Bees are Dying as are Palestinians and Soon it Will be Our Turn

At a certain point during the day on Thursday the realization dawns on me that I am going to make it through another week. Friday is on the horizon, and with it the promise of a bit of rest and relaxation. When I realize I am going to make it I feel relief. The repetition of the rat race becomes less demanding. It seems as if I have a little more room to move.

But yesterday, let me just say this about yesterday before moving to a brief treatment of the hollowness, the stupidity of John Kerry's ceasefire negotiations. I can't get out of my head this OpEd I read a few weeks back by Mark Winston, a Simon Fraser University professor, "Our Bees, Ourselves: Bees and Colony Collapse." I was telling a coworker about it. Honeybee colonies are collapsing because of mono-crop agriculture, overuse of pesticides, overwork due to being hauled by tractor trailer from one field to the next to perform pollination duties. And this Simon Fraser University professor thinks the same thing is going to happen to us homo sapiens because the same basic conditions apply: We are basted in chemicals, sustained by mono-crop agriculture, and we are overworked:

Honeybee collapse has been particularly vexing because there is no one cause, but rather a thousand little cuts. The main elements include the compounding impact of pesticides applied to fields, as well as pesticides applied directly into hives to control mites; fungal, bacterial and viral pests and diseases; nutritional deficiencies caused by vast acreages of single-crop fields that lack diverse flowering plants; and, in the United States, commercial beekeeping itself, which disrupts colonies by moving most bees around the country multiple times each year to pollinate crops.

The real issue, though, is not the volume of problems, but the interactions among them. Here we find a core lesson from the bees that we ignore at our peril: the concept of synergy, where one plus one equals three, or four, or more. A typical honeybee colony contains residue from more than 120 pesticides. Alone, each represents a benign dose. But together they form a toxic soup of chemicals whose interplay can substantially reduce the effectiveness of bees’ immune systems, making them more susceptible to diseases.

These findings provide the most sophisticated data set available for any species about synergies among pesticides, and between pesticides and disease. The only human equivalent is research into pharmaceutical interactions, with many prescription drugs showing harmful or fatal side effects when used together, particularly in patients who already are disease-compromised. Pesticides have medical impacts as potent as pharmaceuticals do, yet we know virtually nothing about their synergistic impacts on our health, or their interplay with human diseases.

Observing the tumultuous demise of honeybees should alert us that our own well-being might be similarly threatened. The honeybee is a remarkably resilient species that has thrived for 40 million years, and the widespread collapse of so many colonies presents a clear message: We must demand that our regulatory authorities require studies on how exposure to low dosages of combined chemicals may affect human health before approving compounds.

Honeybees are ancient and very stable. So much so that Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe hypothesize that they came fully formed from outer space. The fact that honeybees are dying now in great numbers is a very bad sign not just for them but for all life on the planet. Humans will not be spared. A great die off is coming our way.

Winston's solution is let some things return to the wild. Capitalists will actually make more money:

Bees also provide some clues to how we may build a more collaborative relationship with the services that ecosystems can provide. Beyond honeybees, there are thousands of wild bee species that could offer some of the pollination service needed for agriculture. Yet feral bees — that is, bees not kept by beekeepers — also are threatened by factors similar to those afflicting honeybees: heavy pesticide use, destruction of nesting sites by overly intensive agriculture and a lack of diverse nectar and pollen sources thanks to highly effective weed killers, which decimate the unmanaged plants that bees depend on for nutrition.

Recently, my laboratory at Simon Fraser University conducted a study on farms that produce canola oil that illustrated the profound value of wild bees. We discovered that crop yields, and thus profits, are maximized if considerable acreages of cropland are left uncultivated to support wild pollinators.

A variety of wild plants means a healthier, more diverse bee population, which will then move to the planted fields next door in larger and more active numbers. Indeed, farmers who planted their entire field would earn about $27,000 in profit per farm, whereas those who left a third unplanted for bees to nest and forage in would earn $65,000 on a farm of similar size. 

Such logic goes against conventional wisdom that fields and bees alike can be uniformly micromanaged. The current challenges faced by managed honeybees and wild bees remind us that we can manage too much. Excessive cultivation, chemical use and habitat destruction eventually destroy the very organisms that could be our partners.

