Category Archives: Viva!

How much does it cost to save a species? Less than you might think.

via aleksey godin

Most people know that the world is facing an extinction crisis. Overfishing, unchecked energy exploration, and human sprawl has put 16,000 species on the Endangered Species List, with many more waiting to get on.

Evidence suggests that once on the list, the chances of ever getting off are slim. But does that have to be that case? It turns out that many, if not most, of the organism on that list are highly savable, and at a hell of a bargain.

As I wrote in a recent story for Newsweek, More than half of the endangered species – and where the list has seen the most growth in recent years – are in the plant kingdom. Most of these species would be relatively cheap to raise in greenhouses and replant in the wild yet the budgets to do so is laughably small.

Take Amaranthus brownii, an obscure Hawaiian herb that’s been on the list since 1979 and is found on a single quarter-square-island, called Nihoa. It’s never been grown in captivity but conceivably could be, with a little effort. Congress annually appropriates the oddly-specific sum of $135,884, but only paid out two percent of that – a little under $3,000. That wouldn’t cover the trip to get to Nihoa. And believe it or not, A. brownii is lucky to get that much. Plenty of species that are due hundreds of thousands every year never see a dime.

So what is the solution? Plenty of environmentalists would say, “More money for the US Fish and Wildlife Service!” And certainly that would work, were it not for the fact that there’s no political upside to it. If someone came to you outside the supermarket with a tin cup and said “Give $2 to save a rare herb?” would you really reach into your wallet? But what if, instead, someone came up to you and offered $50,000 for the same thing?

Why are we asking citizens to pay for conservation when it would be so much more effective and efficient to pay them to do it themselves?

After the Dust Bowl ravaged America’s heartland, we didn’t set up a National Anti-Erosion Department, we paid farmers to do it themselves – and continue to do it every year under the Farm Bill. Now, criticize the Farm Bill all you want (and certainly I could all day) but it’s popular with people on the ground. And that is the Endangered Species Act’s biggest problem – local people hate it. Some will even search their land for a critter about to make the list and eradicate it. The organisms most at risk in America are found in tiny areas, and thus their fates are in a select group of very hostile hands. So what if we just paid people to preserve the animals themselves?

This week the Supreme Court released a ruling on the dusky gopher frog, essentially saying that the government should designate habitat for it if the critter isn’t actually there. Essentially, our government went to landowners and said, “Your forest is endangered species habitat, even though there are no animals there.” It’s almost as if they wanted to get sued in federal court. Instead, what if they said, “Hey, this is good dusky gopher frog habitat, we’ll pay you a buck for every frog you can maintain here. Same goes for your neighbors.”

No lawsuit, no loggers griping about stupid frogs, no fodder for politicians to score political points. Just a bunch of landowners rushing to Google to search the phrase “frog husbandry.”

The Israeli right is now openly saying it wants to keep Hamas in power

As the latest round of fighting in Gaza and southern Israel died down, it became clear that keeping Hamas in power has become a central tenet of the Israeli right.

By Meron Rapoport

Hamas supporters attend a rally marking the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Hamas movement, Nablus, West Bank, December 15, 2017. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Hamas supporters attend a rally marking the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Hamas movement, Nablus, West Bank, December 15, 2017. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

The idea that Hamas is an Israeli creation is nearly as old as Hamas itself. Researchers, journalists, high-ranking Israeli military and government officials — even Americans — have found substantial evidence to that effect. And yet the Israeli narrative presents Hamas as a zealous, murderous terrorist group — the sworn enemy of every Israeli and Jew around the world.

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Official Israel has never admitted to supporting Hamas and every Israeli who dares talk about the need to speak with Hamas is immediately portrayed as a traitor. This is the same treatment IDF and Shin Bet officials received during and after the last war on Gaza, when they repeated the mantra that Israel must reach an agreement with Hamas. The same goes for the brief “Eurovision War” last week. Naftali Bennett, along with many on the right, have built a career on taking on the security establishment, which they view as weak and cowardly.

That’s why the cadre of right-wingers who joined hands last week to praise Netanyahu’s decision “to keep Hamas on its feet,” as journalist Galit Distal Atbaryan put it, is no less than amazing. The fact that this group runs the gamut from Netanyahu confidants — including Distal Atbaryan herself — to the prime minister’s critics, including far-right MK Betzalel Smotrich, is a sign that keeping Hamas in power has become a central policy of the entire Israeli right.

In the eyes of the right today, every Israeli patriot must wholeheartedly support the Hamas regime in Gaza. Leftist traitors, they say, support the possibility that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules over the West Bank, take control of the Gaza Strip, bringing Israel closer to the “pit of the two-state solution,” as right-wing pundit and former IDF Major-General Gershon Hacohen put it.

