Valery Maletskov with his wife and Marina Chaplykina before their conviction, Novosibirsk, December 2023 (Credit: https://jw-russia.org)
On 18 December 2023, the judge of the Novosibirsk District Court, Oleg Karpets, sentenced Marina Chaplykina to 4 years in prison, and Valeriy Maletskov to 6 years in prison for organizing religious meetings in private homes. They were taken into custody in the courtroom. They do not admit their guilt and can appeal the verdict.
In April 2019, FSB investigator Selyunin opened a criminal case against them, accusing them of extremism. On the same day, searches were carried out at a total of 12 addresses. In one case, the planting of banned literature was seen. Valeriy Maletskov, who lives with his wife and a young child, was invaded by the armed security forces, breaking down the front door. He was accused of organizing the activities of an extremist organization, and Marina Chaplykina was accused of participating in it and financing it. The man was placed under house arrest, and the woman was placed under recognizance agreement.
After three years of investigation, the case was submitted to the Novosibirsk District Court. The accusation was based on recordings of conversations with believers made by a secret witness “Ivan”, who attended services of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The couple was among 8 Jehovah’s Witnesses persecuted for their faith in the Novosibirsk region. Aleksandr Seredkin, whose case was divided into separate proceedings from the case of Maletskov and Chaplykina, is serving 6 years in a penal colony. People belonging to other faiths are also serving long prison terms for the practice of their faith: 6 Protestants – 6 Muslims (Said Nursi followers) – 5 Muslims (Faizrakhman) – 2 Greek Catholic – Orthodox (2) – Shaman (1)
It’s cold, Paris at this time of year is melting away in humidity, 83 percent, and in temperature, just three degrees. Luckily, my usual coffee with milk and a piece of toast with butter and jam allow me to put the computer on the table to get closer to a story that once again takes us into the devastating world of death and the medical class.
In a newspaper, on September 22, 2001, many years ago, I found a small piece, you know, those short news items that appear in column form and that are used by newspaper editors to fill the page, which said the next:
«A study published in the latest edition of the British Medical Journal indicates that the latest generation antidepressant drugs that inhibit the reabsorption of serotonin in the brain increase the risk of suffering from gastrointestinal bleeding in elderly people. Research carried out in several Canadian hospitals has specifically detected that the possibility of suffering from this disorder increases by 10 percent.«.
Although the research was carried out in a Canadian hospital, the reality is that in these, just over twenty years, the intake of antidepressants in the world population has been and is being truly alarming. The large pharmaceutical industries, aided by family doctors, the media and psychiatrists, have implanted the idea that any emotional state that upsets us can be declared a “mental illness” and medicated with some joy with new generation antidepressants.
In 2010 I myself was at the doctor and the doctor who treated me, when I told him about my state of mind, a certain apathy, because I had just gone through a deep grieving process in which I was still immersed, without considering any other type of treatment, He prescribed me antidepressants, which of course I didn’t take. However, every time I visit my doctor to have any document done, related to some test, I see with astonishment how in my clinical history I am listed as a person who suffers from depression. If I had decided to take medication at that time, today I would be a chronic patient stuffed with pills for my “depressive” treatment.
In November 2022, a report was published on a geriatric portal whose headline was devastating: Stroke cases will increase by 34% in the next decade in Europe. The Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN) pointed out that 12.2 million people in the world will suffer a stroke in 2022 and 6.5 million will die. It also provided the information that more than 110 million people who had suffered a stroke were in a situation of disability.
Among the possible causes of suffering a stroke are established, according to this association and others consulted, high blood pressure, smoking, physical inactivity, an unhealthy diet, obesity, excessive alcohol consumption, atrial fibrillation, high blood lipid levels, diabetes mellitus, genetics, stress, etc. Apparently living, in general, causes a stroke. Once again, medicine puts a huge deck on the table so that, with any card that comes your way, you have no choice but to take medication. And especially for stress or tension, anxiolytics and antidepressants.
In my modest research on the relationship between old age and stroke, I came across some truly terrifying articles that put all the blame, as justice would say, for the ordeal on the elderly person (I myself am already an elderly person). In an article published on November 28 of this same year (2023) and titled: Depression, a public health problem among the elderly population. Among the terrifying symptoms that can diagnose this chronic disease you can read the following:
«The Depression has become a public health problem which deserves special attention for its effects on cognitive decline of older people. Its symptoms can vary and affect both the physical and emotional well-being of those who suffer from it.
