Surviving Paris ISIL Terrorism

 

"I hope to be able to put the word 'victim' into the past."

"When things like this happen you have no repair possible. That's why you have justice, [even if] justice can't do everything."

"It puts an exclamation point at the end of it."

Arthur Dénouveaux, Bataclan massacre survivor

"The assassins, these terrorists, thought they were firing into the crowd, into a mass of people,"

"[Hearing the testimony of victims was] crucial to both their own healing and that of the nation."

"It wasn't a mass — these were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations."

Dominique Kielemoes, whose son bled to death at one of the cafes

Families of victims, journalists and lawyers attend the courthouse where the trial took place under heightened security on Wednesday. (Abdulmonam Eassa/Getty Images)

 Salah Abdeslam, chief suspect and the sole survivor among the 2015 terrorist attackers who massacred 130 people -- claiming their massacre was due to the influence of the Islamic State group -- has now been convicted of murder. His sentence was the most severe possible under French law; life in prison without possibility of parole. He denied being a murderer and pleaded forgiveness for his error in judgement.

A special terrorist court had been convened to try the case of the terrorist attack against the Bataclan theatre and a number of other attacks at cafes and a sport stadium in a coordinated night of terror and death in Paris. Abdeslam was found guilty of murder and attempted murder related to a terrorist enterprise. While he had contended a change of mind led him to abandon his explosives vest, in fact the court heard, it was a malfunction in the explosives vest that kept him from detonating it and slaughtering even greater numbers.

 

A courtroom sketch shows Abdeslam as the verdict was read at the courthouse on the Île de la Cité in Paris on Wednesday. (Elisabeth de Pourquery/France Televisions/Reuters)

 

A special French court Wednesday also found twenty men to be guilty of involvement in the Bataclan attack as well as on Paris cafes and France's national stadium. Presiding Judge Jean-Louis Peries read the verdicts surrounded by tight security, to close out the nine-month trial. Eighteen defendants aside from Abdeslam were given terrorist-related convictions.

Harrowing victim accounts were heard in the packed main chamber of the 13th Century Justice Palace aside from the testimony of Abdeslam, the sole survivor of the ten-member attack team that gave Paris a Friday night that would forever haunt the city. There were a dozen overflow rooms and they were fully packed. Of the other defendants six were accused of a direct role in the Mach 2015 attacks in Brussels, claimed as well by the Islamic State group.

 

A court sketch shows Salah Abdeslam standing (far R) alongside the other 13 defendants in court this week   Benoit PEYRUCQ/AFP

 

The remainder of the defendants faced accusations of assisting with logistics or transportation. The most conspicuous change related to that fateful day in March 2015 is armed officers patrolling public spaces constantly. Most of the attackers were born and raised in France and Belgium, which led to soul-searching by authorities while at the same time the lives of those who suffered losses or bore witness were forever transformed. Of the ten-member attacking team, six are presumed to have been killed in Syria or Iraq.

A French police officer stands guard in front of the Bataclan concert venue during a ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of the deadly terror attacks in Paris, on Nov. 13, 2020. Chief suspect Salah Abdeslam was convicted Wednesday of murder and other charges and sentenced to life in prison without parole. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

 

Time and the Tides Await Accountability

"The court has come to the conclusion that, contrary to what you claim, you worked in the concentration camp as a guard for about three years." 

"[In doing so, the defendant had assisted in the Nazis’ terror and murder mechanism]."

"You willingly supported this mass extermination with your activity. You watched deported people being cruelly tortured and murdered there every day for three years."

Presiding Judge Udo Lechtermann, war crimes trial, Brandenberg/Havel

 

"There has been a huge memory work, huge work on what happened in this camp that was almost forgotten." 

"The important thing here today was that he was proven guilty."

Lili Grumbach, granddaughter of Antoine Grumbach, surviving Sachsenhausen prisoner 

"Even if the defendant will probably not serve the full prison sentence due to his advanced age, the verdict is to be welcomed,."

"The thousands of people who worked in the concentration camps kept the murder machinery running."

"They were part of the system, so they should take responsibility for it."

"It is bitter that the defendant has denied his activities at that time until the end and has shown no remorse."

Josef Schuster, head, Central Council of Jews in Germany

Former Nazi concentration camp guard Josef Schütz, 101, hides his face behind a folder in a German court Tuesday, before he was convicted of more than 3,500 counts of accessory to murder  AFP via Getty Images

"[The sentence] sends a message that if you commit such crimes, even decades later, you might be brought to justice."

"And it’s a very important thing because it gives closure to the relatives of the victims."

"The fact that these people all of a sudden feel that their loss is being addressed and the suffering of their family who they lost in the camps is being addressed … is a very important thing."

Efraim Zuroff, head Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Jerusalem

It's never too late to repent. On the other hand, repentance in a court of justice is an admission of guilt.

And so, 101-year-old Josef Schuetz denied guilt and had no need to repent. He claimed innocence of the charges brought against him, that as an SS guard during the years 1943 to 1945 he was responsible as an accessory to annihilation of Europe's Jews, for the deaths of tens of thousands who passed through the gates of the Sachsenhausen death camp in Oranienburg.

"I don't know why I am here", he said, since he "did absolutely nothing wrong", for he had not worked at the camp. He had been an agricultural labourer in Pasewalk, 115 kilometres northeast of Sachsenhausen. The Sachsenhausen camp, north of Berlin, was established as the first site in 1936 in what would eventually become mass incarceration and mass murder of the Jews of Europe. An experimental site for which Adolf Hitler had assigned the SS control of what was to become a vast network of such camps throughout occupied Europe.

