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Eye 2

Despite pandemic, Israeli army shoots at water tanks in Palestinian village

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Wed, 27 May 2020 00:00 UTC
Water tanks for Palestinian homes
Water tanks for Palestinian homes
B'Tselem has concluded that the shooting is deliberate, and "an illegal act of collective punishment."

The residents of Kafr Qaddum are no strangers to Israeli military incursions in their village, which sits northwest of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank.

For the past nine years, the residents of the village have been holding weekly demonstrations against the confiscation of their village's land for the use of settlement expansion and the permanent closure of the main road connecting the village to Nablus.

Nearly every week they are met with violence on part of Israeli forces, which has over the years resulted in severe injuries, disabilities, and even death.

In recent weeks, however, Israeli forces have been practicing a new tactic of suppression in the village, one the Israeli rights group B'Tselem has slammed as "collective punishment" in a new report published Wednesday.

Since the beginning of April, Israeli forces have been documented shooting holes into the water tanks on the rooftops of people's homes in the village, causing hundreds of dollars worth of damage and significant loss of water resources for the community.

Comment: Many of the soldiers of the IDF, and its psychopathic leadership, have no problem making the lives of Palestinians a living hell:

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Attention

Iranian president calls for stricter laws against 'honor' killings after 13-yo girl beheaded


RFE/RL
Wed, 27 May 2020 23:16 UTC
Romina Ashrafi
Romina Ashrafi reportedly told police that she feared for her life, but she was still handed over to her father as required by Iranian laws.
Iranian President Hassan Rohani has called for harsher laws to tackle so-called "honor killings" after the particularly shocking slaying of a teenage girl, allegedly by her father, prompted a nationwide outcry.

Rohani on May 27 pushed for the speedy adoption of relevant bills, some which have apparently circulated for years among various Iranian decision-making bodies without any tangible results.

The call comes after 13-year-old Romina Ashrafi was killed last week in Hovigh, some 320 kilometers northwest of Tehran.

Local media reported that the teenager was beheaded while she slept by her father, who used a farming sickle.

The father, Reza Ashrafi, was said to be enraged after Romina fled the family home to marry a 35-year-old man she loved.

Both of their families complained to the authorities, and security forces detained Romina and her boyfriend, Bahamn Khavari, following a five-day hunt.
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Stock Down

'Obsessive partisanship': Pew Research blasted for misleading tweet casting Dem districts as doing better on Covid-19 deaths


RT
Wed, 27 May 2020 22:28 UTC
covid patient hospital
© REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
The Pew Research Center is being criticized on social media for appearing to spin a graphic depicting deaths from the coronavirus outbreak in favor of Democrats - despite the actual data painting a very different picture.

"Covid-19 deaths have declined in Democratic congressional districts since mid-April, but remained relatively steady in districts controlled by Republicans," the research body tweeted on Wednesday.

While the statement was technically true, it didn't quite match up with the data presented. According to Pew, and based on numbers from Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Democratic districts have actually seen a decline in Covid-19 deaths since mid-April, while numbers in Republican districts have stayed relatively steady - but coronavirus fatalities in Dem districts are still more than double those in opposing districts.

New deaths reported in Democrat-controlled areas have fallen from 7.4 to 4.1 in the last month - based on a rolling average of seven days - while Republican districts have seen the average for new deaths drop from 2.0 to 1.7.

Once the actual numbers are observed, Pew's assertion that Democrat congressional districts have seen a decline while Republican congressional districts have seen little change comes off as a bit misleading - something social media users have not been afraid to tell the "nonpartisan" data analysis center.

"When ppl ask me what I mean when I say America's uniquely obsessive partisanship is disrupting important study and analysis, in addition to tapping into the public's worst instincts, well," reporter Seth Mandel tweeted when presenting the study to his followers.

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Star of David

Coronavirus: Palestinian children languish in Israeli jails 'not fit for humans'

Claire Nicoll
Middle East Eye
Thu, 21 May 2020 19:38 UTC
Palestinian children
© AFPPalestinian children walk past a mural depicting the coronavirus and a prison cell in Gaza City on 28 April
I heard the chains before I saw them enter. Four teenage boys shackled together by the wrists and ankles shuffled into the defendants' box in the small courtroom.

One of them, Ahmed*, looked particularly young, as he stood on tiptoes to peer over the edge of the box. He was accused of throwing a stone, a charge he denies, and was waiting to hear a verdict from the military court.

The boys' short trials - at most five minutes each - were held entirely in Hebrew, with a soldier occasionally translating the odd word into Arabic for them. The boys looked scared and confused as they awaited their fate. They kept trying to speak to their lawyers, but this was not allowed.
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Attention

The US does NOT lead in COVID-19 deaths

Matt Margolis
PJ Media
Sun, 24 May 2020 21:51 UTC
trump opening up america again
© AP Photo/Alex Brandon
The sheer ease with which the American left has politicized the deaths of thousands of Americans has shocked even me.

The United States is approaching 100,000 deaths and the left seems determined to make sure the public blames President Donald Trump for those deaths.

As PJM's Tyler O'Neil noted, the Democratic Coalition is trying to make "Trump Death Toll" a thing. While Tyler effectively demonstrated the absurdity of blaming these deaths on Trump, I'm going to show that despite the headlines that suggest things in the United States are the worst in the world, that is emphatically not the case.
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NPC

Kathy Griffin tells Jim Acosta how to kill President Trump - Secret Service alerted

Sarah Hall
Red State Nation
Wed, 27 May 2020 21:15 UTC
Secret service agent, Kathy Griffin
We constantly see so-called Hollywood liberals trying to blame Trump for anything and everything. Everything is Trump's fault!

