text:
https://www.accessnow.org:443/privacy-advocates-call-on-u-s-congress-to-release-information-crucial-for-surveillance-reform-debate/
Privacy advocates...
Privacy advocates call on U.S. Congress to release information crucial for surveillance reform debate
18 March 2019 | 12:38 pm
March 18, 2019 (Washington, D.C.) — Access Now joins more than 30 civil society organizations in calling for U.S. House Judiciary Committee leaders to release critical information regarding the current implementation of U.S. surveillance laws. These laws, including Section 215 of the Patriot Act, have provided the basis for U.S. intelligence agencies conducting indiscriminate surveillance on a massive scale, impacting millions of people around the world. The provisions are set to expire on December 15, 2019, and it is crucial that congressional leadership facilitate an open and in-depth public debate over the power and reach of the U.S. surveillance apparatus.
There are significant unresolved questions regarding how surveillance programs have been operationalized since Congress passed reform under the USA FREEDOM Act in 2015. Recent reports indicate the National Security Agency's call detail records program, which captures certain phone call metadata, has been inactive for the past six months. This follows the NSA's announcement from June 2018 that it had deleted its entire database of call detail records due to "technical irregularities" that resulted in the agency receiving data it was not authorized to collect.
A congressional aide has indicated the Trump administration may choose not to seek reauthorization of the program under Section 215. However, surveillance experts have postulated that this simply means the program may have been moved under another, more secretive authority where it can be conducted without the restrictions from the 2015 reforms.
"The U.S. surveillance system is broken, even by the government's own admission," said Amie Stepanovich, U.S. Policy Manager at Access Now. "To fix it, the conversations about how to restore respect for privacy for individuals around the globe, rein in indiscriminate and ineffective data collection, prevent disproportionate impacts on marginalized and at-risk communities, and equip law enforcement with rights-respecting tools absolutely must take place in a public sphere."
In addition to the points raised in the letter, Access Now emphasizes that the U.S. government has continually failed to acknowledge its international human rights obligations, or to implement comprehensive reform limiting global surveillance activities to what is necessary and proportionate. U.S. surveillance law and policy as a whole interferes with people's human rights both domestically and abroad. We must stay vigilant, especially in light of Congress's choice just last year to not only reauthorize but expand rights-abusing powers under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, which covers programs like PRISM and Upstream.
It is crucial that both Congress and the public gain clarity from the NSA and the rest of the intelligence community on exactly which programs are active, which have been discontinued, how they are used, and the process by which those decisions were made.
Further, while it is positive news that the administration may be open to limiting certain existing surveillance authorities, it is absolutely critical that we find out the extent to which certain elements of surveillance programs have been shuffled around and the legal rationale for doing so. This kind of shell game, absent public disclosures, would not only further cloud the existing surveillance landscape but also sidestep an important opportunity to implement much-needed reform.
When Edward Snowden facilitated the publication of documents about the massive reach and use of U.S. surveillance authorities, at great personal risk, he initiated a much-needed global conversation. Secretively moving the program under other, broader authorities would unacceptably negate that progress and nullify the intelligence community's own promises of transparency and accountability.
If you would like to arrange an interview with one of our staff or are interested in additional information on any of our areas of focus, please contact press [at] accessnow [dot] org. You can subscribe to receive media alerts by email here.
A new call for U.S. surveillance reform Read More


text:
The simplest alternative to Core Data. There is not a faster, simpler way to persist your classes.

Lightweight, opinionated* ORM over fmdb sqlite framework by Duke Browning.

FMPersisting is simple, open, and straightforward. It maps Objective-C model classes to sqlite database tables, and allows operations to be performed using objects/methods rather than sql in the vast majority of cases. It makes development easier by eliminating the mental shift between classes/objects/properties and relational tables/columns. It is
for people that like sqlite and fmdb, and are comfortable with sql and relational database concepts.

FMPersisting does not try to hide or replace the underlying fmdb or sqlite functionality -- they are still accessible, and can be used without conflict. There is no attempt to "automatically" synchronize an object graph with the database.

This code has been in production for several years in the iOS app, Bookmobile Audiobook and Podcast Player, and in several other Mac OS X and iOS projects.

*everyone's got one. I've used many object-relational mapping frameworks extensively over my career (NeXT's DBKit and EOF, Apple's CoreData, Java Hibernate, PHP Symfony/Doctrine, ...) and (IMO) are more trouble than they are worth for most projects.

# FMPersisting Framework Classes

The framework consists of just two classes: FMPersistingModel and FMPersistenceManager. FMPersistingModel must be used as the superclass of "model" objects that get persisted to a single table in sqlite.  In many situations, the model subclass need only implement one method: -columns, which defines the mapping between properties and columns. The PersistenceManager class will handle table creation (if necessary), and the subclass-to-db-table mapping for fetching, inserting, updating.

The FMPersistenceManager class provides all the standard CRUD operations for FMPersistingModel subclasses.

The framework makes extensive use of key-value coding (KVC), and by default, constructs a database schema
that converts the common camelcase format of obj-c properties to the common all-caps and underscores for
database column names.

# Example Class-to-Table mapping:

//////////////  Album.h  //////////////
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import "FMPersistingModel.h"

@interface Album : FMPersistingModel
{
}

// Persisted properties
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSNumber *ID;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *mediaKey;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSDate *lastPlayedDate;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSData *coverImageData;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSNumber *mediaType;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *title;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSNumber *artistID;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *descrip;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *publishDate;
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSNumber *flags;

@end

//////////////  Album.m  /////////////
#import "Album.h"

@implementation Album

+ (NSDictionary *) columns;
{
    return @{@"ID" : @"int",
             @"MEDIA_KEY" : @"string",
             @"LAST_PLAYED_DATE" : @"date",
             @"COVER_IMAGE_DATA" : @"data",
             @"TITLE" : @"string",
             @"ARTIST_ID" : @"int",
             @"DESCRIP" : @"string",
             @"PUBLISH_DATE" : @"date",
             @"FLAGS" : @"int" };
}

That's it. There are additional options for mapping to different names, defining primary key columns, using bit-fields,
and more, but for the most common situations, that's all you have to do.

Relationships between objects/tables are managed by the direct manipulation of foreign ID properties. In the example above, an Artist class would be defined and the artistID property in Album would hold the reference. No magic, no object graphs.

You decide what you want to cache and when.

# Performing CRUD Operations

Before any database operations can be performed a FMPersistenceManager instance needs to be created,
a database path defined, and table(s) created if necessary. After that, rows are created from attribute
dictionaries, objects are created from database rows, and property values are accessed using KVC. A LOT
of boilerplate database access code is eliminated.

There is no attempt to synchronize the database with an object graph. There are a relatively small number of
methods available in FMPersistenceManager that you use to fetch from or modify the database. When and why this
happens is explicitly and intentionally controlled by the overlying application.

The example below is a data manager class that wraps the CRUD operations for the Album FMPersistingModel
subclass defined above.

//////////////  AlbumManager.m  ////////////
#import "AlbumManager.h"
#import "Album.h"
#import "Artist.h"

@interface AlbumManager ()
{
}

@property (retain, nonatomic) FMPersistenceManager *persistenceManager;

@end

@implementation AlbumManager

- (instancetype) init;
{
    self = [super init];
    if (self != nil)
    {
        self.persistenceManager = [[FMPersistenceManager alloc] init];
        [_persistenceManager openDatabaseWithPath: @"YOUR DATABASE PATH HERE" ];
    	[_persistenceManager createTableIfNecessaryForClass:[Album class]];
    }
    return self;
}

- (Album *) createNewAlbumWithTitle: (NSString *) title artist: (Artist *) artist
{
    return (Album *) [self.persistenceManager insertNewObjectOfClass: [Album class]
                                  withValues: @{@"title": title, @"artistID" : artist.ID}];
}

- (Album *) fetchAlbumWithTitle: (NSString *) title
{
    return (Album *) [self.persistenceManager fetchObjectOfClass: [Album class]
                                                    withCriteria: @{@"title" : title }];
}

- (NSArray *) allAlbums
{
    return [self.persistenceManager fetchAllObjectsOfClass: [Album class] ];
}

- (NSArray *) albumsByArtist: (Artist *) artist
{
    return [self.persistenceManager fetchAllObjectsOfClass: [Album class]
                                              withCriteria: @{"artistID" : artist.ID}];
}

- (void) albumDidBeginPlaying: (Album *) album
{
    [self.persistenceManager updateValue: [NSDate date]
                                  forKey: @"lastPlayedDate"
                                ofObject: album];
}

- (void) deleteAlbum: (Album *) album
{
    [self.persistenceManager deleteObject: album];
}