 

Sachsenhausen, model camp

 

There is no total agreement on the full death count at the camp; some estimates place it at 100,000, others between 40,000 and 50,000; a sizeable collected community of Jews meant for annihilation, but in the overall picture of six million Jewish lives extinguished, a relatively modest number. The camp's inmates died of various causes: starvation, disease, forced labour, medical experimentation, shooting, hanging, and gassing, all to achieve the goal of ridding Europe of its Jews.

Another 101-year-old, a survivor of the death camp, Leon Schwarzbaum left testimony and a statement that was read posthumously in March, asking the accused "to tell the historical truth". Another Holocaust survivor, 80-year-old Antoine Grumbach said as far as he was concerned the verdict helped to prove that Sachsenhausen was "an experimental extermination camp" which took his father's life.

Germany's antisemitism commissioner, Felix Klein stated that the sentencing of this man was nothing to celebrate since he "lived undisturbed for so long and the indictment came so late". The trial began in October, suspended on several occasions in view of Schuetz's ill health. He took part in the trial with his presence for about two-and-a-half hours every day, held in a gymnasium where Schuetz lives, in Brandenburg/Havel.

Although his lawyer, Stefan Waterkamp stated that "As early as 1978, investigators had information about him but did not pursue him", the public prosecutor responded that Schuetz had "knowingly and willingly" participated in crimes as a guard; evidence in hand that shared Schuetz's name, date and place of birth. Schuetz "willingly supported this mass extermination with your work", Judge Udo Lechtermann added.

Josef Schuetz found guilty as an accessory to the murder of over 3,500 prisoners. An accessory to attempted nurder between 1942 and 1945 at Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg. He has made history by becoming the oldest person to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity in the Holocaust years. There was no escaping his personal accounting, although it is a symbolic punishment; his age and health will rescue him from his penalty after a long life denied his victims. 

 

There are many more like him who will, in the final analysis, escape prosecution and the verdict identifying their actions complicit in the wholesale destruction of six million Jewish lives.

 

Prosecutors said that between 1942 and 1945, Schütz served as an SS guard at the Sachsenhausen camp outside Berlin, where tens of thousands of prisoners died   Associated Press

 

 

Biological Anomaly : Raising a LARGE Family

"Her case is a genetic predisposition to hyperovulate -- releasing multiple eggs in one cycle -- which significantly increases the chances of having multiple births." 

Dr.Charles Kiggundu, gynecologist Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda

"I have grown up in tears, my man has passed me through a lot of suffering."

"All my time has been spent looking after my children and working to earn some money."

"I started taking on adult responsibilities at an early stage. I have not had joy, I think, since I was born."

"I can't say they [her children] are nagging because they are my children. I can't say I will abandon them because they are my children, and I love them."

Mariam Nahatanzi

"Mum is overwhelmed; the work is crushing her."

"We help where we can, like in cooking and washing, but she still carries the whole burden for the family."

"I feel for her."

Ivan Kibuka, mid-20s, eldest child

Mariam Nabatanzi has given birth to 44 children by the age of 40. Photo by Reuters

According to the Mayo Clinic, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome can be "life threatening". It can cause "blood clots, kidney failure, twisting of the ovary or breathing problems". Treatment, available in wealthy first-world nations, is not available in Uganda. Nabatanzi had an unfortunate upbringing from the very beginning of her life, with her mother who had five boys before her, abandoning her family when the last, the girl that would become a mother of 44, was born.

 

When she was very young, and away briefly at a relative's house, her stepmother had conspired to kill her stepchildren by placing broken glass in the food she served to the children. All the boys died, but Nabatanzi, who had been away, survived. When she was 12 years of age, she was sold into marriage. A year later she delivered twins. The fertility rate in Uganda averages to 5.6 children per woman representing one of Africa's highest, in comparison to the global average of 2.4 children. 

 

Nahatanzi, by age 40, given her rare medical condition had given birth to no fewer than 44 babies. After the first set of twins was born she gave birth to additional twins on three occasions. Then came five sets of triplets and five sets of quadruplets. She gave birth on one occasion only to a single child. Her husband absented himself for long stretches of time, only to impregnate her again on his return. Until he finally left for the last time taking their savings with him.

The mother of so many children was forced to turn to her own ingenuity and capacity for work alongside raising her brood to earn the money for their care. She has worked at hairdressing, event decorating, collecting and selling scrap metal, brewing local gin, and selling herbal medicine. Every bit of money she earns is used to buy food, medical care, clothing and to pay for her children's school fees. She cooks 25 kilograms of maize (corn) for her family daily.

She hangs portraits of her children graduating from school on the walls of her home with pride. Her eldest son was unable to continue secondary school for lack of money to continue paying fees. When she reached age 23, Nabatanzi had given birth to 25 children. She had appealed to doctors to help her stop having any more, but was advised to continue her pregnancies resulting from her ovary count.

She had her last child three years ago at which time a doctor informed her that he had "cut my uterus from inside". "Generally, I have tried to educate them. My dream is that my children go to school. They can lack anything [else], but they must go to school."

Nabatanzi (red hair) and some of her children. Photo by Reuters

A Sordid Tale of Russian Entitlement to Destroy Ukraine

"Russia is saying, 'We can do this all day long. You guys [G-7 and NATO nations] are powerless to stop us'."

"The Russians are humiliating the leaders of the West."

Lt.-Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. forces in Europe

Cars pass by destroyed Russian armored vehicles outside Kyiv late last month. Although the Kremlin has failed in its initial bid to take his country's capital, Ukrainian lawmaker and special forces commander Roman Kostenko believes Moscow hasn't abandoned its ambitions to take the city

 

Now that many of the countries that had withdrawn their embassy staff from Kyiv have returned them since the Russian troop withdrawals and their re-assembly in eastern Ukraine, under the impression that the Ukrainian capital is now safe enough for their emissaries to return with Russian troops busy trying to consolidate their hold in the Donbas, it appears that the Kremlin felt this to be as good a time as any to remind the global community that it still had ammunition and the will to spare to continue destroying any sense of normalcy in Ukraine.