Some of the common symptoms They are loss of energy or constant fatigue, boredom, sadness or apathy, low self-esteem, nervousness, restlessness, delusions, unjustified fear, feeling of uselessness, mild cognitive alterations, presence of unexplained pain or chronic pain and some behavioral disorders.«.
Social factors that in no case should be treated with antidepressants. Qualifying these problems as a case of public health is a shame that is being imposed to permanently medicate people who should only be helped to feel useful again. To affirm that these people are “a burden” is to deprive them of their fundamental rights, especially when they end up in nursing homes not focused on their social and emotional reintegration, but only as “livestock” to be fed and filled with medications until they die and stop working. give the fuss.
Overmedication is a risk factor, especially in people who already have gray hair. Studies on what causes a certain disease, carried out in any university in the world or “accredited” organization, do not necessarily, never, analyze who causes it. That is why whenever we are prescribed anything, we should not get tired of asking at all times, even to internet search engines so that they can show us and clarify every last molecule of doubt we have. And if not, I recommend spending a few dollars (euros) to buy the odd book critical of the medical system. I always tend to recommend, considering its author and his training as a doctor, one of these two books: How to survive in an overmedicated world either Drugs that kill and organized crime.
The global health system wants us loaded with medications. The medicine should only be used very occasionally. If we need to be constantly at the doctor it means something is not working, let’s read the pills we consume, the side effects they cause and perhaps it turns out that we are falling into a self-destructive spiral guided by one-eyed people leading the blind.
But as I always say, while I finished my cold coffee, my articles, my observations, have nothing to do with the honest medical class that tries to bring together positions so that our health is increasingly better and more stable. And likewise it is also convenient for us to realize the life we lead. It is healthy? If it is not, let’s change.
When he isn’t investigating human motor control, the graduate student gives back by volunteering with programs that helped him grow as a researcher in the field of human-robot interactions in healthcare.
An accomplished MIT student researcher in health care robotics with many scholarship and fellowship awards, A. Michael West is nonchalant about how he chose his path.
Efficient and safe human-robot interaction is particularly important in clinical settings. Image credit: Olga Guryanova via Unsplash, free license
“I kind of fell into it,” the mechanical engineering PhD candidate says, adding that growing up in suburban California, he was social, athletic — and good at math. “I had the classic choice: You can be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer.”
Having witnessed his mother’s grueling residency when she was training to be a doctor and feeling like he didn’t enjoy reading and writing enough to be a lawyer, “That left engineer,” he says.
Luckily, he enjoyed physics in high school because, he says, “it gave meaning to the numbers we were learning in mathematics,” and later on, his major in mechanical engineering at Yale University agreed with him.
“I definitely stuck with it,” West says. “I liked what I was learning.”
Digital transformation in medicine – artistic impression. Image credit: geralt via Pixabay, free license
As a rising senior at Yale, West was selected to participate in the MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP). The program identifies talented undergraduates to spend a summer on MIT’s campus, conducting research with the mentorship of MIT faculty, postdocs, and graduate students to prepare program participants for graduate study.
For West, MSRP was an education in what “exactly grad school was, especially what it would be like at MIT.”
It was also, and most importantly, a source of validation that West could succeed in the higher levels of academia.
“It gave me the confidence to apply to top grad schools, to know that I could actually contribute here and be successful,” West says. “It very much gave me the confidence to walk into a room and approach people who obviously know way more than I do about certain topics.”
Engineers work with medical robotic equipment – illustrative photo. Image credit: ThisisEngineering RAEng via Unsplash, free license
With MSRP, West also found a community and made enduring friendships, he says. “It’s nice to be in spaces where you get to see a lot of minorities in science, which MSRP was,” he says.
Having benefited from the MSRP experience, West gave back once he enrolled at MIT by working as an MRSP group leader for two summers. “You can create this same experience for people after you,” he says.
His involvement as a leader and mentor in MSRP is just one way West has sought to give back. As an undergraduate, for example, he served as president of his school’s National Society of Black Engineers chapter, and at MIT, he has served as treasurer for the Black Graduate Student Association and the Academy of Courageous Minority Engineers.
