Saturday, February 14, 2015
Friends of 11-year-old firebomb victim to UN: Condemn burners of children
Hundreds of friends of Ayala Shapira, the 11-year-old girl who was seriously wounded after a Molotov cocktail was hurled at the car in which she and her father were traveling in the West Bank last December, urged United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in a letter to issue a harsh “condemnation against burners of children”. The letter was sent to the UN Headquarters in New York, and to date, a response has yet to be received.Palestinians want role in probing 'terrorist' killings of Chapel Hill Muslims
Shapira, who sustained third degree burns in the attack on December 25, 2014, remains sedated and on a respirator. In the letter sent to Ban, the AMIT Lehava Ulpana students, who go to school with Shapira, called on the UN to “speak out against these terrorists”.
The letter detailed the attack on their friend: “Ayala, a descendant of Holocaust survivors…had just been coming back from a program for gifted students in mathematics and was on her way to celebrate a friend’s Bat Mitzvah,” they wrote. “Her life was cut short. A Molotov cocktail enflamed the car and Ayala was caught on fire. She was pulled out of the burning car by her father and is still hospitalized, sedated and intubated.”
The students voiced their surprise at the fact that neither the United Nations nor the Secretary-General issued a condemnation of the incident. “Ignoring this violence means tacit support of this heinous act,” they noted, adding that “it is our right to travel safely on the roads and go to classes and celebrations without fear of terrorists and murderers who seek to destroy us.”
The Palestinian Authority on Saturday condemned as "terrorism" the killings of three young Palestinian-Americans in North Carolina and called on US authorities to include its investigators in the probe.Michael Lumish: Palestinian Authority Condemns Chapel Hill Terrorism, Demands Role in Investigation
Police have charged a neighbor with Tuesday's shooting in the town of Chapel Hill of Deah Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Abu-Salha, 19, saying the incident followed a dispute over parking.
But investigators said they were also looking into whether the suspect, Craig Stephen Hicks, was motivated by hatred toward the victims because they were Muslim.
Branding Hicks "an American extremist and hateful racist," the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the incident suggested a rise in dangerous discrimination against American Muslims.
"We consider it a serious indication of the growth of racism and religious extremism which is a direct threat to the lives of hundreds of thousands of American citizens who follow the Islamic faith," the ministry said in a statement.
It called for "a serious investigation and the involvement of Palestinian investigators to clarify the circumstances of these assassinations and premeditated murders" in Chapel Hill.
I had no idea that the victims were of Israeli or Jordanian Arab descent.One dead, two hurt in attack on Copenhagen free speech event
It's interesting to me that after the Jihadi attack at the Boston Marathon, Obama said that we must not rush to judgment nor leap to conclusions about the nature of this violence. And, of course, after Nidal Hasan slaughtered thirteen soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, while screaming "Alahu Akbar" the Obama administration referred to it as "work place violence."
And, needless to say, Obama recently suggested that the Islamist slaughter of 4 Jews at the Parisian kosher market was a random act of violence, thereby veiling the anti-Semitic nature of the attack. It is in order to create obscurity that Obama refers to Islamist violence as "violent extremism."
However, after this shooting, with no meaningful evidence that the victims were killed for either their faith or ethnicity, Obama tells us:
"No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship."
Obama's sympathies depend upon who the victims are and who the perpetrators are.
Obama is, thus, a racist.
He clearly prefers and respects some ethnic and religious groups over others.
One man was killed and three policemen wounded Saturday in a shooting at a Copenhagen cafe where a meeting about freedom of speech was being held, organized by Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has faced numerous threats for caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad in 2007, local media reported.
Copenhagen police confirmed that a 40-year-old man was killed and three officers were injured, and that two suspected gunmen fled the scene in a dark Volkswagen Polo and were at large.
The TV2 channel said Saturday there were some 30 bullet holes in the window of the Krudttoenden cafe and said at least two people were taken away on stretchers, including a uniformed police officer.
“I heard someone firing with an automatic weapon and someone shouting. Police returned the fire and I hid behind the bar. I felt surreal, like in a movie,” Niels Ivar Larsen, one of the speakers at the event, told the TV2 channel. (h/t Bob Knot)
Andrew Bolt: Grand Mufti legitimises a dangerous anger
Australia’s Grand Mufti has again made his faith a legitimate source of suspicion with a disgraceful warning - that we abandon Israel and stop fighting Islamist terrorists abroad, or else.First victim of “blasphemy laws” would be Islam itself
He even portrays the extremist Hizb ut-Tahrir as the victim of a cynical Abbott Government plot to switch attention from its internal woes.