@end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
7 January 2021. Related: Early access, COVID-19: investigational drugs, COVID-19: research studies, COVID-19.
On 14 December 2020, the large randomised UK RECOVERY study announced that azithromycin had no benefit for the treatment of COVID-19. [1]
Previous results from this study included positive results for dexamethasone in last-stage infection but negative results for hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/r.
Azithromycin had been chosen as a macrolide antibiotic that in additional to antibacterial activity can also reduce proinflammatory cytokines and has in vitro antiviral activity, including against SARS-CoV-2. Macrolide antibiotics are used to treat bacterial pneumonia and chronic inflammatory lung disease.
On 27 November 2020, the trial steering committee closed the azithromycin arm based on 'sufficient patients having been enrolled to establish clearly whether or not the drug had a meaningful benefit'. This shows that the timing was based on predetermined statistical calculations, rather than close observations from the Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB).
Between 7 April and 27 November, 7,764 participants were randomised 1:2 to either azithromycin (n=2582) or standard of care (n=5182). However, more than 16,000 people were recruited to the RECOVERY study and just over 7000 were excluded from this randomisation because of contraindications to azithromycin or unavailability of drug. Roughly 15% of both the azithromycin and control participants were also enrolled in a second randomisation to another experimental drug.
Azithromycin (500 mg) was to given by mouth, nasogastric tube, or intravenous injection once daily for 10 days or until discharge, if sooner. In practice, the median duration of azithromycin was 6 days (IQR: 3 to 9 days). This was open-label for participants and local health workers, but study investigators were blinded to the outcomes.
Baseline characteristics included mean age 65 years (SD +/–15) with 58% being <70, 23% 70 to 80 and 19% >80 years. Ethnicity included 73% white, 14% BAME and 14% unknown; and 62% were men. Overall, 58% had a history of previous complications including diabetes (27%), heart disease (26%) or chronic lung disease (25%).
The median time since symptom onset was 8 days (IQR: 5 to 11 days) and time since admission to hospital was median 2 days (IQR: 1 to 4).
Other treatments of note included 46% using a corticosteroid, 20% using remdesivir and 17% using convalescent plasma. Supplemental oxygen was given to 76% and an additional 6% needed invasive mechanical ventilation.
The interim results were based on 73% of participants. Follow up will be complete by the end of December for the 27% who hadn't reached this endpoint when this arm of the study was stopped.
Overall, 19% of participants died in each arm: 496 vs 997 in the azithromycin vs control arms respectively.
There was no difference in the primary endpoint of all-cause mortality at day 28 (RR 1.00; 95% CI 0.90 to 1.12), p=0.99). There were also no differences in use of mechanical ventilation, duration in hospital or in subgroup analyses (including age, sex, ethnicity, level of respiratory support, days since symptom onset, use of corticosteroids, and predicted 28-day mortality risk).
The pre-review paper summarising these results was also posted online, with much of the important detail included in supplementary material. [2]
The study was based on a predetermined decision that a 20% reduction in 28-day mortality would be clinically significant. This was used to calculated numbers of participants needed to provide at least 90% power at two-sided p=0.01, adjusted by the background mortality reported in the study.
For example if mortality was 20% then the blinded Trail Steering Committee (TSC) calculated that the study would need 2000 participants in the experimental arm and 4000 in the control arm. As mortality in the study was lower, the TSC recommended these numbers increase to 2500 and 5000 respectively.
The trial protocol refers to the possibility of the trial stopping early due to benefit (needing "at least a 3 to 3·5 standard error reduction in mortality".
However, the protocol does not appear to consider earlier options for lack of benefit.
Few people will be surprised at these results as three smaller RCTs have already published similar outcomes. [3, 4, 5]
The time taken to find this lack of benefit though is disturbing and upsetting, together with the overall (accumulating) mortality.
More than 20,000 participants have now been enrolled in RECOVERY. Mortality rates suggest that more than 4,000 people will have died, and that perhaps fewer than 100 participants had their lives saved in the study (if enrolled to the early dexamethasone arm).
Although the study design was approved as acceptable eight months ago, the independent Data Monitoring Committee should arguably have a more active role in the event of no signal of benefit.
Allowing experimental arms to continue for so long while waiting for the primary endpoint of significant benefit is no longer acceptable. Including an early threshold for activity should be considered for the remaining study arms: tocilizumab, convalescent plasma, REGEN-COV2 (two monoclonal antibodies), aspirin, and colchicine.
This high over mortality in the ineffective arms – and the control arm – urgently raises questions about the stop/go thresholds for deciding whether or not there is sufficient signal of benefit for the ineffective treatments to continue.
RECOVERY press statement. Statement from the Chief Investigators of the randomised evaluation of COVID-19 therapy (RECOVERY) trial on azithromycin. (14 December 2020).
https://www.recoverytrial.net/files/azithromycin-recovery-statement-141220_final.pdf (PDF)
Horby PW et al. Azithromycin in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial. (14 December 2020).
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.10.20245944v1 (main study)
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.10.20245944v1.supplementary-material (supplementary material)
Cavalcanti AB et al. Hydroxychloroquine with or without azithromycin in mild-to-moderate Covid-19. N Engl J Med 2020; 383:2041-2052. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa20190142020. (19 November 2020).
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2019014
Furtado RHM et al. Azithromycin in addition to standard of care versus standard of care alone in the treatment of patients admitted to the hospital with severe COVID-19 in Brazil (COALITION II): a randomised clinical trial. Lancet 2020; 396(10256): 959–67. (3 October 2020).
Sekhavati E et al. Safety and effectiveness of azithromycin in patients with COVID-19: An open-label randomised trial. Int J Antimicrob Agents 2020; 56(4): 106143. (October 2020).
Significant increases in LGV in gay men from 2017 to 2019: latest PHE report