“Maybe it’s just a familial thing,” West says, “but being a Black American, my parents raised me in a way that you always remember where you come from, you remember what your ancestors went through.”
West’s current research — with Neville Hogan, the Sun Jae Professor in Mechanical Engineering, in the Eric P. and Evelyn E. Newton Laboratory for Biomechanics and Human Rehabilitation — is also aimed at helping others, especially those who have suffered orthopedic or neurological injury.
“I’m trying to understand how humans control and manage their movement from a mathematical standpoint,” he says. “If you have a way of quantifying the movement, then you can measure it better and implement that to robotics, to make better devices to help in rehabilitation.”
In 2022, West was chosen to be an MIT-Takeda fellow. The MIT-Takeda Program, a collaboration between MIT’s School of Engineering and Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company, primarily promotes the application of artificial intelligence to benefit human health. As a Takeda Fellow, West has studied the ability of the human hand to manipulate objects and tools.
West says the Takeda Fellowship gave him time to focus on his research, the funding allowing him to forgo working as a teaching assistant. Although he loves teaching and hopes to secure a tenure-track position as a professor after earning his PhD, he says the time commitment associated with being a teaching assistant is significant. In the third year of his PhD, West devoted about 20 hours a week to a teaching position.
“Having a lot of time to do research is great,” he says. “Learning what you need to learn about and doing the research gets you to the next step.”
In fact, the type of research that West conducts is especially time-intensive. This is at least partly because human motor control involves much automatic, subconscious activity that is predictably difficult to understand.
“How do people control these complex, subconscious systems? Understanding that is a slow-going process. A lot of the findings build on each other. You have to have a solid understanding of what is known, what is a working hypothesis, what is testable, what is not testable, and how to bring the non-testable to testable,” West says, adding, “We won’t understand how humans control movement in my lifetime.”
To make progress, West says he has to carefully proceed one step at a time.
“What are the small questions I can ask? What are the questions that have already been asked, and how can we build upon those? That’s when the task becomes less daunting,” he says.
“What they’re looking for is someone whose research is translational, that can have impacts in industry,” West says. “It’s promising that they’re interested in the basic, fundamental research I’m doing. I haven’t worked on the translational side yet. It’s something I’d like to get into after graduation.”
While earning prestigious fellowships and advancing human-robot interactions in health care, West is still very much the laid-back guy who “fell into” engineering. He finds time to meet with friends on the weekends, took up rugby as a graduate student, and has a long-distance relationship with his fiancée, with a wedding date set for next summer.
Asked how he will counsel his future students when they approach complicated work, he has a predictably relaxed response.
“Don’t be afraid to ask for help. There’s always going to be someone who’s better at something than you are, and that’s a good thing. If there weren’t, life would be a little boring.”
Opening new possibilities for quantum sensors, atomic clocks and tests of fundamental physics, JILA researchers have developed new ways of “entangling” or interlinking the properties of large numbers of particles. In the process, they have devised ways to measure large groups of atoms more accurately even in disruptive, noisy environments.
Higher accuracy atomic clocks, such as the “tweezer clock” depicted here, could result from linking or “entangling” atoms in a new way through a method known as “spin squeezing,” in which one property of an atom is measured more precisely than is usually allowed in quantum mechanics by decreasing the precision in which a complementary property is measured. Image credit: S. Burrows/JILA
The new techniques are described in a pair of papers published in Nature. JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder.
“Entanglement is the holy grail of measurement science,” said Ana Maria Rey, a theoretical physicist and a JILA and NIST Fellow.
“Atoms are the best sensors ever. They’re universal. The problem is that they’re quantum objects, so they’re intrinsically noisy. When you measure them, sometimes they’re in one energy state, sometimes they’re in another state. When you entangle them, you can manage to cancel the noise.”
When atoms are entangled, what happens to one atom affects all the atoms entangled to it. Having dozens — better yet, hundreds — of entangled atoms working together reduces the noise, and the signal from the measurement becomes clearer, more certain. Entangled atoms also reduce the number of times scientists need to run their measurements, getting results in less time.
Spintronics – artistic concept. Image credit: Creativity103 via Flickr, CC BY 2.0
One means of entanglement is with a process called spin squeezing. Like all objects that obey the rules of quantum physics, atoms can exist in multiple energy states at once, an ability known as superposition. Spin squeezing reduces all those possible superposition states in an atom to just a few possibilities. It’s like squeezing a balloon.
