Archive April 29, 2025

My siblings and I frequently spent our pocket money on new books when we were younger. Our mother had a fervent love for books instilled in us. Reading was more than just a pastime; it was also a way of life.

I can still recall our parents’ surprise gift of a home library to us. They had placed numerous shelves in the living room, making it tall and wide. Even though I was only five years old, I immediately recognized the sacredness of its location.

My father had a burning desire to have books on philosophy, religion, politics, languages, science, literature, etc. on the shelves. He desired a large selection of books that could rival those at the neighborhood library.

One of Gaza’s most recognizable bookshops, the Samir Mansour Library, was where my parents frequently took us. Each book would be able to be picked up by us.

Our schools organized reading events, reading clubs, and panel discussions to foster this love of reading.

Our home library became our friend, a source of comfort during war and peace, and a lifeline during those dark, eerie nights surrounded only by bombs. We would recite the poems of Mahmoud Darwish that we had memorized from books in our library while chatting about the works of Ghassan Kanafani while reciting the poems from our library.

The blockade on Gaza was enacted at an intolerable level when the genocide first started in October 2023. There was no shortage of nutritious food, fuel, medicines, and water.

People started burning anything they could find, including books, tree branches, and wood from the rubble of homes.

This was the first time my brother’s family encountered this. Their family could use the heavy-heartedness of my nephews’ sacrifice for their academic future: they burned their newly printed schoolbooks whose ink hadn’t even dried. The same books that once fed their minds are now feeding the flames in search of survival.

My 11-year-old nephew Ahmed confronted me with the reality despite my horror at the book’s burning. Either we starve to death or become illiterates. I’ll make the choice to live. He said that education will resume later. His response completely shook me.

Even though the price of wood was skyrocketing, I insisted that we buy it when we ran out of gas. When the war is over, my father promised to buy you every book you want, but he failed. But for the moment, let’s use these. I resisted despite my best efforts.

Our ups and downs, our laughter, our tears, our triumphs, and our setbacks were all reflected in those books. How are they going to burn them? I began to read some of our books once, twice, three times, memorizing their titles, pages, and cover names, burying my fear that our library might be the place to make the next sacrifice.

Cooking gas was finally permitted into Gaza in January after a temporary truce had been declared. I sigh of relief knowing that my books and I had survived this Holocaust.

The genocide then resumed in the first few days of March. No food, medical supplies, or fuel could enter without a blockade humanitarian aid. In less than three weeks, we ran out of gas. Without other sources of fuel for cooking, due to the complete blockade and the extensive bombardment.

I had to accept that I had no choice. I glanced through the international human rights law books as I approached our library. They had to come first, I figured. These legal principles were taught in schools to us, and they led to our liberation one day. We were made to believe that our Palestinian rights were protected by them.

Yet, we were never protected by these international laws. We have been a victim of genocide. There is no international law, no ethics, and no value for human life there. Zaza has been teleported to another moral dimension.

I tore those pages apart in an effort to recall how numerous families had been torn apart by bombs in the past. The torn pages were set on fire as I watched them go to the dust, offering an agonizing tribute to those who had been killed in the attacks on Al-Aqsa Hospital, journalist Ahmed Mansour, and countless others whose names we will never know.

Next, my brother, a graduate in pharmacology, burned all of his pharmacology books and summaries. His years of hard work were the fuel for the preparation of our canned food. Still, it was insufficient. The fires devoured book after book shelf after book as the siege grew more suffocating. Before touching any of mine, my brother demanded that he burn his favorite books.

But the inevitable was present. Soon, my books were all we had left. I was forced to burn my dearly cherished collections of poetry by Mahmoud Darwish, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Samih al-Qasim, the voice of resistance, Abdelrahman Munif, and the Harry Potter books I had spent my teenage years reading. Then, my medical reports and summaries arrived.

My heart started to burn as I watched the flames burn them. Making the sacrifice feel commendable, we prepared a more decadent meal, including pasta and bechamel sauce.

My father went even further than I thought, and I believed that was my sacrifice’s peak. He burned the library’s shelves as wood after removing them.

15 books were saved by me. These are historical works about the Palestinian cause, our ancestors’ tales, and my grandmother’s books, both of whom were brutally murdered during this genocide.

These books provide my proof that my family has always lived here, in Palestine, and that we have always been the landowners. Existence is resistance.

