AwesomeCapital

Sunday, June 16, 2024

Israel launches daily 11-hour pauses in fighting along key aid route in southern Gaza

The Israeli military says it will undertake a daily 11-hour “tactical pause” in fighting along a route in southern Gaza to allow in more humanitarian aid but reiterated its offensive in Rafah will carry on.

The pause began Saturday and will occur every day from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. along a roughly 7.5-mile route in Rafah to allow trucks to travel through the Kerem Shalom Crossing, the main entry point for aid to southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of refugees remain, the Israel Defense Force said.

The 11-hour pauses are significantly longer than the previous ones implemented by the IDF during the war and done to reduce the need for coordinating aid deliveries.

00:00

The Israeli military has also secured a route from the crossing to Al Bayuk and the European Hospital in Khan Younis, which will be opened during the pause and restricted to aid trucks only.

The Kerem Shalom Crossing has suffered a bottleneck since Israel’s offensive in Rafah began in early May, with Hamas and the IDF clashing repeatedly along the route.

“This is an additional step in the humanitarian aid efforts that have been conducted by the IDF and COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) since the beginning of the war,” the IDF said in a statement.

The IDF said the “tactical pause,” which begins as Muslims start marking their major Eid Al-Adha holiday, came after discussions with the United Nations and international aid agencies.

But shortly after announcing the pause, the IDF made it clear that the initiative would not undermine its ongoing battle against Hamas in Rafah, southern Gaza’s most populous city where the terror group’s remaining strongholds are believed to be located.

“The fighting in Rafah continues,” the Israeli military said.

The clarification came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the decision, with the Jewish leader allegedly butting heads with his military chiefs at a war cabinet meeting Sunday, according to local Channel 13.

“We have a country with an army, not an army with a country,” Netanyahu reportedly said during the meeting. “In order to achieve the elimination of Hamas, I have made decisions that aren’t always accepted by the military echelon.”

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir stood by Netanyahu’s comments and said that whoever came up with the idea for a pause is a “fool who should not continue to be in his position.”

The fighting in Rafah remains intense, with eight Israeli soldiers killed by an explosion Saturday in one of the deadliest single attacks on the IDF since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

https://nypost.com/2024/06/16/world-news/israel-launches-daily-11-hour-pauses-in-fighting-along-key-aid-route-in-southern-gaza/

How City Hall frittered away $41M on no-bid migrant shelter deal with dodgy DocGo

Mayor Adams is still half-heartedly trying to wring money from Washington for President Biden’s migrant influx, which will cost local and state taxpayers $3.6 billion this year.

But it’s easy to see why the White House remains reluctant: City Hall won’t honestly account for how and why it spends money on migrants.

The latest example: The Adams administration has misled the public into thinking the city is cutting ties with DocGo, a troubled “emergency” no-bid contractor — even as it has quietly signed at least one new agreement with the firm.

Last spring, the city’s Housing Preservation & Development agency signed a no-bid, one-year $432 million contract with DocGo for “asylee housing” and other migrant services, then extended the contract until the end of this year.

The city picked DocGo despite the fact that it has no expertise in housing large numbers of people: It’s a medical-transport and mobile medical-services company that landed big health-care contracts during the COVID-19 era, when New York was just setting money on fire.

And never mind that New York already has many for-profit and non-profit companies with long histories providing homeless shelters, meaning the city should have been able to cobble together a decent bidding pool, even in a hurry, and tried to get lower prices through competition.

Earlier this year — after multiple reports of DocGo’s poor services, including hiring unprofessional security guards who bullied migrants and serving bad food that was thrown away uneaten — the city said it wouldn’t renew DocGo’s contract.

“This will ultimately allow the city to save more money,” a top Adams aide said in April.

The public understandably took this to mean the city was done with DocGo.

Not exactly.

As The Post reported last week, the Adams administration has begun a new contract with DocGo, this one a $41 million, one-year deal to manage a 1,092-bed Long Island City migrant shelter, beginning last September.

Where to start?

First of all, HPD didn’t even officially sign this agreement with DocGo until this year, on March 24th, more than six months after work began.