When you squeeze the balloon, the middle shrinks and the opposite ends become bigger. When atoms are spin squeezed, the range of possible states they can be in narrows in some directions and expands in others.
But it’s harder to entangle atoms that are farther away from each other. Atoms have stronger interactions with atoms that are closest to them; the farther away the atoms, the weaker their interactions.
Quantum physics, sea of excitons – artistic interpretation. Image credit: Sigmund via Unsplash, free license
Think of it like people talking at a crowded party. People closest to each other can have a conversation, but those across the room can barely hear them, and the information gets lost down the line. Scientists want the whole party of atoms to talk to each other at the same time. Physicists around the world are all looking at different ways to achieve that entanglement.
“A major goal in the community is to produce entangled states to get higher-precision measurements in a shorter amount of time,” said Adam Kaufman, a physicist and JILA Fellow.
In this experiment, the team lined up 51 calcium ions in a trap and used lasers to induce interactions between them. This is because the laser excites phonons, vibrations sort of like sound waves between the atoms.
Those phonons spread down the line of atoms, linking them together. In prior experiments, these links were engineered to be static, so an ion could only talk to a specific set of ions when illuminated by the lasers.
Quantum states, quantum physics – artistic interpretation. Image credit: Ben Wicks via Unsplash, free license
By adding external magnetic fields, it was possible to make the links dynamic, growing and changing over time. That meant an ion that could talk to only one group of ions at first could talk to a different group, and eventually, it was able to talk to all other ions in the array.
This overcomes that distance problem, Rey says, and the interactions were strong all the way down the line of atoms. Now all the atoms were working together, and they could all talk to each other without losing the message along the way.
Within a short amount of time, the ions became entangled, forming a spin-squeezed state, but with a little more time, they transformed into what’s called a cat state. This state is named for Erwin Schrodinger’s famous thought experiment about superposition, in which he proposed that a cat trapped in a box is both alive and dead until the box is opened and its state can be observed.
For atoms, a cat state is a special kind of superposition in which the atoms are in two diametrically opposed states, like up and down, at the same time. Cat states are highly entangled, Rey points out, making them especially great for measurement science.
The next step will be to try this technique with a two-dimensional array of atoms, upping the number of atoms to improve how long they can stay in these entangled states. Additionally, it could potentially let scientists make measurements more precisely and much quicker.
Spin-squeezing entanglement could also benefit optical atomic clocks, which are an important measurement science tool. Kaufman and his group at JILA, along with collaborators in NIST/JILA colleague Jun Ye’s group, tested a different method in another study in this issue of Nature.
The researchers loaded 140 strontium atoms into an optical lattice, a single plane of light to hold the atoms. They used finely controlled beams of light, called optical tweezers, to place the atoms into little subgroups of 16 to 70 atoms each.
With a high-power ultraviolet laser, they excited the atoms into a superposition of their usual “clock” state and a higher-energy Rydberg state. This technique is called Rydberg dressing.
The clock state atoms are like the quiet people at the crowded party; they don’t strongly interact with others. But for atoms in the Rydberg state, the outermost electron is so far from the center of the atom that the atom is effectively very large in size, enabling it to interact more strongly with the other atoms.
Now the whole party is talking. With this spin-squeezing technique, they can create entanglement across the entire array of 70 atoms.
The researchers compared frequency measurements between 70-atom groups and found that this entanglement improved precision below the limit for unentangled particles, known as the standard quantum limit.
Quicker, more precise measurements will allow these clocks to be better sensors to search for dark matter and produce better time and frequency measurements.
Papers:
Johannes Franke, Sean R. Muleady, Raphael Kaubruegger, Florian Kranzl, Rainer Blatt, Ana Maria Rey, Manoj K. Joshi and Christian F. Roos. Quantum-enhanced sensing on optical transitions through finite-range interactions. Nature. Aug. 30, 2023. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06472-z
William J. Eckner, Nelson Darkwah Oppong, Alec Cao, Aaron W. Young, William R. Milner, John M. Robinson, Jun Ye and Adam M. Kaufman. Realizing spin squeezing with Rydberg interactions in an optical clock. Nature. Aug. 30, 2023. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06360-6
Photo taken of the material used in Auswitch by doctors and psychiatrists to experiment on Jewish prisoners. Photo: Gabriel Carrión.