The Grand Mufti’s warning will to many people sound far too close to a threat and a legitimising of extremists, even though I fully accept that this is not his intention and that he has in fact condemned terrorism:
The claim that we are “turning a blind eye to the just cause and the suffering of lots of people living in the Middle East” is completely false and dangerously inflammatory, echoing the rhetoric of extremists. Check our aid, refugee programs, peace-keeping efforts and diplomacy to end conflicts.
The claim that we are “blindly supporting Israel” is also false and inflammatory. The Grand Mufti also evades the fact that our conditional support of Israel is based largely on the grounds that it is fighting for its survival against extremists pledged to its destruction. Where does he stand on that issue? What is his own agenda?
The claim that the West is driving young Muslims here to join the Islamic State tends to legitimise the rage of such terrorists. The Mufti also avoids the role Islam plays in suggesting that killing unbelievers is a legitimate way to demonstrate your faith. Nor can he explain why the West should be blamed for young Australian Muslims joining a terrorist group whose main business right now is killing other Muslims deemed insufficiently devout, as well as Christians in Iraq.
The Mufti’s comments paint a picture of a West so mean to Muslims that it’s no wonder young Muslims here turn to some of the most violent terrorism we have seen. This toxic message comes with an implicit warning: to submit to the demands of the extremists or risk death.
I suspect few Islamist groups would have much quarrel with what this Mufti has just said. But many Jews, Christians, Kurds, Yazidis, non-Muslim Australians, democrats and Westerners - even some Shiite Muslims - would. That says plenty.
The Muslim community of Australia badly needs another leader. Again. Either that, or we must accept that the Grand Mufti really does represent mainstream Muslim views, and adjust our defences accordingly.
Yet the OIC seems to miss one grand irony: if international laws would ban cartoons, books, and films on the basis that they defame Islam, they would also, by logical extension, have to ban the entire religion of Islam itself -- the only major religion whose core texts actively and unequivocally defame other religions, including by name.Argentine President and Foreign Minister Charged Over Cover-Up of Iran’s Role in AMIA Atrocity
To understand this, consider what “defamation” means. Typical dictionary-definitions include “to blacken another’s reputation” and “false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another, as by slander or libel.” In Muslim usage, defamation simply means anything that insults or offends Islamic sensibilities.
However, to gain traction among the international community, the OIC cynically maintains that such laws should protect all religions from defamation, not just Islam (even as Muslim governments ban churches, destroy crucifixes, and burn Bibles).
Disingenuous or not, the OIC’s wording suggests that any expression that “slanders” the religious sentiments of others should be banned.
What, then, do we do with Islam’s core religious texts -- beginning with the Koran itself which slanders, denigrates and blackens the reputation of other religions?
The Argentine Federal Prosecutor appointed to examine the accusation that the Argentine government attempted to cover up Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires has announced that he will be pursuing the country’s top leadership over the charge, in a major endorsement of the claims advanced by Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman on the eve of his death last month in suspicious circumstances.Jewish Parliamentarian in Argentina Accuses Iran of ‘Killing’ AMIA Bombing Investigator Alberto Nisman
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman are the most prominent names in Gerardo Pollicita’s complaint, described by the Buenos Aires Herald as giving “a green light” to the charges originally made by Nisman before he died. As The Algemeiner reported earlier today, there is a growing conviction in both Argentina and Israel that Iran was also behind Nisman’s death, which the Argentine government is officially treating as a suicide.
In addition to Fernández de Kirchner and Timerman, Pollicita also charged several of their main political allies, including Luis D’Elia, a former member of the cabinet of Néstor Kirchner (Fernández de Kirchner’s late husband and predecessor in office) Andrés Larroque, a parliamentarian, former prosecutor Héctor Yrimia and Allan Bogado, a suspected member of Argentina’s state intelligence service.
