Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Likud activist arrested for threats against prosecutor in Netanyahu cases – The Jerusalem Post

A well-known Likud activist has been arrested under suspicion of threatening Liat Ben-Ari, the prosecutor in the cases against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Ynet. In a letter sent to Ben-Ari, the activist wrote that “we will harass you until you kill yourself. This is your end.”

Source: Likud activist arrested for threats against prosecutor in Netanyahu cases – The Jerusalem Post

Colorado School Suspends and Calls Resource Officers on Black 12-Year-Old Over Toy Gun Seen During Virtual Class

At the end of the day, Black children are disproportionately vulnerable to harsh discipline for petty offenses and are by far the most likely to have resource officers called on them when they’re physically in school. You would think they’d be safe from that kind of implicit bias when attending class from the confines of their own homes. But it seems we’re just adding another thing to the list of things you can’t do while Black.

Source: Colorado School Suspends and Calls Resource Officers on Black 12-Year-Old Over Toy Gun Seen During Virtual Class

Hungarian researcher wins award for procedure that could cure blindness | News | DW | 07.09.2020

Hungarian researcher Botond Roska gestures after accepting the Körber award in Hamburg (picture-alliance/dpa/A. Heimken)

Professor Botond Roska, who works in the Swiss city of Basel, has uncovered a gene-based therapy that reprograms cells in the human eye so that they can perform the work of the light-sensitive receptors needed for human vision, according to the Körber Foundation that hands out the annual prize. It is hoped the procedure will reactivate the retinas of the blind. The medical scientist said that, for the time being, the process creates a level of vision similar to watching television in black and white. Clinical tests on blind volunteers are already underway as a result of the Budapest-born researcher’s groundbreaking work.

Source: Hungarian researcher wins award for procedure that could cure blindness | News | DW | 07.09.2020

NYU’s COVID-19 Reopening Plan Fuels “Inequality And Injustice,” Faculty And Staff Warn – Gothamist

Rebecca Karl, who teaches history at the university, said it felt as if the school was pressuring contract faculty and Ph. D. candidates, who are considered vulnerable since they live in the areas hit hard by COVID-19 and rely on public transportation, to teach in-person this year while tenured faculty, like herself, were given the option to choose if they wanted to teach remotely or not.

“We were very uncomfortable with that kind of inequality and injustice on campus,” she said.

Source: NYU’s COVID-19 Reopening Plan Fuels “Inequality And Injustice,” Faculty And Staff Warn – Gothamist

The coronavirus chaos is caused by one person: Netanyahu – comment – The Jerusalem Post

Placing the blame on members of the opposition is a sad attempt at what most people learn in elementary school: take responsibility for your actions. Don’t run away from it.

Just look at what has happened only since last Thursday. That day, the coronavirus cabinet approved a lockdown on “red” cities, which was supposed to go into effect on Monday. Netanyahu was supposed to convene his ministers on Sunday and finalize the plans, but he came under pressure from his haredi (ultra-Orthodox) coalition partners, threatening him with political backlash. Their campaign included a letter from four heads of haredi towns, who said that they would not go along with the new restrictions if they were imposed.

That was enough for Netanyahu – who recognized he could lose the last coalition partner he has – to do a flip-flop. It was also enough for him to take the plan put together by the country’s coronavirus commissioner, Prof. Ronni Gamzu, and simply throw it out the window.

That it had the support of the Health Ministry and had already been approved in the cabinet meant nothing. Politics was calling.

Source: The coronavirus chaos is caused by one person: Netanyahu – comment – The Jerusalem Post

China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine candidate appears safe, weaker in elderl – The Jerusalem Post

For three groups of participants who respectively took two shots of low, medium and high-dose CoronaVac, over 90% of them experienced significant increase in antibody levels, while the levels were slightly lower than those seen in younger subjects but in line with expectation, Liu said in a statement.

CoronaVac, being tested in Brazil and Indonesia in the final-stage human trials to evaluate whether it is effective and safe enough to obtain regulatory approvals for mass use, has already been given to tens of thousands of people, including about 90% of Sinovac employees and their families, as part of China’s emergency inoculation scheme to protect people facing high infection risk.

The potential vaccine could remain stable for up to three years in storage, Liu said, which might offer Sinovac some advantage in vaccine distribution to regions where cold-chain storage is not an option.

Source: China’s Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine candidate appears safe, weaker in elderl – The Jerusalem Post

Saudi Arabia: Prominent Detainees Held Incommunicado

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Prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul had been on hunger strike for six days before Saudi authorities finally allowed her parents to visit on August 31, according to family members. Al-Hathloul had spent almost three months before that in incommunicado detention.
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(Beirut) – Saudi Arabia has denied some prominent detainees contact with their family members and lawyers for months, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter requesting access to the country and private prison visits with detainees. The situation raises serious concerns for the detainees’ safety and well-being.

Saudi authorities have banned in-person visits with prisoners across the country since March 2020 to limit the spread of Covid-19. But Saudi activists and other sources say that the authorities have also unduly denied numerous imprisoned dissidents and other detainees regular communication with the outside world.

“Saudi authorities appear intent on making certain detainees and their loved ones suffer even further by denying them the ability to hear each other’s voices and know for certain they are ok,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “All prisoners should be allowed unfettered communication with their families and the world outside their prison cells, but especially so during these trying times.”

A family member of a leading women’s rights activist told Human Rights Watch they have not received phone calls from their detained relative in over two months. A relative of a prominent imprisoned cleric, Salman al-Awda, said the family has not heard from him since May.

Family members of another prominent women’s rights activist, Loujain al-Hathloul, said that the authorities finally allowed her parents to visit on August 31, after she spent almost three months in incommunicado detention. They said she had begun a hunger strike six days before the visit after learning that some other detainees had been allowed to call their families. Saudi authorities have detained all three for over two years or longer in what informed sources indicate are abusive conditions, while they face repeatedly adjourned trials based on charges that violate their basic rights.