Is psychiatry really a scientific discipline? And what is a mentally ill person?
A little over thirteen years ago I read on the cover of a health magazine, very critical of the traditional medical system, the headline: Is psychiatry a scientific discipline or a scam? And I have always thought that it would be interesting to capture the spirit of that headline and write a not too extensive book on the subject. Today, as we approach the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, it becomes increasingly urgent to permanently denounce the serious and false pandemic into which these doctors and big pharmaceutical companies are making us fall: mental illness.
Regardless of how history has treated people who have had the misfortune of falling into the hands of an atrociously aggressive psychiatry, with practices such as Lobotomies, Electroshock, chemical experiments, and an atrocious catalog, perfectly documented by historians and doctors in enough sections, we now add how easy it has been for these doctors to instill a false paradigm, where the “alleged mentally ill” It seems that it was born, when the reality is that more and more, different “disorders” are coined in order to pigeonhole the greatest number of people into them, without any scientific basis.
In 2008, in a publication dedicated to health, he prepared a very interesting article-interview, where Juan Pundik, a prestigious psychoanalyst, with more than 40 years of experience, founder and director of the Spanish School of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and founder-president of FILIUM, Association for the prevention of Child Abuse, among many other activities, highlighted that “millions of children around the world are being unfairly (2008) medicalized to ‘treat’ non-existent ‘behavioral disorders’.
The reference report, extensive and abundant in data, with references to the use of psychotropics already in World War II by the Nazis and the communists of the Soviet Union, as well as many other countries to achieve population control, at any price, throughout recent history, led to a question that I think is relevant to bring up, because, after more than fifteen years, it brings us closer to some of the “concerns of current psychiatrists” without wanting to denounce themselves that those muds and other previous ones, have brought us, almost with total guarantee, the remains of the increase in suicides in modern societies and the continued abuse of the so-called zombie drug: Fentanyl.
-What drugs do you consider are being prescribed excessively and inappropriately?
–As part of this anti-medicalization campaign, in April 2006 I published ‘The Hyperactive Child’, a work in which I denounced the massive prescription of Rubifen, Concerta, Ritalin and methylphenidate to which children are generally being subjected. I denounced the non-existence of ADHD or Attention Deficit Disorder with or without hyperactivity, of the corrupt psychiatric bible that represents the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders -DSM- and of the ‘pediatric cocaine’ of which the drug actually consists. ‘methylphenidate’.
Regarding said DRUGS in capital letters, Juan Pundik himself argued in 2008: Let’s not forget that the Rubifen package insert indicates dry mouth, dizziness, headache, insomnia, nausea, nervousness, palpitations, skin reactions and blood pressure changes as possible side effects. And according to some studies it can cause the sudden death of the child. A paragon of virtues. The same leaflet indicates that it should not be administered to children under 6 years of age and also warns that its use can generate amphetamine-type dependence. Today methylphenidate, a selective inhibitor of the reuptake of dopamine, noradrelin and serotonin, is considered one of the most addictive drugs.
Metal stretcher where psychiatrists would lay out their “patients” to carry out experimental practices with them.
But since this medication is so dangerous, like many others that are on the market today, when secondary symptoms arise, the doctor, in most cases, counterattacks with more medication for the pain or discomfort that has occurred, without take into account the origin. And it is when we reach over-medicalization where we find patients who take an exacerbated amount of medications with no possibility of cure, except for ending up turned into a zombie, where they will end up being blamed by the medical class, being branded as addicted.
And when they give you the label of addicted, It is because in general they have not known how to face or manage doctors’ instructions wisely. And therefore you are a mentally ill definitive, since, like a stigma, you will carry said disease The addiction, throughout your life, with the doctor or psychiatrist being the one who will go on television to clearly say that these people have little capacity to face a reasoned or reasonable solution.
It is at this point that the human rights of these people slip down the toilet without anyone doing anything to review in a real way the gears that move the real industry behind psychiatry.
For those of us who walk on leaden feet treading nauseating puddles like this, sometimes we see that there are too many mental diseases, too many excesses, too many stories that make us fear that something dark and sinister is hidden, at least in some of the historical atrocities of which some psychiatrists have been protagonists throughout history, all of them with names and surnames.
