Majorityrights News > Category: Jewish Diaspora

“It was the result of ‘mental health issues’, and a spontaneous attack, victims selected at random - no indication of radicalization or terrorist motivation”....no racial motives. The significance of the incident’s location was ignored.

  The attack occurred in the late Joe Cox’s district

Courtesy Jez Turner: Breaking! Somali stabbed people at the site of the makeshift memorial to Jo Cox!

Placards, cards, flowers and messages to Jo Cox adorned the railings at this (south-east) corner of Russell Square.  I walked past on Saturday night and counted about 20 or so items tied to the railings by the entrance to the gardens here with one big one saying ‘‘Jo Cox not forgotten’‘, and even late at night tourists would stop and read them. Look at the map of the incident on this BBC article! - Jez Turner

LONDON (AP) — A Norwegian-Somali teenager went on a knife rampage through London’s Russell Square, a hub for students and tourists, fatally stabbing an American woman and injuring five other people.

Police said Thursday that it wasn’t terrorism — but in a city on edge after a summer of attacks elsewhere in Europe, both authorities and London residents initially responded as if it were. Police flooded the streets with extra officers and mobilized counterterror detectives before saying the shocking burst of violence appeared to have been “triggered by mental-health issues.”

Police officers used a stun gun to subdue the 19-year-old suspect at the scene of the stabbings late Wednesday, among busy streets lined with hotels close to the British Museum.

“Terror in London” ran the headline in the Mail Online, one of several media outlets to speculate that the attack was an act of terrorism. Police initially said terrorism was “one line of inquiry being explored.”

But hours later Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said “we have found no evidence of radicalization or anything that would suggest the man in our custody was in any way motivated by terrorism.”

He said detectives from the force’s murder and terrorism squads had interviewed the suspect, his family and witnesses and searched properties.

“We believe this was a spontaneous attack and the victims were selected at random,” Rowley said.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said “there is no evidence at all that this man was motivated by Daesh” — another name for the Islamic State group — or similar organizations.

Rowley said the suspect, whose name hasn’t been released, is a Norwegian of Somali ancestry — though police don’t consider that “relevant to the motivation for his actions.” Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service said he had left the Scandinavian country in 2002, when he was a small child.

The name of the dead woman, thought to be in her 60s, hasn’t been released. U.S. Ambassador Matthew Barzun confirmed she was American, tweeting: “Heartbreaking news that a U.S. citizen was killed in #RussellSquare attack. My prayers are with all the victims and their loved ones.”

Two Australians, an Israeli, an American and a British citizen were wounded, none with life-threatening injuries.

While knife crime is a regular occurrence in London — there have been two other blade killings this week — the scale and randomness of the rampage rattled nerves. It came just days after authorities warned the British public to be vigilant in light of attacks inspired by the Islamic State group elsewhere in Europe.

Student Megan Sharrock, 18, looked out her window and saw someone lying on the sidewalk under a blanket.

“There was like two rivers of blood running away from the person so we thought, yeah, someone has been killed,” she said.

“It’s really shocking, (a) scary world we live in to think that could happen,” she said. “That could happen to anyone, just walking down the street.”

Helen Edwards, 33, who lives in the area, came out for a walk and found it thronging with armed police near. In a city with vivid memories of the deadly July 7, 2005, bomb attacks on public transport — two of which struck near Russell Square — she immediately suspected that an attack had occurred.

“There is always that thing in the back of your mind,” she said. “You live with that threat of terrorism or other crimes in the back of your mind. It wasn’t a huge shock I guess.”

The response to the attack is complicated by the frequent overlap between terrorism and mental illness. Many “lone wolf” attackers have a history of mental-health problems, including a Syrian who blew himself up in the German town of Ansbach last month and a Somali man who was sentenced to life this week for trying to behead a London Underground passenger.