In our worst nightmares, the horror of the genocide has compelled us to do things that we never thought possible. In order to survive, it required us to mutilate our memories and destroy the unbreakable.

But if we survive, we will rebuild if we do so. We’ll start a new home library and restock it with the books we adore.

Donald Trump, president of the United States, has been making hyming about the US economy’s performance since taking office in January.

“In the first four years, we had the greatest economy in the history of our country”, Trump (falsely) said on April 17 while meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. In his first term, which will run from 2016 to 2020, he continued, “I think we’re going to do even better this time.”

He&nbsp stated at a Cabinet meeting on March 24 that “we have numbers and job generation that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before.” See how it works out, but I think the economy is going to go through the roof”.

Trump hasn’t gathered enough economic data to be elected. The employment and inflation data available are encouraging. Other measurables, though – consumer confidence, business expectations, inflation forecasts and the stock market – show widespread concern about where the US economy is headed under his policies, especially his sharp tariff increases. And the US suffered the worst stock market decline since 1932, when the country was hit by the Great Depression.

Since January, there have been 345, 000 jobs, which is up from the previous year’s rate. The unemployment rate is 4.2 percent, a low level by historical standards, and initial unemployment claims are holding steady. In addition, inflation, one of Trump’s key 2024 campaign themes, has dropped from 3.0 percent in January to 2.4 percent in March.

Consumers and businesses expressed concern that Trump’s tariffs will raise prices, bring on a recession, or both in a number of long-running surveys. Economists consider these metrics as barometers of how well the economy will perform in the near and medium term.

According to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum, “everything is bad, even though it hasn’t yet bled through the hard data.”

Business owners claim to already feel the pinch.

David Dennison, director of the Original Pancake House restaurant chain in suburban Washington, DC, said costs have increased by more than 20 percent on food items such as oranges, peppers, avocados and tomatoes.

“We anticipate that significant price increases will be experienced by equipment failures, parts, and new equipment,” Dennison said. The most concerning aspect of our equipment’s upcoming difficulties is, “… sourcing parts for our equipment.

Worried consumers and skittish businesses could produce a slowdown in spending, investment, sales and employment growth, meaning bad vibes could become a self-fulfilling prophecy, said Dean Baker, co-founder of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Consumer opinion is declining.

Both surveys have been measuring consumer confidence for Trump’s first 100 days, and neither one has changed in decades.

The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey, which measures consumer optimism about the economy, has dropped every month since December 2024. The April reading of 52.2 is a 29 percent decrease from December 2024. The inflation rate in mid-2022, which had been at a 40-year high, was lower than it was for all but two months of Joe Biden’s presidency.

The other long-running survey is published by the Conference Board, a business research group. On Trump’s watch, this metric has also decreased monthly, with the current reading 15 percent lower than it was in December 2024.

This is in line with other polls. For the first time since at least 2001, the pollster Gallup found that more than half of Americans say their financial situation is getting worse. The figure of 53% for April is higher than the maximum of 49 percent it was during the Great Recession of 2008 to 2009.

Small businesses, who have historically been anti-tax and anti-regulatory and had high hopes for Trump’s agenda, also show declining confidence under Trump.

The National Federation of Independent Business survey of small business optimism has dropped every month since December 2024 and decreased more than 7 percent since then.

Expectations of inflation are rising rapidly.

The expectation that Trump’s tariffs will raise consumer prices is one of the main factors lowering consumer confidence.

Every month, the University of Michigan survey asks consumers about their inflation expectations for the coming 12 months. Consumer expectations for the upcoming year’s inflation rate have increased significantly, from the previous year’s forecast of 2.8% year-over-year inflation to 6.5% in April.

According to a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta analysis every month, businesses feel the same way. In December 2024, the study found that 32 percent of businesses said they expected “significant” or “very significant” price increases over the next 12 months. That percentage had increased by 46% by April.

Additionally, manufacturers were questioned about their current spending patterns by a Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia survey. The survey found a growing number of businesses that say they are paying more and a declining number saying they’re paying less. The gap increased from 26.6% in December to 51% in April.

The outlook for economic growth is declining.

Every quarter, the Atlanta Fed releases GDPNow, a forecast of how much growth is expected in the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) – the sum of all economic activity within the country – by looking at the upward and downward movement of key economic inputs.