Sergio Bergman, widely believed to be the only rabbi serving in a national parliament outside of Israel, told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that he had “absolutely no doubt” that Iran “killed” Nisman.Argentina’s government accuses courts of ‘judicial coup’
“There is no doubt. You do not have to be crazy to suggest that Iran is involved in his death,” Bergman, who is currently visiting Israel, told correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky. “It’s not a delusion. To the contrary: Tehran has always been involved here, mixed up with the intelligence services, making agreements with the government, planting spies, in some ways invading us. Iran decides what it does here.”
A source close to Israel’s military intelligence told Tarnopolsky that there are “heavy suspicions” about Iran’s involvement, adding he had no doubt that the crime was carried out with “local participation.”
“If that were the case, the Argentine government, by suggesting the prosecutor ended his own life, would be persisting in the very behavior Nisman was investigating,” Tarnopolsky wrote. “Covering up the tracks of Iranian terror in Buenos Aires.”
The cabinet chief of Argentine President Cristina Kirchner said Friday the courts were trying to stage a “judicial coup” by accusing the embattled leader of a cover-up scandal, and lashed out at prosecutors’ plans to hold a march next Wednesday to mark one month since the mysterious death of the top investigator in the case.Intimidation, meddlers stalk Argentine state prosecutors
The prosecutor who inherited the high-profile case against Kirchner on Friday reaffirmed the accusations, formally renewing the investigation into whether the president helped Iranian officials cover up their alleged role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center.
Prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita’s decision to go forward with the case was significant because it sets the stage for a close examination of the investigation that prosecutor Alberto Nisman was building before he was found dead on January 18. The next day, Nisman was scheduled to elaborate his accusations to Congress.
Prosecutors behind next Wednesday's march anticipate tens of thousands of people will demonstrate against intimidation.An open letter to supporters of BDS, with a special message to Jews who participate
The opposition's front-running presidential candidates, Mauricio Macri and Sergio Massa, are expected to take part. They have both promised to fight impunity but have given scant details on how.
The government says the silent march is part of a broader political attack waged by Fernandez' enemies.
"They can have their silence. Maybe it's just that they have nothing to say," Fernandez told supporters on Wednesday.
Following Nisman's death, impunity and interference in the judiciary are almost certain to be hot topics in the run-up to the election.
"What is at stake is the republic," said legal expert and former prosecutor Pablo Lanusse. "They managed to hush Alberto Nisman but they cannot silence us all."
At least the Muslim who engages in this maintains some personal honor because he believes however, wrongly, that Jews have no right to live on Muslim holy land to begin with, But, you, what is your excuse?Rasmea Odeh denied new trial
You think that by siding with this enemy and lying about Israeli treatment of Palestinians is going to score you some international street cred? You are cowards in a basically cowardly movement. You deserve each other.
Because you side with the same historical enemy that we have faced so many times before, throughout our history, now manifested in this particular movement, which attracts the deadliest enemies of the Jewish people, the descendants of those who put us in ovens, you think you are now immune to that particular fate for the simple cost of selling the rest of us out?
Let me remind you that Jews took out full page ads in the social media of the 1930s, major German newspapers, imploring German Jews to give the Nazis a chance, they only wanted what was best for Germany and besides their threats against us would never be carried out. This, in the face of brown shirt violence against Jews who couldn’t defend themselves at the very moment they were pleading with the Jewish community for Nazi support. They died along with the rest of European Jewry. Your silence now at the murder of your own people in Jerusalem, Paris, London, and everywhere else Jews are dying at the hands of jihadists simply because they are Jews is sickeningly similar to those traitorous German Jews in the 1930s.
You think that because you stand with the mortal enemies of the Jewish people today that somehow exempts you from what you advocate for the rest of your people? Like the Judenraat in the camps, when they are done with all of us and you faithfully have helped them to complete their ghastly task, they will come for you, But, there will be no more Israel to protect you. Your fate is sealed in supporting this movement.
You are a disgrace.
By now, readers of Legal Insurrection know all about Rasmea Odeh, and her convictions for a 1969 supermarket bombing in Jersusalem for which she was convicted in 1970, and immigration fraud, for which she was conficted in Detroit in November 2014.The Sham of “Anti-Zionism.”
As Rasmea’s supporters hold fundraisers, letter writing campaigns, student events, and livestreams to celebrate Rasmea as a hero, the families of Rasmea’s victims mourn.
Rasmea will be sentenced in the Detroit case on March 12, 2015. She filed motions in court for a new trial and for judgment to be entered in her favor, citing alleged trial errors.