Emily Corner, a researcher at University College London who studies the links between mental illness and terrorism, said every incident of major violence now sparks the same debate: “Are they a terrorist or are they mentally ill?” In some cases, the answer is both, though Corner stresses that most terrorist attackers are not mentally ill, and most people with mental illness are not violent.

The Russell Square attack came within hours of an announcement by London police that they were putting more armed officers on the streets to bolster public confidence in the wake of recent attacks in Europe.

          Mika Brzezinski: Don Black says that she looks like “a bird”

A thought occurs to me in contrast to my long standing position in deference to “the wisdom of the body for its tens of thousands of years of evolution by contrast to social judgment.”

​I usually like to take the side of the “abnormal” because, like everybody, I have witnessed ignorant bullying of certain nonstandard types by crassly subjective people - those oblivious to the fact that others may object to the complete dismissal of what really are other valid values (perhaps even necessary from an ecological standpoint) and aesthetics - a recent example: Don Black saying Mika Brzezinski “looks like a bird.” That’s his stupid opinion. I admit that his wife, Chloe, is hot - still, it is a bit weird that she was Duke’s wife first. And I must object as Mike Brezinski is a pretty lady too.

Chloe Hardin-Duke-Black (whatever), here with Duke. She’s definitely cute, too.

I still maintain the wisdom of the body as a correct bias and a correct basis for social critique - especially with regard to bodily shapes, forms, functions that really cannot be helped. And I am on the record as saying that women with big noses and flat chests can be beautiful as well - even though these things can be “helped.” I had a girlfriend who was flat chested and she was quite fine to me. Neither she nor other flat chested women should have breast implants, nor should most women who have bigger noses have nose jobs - there is a such thing as ugly big, but more often such a thing as elegant, impressive, big noses. I hate it when people take the position that “a woman cannot look that way” (when in fact, they can sometimes look better than women with big boobs and small noses). But a contrasting position occurs to me with regard to fat - and the “fat shaming” which I suspect that the YKW are lobbying against.

It is valid too, to an extent, to object to getting heavy handed with fat shaming, along with other arguments against the tyrannical regularity of certain types presented as normal and beautiful - viz., in respect to the fact that it is truly a bit harder for some people, especially as they get older, to stay thin. Another side to it has unfolded before me - though not really a side which in this case that I had been fully against anyway and which would have been discovered if anyone had questioned me.

I just completed an 8 day fast. No food. Plenty of water. Coffee (sorry, I know the pro’s and cons, not going to stop it); vitamins and minerals: vitamin D, Zinc, Omega 3 with B6, Magnesium, Vitamin C pellets); and my one caloric indulgence - over the course of the 8 days, I had a total of 5 small cups of tomato juice.

I did some exercise also - went pretty easy, only pushing myself in a few moments, overall doing slower, steadier activity - like walking. I like doing exercise that gets me somewhere or something done - shoveling a ditch that I need fits the bill - so I did some of that too.

Kardashian - somehow not hard to resist

It wasn’t a really big surprise but it was a little surprised to find myself fatter than I thought that I would still be after this. I don’t look very fat, but I do look like the guy who is perhaps confident, if not a bit too comfortable with himself - more comfortable than I really am in that regard. However, I will not be fat, even if my body does not sense that yet. This is where I am getting to a semi-interesting realization that I had today. Even after having finally eaten 3 ounces of steak, 4 ounces of chicken (with pieces of garlic in it), a cup of blackberries, a half kilo of cherries, an apricot, an avocado, beansprouts, a red and a yellow bell pepper, a small red hot chili pepper, a small amount of coleslaw, a small amount of beet salad, and a half a head of broccoli…

I am not really surprised to find my mind more fixated on food and my brain signaling, “tasty food,” “eat” - even more than when I was in the midst of the 8 day fast - because that is what happened last time that I fasted. My body is saying, “boy, wasn’t that steak tasty” mmm and “that avocado, yum.”