Hollywood and Hollywood's celebrities have lost their glamour. As time passes by I am more certain that these Hollywood "celebrities" are nothing more than a bunch of overpaid loudmouths who have nothing intelligent to say but throwing constant attacks on conservatives.

Anti-Trump "comedian" Kathy Griffin has once again stirred up controversy with a tweet about President Trump.

Griffin's name became trending on Twitter on Tuesday night after she tweeted about stabbing the president with a syringe full of air.

Her post was in response to a tweet from CNN's chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta, who wrote "Trump at diabetes event at WH: 'I don't use insulin. Should I be?'"

Griffin commented on Acosta's tweet, saying "Syringe with nothing but air inside it would do the trick. F — TRUMP."
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Arrow Up

Met raids homes of 38 online child abuse suspects

Martin Bentham
Evening Standard
Tue, 26 May 2020 21:03 UTC
Laptop keyboard
© Robert Galbraith / Reuters
Nearly 40 suspected online paedophiles have been arrested and 138 children protected during a week-long crackdown by the Met on internet groomers operating in London.

Dozens of laptops and phones and tens of thousands of images of child abuse and sexual exploitation were also seized in a series of raids across the capital.

The arrests came as Scotland Yard warned that the lockdown has resulted in a "greater number of sexual predators out there trying to target and groom young people".

Announcing the arrests, Detective Superintendent Helen Flanagan, from the Met's Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Unit, said that the suspects came "from a variety of backgrounds" and that officers had been working "flat out" during the lockdown to prevent a surge in offences.
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Arrow Up

Anti-Semitic crimes in Germany at highest level since 2001

Don Jacobson
United Press International
Wed, 27 May 2020 21:06 UTC
German police officers
© Friedemann Vogel/EPAGerman police officers stand guard at the Signal Iduna Park in Dortmund, Germany. Authorities in Germany recorded more than 2,000 anti-Semitic crimes in 2019, according to new figures Wednesday. File Photo.
Anti-Semitic crimes targeting members of the Jewish faith in Germany reached their highest level in almost two decades in 2019, according to new government figures Wednesday.

Police statistics show the number anti-Semitic crimes in Germany rose 13 percent last year to 2,032, the highest level since 2001.

Ninety-three percent of the crimes were attributed to right-wing perpetrators -- part of a general upsurge in which more than 41,000 cases of politically motivated crimes of all types were recorded, a rise of 14.2 percent.
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Pills

France revokes decree authorizing use of hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19


France 24
Wed, 27 May 2020 20:03 UTC
Hydroxychloroquine
© George Frey, AFPHydroxychloroquine tablets sold at a pharmacy in Provo, Utah, on May 20, 2020
The French government on Wednesday revoked a decree authorizing hospitals to prescribe the controversial drug for Covid-19 patients after France's public health watchdog warned against its use to treat the disease.

The government's decision comes two days after the World Health Organization (WHO) said safety concerns had prompted it to suspend use of the drug in a global trial.

Last week, a study published in British medical journal The Lancet found patients randomized to get hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) had increased mortality rates and higher frequency of irregular heartbeats.

HCQ is normally prescribed to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, but US President Donald Trump and others have touted it as a possible treatment for Covid-19.

The drug has been the subject of much debate in France, where "maverick" Professor Didier Raoult claimed in March to have successfully treated Covid-19 patients using a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.

Comment: The only concern the WHO has is ensuring people think there's nothing that can help people fight COVID-19 except a vaccine, and unfortunately France isn't the only country listening to those liars and rejecting hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment:
Italy and Belgium have joined France in​ moving to ​​ban the​ use of hydroxychloroquine​ to treat Covid-19 patients as questions continue to mount over its safety.

On Wednesday, France revoked its decree authorizing the prescription of the anti-malarial drug for the novel coronavirus following a decision from the government's health advisory agency.

Now Belgium's health body has warned against using the drug outside of ongoing registered clinical trials.

Italy's health authorities also concluded that there is too little evidence to support the use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 and that the lack of proof means it should be banned outside of clinical trials.

The Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) also cited new clinical evidence on the use of the drug which "indicates an increased risk for adverse reactions with little or no benefit."

"Pending obtaining more solid evidence from the clinical trials that are underway both in Italy and in other countries of the world," the decision was made to suspend the authorization of its use in hospitals and at home, AIFA said.

A new study published in the Lancet medical journal could not confirm a benefit of taking the drug as a treatment against the virus. It found that taking the drug was actually associated with increased risks of in-hospital death for Covid-19 patients.

Britain's pharmaceutical regulator also said Wednesday that a hydroxychloroquine trial by the University of Oxford has been "paused" less than a week after it began due to safety concerns. It said other trials of the anti-malaria drug for the treatment of Covid-19 remain "under close review."
When was the last time a drug trial was paused less than a week after it began because of "safety concerns"?

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Dominoes

Russian capital to see quarantine rules relaxed as govt outlines anti-coronavirus plan until 2021


RT
Wed, 27 May 2020 19:30 UTC
park
© Sputnik / Maksim Blinov
Starting next Monday the strict quarantine in Moscow will be lifted as the biggest hotspot of the Covid-19 epidemic in Russia eases restrictions. But many rules are here to stay, at least until the end of the year.

Moscow accounts for roughly half of all Covid-19 cases in Russia, but now the outbreak seems to be subsiding, so more quarantine measures will be lifted starting next week. Mayor Sergey Sobyanin on Wednesday outlined his plan to steer the city further out of the lockdown.

Arguably the most welcome change will be the relaxation of the stay-at-home order, under which Muscovites lived for almost two months. People will be allowed to go out for a walk at their leisure starting next Monday.

However they will have to take turns, with residents of different houses assigned different days to reduce crowding. Sobyanin joked that without the schedule everyone would likely rush out at once and the streets would look like May Day demonstrations.
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