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Did anti-cult Federation FECRIS lose at once 38 member-associations, or did it fake numbers?

22 May 2023

FECRIS is the European Federation of Centers for Research and Information on Sects and Cults, an umbrella organization funded by the French government, that gathers and coordinates “anti-cult” organizations throughout Europe and beyond. It has been the subject of several of our articles recently, for their support of the Russian propaganda against Ukraine, which had started far before the current invasion of Ukraine, but recently culminated through their Russian representatives.

In France, FECRIS is currently on trial, following a lawsuit filed by an NGO with UN consultative status named CAP Freedom of Conscience. The UN NGO is asking the Court of Marseille to disband FECRIS, due to its illegal activities, which include their support to their Russian members which are rabid attackers of Ukraine.

Table of Contents

FECRIS under scrutiny

Feeling under scrutiny since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, FECRIS had first hidden from their website the names of their Russian associations. But that did not prevent 82 Ukrainian prominent scholars to write to President Macron asking for the end of FECRIS funding by the French government. So recently, FECRIS has merely taken off the whole list of its members from its website. Meanwhile, the Russian Orthodox “anticultist” and anti-Ukrainian attacker Alexander Dvorkin was still part of the board of FECRIS, after having been its vice-president for 12 years, a kind of thorn in the side of FECRIS, struggling with its court case and its international catastrophic reputation.

A few days ago, a new list was put on their website, which of course did not mention anymore any Russian member-association. But interestingly enough, the list which contained 57 associations before the war, is now made of only 19 members… It’s a definite downfall. The listing is preceded by a warning: “any association (and its members) not included in this list is not or no longer part of FECRIS”. Does that mean that FECRIS is terminatedly shrinking, or that its 57 members where fake? That is what we wanted to understand.

Members “not authorized” to answer

So, we wrote to all current and “former” members of FECRIS asking a few questions about these new changes. Most of our requests remained unanswered, including with the President of FECRIS Belgian deputy André Frédéric, but we got a very few, but insightful, responses.

An Italian association which had been unlisted, S.O.S. ANTIPLAGIO, answered that they were not aware of having been unlisted and had not been warned in advance about it.

The Treasurer of FECRIS Didier Pachoud refused to answer and said that he would prefer that the answers come from the President of FECRIS. He said that he forwarded him the questions (which I had already sent) but I never heard back from the President.

The former President of FECRIS, Friedrich Griess, started by answering that he was not authorized to answer. Authorized by whom? I insisted politely and asked him what he thought of the numerous statements of Alexander Dvorkin and other Russian members of FECRIS regarding the war in Ukraine and the fact that Ukraine would be run by « cultists » manipulated by the West. He finally told me that he “was aware of the situation”, that he did “not support in any way the politics of Mr. Putin” and was “very unhappy about the actual situation because” he is “a good friend of Mr. Dvorkin”.

Finally the director of A.V.P.I.M. – Association des Victimes des Pratiques Illégales de la Médecine, Belgium, made an interesting answer. He explained to me that he was not in contact with FECRIS for 15 years, so before Alexander Dvorkin became the Vice President of FECRIS, and added that he had never been an active member of FECRIS. As his association was prominently featured as affiliated on FECRIS website in 2022, that triggered some curiosity.

So I randomly assessed some of the 38 associations that have been unlisted.

Fake members or disaffected ones

One of them, a Swedish group called Föreningen Rädda Individen (“Save the Individual Association”), had their website disappear end of 2020, and their last articles at this date were from 2017. So it looks that the association was not active for the last 6 years whilst it stayed on the FECRIS member list until recently.

Another one, NSS, National Spiritual Security of Armenia, had a website address that sends you directly to the National Security Service of Armenia, the main intelligence service of the country. Does that mean that FECRIS is actively working with that intelligence service, as they did with the FSB and other intelligence services in many states? God knows. But for sure, this “member”, whether it never existed or was really the Armenian intelligence service, had a taste of fake.

The association listed under the name S.A.D.K. – Schweizerische Arbeitsgemeinschaft gegen destruktive Kulte, in Switzerland, was in fact an Evangelical Center of Information, which for the French FECRIS, may taste a bit unsecular.

