Al Mayadeen – July 5, 2024
King Charles officially appoints Labor's Starmer UK Prime Minister
The King had earlier accepted the resignation of Conservative leader Rishi Sunak as prime minister following a landslide victory for Labour in the general election.
Britain's head of state, King Charles III, on Friday officially appointed Labour leader Keir Starmer as prime minister at Buckingham Palace.
A photograph released by the palace showed the monarch shaking hands with Starmer, whose party achieved a landslide victory in the general election, bringing an end to 14 years of Conservative rule.
The King had earlier accepted the resignation of Conservative leader Rishi Sunak as prime minister.
"The King received in Audience The Right Honourable Sir Keir Starmer MP today and requested him to form a new Administration," confirmed a statement by the Buckingham Palace.
"Sir Keir accepted His Majesty's offer and kissed hands upon his appointment as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury," it added.
Starmer vows Labour will 'rebuild Britain'
Later, Starmer arrived at Downing Street for the first time as UK prime minister, vowing to take immediate action to restore the nation's fortunes.
"The work of change begins immediately," Starmer told reporters outside Downing Street after accepting King Charles III's invitation to form a government.
"But have no doubt, we will rebuild Britain," he stressed.
Starmer, 61, faces a formidable to-do list, acknowledging that Britons had grown weary of deteriorating public services, rising prices, and unfulfilled political promises.
He promised that his government would prioritize "country first, party second" and restore "respect for politics" after a series of scandals under the Tories that damaged public trust.
However, he sought to manage expectations of rapid change, saying, "Changing a country is not like flicking a switch."
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/king-charles-officially-appoints-labour-s-starmer-uk-prime-m
Port of Eilat Declares Bankruptcy
by Dr Marwan Asmar
Israel’s southern Port of Eilat has declared bankruptcy because of the lack of commercial and trade activity.
Eilat Port CEO Gideon Golber said: “The port is completely closed, and there has been no activity in the port for eight months, due to the failure of the coalition countries in the Red Sea. We have not had any income for the last months, and it is time for the state to put its hand in its pocket and understand that the closed port must be helped.”
The Houthis are being blamed for this as they have stopped ships bound for the Israeli port through the crucial bab Al Mandeb straits which controls about 10 percent of world shipping.
The Houthis are targeting any ship that is going to Israel and as a result many of these vassals have switched to a much longer route going through the Cape of Good Hope.
One blogger says “the Zionist economy has taken a huge hit. The Port of Eilat has declared bankruptcy. I hope it’s the first of many bankruptcies to come. Great work by AnsarAllah and Yemen.”
The tourism city of Eilat has taken a great beating since 7 October when its tourism and trade completely stopped with many people losing their jobs.
The bankruptcy issue is trending on X, with a comment being made that the “Houthis have achieved one of their economic goals against the “genocidal Israel” especially since the Port of Eilat services ships going through the Red Sea.
But the enforced naval blockade is achieving its goals. The port came to a halt by December 2023 losing 85 percent of its trade because of attacks on its naval shipping by the Yemen armed forces.
The port’s management is calling for financial assistance from the Israeli government but it is doubtful whether they will get it because of the economic dire straits the government is in because of the mass expenditure on the Gaza war.
Dr Marwan Asmar is a writer based in Amman covering Middle East Affairs
https://countercurrents.org/2024/07/port-of-eilat-declares-bankruptcy/
Yemen’s Houthis intensify attacks against Israel ships
Shipping companies and consumers become the worst victims of escalating violence along the Red Sea trade corridor.
KAZIM ALAM
The Red Sea is now even deadlier for merchant ships as Houthis have ramped up attacks in recent weeks on the carriers passing through the seawater inlet separating Asia from Africa.
The latest attack by the Houthis — Iran-backed group who’ve controlled Yemen’s western ports for a decade — took place last week (June 28) when they fired missiles at a ship travelling through the Red Sea off the coast of the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida in Yemen.
Cutting the distance between Asia and Europe by half, the Red Sea is a major interoceanic passage handling 22 percent of global seaborne container trade.
Trade flows hit a major bump following Israel’s invasion of Gaza last year as the Houthis declared open season on all ships belonging to Israel and the countries that support itsﾠwar, which has killed almost 38,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
As a result, major shipping lines have diverted all their Red Sea-bound vessels to the south as they circumnavigate the entire African continent — via the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa — causing a steep rise in freight costs.
The latest spate of attacks made June theﾠsecond-worst month since the violence began last November.
