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Europe
European Union
(4 October 2024) 14:41 The European 'Union' voted today to impose tariffs as high as 45% on electric vehicles from China. Ten member states voted in favour of the measure, while Germany and four others voted against and 12, including Spain, abstained. The European Commission can now proceed with implementing the duties, which would last for five years. (Source: luxtimes *)
* Luxembourg Times
North America
United States
Oct 4th, 2024, 6:10 am After the Hurricane Helene death toll rose to over 200 in her state of Georgia and across the southern United States yesterday Rep. Taylor Greene (R-GA) wrote in a social media post that the Hurricane had been controlled. She also posted a map. “This is a map of hurricane affected areas with an overlay of electoral map by political party shows how hurricane devastation could affect the election,” she warned. (Source: mediaite *)
* Mediaite, an American news website focusing on politics and the media.
Oct. 4, (2024) 6 a.m. EDT Weapons sales are a pillar of American foreign policy in the Middle East. Historically, the U.S. gives more money to Israel for weapons than it does to any other country. Israel spends most of those American tax dollars to buy weapons and equipment made by U.S. arms manufacturers. There’s never any consequences for doing it. The United States first began selling significant amounts of weapons to Israel in the early 1970s. Until then, Israel had relied on an array of home-grown and international purchases, notably from France, while the Soviet Union armed Israel’s adversaries. While Israel has its own arms industry, the country relies heavily on American jets, bombs and other weapons in Gaza. Since October 2023, the U.S. has shipped more than 50,000 tons of weaponry. The U.S. has been a stalwart ally of Israel for decades, with presidents of both parties praising the country as a beacon of democracy in a dangerous region filled with threats to American interests. On Jan. 31, Secretary of State Blinken hosted an agency-wide town hall at an auditorium at the State Department headquarters where he fielded pointed questions from his subordinates about Gaza. He said the suffering of civilians was “absolutely gut wrenching and heartbreaking." “But it is a question of making judgments,' Blinken said. “We started with the premise on October 7 that Israel had the right to defend itself, and more than the right to defend itself, the right to try to ensure that October 7 would never happen again.” At the embassy in Jerusalem the unwritten policy was to “protect Israel from scrutiny' and facilitate the arms flow no matter how many human rights abuses are reported. The embassy has even historically resisted accepting funds from the State Department’s Middle East bureau earmarked for investigating human rights issues throughout Israel. The government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance - the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department’s refugees bureau - concluded in the spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza and that weapons sales should be halted. But Blinken rejected those findings and, weeks later, told Congress that the State Department had concluded that Israel was not blocking aid. The pressure to keep the arms pipeline moving also comes from the U.S. military contractors who make the weapons. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also publicly pressured the Biden administration to hasten arms transfers. “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster,” he said in June. Initially, a country makes a request and the local embassy, which is under the State Department’s jurisdiction, writes a cable called a “country team assessment” to judge the fitness of the nation asking for the weapons. This is just the beginning of a complex process, but it’s a crucial step because of the embassies’ local expertise. Then, the bulk of that review is conducted by the State Department’s arms transfers section, known as the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, with input from other bureaus. For Israel and NATO allies, if the sale is worth at least $100 million for weapons or $25 million for equipment, Congress also gets final approval. If lawmakers try to block a sale, which is rare, the president can sidestep with a veto. In the months before August and since, an array of State Department officials urged that Israel be completely or partially cut off from weapons sales under laws that prohibit arming countries with a pattern or clear risk of violations. Top State Department political appointees repeatedly rejected those appeals. Government experts have for years unsuccessfully tried to withhold or place conditions on arms sales to Israel because of credible allegations that the country had violated Palestinians’ human rights using American-made weapons. In recent years, at least six high-ranking officials in the he State Department’s arms transfers bureau left their posts and joined lobbying firms and military contractors. Companies that profit from the wars in Gaza and Ukraine frequently call or email. The pressure also reaches lawmakers’ offices. “The article is biased and seeks to portray legitimate and routine contacts between Israel and the Embassy in Washington with State Department officials as improper. Its goal appears to be casting doubt on the security cooperation between two friendly nations and close allies,' a spokesperson of the Israeli government said in a statement. (Source: propublica *)
* Pro Publica, Inc., a nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in New York City
by Murphy, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter on ProPublica’s national desk. He writes about the federal government, among other things.
October 4, 2024 Floating airbases: Aircraft carriers
+ video: „Inside the world’ largest aircraft carrier"
by Carlin, an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel
Globalization
October 4, 2024 Links between oil dependence and foreign policy behavior. About the theory building international security study book Oil, the State, and War: The Foreign Policies of Petrostates by Ashford (2022). Nine pathways through which the nature of oil production shapes foreign policy behavior - but why appears to suggest the statistical analysis in the book that petroleum producing states are more likely than other countries to start wars? The energy transition will be complex and will disrupt international relations. (source: issforum *)
* Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum (U.S.)
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