One of the disappeared associations, Sektenberatung Bremen (“Cult Advice of Bremen”), from Germany, seemed to be a one-man operation, has no website and since the late 90s there is no news about it anywhere.

Association of Religious Study Centers, in Kazakhstan, had only a Facebook page which does not exist anymore at least since 2021. It was never scanned by Web.archive.org before.

A French FECRIS association named Attention Enfants (“Beware Children”) had their website vanished after May 2021. At this date, the last article on the website was dated 2006.

A Lithuanian association named C.P.B.- Cult Prevention Bureau never had any website, and no activity of such an association can be found on the internet, even in Lithuanian. Did it ever exist? Here again, God knows.

As we already explained in November, the Dneprpetrovsk City Center for the help to Victims of Destructive Cults “Dialogue”, in Ukraine, “has not published one line on their website since 2011. It looks like this member association stopped its activity more than 10 years ago but still remains on the FECRIS website to increase the number of members.” FECRIS had tried to defend itself against the accusations of being pro-Russian by stating they had Ukrainian members, but in fact one of them was not active for 10 years, and the other one was a pro-Russian Ukrainian operation.

A Norwegian FECRIS association called Foreningen Redd Individet (“Save the Individual Association”) had no website and can’t be found anywhere on Internet, at least with rapid research, besides being listed on FECRIS associated websites. Maybe it existed nevertheless, but before the existence of Internet…

Infosec, in Moldova: No activity, no website. On the website of the unlisted FECRIS group Pancyprian Parents Union, in Cyprus, the last publications are dated 2010. In Sweden, RAM – Riksorganisationen Aktiva mot Manipulering (“National Organization Active Against Manipulation”) has no website and no activity. Then the Ukrainian association named U.N.I.A. – Ukrainian Network “InterAction”, got their website disappearing in 2014, but even then, no article had been posted since June 2010.

Faking the list

No need to continue further. There are in fact two groups that have been unlisted from FECRIS website: one is the group of Russian members, whom FECRIS has supported for more than a decade and only disappeared when the risk for FECRIS reputation became too big for keeping them aboard. Through them, FECRIS has been an active supporter of Russian propaganda against Ukraine. Russian members had their main leader, Alexander Dvorkin, as Vice President of FECRIS until 2021 and he was member of the board until March 2023. FECRIS has never made any public statement to denounce the anti-Ukrainian activities of its members, and on the opposite, they have condoned their propaganda for years, inviting them to speak at their annual symposiums, along with official members of the French and Belgian governments.

The other group, maybe the biggest, is made of associations which in fact had stopped their activity long ago, if they ever had any. FECRIS was keeping them in the member list for one reason: look bigger when they were begging for subsidies from the French government.

Bananas – a “socially important product” in Russia

Newsdesk

22 May 2023

In addition, the protocol states a temporary reset of the tariff rate for bananas

Bananas may become a “socially important product” in Russia, and import duties may be temporarily removed, the “Izvestia” newspaper reports, referring to the minutes of a meeting of the Russian government commission on economic development, chaired by the minister of economic development Maxim Reshetnikov.

“The Ministry of Economic Development to ensure the study of the issue of the possibility of classifying bananas as a socially significant commodity under the working group on customs regulation and countermeasures in foreign trade,” said the document, which is available to the publication approved by First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov.

In addition, the protocol states a temporary reset of the customs rate for bananas, which is now 4%, but not less than 0.015 euros per 1 kg. Imports of bananas to the Russian Federation in recent years amounted to 1.3-1.5 million tons per year, and Ecuador is one of the largest suppliers. However, as the publication notes, its supply to the Russian Federation in 2022 has decreased by 4.54 million boxes (each – 18.14 kg), which provoked an increase in retail prices of bananas.

“Rospotrebnadzor is considering a proposal to classify bananas as a socially significant commodity. This proposal is currently being developed,” the ministry explained.

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric: https://www.pexels.com/photo/copy-space-photo-of-yellow-bananas-2872755/

The former Ataturk Airport has opened its doors as Turkey’s largest public park

Newsdesk

22 May 2023

The former “Ataturk” airport in Istanbul has opened its doors to visitors as the largest public park in the country, reported “Daily Sabah”.

The new park, built on the territory of the former international airport, covers an area of about two square kilometers. Its construction began in May 2022 and is already 95 percent complete, Minister of Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change Murat Kurum said.