However, I am not starving. My gut is not issuing hunger pains. I believe that these are secondary signals long evolved from the time when food might not be available in days to come, so my body encourages me (and I will now say) a bit stupidly, and not wisely, to eat more and even get fat for the possibility that I may not have access to food in the near future. In these episodes, my body and its biology are “stupider” than my conscious mind and society.

My conscious mind does know that I will be eating again before long - I will fast again tomorrow but then have a modest meal on Saturday and then eat on alternating days until I get to the weight I want, at which point I will figure out a maintenance diet and regime.

But especially when you are NOT starving, not nutrient deprived, will not be, then you know that your body’s sending faint warning signals against these things - necessary and wise though these signals are to have in place - can and should at this time be overridden by conscious intelligence; an intelligence which connects with the social patterns which keep telling me: “hey, you don’t look so bad - but your stomach is sticking out.”

I also have observed that the first thing women instinctively look at is the top of my stomach - (not that I am necessarily trying to pick them up, but I don’t like having social engagement cut off as abruptly as that, either) that seems to be a place by which they can intuitively gauge your age: too old if the top part of your stomach is protruding—probably because its harder for older people to stay thin and that’s a typical indicator.

Jennifer Lopez - a Whitish looking face and a ghetto booty: I can live without it.

Anyway, so while the “fat shaming” can be overdone, it can be underdone as well - and that is a case where conscious and social wisdom can, at times, be wiser than the “wisdom of the body.”​

But that’s the thing - people on the right don’t realize that the YKW (as usual) are exaggerating good social positions and critiques beyond all reason in order to make them didactic.

Quoting myself: one evening in McSorley’s Old Ale House, a TV talk show crew came in with a lesbian couple (black and White woman) who were asking men’s opinion as to whether the White girl should get breast implants since she thought that would please her black girlfriend. I was asked my opinion by the production crew. I answered that in particular, “I rather like flat chested women, so my opinion is particularly biased against breast implants for that reason for starters; but there were more reasons to be against it than that; including as part of a more general stance against bodily alteration - I believe that given that our bodies have evolved over tens of thousands of years, that they are bound to be wiser, smarter if you will, than our conscious decision making and should be given the benefit of the doubt against our anxieties and against popular consensus; rather, we should try to learn what our bodies have to teach us about our interface with the social ecology and bring our corporeality to bear in social critique if necessary, rather than the other way around - bending to what may well be a popular fad against the better wisdom of our evolution.” I was told by the couple that my answer was good and they asked me to sign a release; but the bartender, yes that one, asked, “what was that ‘stuff’ you were saying? I don’t think that was what the TV producers were looking for.” I suppose that he was right and that my opinion was not aired.

Reuters, “Islamists attack French church, slit priest’s throat”, 26 July 2016:

The men arrived during morning mass in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, a working-class town near Rouen, northwest of Paris, where the 85-year-old parish priest, Father Jacques Hamel, was leading prayers

Knife-wielding attackers interrupted a French church service, forced the priest to his knees and slit his throat on Tuesday, a murder made even more shocking as one of the assailants was a known would-be jihadist under supposedly tight surveillance.

Church in St. Etienne

 

 

 

As the attackers came out of the church shouting “Allahu akbar” (“God is Greatest”) they were shot and killed by police..

“They forced him to his knees and he tried to defend himself and that’s when the drama began,” Sister Danielle, who escaped as the attackers slayed the priest, told RMC radio.

“They filmed themselves. It was like a sermon in Arabic around the altar,” the nun said.

Three other worshippers were held hostage until the assailants were killed, one of them was badly wounded during the attack.

Breitbart, “Black Lives Matter Protesters Torch French Town” 25 July 2016:

Multiple Black Lives Matter protesters have been arrested in France after demonstrations against the death of a Malian man in police custody left Beaumont-sur-Oise and other nearby towns in flames. Of those arrested, some are being charged with throwing incendiary objects at security forces and others for “trying to burn down” their towns.