Following weeks of relief for the capital, long-range missiles have once again found their targets in and around Kyiv in a show-of-force meant to emphasize to Western leaders that all their efforts to isolate and beggar Moscow have not yet succeeded. While Western leaders are convening in Europe to discuss further economic support and weaponry to Ukraine, Moscow sent yet another message of its willingness to continue destroying the country that had dared defy its edicts.

Two residential buildings were hit by missiles according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, leaving emergency workers to battle flames and rescue civilians from the buildings. A nearby kindergarten was cratered by a strike. The first air-launched weapons to target the capital since early June, according to Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat, were Kh-101 cruise missiles fired from warplanes more than 1,500 kilometers away over the Caspian Sea.

Just prior to G7 leaders announcing the latest in the series of international economic measures meant to continue applying pressure and isolate Russia over its vicious invasion of Ukraine. Along with new bans on imports of Russian gold. Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian parliamentarian, noted that preliminary information indicated Russia had launched 14 missiles toward the region of the capital and Kyiv proper. 

"If they are using them, it's going to be for a special purpose", observed retired U.S. General Ben Hodges, referring to the limited stock of precision missiles held by Russia. Governor Serhiy Haidal of Luhansk province pointed out that Russia was conducting intense airstrikes on Lysychansk, which destroyed its television tower, committing serious damage to a road bridge. "There's very much destruction, Lysychansk is almost unrecognizable", he wrote.

As is anywhere that the Russian military has launched its rockets at, from civilian enclaves, hospitals, apartment buildings, shopping centres, and military installations alike. Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov stated that Russian and Moscow-backed separatist forces control the city of Sievierodonetsk as well as villages surrounding it, having thwarted efforts by Ukrainian forces to turn the Azot chemical plant into a "stubborn centre of resistance".

 

Amazing how Russians believe that theirs is a humanitarian mission to rescue Ukrainians from an evil government leading them down the pathway of fascism by joining the EU and aspiring for NATO membership. Ukrainians defying murderous Russian oppression in their own land are 'stubborn', recklessly causing Russians to kill them, to destroy the country's infrastructure, while noble Russia, committed to its task of liberating Ukraine from itself is being punished by the West for its stoic heroism.

Smoke rises after a Russian missile strike in Shevchenkivskyi on Sunday. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

.

Ukrainian Reprisals Against Russian Collaborators

"This terrorist activity requires special attention."

"This is nothing but a terrorist attack and we should treat it as such."

Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman

Russian occupation forces inspect a car damaged in a car bomb attack attributed to Kherson partisan resistance. The target, Yevhen Soboliev, a local collaborator, was reported to survive. Photo: Suspilne

 

Russia's 'special military operation' which the Kremlin uses as an acceptable code-nomenclature for forcing a violent conflict on its neighbour is strictly legitimate, as the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin have explained nauseatingly frequently to their critics. It is, in fact, they explain, a liberation movement designed to free Ukrainians from the intolerable shackles of fascism under which the nation is held ransom to its neo-Nazi government. 

Ukraine's decision to remain true to itself, from the government to its military to every faithful citizen by fighting back, by opposing the invasion, on the other hand, is held by Moscow to be criminal activity, terrorism, no less. And while it is perfectly acceptable and normal and courageous for Russian forces to invade its neighbour, to wreak havoc and destruction, create millions of internally displaced, of refugees, the destruction of entire towns and villages, when Ukrainian troops manage to shoot projectiles over the border into Russian towns, it is symbolic of Ukrainian fascism.

Western nations, that have publicly and frequently lauded the courage of Ukraine and of its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy who has become a symbol of defiant courage under fire -- lavish Ukraine with best wishes, and send along military equipment in an effort to equalize the lop-sided condition of a well-armed massive military pummeling an ill-equipped smaller military in the hopes that Ukrainian mettle and valour will end up victorious over Russian lack of both -- are yet loathe to provoke the Russian Bear.

Lest a wider conflict, as Moscow threatens, develops and envelopes the entire continent and beyond. In which case rocketry can be provided, but not those powerful enough with the long range that might conceivably be shot into Russia by Ukrainian troops. For Russia's border is sacrosanct, while Ukraine's is permeable and disposable. And to think that Ukrainian fighters have been scheming resolute attacks on separatists among them willing to work with Russia makes the Kremlin beyond furious in its condemnation of Ukrainian 'terrorism'.

Mysterious attacks have been taking place in the last month or so whereby collaborators with the Russian invasion and in support of the Luhansk and Donetsk ethnic Russian Ukrainian separatists have been targeted. The Russian occupation administration in Kherson has been particularly targeted. A signal that Ukraine is rather displeased with the Kremlin's plans to purloin more huge tracts of Ukrainian territory, beyond its 2014 seizure of Crimea. The more recent predation envelopes Ukraine's industrial heartland.

And there, in the Donbas, car-bomb assassinations have selected various Russian separatist-appointed officials. Ukrainian resistance fighters executing assaults against collaborators with the Russian occupation. Friday morning saw one such blast in the outskirts of Kherson when head of the local agency for families, youth and sports Dmytro Savluchenko, was eliminated by a car bomb. A veritable flurry of unexplained bombs targeting Russian collaborators in southern Ukraine have been carried out by Ukrainian partisans who don't consider themselves to be terrorists.

The residents of Kherson showed strong resistance when Russian forces occupied the city in early March    Credit: AP Photo/Olexandr Chornyi

"Doing Things Right" Through Global Collaboration

"The space station, high above, is a microcosm ... an international collection of people living in a finite area with finite resources, just like the planet below."