The park offers zero waste workshops, playgrounds, libraries, concert halls, places for family activities and more.

The city park also features an area representing the conquest of Constantinople, consisting of over 145,000 trees, including 350-year-old olive trees and 50-60-year-old linden and plane trees.

The former airport-turned-urban park features a 2.5-kilometer man-made stream, observation decks, picnic and rest areas, and bike and pedestrian paths.

The city park will be accessible from nine entry points. Greenhouses have also been created in it, where citizens will be able to benefit from the organic products grown in the park.

The Ministry of Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change has so far opened 15 national parks in Istanbul, and the construction of another 27 national parks is ongoing. The creation of 314 public gardens is underway across the country, with the ministry aiming to achieve 200 sq km of green space by 2028.

Photo: The original terminal at Yeşilköy in April 1970 by Victor Albert Grigas (1919-2017).

The Moscow Patriarchate “annexed” the Ukrainian Diocese of Berdyansk

Newsdesk

22 May 2023

The Berdyansk diocese of the UOC, located in the Russian-occupied Zaporozhye region, was taken away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by an official decision of the Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate. The decision states “to accept the Berdyan Diocese in direct canonical and administrative subordination to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.” This happened on May 16, when a new ruling bishop was appointed, Bishop Luka of Bronitsa, vicar of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.

In order to justify the seizure of the diocese and the removal of its Ukrainian metropolitan, a letter-appeal of the local priests of May 1, who pledged their political loyalty to the occupying Russian authorities, was used. They say that they strongly desire to come under direct subordination to the Patriarch of Moscow, as their metropolitan has been unable to care for the diocese and this has led to turmoil in church life. Of the 86 priests, only five did not sign and five were ill.

However, the desire of priests has never been a factor in changing the episcopal jurisdiction of any diocese. Therefore, in the decision of the Russian Synod, “the actual abandonment of the diocese by Metropolitan Ephrem of Berdyan” was used as a reason for the annexation.

However, Metropolitan Ephrem’s last service in the cathedral in Berdyansk was on April 25 for Radonitsa (Easter service for the dead), which shows that the righteous bishop “did not abandon” his diocese, but a canonical pretext was sought. The metropolitan’s sick leave immediately after the holidays was used, which was immediately presented as “abandonment of the diocese”.

The decision is a clear example of ecclesiastical pharisaism, when the canons are used only to give an ecclesiastically acceptable appearance to an injustice that everyone is aware of.

On May 19, Metropolitan Ephrem of Berdyansk and Primorsky from the UOC reacted sharply and placed four priests from the diocese under interdict.

These are the secretary of the Berdyan Diocese, Prot. Sergiy Ilyushchenko and the regional deputy of the Kamian region, Archimandrite Dimitrii (Mikheshkin), for “gross violation of the priest’s oath based on Rule 39 of the Holy Apostles and Rule 57 of the Council of Laodicea.” Father Yevgeny Klimenko and Father Dmytro Lebedchenko, head of the diocesan youth department, were also placed under interdict for “gross violation of the priestly oath based on Rule 39 of the Holy Apostles.”

However, on May 21, the ROC declared the decisions of the Ukrainian metropolitan “invalid”: “With the blessing of the ruler of the Berdyan Diocese, His Eminence Bishop Luka, we announce that by virtue of the decision of St. The Synod of May 16 regarding the management of the Berdyan Diocese, the decrees issued on May 19 of this year by His Eminence Ephrem and subsequent decrees, if any, are considered invalid.”

Berdyansk Diocese was formed by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 2007 through the division of the Zaporizhian Diocese into two parts – Zaporizhia and Berdyansk. Since 2012, it has been managed by Metropolitan Efrem.

This is another Ukrainian diocese that broke away from the UOC and joined the Moscow Patriarchate – in this regard, church policy strictly follows the political line of the Russian state, which annexed the occupied territories.

However, this strategy does not prevent Russian church diplomats from presenting themselves internationally as “defenders of the canonical Ukrainian Church.” They have like-minded supporters among the Bulgarian high clergy, who consider these and similar actions to be completely just, pious and in the spirit of the Orthodox faith.

