ATHENS — When armed Israeli soldiers boarded a flotilla of boats trying to deliver food and medicine to Gaza on Wednesday night, two web developers in Glasgow scrambled to keep track of the vessels as millions of people worldwide tuned in to monitor their fate.

As grainy footage from onboard cameras broadcast the raids live on the flotilla’s website, the developers updated the status of the vessels in real-time and posted short videos of each takeover. The clicks were unprecedented, they said: the site registered 2.5 million visits on Wednesday and 3.5 million on Thursday.

“I have never seen numbers like that – not on a website I’ve ever made,” said Lizzie Malcolm, the co-director of Rectangle, a design and software development studio that helped track the vessels on behalf of the organisers.

NEW FLOTILLA EN ROUTE IN HIGH-PROFILE CAMPAIGN
The Global Sumud Flotilla was seeking to breach an Israeli naval blockade of Gaza, which has been decimated by a two-year Israeli assault.

It consisted of more than 40 civilian boats carrying about 500 parliamentarians, lawyers and activists, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.

The flotilla failed to reach Gaza – the boats were intercepted and escorted to Israel. But over the course of ten days it emerged as the highest-profile opposition to Israel’s blockade. Buoyed by that publicity, another flotilla of 11 boats has already set sail.

Through a sophisticated social media campaign, updated boat-tracking technology, savvy website design and grassroots organising, the mission gained massive attention and support, energising a global movement to lift the blockade.

While Israel says its naval blockade is legal as it battles Hamas militants in the coastal enclave, and officials have repeatedly denounced the mission as a provocation, the flotilla has widespread support.

Wednesday’s seizure triggered protests in cities across Europe and as far afield as Argentina, Mexico and Pakistan, and drew criticism from politicians and leaders from Colombia to Malaysia.

CREATING A MOVEMENT
Israel first imposed a blockade on Gaza in 2007 when Hamas took over the territory, but efforts by activists to raise awareness have gained traction since the outbreak of the war in October 2023, which was triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel.

This latest campaign has gained more attention than ever before.

The flotilla benefited from, and contributed to, a wider political shift since June, which has seen nations including France and the UK recognise Palestinian statehood in reaction to Israel’s offensive, said Dan Mercea, a professor of digital and social change at St George’s, University of London.

“The cultural impact is beginning to show. That is not just the flotilla, but they are making a difference.”

An attempt in June by the March to Gaza group, in which activists were scheduled to march to Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with Gaza, was disrupted when Egypt deported dozens of activists. Other, smaller flotillas have tried to breach the naval blockade, but their efforts have garnered less attention.

Then in June, organisations including the March to Gaza held a meeting in Tunis, in which they discussed clubbing together.

“The idea was that a bigger thing was needed. There were discussions about how to communicate with people and an exchange of knowledge,” said Antonis Faras, from the Greek contingent of the March to Gaza movement.

HUGE SUPPORT FROM THE START
The Global Sumud Flotilla was born and it had a clear mission: to break Israel’s blockade.

The organisation had huge support from the start. When it sent out an invitation for people to participate, it received 20,000 applications, Faras said. In Italy, a charity called Music 4 Peace began collecting aid donations, with a target of 40 tons. In five days they collected more than 500 tons.

Across Europe, missions started to prepare. The Greek contingent sourced 25 boats from across Europe. When it asked for donations, it received more than it could carry.

In Italy, local organisers cultivated relationships with unions, who supported the flotilla with strikes and actions at various ports. That grassroots connection paid off on Wednesday: within hours of the Israeli interception, people were on the streets in protest, and the unions had called a general strike for October 3.

The movement was broken down into countries, each one with its own press spokesperson.

“The protests’ success stems from the fact that every region meticulously worked on their territory… this structure proved to work,” said Maria Elena Delia, a spokesperson for the Italian delegation.

A LIVE FEED TO THE WORLD
The flotilla sent regular updates on X, Telegram and Instagram and held press conferences via Zoom with activists on the boat. Nelson Mandela’s grandson was on board. Thunberg gave interviews from the ship’s deck.

It had live feeds from the boats, and improved ship tracking devices. In Glasgow, Malcolm and her partner Daniel Powers, who collaborated with London-based Forensic Architecture research group, benefited from added layers of tracking capabilities, including backup from Garmin devices and even cellphones should other methods fail.

The cameras on board gave people a rare live view on Wednesday night as the Israeli navy demanded captains turn off their engines as soldiers boarded the boats with guns and night vision goggles. As part of an agreed safety protocol, the activists sat in life vests, their hands in the air.

Malcolm and Powers watched the images from their studio in Glasgow as the night went on, updating the list of boats and changing their status one by one from “sailing” to “intercepted”.

“We have seen how much people want to watch this. It does something. There is something positive in this – you are really willing them to get there,” Malcolm said. — Reuters

TOKYO — In her campaign to become Japan’s first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi made a bold promise to narrow the country’s wide gender gap in politics and lift the number of women in cabinet to a par with socially progressive Nordic countries.

Now that she has shattered the glass ceiling to be chosen leader of the ruling party on Saturday – setting her on course to emulate her hero Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female premier – Takaichi must try to deliver on promises her party has struggled to keep.

“The emergence of a single female leader alone may not drastically improve women’s standing in politics,” said Tohko Tanaka, a gender studies professor at the University of Tokyo, noting it was 26 years after Thatcher’s premiership before Britain had its second female leader, Theresa May.

FEW WOMEN LAWMAKERS FOR TAKAICHI CABINET
Japan’s next prime minister “must tackle gender issues with a long-term perspective, amid severe labour shortages and the alarmingly inadequate inclusion of women,” Tanaka said.