"I got to see the world, in effect, take one breath out of 4.5 billion breaths ... There has been life, uninterrupted, on Earth, for four billion years."

"That's really optimism-building. Life isn't going anywhere. The world isn't going anywhere."

"The question is: How good a quality of life do we want for people, and how sustainable do we want it to be?" 

"Everyone on the space station, their lives are in each other's hands If anybody makes a mistake, everyone else dies."

"[If ever we doubt our capacity to collaborate, we need only] look up, morning and night, and watch the space station fly over. It's a pretty clear example of what we do together when we do things right."

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield

"You flush the toilet, and yesterday's coffee becomes today's water."

"It is the greatest lesson of the international space station; the opportunity to learn how effective collaboration actually works [in hoping to address climate change collaboratively]." 

"You're developing technologies, many of which are going to help with the greening economy and ... enable us to have less environmental impact."

"[Earth is] a beautiful blue oasis cast against the infinite void of space."

Astronaut Dave Williams

 

"The globe, like the ISS, is a closed loop. It depends on finely-tuned connections between the land, oceans, atmosphere, the freshwater cycle, flora and fauna."

"The planet is whole. And it's integrated."

"[A mutant virus originating in Asia and wreaking havoc on the world may seem unbelievable to most, but] for an astronaut, that is very easy to appreciate."

"The view out the window takes everyone by surprise. There's [something] about seeing the Earth with  our naked eyeball and seeing it from above The privileged position that you have, somehow, it just amplifies the beauty and majesty of it all." 

"[The view of the Earth from space was] personally transformative. Viewed from afar, our marbled-blue planet is alone for hundreds of millions of kilometres, surrounded by nothing but void."

"There is a network of ground-based measurements for greenhouse gases across the world. But the thing about those measurements is it's so unequally distributed ... If you ever want a global picture, it's really lacking. And satellites can do that."

Astronaut Robert Thirsk

Views from the International Space Station  Space Adventure

The limited living resources on the International Space Station leads to people within the confines of the station performing everyday personal routines from sleeping, eating, reading, writing, discussing theories and examining and interpreting viewed and experimental issues, to work together, both independently and as a team to make the most of the resources available to them. All aboard the station are keenly aware of their isolation, emphasizing their reliance on technology and on their collegial, professional relations with their astronaut peers.

 

Yet the conditions in which they must perform their tasks motivate them to appreciate the closed-loop heating and water systems that make them independent of outside sources for vital day-to-day management of their needs. The astronaut team on board at any given time represent members from the international community bringing with them a range of technical and professional expertise, with all working to maintain and operate the "habitability systems" of the station.

 

And they liken that situation and their experiences to those of the planet. Humanity's natural habitat with its related resources that make life possible and manageable for all creatures that exist on Earth. There is the stewardship of resources and the absolute need to be aware of how we are using and abusing those resources along with a dire need to communally agree to husband them and not to violate the very source of our habitable world. The space economy valued at $424 billion is set to create new employment opportunities linked to climate innovation.

TheNakedScientists.com

 

But the innovative technology developed to make space travel and exploration and experimentation feasible itself has benefits for greater use on Earth itself. Necessity, the mother of invention, saw many new technical innovations to fit into a temporary lifestyle aboard a closed space capsule where inhabitants had to be self-reliant, making use of whatever was available to them for survival. Technology in food preparation suitable for a weightless atmosphere, and the fabrication of new metals more durable and flexible and tougher...

Sitting in the space station and viewing space through its generous windows, astronauts watch the unfolding of natural events on one side of the world after another. Forest fires in Siberia drift over to North America, diminishing air quality there. An initially unassuming atmospheric depression in the south Atlantic becomes a Category 4 or 6 hurricane affecting residents along the Gulf Coast. The ISS travels at 8 km/s; 25 times the speed of sound, completing a single orbit of the globe every 90 minutes. ISS occupants witness a sunrise and a sunset every 45 minutes.

Astronauts from their perch within the ISS can see the ecological crisis in real time, every day, peering out and down at the world below them. Jagged strips peeled deep into the Earth's crust from mining ventures; polluting smog, grey and opaque, hovering over cities below. Clear-cut in the Amazon rainforest to make way for agriculture. It isn't only astronauts eyeing the world from above. Satellite companies now keep an eye on emissions from their space vantage. GHGSat Inc. sends satellites into space to track methane emissions.

One of its satellites detected 13 plumes of methane emissions from a coal mine in Russia in January, the largest methane leak ever detected by the company. Methane is 25 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Methane leaks were pinpointed by a GHGSat satellite in Turkmenistan where emissions equivalent to 240,000 gas-powered cars were being released into the atmosphere. A landfill in Pakistan was detected in 2021 with a methane plume.

The astronauts failed to breach a divide on the solutions to the climate crisis, but did reach agreement that addressing the issue would require precise political cooperation. On a planetary scale, pointed out Mr. Williams, disagreements are more complex, involving greater numbers of authorities making it difficult to find solutions that work for all governments. The difference: "We're just a bunch of people up there" remarked Mr. Hadfield. "All the crews from all the nations, the cultures that are represented, have a single-minded focus on accomplishing the mission objectives", pointed out Mr. Thirsk.

A common language of equally felt responsibility is the first step, they argued. Astronauts aboard the ISS are required to speak English and Russian, while English serves as the interstellar lingua franca. Yet, said Mr. Thirsk, even so, "when you're on board the space station as a crew member, most of us tend to think of ourselves as humans first." Humans are not regimented nor disciplined to think as a multi-reliant group like bees or ants. Therein lies our reasoning brilliance and our potential failure.