Announcement of the Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church for Kosovo and Metohija

Guest Author

22 May 2023

From: Council of Bishops of SOC / 05.20.2023

This year’s regular meeting of the Holy Council of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church paid special attention to the people and the Church in Kosovo and Metohija.

In the past year, dozens of attacks against people, shrines, homes and property of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija have been registered. The events led to a peaceful but determined protest by the Serbs from the Serbian municipalities in northern Kosovo and Metohija to urge the Kosovo institutions to establish a Union of Serbian Municipalities, in accordance with the agreements already reached and signed with Pristina, under the mediation of the European Union in Brussels, in 2013. and 2015

The Serbian Orthodox Church has always taken the position that all problems in Kosovo and Metohija should be solved peacefully and through dialogue, and that there should always be peaceful coexistence of Serbs, Albanians and all other peoples living in this area. At the meetings of the Holy Synod of Bishops of all past years, our Church has clearly and unequivocally indicated, as it indicated at this year’s session, that the acceptance of the self-proclaimed independence of Kosovo and Metohija directly or indirectly, de facto or de jure, would be contrary to international law based on the UN Charter and other acts and principles of general importance. Such a decision does not have the support of either the UN Security Council or the majority of countries in the world, including five countries from the European Union. It would inevitably lead to a more massive exodus among the Serbian population, would fail the attempts for peaceful coexistence of all, regardless of ethnic origin and faith, as well as the very survival of our people in its centuries-old hearths. Therefore, solutions should be sought only in accordance with principles and rules that are valid for all.

Proof of this is the recent aggressive actions of the authorities in Pristina, directed against the Serbian community and our holy church, which have led to the lowest possible level of relations since 1999. And also adopted decisions that deeply divide the citizens of Kosovo and Metohija, cause unprecedented inter-ethnic tension and regional instability and, in the long run, make life difficult for our people and our Church. It is clear that the goal of the Kosovo institutions is to create an ethnic Albanian Kosovo in which the free and normal life of the Serbs is thwarted.

In this regard, the Church condemns all attacks against the Serbian people, their sanctuaries and property, and especially terrorist armed attacks against individual ethnic Serbs, including children, as well as the existence of secret lists on the basis of which Serbs, even former members of the Kosovo Police. It also condemns the illegal confiscation of land owned by Serbs in order to exert additional pressure to force them to emigrate. The Assembly demands that the perpetrators of these crimes be brought to justice, and that all victims be protected.

The Serbian Orthodox Church is in a particularly difficult situation. This is also confirmed in the statements of international officials and respected institutions that deal with the protection of religious rights and freedoms. Besides the series of attacks against our temples, which hinder the normal process of reconstruction of dozens of our sanctuaries, damaged or destroyed mostly in the period 1999-2004, the life of our monasteries and parishes is very difficult. In many ways, the Albanian authorities in Kosovo have begun to change or reinterpret the previous laws, which included guarantees for the protection of property and economic rights, and which enabled the independence and sustainability of our monasteries. The highest Albanian officials, as a rule, do not accept the real and official name of our church, confirmed by the Kosovo law, nor the provided guarantees. All this threatens to turn into new repressive measures that will further threaten the spiritual mission of the church and the preservation of the identity of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija.

Therefore, the Holy Synod of Bishops especially emphasizes the need to pay the greatest attention to the following issues in Kosovo and Metohija: preserving the identity and church organization of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Metohija, preventing historical revisionism, protecting the property of our Church, creation of conditions for the return of confiscated property, preservation of the conditions that allow the normal functioning of our monasteries and the Rashko-Prizren Diocese as a whole. Currently, many monasteries, churches and families are not economically viable and can survive only with the help of the Serbian Orthodox Church, as well as through donations and with the development of agricultural and other activities that financially ensure the life of our sanctuaries and theology in Prizren.

It is especially emphasized that our church in Kosovo and Metohija needs very active international protection from the discriminatory behavior of Kosovo institutions, stronger guarantees and effective supervision are needed to prevent abuses and arbitrary interpretations of laws in judicial acts, of the circumvention or complete non-observance of the law, which is at the expense of our Church.

