6/21 Links Part 2: Latma interviews the new moderate Iranian President.

From Ian:

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LATMA: Latma interviews the new moderate Iranian President and celebrates Shimon Peres


Vice-Chair of UN Rights Panel Works for Saudi Gov’t, Defends Misogyny

What the UN forgot to mention today is that the Vice-Chair of the committee accusing Israel of violating children’s rights works for the Saudi government and has a despicable record of apologetics for her country’s misogyny.
About half the members of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child come from non-democracies, many of whom take unfriendly or hostile positions against Israel at the UN, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Tunisia, Egypt, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Russia.
On professional human rights expertise, Mrs. Al-Shehail has a shameful record of telling lies to protect Saudi Arabia’s gross and systematic violations of women’s rights.

New Study Concludes that ‘Italian Schindler’ Actually Helped Murder Jews During the Holocaust

Giovanni Palatucci, a wartime police official, has been honored by Israel’s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations and by the Pope, but the Centro Primo Levi at the Center for Jewish Studies in New York stated that a research panel of more than a dozen scholars has concluded that for six years, Palatucci was “a willing executor of the racial legislation and — after taking the oath to Mussolini’s Social Republic, collaborated with the Nazis.”
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has responded by removing an exhibition celebrating Palatucci and an official at Yad Vashem told the Times they had “commenced the process of thoroughly examining the documents.”

MK Ohayon: UN 'Refugee Day' for Jews From Arab Lands, Too

As the United Nations urges countries to do more to help refugees – and castigates countries that create the refugees who are unable to live in their home countries – on World Refugee Day, commemorated Thursday, MK Shimon Ohayon (Yisrael Beytenu) had a message for the UN: Don't forget the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, far more numerous than the much-worried over Arab refugees who fled the Land of Israel before Israel's establishment in 1948.
While those Arabs for the most part left their homes voluntarily, on the recommendation of Egypt, Transjordan (now Jordan(, Syria and the other four Arab countries that declared war on the nascent state – in order to “clear a path” for the “victorious Arab armies” as they “slaughtered the Jews” - the Jewish refugees from Arab countries were thrown out of the countries they and their families had lived in for hundreds of years, just for the crime of being Jewish, and thus suspected Zionists.

N. Korean camp survivor urges world’s attention

To date, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has convened 19 special sessions, none on North Korea. Israel has been the subject of six — more than the Syrian civil war, in which 90,000 people are believed to have died, or the genocide in Darfur, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands, according to some estimates.
“Shin Dong-hyuk doesn’t touch on our agenda, he is our agenda,” said Hillel Neuer, the director of UN Watch, “drawing attention to major human rights abuses that do not receive the attention they merit.”

North Korea Officials Threaten to Kill Source of Mein Kampf Story Leak, Call Culprit ‘Human Scum’

Officials in Pyongyang also described the defector’s report as a “thrice-cursed crime” which was aimed at belittling Kim, The Daily Mail reports.
“We are determined to take substantial measures to physically remove despicable human scum who are committing treasons,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

Turkish Reporters Suggest Conspiracy Theory

Turkish reporters loyal to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have claimed that the anti-government protests currently gripping the nation have been carefully orchestrated and planned by prominent Jewish officials and a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank.

Israelis find way to preserve fertility after chemotherapy

In a study published in Science Translational Medicine (published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science), the authors describe how adding an Israeli-synthesized compound, AS101, to the chemotherapy regime successfully prevented infertility.

Chinese Fund to offer scholarships to Chinese students at Technion

The Hanqing International Education Foundation agreed this week to offer $8 million in scholarships to Chinese students at the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology.
The agreement, which is valid for 20 years, was signed in the presence of Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, Technion president Peretz Lavie, donor Chinese businessman Zhao Hanqing and Handan Mayor Hui Jian, from the donor’s birthplace.

Yuri Foreman Film Earns Plaudits at Cannes Film Festival (VIDEO)

A short film highlighting the career of Jewish boxer Yuri Foreman screened at the prestigious Cannes Lion International Festival of Creativity this past week.
The Boxer, a commercial collaboration between Chevrolet and MOFILM, tells the story of “an immigrant boxer who never gave up on his dream and eventually became a world champion,” according to the video’s YouTube page.

‘Hostages’ is latest sabra TV export

Time for another first in the Israel-US small screen relationship.
“Hostages,” the latest Israeli pilot to get purchased by an American television station, will air in the US before it gets seen in Israel.

Cisco CEO: Super-fast Internet will make Israel ‘test case’ for digital world

A new, super-fast fiber-optic system to be installed across Israel will turn the country into the world’s first digital state and serve as a test case for the world, Cisco CEO John Chambers said.
The cable system, based on technology developed by Cisco, will offer speeds several magnitudes faster than anything the country has seen before, and will link up nearly all facets of the state into a revolutionary network.

James Gandolfini's Israeli Ad

In the outpouring of obituaries and appreciations of actor James Gandolfini, who died yesterday at age 51, there’s been a tendency to confuse the man with his most famous character, Tony Soprano.
Here, for example, he appears basically as Tony Soprano, in an ad for the Israeli satellite channel YES. So here’s to you, James Gandolfini.