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Justice slams the UN
On Dec. 9, the Honourable Rosalie Silberman Abella, a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, delivered the inaugural Elie Wiesel Lectureship in Human Rights. (photo by Philippe Landreville)
The Honourable Rosalie Silberman Abella, a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, last week delivered an emotional, scathing indictment of the world's failures to live up to the promise of post-Holocaust human rights protections.
Abella, a daughter of Holocaust survivors who herself was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany, in 1946, delivered the inaugural Elie Wiesel Lectureship in Human Rights. She spoke Dec. 9 on the 72nd anniversary of the United Nations' adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the day before the 72nd anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The promise of those documents – and the justice represented by the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals – has been betrayed and ignored, she said.
"These were the powerful legal symbols of a world shamefully chastened," Abella said in the streamed virtual presentation. "But although Nuremberg represented a sincere commitment to justice, it was a commitment all too fleeting."
As the West's triumph over fascism gave way to conflict with communism, Germany transformed in the diplomatic imagination from an enemy conquered to a potential ally to be wooed, she said. Britain issued a communiqué to all Commonwealth countries to abandon prosecutions of Nazi war criminals.
"The past was tucked away and the moral comfort of the Nuremberg trials gave way to the moral expedient of the Cold War," Abella said.
As the fight against communism eclipsed the fight for justice over past crimes, expedience led Western countries to welcome Nazi scientists and others to contribute to the military-industrial strategy – even as Jewish victims of Nazism, like Abella and her parents, sat stateless in DP camps.
To Abella, Nuremberg represented an acknowledgement of the failure of Western democracies to respond when they should have and could have.
"And so, the vitriolic language and venal rights abuses unrestrained by anyone's conscience anywhere in or out of Germany turned into the ultimate rights abuse: genocide," she said.
Some justice did in fact emerge in the aftermath of Nuremberg and remarkable progress has been made in some quarters, she said. "But we still have not learned the most important lesson of all – to try to prevent the abuses in the first place. All over the world, in the name of religion, domestic sovereignty, national interest, economic exigency or sheer arrogance, men, women and children are being slaughtered, abused, imprisoned, terrorized and exploited with impunity.… No national abuser seems to worry whether there will be a Nuremberg trial later because usually there isn't. And, in any event, by the time there is, all the damage that was sought to be done has been done."
Abella reflected on the preoccupation among jurists with the rule of law, noting that the atrocities of the Nazi era all took place legally under German laws. She said we should be focused on "the rule of justice, not just the rule of law."
Itemizing the myriad genocides that have occurred since 1945, including ones happening now, Abella decried a lack of global will to confront atrocities before they occur.
"Clearly what remains elusive is our willingness as an international community to protect humanity from injustice," she said, launching a broadside against the failures of the United Nations.
"It can hardly be said to have been the avatar of human rights we hoped it would be when it was created," she said. "We changed the world's institutions and laws after World War II because they had lost their legitimacy and integrity. Are we there again? Not so much because our human rights laws need changing, but because a good argument can be made that our existing global institutions, and especially the UN's deliberative role, are playing fast and loose with their legitimacy and our integrity."
She acknowledged the successes of some UN agencies, such as UNICEF, but lamented the body's failures to meet its core objectives.
"The UN had four objectives: to protect future generations from war, to guard human rights, to foster universal justice and to promote social progress," she said. "Since then, 40 million people have died as a result of conflicts all over the world. The UN eventually reacted in Libya and wagged its finger at Syria, but I waited in vain to wait to hear what it had to say about Iran, Venezuela and China, for example. Isn't that magisterial silence a thunderous answer to those who say things would be a lot worse without the UN? Worse how? I know it's all we have but does that mean it's the best we can do? Nations debate, people die. Nations dissemble, people die. Nations defy, people die. We need more than the words and laws of justice. We need justice."
Abella acknowledged the need to address climate change but suggested a moral climate crisis is upon us.
"We have to worry not only about how the climate is changing the world but how the moral climate is creating an atmosphere polluted by bombastic anti-intellectualism, sanctimonious incivility and a moral free-for-all," she said. "Everyone is talking and no one is listening. We are rolling back hard-fought human rights for minorities, immigrants, refugees, workers and women.
Abella approached global justice through the eyes of a single family. Her parents were married in Poland on Sept. 3, 1939, the day the Nazis rolled over the border and as the Second World War began. Her parents spent four years in concentration camps. The brother she never knew was murdered at the age of two-and-a-half. The only survivors of her extended family were her parents and one grandmother.
"My life started in a country where there had been no democracy, no rights, no justice," she said, struggling to maintain her composure. "No one with this history does not feel lucky to be alive and free. No one with this history takes anything for granted and no one with this history does not feel that those of us who are alive have a duty to wear our identities with pride and to promise our children that we will do everything humanly possible to keep the world safer for them than it was for their grandparents, a world where all children regardless of race, colour, religion or gender can wear their identities with dignity, with pride and in peace."
Her own existence is a statement of the resilience of human hopefulness, she said.
"In an act that seems to me to be almost incomprehensible in its breathtaking optimism, my parents and thousands of other survivors transcended the inhumanity they had experienced and decided to have more children," she said. "I think it was a way to fix their hearts and prove to themselves and the world that their spirits were not broken."
Abella dedicated her lecture not only to Elie Wiesel, the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate, but also to Irwin Cotler, who introduced her prior to her presentation and who Abella called Wiesel's "spiritual heir."
Cotler, a former Canadian justice minister, is the founder and chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, which sponsored the lecture along with faculties of law at McGill University and the Université de Montréal, the Lord Reading Law Society and the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute.
Cotler, who last month was appointed Canada's special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism, noted that Abella was the youngest person ever appointed to the Canadian judiciary, at age 29.
"She was the first refugee ever appointed to the judiciary and she was the first Jewish woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada," Cotler said, noting that he was the justice minister who nominated her to the highest court. "She has been a remarkable trailblazer. A quintessential Renaissance jurist, public intellectual, educator and judge."
Among Abella's recognitions, Cotler noted, are 39 honorary doctorates.
To watch the lecture, click here.
Format ImagePosted on December 18, 2020 December 16, 2020 Author Pat JohnsonCategories NationalTags Elie Wiesel, genocide, Holocaust, human rights, justice, Raoul Wallenberg Centre, Rosalie Silberman Abella, survivors, UN, United Nations
Canada fails to get seat
There is no way to determine definitively why Canada failed to secure a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council last week.
Since the UN was created after the Second World War, Canada had generally been elected to one of the temporary seats once per decade. This ended in 2010, when Canada lost its bid, and last Wednesday's vote represents the second decade of Canadian absence from the prestigious council.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau contended that the successful countries – Ireland and Norway – had been campaigning longer. Also significant may have been the fact that Canada's contributions to foreign aid and UN peacekeeping efforts have declined in recent years. Not to be dismissed also is the perception of Canada as an ally of Israel.
Since 2006, under Conservative and Liberal governments, Canada has voted against or abstained from the annual litany of 16 recurring anti-Israel resolutions at the UN General Assembly. That trend was broken last winter, when Canada unexpectedly endorsed a resolution condemning Israel.
Jewish and other pro-Israel Canadians have viewed Canada's pro-Israel UN votes since 2006 as a principled position in the face of a global dogpiling – the votes are routinely passed with numbers like 160 to six, with Israel, the United States and American-aligned South Pacific micro-nations in the minority. No other country is singled out with such multiple routine censures.
Canada's abrupt reversal of this stand last year was seen by some as an effort to distance Canada from Israel in advance of last week's vote, particularly among the nearly 60 Arab and Muslim countries in the General Assembly.
While Trudeau made the case that Canada's principled voice was necessary for the world in this challenging time, Opposition voices, like Conservative (and former Liberal) MP Leona Alleslev, argued that the government had betrayed its principles and, as a result, undermined its own argument for putting a Canadian representative on the Security Council.
The point is fair. To base our country's campaign for the seat (at least partly) on the idea that we are a principled voice on the world stage and then do a 180 puts the whole venture into a weird light. For those countries who dislike our history of pro-Israel votes, the last-minute reversal must have seemed too little too late. For those (admittedly few) who admired our chutzpah, the recent vote must have been a disappointment, if not a betrayal. It's almost a wonder that we got as many votes as we did.
Posted on June 26, 2020 June 24, 2020 Author The Editorial BoardCategories From the JITags Canada, Israel, politics, Security Council, UN, United Nations
1,300 survivors found refuge
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 27, B'nai Brith International (BBI) honoured former Philippine leader Manuel L. Quezon with a special panel discussion at the United Nations in New York City. BBI chief executive officer Dan Mariaschin is fifth from the right. (photo from BBI)
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 27, B'nai Brith International (BBI) honoured a former Philippine leader at the United Nations building in New York, for having saved Jews during the Holocaust.
At a time when the Philippines was still under American sovereignty, the appointed Philippine president, Manuel L. Quezon, invited and welcomed 1,300 refugee Jews who were fleeing Nazi persecution.
Quezon, who was born in 1878 and died in 1944, was a statesman, soldier and politician. He served as president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944.
According to Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin, the reason why Quezon chose to help when many other world leaders refused to do so, is that he acted in the tradition of "Do unto others as you would have done unto you."
Not only did Quezon welcome as many Jews as he could get visas for, he also offered them his private land to grow food and develop a kibbutz.
"I think it's a case of, there are individuals who, I'm a firm believer in this, whose moment comes at the most opportune time," said Daniel S. Mariaschin, BBI chief executive officer. "In the case of Manuel Quezon, I think he was a good-hearted individual. There was nothing in this for him.
"He really was a compassionate person who heard this story, thousands and thousands of miles away, and was moved to act. And now we are finding out, as more becomes known, that he was willing to save many, many more … and was, unfortunately, not able to do so. I think he stands very high … as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, who acted to save Jews."
At that time, from 1937 to 1941, as news reports were revealing Hitler's plans, Quezon secured the necessary visas from the American visa office for a Jewish-American family by the name of Frieder, who manufactured cigars in Manila.
Former Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon invited and welcomed 1,300 refugee Jews who were fleeing Nazi persecution. (photo from U.S. Library of Congress LC-USW33-019075-C)
"I think the family, together with the president, were able to get word out, they were able to get those visas … although, again, unfortunately, when he wanted to save more, the ability to get more visas was just not available to him," said Mariaschin.
Years later, the Philippines was the only Asian nation to vote for the Partition Plan in 1947, to form the state of Israel in 1948, which continued to pave the way for the positive relations Israel has with the Philippines to this day. In 2009, in Rishon Lezion, a monument was erected to honour Quezon.
The BBI event in January was well-attended and included remarks from Locsin, Mariaschin, historian Bonnie Harris, and Hank Hendrickson, who is the executive director of the U.S.-Philippines Society and a refugee who was personally saved by Quezon.
In between the various speakers, director Noel (Sunny) Izon, who made the documentary about Quezon called An Open Door: Holocaust Haven in the Philippines, shared a clip from the film. According to Izon, some 11,000 descendants of the refugees Quezon saved owe their life to him and Izon is one of them. He explained that one of the refugees Quezon saved was a doctor who saved his father's life soon after arriving in Manila.