In an Order issued today, Hon. Gershwin A Drain denied the motions, lambasting Rasmea’s attorney’s for submitting perfunctory papers in support of the motions.
Over the past few days, a scandal has broken at Durban University of Technology in Durban, South Africa. Student groups, namely Student Representative Council (SRC) and the Progressive Youth Alliance, issued a demand that all Jewish students be forcibly deregistered. “We took the decision that Jewish students, especially those who do not support the Palestinian struggle, should deregister.”‘Israel is an Apartheid State That Should Be Fully Isolated,’ Say South African Students, in ‘Apology’ for Call to Expel Jews
Forcing all Jews to leave a university? That sounds eerily reminiscent of the stipulations laid out by the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.
The most sickening aspect of this repugnant action is that it’s under the guise of supporting the Palestinian people. Punishing all Jews at the university due to the actions of a nation which you find problematic makes about as much sense as forcing all Muslim students to leave because of the actions of ISIS.
The student representative council at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) in South Africa has issued what it describes as an ‘apology’ for an earlier demand that “Jewish students, especially those who do not support the Palestinian struggle,” should be expelled from the campus.Top Lawmakers Launch Counterattack on Obama Anti-Israel Campaign
“The SRC apologises without reservation to anyone offended by recent demands made by us regarding Jewish students,” the council said in a statement. However, the body pointedly did not say that it had reversed its demand.
“Once more, we repeat our position, Israel is an apartheid state that should be fully isolated; on this point we will not concede,” the SRC added.
“If there are any students, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, even atheists or any other that is funded by the apartheid state of Israel and its institutions they must not be students at DUT,” the SRC continued, in another example of the shrill hysteria that characterizes anti-Israel activity in South Africa. “If there are any, they must be immediately de-registered. Our campuses will not be breeding grounds for apartheid.”
Top Republican leaders took to public and private channels Thursday to expose a coordinated campaign by the Obama administration to attack Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his acceptance of an invitation to speak before Congress, according to conversations with multiple lawmakers and leading pro-Israel insiders.Support for Netanyahu Speech to Congress on Iranian Nuclear Threat Surges
The statements, many of which were obtained by the Washington Free Beacon in conversations with leaders in Congress, come in the aftermath of a widely cited New York Times report in which Obama administration officials accused Netanyahu of breaking diplomatic protocol by agreeing to speak before receiving approval from the White House.
However, the paper of record was quickly forced to issue a correction reversing its previously published timeline that claimed Netanyahu went behind the White House’s back. As the correction notes, Netanyahu did not accept the invitation until after the White House was informed.
Several leading congressional offices that spoke to the Free Beacon in recent days indicated they support Netanyahu’s address, a sentiment that was echoed on Thursday afternoon by the Senate’s second most powerful member, Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas).
Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a vocal administration opponent, told the Free Beacon that Obama “is more interested in undermining a close ally than in addressing the common threat we face, which is a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Advocacy group Christians United for Israel (CUFI) has hailed the response to an action alert distributed to its supporters urging members of Congress to attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s forthcoming speech to a joint session of Congress on the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions.Incoming IDF Chief of Staff Receives Accolades from Arab Media
“Within five hours the action alert generated more than 10,000 responses,” a CUFI statement said. Respondents sent emails to their legislators declaring, “I can think of no issue more important for America, Israel and the West than our response to Iran’s nuclear efforts. And I can think of no voice on this issue more important than the Prime Minister of our front-line ally, Israel.”
CUFI executive director David Brog reaffirmed his condemnation of those Democrats who said they would boycott the speech, based on the now disproved claim that the Obama White House was not told in advance by Netanyahu of his acceptance of House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation. “Our elected officials have a sacred duty to listen to all views on this critical issue – including those with which they may disagree – before making up their minds. Whether they like the fact that Netanyahu was invited or not, they should stop acting like peevish children and start doing their jobs,” Brog said.
CUFI’s announcement came as senior GOP leaders stepped up criticism of those Democrats who plan to boycott Netanyahu’s speech.
With Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot scheduled to be sworn in as Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces on Sunday, coverage in the Arab media over his appointment has been surprisingly positive, claiming that he is moderate, calm, and avoids unnecessary wars.IDF says 'matter of time' before ISIS in Sinai targets towns near Egypt border
Wadi Awawdeh of Al-Jazeera wrote that Eizenkot, who served as deputy chief of the IDF’s General Staff under outgoing Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, “is edgy, disciplined, cautious and conservative”:
Gadi Eizenkot, the 23rd commander of the Israeli army, is an officer who spent most of his career fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon… He enjoys a sense of diplomacy and the ability to maneuver and avoid entering ‘the mine fields’ of policy and (thus avoids) gaining enemies and opponents within the army.
Ibrahim Al-Jabin of the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Arab wrote:
The new Chief of Staff of the Israeli army has extensive military experience that enables him to know the details of the region thanks to his leadership of the most famous combat brigade in the Jewish state… He enjoys balance and calm and he is not dragged into reactions – he has a tendency toward long-term strategic planning.
Israeli military officers believe that “it is only a matter of time” before the radical Islamic State jihadist organization attempts to “employ its significant military capabilities” against towns and cities that straddle the border with the Sinai Peninsula.Report: US to supply Jordan with advanced weapons
Israel Radio on Friday quoted a senior officer serving in the IDF Engineering Corps as saying that the military spent the past year preparing for anticipated hostile actions from armed Islamist groups in Sinai.
Lt. Col. Gilad Avralinzi, an engineering officer with the 80th Division, said that the border fence that was constructed along the Israel-Sinai frontier will during the course of the next year be outfitted with sophisticated electronics and surveillance equipment, including cameras, optics, and radars.
According to Israel Radio, the 80th Division has been assigned responsibility for 450 kilometers of the borders that Israel shares with both Egypt and Jordan.
Last month, the Egyptian affiliate of Islamic State claimed coordinated attacks that killed at least 30 security personnel in the Sinai Peninsula.
The United States is readying plans to resupply Jordan with munitions in the coming weeks, possibly including precision-guided arms, expediting support for the kingdom as it expands its role in airstrikes against the Islamic State (IS), officials say.Hezbollah fighters, Iranian operatives flowing into southern Syria
The State Department and Pentagon declined comment on any future moves to assist Jordan with requests for weapons. But several U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that planning was well underway to help replenish Jordan's supplies of ordnance.
U.S. efforts to expedite delivery of munitions and other weapons follow a vocal appeal from Jordan's King Abdullah to American lawmakers last week for greater U.S. support.
A source close to the Jordanian government told Reuters the kingdom believed its supplies of bombs are being stretched too thin as it expands its role in strikes following the Islamic State's grisly execution of a Jordanian pilot.
The Syrian civil war has allowed Hezbollah to extend its reach from its home base in southern Lebanon, into southern Syria.Paraded in cages 'to be burned alive' like Jordanian pilot: ISIS releases video claiming to show 17 Kurdish fighters in humiliating procession through Iraqi city
Today, the same forces appear to be back in the area, but there are two fundamental differences.
Unlike last month, the Shi’ite military forces are currently fully engaged with fighting Sunni rebel organizations, and reclaiming lost territory on behalf of the embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Unlike last month, the Iranian- backed forces have not approached the border with Israel, despite their relative proximity to it.
Yet these conditions may prove to be temporary. Hezbollah and Iran remain committed to setting up a base in southern Syria, with the dual goal of beating back the Syrian rebels and expanding the Iranian front of jihad against Israel, from Lebanon to Syria.
The fact that these forces are waging battle against the rebels today does not rule out the possibility of them turning their guns, missiles and highly trained terrorist squads south, toward Israel tomorrow.
Heads bowed in terror the orange-clad Kurdish fighters are paraded through streets filled with jeering militants in the latest horrifying video release from Islamic State.Burgeoning Support for Jailed Washington Post Reporter Puts Pressure on Iran
In a grim echo of the terrible fate which befell Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Muath al-Kaseasbeh the captives, reportedly Peshmerga fighters, are dressed in orange jumpsuits and shackled in cages.
Just as Lt. al-Kaseasbeh was burned alive on camera, IS are planning to do the same with their latest prisoners, according to posts on social media.
The grim procession apparently took place through Kirkuk in northwest Iraq, an oil rich Kurdish stronghold where ISIS now has a presence after mounting repeated attacks in recent weeks.
