Al Mayadeen – April 24, 2024
201 days of Israeli aggression: 34,262 killed, 77,229 injured
The Health Ministry in Gaza states that the Israeli occupation committed six massacres against Palestinian families in the last 24 hours, killing 79 Palestinians.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Wednesday that the number of Palestinians killed in the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Strip since October 7 has now reached 34,262, with 77,229 injured as the war reaches its 201st day.
Additionally, the ministry stated that the Israeli occupation committed in the past 24 hours six massacres against families in the Strip, which resulted in the martyrdom of 79 people and the injury of 86.
It noted that thousands of victims of the aggression remain trapped under rubble and on roads inaccessible to ambulance and civil defense crews, additionally. the occupation continues to prevent rescue teams from reaching destruction sites.
Failed war objectives
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) stated on Tuesday that after 200 days of war, Gaza is devastated, with widespread destruction and critical infrastructure severely damaged, noting that it will take years to clear the debris and rebuild the embattled Strip.
Last Wednesday, the agency said that the war has resulted in around 23 million tons of rubble and unexploded weapons all over the area. With the widespread destruction of schools, hospitals, and civilian infrastructure, the lives of over two million people have been impacted.
"Over a million people have lost their homes and 75% of the population has been displaced. It will take years to remove the debris," the agency said in a post on X on Wednesday.
Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Wednesday that, after nearly 7 months since launching the war on the Strip, "Israel" has yet to bring back its captives, defeat the Resistance, reduce its influence, or effectively harm its capabilities, let alone "eliminate it", as top Israeli officials declared the elimination as one of the war's goals.
The outlet said that it is evident today that a handful of Israeli officials are claiming that war objectives in Gaza are being achieved, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing out as the main proponent of the "overwhelming decisive victory" slogan.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/day-201--34-262-killed--77-229-injured
Responsible Statecraft – April 24, 2024
Russia, China dump the dollar as Moscow announces new trade corridors
The Kremlin is looking to reshape global commerce in an effort to dodge Western sanctions
By Maya Krainc
Russia announced this week that its bilateral trade with China has almost completely moved away from using the U.S. dollar, highlighting the two countries’ commitment to reducing their reliance on the U.S.-led economic system.
Aside from reducing dependency on the Western-dominated global currency, these ‘de-dollarization’ efforts allow Russia and China to avoid the myriad sanctions now preventing Moscow from doing business on the international market.
Western sanctions have helped lead to a boom in trade between Moscow and Beijing since 2022, rising 26% to $240 billion this year. China has also become the world’s leading importer of Russian oil.
De-dollarization isn’t the only scheme Russia is deploying to avoid crushing sanctions. Russian officials announced last week at a United Nations meeting that the Kremlin is spending billions of dollars to dodge Western sanctions by developing new trade routes in Asia.
This plan includes two new transport corridors — one that would link Russia to Kyrgyzstan via the Caspian Sea, and another that would stretch from Belarus to Pakistan. The efforts build on previous plans to redirect trade, including the North-South Corridor, a railway route first conceived in 2000 that would connect Russia to the Indian Ocean via Iran.
After years of delays, Moscow loaned Tehran 1.3 billion euros last year to build its leg of the North-South route. Sergei Ivanov, Russia’s presidential envoy for environmental issues, said that the corridor gives Russia full access to the Persian Gulf, and that “no sanctions will affect it.” The newly announced routes would similarly allow Russia to bypass sanctions and access Asian markets.
Russia and Iran have also boosted their ability to transact with one another by linking their banking systems, as both face sanctions that limit their abilities to transact with the West.
The U.S. and European countries have heavily sanctioned Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, particularly hampering the Kremlin’s ability to export oil to the West and sell it at competitive market prices. If Russia transports goods through overland corridors that are outside of the jurisdiction of the sanctioning countries, it becomes much more difficult for Western powers to interdict, noted Markus Jaeger of the Atlantic Council.
“They want to reduce the dependency and vulnerability vis-a-vis unfriendly third parties,” Jaeger said.
But if history is any guide, Russia isn’t quite in the clear yet. Sanctions on Iran, including the maximum pressure sanctions imposed during the Trump administration, played a major role in slowing the development of the North-South route. Russia is now loaning money for construction to Iran and is expected to spend approximately $3.5 billion on the project by 2030, according to Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin.
U.S. pressure has also complicated Russia’s economic rapprochement with China, which could face consequences from the West for its support of Moscow, according to Jaeger. He pointed to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned visit to China this week, where he reportedly intends to warn Chinese President Xi Jinping that Washington is concerned about Beijing’s provision of aid to Russia’s military.
Jaeger said that, as China engages more economically with sanctioned countries or entities in Iran or Russia, the risk of becoming the target of European and American sanctions will increase.
“For the U.S., imposing secondary sanctions that affect Chinese entities is seen as a very antagonistic step by China, which risks leading to further tensions in U.S.-Chinese relations,” he said.
Maya Krainc is a reporting intern at Responsible Statecraft. Her work has previously appeared in the Evanston RoundTable. She is a senior at Northwestern University studying journalism and political science, where she writes for STITCH Magazine and edits for North by Northwestern magazine.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/china-russia-trade/
Information Clearing House – April 24, 2024
Final Nail in America’s Coffin?
By Ron Paul
When future historians go searching for the final nail in the US coffin, they may well settle on the date April 20, 2024.
On that day Congress passed legislation to fund two and a half wars, hand what’s left of our privacy over to the CIA and NSA, and give the US president the power to shut down whatever part of the Internet he disagrees with.