The Serbian Orthodox Church has for centuries been the main pillar for our people in Kosovo and Metohija and a major factor in its unity, survival and preservation of national, spiritual and cultural identity. Without the special protection of the Church, the survival of our people would not be possible. That is why the concern for the rights of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija is inseparable from the concern for the protection of the basic rights and needs of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which has been living in extremely difficult conditions for twenty-four years, exposed to attacks and various forms of violations of the basic religious, property, civil and human rights.

Supporting dialogue and peaceful resolution of all issues in Kosovo and Metohija, the Serbian Orthodox Church wants to make its own contribution to the development of inter-ethnic relations and cooperation with other churches and religious communities, and actively participate in creating conditions for a free and safe life of Serbs and Albanians, as well as all religious and national communities in Kosovo and Metohija and everywhere in the world.

Reiterating its position that it is against any exclusion of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia, the Assembly calls on both Albanians and Serbs to resolve their difficulties in the spirit of tolerance and mutual respect. Since it was God’s will for both peoples to share Kosovo and Metohija, and especially the Albanians who are the majority, they should do everything to achieve maximum mutual tolerance and mutual respect in order to create a normal and better life for every citizen of Kosovo and Metohija. All relationship problems can and should be resolved through dialogue.

Sincerely convinced that the coexistence of Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo is not only possible, but also necessary, because God has directed us to each other, we pray to God that peace prevails in Kosovo and Metohija and that a normal life is established with all who live there.

Source: Official Facebook page of Serbian Patriarch Porfiry

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02BMhbdtpToc7m5UoiZDkvnhXDBiRCX76cGq2edPqjJLb5ct4RrkDvTDMM91wv8RVWl&id=100071758814705&sfnsn=mo

World Bee Day

Gaston de Persigny

22 May 2023

On May 20, the world celebrates International Bee Day. The day has been celebrated since 2018 on the initiative of the Slovenian Association of Beekeepers with the support of the Government of Slovenia, approved by a resolution of the UN General Assembly on December 20, 2017.

The aim is to inform the public about the importance of bees and bee products, as well as the issues related to the protection of endangered bees.

The day is the anniversary of the birth of the Slovenian Anton Janša, who studied the reproduction of bees and laid the foundations of modern beekeeping.

Bees and other pollinators are fundamental for the health of ecosystems and food security. They help maintain biodiversity and ensure the production of nutritious food. However, intensive monoculture production and improper use of pesticides pose serious threats to pollinators by reducing their access to food and nesting sites, exposing them to harmful chemicals, and weakening their immune systems.

Under the theme “Bee engaged in pollinator-friendly agricultural production”, World Bee Day 2023 calls for global action to support pollinator-friendly agricultural production and highlights the importance of protecting bees and other pollinators, particularly through evidence-based agricultural production practices.

The global World Bee Day ceremony, which has been held in hybrid format at the FAO headquarters on Friday, 19 May, as an opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of adopting pollinator-friendly agricultural production practices to protect bees and other pollinators, while contributing to the resilience, sustainability and efficiency of agrifood systems.

Photo: FAO

G7 nations should show global leadership and solidarity says Guterres

United Nations News

21 May 2023

G7 nations should show global leadership and solidarity — UN Photo/Ichiro Mae Secretary-General António Guterres speaks to the press, wrapping up his trip to Japan for the G7 Hiroshima Summit 2023.

The world is counting on the leadership and solidarity of the G7 nations, the U.N. chief said Sunday, speaking to journalists in Hiroshima, Japan, which he described as a “global symbol of the tragic consequences when nations fail to work together” and abandon multilateralism.

The G7, which consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, together with the European Union, is meeting in the city where the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, a place which Secretary-General António Guterres described, as a “testament to the human spirit”.

Rich countries cannot ignore the fact that the vast majority of countries worldwide are suffering through a deep financial crisis.

The world is counting on #G7 economies to demonstrate global leadership and global solidarity.https://t.co/Q7FIIxYX2t pic.twitter.com/tH8dYvjlbq
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) May 21, 2023

“Whenever I visit, I am inspired by the courage and resilience of the Hibakusha”, he said, referring to the survivors of that dreadful act of war. “The United Nations stands with them. We will never stop pushing for a world free of nuclear weapons.”

Haves and have-nots

Mr. Guterres said his message to the G7 leaders was clear and simple: “while the economic picture is uncertain everywhere, rich countries cannot ignore the fact that more than half the world – the vast majority of countries – are suffering through a deep financial crisis.”