Another highlight of the January event was having refugee Ralph Preiss present. Preiss had been saved by Quezon, and shared his experience with attendees.
While no one from Quezon's immediate family attended, nearly half the attendees were of Filipino descent who now live in New York.
Mariaschin said, while the event was in recognition of Quezon, it was, by extension, "in recognition of the Philippines."
"The books, the films, the documentaries and the stories will live on from this point, forever," said Mariaschin about other recent recognitions of Quezon's actions. "That's the best tribute you can have, that, rather than have this be just considered a footnote of history, it's now becoming an important piece of the story … of the courageousness, the humanitarian impulses, of a relatively few individuals."
According to Mariaschin, Quezon is on equal standing with the handful of other leaders who had a hand in saving Jews during the Second World War, and he said we need to continue highlighting their stories before we lose our few remaining survivors.
"I think we have to do this while there are still survivors who are living," said Mariaschin. "Unfortunately, the clock is running down on that. In the lifetimes of those people who they saved, it's extremely important that we say thank you.
"And we were fortunate, as I said, to have one refugee at our program, to have them say thank you and to talk about their story. It's something that really we need to do every year now and in between, in order to memorialize those who saved Jews."
Five years ago, the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation posthumously bestowed Quezon with the Wallenberg Medal, which also acknowledged the Philippines as a whole for having saved Jews during the Holocaust. In Winnipeg, the local B'nai Brith branch is working to organize an event, together with the Winnipeg Filipino community, to honour the former president.
To view the video of the BBI event in New York, visit webtv.un.org and do a search for "Safe Haven: Jewish Refugees in the Philippines – Panel Discussion."
Format ImagePosted on April 3, 2020 April 5, 2020 Author Rebeca KuropatwaCategories WorldTags B'nai B'rith, Daniel S. Mariaschin, Holocaust, Manuel L. Quezon, Philippines, Teodoro Locsin, UN, United Nations
Writing for Israel at UN
Aviva Klompas recently published the book Speaking for Israel: A Speechwriter Battles Anti-Israel Opinions at the United Nations. (photo from Aviva Klompas)
Aviva Klompas came close to writing a declaration of war. In early 2013, after an Israeli post was fired upon by Syria – one of a number of attacks – Klompas was tasked with penning a condemnation that would be submitted to the United Nations.
Still relatively new as director of speechwriting for Israel's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York City, she recalled the criticism she received: "Be more direct. Be more assertive about things," she was told. "I thought to myself, 'channel outrage.' I tried to do so. I wrote this very stern letter, and I took it to the ambassador to review."
Klompas, who spoke with the Independent recently, said she then learned the art of diplomacy, and how words might set off an international firestorm.
"To be clear," Ambassador Ron Prosor, then Israel's permanent representative to the UN, told her, "you don't have any authority to declare war." And it was off to a rewrite.
Thankfully, there weren't any other close calls, but there are many other fascinating stories – many of which Klompas has brought to light in Speaking for Israel: A Speechwriter Battles Anti-Israel Opinions at the United Nations (Skyhorse, 2019). The book is a candid examination of how the Israeli delegation – and Israel as a whole – is perceived and treated in the international body.
During Klompas's time at the UN, several major events occurred, including but not limited to the Iran deal, countless anti-Israel resolutions, Palestinians' bid to join the International Criminal Court, the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, and 50 days of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. She wrote the book, she said, to show the tireless work of those who advocate for the Jewish state and who rarely get their due.
"It always feels like it is an uphill battle by the nature of the bias at the UN," she said. "There are people who show up every single day and never say, 'Why are we doing this? We should leave the UN.' I've never had a single colleague make that suggestion. They came to work and did the job. I think, it's a little bit my story, but it's really our story."
Klompas was director of speechwriting from 2013 to 2015.
"It's very few people that make the headlines – the ambassador, maybe the deputy ambassador, maybe the foreign minister – but what about everyone else that is doing it day in and day out?" she asked.
About her work, the Toronto native said it advanced Israel's policies and informed public opinion. Being successful at it, she said, required overcoming some challenges. For one, there was a culture clash.
"Certainly, Israelis are much more direct in their feedback, which is for better or for worse. At first, it is startling, but then you get to understand that it's not personal," she said.
Learning how to write in someone else's voice was difficult, too. Prosor has "a very distinct style," she said, describing him as "extremely articulate, funny, charming and intelligent. To be able to write for somebody like that takes time."
In addition, Prosor took a different approach to diplomacy, when "so many speeches can be dry and not entirely lively," said Klompas. "He'd be all too happy to break out into song in the middle of a speech, whether it be a song about African nations, which got him a standing ovation from some of the African nations in the General Assembly, [or] he would sing John Lennon's 'Imagine.' In a speech about women, he sang Aretha Franklin's 'Respect.'"
Klompas gave him the nickname "the Singing Diplomat."
"Ambassador Prosor felt it was very important to be heard and, to be heard, you have to be different," she explained. "He knew he had to capture attention to get people to listen."
In the beginning, she would have to write up to 20 drafts of a speech before she got a sense of the ambassador's voice and style. Sometimes, there wasn't much time to tweak.
"It's pretty stressful," she said. "You can get a phone call any time of day or night, weekend, and be told the Security Council is convening a special session, come down to the office, we have to get writing. You could have a couple of days' notice or a couple of hours' notice. And emergency sessions tend to get a lot of publicity."
Klompas, who is now associate vice-president of Israel and global Jewish citizenship at Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston, said there were poignant takeaways from her job as a speechwriter.
"You can't be easily deterred by situations that seem unfair or unreasonable. You need a courage of conviction to deflect the constant attacks and brush aside the fact that systems and processes aren't as simple as one might hope," she said. "I'd say that my experience gave me a greater sense of what happens behind the scenes in international diplomacy, and the ways in which Israel is working to find equality in the family of nations."
Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world.
Format ImagePosted on March 27, 2020 March 26, 2020 Author Dave GordonCategories BooksTags Aviva Klompas, diplomacy, Israel, politics, Ron Prosor, UN, United Nations
מאוטווה לניו יורק: קלי קראפט
בתמונה: יו"ר מפלגת השמרנים, אנדרו שייר, ביחד עם שגרירת ארה"ב לקנדה לשעבר, קלי נייט קראפט, באוטווה: ינואר 9, 2018. (Andre Forget)
השגרירה של ארצות הברית בקנדה, קלי קראפט, מונתה לפני מספר ימים לשגרירה של המדינה באומות המאוחדות. כך החליט נשיא ארה"ב, דונלד טראמפ. קראפט תחליף את השגרירה היוצאת של ארה"ב באו"ם, ניקי היילי, שהחליטה לפרוש בפתאומיות (בסוף דצמבר) לאחר כשנתיים בתפקיד.
טראמפ אמר על המינוי של קראפט לשגרירה החדשה באו"ם: "אני שמח להודיע כי קלי קראפט, שגרירתנו הנוכחית בקנדה, תמונה לשגרירת ארה"ב באו"ם. קלי עשתה עבודה יוצאת מן הכלל בייצוג ארצנו בקנדה ואין לי ספק כי היא תמשיך לייצג את האומה שלנו ברמה הגבוהה ביותר באו"ם". שר החוץ האמריקני, מייק פומפאו והיועץ לביטחון לאומי ג'ון בולטון, תמכו במינוי החדש של קראפט לאו"ם. מנהיג הרוב של המפלגה הרפובליקנית בסנאט, מיטש מקונל, בירך אף הוא על המינוי של קראפט ואמר: "מדובר במינוי ראוי ביותר למשרה היוקרתית. יש לקרפט ניסיון עשיר בשירות המדינה ואני בטוח היא תמשיך להצטיין גם בתור השגרירה האמריקנית באו"ם".
להערכת מקורבים לקראפט היא הייתה מעוניינת דווקא להמשיך ולעבוד באוטווה ולא לעבור לתפקיד השגרירה של האו"ם בניו יורק. המקורבים מציינים כי עתה על קראפט לעבוד ביחד עם היועצים הבכירים של טראמפ בולטון וג'ארד קושניר (המחותן של הנשיא) וזה לא דבר שהיא שמחה לעשות. אך נרמז לה שאם טראמפ מבקש שהיא תיקח על עצמה את התפקיד החדש באו"ם עליה לענות לבקשתו.
קרפאט (בת החמישים ושבע) נעימת ההליכות זכתה להוקרה מיוחדת בקנדה לאור התפקיד אותה מילאה בהצלחה גדולה, במשך שישה עשר חודש. ראש הממשלה, ג'סטין טרודו ושרת החוץ, כריסטיה פרילנד, בוודאי מצטערים על עזיבתה של קראפט שנחשבה לידידה קרובה, בעיקר כשמדובר בעידן טראמפ הכל כך עויין. קראפט עזרה בכל כוחה לקנדה במהלך המו"מ הקשה להשגת הסכם הסחר החדש של מדינות צפון אמריקה. לקראפט יש גם קשרים מצויינים בממשל האמריקני והיא עזרה לא פעם לפתור מיידית בעיות שונות בין שתי המדינות השכנות. יש לזכור שקרארפט היא ילידת קנטקי (כמו מקונל) ולמדינה זו קשרי מסחר ענפים עם קנדה. לכן השגרירה הזכירה לא פעם עד כמה חשוב לה באופן אישי כי יחתם הסכם סחר חדש בין ארה"ב לקנדה.
קראפט הגרושה פעמיים נשואה למיליארדר ג'ו קראפט, המחזיק בחברת לכריית פחם אליינס ריסורס פרטנרס. בני הזוג ידועים בתמיכתם רבת השנים במפלגה הרפובליקנית והם אף תורמים לה כספים רבים. במקביל הם תורמים כספים לפעילות צדקה. לפני כניסתה לתחום הפוליטי קראפט הייתה אשת עסקים והחזיקה בחברת שיווק וייעוץ עסקי למנהיגים ועסקים.
השגרירה בין היתר חברה עם אשתו של מקונל וכאמור יש לה קשרים ענפים עם רבים מבכירי המפלגה הרפובליקנית והממשל של טראמפ. יצויין כי בתקופת כהונתו של הנשיא, ג'ורג' בוש הבן, נמנתה קראפט על חברי משלחת ארה"ב לאו"ם.
כשנשאלה קראפט מה דעתה על הנשיא טראמפ היא אמרה: "מיומנויות התקשורת שלו צריכות קצת להשתפר". בזמן העבודה על הסכם הסחר החדש בין ארה"ב, קנדה ומקסיקו אמרה השגרירה: "אני לא חושבת שהוא טוב בלהביע איך אנו הולכים להשיג את התוצאות המבוקשות. זה יועיל לכולנו אם יניח לנו לעשות את עבודתנו".
בנוגע להתחממות כדור הארץ והשינוים באקלים – נושא החשוב למוסדות האו"ם ורוב מוחלט של מדינות העולם, למעט טראמפ, אמרה קרפאט: "אני מאמינה שיש לשני הצדדים חיזוקים מדעיים מדויקים. שני הצדדים מסתמכים על מחקרים ואני מעריכה ומכבדת אותם".
Format ImagePosted on February 27, 2019 February 27, 2019 Author Roni RachmaniCategories עניין בחדשותTags Kelly Craft, UN, United Nations, United States, או"ם, ארה"ב, קלי קראפט
Stand up, be counted
Canada's behaviour at the United Nations last week is being analyzed and found wanting by many Canadian Zionists. Canada abstained from a vote on a resolution that condemned Israel in a one-sided manner for the recent violence at the Gaza border.
The four-page resolution denounced the "excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force by the Israeli forces." The resolution passed 120-8, with 45 countries, including Canada, abstaining.
An American amendment that would have condemned Hamas for sending rockets at Israeli targets was defeated 78-58, with 26 abstentions. Canada voted in favour of the failed amendment.
According to Canadian Jewish News, Canada's ambassador to the UN, Marc-André Blanchard, said the abstention was due to the resolution's failure to explicitly name Hamas.
"Hamas has been oppressing Palestinians. Hamas and other terrorist groups have been inciting violence and hatred and this should be clear in the resolution. The resolution explicitly names Israel, while failing to name any other groups involved," Blanchard said.
The question, then, is why Canada did not vote against, rather than abstain, as Shimon Koffler Fogel noted.
"Ironically, Ambassador Blanchard's explanation of the vote made the most compelling case for why Canada should have joined with the U.S., Australia and Israel in voting against the resolution," said Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
The larger issue is that the United Nations, created with such idealism and optimism after the Holocaust and the Second World War, has become beholden to ideological blocs dominated by dictatorial regimes. In a world with no shortage of humanitarian catastrophes, the General Assembly's time and resources are wasted with obsessive attention on Israel.
Additionally sad is that the superb, irreplaceable work done by so many subsidiary agencies of the UN suffers by association with the actions of the General Assembly.
Some have suggested, in light of the UNGA silliness, that democratic countries should withdraw and form their own alternative UN-type organization. Whatever value that might have, walking away is not the right choice. Canada and other countries with common sense foreign policies should remain as a voice of reason.
Which is all the more reason why our choice to remain silent on the latest anti-Israel resolution is the wrong one. If we are going to serve as best we can in a flawed assembly, the least we can do is stand up and be counted.
Posted on June 22, 2018 June 19, 2018 Author The Editorial BoardCategories From the JITags anti-Israel, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, terrorism, UN, United Nations
Israel leads way in workplace
Orit Sulitzeanu, executive director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centres in Israel. (photo from Facebook)
Orit Sulitzeanu, executive director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centres in Israel, was invited to address the United Nations on March 29 about the issue of combating sexual harassment in the workplace. She presented Israel's precedent-setting voluntary code against sexual harassment.
"We started working on this several years before the current #MeToo campaign," Sulitzeanu told Israel21c. "The code is an interesting idea that could be adapted and implemented in other places in the world."
Based on the Israeli law against sexual harassment in the workplace – be it an inappropriate look, remark, touch, text message or worse – the code provides concrete details on how to implement the regulations, which Sulitzeanu compares to "a quilt with a lot of patches missing."