The nearly $100 billion grossly misnamed “National Security Supplemental” guarantees that Ukrainians will continue to die in that country’s unwinnable war with Russia, that Palestinian civilians will continue to be slaughtered in Gaza with US weapons, and that the neocons will continue to push us toward a war with China.
It was a total victory for the war party.
The huge spending bill is all about politics for Biden, yet so many Republicans simply went along with it. The last thing the people running Biden’s White House want to see as a close election approaches are ads blaming Biden for “losing Ukraine.”
The US and its allies have already sent over $300 billion to Ukraine and the country is still losing its war with Russia. Nobody believes another $60 billion will pull a victory from the jaws of defeat. But this additional money is meant to keep up appearances until November at the expense of Americans who are forced to pay for it and Ukrainians who are forced to die for it.
Speaker Johnson could not have passed these monstrosities without the full support of House Democrats, as the majority of Republicans voted against more money for Ukraine. So in the worst example of “bipartisanship,” Johnson reached across the aisle, stiffed the Republican majority that elected him Speaker, and pushed through a massive gift to the warfare/(corporate) welfare state.
After the House voted to send another $60 billion to notoriously corrupt Ukraine, Members waved Ukrainian flags on the House Floor and chanted “Ukraine, Ukraine.” While I find it distasteful and disgusting, in some way it seemed fitting. After all, they may as well chant the name of a foreign country because they certainly don’t care about this country!
Along with sending $100 billion that we don’t have to fund more overseas war, Speaker Johnson threw in another version of the Tik Tok ban, which gives Joe Biden and future presidents the power to shut down websites at will by simply declaring them to be “foreign adversary controlled.”
Not to be outdone, the US Senate on that same day passed the extension of Section 702 of the FISA Act, which not only allowed the government to continue spying on us without a warrant, but also contained new language massively expanding how they can spy on us.
Many conservative voters are asking what the point of Republican control of the House is if the agenda is determined by Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is even reported to have bragged to his colleagues about how easily Speaker Johnson gave Democrats everything they wanted and asked for nothing in return.
https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/04/24/final-nail-in-americas-coffin/11/
Breaking Defense – April 22, 2024
Global military spending hits ‘all-time high’ of $2.4 trillion: SIPRI report
The US remains the world’s largest defense spender, outlaying $916 billion last year, a 2.3 percent annual increase, ahead of China in second place, which spent an estimated $296 billion, a 6 percent increase over the same period.
By Tim Martin
BELFAST — Global military expenditure surged to a record $2.44 trillion in 2023, the largest year-on-year rise on weapons spending since 2009, according to a new Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report.
The report, published today, said that the new figure is an “all time high,” equivalent to a 6.8 percent increase on spending in 2022 and marking the ninth consecutive year in which global military expenditure rose.
The report also shows that for the first time in 15 years, global defense spending increased across all five major geographical regions: Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania, and the Americas.
“The unprecedented rise in military spending is a direct response to the global deterioration in peace and security,” said Nan Tian, senior researcher at SIPRIﾒs Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. “States are prioritizing military strength but they risk an action–reaction spiral in the increasingly volatile geopolitical and security landscape.”
The US remains the world’s largest defense spender, outlaying $916 billion last year, a 2.3 percent annual increase, ahead of China in second place, which spent an estimated $296 billion, a 6 percent increase over the same period. SIPRI added that Beijing’s total spending stands as the 29th consecutive spike in national military spending, year-on-year, and represents “half” of all military spending across Asia and Oceania. (China’s annual military budget is publicly recorded at $222 billion, though recently a US senator said US intelligence believes the actual budget is more than three times that much.)
Amid its invasion of Ukraine, Russia moved the needle on national military expenditure considerably too, increasing spending by 24 percent for an estimated total of $109 billion last year. The figure also accounts for 16 percent of all government money spent by the Kremlin over 2023.
Ukraine spending reached $64.8 billion, an annual leap of 51 percent. Overall, Kyiv sits as the eighth highest global military spender.
When combined, Ukraine’s spending and miliary aid of “at least” $35 billion, mainly from the US and other international partners, amounted to around 91 percent of Russian spending. Not included in SIPRI’s figures is the new $60 billion in new US assistance, including $13.8 to replenish US stockpiles, after the House passed a $95 billion supplemental on Saturday.
At a NATO level, the 31 member states from 2023 spent $1.34 trillion, equivalent to 55 percent of global military expenditure, with the US accounting for more than two thirds of the total.
Elsewhere, as tension with China heightens, both Japan and Taiwan increased their respective military spending by 11 percent, with Tokyo outlaying $50.2 billion and Taipei pitching in $16.6 billion.
SIPRI also said that “war and tensions” in the Middle East led to the largest spending increase across the region in the “past decade”: a 9 percent jump in expenditure, working out to $200 billion for the region last year.
The change was largely a result of increased spending by Israel, the second largest spender in the region behind Saudi Arabia, and which drew on $27.5 billion in 2023 — a 24 percent increase. The push for new funding from Tel Aviv was “mainly driven by Israel’s large-scale offensive in Gaza in response to the attack on southern Israel by Hamas in October 2023,” noted SIPRI.
“The large increase in military spending in the Middle East in 2023 reflected the rapidly shifting situation in the region — from the warming of diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab countries in recent years to the outbreak of a major war in Gaza and fears of a region-wide conflict,” said Diego Lopes da Silva, senior researcher at SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.
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