GDPNow has turned negative, with a projected annualized GDP shrinkage of about 2.5 percent for the first quarter of 2025, the first projected shrinkage the model has seen since the second quarter of 2022.

This corresponds to independent estimates of the recession’s likelihood. JP Morgan Research says there’s a 60 percent chance of a recession during the next year, Goldman Sachs puts it at 45 percent, and the International Monetary Fund pegs the likelihood at 37 percent.

The stock market has fallen.

The S&amp, P 500, a broad stock market gauge, dropped 18.9 percent between its February 19 peak and April 8 low before recovering in the following two weeks. Compared with the day after Trump’s November 2024 election win, the S&amp, P 500 is now down 4.5 percent. Since Trump’s inauguration in January, it has decreased by 8.7%, while its peak on February 19 has decreased by 10.1 percent.

After a stock market decline, there is a strong correlation between recession and recovery. A stock market tumble can cause consumers to hunker down and cut spending. If that occurs, businesses experience declines in sales, which causes them to reduce their workforces and stymie new investments. Consumers are thus even more hesitant to spend, perpetuating the pattern.

Since 1950, a National Bureau of Economic Research committee has declared 10 official US recessions. Seven of those were accompanied by Declines in Standard & Poor’s 500. Almost a half-century ago, during the double-dip recessions of 1980 and 1982, there was a time when there was no notable S&amp, P decline.

Of the seven recessions that accompanied stock market declines, the S&amp, P 500 declines ranged from 18 percent to 55 percent, with the 55 percent drop occurring during the Great Recession of 2008 to 2009.

A new survey conducted each week by the American Association of Individual Investors reveals growing skepticism about the stock market’s ability to experience a quick rebound. In late November, 39% of survey respondents declared they were “bearish” about the stock market, which is the jargon for “pessimistic.” By late April, that share had risen to 56 percent.

Small businesses are already facing negative effects.

Beyond the numbers, we discovered several businesses where the company’s owners claimed Trump’s tariffs have already stifled growth.

Dennison, of the Original Pancake House, said in addition to Trump’s tariffs, he’s concerned that mass deportation efforts could produce a shortage of agricultural workers, further raising ingredient prices.

Owner of the Fresno, California Crazy Squirrel Game Store Jax Ward said she is experiencing both the “chaotic way it’s been handled,” which makes customers hesitant to spend money. Ward claimed that her peers in the game industry group, the Game Manufacturers Association, have heard similar reports.

A few publishers of tabletop games she sells have told Ward “they won’t be publishing this year, or they’re laying off employees, and that they’ve left manufactured products in China because it’s now far too expensive to import them”.

She claimed that everything from dice to games are produced overseas. It would be difficult for me to come up with a few products that are both US-made and made from natural resources.

For now, Ward said she is shifting some of her business to used games, including a large Lego section, and in-person events at her store. She also tries to pre-stock items before tariffs start to apply, but she said not every company can do so because it requires a stable cash flow and enough storage space.

Ward said she is aware of a few store owners who are considering shutting down their businesses. “Boardgame sales used to be considered recession-proof”, Ward said. We’ll check to see if they’re still there.

Spain and Portugal have regained access to electricity after one of Europe’s worst blackouts paralysed transport systems, disrupted mobile communications and postponed medical procedures.

For almost a day from Monday to early on Tuesday, tens of millions of people were plunged into darkness. In major cities like Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon, people were trapped in lifts, stuck on trains and unable to access the internet.

Meanwhile, queues snaked outside the few supermarkets running on backup generators as people stocked up on dried goods, water and battery-powered flashlights.

The Spanish and Portuguese governments quickly convened emergency meetings after the outage, which hit Spain and Portugal about 12:30 (10:30 GMT) on Monday and also briefly affected southern France.

Almost no one in the Iberian Peninsula, which has a population of almost 60 million people, escaped the blackout. Madrid was forced to declare a state of emergency.

Although power has been largely restored, transport remains in dire straits, with trains and flights reporting delays. No firm cause for the shutdown has yet emerged.

With the power back on, attention is turning to what caused such a widespread failure of the region’s networks.

What caused the power outage?

Portugal’s electricity provider, Redes Energeticas Nacionais (REN), said a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” had caused a severe imbalance in temperatures that led to the widespread shutdowns.

REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’.”

The Portuguese prime minister, Luis Montenegro, also said the issue originated in Spain.

However, in a statement on Tuesday, Spain’s national meteorological office, Aemet, appeared to rule out the weather as a culprit.