I closed the notebook on November 24, 2023, at 11:03 with the purpose of collecting information for other stories.
As always, search and search for information on the Internet, in books, from people, and when you see that you already take more than a couple of pills a day, look for a trusted doctor who can dedicate a little more than five minutes to you and try to solve your problems. doubt, your life may be in danger. And of course, do not self-medicate or abandon any treatment without a qualified expert, unless it is possible that he or she is not the person who prescribed the medication.
Vatican Media - Bénédiction Urbi et Orbi de décembre 2023
At midday on Monday 25 December, Pope Francis delivered his traditional urbi et orbi blessing to the faithful around the world, during which he traditionally gave an overview of the world’s conflicts.
For believers and non-believers alike, Christmas is often seen as a time of truce. And yet, on 25 December, in many parts of the world, the clash of arms continues. This is clearly the case, first and foremost, in the Gaza Strip, where there is no respite. The Israeli air force and artillery continue to bomb the Gaza Strip on a massive scale.
In his traditional Christmas message on Monday, the Pope denounced the “desperate humanitarian situation” in Gaza, called for the release of the Israeli hostages still being held by terrorists in the Gaza Strip, and called for an end to the war, “madness without apology”. “I carry in my heart the pain of the victims of the heinous attack of 7 October and I renew my urgent appeal for the release of those who are still being held hostage”, declared Pope Francis, 87, in his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (“to the city of Rome and to the world”) address.
“I call for an end to the military operations, with their appalling toll of innocent civilian victims, and for the desperate humanitarian situation to be remedied by opening the way for the arrival of humanitarian aid”, he added in front of several thousand pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square.
A gloomy Christmas, too, for the Palestinians of Bethlehem, which according to Christian tradition was the birthplace of Jesus Christ. This year, the entire town in the occupied West Bank is draped in a veil of mourning. No gigantic Christmas tree, no flamboyant nativity scene. The war is on everyone’s mind more than ever. And that was also the meaning of Pope Francis’ message at last night’s Christmas Mass in St Peter’s Basilica: “Our heart, this evening, is in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is still rejected by the losing logic of war, with the clash of weapons that, even today, prevents him from finding a place in the world.”
The Pontiff also had a thought for the people of Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, praying that the latter would quickly return to political and social stability. And for Ukraine: “With my eyes fixed on the Infant Jesus, I implore peace for Ukraine,” continued the Holy Father.
No respite
Again this morning, on the 80th day of the war, an Israeli army bombardment killed 12 people near a small village in the centre of the besieged enclave, 18 last night. The whole weekend, moreover, was particularly deadly: at least 70 people were killed in a strike on a refugee camp, according to the Hamas government. Despite international pressure for a ceasefire, the conflict still offers no respite to civilians.
And despite everything, Netanyahu has announced an “intensification” of the fighting…
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu announced that he had travelled to Gaza on Monday and promised members of his Likud party that he would “intensify” the fighting under way in the Palestinian territory against Hamas.
The Security Council has adopted a resolution on Gaza crisis, with 13 votes in favour, and the US and Russia abstaining. The resolution, among other points, demands immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip.
In the resolution, the Security Council reaffirmed the obligations of the parties to the conflict under international humanitarian law, especially regarding the protection of civilians and civilian objects, safety of humanitarian personnel, and the provision of humanitarian assistance.
#BREAKING UN Security Council ADOPTS resolution calling for urgent steps to allow safe, unhindered and expanded humanitarian access throughout Gaza; US and Russia abstain
VOTE In Favor: 13 Against: 0 Abstain: 2 (US, Russia)
The Council demanded that the parties “allow, facilitate and enable” the immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip.
It also requested the UN Secretary-General to appoint a Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator with responsibility for “facilitating, coordinating, monitoring, and verifying” in Gaza, as appropriate, the humanitarian nature of all relief consignments to the enclave provided through States that are not party to the conflict.
It also called for the “expeditious” establishment of a UN mechanism to accelerate aid consignments to Gaza through States that are not party to the conflict, to expedite, streamline and accelerate assistance while continuing to help ensure that aid reaches its civilian destination.