“The coming months will be challenging for carriers and businesses… The longer that this lasts, the more our costs will get deeply ingrained,”ﾠsaid Vincent Clerc, CEO of Maersk, a Danish company that controls theﾠsecond largest share in container shipping business worldwide.
The Houthis have so far targeted more than 60 vessels by firing missiles and drones, killing a total of four sailors, according to The Associated Press. They haveﾠseized one vessel and sank two since November.
Speaking to TRT World, geopolitical expert Dr Kaan Devecioglu said the worst victims of escalating violence along the Red Sea trade corridor are shipping companies and average consumers as higher insurance and freight costs, coupled with extended transit times, are fueling inflation in the global commodity markets.
TheﾠDrewryﾒs World Container Index reflects Devecioglu’s views, it shows the average freight rate has nearly doubled to $5,318 for a 40-foot container in the last two months alone. Rising by 256 percent from a year ago.
Dr Devecioglu, the coordinator for North African Studies at ORSAM, an Ankara-based think tank, says Iran-aligned Houthis are waging an “asymmetric war” against the dominant powers of the international system.
The Red Sea is a “vital route” for European trade, especially hydrocarbon transfers from Gulf countries to Europe, he says. The root of the Red Sea crisis is geopolitical given Iran’s alleged support for Houthis in terms of weaponry and intelligence, he adds.
Besides Maersk, major shipping lines that have diverted their vessels away from the Red Seaﾠinclude German container shipping line Hapag-Lloyd and the world’s biggest shipper Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).
Middle East takes a hit
According toﾠPortWatch, a platform set up by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to monitor and simulate trade disruptions, the economies that have taken the biggest hit are in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Red Sea trade route is particularly important for oil exports from the Middle East to Europe and from Russia to Asia, it says.
Real-time data from the IMF portal shows the extent of the drop in maritime traffic along the Red Sea trade route. The latest average of daily calls by ships at Bab el Mandeb Strait, which is located near the recent attacks in the Red Sea, was 22, down 72 percent from a year ago.
In contrast, the latest average of daily transit calls at Cape of Good Hope, located at the southern tip of Africa, has gone up nearly 42 percent to 85 ships.
According to Joze Pelayo, associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, a prolonged crisis affects Beijing and its interests around the Red Sea, including China’s supply chains in the region and revenue for state companies involved in port management near the Suez Canal.
“Although not entirely spared [by the Houthis], shipping associated with China, Russia, or India is less likely to be targeted… But the biggest loser is the Yemeni people who continue to be faced with severe goods shortages due to the inability and reluctance of ships to approach the country,” he tells TRT World.
Protection pact
Back in March, Bloombergﾠreported the Houthis reached an “understanding” with China and Russia to allow their ships to sail unharmed through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In exchange for protection to their ships, China and Russia allegedly promised extending “political support” to the Houthis at international forums like the United Nations Security Council.
Pelayo says shipping associated with Russia and China has passed through the troubled trade route “largely unaffected but not entirely”.
“So the pact is perhaps still intact but it is far from perfect. China continues to extract self-interested gains where it can and leaves the responsibility to protect/restore maritime security to others,” he says.
In response, a US-led coalition has made counter-strikes by air to neutralise the Houthi threat to maritime traffic. Last week, the US militaryﾠsaid it destroyed seven drones in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. Yet the Houthis seem largely invincible so far.
The group sees the Israeli war on Gaza as an opportunity to “appear as pseudo-heroes and pseudo-allies for Gaza” as anti-American sentiments sweep the Arab world following US support for Israel, Pelayo says.
“Despite multiple and successful strikes the coalition has conducted against the Houthis, ships are simply still reluctant to risk going back through the Red Sea. So it is more about returning commercial confidence to the route, which may be easier after a potential ceasefire" in the Israel's war on the Palestinian enclave is achieved, he adds.
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/yemens-houthis-intensify-attacks-against-israel-ships-18179960
World Socialist Web Site – July 5, 2024
Fatima Payman resigns, Australian Labor government on Islamophobic rampage
Oscar Grenfell
Senator Fatima Payman yesterday announced her resignation from the Labor Party, a week after crossing the floor to vote for a Greens motion calling for the recognition of Palestine.
In a press conference, Payman described “the ongoing genocide in Gaza” as a “tragedy of unimaginable proportions.” She said: “Witnessing our government’s indifference to the greatest injustice of our times makes me question the direction the party is taking.” Payman explained that she was leaving Labor but would remain on the crossbench as an independent senator.