According to lawyers representing the former crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, he has been detained without charge since his arrest in March, and his current whereabouts are unknown. While the prince has occasionally been allowed to make calls to family members, some of which were reportedly made under duress, the lawyers said that he has been denied visits with family members since his arrest and his personal doctor since his initial period of detention. The lawyers said they do not know whether the prince has received treatment for his diabetes and that there are serious concerns about his well-being and health.

Saudi authorities arrested al-Hathloul along with a number of other prominent Saudi women’s rights activists in May 2018, marking the beginning of a brutal crackdown on the women’s rights movement in Saudi Arabia. For the first three months, the authorities held her incommunicado, without access to her family and lawyer. In August, the authorities embarked on a second wave of arrests.

In November 2018, human rights organizations began reporting accusations that Saudi interrogators had tortured al-Hathloul and at least three other detained women, including with electric shocks and whippings, and had sexually harassed them.

Saudi Arabia brought charges against several women’s rights advocates, including al-Hathloul, that appear almost entirely related to their human rights activities and opened their trials in March 2019. As of August 2020, more than a year since, none of them had been sentenced and no new hearing dates have been set.

Al-Awda, 63, was among the first of dozens of people detained in mid-September 2017 by the Presidency of State Security, an agency established only months before, following Mohammad bin Salman’s appointment as crown prince. Al-Awda was held in solitary confinement, with no lawyer and a limited ability to contact family members.

In September 2018, Saudi prosecutors sought the death penalty against him on a host of vague charges related to his political statements, associations, and positions. None of the charges refer to specific acts of violence or incitement to violence. His relative said that he remains in solitary confinement, that his trial has been suspended since late 2019, and that his hearings have been postponed numerous times without explanation. Since May, Saudi prison authorities have denied him all contact with his family, leaving them seriously concerned for his health.

Contact with the outside world is an essential right of prisoners. International standards dictate that prisoners must be allowed to “communicate with their family and reputable friends at regular intervals, both by correspondence and by receiving visits.”vLimitations on contact and movement should be proportionate and measured, and a prosecutor or prison director may not arbitrarily withdraw a prisoner’s rights to such contact. International standards require that “communication of the detained or imprisoned person with the outside world, and in particular his family or counsel, shall not be denied for more than a matter of days.”

Even before the pandemic, Human Rights Watch had documented that prison administrations would often halt prisoners’ communications with relatives without explanation and would heavily monitor calls when they do allow them, cutting the lines if prisoners tried to discuss their cases or complain about detention conditions. Some prisoners also said that phone calls are usually restricted to 2 to 10 minutes.

Saudi Arabia has recorded a steady rise in Covid-19 cases since March 2, with 303,973 cases and 3,548 deaths recorded by August 20. Infectious diseases like Covid-19 pose a serious risk to populations in closed institutions like prisons and detention centers. In Saudi Arabia’s prisons, where human rights groups have long documented ill-treatment, overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and denial of adequate medical care, it is virtually impossible to adequately protect the mental and physical health of already vulnerable prisoners in case of an outbreak.

On April 24, a leading Saudi human rights figure, Abdullah al-Hamid, 69, died while serving a long prison term. The Saudi human rights organization ALQST reported that al-Hamid’s health condition had deteriorated in recent months, and that the authorities had delayed a heart operation a doctor told al-Hamid he needed in early 2020. ALQST said that authorities took steps to prevent al-Hamid from discussing his health condition with his family. He suffered a stroke on April 9 and remained hospitalized in a coma until his death.

On July 19, a writer and journalist, Saleh al-Shehi, died in the hospital two months after his release from detention. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called for an independent international investigation to determine whether there is a link between his detention conditions and his death from an illness that has not been formally identified but that some local media outlets said was Covid-19. Saudi authorities released Al-Shehi from prison on May 19 without explanation after he had served two and a half years of a five-year sentence on speech-related charges.

Saudi authorities should promptly allow independent international monitors to enter the country, regularly monitor prison and detention facilities, carry out impartial investigations into allegations of torture and suspicious deaths in detention, and conduct private and regular visits with prisoners, Human Rights Watch said.

“Following the devastating deaths of prominent detainees in suspicious circumstances, Saudi Arabia’s allies should demand that they immediately release all those unjustly detained for exercising their basic rights before it’s too late,” Page said. “The families of detainees held incommunicado should not have to spend another day anxiously wondering what has become of their relatives.”

21st Century Colonialism – implemented by a few NGOs? Whose Survival is at stake here, Survival? The survival of the rainforests and indigenous peoples or of the luxury gold and diamond jewelry industry? — Barbara Crane Navarro

I did volunteer work for Survival France in the ’90s and early 2000s at periods when I had returned to France from time among the Yanomami in Venezuela and Brazil and thought at first that Survival was doing the right thing. I spent a lot of time collecting signatures on printouts of Survival petitions for […]

21st Century Colonialism – implemented by a few NGOs? Whose Survival is at stake here, Survival? The survival of the rainforests and indigenous peoples or of the luxury gold and diamond jewelry industry? — Barbara Crane Navarro

New York Will Test the Dead More Often for Coronavirus and Flu – The New York Times

in New York, where officials recently announced a ramp-up in post-mortem testing for the coronavirus as well as the flu. Deaths linked to respiratory illnesses that weren’t confirmed before a person died are to be followed up with tests for both viruses within 48 hours, according to the new regulation.

“These regulations will ensure we have the most accurate death data possible as we continue to manage Covid-19 while preparing for flu season,” Dr. Howard Zucker, the state’s health commissioner, said in a statement last week.