For example, the law requires every business or organization with more than 10 workers to designate a special ombudsman to deal with sexual harassment complaints, but it doesn't specify details about training and supporting this ombudsman.
The Association of Rape Crisis Centres turned to the Standards Institute of Israel four years ago to help add definitions and explanations to the laws after winning a tender from the Israeli Ministry of Economics to draft a voluntary code to give managers a more exact tool for avoiding and handling sexual harassment incidents.
With this funding and additional funding from groups including the Hadassah Foundation in the United States, Israeli labour law experts from women's organizations worked for two years on guidelines.
"We also developed, with Dr. Zeev Lehrer from Tel Aviv University's department of gender studies, a tailor-made intervention that enables us to specifically understand the special characteristics of sexual harassment in a specific organization and then develop a prevention program suited to the organization," said Sulitzeanu.
The priority is to introduce the voluntary code against sexual harassment in local municipalities, businesses and organizations that the association identifies as high risk – such as the military, police, healthcare organizations, airlines, media outlets and first-response networks – because of vulnerability factors such as big gaps in age and gender (usually, older men supervising young women), nighttime working hours and frequent operations outside the office environment.
The municipality of Ra'anana was the first to adopt the voluntary code for its thousands of workers, followed by a high-tech company (EIM). Magen David Adom, Israel's national emergency response network, will adopt it next.
A leader in this area
Sulitzeanu's invitation to the UN has its roots in a co-sponsored resolution that Israel spearheaded in March 2017, titled "Preventing and Eliminating Sexual Harassment in the Workplace," in light of statistics showing that up to 60% of women worldwide have experienced harassment.
The resolution condemns sexual harassment in all forms, especially against women and girls, and emphasizes the need to take measures to prevent and eliminate it, raise awareness, educate, promote research, and collect and analyze data and statistics.
"Israel succeeded in passing this resolution in the UN and that positioned Israel as a leader in this area," said Sulitzeanu. "That's why they called me to talk about the voluntary code."
As far as she knows, no other country aside from Australia has any similar code of conduct to address sexual harassment in the workplace.
"Just as Israel is the start-up nation for technology and science, we are also the start-up in social initiatives," she said.
Harassment subculture
Israel's voluntary code also applies to situations such as child athletes traveling to competitions accompanied by adult coaches, doctors and physical therapists. Sulitzeanu saw the danger inherent in such circumstances long before this year's revelation of sexual abuse by the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team doctor.
"It's not enough to talk about the law in at-risk organizations," she said. "Some have a known subculture of sexual harassment and need tailor-made interventions."
Sulitzeanu expects employers to be eager to embrace the code in order to avoid lawsuits and the loss of productivity that comes from sexual harassment allegations due to absences, emotional stress and office gossip.
"This is a precedent-setting way to deal with the problem," she said. "I hope the government will compel every municipality to have this code, and I hope all organizations at risk will also adopt it. It is not complicated or expensive and it makes your workplace a caring, safe place for employees.
"Once these guidelines are embedded in the DNA of the organization, they become easy to implement."
The Standards Institute of Israel will conduct an inspection of each participating workplace every two years to determine if the standards set out in the code are being upheld.
Israel21c is a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.
Format ImagePosted on April 13, 2018 April 11, 2018 Author Abigail Klein Leichman ISRAEL21CCategories IsraelTags harassment, Orit Sulitzeanu, UN, United Nations, workplace
עם או בלי נתניהו
קנדה תקלוט כאלפיים פליטים מישראל. (צילום: Wikimedia Commons)
ראש ממשלת ישראל, בנימין נתניהו, הוכיח שוב כי המדיניות שלו היא לא מדיניות באמת, וכי הוא משנה את דעתו על הזמן. וזאת בהתאם לכיוון שאליו נושבת הרוח. כך גם החלטתו האחרונה לשלוח למעלה משישה עשר אלף פליטים- מסתננים מאפריקה (ממדינות ארתיריה וסודן) שביקשו מקלט בישראל, למספר מדינות במערב. בהן לדבריו גרמניה, איטליה וקנדה. ולטענתו לאחר שכביכול הוא הגיע להסכם עם נציבות הפליטים של האו"ם בנוגע למשלוח המסתננים למדינות אלה, למרות שלהן לא היה ידוע על כך. מענין!
לפי ההסכם עם האו"ם 16,250 מבקשי מקלט מישראל יקלטו במדינות המערב. ישום ההסכם יבוצע בשלושה שלבים ויתפרש על פני חמש שנים תמימות. ובמקביל כ-16,250 מהפליטים יקבלו מעמד חוקי בישראל. הם יפוזרו באופן מאוזן ברחבי ישראל. וכן תוקם אף מינהלה מיוחדת שתעסוק בשיקום אזור דרום תל אביב הרעוע (וזאת על חשבון ההשקעה במתקן חולות לכליאת הפליטים שיסגר).
לאחר הודעתו כי הגיע להסכם ותוך שעות ספורות ביטל נתניהו בעצמו את החלטתו הקודמת, והחליט שלא לשלוח פליטים מישראל למדינות המערב. ומדוע? זאת לאור זעם במפלגות הימין בישראל שהביעו התנגדות נחרצת כי בעקבות החלטת נתניהו להעברת למעלה משישה עשר אלף הפליטים למערב, יקלטו במדינה השאר – כשמונה עשר אלף פליטים-מסתננים.
בקנדה החליטו שלא להמתין להחלטותיו התמוהות של ראש ממשלת ישראל וכיאה למדינה הקולטת כל הזמן הגירה ממדינות מצוקה, הוחלט לקלוט כאלפיים פליטים-מסתננים מישראל. וזאת במהלך עצמאי ללא בקשה של ממשלת ישראל, שהחליטה לפני מספר חודשים לגרש את הפליטים האפריקנים מישראל בחזרה לאפריקה. הארש ז'אסוול, עוזר מיוחד לשר ההגירה, הפליטים והאזרחות של הממשלה הקנדית, אחמד חוסיין, מסר את ההודעה הבאה בנושא: "הממשלה שלנו כבר הוכיחה שהיא מובילה עולמית לקבל בברכה פליטים שנמלטים ממלחמות ורדיפות. ישוב פליטים אלה הוא חלק בהמסורת ההומנטרית הגאה של קנדה. אנו מוכחים שוב כי יש לנו אחריות משותפת לסייע לאלה שנעקרו, שהם נרדפים ומרביתם זקוקים להגנה ועזרה. אנו עוקבים מקרוב אחרי המתרחש בישראל, ונמצאים בקשר ישיר עם ממשלת ישראל. הגענו להסדר עם הרשויות בישראל להשעות את גירושם ומעצרם של פליטים שהגישו בקשה לעבור לקנדה, בעזרת נותני חסויות פרטיות מקנדה – עד לשיושלם הטיפול בעניינם. אנו ממשיכים ביחד עם נותני החסויות הפרטיות שיתכן ובקשותיהם מושפעות ממה שקורה בישראל. נציגות של משרד ההגירה, הפליטים והאזרחות הקנדי בתל אביב, יספק מכתבים למבקשים בקרב הפליטים להגר לקנדה, במסגרת החסויות הפרטיות, כדי לאשר שבקשותיהם נמצאות בהליך של אישור על ידנו. הם יוכלו להציג את המכתבים האלה בפני הרשויות בישראל. נכון לשלושים ואחד בדצמבר אשתקד אנו מטפלים בקרוב לכאלפיים בקשות של פליטים אפריקנים לעבור מישראל לקנדה, כאמור במסגרת נותני חסויות פרטיות מקנדה. וללא קשר במקביל, אנו ממשיכים בהתאם להכרזת ממשלת קנדה, בקליטת כארבעת אלפים פליטים מאריתריה, עד לסוף הנה הנוכחית".
לדברי סוכנות האו"ם לפליטים השוכנת באוטווה, יש הסכם שקנדה תקלוט השנה לא פחות מכעשרת אלפים פליטים. באופן כללי יתכן שחלקם של פליטים אלה יגיעו אפילו מישראל.
במרכז לענייני ישראל והיהודים בקנדה הזדרזו לברך את שר ההגירה, הפליטים והאזרחות הקנדי, אחמד חוסיין, על הסכמתו כביכול לקלוט פליטים מישראל. במרכז אמרו והוסיפו עוד כי: "ישובם מחדש של מבקשי מקלט מישראל, הוא אתגר בינלאומי המצריך פתרון בינלאומי. ואכן קנדה נטלה על עצמה תפקיד מוביל בנשיאה באחריות הבינלאומית לישובם מחדש".
Format ImagePosted on April 11, 2018 Author Roni RachmaniCategories עניין בחדשותTags asylum seekers, Canada, Israel, Netanyahu, refugees, UN, United Nations, או"ם, האו"ם, ישראל, מבקשי מקלט, נתניהו, פליטים, קנדה
הרפר יוצא נגד החלטת מועצת הביטחון של האו"ם
מועצת הביטחון של האומות המאוחדות שהכריזה בשבוע שעבר כי ההתנחלויות של ישראל בשטחים אינן חוקיות. (צילום: UN/Manuel Elias)
ראש ממשלת קנדה לשעבר, סטיבן הרפר, יוצא נגד החלטת מועצת הביטחון של האומות המאוחדות שהכריזה ביום שישי בשבוע שעבר כי ההתנחלויות של ישראל בשטחים אינן חוקיות ויש לפנותן. כידוע ארה"ב נמנעה בהצבעה ולא הטילה וטו כך שנסללה הדרך לקבל את ההחלטה נגד ישראל וההתנחלויות. לעומת זאת ממשלת קנדה ברשות ג'סטין טרודו, בחרה עד כה שלא להגיב כלל להחלטת מועצת הביטחון. אם זאת סביר להניח שטרודו התומך בפתרון שתי המדינות בוודאי היה מישר קו עם מועצת הביטחון.
הרפר בעצם הגיב בחשבון הטוויטר שלו לתגובה של הנשיא הנבחר של ארה"ב, דונאלד טראמפ, שאמר בטוויטר כי לאור החלטת מועצת הביטחון את הדברים הבאים: "בנוגע לאו"ם – הדברים יראו אחרת אחרי ה-20 בינואר". כידוע טראמפ יכנס לתפקידו בבית הלבן ב-20 בינואר 2017 (כ-90 אלף גולשים אהבו את דברי טראמפ). הרפר תמך בתגובת טראמפ להצבעה והודה על על התנגדותו הפומבית להחלטת מועצת הביטחון (כ-2,500 גולשים תמכו בדברי הרפר)".
בתגובה לדברי הרפר הגולשים באינטרנט מיהרו להביע את עמדתם בעד ונגד. להלן שלוש תגובות "מעניינות ונאורות" התומכות בדברי הרפר, שמוכיחות שוב באיזה תקופה אנו נמצאים, כאשר אנשים מרשים לעצמם להגיד הכל. אחד הגולשים כתב: "קנדה צריכה מספר התקפות טרור מאסיביות. אולי זה יעורר את האידיוטים שיבינו עם מה ישראל צריכה להתמודד מדי יום מול האיסלאם". גולש אחר: "אובמה מראה את צבעיו האמיתיים בנוגע לאו"ם המושחת והפוך. אני שמח שהוא עוזב". ועוד גולש: "זו הנקמה של אובמה כיוון שמורשתו לא אומרת כלום אחרי ה-20 בינואר. טוב להרפר. עתה היכן טרודו עומד?"
משחקים בלגו: העירייה מצאה דרך להתקרב לתושבים
בוונקובר כמו בערים אחרות אין קשר חם בין העירייה לתושבים המקומיים, שממעטים להגיע למפגשים משותפים. בהנהלת העירייה של ונקובר הגיעו למסקנה שצריך למצוא דרך להתקרב אל תושבי העיר. לאחר בדיקות מקיפות שונות שכללו בין היתר משאל לתושבים באינטרנט, נמצא הפתרון המיוחל: קוביות לגו. מתברר שמשחק הלגו יוצר קשר בלתי אמצעי ומתמשך בין הצדדים שמשתתפים בו. מועדון הלוגו של ונקובר הובא בסוד העניין והפך לשותף מרכזי בפרוייקט החדש בין העירייה לתושבים. המועדון אחראי מעתה על אספקת חמישים סטים של קוביות למפגשים בין שני הצדדים. חברי המועדון בונים דגם ראשוני של נשוא הפגישה למשל מרכז קניות חדש, והמשתתפים שיושבים סביב שולחן גדול, ממשיכים בבניית הפרוייקט וכל מה שסביבו, תוך כדי שיחה. בהנהלת העייריה מציינים שהלוגו מאפשר לתושבים להיפתח יותר בקלות לנושאים שונים, ומספר התושבים שמגיע למפגשים הולך וגדל. בהם צעירים ובני נוער שהעייריה חפצה לשמוע גם את דעתם בנושאים שונים ובעיקר אלה הקרובים להם.
צים מרחיבה את השירותים באוקיאנוס האטלנטי כולל קנדה וארה"ב
חברת הספנות הישראלית צים החליטה להרחיב את שירותיה באזור האוקיאנוס האטלנטי, שכוללים גם את קנדה וארה"ב. כל זאת לשפר את שירותי הפריום בין החופים המזרחיים של קנדה וארה"ב עם ארצות הים התיכון – איטליה וצרפת.
השינויים שכוללים הוספת הקווים עם הפעלת חמש אוניות יבואו לידי ביטוי החל מחודש אפריל 2017. הנמלים בארה"ב אותם יפקדו האוניות הם: ניו יורק, נורפולק וסוואנה. ואילו בקנדה מדובר בנמל של הליפקס. הנמל בהפליקס נחשב לאחד החשובים ביותר בקנדה והוא משמש לנקודה המוצא המרכזית של קנדה לספינות שמפליגות לאירופה. אגב רבים מהמהגרים לקנדה נחתנו לראשונה בנמל הליפקס.
Format ImagePosted on December 28, 2016 December 28, 2016 Author Roni RachmaniCategories עניין בחדשותTags Harper, Israel, Lego, Obama, settlements, shipping, Trudeau, Trump, UN, United Nations, Vancouver, Zim, אובמה, האו"ם, הרפר, התנחלויות, וונקובר, טראמפ, טרודו, ישראל, לגו, ספנות, צים
Whose holy site?
When organizers of the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival select the films they will screen, timeliness is probably among the considerations. They could hardly have known they would hit the nail on the head so perfectly with One Rock Three Religions. The film explores the contending claims for the world's most in-demand religious real estate: that which Jews call the Temple Mount.
The site of the First and Second Temples, the latter destroyed by the Romans after 70 CE, is also the location of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, holy sites for Muslims. The Western Wall, adjacent to the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, is the holiest site on earth for the Jewish people. The Temple Mount also holds significance for Christians. This is not breaking news.
But the 58-member executive board of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, earlier this month passed a resolution – with 24 countries in favor, 32 against or abstaining and two absent – that uses language that exclusively recognizes the Muslim history of the area, implicitly erasing Jewish and Christian claims to the space. (Canada is not part of the board.)
Denying Jewish claims to the Temple Mount is not breaking news, either. This form of historical erasure has been going on for decades.
In the film, Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles and a rabbi emeritus of Vancouver's Schara Tzedeck, notes that the supreme Muslim authority in Jerusalem published for decades a visitor's guide to the site. From 1924 until 1953, the guidebook made clear that the location was indisputably the site of Jewish temples. The 1954 iteration of the guide omitted the Jewish connection to the holy place for the first time. Some Arab and Palestinian figures, including Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, have made it their business to deny the historical and archeological truth ever since. The denial of a Jewish connection to Jerusalem has come to coexist with the denial of Jews to a right to self-determination in our unceded ancestral territory, as part of a global phenomenon of denying Jewish history.
It may be naïve to get on our high horses and pretend that UNESCO's appalling denial of Jewish (and Christian) connections to the Temple Mount is some new low in global attitudes toward Israel. This is nonsense, certainly, but only on a continuum of nonsense that defines the anti-Israel movement globally.
We can take some solace in the fact that the vote was not passed by a majority. As well, on the positive side, this "theatre of the absurd," as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called it, at least forced the hands of a few leaders, including Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who promised to find out why his country's representative abstained from the vote. Even UNESCO's own director-general, Irina Bokova, said: "Jerusalem is the sacred city of the three monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.… To deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site, and runs counter to the reasons that justified its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage list."
In the end, it all amounts to bubkes for Israel. Israel will continue to provide, as the VJFF film demonstrated, access to all religious sites for all peoples, to say nothing of continuing to be the educational, scientific and cultural exemplar it is. If only UNESCO contributed as much.
Posted on October 28, 2016 October 27, 2016 Author The Editorial BoardCategories From the JITags anti-Israel, antisemitism, Haram al-Sharif, Israel, Temple Mount, UN, United Nations