Her statements pointing to Labor’s complicity and her decision to leave the party represent a breach, after nine months of unity, in a government that has unwaveringly supported Israel and its war crimes.
But Payman’s remarks were hardly a frontal assault on Labor. She was leaving “a party I’ve proudly served” with a “heavy heart,” describing Labor as an organisation that “emerged to challenge the notion that politics belong solely to the privileged few and [to] fulfil the promise of our lucky country.”
That was never the character of Labor, and it is certainly not how it has functioned over Payman’s 29-year lifetime, during which it has ruthlessly implemented the dictates of the corporate elite, while supporting every US-led war globally.
Given the relatively tepid character of Payman’s stand and the fact that her vote in favour of token Palestinian recognition was arguably in line with official Labor policy, the most striking aspect of the controversy is the ferocious response from the government.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese personally suspended Payman from the party caucus last Sunday and demanded that she resign from the Senate entirely so that Labor would be done with her but still retain the seat. That having failed, Albanese preemptively announced Payman’s pending “resignation” from Labor like a boss telling an employee they had the “option” of quitting or being sacked.
For months, Labor has branded protests and opposition to the Gaza genocide as a threat to “social cohesion.” Like a mantra, Albanese and Labor leaders have insisted it is necessary to “lower the temperature” lest “conflicts overseas” be “reproduced in Australia.” This has been a self-serving line aimed at shielding the government from any scrutiny over its support for Israel.
That notwithstanding, it is remarkable how rapidly the Laborites have dispensed with their concern for “cohesion” and mild “temperatures.” They have mobilised their entire party apparatus to politically and personally crush Payman, a first-term Senator. In the process, they have engaged in a campaign of Islamophobia notable for its blatant racism, even in a country blighted by more than twenty years of the bogus “war on terror.”
Prior to her resignation, unnamed Labor sources told former Murdoch hack and current Australian Broadcasting Corporation “star” reporter Patricia Karvelas they had “concerns” after Payman reportedly said her decisions were being guided by “God.”
The unmistakable suggestion was that Payman, a visibly Muslim woman who wears a hijab, was some sort of Islamic extremist and/or in the thrall of a religiously induced psychosis.
In daily backgrounding by Labor leaders, dutifully relayed by a compliant press, Payman has alternately been depicted as a naive and stupid dupe of the Greens and as a dishonest, conniving operator who was planning her resignation for a month, without any attempt to square the conflicting lines of attack.
Almost as soon as Payman had announced her resignation, the unnamed and faceless Labor sources discovered a new “concern.” Payman was still technically a citizen of Afghanistan, from where her family escaped as refugees decades ago. This, they warned, could mean she was ineligible to sit in the Senate under draconian Constitutional provisions barring dual citizens from parliament.
Of course, all of this was known when Labor selected Payman as a candidate for the 2022 election. The Labor leadership and the electoral authorities were evidently satisfied that Payman had taken “reasonable steps” to renounce her foreign citizenship. They knew then and know now that terminating her formal ties completely would probably require travelling to Afghanistan. Under conditions of Taliban rule, that would be more likely to result in Payman’s imprisonment or death than the end of her Afghan citizenship.
Labor’s Muslim-baiting and gratuitous attempts to draw attention to Payman’s “foreign” ancestry, in other words, are about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
This morning, Albanese pressed on, warning that the establishment of a political party for Australian Muslims would not serve the Islamic community. “It is not in their interests [to] isolate themselves,” he stated. There is no such party, and there is no indication that anyone intends to form such a party. Amid a flurry of media articles intoning against the dangers of “importing” the “tribalism” of the Middle East, Albanese was simply engaging in racist dogwhistling.
The campaign exposes the sham of Labor’s attempts to co-opt immigrant communities with a façade of “diversity.” In addition to covering over the fundamental class divisions in society, the confected politics of “multiculturalism” can rapidly give way to the open “white Australia” racism upon which Labor was founded.
The frenzied response to Payman can only be understood as a product of two factors: the deepgoing crisis of the government, and Labor’s character as a party of imperialist war.
With an election due next May at the latest, all polling indicates that Labor’s support is lower than in 2022, when it scraped into office with less than a third of the primary vote because the Liberal Party’s support fell even further.
Amid the worst decline in working-class living standards in decades and pro-business austerity measures from Labor, its paltry cost-of-living relief measures have fallen flat.
Labor was evidently hoping to exclude the genocide from official political discussion and the next election by pointing out that Gaza is a long way from Canberra and by voicing mealy-mouthed “concern” over the mass death of Palestinians. But broad layers of the population are aware that Labor is complicit, with its political, diplomatic and material support for Israel, including through ongoing military export permits, undeniable.