       

Despite a huge police presence, Saturday marked a fifth night of violence in the Val d’Oise district after the death of Adama Traoré in police custody on Tuesday. During demonstrations against Mr. Traoré’s death, protesters, some wielding baseball bats, torched cars, petrol pumps, bins, and piles of rubbish. Buildings were also set alight, including a large warehouse in Persan, near Beaumont-sur-Oise.

DM, “Syrian refugee, 21, hacks PREGNANT woman to death with machete and injures two others before hero BMW driver runs him over in yet another attack in Germany”,,

- Syrian refugee, aged 21, went on a machete rampage in the city Reutlingen, Germany near to a doner kebab stand

- He killed one woman and injured a man and another woman in the attack before being detained by the police

- The motive for the attack is unclear but it has been reported he had a dispute with the woman before he killed her

A Syrian refugee wielding a machete has killed a pregnant woman and injured a man and another woman in Germany before being arrested by police after he was run over by a man driving a BMW.

The attack happened in the south western city of Reutlingen near a doner kebab stand in a bus station at Listplatz Square in what has been described as a ‘crime of passion’.

German media have been reporting that the motive for the attack in the city south of Stuttgart was unclear but the attacker and the 45-year-old Polish victim both worked at the same snack bar.

                “Tim Kaine Will Be the Jewiest Vice President”

Forward, “5 Reasons Tim Kaine Will Be the Jewiest Vice President Pick for Hillary Clinton,” 22 July 2016:

Tim Kaine is Hillary Clinton’s pick for Vice President, somewhat to the chagrin of the Democratic Party’s left wing and the — somewhat premature — excitement of Wikipedia. He has one of the longest records of service in politics among the people on Clinton’s shortlist, going back to his 1997 election as the mayor of Richmond, Virginia.

Kaine has also been a friend to the Jewish community for about as long as he’s been in public service. During his various campaigns, Kaine has repeatedly reached out to the Jewish community, conducted interviews with Jewish leaders and spoken about America’s relationship with Israel.

“He made himself very available to the Jewish community,” said Ron Halber, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. “He took the Jewish community very seriously as a constituency,” even though it only represented a small portion of the Virginia electorate.

But Kaine is connected to the Jewish community in several other ways, as well. Here are five facts about Tim Kaine’s relationship to Judaism and Israel.

1. He supports a two-state solution even when others don’t.

Kaine is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East, Central Asia and terrorism, and held the chairmanship of the committee for two years. In March, he signed a letter, along with twenty-six other senators, urging President Obama to continue his support for the two-state solution. His predecessor as chairman of the subcommittee on the Middle East and terrorism, Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, didn’t sign the letter.

Kaine’s decision to skip Bibi Netanyahu’s speech in Congress in March 2015 was also widely noticed throughout Washington. It was a clear message: Kaine did not agree with the timing of the talk, and Netanyahu’s perceived political motivations for delivering it before the Israeli elections.

“I’m not dumb, I knew not going to the speech might make some folks mad with me — there would be a political price, but I felt so strongly as a matter of principle that this was done in an entirely inappropriate way,” Kaine told the Forward.

Ron Halber, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, said that it would be “a foolish mistake” to interpret Kaine’s move as being in any way unsupportive of Israel.

“He is keenly aware of the security challenges” in the region, Halber said.

2. He’s a religious Catholic, so he understands the imperatives, and difficulties, of observance.

Kaine is a dedicated, practicing Catholic who represents the Democratic party at the Senate’s weekly prayer breakfast on Wednesdays. He is also a member of a “reflection group,” along with six other senators, that holds faith-centered discussions. Though he does not personally agree with abortion, he sees a woman’s right to make decisions about her body as an important right, and does not support anti-abortion legislation. As a Catholic he’s used to being viewed as an outsider by white Protestants.

When Kaine found himself living in D.C., away from his wife, he decided to write a bible commentary on weeknights.

