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September 2019

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

As so often down the centuries, Europe is blowing itself up again Jeremy Warner

By on September 29th, 2019

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/09/29/often-centuries-europe-blowing/

Last week I wrote about political uncertainty as the new normal for the economy and financial markets. It seems that there is a growing body of opinion at the Bank of England that agrees.

In a speech, Michael Saunders, an external member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, said that UK interest rates may need to fall further regardless of what happens over Brexit, such is the likely seemingly never-ending uncertainty created by its political fallout.

This runs contrary to the official line, which is that even in the event of a no deal Brexit, interest rates may have to rise to deal with the inflationary consequences of any shock to output capacity.

Very few people believe this is actually what would happen in practice, and now along comes Mr Saunders to say, indeed; the economy is already slowing precipitously, so we may need to cut whatever happens over Brexit.

I’ve given up trying to figure out where we’ll end up on this journey. Almost any prediction is rendered redundant within a few hours by the unfathomable politics of the UK’s predicament.

Last week’s Supreme Court judgement seems to make the chances of a deal, already quite slim, vanishingly improbable.

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Rouhani Has Exposed the Futility of European Diplomacy by Con Coughlin

By on September 29th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14937/iran-europe-diplomacy

The reality of the delusional approach adopted by Mr Macron and other European leaders was, though, brutally exposed the moment Mr Rouhani arrived in New York. Instead of showing any sign of seeking to repair Tehran’s strained relationship with the West and its allies, he instead indulged in an orgy of self-justification in which he sought to portray his country as an innocent victim of Western aggression rather than accepting, as is really the case, that Iran was the primary instigator of the latest escalation in tensions.

“The security of our region shall be provided when American troops pull out.” — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, UN General Assembly, September 25, 2019.

This will have made for uncomfortable listening for all those European leaders who still believe that the best way to resolve the global crisis with Iran is by trying to save the nuclear deal.

The reality is that, so long as Tehran remains committed to its hostile stance towards the West, there is little prospect of having a constructive relationship with Iran.

The utter futility of European attempts to keep faith with the flawed Iranian nuclear deal has been brutally exposed in the wake of the uncompromising approach adopted by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during the United Nations General Assembly.

In the build-up to the UN’s annual jamboree of global networkers, there had been much speculation that, against a background of mounting tensions in the Gulf over Tehran’s aggressive conduct, the forum might provide an opportunity to re-establish a dialogue with the ayatollahs.

To this end French President Emmanuel Macron has, in particular, been actively trying to broker a diplomatic rapprochement between Tehran and Washington, to the extent it was even suggested that a bilateral meeting might be possible between US President Donald Trump and Mr Rouhani.

The reality of the delusional approach adopted by Mr Macron and other European leaders was, though, brutally exposed the moment Mr Rouhani arrived in New York. Instead of showing any sign of seeking to repair Tehran’s strained relationship with the West and its allies, he instead indulged in an orgy of self-justification in which he sought to portray his country as an innocent victim of Western aggression rather than accepting, as is really the case, that Iran was the primary instigator of the latest escalation in tensions.

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Tehran’s ‘We Did, We Didn’t’ Game by Amir Taheri

By on September 29th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14938/iran-we-did-we-didnt-game

For four decades, the mullahs have successfully practiced their “do-and-deny” tactic thanks to the indulgence, not to say cowardice, of Western leaders and the pathetic anti-Americanism of some Western pseudo-intellectuals.

Western anti-American intellectuals who become apologists for the mullahs are victims of their inability to conceive of a situation in which, while America may be bad, its adversary may be worse.

Then we had America versus the Third Reich. Later, America vs. the Soviet Empire, vs. the Vietcong and Khmer Rouge, vs. the Afghan Taliban, vs. Saddam Hussein. In every case, even if America was not the shining city on the hill, its adversary at the time was much worse.

Apologists for the Islamic Republic do not do it a service. By endorsing its illusions and shielding it against deserved criticism, they encourage its worst tendencies — tendencies that could cost Iran and the region more than they imagine.

How to take credit for a mischief you have committed but do not wish to own up to?

This is the dilemma Tehran apologists face when discussing the latest shenanigans in the region, including missile and drone attacks on Saudi oil installations.

On the one hand they want to take credit for the attacks and cast the Khomeinist regime as a mighty power capable of giving as good as it takes in a duel against the American “Great Satan.” They try to cast Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the little Tom Thumb taking on Donald Trump as the giant of the folk tale.