This delay is highly irregular: DocGo has thus been doing work under a gentlemen’s agreement that it will be paid someday.

That might be fine for a tiny contract, but tens of millions of dollars?

Second, the scope of work laid out in the new contract offers no indication that DocGo is uniquely and solely capable of performing the work, doing it better and more cheaply than any other potential contractor.

The $41 million is paying mainly for staff — 142 employees performing generic social-services work — with the city providing the shelter site itself.

And they’re billing the taxpayers mind-blowing amounts for those staffers’ paychecks.

DocGo bills the city $1,140 each day for a social worker. For a five-day week, including vacation and benefits, that’s $270,000 a year, which no social worker earns.

Similarly, DocGo bills taxpayers $1,040 per day per person for six daily supervisors, and $1,000 a day for a program director.

DocGo bills us $520 each day for each of 84 security guards, 28 guards per shift — $65 an hour for a job that typically pays half that.

The lowest-paid staffers, 40 administrative workers, are billed for $400 a day, or $50 an hour.

And there’s questionable padding, too: Does every single shelter resident really need a monthly COVID-19 test, at a cost of $12,012 — $11 apiece?

Walmart sells them retail for $8.

Altogether, from security to laundry to three square meals, each migrant in this bare-bones shelter costs the city $103 per day — not including the actual shelter.

Why didn’t the city bid this contract out, to see if other homeless-services providers can do this work more efficiently?

Last September was well more than a year into the city’s migrant “crisis,” when it was no longer an acute, unexpected emergency.

Why did City Hall conceal DocGo’s role until the last possible minute?

In the independent city comptroller’s system, the contract is listed as “received” only this May 23. And the city listed it in its PassPort contract-information system only on June 6.

City Hall avoided providing any information about this deal until it had no choice: Presumably, DocGo is getting antsy to collect its cash.

One thing’s for sure: DocGo as a whole is doing well.

As stock analysts at GuruFocus put it, the company has recently enjoyed “soaring” income, particularly from “high-revenue migrant projects.”

But a big risk of these projects, the number-crunchers warn, is “political” uncertainty — that is, the uproar that ensues when the rest of us find out.

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.

https://nypost.com/2024/06/16/opinion/how-city-hall-blew-41m-on-docgo-migrant-shelter-deal/

Hamas head Sinwar humiliates Blinken & Biden and reveals hideous Hamas strategy

“It was a deal that Israel accepted and the world was behind. Hamas could have answered with a single word: ‘Yes,’” Secretary of State Antony Blinken fumed to reporters in Doha last week — exposing himself as either an utter cynic or a total fool.

Hamas doesn’t want a deal, except one where Israel just gives up.

And if Blinken doesn’t know that, then he’s not getting the basic info he should, not from US intelligence nor even from whoever’s in charge of getting him essential press clippings.

Hamas military chief Yahya Sinwar admitted that the teror group views Palestinian casualties as “necessary sacrifices.”AP Photo/Adel Hana, File

Two days before Blinken chastised Hamas, The Wall Street Journal revealed private correspondence of the terror group’s military chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.

Sinwar admits openly that he wants more Palestinian casualties. They are “necessary sacrifices” that will “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”

More, more, more deaths mean that Sinwar and his genocidal crew “have the Israelis right where we want them.”

Nor are the Hamas political chiefs, ensconced in their four-star lodgings in Qatar, in any position to disagree with him, since he’s simply applying the terror outfit’s long-held principles.

US spy agencies are supposed to be awesome at “signals intelligence,” intercepting communications; did they somehow fail to get this stuff, or did someone decide to keep it from Blinken and the entire US high command?

Or is he just pretending not to know, because publicly chasing a cease-fire deal that he knows will never come is that important to President Biden?

Heck, we’re not sure Biden got this info (or, sigh, remembered it if he did).

Making this all the worse is that Sinwar’s horrific strategy only works because of outside enablers.

Like the high EU and UN officials who sputter with outrage when Israel rescues hostages.

And the International Criminal Court, seeking arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

And all the media that play along, as well as the Hamas sympathizers menacing Jews around the nation.