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The policy of “separating” the West Bank from Gaza isn’t new. It began in the late 1980s, with various prime ministers — from Yitzhak Rabin to Netanyahu — finding ways to make it more sophisticated it over the years. Now comes the reasoning behind the separation. No longer are we dealing solely with the question of ostensible security benefits that result in severing Gaza from the West Bank. Today, Hamas’ rule has added value, and maintaining its regime justifies Israeli civilian casualties (Palestinian lives, of course, don’t matter). In order to keep Hamas on its feet, writes Distal Abtaryan, Netanyahu is willing to pay “an almost inconceivable price — half the country paralyzed, children and parents in post-trauma, bombed houses, people killed.”

Why is Netanyahu willing to pay this price? The answer is simple: “Every home needs a balcony, and Israel is a home,” writes Distal Abtaryan, “the balcony of this home is Samaria… if Hamas crumbles, Mahmoud Abbas may rule the strip. If he rules it, voices on the left will encourage negotiations, a political settlement, and a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria as well… this is the real reason Netanyahu doesn’t annihilate Hamas, everything else is bullshit.”

Galit Distel Atabaryan. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Galit Distel Atabaryan. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Erez Tadmor, one of the founders of the far-right Im Tirzu movement and who headed Likud’s information campaign in the last elections, struck a similar tone on Twitter. “The split between Abbas’ Judea and Samaria and Hamas’ Gaza is optimal for Israel,” he tweeted after the ceasefire was announced. “When necessary, we can strike Hamas in Gaza and not be forced to withdraw to the Auschwitz borders in Judea and Samaria,” Tadmore wrote.

Yonatana Orich, who managed Likud’s campaign alongside Tadmor and is one of Netanyahu’s closest advisors, made similar remarks. “He (Netanyahu – M.R.) succeeded in disconnecting between Gaza and Judea and Samaria, and effectively shattered the vision of a Palestinian state in these two areas. Part of the achievement is linked to the Qatari money that comes to Hamas every month,” he explained in an interview to Makor Rishon before the latest round of fighting erupted.

Netanyahu’s supporters on the right aren’t alone. Although MK Betzalel Smotrich, who may soon become a minister, expressed disappointment over the fact that Israel did not kill 700 Palestinians — in retaliation for every rocket fired from Gaza — back in 2015 he called Hamas an “asset” and Abbas a “burden.”

In an interview with right-wing news website Mida, Gershon Hacohen, known for his criticism of Netanyahu from the right, explained that by refraining from taking down Hamas, Netanyahu “prevented Abbas’ plot to establish a united Palestinian state. We need to take advantage of the situation of separation between Gaza and Ramallah. This is a top Israeli interest, and it is impossible to understand the campaign in Gaza without understanding this context.”

Palestinian walk through the wreckage of a building damaged by Israeli air strikes, Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, May 5, 2019. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Palestinian walk through the wreckage of a building damaged by Israeli air strikes, Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, May 5, 2019. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

As opposed to Netanyahu’s admirers, Hacohen is aware that support for Hamas is a trap for Israel. “Hamas created, with the threat of rockets, a difficult equation that cannot be denied,” he admitted. “Each day of rockets paralyzing the country carries heavy financial costs. That is why Hamas can cause us to prefer considerations of containment, because the price we pay is high.” Hacohen supports a severe response to Hamas but worries that such a response would be too successful. “To avoid a situation in which we have defeated Hamas but have fallen into the pit of a two-state solution,” he said, “we must, first of all, regulate control over Area C and stop the attempts of the PA to take over other areas under the auspices of the European Union.” First we annex, then we topple Hamas.

In the eyes of the Israeli right, the real threat to Israel is not Hamas’ violence and terrorism — the danger is a peace agreement with the PLO, Abbas, and the establishment of a Palestinian state. In the struggle against this danger, Hamas is viewed as an almost ideological partner. It, too, opposes Abbas, and has no interest in the PA ruling Gaza. That is why whatever strengthens Hamas is good for Israel, and whatever weakens it is bad for Israel. An Israel that wants to continue its occupation of the West Bank will want to continue to stand on the balcony and gaze at the Palestinians from above.

Meron Rapoport is an editor at Local Call, where this article first appeared in Hebrew. Read it here.

The post The Israeli right is now openly saying it wants to keep Hamas in power appeared first on +972 Magazine.

IOF storm Al-Aqsa mosque, force worshipers to leave

PNN/ Jerusalem/

Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Monday stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Magharba Gate, and forcibly evicted the worshipers inside it.