On the other hand, they try to cast Iran as an innocent victim, highlight the sufferings of babies supposedly left without powdered milk and old women running out of medication.

Wrapping up that theme is the claim that the Islamic Republic has done absolutely nothing that merits sanctions, and that the latest attacks were the work of Yemeni Houthis, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraq’s PMF or even the army of djinns commanded by Zaafar al-Jinni from the 1001 Nights.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Little Engine That Couldn’t : Roger Kimball

By on September 29th, 2019

amgreatness.com/2019/09/28/the-little-engine-that-couldnt/

The Democrats think the very fact that a president is impeached is enough to tarnish his reputation and diminish his chances of success in the election. Don’t bet on it.

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make ridiculous. Has it happened to the Democrats yet? I think so, yes. I think so.

“Whistleblower” is already being enrolled in the lexicon of political disasters, and not just on account of pictures of the priapic Bill Clinton with Monica Lewinsky and featuring a rude joke about “whistleblowers” (“You know how to whistle don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow”).

No, “whistleblower” has entered the joke book of American politics because of the wild discrepancy between aspiration and reality that it represents.

Just last week, an all-points bulletin was blaring from the Get Trump media and the assorted fantasists in the Democratic Party. “Now we’ve got him, lads. Impeachment is just around the corner.” The New York Times said so. So did CNN and MSNBC. So did Nancy Pelosi, soon-to-be-former speaker of the House. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was so certain of it that he thought he could get away with pretending to read the transcript of Donald Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president while actually just making stuff up.

Really. There he was, piece of paper in hand, addressing the House Intelligence Committee (and millions of viewers at home), exuding his signature “the-President-is-not-above-the-law-deer-in-the-headlights-automaton” countenance. The whole thing, Schiff said, was a “mafia-like shakedown.”

“I want you,” he pretended to read, “to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand, lots of it, on this and on that. I’m going to put you in touch with people, not just any people, I’m going to put you in touch with the attorney general of the United States, my attorney general Bill Barr. He’s got the whole weight of the American law enforcement behind him.”

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MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: ON THE JEWISH NEW YEAR-REFLECTIONS ON SURVIVAL AND RESILIENCE

By on September 29th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/09/on_the_jewish_new_year_reflections_on_resilience_and_survival.html

Tonight, Jews will celebrate the advent of 5,780 years of our existence. On reflection it seems almost impossible that after millennia of persecution and genocide we have survived. Great and powerful empires — Hellenist, Roman, Hittite, Mesopotamian — have disappeared and we are still here.

We remain links in an unbroken chain which started in Hebron, the cradle of our faith; which led us from slavery in Egypt; which defeated worship of false idols; which defied assimilation and conversion; which brought Commandments as a guide to decency in private as well as public life; which survived an epic genocide in which one of every three Jews in the world were slaughtered.

Most recent in our history of resilience and survival is the advent of Jewish sovereignty in ancestral lands only three years after the Genocide.

In a remarkable rescue of survivors from Europe and persecuted Jews from all the Arab nations, the Jews of Palestine, with the help of international Jewish charity and social institutions, set up absorption centers to provide counseling, housing, vocational training, and language schooling to teach Hebrew.

The latter was no minor undertaking since it is safe to say that more people in the world spoke Mongolian than Hebrew, which, outside of Israel was largely relegated to ritual and prayer in the Diaspora.

One of the first acts of Israel’s new parliament was to abolish the priority of English as a national language and replace it with Hebrew: parliamentary debate and enactment of laws was to be conducted exclusively in Hebrew. This was an act of nationalism as well as a pointed rebuke to Great Britain for its historic duplicity with respect to a Jewish homeland.

The revival of Hebrew as a modern language can actually be credited to Eliezer Ben Yehuda ((1858-1922), who went to Israel in 1891 determined to revive the language. His mantra was “Hebrew in the homes and schools” and “talk and talk.”

But it was modern Israel that accomplished this in the shadow of the unrelenting Arab war and terrorism against the state.

Today, roughly seven million citizens speak, argue, teach, and enjoy chatter in fluent Hebrew.

Even more remarkable, roughly seven million people make outsize contributions to scientific, medical, technical, and social advancements and innovations that improve the lives and welfare of billions of people in every single continent on the planet.

Again, this is achieved in the shadow of hypocritical and overtly anti-Semitic slanders from every corner of the world.

On this holiday, as on every Jewish holiday, I reflect with awe and pride on our remarkable legacy of survival and resilience. I give thanks to the United States, the happiest corner of the Diaspora where we remain free to worship and assemble and dissent under the protection of government and laws and our President Donald Trump.