But Blinken and Biden bear the chief blame, for doing everything in their power to hinder Israel’s humane and justified counterattack against Hamas almost from the start.

Biden’s doing this — and pushing peace plan after peace plan — to win votes from the lefty segment of his base.

Sacrificing Israel to the genocidaires, in other words, to win in November.

The Sinwar revelations show the world his plan will be an utter bust: Hamas ain’t interested.

All this demands immediate action in Congress: Did the intel community fail to get the goods here, or fail to share them?

Have Biden, Blinken and/or National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan simply decided to ignore them?

The Republicans who run the House should be all over this, but so should Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s always claimed to be Israel’s No. 1 defender.

If Chuck doesn’t raise holy hell over this, he goes down in history along with Joe, Tony and Jake as Israel’s greatest betrayer.

https://nypost.com/2024/06/16/opinion/sinwar-humiliates-blinken-amp-biden-and-reveals-hideous-hamas-strategy/

How the US Mopped Up a Third of Global Capital Flows Since Covid

De-dollarization narrative swept aside by overseas investors
Key question is whether policies shift, upending the dynamic

In the face of calls around the world to diversify out of the dollar in recent years, the US has nabbed almost one-third of all the investment that flowed across borders since Covid struck.

An International Monetary Fund analysis sent by request to Bloomberg News shows that the share of global flows has climbed — not fallen — since a shortage of dollars in 2020 spooked global investors and the 2022 freezing of Russian assets stoked questions about respect for free movement of capital. The pre-pandemic US average share was just 18%, according to the IMF.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-16/how-the-us-mopped-up-a-third-of-global-capital-flows-since-covid

'Annexation & Elimination' Of Taiwan Is China's Great National Cause, President Lai Says

Taiwan's recently installed new President William Lai Ching-te issued a blistering critique of China in a speech on Sunday while calling on Taiwan's people to resolutely determine their own fate.

He addressed cadets and officers at the Whampoa Military Academy in Kaohsiung, located in the self-ruled island's south. Lai, who has repeatedly been denounced as an extremist by Beijing since entering office last month, warned his armed forces that China holds as its top priority the "annexation" and "elimination" of Taiwan.

His theme was that the cadets must recognize the challenges of the "new era" - which has included Taipei offering talks but which have been frequently rebuffed by China, according to Lai's remarks. China's military has also continued intermittent drills which threaten the island.

"The biggest challenge is to face the powerful rise of China, [which is] destroying the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and regards Taiwan’s annexation and the elimination of the Republic of China as the great rejuvenating cause of its people," he said.

"The highest mission is to bravely take up the heavy responsibility and grand task of protecting Taiwan, and safeguarding the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," he added.

Shortly after Lai's inauguration last month, the Chinese PLA military staged large drills around the island, which included naval ships and warplanes crossing the Taiwan Strait median line.

As for what Taiwan's president is offering in terms of talks to deescalate tensions with Beijing, he told Time magazine days ago in an interview:

First, the PRC should recognize that the Republic of China exists. They should be sincere in building exchanges and cooperation with the popularly-elected legitimate government of Taiwan.
Second, each issue should be mutually beneficial and reciprocal. For example, if Taiwan allows tourists to go to China, they should allow tourists to visit Taiwan. And if we let our students go to China, their students should be allowed to come.
Third, as we conduct exchanges and cooperate with one another, we should share a common conviction to enhance the well-being of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, working toward an objective of peace and mutual prosperity.

During his inauguration speech last month, the newly sworn in Lai had also laid out, "So long as China refuses to renounce the use of force against Taiwan, all of us in Taiwan ought to understand that even if we accept the entirety of China’s position and give up our sovereignty, China’s ambition to annex Taiwan will not simply disappear."

He vowed that his administration aims to "further entrench Taiwan’s democracy" and "maintain peace in the Indo-Pacific." Meanwhile, Taipei continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in military equipment from the United States toward that end, and recently there have been reports of US Marines deployed to Taiwan-controlled outer islands which are close to the Chinese mainland.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/annexation-elimination-taiwan-chinas-great-national-cause-president-lai-says