i.e. Arab) across the border," he wrote. 3/

Israel Zangwill, British leader of the Jewish Territorialist Organization (ITO), wrote in 1904 of "a difficulty from which the Zionist dare not avert his eyes, though he rarely likes to face it." It was that "Palestine proper has already its inhabitants." 4/

So what was his solution? "We must be prepared...to drive out by the sword the tribes in possession as our forefathers did."

Similarly, Chaim Weizmann referred to Palestinians as "the rocks of Judea, as obstacles that had to be cleared on a difficult path." 5/

his 1926 address to Nat'l Conference of the United Palestine Appeal in Boston, Weizmann said Palestinians "are in the country, and have been there for ages. We are the newcomers and have to become part and parcel of the country. We are planting a new people in the country. 6/

In 1929, early Labor Zionist intellectual Berl Katznelson declared, "Zionist enterprise is an enterprise of conquest," admitting that "it is by no chance that I use military terms when speaking of settlement." 7/

In 1930, Menachem Usshishkin, a powerful early pioneer of Zionism and leading member of the Jewish National Fund, stated, "If there are other inhabitants there [in Palestine], they must be transferred to some other place. We must take over the land." 8/

in 1936, Ussishkin commented, "Now the [Palestinian] Arabs do not want us because we want to be the rulers. I will fight for this. I will make sure that we will be the landlords of this land...because this country belongs to us not to them." 9/

In 1936, another leading Zionist, Arthur Ruppin, who led colonization efforts through the Jewish National Fund, declared, "On every site where we purchase land and where we settle people, the present cultivators will inevitably be dispossessed." 10/

In June 1937, David Ben-Gurion wrote to Jewish Agency head Moshe Shertok, "Were I an Arab...I would rebel even more vigorously, bitterly, and desperately against the immigration that will one day turn Palestine and all its Arab residents over to Jewish rule." 11/

Ben-Gurion told the 20th Zionist Congress in August 1937, "New Jewish settlement will not be possible unless there is a transfer of the Arab peasantry," adding, "Jewish power in the country...will also increase our possibilities to carry out the transfer on a large scale." 12/

At the November 21, 1937 meeting of Jewish Agency's Transfer Committee, Yosef Weitz, Land Department chief at the Jewish National Fund, boasted that "transfer" not only "diminish[es] the Arab population," but also "release[s] it for Jewish inhabitants." 13/

In 1938, Ben-Gurion reaffirmed these sentiments: "Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves. Politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down." 14/

At the same time, Ussishkin insisted, "We cannot start the Jewish state with...half the population being Arab...Such a state cannot survive even half an hour." Regarding the forcible ethnic cleansing of over sixty thousand Palestinian families, he added: "It is most moral." 15/

Ruppin agreed: "I do not believe in the transfer of individuals. I believe in the transfer of entire villages." He also wrote, "Land is the most necessary thing for establishing roots in Palestine...We are bound in each case...to remove the peasants who cultivate the land." 16/

Moshe Shertok, Jewish Agency chief and later Israel's second prime minister, said, "We have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it, but we have come to conquer a country from people inhabiting it." 17/

On March 20, 1941, the Jewish Agency's Yosef Weitz wrote, "The complete evacuation of the country from its other inhabitants and handing it over to the Jewish people is the answer." 18/

In 1941, Weitzmann told Ivan Maisky, Soviet ambassador to England, that "if half a million Arabs could be transferred, two million Jews could be put in their place. That, of course, would be a first installment; what might happen afterwards [would be] a matter for history." 19/

In a 1941 memorandum entitled "Outlines of the Zionist Policy", Ben-Gurion recognized that "the majority of the Arabs could hardly be expected to leave voluntarily," noting, "Complete transfer without compulsion – and ruthless compulsion, at that – is hardly imaginable." 20/

Founder and longtime president of the World Jewish Congress Nahum Goldmann recalled Ben-Gurion saying in 1956, "Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country." 21/

In 1969, Moshe Dayan declared, "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages...There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." 22/

Again, Zionism is a colonial ideology that explicitly relies on the forceful removal of the native population from its homeland. To live in peace with those you have displaced, dispossessed & disenfranchised, you must guarantee equal rights for all. 23/END

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Floods Swamp Sudan  

Flooding is an annual challenge in Sudan in August and September. Around that time each year, monsoon rains pour into the Ethiopian Highlands and flow down to the Blue Nile and White Nile. As the rivers wind their way north through Sudan and South Sudan, floodwaters often swamp riverside communities.

The annual flooding happened again in 2024. But this time, heavy rains also fell in the north of the country, fueling destructive flash floods in areas less accustomed to receiving so much runoff. This led to deadly flash floods that have inundated villages, swamped farmland, washed out roads, and damaged infrastructure, according to reports from aid organizations and news outlets.

On August 31, 2024, the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this false-color image (lower image) showing some of the affected areas in the northeastern states of Kassala, the Red Sea, and River Nile. Swollen waterways and floodwater are visible along the Nile and Atbarah rivers. The other image shows the same area on July 9, 2024, before the latest round of heavy rains.

In this false-color scene (MODIS bands 7-2-1), areas covered by water appear dark blue. The lighter blues in some of the channels east of the Nile visible in the upper part of the image are signs that soils are still wet even if the ephemeral streams that formed during periods of heavy rain have drained. Vegetation appears green.

NOAA’s Global Drought Monitor reports that much of northern Sudan has been exceptionally wet in the past three months. Satellite-based rainfall estimates shared by the IGAD Climate Prediction & Applications Center indicate that many parts of Sudan received tens to hundreds of millimeters of rain during the last three weeks of August, significantly more than usual.

Since June, flooding has displaced as many as 124,600 people across 13 of Sudan’s 18 states, according to the United Nations (UN). The flooding has severely curtailed efforts to deliver food and humanitarian aid in a country that has reached a “catastrophic breaking point,” the UN’s International Organization for Migration said in a statement.

People in some parts of Sudan are experiencing famine conditions, and millions of people face acute food insecurity, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). FEWS NET, established by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), provides timely, evidence-based early warning information and analysis of current and future acute food insecurity. NASA is among the organizations that partner with USAID to produce FEWS NET warning information and analysis.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Story by Adam Voiland.