Happy 5780!

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s Jewish Demography Refutes Pessimism Yoram Ettinger

By on September 29th, 2019

https://bit.ly/2m4TM7c

In defiance of Israel’s “demographers of doom” – who have promoted the myth of an Arab demographic time bomb – the September 2019 data published by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) documents the sustained Westernization of Arab fertility rate (number of births per woman), a persisting increase in the Jewish fertility rate, growing Aliyah (Jewish immigration) and the decline of Jewish emigration.

According to the ICBS, the Jewish fertility rate for 2018 ascended to 3.17 births per woman, while the westernized Arab fertility rate decreased to 3.04. When the Jewish father is Israeli-born, which points at the current trend, the Jewish fertility rate grows to3.34 births per woman.

In 1969, the gap between Arab and Jewish fertility rates was six more births per Arab woman; in 2015, the gap was closed at 3.13 each.  This evolved into a Jewish edge in 2016 (3.16:3.11), and reached all-time high Jewish edge in 2018 – 3.17:3.04.

The systematic Westernization of the Arab fertility rate characterizes the Muslim World, other than the Sub-Sahara societies.  According to the 2019 edition of the CIA World Fact Book, Jordan’s fertility rate is 3.14 births per woman, the West Bank – 3.2, Saudi Arabia – 2.04, Kuwait – 2.35, the UAE – 1.73, Egypt – 3.41, Iran – 1.96, etc. Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than any Arab country other than Yemen, Iraq, Egypt and Sudan.

The Westernization of the fertility of Israeli Arabs (as well as the Arabs of Judea and Samaria) has been, primarily, a derivative of a rapid and substantial urbanization, as well as the enhanced stature of Arab women. Israeli Arab women are rapidly upgrading their integration in the education system (74% of registered Arab students from elementary schools through academic institutions), expanding their role in the job market and career opportunities, delaying wedding age to 23-25 year old (not 15 as it used to be), completing the fertility process at 45 (not 55 as it used to be) and dramatically increasing the use of contraceptives and resorting to abortion. There has also been a rise in the number of single Arab women. 

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GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on September 29th, 2019

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Heart implant is a breakthrough (twice). (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (see here) on the interatrial shunt developed by Israel’s V-Wave. The US FDA has just granted two Breakthrough Device Designations to the device – the first is for Heart Failure (HF), and the second, for Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH).
http://vwavemedical.com/2019/09/12/v-wave-receives-second-fda-breakthrough-device-designation-interatrial-shunt-for-pulmonary-arterial-hypertension/
 
Spine device gets humanitarian status. (Ty Atid-EDI) I reported previously (see here) on the twisted spine treatment from Israel’s Apifix. The U.S. FDA has given Humanitarian Device Exemption (HDE) to Apifix to market its MID-C system. Apifix addresses the unmet clinical need for an alternative to spinal fusion.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190827005604/en/ApiFix-Receives-FDA-Approval-Commercialize-MID-C-System
 
US approval for upright wheelchair.  I’ve reported previously (see here)about Israel’s UPnRIDE robotic standing wheelchair that allows wheelchair users to travel upright. The US FDA has just cleared the UPnRIDE for marketing and use in the US. Cofounder Dr Amit Goffer is a quadriplegic who uses the UPnRIDE himself.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-upnride-standing-wheelchair-receives-fda-clearance-1001301453
 
FDA approves diabetes management system. I’ve reported previously (see here) on the diabetes monitors from Israel’s DreaMed. The US FDA has just given approval to DreaMed’s Advisor Pro, to add to its EU approval. The software tells Type 1 diabetics how much insulin to use, without having to contact a physician.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/DreaMed-wins-FDA-clearance-for-AI-insulin-recommendation-technology-601846  
 
Smartphone CKD diagnosis approved. (TY Atid-EDI) I’ve reported previously (see here) on Israel’s Healthy.io and its smartphone-based urinalysis for Chronic Kidney Disease. It is now US and EU approved and some 100,000 kits have been sold. Healthy.io has just raised $60 million of funds. https://healthy.io/about-us/
https://vimeo.com/200176528 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLQ5lqsq2Y0(UK Financial Times video)
 
US approval for ultrasound skin tightening. (TY Atid-EDI) I recently reported (20th Aug) that Israel’s SofWave had received CE certification for its non-invasive ultrasound technology for skin tightening. It has now also received FDA approval. 86% of a recent trial demonstrated improvement in wrinkle appearance.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sofwave-medicals-low-divergence-ultrasound-technology-has-received-fda-clearance-for-the-aesthetic-treatment-of-facial-lines-and-wrinkles-300918611.html
 