And this insight goes beyond mere agricultural economics. There is a lesson in the decline of bees about how to respond to the most fundamental challenges facing contemporary human societies. We can best meet our own needs if we maintain a balance with nature — a balance that is as important to our health and prosperity as it is to the bees.

But any such common sense has difficulty gaining traction in a world dominated by greed, lies, vanity and stupidity. Case in point is the U.S. Secretary of State's shuttle diplomacy to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza. As Michael Gordon and Rick Gladstone report, "Kerry Claims Progress Toward Gaza Truce, but Hamas Leader Is Defiant," he is only talking to, on the Palestinian side, the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas will be able to deliver nothing:

But even as Mr. Kerry pressed his case with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, a defiant note was struck by one figure whom the secretary of state has conspicuously not talked with: Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas. 

“Everyone wanted us to accept a cease-fire and then negotiate for our rights,” Mr. Meshal said at a news conference in Qatar, his home in exile, taking aim at the very approach Mr. Kerry has sought to nurture. “We reject this, and we reject it again today.” 

Mr. Kerry has emphasized that his immediate goal is to obtain a cease-fire, after 16 days of fighting that has killed nearly 700 Palestinians, 32 Israeli soldiers and three Israeli civilians.

Kerry is trying to secure an immediate ceasefire with only a promise to address substantive issues later. We know what some of those issues are -- an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, open borders and ports, release of Hamas political prisoners, etc. -- and we also know that Israel has no intention of budging on any of them without some form of Gaza demilitarization backed up by intrusive inspections. Hamas will not agree to this. Furthermore, Israel has stated there will be no ceasefire until leadership is satisfied Hamas' tunnels have been identified and destroyed.

Israel got a big boost late last night when the FAA lifted its flight ban. No doubt a lot of pressure was placed on the Obama administration. But Meshal is resolute. There will be no ceasefire without a lifting of the blockade:

In Doha, Qatar’s capital, Mr. Meshal outlined his own demands. While Mr. Meshal said that Hamas would not “close the door” for a brief truce to evacuate the wounded and deliver humanitarian aid, he stressed a more lasting agreement would not come until some of the group’s demands were met. 

“We will not accept any initiative that does not lift the blockade on our people and that does not respect their sacrifices,” he said.

So the slaughter will continue. The United States' days as a leading power are over. It no longer commands any moral force. Europe is moving away. Eventually, hopefully soon, the American people will move away as well. By this I mean smash Washington. This will take a new political formation, which, given all the election and campaign finance law revisions of the last twenty years, will basically require a revolution.

The Kiev Junta Did It + Israel Invades Gaza

Before moving to the downing of the Malaysia Airlines jet over Grabovo, Ukraine, a few words on Israel's invasion of Gaza, which began yesterday. Jodi Rudoren has the story, "1 Israeli, 20 Palestinians Killed in Gaza Ground Offensive." I mistakenly believed that Israel's talk of a ground assault was a feint while another ceasefire was worked out in Cairo with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. Well, they pulled the plug on those talks:

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, whose meetings in Cairo on Wednesday and Thursday failed to produce a cease-fire agreement, told reporters there that the ground operation would “lead to more bloodshed and complicate efforts to end the aggression,” according to WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency. Mr. Abbas was scheduled to travel to Turkey and perhaps Qatar on Friday to continue cease-fire discussions.

Where the conflict goes now is anybody's guess. Israel's stated purpose is to close the tunnels that Hamas uses to smuggle its rockets, which I suppose has the advantage of Netanyahu being able to declare victory whenever he wants. Who is to say how many tunnels actually exist? They don't appear on Google Maps. So Israel will rack up a large body count and administer as much destruction as possible. The wild card is what happens in Israel and the West Bank. Israel's Western allies will certainly shield her from any official condemnation. But what of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Israel? Will a third intifada develop? So far Israel is coming out on top because the conflict remains what appears to be the latest iteration of Operation Cast Lead.

Now to the war in Novorossiya and who is responsible for blowing the Boeing 777 commercial jetliner, carrying 298 passengers, out of the sky. Ukraine has posted audio of an intercepted phone conversation from a militia leader named Igor Belzer where he claims to have shot down a plane. This is being covered by the Gray Lady, but it is being treated with kid gloves. No one is embracing it; that is how low the credibility of the junta is even by news organs that have supported Kiev's legitimacy from the outset.