He reiterated his view first expressed in an official visit to Jamaica last week, that the problems facing developing countries had three dimensions; moral, power-related, and practical.

Elaborating on the “systemic and unjust bias” in the global economic and financial system; the outdatedness of the global financial architecture; and the fact that even within the current rules, developing economies had been let down and sold short; the UN chief said the G7 had a duty now to act.

Redistribution of power

He said the financial system created by the Breton Woods realignment post World War Two, had simply “failed to fulfil its core function as a global safety net”, in the face of the economic shocks from COVID, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

He said the time had come to fix the Breton Woods system, and reform the UN Security Council.

“This is essentially a question of redistributing power in line with the realities of today’s world.”

He said the G7 can no longer be a bystander: “In our multipolar world, as geopolitical divisions grow, no country or group of countries, can stand by as billions of people struggle with the basics of food, water, education, healthcare and jobs.”

UN Photo/Ichiro Mae – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres meets with Fumio Kishida, the Prime Minister of Japan, at the G7 Hiroshima Summit 2023.

‘Clearly off track’

Highlighting the perils of overlooking the pace of climate change, he outlined the specific areas where the world’s richest were central to the success of climate action.

The current projections show humankind heading for a temperature rise of 2.8°C by the end of this century, he told journalists, and the next five years are likely to be the hottest ever, according to latest figures from the UN weather agency, WMO.

He said the G7, with it’s huge economic and financial clout, was “central to climate action”, which is working, “but not enough and we are clearly off track”.

“Our Acceleration Agenda aims to make up for lost time. It calls for all G7 countries to reach net zero as close as possible to 2040, and for emerging economies to do so as close as possible to 2050.”

A Climate Solidarity Pact calls for the G7 to mobilize resources to support less well-off economies in accelerating decarbonization, to stay within the 1.5° limit on heating, compared with pre-industrial levels.

UN Photo/Ichiro Mae – Secretary-General António Guterres joins world leaders paying respects at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.

Phase out coal

“This requires faster timelines to phase out fossil fuels and ramp up renewables. It means putting a price on carbon and ending fossil fuel subsidies. I call on the G7 to phase out coal completely by 2030”, the UN chief said.

But he also made a call for climate justice, on behalf of the countries who have done the least to cause the crisis, but are suffering the most.

“We must ramp up adaptation and early warning systems to help communities on the front lines…It’s high time for developed countries to provide the promised $100 billion per year”, he added.

And he also reiterated that the Loss and Damage Fund agreed in Sharm el-Sheikh, during COP27 last year, “must be operationalized.”

ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw== G7 nations should show global leadership and solidarity says Guterres

The oldest Hebrew Bible in the world sold for a record 38.1 million dollars

News desk

21 May 2023

The “Sassoon Codex” dates from the late 9th or early 10th century

The price was reached in just 4 minutes of contested bidding between two buyers, according to Sotheby’s auction house in New York.

The world’s oldest and most complete Hebrew Bible has been sold at auction for $38.1 million. The price was reached in just 4 minutes of contested bidding between two buyers, according to Sotheby’s auction house in New York.

Thus, the Bible became the most valuable printed text or historical document ever sold at auction. It was bought by former Israeli-American diplomat Alfred Moses of Washington, D.C., on behalf of an American non-profit organization that will donate it to the Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.

“The Hebrew Bible is the most influential book in history and is the foundation of Western civilization. I am glad to know that it belongs to the Jewish people,” said Moses, who served as ambassador to President Bill Clinton.

The ancient manuscript, better known as the Codex Sassoon, is the earliest and most complete surviving Hebrew Bible. It was written on parchment around the year 900 either in Israel or in Syria. Its name comes from its previous owner – David Solomon Sassoon, who bought it in 1929.

Real events described in the Bible

The manuscript connects the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date back to the third century BCE, and the modern form of the Hebrew Bible.

It is one of only two codices or manuscripts containing all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible that have survived to the modern era, significantly more complete than the Aleppo Codex and older than the Leningrad Codex, two other known early Hebrew Bibles.

The Sassoon Codex, which has moved throughout its history, has only been on public display once before, in 1982 at the British Library in London, said Orit Shaham-Gover, chief curator of the Museum of the Jewish People.