Japan ranked 118 out of 148 countries in the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap Report, the lowest among the Group of Seven industrial powers.

While gender equality was not a top issue in the Liberal Democratic Party’s election campaign that focused on tackling inflation and rule-breaking foreigners, Takaichi’s promises to form a cabinet with women’s representation “not particularly lower than Nordic countries” stood out.

“I wouldn’t appoint women just because they’re women,” she told a party rally last week. “But the plan is to pick far more women who are capable and willing to serve the nation.”

Just 10% of outgoing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s 20 cabinet members are women, while its highest female representation was just above a quarter. Nordic governments range from Denmark’s 36% to Finland’s 61% female ministers.

To fill her cabinet, Takaichi has a relatively small pool of female lawmakers to draw from, although non-politicians are allowed to head government ministries. Only 13% of the LDP’s lawmakers across both houses are women, well short of the party’s target of 30% by 2033 – a goal already trailing a government target.

PROMISES UNFULFILLED
Past initiatives to close Japan’s gender gap have delivered mixed results.

Former premier Shinzo Abe, Takaichi’s mentor, pulled more women into the workforce through his “womenomics” initiatives, but critics say progress has been too slow, especially for executive roles.

In 2020, the government pushed back its deadline of having women in at least 30% of leadership posts across society by a decade to 2030.

Takaichi also proposes measures such as establishing women’s health centres nationwide, but her broader conservative policies have damaged her support among some women, polls show.

For example, she has defended legal restrictions that married couples must use a single surname, which in practice means wives overwhelmingly take their husbands’ names and which critics say disproportionately affects women’s careers. Conservatives regard the current law as indispensable to family unity.

The centre-right LDP faces a challenge from Sanseito, an upstart far-right party whose leader has criticised gender equality policies for contributing to Japan’s record-low birthrate, a claim resonating in some anti-establishment movements globally. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — US services sector activity stalled in September amid a sharp slowdown in new orders, while subdued employment added to mounting evidence of sluggish labor market conditions because of sagging demand and supply of workers.

The survey from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) on Friday also showed a measure of prices paid by services businesses for inputs hovering near three-year highs last month.

Signs of stagnating activity and elevated services inflation could complicate matters for the Federal Reserve, with financial markets expecting another interest rate cut this month.

The survey assumed more importance than usual after a lapse in funding forced a shutdown of the US government early this week and delayed the release of the closely watched monthly employment report for September. It was the first time since the 2013 government shutdown that the employment report, crucial for decision-making by officials at the US central bank, businesses and households, was not published.

AN ECONOMY ‘IN SUSPENDED ANIMATION’
Keeping tariffs on imports have eroded business sentiment, constraining activity across the services and manufacturing sectors.

“This is an economy that is in suspended animation, as businesses wait for the Trump administration to settle on a clear and predictable policy for tariffs and immigration,” said Stephen Stanley, chief US economist at Santander US Capital Markets. “Once policy-related uncertainty recedes, I expect business activity to pick back up.”

The ISM said its nonmanufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) fell to 50 last month, the breakeven point, from 52.0 in August. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the services PMI easing to 51.7. The services sector accounts for more than two-thirds of US economic activity.

Ten service industries, including public administration, wholesale trade and utilities reported growth. Among seven that contracted were mining, construction and retail trade.

Some businesses in the accommodation and food sector said import duties were starting to have an impact, “particularly for food products from India, China and Southeast Asia, coffee from South America,” adding “our year-over-year cost increases are getting progressively greater.”

Construction businesses reported “tariffs are beginning to be passed through on materials that are metal based.” Utilities providers said “we’ve had more tariff charges last month than in previous months.” For other businesses like those in wholesale trade, “demand is simply weak.”

The survey’s measure of new orders received by services businesses dropped to 50.4 from 56.0 in August. Backlog orders

were depressed for the seventh consecutive month, while export demand remained subdued.

Stocks on Wall Street were trading higher. The dollar dipped against a basket of currencies. US Treasury yields rose.

EMPLOYMENT REMAINS DEPRESSED
Though a gauge of services sector employment inched up to 47.2 from 46.5 in August, it was the fourth straight month that it was mired in contraction territory, with companies not backfilling positions and also failing to find qualified workers. That aligns with other data that have suggested the labor market has stagnated.

Economists blame this on the drag from uncertainty stemming from tariffs as well as the rise of artificial intelligence. At the same time, immigration raids have reduced labor supply, creating a dynamic that has left the labor market in paralysis.

Data from the Chicago Federal Reserve on Thursday, which combines private and available public numbers, estimated the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.3% in September.

The government reported before the shutdown on Tuesday there were 0.98 job openings for every unemployed person in August compared to 1.0 in July.

Economists expect the lackluster labor market will spur the Fed to reduce borrowing costs further this month. The US central bank resumed easing policy in September, cutting its benchmark overnight interest rate by 25 basis points to the 4.00%-4.25% range, to aid the labor market.

But with the full inflationary effects of tariffs still to be felt, a rate cut is not guaranteed.

The ISM survey’s measure of prices paid by businesses edged up to 69.4 from 69.2 in August. This price gauge has been above the 60 mark for 10 months in a row.

Services inflation has firmed up in recent months, driven by higher airline fares as well as rises in prices at restaurants, and more expensive hotel and motel rooms.

“The Fed is in a tough spot and now flying partly in the dark due to the delay of key releases,” said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. “But if other economic indicators also land on the soft side, it will likely bite its lip over sticky inflation and cut rates again later this month.” — Reuters