Programmable Media I: Open Platforms for Creativity and Collaboration, a one day symposium held on March 2, 2007 at Pace University (and in Second Life), explored two forms of current practice. First, the creation of original software to create tools and services for creative and social use, such as a freely available 3-D drawing tool and musical instrument, or a public commons meta layer conceived as a continuous public space for collaboration. Second, the creation of original work using the tools available within open platforms such as Second Life and MySpace to build community and raise awareness.


First photo: Shelby Rogers demonstrates return technique as (background, from left) Lesley Bethea of Louisiana, Ben Asuncion of Virginia and Eric Bender of California look on during a session of the Topnotch Fantasy Camp on Thursday at the Wailea Tennis Club. In addition to Rogers, who on Sunday teamed with CoCo Vandeweghe to win the decisive match of the Fed Cup final, instructors at the camp include International Tennis Hall of Famer Tracy Austin; Alison Riske, another member of the winning Fed Cup team; two-time ATP Tour winner Steve Johnson; and Reilly Opelka, the Wimbledon junior champion in 2015.
Second photo: Johnson gets ready to hit a backhand.
Third photo: Austin talks to Jenny Rogers (far left) and Tru Lawton of South Carolina as Wailea professional Crafton Dicus looks on. The camp began Wednesday and runs through Saturday.