Its price surpassed that of the sale of the “Lester Codex”, a collection of scientific works by Leonardo da Vinci, which changed hands in 1994 for the sum of 30.8 million dollars.

Photo: Sotheby’s auction house

A three-story tunnel under the Bosphorus will connect Europe and Asia in 2028

Newsdesk

21 May 2023

A third tunnel connecting the European and Asian parts of Istanbul, officially named the “Great Istanbul Tunnel” by the government, will be put into operation in 2028, announced by the Transport and Infrastructure Minister Adil Karaismailoglu.

“Studies and design are currently being done. This will be the first three-story tunnel in the world. Two floors will be car lanes, and the third will be a high-speed railway line. We anticipate that the tunnel will be opened in 2028. It will have the capacity to serve 1.3 million passengers on a daily basis,” the minister noted, stressing that the project will be one of the symbols of the “Century of Turkey” vision presented by the government last October .

The minister emphasized the importance of the project, pointing out that after the construction of the Marmaray Railway Tunnel and the Eurasia Motorway, the “Great Tunnel in Istanbul” will be the third passage under the Bosphorus, which will greatly ease traffic in the city of 16 million. It will be integrated with the leading road, metro and railway arteries of the metropolis.

Minister Karaismailoglu said that according to Istanbul’s basic transport plan, the number of crossings between the European and Asian countries currently exceeds the figure of 2 million on a daily basis. In the near future, this figure is expected to increase to 3 million per day.

“We are now developing plans to prevent future problems arising from increased traffic,” he stressed.

The new tunnel will be part of a high-capacity railway system that will connect the Asian and European parts of Istanbul, the minister said. He notes that the route across the Bosphorus will stretch from the Kadıköy district on the Asian side to the Bakırköy district in the European part of the metropolis.

The “Great Istanbul Tunnel” will have a total length of 28 kilometers and will consist of 13 stations. This ambitious infrastructure project will serve a total of 1.3 million passengers per day when it is put into operation in 2028, it will have the capacity to serve 70,000 passengers per hour in one direction,” Karaismailoglu explained.

The total travel time on the new route will be 42 minutes.

The tunnel will be integrated with 11 other railway lines and will also allow the Metrobus line, which is considered the backbone of Istanbul’s transport system, to operate at optimal capacity.

Photo: AA

Two trillion tonnes of greenhouse gases, 25 billion nukes of heat, will the Earth get out of the Goldilocks zone?

Guest Author

20 May 2023

Life relies on a fine balance between energy in and energy out. But heating the world 1.2℃ with the greenhouse gases, means we’ve trapped an extraordinary amount of extra energy in the Earth system.

We are already feeling like living on a tropical island in many areas of our planet. If the climate keeps getting warmer, this will be a serious problem for all of us. Photo by Raimond Klavins via Unsplash

Since the 18th century, humans have been taking fossil fuels out of their safe storage deep underground and burning them to generate electricity or power machinery.

We’ve now converted coal, oil and gas into more than two trillion tonnes of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and added them to the atmosphere.

The current result? The average temperature at the planet’s surface is about 1.2℃ hotter than in the pre-industrial era. That’s because adding new carbon to the world’s natural carbon cycle has caused an imbalance in the amount of energy entering and leaving the Earth system.

To warm the entire planet takes an extraordinary amount of extra energy. Recent research shows we’ve added the energy of 25 billion nuclear bombs to the Earth system in just the last 50 years.

Billions of nuclear bombs to produce 1.2℃ of heating – so what? It seems small, considering how much temperature varies on a daily basis. (The world’s average surface temperature in the 20th century was 13.9℃.)

But almost all of this energy to date has been taken up by the oceans. It’s no wonder we’re seeing rapid warming in our oceans.

Life on Earth is possible because we’re in a sweet spot – not too hot, not too cold. NASA, CC BY

The Goldilocks zone

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun. It gets hot, at an average temperature of 167℃. But it has no atmosphere. That’s why the second planet, Venus, is the hottest in the solar system, at an average of 464℃. That’s due to an atmosphere much thicker than Earth’s, dense in carbon dioxide. Venus might once have had liquid oceans. But then a runaway greenhouse effect took place, trapping truly enormous quantities of heat.