The storming came as thousands of Palestinians gathered from different cities to perform the Ramadan prayers and the Tarawih prayers in the Mosque.

It was reported that clashes broke out between the citizens and the occupation forces in the area of ​​Bab al-Amud, following the end of the prayers of Al-Ishaa and Al-Taraweeh, during which the Israeli soldiers fired sound bombs, before they arrested the two Jerusalem children Issam Abu Nab (16 years) and Mohammed Al-Ghazzawi (16 years).

Trump and China: The Art of Deal or Clumsy Bullying?

By Haider A. Khan
DENVER, May 13 2019 (IPS-Partners)

With the most recent spat between China and the US—not uncharacteristically if unintentionally engineered by Trump’s announcement of increasing tariffs from ten per cent to twenty five percent unless China agrees to his “deal”whatever that may be we seem to be back to the drawing board in the ongoing US-China trade war. Last week I received news from many experts including our own China watchers that a deal was imminent. Although my esteemed colleague Prof. Zhao was also in this group, he sagely pointed out even such a deal and seeming end of the trade war will not resolve the fundamental rivalries between US, the status quo power and China, the rising power. Now it seems that he had left out of the equation the unpredictable nature of Trump’s behavior.

Haider A. Khan

James Massey, a former FBI crisis negotiator, may be closer to the truth than my academic colleagues in this instance. Massey is not convinced that US President Donald Trump has the ‘discipline or patience, or an appreciation for the strategic instruments that successful international relations require’ I confess I am only an economist. But unlike many other economists I have made the well-confirmed findings of the rapidly advancing field of cognitive science and cognitive psychology the cornerstone of my microanalysis of human economic behavior. Although this new 21st century science is no guarantee for certainty—quite the contrary, in fact— a cognitive analyst would point to the tendency of Trump to bully people into submission. But what may work with relatively powerless underlings will almost certainly not work with even an opponent in the international arena much weaker than the US in economic and military terms. The crucial factors on the other side are minimum defense capability and political will to withstand pressure.

China is not a weak opponent. It also has more than a minimum defense capability and plenty of political will to withstand pressure from bullies like Trump and his cronies. Trump and his gang may have met more than their match in Chinese leadership under Xi. Such is also the verdict of experts in psychological warfare.

According to them Trump’s default negotiating style that consists of bombast, threats and litigation domestically may be largely ineffective internationally against leaders like Xi. All evidence also points to another major difference between Trump and Xi. While the latter seems to be good at focused listening that may be the key to dealing with tense negotiations, Trump seems inattentive to details, narcissistic and intent on humiliating his adversaries. That is not the surest path to global leadership when the relative power of the US is nowhere near what it was immediately after WW2. A reality-check should suggest working multilaterally with other global leaders in mutually respectful and beneficial partnership. Unfortunately, that is not the art of the deal that Trump administration cares about very much.

So, what is likely to happen? I am not so eager to predict possibilities especially in light of how wrong my colleagues have been in this fraught area. But if I had to bet, I would put my money on the proposition that China will keep the doors open for negotiation, but will never submit to bullies like Trump. There must be analysts in Washington and in the US universities and think tanks who have read the history of the Chinese revolution and the role both nationalist and anti-imperilalist ideas played in this process. The Chinese fought patiently a long political and military anti-imperialist war to liberate their country. Whatever differences may exist among the leadership and within the people, they will be united against foreign bullying and pressure. Meaningful negotiations with China can begin only if the US and other powers recognize this historically based cognitive reality.

The post Trump and China: The Art of Deal or Clumsy Bullying? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Sri Lanka imposes curfew after mobs target mosques

Government has little legitimacy or control.

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Action taken following days of attacks on places of worship and Muslim-owned businesses

Sri Lanka has imposed a country-wide curfew after successive days of mob attacks on mosques and Muslim-owned shops in three districts.

Facebook and WhatsApp have also been banned as the government seeks to quell unrest in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday bombings at churches and luxury hotels last month, which killed more than 250 people.

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Serena Williams overcomes slow start to make smooth progress in Italian Open

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• Williams beats qualifier in comeback game from injury
• Konta eases through, but Edmund out in first round

Serena Williams fell behind 3-1 in the first set before opening her clay court season with a routine 6-4, 6-2 win over Swedish qualifier Rebecca Peterson on Monday in the first round of the Italian Open.

After a shaky start, Williams began to take control with her baseline power on a windy day at the Foro Italico. When she ran down a passing attempt from Peterson and replied with a cross-court winner to break for a 5-2 lead in the second set, she let out a scream and bent over as she pumped both of her fists.

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