"I do worry about the motives of some of these world leaders who have created an unstable geopolitical situation. I don't se the older generation showing enough leadership in making the difficult decisions, today."

"It's really easy to be critical of the lack of collaboration. There are areas that, quite clearly, where we are not collaborating here on Earth and areas that we are."

Astronaut Robert Thirsk

Business Insider

Aiding and Advising the Ukrainian Military

"We will advise on issues on the military side where we could be of support or assistance. We want to be able to help define the very real needs of that territorial defence force, and make sure we meet it in the most precise manner possible."

"One of the individuals I spent quite a bit of time with had watched a battalion of territorial defence forces pull into position in eastern Ukraine in their own civilian vehicles. We said, maybe we in the world can do better."

"We're not raising money for weapons, we're raising money for personal protection."

"The longer this goes on, the more risky and fragile the situation in the east will become for Ukraine, and the increased likelihood that Russia will extend the amount of territory that it controls."

"I'd love to see [Ukraine President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy say to Canada 'you're our number one supporter'."

"We're a G7 nation, we can do more."

"Why don't we in Canada step up and help? Take 250 of our LAV IIIs, 50 Leopard tanks, recce [reconnaissance] vehicles and engineer vehicles, a spare parts package, ammunition. Move it to western Ukraine and bring in a team to train up a brigade of their defence force to be that counterattack reserve."

"They've got them in a bear hug, Ukrainians don't have any reserves to put as a counterattack force, they can't let go because the Russians will break through."

"It can be changed by equipment and support from the West, but the amount of stuff that's been delivered is minuscule compared to the need."

Rick Hillier, former Canadian Chief of the Defence Force

Soldiers in east Ukraine have been under heavy bombardment for weeks   Getty Images

 

A new strategic council is being struck, meant to advise Ukraine's territorial defence forces, and a former Canadian top soldier is set to chair the council. The Ukrainian World Congress, a non-profit consortium of organizations affiliated with the Ukrainian worldwide diaspora announced that retired Canadian Air Force General Rick Hillier is to head the new group. Other former world military commanders will comprise the entirety of the council, meant to offer support and advocacy to Ukraine's 100,000[strong homeland defence militia.

 

The new council's mandate partly focuses on equipping members of Ukraine's Territorial Defence Force, a volunteer militia of part-time civilian reservists, with personal protective gear. On his trip to Ukraine to view first-hand the situation prevailing there, General Hillier witnessed challenges he identified on the front lines. The initiative to equip the 100,000-strong volunteer militia with basic personal military gear will focus first on raising the funds to equip the civilian militia with helmets, flak jackets, medical supplies, eye protection and combat boots.

The cost to equip one soldier alone runs to roughly $2,500, a cost that expands to $1.24 million for a 400-troop battalion, or $5 million to adequately outfit a four-battalion brigade. In acknowledging that many nations have stepped up to commit aid to Ukraine in the unequal conflict, General Hillier emphasizes that Canada alone could, and should be doing more. Should greater effort be placed into defeating the Russian invaders outright, he said, Canada's humanitarian commitments could be altogether prevented.

The council anticipates, aside from direct support, to focus on educating the West on how matters in Ukraine are in reality; far more dire than it might seem, according to General Hillier. Ukraine's resolve blindsided Russian commanders who had anticipated a quick and easy campaign, but they had learned from their early failure and "The reality right now is very different", he said. Poor logistics systems improved, while electronic warfare renders most Ukrainian drones impotent along with UAVs, while walls of destructive Russian artillery now outnumber defenders in the east 12 to one.

General Hillier was informed by a Ukrainian commander that American promises of four Multiple Launch Rocket Systems were "wonderful, we love it, but we need 400". Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov asked the U.S. Secretary of State to make available greater numbers of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, but the response was of concerns Ukraine might use them in strikes on Crimea. Russia is not to be enraged by strikes within its claimed territory through the auspices of Western-provided war machinery.

The Creme de la Creme of the Science World : A Life Well Spent

Dr.Michael Rudnicki, Fellow, Royal Society

"As I became older, I met patients and kids with these terrible diseases including Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The motivation now is to do something positive to impact their lives, and I think this work is pointing in that direction."

"This [stem cell research] is really Canada's science. We are world leaders in stem cell research. We punch well above our weight."

"This is a true area of strategic strength in Canada. Something all Canadians should be proud of."

"Where an individual working in a laboratory can make discoveries that can contribute to human knowledge, this is fundamentally exciting. It is a life well spent."

"I am working hard to make my place, but I never dreamed I would be elected to The Royal Society. That is very humbling."

"It is a tremendous honour. I am humbled. It gives me goosebumps."

Michael Rudnicki, 63, senior scientist director regenerative medicine, Sprott Centre for Stem Cell Research, The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; scientific director Canadian Stem Cell Network

The Royal Society in Crane Court, London, 17th Century

Born in Ottawa, Dr. Rudnicki was fascinated with Jacques Cousteau's work and inspired  to become a marine biologist. In the end, at university he decided on biology, then became interested in molecular biology. Ever since, his career has been devoted to the field of stem cell research. Research he has pioneered in transforming science's knowledge of muscle development and regeneration, leading to novel stem cell-based approaches in the treatment of muscular dystrophy.

This week the internationally renowned scientist, honoured for his stem cell research, in particular for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, was inducted into the charter of The Royal Society, London. The Royal Society is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence, its members representing the world's most eminent scientists, including Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. Only a dozen Canadians have been members of this 362-year-old academy. In the induction ceremony of which Dr. Rudnicki was a part, four others were Nobel laureates.