An article in the Australian yesterday reported that Albanese and Labor leaders fear they could lose up to six seats in the working-class suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne at the next election, either to independents centrally raising the genocide or with the Gaza crisis as a key contributing factor. It is in the working-class electorates, former bases of support for Labor, that its vote dropped most precipitously in 2022 and previous elections.
The current campaign is thus not simply directed against Payman, but at the mass opposition to the genocide. Having failed to reverse the sentiment through lies that it is merely a bystander to the “Middle East conflict,” Labor is intensifying its earlier line of threatening to ban protests and of ruthlessly attacking all opposition to the war crimes.
The Greens and various pseudo-left parties such as Solidarity have hailed Payman’s stand and presented it as proof that their perspective of shifting the Labor Party away from support for Israel is viable.
In reality, the exact opposite has been demonstrated. The more opposition is expressed, the more viciously Labor attacks it and restates its backing for the slaughter. That is because, contrary to Payman’s claims, Labor is not a party of “equality” or of working people. It is a bureaucratic machine that serves the interests of the corporate and financial elite through war abroad and a war against the working class at home.
Labor’s support for the genocide is inseparable from its central involvement in a global war drive led by the US. That has included expanding Australia’s support for the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and, above all, completing the country’s transformation into a frontline state for an American-led war against China. This militarist program is incompatible with democratic rights.
Payman, the Greens and the pseudo-left either say nothing about the Ukraine war and the looming conflict with China, or support them. But it is impossible to oppose imperialist war on a case-by-case basis under conditions where the ruling elites are implementing a program that threatens nuclear world war.
As the Socialist Equality Party has insisted, the genocide and the danger of global war will not be ended by pressuring Labor, by dissident MPs or by single-issue independents. What is posed, amid a breakdown of capitalism, is nothing less than the development of a revolutionary and socialist movement, uniting the working class internationally against all the governments and the profit system.
China to host renewed Palestinian national dialogue
Sources disclosed to Al Mayadeen on Friday that the Chinese ambassador in Doha has informed the Hamas leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas's approval to resume the Palestinian national dialogue in Beijing.
Sources disclosed to Al Mayadeen on Friday that the Chinese ambassador in Doha has conveyed to the Hamas leadership that President Mahmoud Abbas has approved the resumption of Palestinian national dialogue in Beijing.
The same sources also reported that Hamas has once again accepted China's invitation for another round of national Palestinian talks. Additionally, they indicated that the Fatah movement is seeking another meeting with the Hamas delegation before proceeding to expanded talks, while Hamas intends to build upon the outcomes of the previous talks.
Al Mayadeen's sources further stated that while no specific date has been set for the national dialogue in Beijing, 14 Palestinian factions are slated to participate.
Hamas-Fatah meeting in China included talks for temporary government
Back in April, the two factions agreed during bilateral talks in Bejing on the importance of unifying the Palestinian position regarding the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, emphasizing the importance of a ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces from the Strip.
At the time, Palestinian sources revealed to Al Mayadeen the outcomes of the meeting held between the two Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, in the Chinese capital Beijing.
The factions further agreed on "coordinating joint national efforts to deliver urgent aid and relief to the sector and to arrange with the relevant parties in Gaza," and forming a joint bilateral committee in Cairo for coordination and follow-up, as per our sources.
According to the sources, the meeting emphasized coordinating positions and efforts in the West Bank and al-Quds to confront settler attacks on villages and towns, as well as Israeli occupation assaults on the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The outcomes of the meeting also stressed the priority of the detainees' issue and the necessity to preserve their rights and support them during this difficult phase, where they are subjected to the worst forms of abuse and harm inside Israeli occupation prisons
On another note, the sources reported from the meeting that Hamas and Fatah affirmed the necessity of unity and ending the division, "within the framework of the Palestine Liberation Organization by joining all Palestinian forces and factions within it and its institutions, based on previous agreements in this regard."
The parties also highlighted the importance of forming a non-factional national unity government during or after the genocidal war, tasked with its technical and administrative duties in relief efforts, alleviating the effects of aggression, and rebuilding Gaza.
China was one of the first countries to call for a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire in Gaza to prevent a humanitarian crisis, calling on "Israel" to lift the blockade imposed on the Strip to ensure the entry of much-needed aid, respect international humanitarian law, and stop targeting all civilian objects and aid workers in Gaza.
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