The Council has been negotiating throughout the week to find language which will avoid a further US veto, having first introduced a draft which called for a “cessation of hostilities”, which now calls for a “suspension” of fighting, to vastly increase access for lifesaving aid.
The US argued on Tuesday and in previous deadlocked sessions that any resolution must condemn the Hamas extremist group’s terror attacks of 7 October which sparked this deadly and unprecedented surge in the Palestine-Israel conflict, and which led to around 1,200 deaths in southern Israel and the capture of more than 200 hostages by extremists, dozens of whom remain captive in Gaza.
Some countries critical of Israel’s offensive have argued in response that any resolution condemning Hamas, must also condemn the Israeli occupation and the thousands of civilian deaths resulting from Israel’s military action since 7 October.
According to media reports, a further sticking point for diplomats negotiating the draft resolution has been the setting up of a UN monitoring mechanism which would be responsible for assessing the effectiveness of aid delivery at scale, independent of either Israeli or Hamas authorities in Gaza.
Two Orthodox television stations and a private Orthodox military company are included in the 12th package of sanctions of the European Union
Two Russian television channels broadcasting “Orthodox content” are included in the latest 12th package of sanctions of the European Union, adopted on December 18 of this year, as fueling Russian aggression against Ukraine. These are the TV channel of the Russian Orthodox Church “Spas” and the TV channel “Tsargrad” of the so-called Orthodox oligarch K. Malofeev.
In addition to them, the list also includes the Andreevsky Cross Private Military Company (PMC), which is said to be a Russian private military company involved in Russia’s military actions in Ukraine and established by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2017. was established to prepare mobilized men for military action. “Since then, it has offered tactical training to Russian fighters engaged in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.” After the fighters complete the tactical training offered by the St. Andrew’s Cross PMC, they sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry or the Wagner Group, the ruling said.
Regarding the two TV stations, the ruling said that the official church channel Spas was spreading “pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation about Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine.” It also promotes the violation of the territorial integrity of other countries, the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.
“Spas” is the first public federal channel, conceived as a missionary project of the Russian Orthodox Church and broadcasting only “Orthodox content”. It was included in the list of sanctions of the European Union, respectively banned from broadcasting on the territory of European countries, because of providing a religious justification for the war against Ukraine, which has been the main topic of television for the last two years.
“Spas” was established in 2005 by the Russian Orthodox Church and is financially supported by the government. It broadcasts all services, events and sermons of the Moscow Patriarch Kirill, films and journalistic shows. Since the beginning of the Russian war against Ukraine, his main guests have been propagandists of the Putin regime, whose task it is to present this war as a battle for Orthodoxy.
In addition to Spas, the Tsargrad TV channel of the so-called “Orthodox oligarch” K. Malofeev, who financially supported the pro-Russian separatists in Donbas, is also included in the sanctions list. The sanctions were imposed because Tsargrad “spreads disinformation and Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine, supports nationalist narratives and justifies the occupation of Ukrainian territories and the removal of Ukrainian children.”
Companies associated with the “Orthodox oligarch” Malofeev received about 20 billion rubles before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine
The decision notes that the two TV stations support Russian military actions in Ukraine and materially.
Back in August, the Current Time (Nastoyashtee Vremya) TV channel reported that the Russian TV channel Tsargrad was blocked in Kazakhstan due to the propaganda of extremism. The Russian propaganda TV channel Tsargrad, owned by oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, was blocked in Kazakhstan. This was reported by Masa.media with reference to the Ministry of Information and Social Development of the republic. The decision to block Tsargrad was made after four warnings about extremist propaganda issued to the channel for publications with the headlines “Kazakh nationalists are terrorizing Russian women on the eve of Victory Day,” “Mambet, who drove the Russians out of Kazakhstan, apologized on camera,” and “Cossack stripes.” discord: in Kazakhstan they want to bring the Russians to their knees?
The Kaz Blocking Tracker service, which monitors the restriction of access to various sites in Kazakhstan, confirmed that at the moment the web resource of the Russian TV channel, located on tsargrad.tv and kz.tsargrad.tv, is completely blocked in the country.
According to Roskomsvoboda, in July 2020, YouTube blocked the Tsargrad channel without the possibility of restoration due to violation of export laws. In 2022, sanctions were introduced against the TV channel as a resource that promotes Kremlin propaganda and justifies Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeev, founder of Tsargrad, is also on the sanctions lists of the European Union, the United States and other countries. He has been on the international wanted list for more than six years for financing the so-called “DPR” and volunteer detachments fighting on the side of Russia in Ukraine.