 

Dreamtime.com

Some people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy do not live beyond their 20s, a disease with no known cure. Duchenne is a genetic disorder of progressive muscle degeneration and weakness that becomes life-limiting. Treatment may enable some of its sufferers to live into their 30s. Untying this Gordian knot of nature's biological blips has led Dr. Ruckniki to focus his scrutiny and efforts on finding a possible solution in life-extending therapy, if not a cure.

In 1961 two Canadian scientists -- James Till and Ernest McCulloch -- were first to demonstrate the existence of stem cells in studying the effects of radiation on mice bone narrow at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto. Research now considered a seminal scientific discovery of the last century, a match in discovery as important to that of DNA/double helix.

The Royal Society has its Fellows sign a charter book dating back o 1662. Annually, about 700 scientists are nominated to The Royal Society. Of that number around fifty are voted in by members. There have been roughly 8,000 members since the founding of The Royal Society. There are 1,700 current members listed in that distinguished group of scientists who have laboured to make the world a better place, among them Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

"The very first ‘learned society’ meeting on 28 November 1660 followed a lecture at Gresham College by Christopher Wren. Joined by other leading polymaths including Robert Boyle and John Wilkins, the group soon received royal approval, and from 1663 it would be known as 'The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge'."

"The Royal Society's motto 'Nullius in verba' is taken to mean 'take nobody's word for it'. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment."

The Royal Society

No Heroes Among These Uvalde Officers of the Law

"I don't care if you have on flip-flops and Bermuda shorts, you go in!"

"The officers had weapons, the children had none. The officers had body armour, the children had none. The officers had training, the subject had none."

"One hour, 14 minutes and eight seconds -- that is how long the children waited, and the teachers waited, in room 111 to be rescued."

"The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children."

" Obviously, not enough training was done in this situation, plain and simple. Because terrible decisions were made by the on-site commander."

"You don't wait for a SWAT team. You have one officer, that's enough."

Col. Steve McCraw, director, Texas Department of Public Safety

Police blocked off the road leading to the scene of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24   Sergio Flores for The Texas Tribune

Exploding with undisguised scorn in testifying before a state Senate hearing over the Robb Elementary School mass murders, the director of its public safety department excoriated the Uvalde school district police chief, Pete Arredondo who had been in charge on that fateful May 24 day when the attack that took the lives of 19 young children and two of their teachers in a massacre of stunning proportions shocked the country and turned its attention on the easy accessibility of gun ownership for a mentally unstable 18-year-old.

Members of the Texas state senate sat silently as hours of testimony passed before them with the inexplicable evidence of police dispatched to the scene having enough officers responding in those critical first moments of the school invasion by a well-armed and obviously dangerous shooter to stop the massacre before it unfolded. Three minutes after the gunman entered the school the first responders could have entered the door leading to the classroom where children and their teachers were held hostage to murderous intent.

What did in actual fact occur was the stationing of police officers holding rifles in a hallway as time passed critically. For over an hour they waited for others to arrive as backup with more fire power and protective shields. Waiting as fear and suspense grew in the sinister situation, with desperate parents begging the police to move in, to disable the shooter, to save their vulnerable children from certain death. The parents were ignored, some even taken briefly into custody.

As a police action in a situation of grave and imminent danger to small children held captive by a man intent on committing the most reprehensible crimes imaginable, the response was criminally abysmal, an "abject failure" in the opinion of the director of public safety. Eventually the gunman was confronted and permanently disabled, sent to his death, but his monstrous work was already done in the deaths of 21 living souls.

Desperate, frightened children hid as best they could, they disguised themselves to appear dead, they hid themselves under furniture, in closets, they called 911 begging for police to arrive. And all the while police were there, just outside the door where death stalked the children. The courageous officers of the law stood waiting, waiting, waiting, and so did the children. Those who survived the horror will never again be children, they will be haunted for the rest of their natural lives.

the classroom door would easily have opened had any of the officers turned the door handle. The lock had earlier been reported broken so it could not be locked from the interior. None of the officers attempted to move the door open, waiting instead for someone to produce a key. "I have great reasons to believe it was never secured. How about trying the door and seeing if it's locked?", said Col. McRae scathingly.

State legislators wanted to know why it was that state troopers who arrived on the scene failed to take charge. The explanation? They did not have legal authority to do that. Three officers with two rifles entered the building under three minutes following the gunman's entry to the school hefting his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle. Soon afterward several more officers entered. The two who were early entering the hallway had been grazed by gunfire. And that was enough to put them out of the business of saving children's lives.

Visitors paid their respects at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on June 2. Twenty-one people, including 19 children, were killed by a gunman at the school on May 24    Lucas Boland/Corpus Christi Caller-Times via REUTERS

Show and Tell With Pride

 

Restaurants and grocery stores worry about a supply of alternative products as the government announces details of its ban on single-use plastics. in Toronto. June 20, 2022.

Steve Russell | Toronto Star | Getty Images

"By the end of the year, you won’t be able to manufacture or import these harmful plastics. After that, businesses will begin offering the sustainable solutions Canadians want, whether that’s paper straws or reusable bags."

"With these new regulations, we’re taking a historic step forward in reducing plastic pollution, and keeping our communities and the places we love clean."

"We have not closed the door to banning certain other single-use plastics.We're starting with these ones because, based on the data we have, these are the most harmful plastic substances. But it may be the case that we decide in the near future to ban some others."

Steven Guilbeault, minister of environment and climate change, Canada

 

"The government needs to shift into high gear by expanding the ban list and cutting overall plastic production."

"Relying on recycling for the other 95% is a denial of the scope of the crisis."

"It's a drop in the bucket. Until the government gets serious about overall reductions of plastic production, we're not going to see the impact we need to see in the environment or in our waste streams."

Sarah King, head, Greenpeace Canada, oceans and plastics campaign

Restaurants and grocery stores worry about a supply of alternative products as the government announces details of its ban on single-use plastics. in Toronto. June 20, 2022.