One reason we’re alive is that our planet orbits in the Goldilocks zone, just the right distance from the Sun to be not too hot and not too cold. Little of the Earth’s internal heat gets through to the cold crust where we live. That makes us dependent on another source of heat – the Sun.

When the Sun’s light and heat hits Earth, some is absorbed at the surface and some is reflected back out into space. We see some of the energy emitted by the Sun because the Sun is hot and hotter objects emit radiation in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Because Earth is much cooler than the Sun, the radiation it emits is invisible, at long infrared wavelengths. Much of this energy goes out into space – but not all. Some gases in our atmosphere are very effective at absorbing energy at the wavelengths Earth emits at. These greenhouse gases occur naturally in Earth’s atmosphere, and keep the planet warm enough to be habitable. That’s another Goldilocks zone.

ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw== Two trillion tonnes of greenhouse gases, 25 billion nukes of heat, will the Earth get out of the Goldilocks zone? — Incoming radiation from the sun is reflected or absorbed by Earth. There is a net imbalance where more energy is absorbed than emitted by the planet and this causes warming. NASA, CC BY

And then there’s a third Goldilocks zone: recent history. All of human civilisation has emerged in the unusually mild 10,000 years after the last ice age, when the climate has been not too hot and not too cold across much of the world.

But now, we are at very real risk of pushing ourselves outside of the comfortable climatic conditions which allowed humans to expand, farm, build cities and create.
The energy dense fuels which made industrial civilisation possible come with an enormous sting in the tail. Burn now, pay later. Now the bill has become apparent.

How do we know this is real? Satellites measure the rate at which Earth’s surface radiates heat. At any one moment, thousands of Argo robotic floats dot our oceans. They spend almost all of their lives underwater, measuring heat, and surface to transmit data. And we can measure sea level with tide levels and satellites. We can cross-check the measurements between all three approaches.

Climate change: more energy comes in than goes out

Greenhouse gases are potent. You only need small concentrations to get a big effect.

We’ve already boosted the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by about 50%, and added considerable volumes of methane and nitrous oxide as well. This is pushing our life-sustaining greenhouse effect out of balance.

A recent study suggests the energy imbalance is equivalent to trapping roughly 380 zettajoules of extra heat from 1971–2020. (The period between 1971 and the present accounts for about 60% of all emissions).

One zettajoule is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules – a very big number!

Little Boy, the nuclear bomb which destroyed Hiroshima, produced energy estimated at 15,000,000,000,000 joules. This means the effect of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions in that 50-year period to 2020 is about 25 billion times the energy emitted by the Hiroshima nuclear bomb.

If we’ve trapped so much extra heat, where is it?

To date, almost every joule of extra energy – about 90% – has gone into our oceans, particularly the top kilometre of water. Water is an excellent heat sink. It takes a lot of energy to heat it, but heat it we have. Hotter oceans are a major contributor to coral bleaching and sea level rise.

It takes a long time to get this much heat into the oceans, and once it is there it doesn’t disappear. Reversing global warming entirely may not be feasible. Just to stop temperatures going any higher means correcting the imbalance and bringing CO2 levels down towards the pre-industrial level of 280ppm.

If we can reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, we will most likely stop further global warming and carbon dioxide concentrations will slowly start to drop.

Realistically, this means rapid, large-scale reduction of emissions and deployment of carbon capture to compensate for the emissions we can’t eliminate.

To go further and cool the planet back down towards a pre-industrial climate would require net-negative emissions, meaning we would have to draw even more carbon back out of the atmosphere than any lingering emissions.

Unfortunately, we aren’t there yet. Human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are at near-record highs. But clean energy production is accelerating. This year might be the first time emissions from power begin to fall.

We’re in a race, and the stakes are as high as they could possibly be – ensuring a liveable climate for our children and for nature.

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Two trillion tonnes of greenhouse gases, 25 billion nukes of heat, will the Earth get out of the Goldilocks zone?

Life relies on a fine balance between energy in and energy out. But heating the world 1.2℃ with the greenhouse gases, means we’ve trapped an extraordinary amount of extra energy in the Earth system.

The Goldilocks zone

Climate change: more energy comes in than goes out

If we’ve trapped so much extra heat, where is it?

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