The parade, reportedly through the Hawija district in the southwest of Kirkuk, could be seen as revenge for horrific reports of Kurdish forces dragging the bodies of ISIS fighters through the streets of the city in the Kurdistan region of Iraq earlier this month.
An online petition at Change.org calling for the release of Jason Rezaian, the Tehran bureau chief of The Washington Post, has collected 100,000 signatures, the Post reported Thursday. Rezaian has been detained by Iranian authorities for months without the charges against him being made public.Report: Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei sent Obama secret letter
A burgeoning online petition drive has collected signatures from people in more than 70 countries asking Iran to immediately set Rezaian free. The petition on Change.org has collected more than 100,000 signatures, a dramatic rise from less than 10,000 just a few weeks ago.
Ali Rezaian [Jason’s brother] said he quietly posted the petition around the Thanksgiving holidays. But in mid-January, Change.org began aggressively pushing it through e-mail and its social-media accounts on Twitter and Facebook, said the Web site’s spokeswoman, Shareeza Bhola.
“Online petitions show that a situation is not isolated,” Bhola said. “It amplifies voices calling for justice. It’s not just a few people calling for Jason’s freedom — it’s 100,000.”
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has responded to overtures from US President Barack Obama amid nuclear talks by sending him a secret letter, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.Israel’s Steinitz Says Iran Not Compromising on 7 of 8 Nuclear Issues
Citing an Iranian diplomat, the paper said the Iranian cleric had written to Obama in recent weeks in response to a presidential letter sent in October.
Khamenei's letter was "respectful," it quoted the diplomat as saying.
The White House declined to comment on the president's "private correspondence" when reports surfaced last year of his penning letters to the Iranian leader, and consistently, they declined to comment on this latest report.
Iran is refusing to compromise on seven out of the eight key points in its nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 powers, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said Thursday.Drug abuse in Iran on rise despite executions, police raids
Steinitz said that if the two sides are indeed close to reaching a deal, it means the West will be conceding on a number of central issues. According to Steinitz, the eight key points on the agenda in the nuclear talks include the number of active centrifuges, reducing the uranium stockpile, dismantling infrastructure, research and development of advanced centrifuges, the Arak heavy-water reactor, the Fordow enrichment facility, ballistic missile development and militarization of the nuclear program, and the duration of the nuclear agreement.
So far, the Iranians have only agreed to make significant concessions on their uranium stockpile.
Iran is breaking bad.Former Cop Sues NYPD for $150 Million Over Antisemitic Abuse
Officials say methamphetamine production and abuse of hard drugs are skyrocketing in the country despite potentially lethal criminal penalties for users if they are caught. The increase is partly because of Iran’s status as the gateway for the region’s top drug exporter, Afghanistan — and partly because Iranian dealers are profiting so handsomely from sales to overstressed students and exhausted double-jobbers.
Ghazal Tolouian, a psychologist who treats dozens of meth addicts at a therapy camp in a mountain village northwest of Tehran, says most of her clients fall into two categories: students “who want to pass university entrance exams successfully,” and “people who have to work a second and third shift to make ends meet and earn more money.”
Anti-narcotics and medical officials say more than 2.2 million of Iran’s 80 million citizens already are addicted to illegal drugs, including 1.3 million on registered treatment programs. They say the numbers keep rising annually, even though use of the death penalty against convicted smugglers has increased, too, and now accounts for more than nine of every 10 executions.
A former New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer is suing the force for $150 million after facing what he claims was years of vicious antisemitic discrimination and abuse at the hands of his fellow officers, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by JNS.org.Luxembourg wartime bosses ‘willingly helped Nazis find Jews’
Former NYPD officer David Attali said he was subjected to daily antisemitic harassment and ridicule by his colleagues, who constantly referred to him as “Jew,” “dirty Jew,” and “f***ing Jew,” according to the legal complaint.
Attali, a 31-year-old New York City resident who holds dual American and Israeli citizenship, said he endured the abuse for years before filing a complaint and resigning from the force just six years into his career.
The 26-page legal complaint viewed by JNS.org paints an oftentimes disturbing portrait of Attali’s time working as an officer in the department’s World Trade Center (WTC) Command in downtown New York City.