text:
LeCAIN
Exploring the New Material Humanism
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NEW RESEARCH PROJECT: "The Post-War Human: A Physiological History of the Species During the Great Acceleration, 1945-2001"
On a physiological and cognitive level, would a group of ten thousand thirty-year-old women and men born in 1955 be on average the same as a group of ten thousand thirty-year-olds born half a century earlier in the year 1905?
The goal of "The Post-War Human" research and book project is to examine the possibility that the answer to this question is "no": that many of the humans who lived in 1985 were significantly different at a material organismal level than their ancestors who lived in 1935, and, if the evidence suggests this was indeed the case, to consider how these changes might have affected the history of the post-war era. Until very recently, most scholars have generally assumed that historical change occurs solely because events, ideas, and cultures changed, not because the human beings who interacted with these changes were themselves materially changing at an organismal level. With a few narrowly defined exceptions—changes in health or height, for example—the material nature of the human animal was assumed to be essentially fixed and thus irrelevant to explaining the course of history.[1]
Today, however, this assumption appears increasingly problematic as scientists and humanists alike come to better understand the many ways in which human bodies and minds are embedded in a material environment that surrounds, shapes, and permeates them. Consider, for example, that since 1945 the production of synthetic chemicals increased more than thirty-fold. Today there are roughly 80,000 synthetic chemical in wide use in the United States, of which only about 200 have been tested for their effects on humans. Many of these chemicals now saturate our environments and bodies through our daily interactions with plastics, pesticide residues, chemically treated clothing and furniture, and many other pathways. As the historian Julia Adeney Thomas recently observed, our chemical environment is not just around us or in us, "our chemical environment is us." Indeed, given the rapidity and scale of these changes, Thomas poses the provocative question that is at the heart of this project: "Is it not possible that the Anthropocene's sudden chemical acceleration now separates us physiologically from prewar human beings?"[2]
Yet this new chemical environment is only one of many other radical environmental modifications that constitute what the historian John McNeill and others have aptly termed the Great Acceleration.[3] McNeill and other humanists and scientists note that since 1945 humans in many regions around the planet have increasingly lived in strikingly different material environments than had predominated in previous eras. Perhaps the most widely recognized change has been the massive increase in the use of fossil fuels and its effects on global climate. Yet a very partial list of other material changes during the Great Acceleration would also note that:
· global population doubled from 3 to 6 billion;
· the number of automobiles rose from 40 to 700 million;
· billions moved from rural farms and villages to cities so that today more than half the people on the planet are urban dwellers;
· communication via telephones increased by a factor of four;
· and international travel increased by a factor of six.[4]
To varying degrees, historians and other humanists and social scientists have recognized and studied all of these phenomena and others. However, most have focused on delineating their socioculturally mediated effects. Relatively few have asked how these vast material changes might have affected the physiological and cognitive substrate of human beings and with what consequences for the course of historical change.[5]
If (and this remains very much a research question the project seeks to answer) many post-war humans were (and still are) materially different than pre-war humans, to effectively analyze this era presents daunting methodological challenges. To manage these, LeCain proposes to begin by expanding on the theoretical and methodological concepts and tools developed in his 2017 book, The Matter of History: How Things Create the Past.[6] Here he draws on new scientific and humanistic insights such as the human microbiome[7], epigenetics[8], the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis[9], and the extended mind[10], as well as new ideas from anthropology, environmental history, archaeology, and critical theory, to develop a neo-materialist theory and methodology. In essence, LeCain argues that these radical new ideas of what it means to be human demand that historians develop a more materially grounded understanding of the past, one in which we view human creativity, ideas, and culture as emerging from their interactions with a dynamic environment that, at least in some cases, literally is them.
These methods offer a good starting point for considering the immense material environmental changes experienced by many post-WWII humans. But to make such a potentially vast project manageable, LeCain proposes to drastically narrow its scope in several ways. First, while it inevitably undermines any claim to being truly a species-level history, the project will focus on areas of the globe where the Great Acceleration has been most pronounced. While this will foster considerable attention to Euro-American nations and related colonial and post-colonial states, the project will, depending on the available evidence, also seek to include similarly modernized nations like Japan, India, South Korea, China, Egypt, and South Africa, among others. Second, the project will narrow its focus to several specific case studies, which could include:
· Antibiotics, Processed Foods, and the Microbiome—Given the growing post-war use of broad-spectrum antibiotics with their now-widely-recognized effects on the human microbiome's production of psychotropic substances like serotonin, might it be possible to include these physiological changes as a contributing factor in social, cultural, and political events?[11] A similar question might be raised regarding highly processed foods whose effects were certainly not only cultural, but also physiological.
· Chemicals, Pollution, and Culture—As noted above, many post-war humans came to swim in a vast sea of synthetic chemicals as well as a range of other potentially mind- and body-altering pollutants. This is well known, yet has been approached almost entirely as a public health issue rather than in terms of historical change and causalities. More recently, scientists and social scientists have begun to interrogate how these chemicals affect sociocultural phenomena like civic participation and criminality. In part, these effects are a result of the adverse cognitive effects of exposure to these pollutants in utero or early-life. As the authors of a 2018 article in Science provocatively observe, "If pollution can affect reasoned judgment and decision-making . . . then perhaps every aspect of daily living may be altered by our contaminated environment."[12]
· The Epigenetics of Fear and Anxiety—There is growing scientific evidence that highly stressful or traumatic events can cause epigenetic changes in parents that may be passed on to their children and even grandchildren, predisposing them to be depressed or anxious.[13] If this is true, how might the widespread experience of warfare during WWII and after—most especially on the battlefield, but perhaps also fears raised on the home front—have affected the cognitive nature of people? For example, should we understand the American fears of atomic Armageddon in the fifties and sixties, from "duck and cover" to backyard fallout shelters, as having physiological consequences that contributed to cultural changes?
· Distancing From Rural Animals—Rather than trying to take on all of the vast array of material changes associated with the movement of many of the globe's people from rural to urban environments, the project will focus on the question: What physiological and cognitive changes might have occurred as a result of the rapid decline in physical interactions between people and domestic animals like horses, cows, pigs, and chickens? If, as Edmund Russell has demonstrated, humans had co-evolved with these animals for millennia, it seems possible that their sudden absence from the lives of many people had significant physiological and cognitive effects.[14]
· The Effects of Virtuality—As many people became increasingly entangled in technologically mediated networks of communication, work, and recreation—from telephones to video games and the internet—how did this growing immateriality of their daily existence change the way they felt and thought? As the Yale historian Timothy Snyder has recently argued, the increasingly virtual nature of contemporary online discourse threatens to undermine our ability to accurately understand and shape the real material world.[15]
· The Physiology of Speed—How did the increasingly common experience of speedy automobility, and subsequently the even greater speed of mass air travel, affect the ways in which many post-war humans felt and thought?[16]
The "New Post-War Human" project is in the preliminary stages, so the first task will be to investigate these topics and draw on the secondary literature to chart the extent and nature of the material changes in question. Depending on these results, the second task will be to investigate three or four of the most promising topics in depth and attempt to provide a descriptive history of their material nature and how these material changes translated into any significant organismal changes in a significant cross-section of humans, if at all. A preliminary search suggests that there are considerable resources to be found in the scientific and social science literature, both contemporary and historical.[17] Bringing this material together in an accessible format will in and of itself be an invaluable historical contribution, as this history has rarely been approached on these terms. Finally, if there are some positive results—i.e., evidence of significant physiological changes in post-war humans—the third and most challenging task would be to consider how the shifts in the organismal nature of the species might have influenced the course of post-war history. Importantly, I would not anticipate that such physiological shifts would in any sense be determinative. Rather, it seems likely that these would add to and help to better elucidate other more traditional causal historical factors, offering a more rounded and materially rooted view of the period.
[1] See for example R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (Mansfield Center, CT: Martino, [1946] 2014). These assumptions are examined and challenged in Dipesh Chakrabarty, "The Climate of History: Four Theses," Critical Inquiry 35 (Winter 2009): 197-222.
[2] Julia Adeney Thomas, "History and Biology in the Anthropocene: Problems of Scale, Problems of Value," American Historical Review 119 (2014), 1587-1607, quotes on 1601.
[3] J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke, The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).
[4] Will Steffen, Jacques Grinevald, Paul Crutzen, and John McNeil, "The Anthropocene: Conceptual and historical perspectives," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 369 (2011): 842-867, see especially pp. 849-852.
[5] Some notable recent exceptions regard the history of the mind and neurohistory. See: Daniel Smail, Deep History and the Brain (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007), and, Edmund Russell, ed., Environment, Culture, and the Brain: New Explorations in Neurohistory (RCC Perspectives, 2012).
[6] Timothy J. LeCain, The Matter of History: How Things Create the Past (Cambridge, UK: 2017), see especially 124-36.
[7] Ann Reid and Shannon Greene, Human Microbiome: A Report From the American Academy of Microbiology, (Washington, DC: American Academy of Microbiology, 2013); Timothy G. Dinan, Catherine Stanton, and John F. Cryan, "Psychobiotics: A Novel Class of Psychotropics," Biological Psychiatry 74 (2013): 720-726; and Thomas, "History and Biology in the Anthropocene," 1587-1607.
[8] Daniel F. Simola, Riley J. Graham, et al., "Epigenetic (re)programming of caste-specific behavior in the ant Camponotus floridanus," Science 351 (January 2016).
[9] Kevin Laland, Tobia Uller, et al., "Does evolutionary history need a rethink? Yes, urgently," Nature 514 (2014): 161-164.
[10] Andy Clark, "Where Brain, Body and World Collide," in Material Agency, Carl Knappett and Lambros Malafouris, eds., Material Agency: Toward a Non-Anthropocentric Approach (New York: Springer, 2008).
[11] Martin J. Blaser, Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics is Fueling Our Modern Plagues (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2014).
[12] Joshua Graff Zivin and Matthew Neidell, "Air pollution's hidden impacts: Exposure can affect labor productivity and human capital," Science 359 (2018): 39-40.
[13] Rachel Yehuda, Nikolaos P. Daskalakis, et al., "Holocaust Exposure Induced Intergenerational Effects on FKBP5 Methylation," Biological Psychiatry 80 (2016): 372-80.
[14] Edmund P. Russell, Evolutionary History: Uniting History and Biology to Understand Life on Earth (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
[15] See, for example, Snyder's recent podcast, "Cybercolony USA," available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz8a3LuDlZU&app=desktop.
[16] Mimi Sheller, Aluminum Dreams: The Making of Light Modernity (Boston: MIT Press, 2014.)
[17] For example, the well-recognized effects of socioeconomic status on childhood brain development: D. A. Hackman and M. J. Farah, "Socioeconomic status and the developing brain," Trends in Cognitive Science 13 (2009): 65-73, and, Kimberly G. Noble, Suzanne M. Houston, et al., "Family income, parental education and brain structure in children and adolescents," Nature Neuroscience 18 (2015): 773-778.
timothyjameslecain.com