“During the day of 28 April, no unusual meteorological or atmospheric phenomena were detected, and nor were there sudden variations in the temperature in our network of meteorological stations,” Aemet said.

The Spanish government said the cause of the power cut is still unknown and warned against speculation.

“My gut feeling is that multiple factors were behind the blackout,” Kang Li, smart energy systems chairman at the University of Leeds, told Al Jazeera.

“It usually takes several months for forensic grid data to be properly analysed,” he added, “though an interim report could be done in several weeks.”

Bloomberg News reported that Spain has seen a record number of hours with negative power prices in recent months as more wind and solar energy supplies the grid. Until now, however, oversupply hadn’t led to blackouts.

In 2024, renewable energy sources accounted for 56 percent of all electricity used in Spain, a record high. By 2030, that proportion is expected to reach 81 percent.

According to Li, “it’s harder to manage energy output when infrastructure is changing so quickly. A higher penetration of renewables with existing systems creates more fluctuation in the operating system.”

For his part, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said, “We have never had a complete collapse of the system,” explaining how Spain’s power grid lost 15 gigawatts, the equivalent of 60 percent of its national demand, in just five seconds.

While there’s no evidence yet of a cyberattack, Sanchez said he isn’t ruling anything out. He warned against speculation but said “no cause can be discredited at this point”.

Could a cyberattack have caused the blackout?

Although investigations into the cause of the outage are ongoing, Portugal’s National Cybersecurity Centre threw cold water on the idea of foul play, saying there was no sign that the outage resulted from a cyberattack.

Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro also said there was “no indication” of a cyberattack.

Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Teresa Ribera, an executive vice president of the European Commission, also ruled out sabotage. Nonetheless, the outage “is one of the most serious episodes recorded in Europe in recent times”, she said.

For now, the Spanish government said it is waiting for more information on the cause of the blackout. State officials said they hope in the coming days to know what the cause was.

Which countries were affected?

Spain and Portugal were the worst affected, but outages occurred elsewhere too:

• Spain: Urban centres such as Avila, Madrid, Murcia, Galicia, Alicante, Zaragoza, Barcelona and Seville reported widespread disruptions. The Canary and Balearic islands were not affected.
• Portugal: Lisbon and Porto experienced comparable challenges.
• Southern France: Parts of the French Basque Country saw brief power outages. But officials from the French electricity transmission network said the interruptions lasted only a few minutes.
• Morocco: Some reports suggested internet providers in Morocco struggled briefly to keep their services running because of network connections with France and the outages there.
• Greenland: Remote regions of Greenland lost access to key satellite services, including internet and telephones. Authorities said they own satellite equipment in Spain although a direct cause has not yet been established.

Has power been restored?

By mid-afternoon on Monday, Spain’s electricity operator, Red Electrica (REE), said it had started to recover voltage in the north, south and west of the country.

The recovery process was carried out gradually to avoid overloading the grid as generators linked up. Power also returned to Portugal bit by bit. By Monday night, REN said 85 of its 89 power substations were back online.

By Tuesday morning, power had almost fully returned to Spain and Portugal.

At 6:30am (04:30 GMT) more than 99 percent of energy demand in Spain had been restored, REE said. Elsewhere, power was restored overnight to 6.2 million of Portugal’s 6.5 million households.

At the city level, Madrid’s metro system said service was restored on all but one line by 8am (06:00 GMT), meaning that 80 percent of trains were operating during Tuesday morning’s rush hour.

Has Europe suffered from blackouts of this scale before?

While outages are not unheard of in Europe, the scale of Iberia’s power failure was one of the largest in recent history.

In 2019, England and Wales suffered regional blackouts amid lightning strikes at a gas-fired power plant in Bedfordshire and an offshore wind farm off the east coast of England.

A 2006 German power overload caused outages as far away as Portugal and Morocco. In 2003, a problem with a hydroelectric power line between Italy and Switzerland caused an outage across Italy for about 12 hours.

“Interconnection between countries has positive benefits as it can improve efficiency and reduce costs. … It’s always sunny or raining somewhere in Europe,” Li said.

“But”, he added “interconnected systems mean that local faults in one location can have domino effects elsewhere. Transmission lines can become overloaded.”

Li also pointed out that climate change and rising temperatures pose “increasing risks” for Spain-and-Portugal-style blackouts.