“He could’ve chosen to find other ways to address his loneliness that were either chemical or social in nature,” said Rabbi Jack Moline, the executive director of the Interfaith Alliance. “But he spotted the opportunity for deeper social reflection into a piece of scripture that particularly spoke to him.”

3. He brought hummus to Virginia.

During his time as the governor of Virginia, Sabra built the what is reportedly the world’s largest hummus factory outside Richmond, capable of producing 8,000 tons of hummus a month. Kaine was apparently directly involved.

“He’s the man who brought Sabra hummus to Virginia,” said Rabbi Jack Moline, the Executive Director of Interfaith Alliance. According to Moline, Kaine “wooed” the company to set up shop in his state.

Kaine authorized $350,000 from the Governor’s Opportunity Fund to help bring the project to fruition, beating out two other states for the privilege of being at the heart of American hummus production.

4. He’s hosted a Passover Seder — multiple times.

In 2006, during his first year as governor of Virginia, he hosted the first ever Passover Seder in the governor’s mansion. He is apparently part of a group of friends that rotates hosting the Seder each year, and that year it happened to be his turn. It also wasn’t his first time hosting — his home had been a slot in the rotating group for several years before his election.

5. He played “Yente,” matchmaking for Rabbi Jack Moline’s daughter.

Moline’s daughter and son-in-law met while working on Kaine’s campaign for governor of Virginia in 2005.

“If he hadn’t run for governor, I wouldn’t be a grandfather,” said Moline.

Forward, “Tim Kaine, Pro-Israel Centrist From Virginia, Hillary Clinton’s Vice President Pick”, 22 July 2016:

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton announced her vice-presidential running mate by text to supporters today. She will unveil U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, formally tomorrow.

Virginia’s Kaine is a centrist pro-Israel choice who should please moderate Jewish voters as Hillary’s No. 2.

“He’s not going to appeal to the Bernie Sanders voters. He’s a centrist,” Ron Halber, executive director of the Greater Washington JCRC, told the Forward. Halber has forged a relationship with Kaine both as governor and as senator.

Kaine might offer some ammunition to Israel hawks as an early endorser of the Iranian nuclear deal, and like her he chose to skip Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress.

5 Questions for Tim Kaine on Israel

But as a middle-of-the-road-Democrat and a co-sponsor of Iran-related legislation, Kaine made choices that, when it came to the nuclear deal, drew attention in the pro-Israel community.

“I’m not dumb, I knew not going to the speech might make some folks mad with me — there would be a political price,” Kaine told the Forward shortly after. “But I felt so strongly as a matter of principle that this was done in an entirely inappropriate way.”

Kaine, who has also served as head of the Democratic National Committee, has visited Israel several times and has supported the funding of Iron Dome systems and the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act. Halber noted that he was a “very good friend” of the U.S.-Israel partnership, but he added that if chosen as vice president, he may want to see movement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. “His social background and his sympathy to the oppressed will likely make him want to see a solution,” he said, “but he will also support defending Israel in the U.N. and expanding the relationship.”

Kaine is a member of a small group of senators who participate in a biweekly reflection group organized by the Faith and Politics Institute.

“I had many, many personal deep conversations with him, and he is genuinely a friend of Israel,” said Rabbi Jack Moline, one of the group’s moderators. Moline believes that much of Kaine’s worldview was shaped during his work as a Jesuit missionary in Honduras. “It had an immense influence on his understanding of the need to make the world a better place.”

In Virginia, Kaine hosted the first Passover Seder in the governor’s mansion.

Before entering the U.S. Senate the well-liked Kaine had been the mayor of Richmond, governor of Virginia and chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Kaine, 58, is a fluent Spanish speaker after serving as a missionary in Honduras, and his presence on the ticket could help Clinton in Virginia, a heavily contested swing state.

Another senator, Cory Booker of New Jersey, along with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack were among the final contenders.