Steve Russell | Toronto Star | Getty Images

The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau is a virtue-signalling administration like few others. It is also self-congratulatory to the Nth degree, and madly in love with photo opportunities certain to be splashed over the front pages above the fold of every newspaper in Canada. And if the news is of a type that addresses a universal problem, the chances are it will reverberate further than Canada and make it to the news of the day on global media; all the better for a government obsessed with itself and with the efficacy of its patinated veneer. Shiny, green and of-the-moment.

So, there it is, another campaign promise half-fulfilled. No more plastic straws, single-use shopping bags, plastic cutlery, etc. Makers and users of such indispensable, environment-cluttering garbage have until 2024 to figure out either how to get along without them, or plausible replacements. The industry is staggering under the challenge, and outraged that it has been targeted. Too bad the same cannot yet be said of the same industry that now proliferates transparent plastic clamshells full of fresh fruits and vegetables on grocery shelves and those neat little plastic carry-bags of same.

Can't make everyone happy, can we? Some environmental groups speak of the bans as typically cosmetic, leaving the vast majority of plastic waste in Canada yet to be dealt with. Even the government's own science sources indicate the ban will have a negligible effect on, for example, ocean health, the very goal of the ban. The fact is, the real plastic culprits messing up Canada's shorelines and its portion of the world's oceans, are being ignored; at the very least not adequately addressed.

A 2019 study Environment Canada commissioned to examine the state of the Canadian plastics market estimated just one percent of Canadian plastic waste was lost to "leakage"; the meaning of which is that the waste entered the environment as litter. Of 3,268 kilotonnes of plastic waste generated in 2015, 3,239 kilotonnes was "collected"; mostly in landfills, not recycling. The Deloitte study recommended that the leakage could be reduced ten-fold by efforts "to reduce litter"; no mention of plastic bans as a solution.

The proposed federal plastics ban relied on data providing a scientific backgrounder from the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup in estimating the effect of plastic on waterways of Canada. In their 2018 report, plastic bags actually ranked sixth, and straws ninth, as items most often recovered from cleanups on shorelines. Among the worst offenders, bottle caps and cigarette butts accounting for 42.1 percent alone of all litter recovered. More recent cleanups featured rising rates of discarded surgical masks. None of these items are mentioned in the ban.

Ocean plastic is undeniably a growing global problem, but one driven almost exclusively by abandoned fishing gear, and poor waste management in the developing world. In Canada, a Ghost Gear Program was initiated in 2019, spending about $8.3 million recovering 739 tonnes of abandoned fishing gear from the oceans, representing close to a third of the estimated 2,500 tonnes of plastic litter Deloitte's report estimated find their way into the environment annually. Not among the six items the new ban targets.

A shopper places her goods into her car outside a supermarket. Canadians will need to find alternatives for plastic straws and grocery bags by the end of the year. (Mark Baker/The Canadian Press)

Art and Politics -- War and Peace

"This wasr has made me realize that the country I thought I lived in didn't actually exist -- it was an illusion."

Art is meant to be international, somethong that belongs to all humanity. But now we are cut off from that international world."

"Some of my parents' friends say that Russia doesn't need contemporary art. They call it degenerate foreign propaganda."

Evgenia, 23, staff member, GESp2, graduate, Stroganov Applied Arts Academy, Moscow

"About 80 percent of the young people who work with me signed -- but for some reason the city demanded that we dismiss only four of them. One of the four hadn't even signed the open letter, but he had shared an [antiwar] post on Instagram."

"I refused to fire anyone. So far there haven't been any consequences, but we are all waiting to see what will happen."

"There are no hard-and-fast laws. We don't have official censorship. Nobody comes and checks what we are exhibiting, nobody tells people what to post and what not to post, yet people are being fired and sent to jail for things they share on social media."

"Nobody knows what is permissible and what is not. It's worse than the Soviet Union."

Director of Moscow museum

"We decided it would be unethical to work with any state institutions in Russia as long as the state is waging this war."

"We could be locked up for our public position in opposing the war. Can you imagine?"

Tatiana Arzamasova, member, AES+F group

"The Moscow government's department of culture is run by patriotic cyborgs. Absolutely everything is now about patriotism, from cinema to the visual arts ... Most [of the art world] is against it, but people are too afraid to speak out."

"[GES-2, Garage and other contemporary art spaces are coming under] strong pressure to change their profile towards exhibiting Russian patriotic art I don't think they are ready to do that."

Nic Iljine, veteran curator

At a former power station-turned contemporary art centre known as GES-2, a stone's throw away from the Kremlin, young Muscovites wander through the cavernous halls, pose for selfies admiring the designer space. In Gorky Park, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art hosts hipsters sipping mochaccinos in the cafe. In both trendy art galleries meant to house contemporary art there is actually nothing to be seen. Russian and foreign artists withdrew their work from Garage, GES-2 and State Tretyakov Gallery.

 

The Roman Abramovitch-bankrolled Garage where his ex-wife Dasha Zhukova is the chief officer, announced suspension of all future exhibitions "until the human and political tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine has ceased". "We cannot support the illusion of normality when such events are taking place ... We see ourselves as part of a wider world undivided by war", explained a spokesperson.

 

The GES-2 gallery funded by billionaire Leonid Mikhelson, opened late last year by Vladimir Putin himself to great fanfare, has lost its artistic director, Francesco Manacorda who chose to resign in protest at the outset of the war. Anti-war protesters occupied another art centre in Venice, owned by Mikhelson. The multimillion-dollar GES-2 project could be compared to the Tate Modern. Garage threw a party full of Western celebrities in the arts when it reopened in 2015 in a new location. 