Sabrina Tavernise and Keith Bradsher, two topnotch reporters, have the lede story this morning on the Malaysia Airlines jet, "Russia Denies Role in Downing of Airliner." They puncture the junta's claim that a ragtag militia under the command of a Belzer could launch a fancy missile system capable of bringing down a commercial passenger jet traveling at 33,000 feet

Peter Marosszeky, a longtime aircraft engineer and former senior executive at Qantas, PanAm and American Airlines who advised Boeing on the development of the 777 aircraft, said in a telephone interview that the 777-200 had an extremely long range and would have enough fuel to divert around a dangerous area during a 12-hour flight if the pilots chose to do so. But he said that airlines have typically not worried until now about surface-to-air missiles reaching planes at cruising altitude, because only a very large missile with a lot of fuel could ascend such a distance. 

Mr. Marosszeky expressed skepticism that militiamen could readily fire such a large missile without training as well as cooperation from whoever owned or manufactured the missile. “You’ve got to have special codes and so forth to operate these things,” he said.

Tavernise was on the scene in Grabovo and talked to Novorossiya fighters there. They said point blank that their side had nothing to do with it. It rings true:

As a cloudy dawn came, the full horror of the field was on display. Small white pieces of cloth dotted the grassy farmland, marking the spots of bodies. 

Four rebels in fatigues were wandering through the ruins, looking through people’s belongings and riffling through guidebooks and bags. 

When asked who was responsible for the crash, they looked incredulous and said that it had of course been the Ukrainian military. 

“This wasn’t ours,” said a rebel who identified himself only as Alexei, standing looking at an overhead bin in the grass with a rifle over his shoulder. “Why would we do this? We’re not animals.”

Tavernise's interviews from around the crash site revealed that the flash of the missile originated from Snizhne (the city that was on the news earlier this week when Ukraine accused Russian military aircraft of blasting apart a four-story apartment building and killing 11 civilians):

The crash remained the subject of intense debate in the small Ukrainian town of Grabovo, as residents tried to come to grips with what had unfolded in the fields where they work, just yards from their homes. 

Two villagers said quietly that they had seen the flash of a rocket in the sky around the time the plane went down. Victor, who said he was too afraid to give his last name, said that he had been in his garden at the time and that he had seen “the light coming from a rocket.” 

He said it had come from the direction of Snizhne, a city where the Ukrainian military has been bombing rebel positions frequently for more than a week. “It was a rocket, I’m sure of it,” he said.

The smoking gun here is not the bogus Belzer intercept but the activities in and around Snizhne. Let's go back to that story by David Herszenhorn that appeared yesterday, "Ukraine Says Russian Plane Shot Down Its Fighter Jet":

Ukraine and Russia have traded several accusations of cross-border hostilities in recent days. The Russian Foreign Ministry, for instance, warned of potentially “irreversible consequences” after a man was killed in the Russian city of Donetsk, which shares the same name as the regional capital in eastern Ukraine where rebel forces have been regrouping in recent days. The Russians said the man was killed by a mortar shell fired from the Ukrainian side of the border. 

Ukraine, in turn, has accused Russia of firing a rocket that destroyed an Antonov-26 military transport plane on Monday, and Ukraine also accused Russian military planes of carrying out an airstrike that destroyed a residential building and killed 11 people in the town of Snizhne on Tuesday morning.

The junta's southeast offensive had been routed; its military was behaving in an increasingly erratic fashion -- shelling Russia, blowing apart buildings and then blaming Russia, seeing Russian fighter jets blotting out the sun. This is a description of power coming unhinged. Downing a passenger jet is just what you would expect.

Obama Greenlights Continued Slaughter in Gaza and Novorossiya while Adding Sanctions on Russia

Israel is telegraphing in the newspapers that it is readying for a ground invasion of Gaza. It was the headline that led Google News all yesterday. But when you read the story by Jodi Rudoren, "Military Official Says Israel Invasion of Gaza Is Likely," what one comes away with is that it is, at least for the time being, a bluff. Ever since Hamas and Islamic Jihad started firing off rockets into Israel several weeks ago, Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman and strategic affairs minister Yuval Steinitz have been promising a full-on invasion to exterminate Hamas. My sense is that the present temporary humanitarian ceasefire, which expires at 3 PM today, was rolled out to coincide with the ground-invasion bluff with the hope of locking in a long-term ceasefire that is being negotiated in Cairo with Paestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas.