Luxembourg’s wartime bosses willingly cooperated with German Nazis in the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, a government-commissioned study determined.Complaints filed over anti-Semitic bullying in 2 French schools
The report by a panel of historians led by Vincent Artuso of the University of Luxembourg was published on Tuesday, two years after it was commissioned by Jean-Claude Juncker, a former prime minister of the small, landlocked country situated on Belgium’s border with France and Germany.
“The Luxembourg administrations under occupation were not forced to participate in Nazi anti-Semitic persecution under threat,” the 190-page report said.
“They collaborated once they were invited to by the occupier and often fulfilled their task with diligence, zeal even — certain heads of the administration did not hesitate to take the initiative,” it said.
A high school in western France suspended three pupils for anti-Semitic bullying, and similar incidents forced a Jewish girl to leave her school in the country’s South.Occupational therapy made fun
The suspension at the Louis-Armand high school in Poitiers, a city located 155 miles north of the city of Bordeaux, was for eight days, according to a report Wednesday in the online edition of the regional Ouest-France daily.
The alleged victim of the three youths spoke out last week after months of being bullied, according to the report, which also said the three are due to appear before a juvenile court in April.
The bullying reportedly began in October when the alleged victim confronted one of the suspended youths about his pencil case, which was emblazoned with the words: “Jew = cremated.” The owner called the alleged victim a Jew and soon the student became the butt of repeated jokes and text messages about Jews and the Nazi death camp Auschwitz.
In keeping with Israel’s lead in developing tools to assist the disabled, the Tel Aviv-based startup Timocco – which has created an on-line gaming platform for special-needs children — is making welcome strides internationally.Jerusalem Book Fair is a Worldwide Celebration of Books and Literature
Established in 2009 by Israeli occupational therapist Sarit Tresser and motion-tracking engineer Shai Yagur, Timocco recently announced that it was granted a patent in the UK for its unique technology, perfectly suited for use by wheelchair-bound youngsters, or those who suffer from spastic cerebral palsy and/or other motor, cognitive and communication disabilities.
“Our games are not only attractive, colorful and safe, but they provide a wide range of developmentally appropriate challenges for kids working on acquiring a variety of skill sets,” Timocco CEO Eran Arden tells ISRAEL21c while demonstrating the software on his laptop.
He begins with an “easy” game involving the popping of virtual balloons with virtual thumb tacks. The user holds a lightweight foam ball in each hand. These “gaming balls,” one of which is green and the other blue (for tracking by the computer’s camera), act like joysticks for the user. In order to pop the balloons as they fall from the sky, the user needs to exercise skills such as hand-eye coordination, arm movement and concentration.
Thousands of books have made their way to Israel’s capital this week, as the Jerusalem International Book Fair opened its doors from February 8-12, in a tradition that has now gone on for decades. Since 1963, the Jerusalem book fair has served as a connection point between the world of Israeli literature and the global community of publishing houses, book dealers, editors, and hundreds of renowned authors.Israeli gas fuel tech could power future Chryslers, Fiats
“The Jerusalem International Book Fair is a combination of an international trade-fair and a public celebration of literature,” noted the organizers. “There are tens of book stalls offering the latest titles and bestsellers from Israel and beyond.”
The book fair, held at the First Station complex on David Remez Street, and all of the surrounding events including writing workshops and sessions with famous authors, are free-of-charge to the general public.
From its inception, the event has drawn the attendance of 600 publishers and authors from more than 30 countries, and has displayed more than 100,000 books in tens of languages.
Oil prices are low now, but there’s no guarantee they will remain that way. In the long term, developing alternative fuels remains a priority of governments, start-ups — and automobile manufacturers, who sell more vehicles when the fuel that runs them is cheaper.
It’s to that end that the Israel Fuel Choices Initiative (IFCI), a project of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), this week signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), Iveco (a Brand of CNH Industrial) and Magneti Marelli (FCA Group) for cooperation in the development of natural-gas based technologies, developing fuels for cars, trucks and buses, based on gas.
Launched in 2011, IFCI seeks to make Israel a leader in alternative energies for transportation — including developing electrical, biofuel, hydrogen, natural gas, and other fuel solutions for vehicles. The group includes representatives of nine government ministries. And Eyal Rosner, chairman and director of IFCI, is a sort of “godfather,” coordinating the activities, the funding, and the development of technologies such as fuel cells, electric vehicles, hybrids, biodiesel-fueled vehicles, ethanol/methanol fuel, and even algae fuel.
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