Note: Editorial team created by RFE/RL with the participation of Voice of America “Current Time” TV channel is located in Prague (Czech Republic), and journalists work in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and other countries.
Islamabad, Federal Capital Territory, Pakistan. Photo by Iakub Arifulin: pexels.com
Artificial rain was used for the first time in Pakistan last Saturday in an attempt to combat dangerous levels of smog in the metropolis of Lahore.
In the first such experiment in the South Asian country, planes equipped with cloud-seeding technology flew over 10 districts of the city, which is often among the world’s worst places for air pollution.
The “gift” was provided by the United Arab Emirates, Punjab’s caretaker chief minister Mohsin Naqvi said.
Teams from the UAE, along with two planes, arrived here about 10-12 days ago. They used 48 flares to create the rain,” he told the media.
According to him, by Saturday evening the team will find out what the effect of the “artificial rain” was.
The UAE is increasingly using cloud seeding, sometimes called artificial rain or bluesking, to create rain in dry areas of the country.
Weather modification involves dropping common salt – or a mixture of different salts – into the clouds.
The crystals promote condensation, which forms as rain.
This technology has been used in dozens of countries, including the US, China and India.
According to experts, even very light rain is effective in reducing pollution.
Air pollution in Pakistan has increased in recent years as a mixture of low-grade diesel fumes, smoke from seasonal crop burning and cold winter temperatures coalesce into stagnant clouds of smog.
Lahore suffers the most from the toxic smog that suffocates the lungs of more than 11 million Lahore residents during the winter season.
Breathing the poisonous air has disastrous health consequences.
According to the WHO, prolonged exposure can cause strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and respiratory diseases.
Successive governments have used various methods to reduce air pollution in Lahore, including spraying water on roads and closing schools, factories and markets on weekends, with little or no success.
Asked about a long-term strategy to combat smog, the chief minister said the government needed studies to formulate a plan.
But some experts say it is a complicated, expensive exercise whose efficacy in battling pollution is not completely proven, and that more research is needed to understand its long-term environmental impact.
“Strauss House” is not just a museum. Concerts will be held in it, and those who wish can take on the role of conductors
A new interactive museum dedicated to the Strauss musical dynasty has opened its doors in the Austrian capital, the Vienna Tourist Board announced in a December Press Release.
It pays tribute to the famous Austrian musical dynasty. Johann Strauss-father and his three sons remain in the world’s musical memory. Two generations of genius artists composed hundreds of marches, polkas, waltzes, mazurkas, operettas, ruling more than two centuries in ballrooms and theaters on all continents, the announcement states.
The museum is located in the building of the restored Casino Zögernitz, which opened its doors to the Viennese high society in 1837. In it, the great musicians performed their works in front of a sophisticated audience.
Nowadays, the museum wants to attract the young audience as well. The exhibition transports visitors to the 19th century. In one of the salons, the original piano of Eduard Strauss is on display, and on the walls there is information about the life of the musicians.
“Strauss House” is not just a museum. Concerts will be held in it, and those who wish can take on the role of conductors. Before attempting to conduct, they have the opportunity to measure their “waltz pulse”.
Information about the “Danube Waltz” and “Radetsky March”, their scores and the musical works themselves are accessible through the touch screen.
With the help of a multimedia installation, animated graphics and visual effects, everyone can immerse themselves in the spirit of the era. Of course, the museum does not lack a replica of the golden statue of Johann Strauss-son from the Vienna Stadtpark, which is an ideal place for selfies.
The heart of the “Strauss House” is the ballroom with a portrait of Strauss by Gottfried Helnwein, where concerts will be held from next year. The restorers have managed to revive the splendor of the bygone era with marble floors, opulent crystal chandeliers, original Viennese Thonet chairs, wallpaper and ceiling frescoes.
In the future, guests will be able to combine a visit to the museum with a breakfast named after Strauss or a fine dinner served with Strauss wine.
An interesting detail is that the audio guide was recorded by the great-great-great-grandson of Johann Strauss-father. A short film at the beginning of the visit presents the most important facts from the life of the musical family and the era in which they lived and worked.