One thing seems clear, the Israeli military is skeptical about the efficacy of re-occupying Gaza:

Mr. Netanyahu has been fending off demands for a ground operation from some members of his cabinet and party. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who has been at turns partner and rival to the prime minister, reiterated his call for a more substantial campaign against Hamas on Wednesday, as did Yuval Steinitz, the minister of strategic affairs, who has been a Netanyahu stalwart and frequent mouthpiece. 

“It is not possible to ensure summer vacation, a normal summer for our kids, without a ground operation in Gaza,” Mr. Lieberman said during a visit to Ashkelon. 

“We don’t need to rule Gaza or build settlements in Gaza,” he added. “We need to ensure that all Hamas terrorists run away, are imprisoned or die.”

Mr. Steinitz said in a radio interview that it was possible Israel would begin a ground campaign in the next few days. He urged Israel to take over Gaza for a few weeks to demilitarize it, topple Hamas and pave the way for “something else.” 

But the senior military official said it would not be so simple. 

“We estimate that sitting there and eliminating Hamas terrorism from the Gaza Strip is a matter of many months. It’s not a matter of two or three months; it’s much more than that,” he said. “We have a very good idea of what does it mean to take over Gaza Strip in all aspects: military, civilian, infrastructure, economical. We have a very good idea, and I think it’s one of the issues that the Israeli government should consider very seriously.” 

He added: “That’s a huge burden on anybody who would do it. Everything has its own prices.”

So while Obama defends as justified Israel's slaughter of children playing on the beach and an old man walking to mosque, the Nobel Peace Prize winning POTUS announces at the same time additional sanctions on Russia for not doing more to look the other way as Ukraine engages in a similar civilian slaughter in Novorossiya.

The new sanctions target the Russian oil company Rosneft and the financial arm of Gazprom, Gazprombank, cutting them off from U.S. financial markets, but not entirely. The restrictions apply only to loans over 90 days. The sanctioned firms can still access overnight loans. Peter Baker and James Kanter have the story, "Raising Stakes on Russia, U.S. Adds Sanctions":

The firms targeted by the capital market restrictions were some of the most prominent in Russia. Rosneft, owned by the state and headed by a longtime adviser to President Vladimir V. Putin, is the country’s largest oil producer.

Gazprombank is the financial arm of Gazprom, the state-controlled natural gas giant, which is also headed by a Putin ally. Also targeted were VEB, the state economic development bank, and Novatek, another natural gas producer.

The administration also barred business dealings with eight state-owned defense firms; four Russian government officials, including an aide to Mr. Putin and a top official in the Federal Security Service; an oil shipping facility in Crimea, which Moscow annexed; a pro-Russian separatist leader; and the rump rebel organizations in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The four banks and energy companies will be barred from future loans with a maturity of more than 90 days, meaning they will still be able to conduct day-to-day business with overnight capital but will find themselves shut out of longer-term equity. 

Some officials and experts said it could raise the cost of borrowing for Russian firms as they seek other creditors who may be wary of future American steps. 

Gazprombank has $8.2 billion in debt over 90 days denominated in American dollars, and while some of that may have come through European or other institutions, officials said the vast majority of it could not be financed, cleared and settled without involving participants in the United States capital markets who would be affected by the new measures. 

Mr. Obama’s actions would not bar the targeted Russian banks or energy companies from doing business with Americans or seize their property. Rosneft, for instance, has major joint ventures with ExxonMobil that will still be permitted. But administration officials pointedly noted that such moves were still possible if Russia did not back down.

Craig Pirrong, a professor of finance at the University of Houston, said the current moves might not have that much impact because the affected companies could get American dollars elsewhere. “This will constrain to some degree the size of the capital pool that the sanctioned firms can access, but not nearly as much as could be,” he said. 

Douglas A. Rediker, a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the actual exposure to the American capital market may be small. “But the chilling effect on hitting sizable banks and energy companies could cause major second thoughts for doing business and investing far beyond direct U.S. capital market impact,” he said. 

Others were more skeptical of the political impact. “What happens if this doesn’t work?” asked Samuel Charap, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The “risks of escalation seem huge,” he added, “and there’s a question of whether this level of pain makes losing Ukraine acceptable to Putin. Unlikely, in my view.”

Several lawmakers from both parties praised Mr. Obama’s move, but some Republicans called it inadequate. “Limited actions like those announced today make U.S. threats look hollow,” said Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, adding that Mr. Obama was “continuing to avoid decisive action.” 