Mere days following Russia's February 24 'special operation' in Ukraine, authorities in Moscow began cracking down on critics of the regime. Those in the media, theatre and art worlds were particular targets. Over 17,000 Russians employed in the arts had signed an open letter on the third day of the war, demanding an end to the invasion. Leading bureaucrats from the Department of Culture of the Moscow City government to start calling around state-funded theatres and museums to demand they fire any employees who signed the petition.

Pussy Riot raised $6.7M NFTs Getty Images

The State Duma in early March passed a law making the "distribution of false information" about the war, even mentioning it as a war rather than the official description of a 'special military operation', punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Thousands of journalists, political activists and creative professionals took the opportunity to leave the country, among them many of Russia's most prominent artists.  The Bolshoi on the other hand, announced it planned to stage a series of performances supporting Russia's war in Ukraine, proceeds to go to families of Russian soldiers who die in combat.

A large Z -- a symbol of support for the war -- was posted across the three-storey facade of the Oleg Tabakov theatre in central Moscow. St.Petersburg artist Alexandra Skochilenko last month was arrested for replacing supermarket price tags with messages to protest Ukraine's invasion. And for that unspeakable crime she faces up to ten years in prison on charges of 'discrediting the Russian army.

"[The war has caused] tectonic plates to shift ... everyone is in a new world now. There could be a creative explosion like in the 1920s ... both in propagandistic and anti-propagandistic art."

"Or we could be heading into a swamp where art becomes military and religious and imperial. Artists are being forced to make a choice."

Nikita Scriabin, Moscow graphic artist

Riding the Devil in Afghanistan

"There's a lot of good people here. Engineers, doctors, educated people."

"But they have problems with drugs. The problem is getting worse, day by day."

Drug addict, Pul-e-Sukhta underpass, Kabul, Afghanistan

 

"I was a graduate from school and I prepared for college and loved a girl and I was unsuccessful. The family did not approve."

"After that, there was no chance for me, so I just used heroin to calm myself."

"When I came out [of Kabul's Ibn Sina rehabilitation hospital], what could I do? There was still no work."

"I have been to the hospital, but I became addicted again when I left."

Syed Ramin, 32, drug addict, Kabul

 

"By order of our supreme leader, Haibatullah, there has been a decision to reduce the problem."

"Nowadays there has come a reduction of our drug problem."

Abdul Nasir Munqad, Taliban leader appointee, hospital director

 

"Our problem is different to European countries, where people take drugs for pleasure. If we ask our patients, they have no jobs, they have no income."

"We started our religious classes because our country is a religious country and it has a good effect. It is our experience that we can root out this problem with religious classes." 

Dr. Atiq Azimi, secretary to the Ibn Sima rehabilitation hospital director

Drug addicts rounded up by the Taliban and forced to shave their heads brace for 45 days of withdrawal at the Avicenna Medical Hospital for Drug Treatment in Kabul. Many others have been sent to prisons that lack any drug treatment

Afghanistan is held to have one of the highest proportions of opium or opiate use within its population, in the world. In a nation of 39 million people, the country has an estimated 1.9 to 2.3 million regular drug users, according to a survey undertaken in 2015. The situation has become worse since then with the economic collapse that struck the country when international aid that supported many of Afghanistan's institutions disappeared with the return of the Taliban.

In one place along the outskirts of the capital Kabul, there are nearly a thousand drug addicts who shelter under a bridge in a western neighbourhood of the city. People stumble about, barely conscious of their surroundings, skeletal, disinterested in anything, focusing on drugs. To the curious onlooker many of those who exist within this area appear to be close to death. Yet among the living corpses, tradespeople selling tea move about.

Above the bridge underpass a regular stream of traffic moves, its noise barely noticed by those of the living dead below. All efforts to put a stop to the country's drug trade have failed. There is a burgeoning new trade in methamphetamine, exacerbating the situation where traditionally opiates ruled the market. Most of the addicts living under the bridge relate their stories of addiction to heroin or meth; some explain their addictions began as migrant workers in Iran.

Others speak of the dangers of grinding tours of the southern provinces while with the Afghan military, fighting the Taliban, which led them to drug use. When the Taliban resumed power in August of 2021 one of the initiatives it spoke of was to solve the country's addiction problem. They took to rounding up thousands of addicts off the streets, to force them into the Ibn Sina rehabilitation hospital.

Taliban fighters round up drug addicts in Kabul.

There are a thousand beds in the hospital and following the Taliban raids such crowding occurred as to see three patients in each of those beds. Overcrowding led to violence and conditions where little prospect of weaning addicts away from drugs seemed possible. Hospital doctors persuaded the Taliban to stop funneling addicts into the hospital. Many were taken to prisons instead. The hospital, now administered by a former prisoner of Bagram high-security prison, houses far fewer patients now.

Each of those patients undergoes a 45-day program to help with drug withdrawal where the firs 14 days are devoted to detoxification, followed by rehabilitation. Since enforced roundups were stopped almost all patients are 'voluntary'. Brought by their families to the hospital they cannot leave during treatment in a situation which houses them like inmates. Some of the patients try to escape their confinement. There are frequent clashes between patients and staff and violence occasionally breaks out.

"There are big differences between treating drug addicts in prisons and proper addiction-treatment centers. If patients think they are being forced to quit addiction...they will never accept treatment."
"No one can quit drugs if they are not ready to. The only way a drug addict can quit is to satisfy himself and prepare himself psychologically, which is not possible in prison." 

Salem Sadid, local psychologist, Farah, Afghanistan

"Definitely when there are economic hardships, when the population is displaced, they want to seek mechanisms to cope with their hardships."

"That definitely makes people vulnerable to more regular drug use."

Kamran Niaz, Office on Drugs and Crime, United Nations