Would you read a news article penned by an algorithm? If you follow financial or sports news, maybe you already have. Slate senior technology writer Will Oremus joins us to talk about the rise of "bot journalists," from the algorithms that report on companies' quarterly earnings to the programs that pen reviews of your fantasy football team's latest performance. Plus, we consider whether bots could ever break into fiction writing. A.I. researchers Mark Riedl and Tony Veale discuss their attempts to get computers to tell stories and think metaphorically.


The datacenter is a powerful beast at a great price. LyricWiki is hosted by G3 Technologies which has redundant everything and is on this cool Internet Exchange which puts our servers one-hop from an insane number of local Pittsburgh area people and campuses. We're even one-hop away from Penn State (which is relatively far on a map). The fact that the place is so affordable is what has made it possible for LyricWiki to be supported only by non-invasive advertising.
LyricWiki is running on purely legal software for a total cost of $0. Win! Our operating system is CentOS which is basically the freely-compiled version of the same source-code as RedHat (G3 were the guys to tip me off to this; I naively hadn't heard of CentOS 2 years ago). On top of the OS we have 3 different types of servers. A Squid caching server, an Apache web-server, and two mySQL servers (one is a replica/slave).
The pages are written in PHP which is really efficient and is made much faster by APC op-code caching (this stores compiled versions of the code automatically since PHP is an interpreted language). The wiki itself is running the MediaWiki code (the same code that powers Wikipedia). I initially thought that MediaWiki was slow and bloated, but as time went on, I found out that in fact it is just optimized for very large wikis with a ton of traffic – this is because it was developed in conjunction with Wikipedia's growth. One of my favorite features that was added into MediaWiki for scaling is the ability to instantly plug in the powerful in-memory object-caching system: memcached.
On top of all of that, we've made heavy use of other technologies. ÜberBot, who added the first 200,000 or so songs to LyricWiki (to give it critical mass) was written in Perl which is fantastic at this sort of thing. We've also made search plugins for FireFox, Netscape, Safari, IE, etc. , a Facebook Application, and even leveraged the SOAP standard to make an API that has been used dozens if not hundreds of other places.
In addition to all of that stuff, we use Google Analytics and AWStats to track our stats. The logo was made in the somewhat cumbersome but-hey-it's-$400-cheaper-than-photoshop GIMP, and the code that I wrote for the site was written in Notepad++. I'm sure I could go on and on listing other awesome (and almost always free) stuff that we use (IRC and even WordPress that I'm writing this on), but this post is getting long!
We use tons of amazing software and don't have to pay for any of it! Brilliant! That's kind of an interesting thing to notice being a programmer myself, but in the end that's just something that the industry has to adapt to (much like the music industry with downloadable music).
I think I'll leave you at that now. There was a TON of technology in there and I think I could write pages and pages about any one of the things I mentioned or linked to (except Atreyu, ironically), but that is for another day. If any of you are curious about any of the topics above, please comment on this post and it's quite likely that I will expand up the topic later!