The announcement had been expected. The Wall Street Journal, citing Democrats familiar with the search, had said she was likely to make the announcement on Friday and Kaine was believed to be the pick.

Clinton, a former secretary of state, will be formally nominated as the party’s presidential candidate at next week’s Democratic convention in Philadelphia. Her choice of Kaine as running mate could provide an early signal about her plan of battle against Trump.

Picking Kaine, a veteran mainstay of the Democratic establishment with plenty of governing experience, emphasizes her message that Democrats will offer a serious, steady alternative to the unpredictable Trump after the chaotic Republican convention that closed on Thursday.

Booker, a charismatic rising star in the party, would have given her candidacy a jolt of energy as Clinton enters the three-month grind of the general election. Booker, 47, would have been the first black vice president and his help might still be vital to boost turnout among young and African-American voters.

Other potential contenders on Clinton’s short list included U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a liberal favorite, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and Hispanic Cabinet members Julian Castro and Thomas Perez.—With Reuters

This article was updated at 8pm EST to reflect Hillary Clinton’s announcement of her running mate.

               
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Some Polish and other EU companies are adopting the right wing anti-labor strategy that Russia has been notorious for deploying: Forced North Korean labor

(((ViceNews))) Cash for Kim: How North Koreans Are Working Themselves to Death in Europe, 23 May 2016:

..“North Korea is the world’s largest illegal jobs agency.”

VisigradPost, “EU companies employ North-Korean slaves,” 14 July 2016:

EU – The NGO European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea (EAHRNK) reported that companies are employing North Korean workers in a semi-legal way – see their report about the Polish case. Their salaries go directly to fuel Kim Jong-un’s regime.

The death of Chŏn Kyŏngsu in 2014, a North Korean who worked on a Polish shipyard, the Crist Shipyards in Gdynia, contributed to start the investigation of the EAHRNK. The man worked 12 hours a day, 6 days per week. His salary was the minimum to survive and the only trip he was authorized to do was to go to work and go back home. Still according to the NGO, these conditions are imposed by Kim Jong-un and are systematic for the North Koreans that work in a foreign country. Chŏn Kyŏngsu was never given an employment contract. Chŏn Kyŏngsu burnt as he was welding pipelines, a Polish colleague helped him and he went to a hospital with 95% of severe burns over his body. The body was sent back to his family in North Korea with 637 EUR.

The work permits that are delivered are totally legal, but the work conditions aren’t. The North Korean embassy in Warsaw said that nobody was taking their salaries. But a worker said anonymously to the EAHRNK that “a manager told us that foreign companies employ us because we cost no money, and that they cut the price for the trip, gas, electricity, from our salaries. They never told us how much we were paid.” Also, the ambassy took their passports, and give them back only for exceptional situations, to go to the hospital for example.

According to another testimony, to work in a foreign country, North Koreans have to be married and their wife and children to stay in North Korea, so the country keeps the control upon them. NGOs estimate that, only in Poland, there are between 500 and 800 North Koreans working, mostly employed at shipyards and constructions sites. Also, in Poland, “there are no distinctions between nationalities and categories of workers, meaning that there are no extra procedures required for North Korean citizens” say Jacqueline Sanchez-Pyrcz, director of the Department of Foreigners at the Masovian Voivodeship in Warsaw. So the system is authorized by Polish law. North Korean workers are employed in many other European countries, such as Malta, Czechia, …

On the 6 July, the United States imposed penalties for serious violations of human rights on North korea. For the first time Kim Jong-un was directly affected by these economic sanctions. According to Remco Breuker, a professor of Korean studies at the University of Leiden : “What is going on in Malta and Poland directly contravenes national and EU laws, as well as international treaties, such as that of the ILO. It also defies the sanctions against North Korea set by the UN and the EU, although it is debatable to what extent. All things considered, there should be enough reason for the EU to take an interest in the topic, but so far, this has not happened.”