American business groups have objected to unilateral sanctions, arguing that they would only hurt domestic businesses while their European competitors swooped in.

The National Association of Manufacturers said it “is disappointed that the U.S. is fundamentally extending sanctions in increasingly unilateral ways that will undermine U.S. commercial engagement and reduce the effectiveness of the measures imposed.” 

Mr. Obama tried to address that concern on Wednesday. “These sanctions are significant, but they are also targeted, designed to have the maximum impact on Russia while limiting any spillover effects on American companies or those of our allies,” the president said.

This is the weakness of the U.S. strategy. In order for it to be effective, Europe has to follow suit. So far my read is that Merkel is merely mouthing words of support but slow-walking any sort of real commitment:

Mr. Obama called his British and French counterparts, but the critical call came Tuesday with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the driving force behind Europe’s response to Russia, when the two coordinated the actions on Wednesday. 

In Brussels, the European Council, which defines the European Union’s political direction and priorities, told the European Investment Bank to suspend new financing for projects in Russia and suggested that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development follow suit.

The council also said it would decide by the end of July on a list of additional sanctions targets, including those “who actively provide material or financial support to the Russian decision-makers.” 

That language suggested that Europe might next take aim at Russian oligarchs who are part of Mr. Putin’s ruling clique, a group already penalized by the Americans but so far spared by the Europeans.

“Of course, it is a deepening of the economic sanctions,” Ms. Merkel said after the meeting. Whether it is as much as previously threatened, she added, “We are entering the economic sphere here.”

The reality though is that Europe has really done nothing other than the merely cosmetic here; hence, the Merkel "but, of course they're real" quote above.

Meeting in Brussels, leaders of the European Union refused to match the American measures and instead adopted a more tempered plan that blocks new development loans to Russia and threatens to target more Russian individuals. 

The disparate moves suggested a widening gulf in the response to the crisis in Ukraine and may dilute the impact of the American actions.

The United States is walking the plank. Europe has an advantage now, something that is making the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers uncomfortable. And let's not forget the overarching issue before turning to Putin's clear comments from Brasil. As with George W. Bush, to too Barrack Obama: Everything the U.S. does turns to shit. Here is David Herszenhorn, "Putin Criticizes U.S. Over New Sanctions":

Mr. Putin, speaking to reporters in Brasília, where he is winding up a trip through central and South America, warned that the American sanctions would backfire. 

“I have already said they tend to have a boomerang effect, and without any doubt, in this case they are driving Russian-American relations to an impasse, causing very serious damage,” Mr. Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript. “And I am convinced that this is harmful to the national long-term strategic interests of the American state, the American people.”

Mr. Putin said that rather than imposing sanctions like those announced in Washington on Wednesday against Russian banks and energy companies in retaliation for Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine, the Obama administration should be working to end the bloodshed in Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists have been fighting the government since early April.

Although there is evidence that Russia has been supporting the insurgents with weapons, tanks and other equipment, and some of the leaders of the insurgency have identified themselves as Russian citizens, Mr. Putin said that the United States should do more to assist Russian efforts to achieve a peace agreement. 

“This must be done together — it must be jointly, of course, to encourage all sides in the conflict in Ukraine to an immediate end to hostilities and negotiate,” Mr. Putin said. “Unfortunately, we don’t see this on the side of our partners, especially the American partners, who it seems to me on the contrary are pushing the Ukrainian authorities to the continuation of this fratricidal war and the continuation of this punitive operation. This policy has no prospects.” 

Mr. Putin, who has never hidden his disdain for American foreign policy in the Middle East, once again held up the region as evidence of failed interventionism on the part of Washington. 

“In general I would say that those who are planning foreign policy actions in the United States — unfortunately we are not seeing it only in recent times, but say, the last 10-15 years — they conduct quite aggressive foreign policy and, in my opinion, very unprofessional,” Mr. Putin said.

“Look: In Afghanistan, problems. Iraq is falling apart, Libya is falling apart. If General Sisi had not taken Egypt in hand, Egypt no doubt would now be wasted and feverish. In Africa, there are problems in many countries. They touched Ukraine, and there are problems.” 

Mr. Putin said that he remained open to negotiations with the United States. “It is a pity that our partners are going on this way, but we have not closed the door to negotiations, to resolve this situation,” he said.