US approval for lung diagnosis catheter. I reported previously (May 2017) on Israel’s Body Vision Medical when it was producing hi-res maps of the lungs to aid tumor removal. Since then it has developed a disposable lung navigation catheter which recently received US FDA approval. The company has also raised $20 million.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3771163,00.html
 
EU funds heart protection device. Israeli startup Filterlex Medical has received 2.1 million euros from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. Filterlex develops an embolic protection device to reduce the risk of stroke and other complications during catheter-based heart procedures.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3770877,00.html http://filterlex.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e48mW5-Zdxo
 
Treatments for eye diseases. (TY Atid-EDI) Israeli biotech Wize Pharma markets Israeli-developed LO2A eye drops for the treatment of ophthalmic disorders, including Dry Eye Syndrome. Wize is now to develop and trial the WP-REP1 gene therapy from Cleveland’s Copernicus for treating the rare eye disease Choroideremia.
http://wizepharma.investorroom.com/2019-09-09-Wize-Pharma-Enters-Exclusive-License-Agreement-for-Ophthalmic-Non-viral-Gene-Therapy-Technology   https://www.wizepharma.com/lo2a-eye-drops
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBw3cO_YMsM
 
Innovative infusion systems. (TY Atid-EDI) The infusion systems of Israel’s Eitan Group (Q-core, Sorrel and Avoset), are installed worldwide. E.g. there are 100,000 of Q-cores Sapphire devices in the market. Eitan has now agreed that Canadian Hospital Specialties will supply and support Sapphire across Canada.
https://www.massdevice.com/how-the-eitan-group-aims-to-disrupt-the-infusion-pump-industry/
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/canadian-hospital-specialties-to-distribute-eitan-groups-sapphire-infusion-systems-in-canada-300918470.html  
 

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BOOKS Comments turned off

The Persistence of the Oldest Hatred: Hillel Halkin Reviews “How To Fight Anti-Semitism” by Bari Weiss

By on September 28th, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/books/review/how-to-fight-anti-semitism-bari-

Bari Weiss has written what must be judged a brave book. That it must be is a badge of shame for the “progressive” America with which she identifies.

Should it call for courage for a politically liberal American Jew like Weiss to point out that Jews, though a tiny percentage of the population of the United States, are the victims of over half of its reported hate crimes? That anti-Jewish rhetoric, once confined to right-wing extremists, now infests the American left, too?

Should someone like Weiss, an editor and opinion writer at The New York Times, have to expect brickbats from her colleagues for observing that a vicious demonization of Israel and its supporters has become routine in much of the American left and endemic on college and university campuses? That whatever its failings, Israel is a remarkable human adventure that deserves at least as much sympathy as criticism? That it is only natural for a Jew to care deeply about a Jewish state’s welfare and survival? That Jewish solidarity is as legitimate as any other form of human solidarity?

Should she have to fear ostracism or damage to her journalistic reputation for pointing out that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, while theoretically distinguishable, have long merged into a single ugly phenomenon? Or that it is obscene, less than a century after the Holocaust, to class Jews with their historical “white oppressors”?

Unfortunately, as Weiss writes in “How to Fight Anti-Semitism,” the answer to all these questions is yes.

Weiss’s book, whose careful organization and articulate prose belie its hurried composition in the wake of last October’s Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, is not just about the left. (A native of Pittsburgh herself, she retains a strong attachment to its Jewish community.) The Pittsburgh shooter was a lunatic-fringe white supremacist, and “How to Fight Anti-Semitism” seeks to be evenhanded: Its chapter on the anti-Semitism of the left is preceded by a chapter on the anti-Semitism of the right and followed by a chapter on the anti-Semitism of radical Islam. Though not claiming to be original, Weiss is admirably succinct in her explanation of why groups having nothing else in common are united in their dislike or hatred of Jews. “In the eyes of the anti-Semite,” she writes, “the Jew is … everything.” It is not the actual Jew that most anti-Semites hate (many of them have never met one) but what they project onto him. “He is whatever the anti-Semite needs him to be.”

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Intel Community Secretly Gutted Requirement Of First-Hand Whistleblower Knowledge By Sean Davis

By on September 28th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/27/intel-community-secretly-gutted-requirement-of-first-hand-whistleblower-knowledge/

Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. This raises questions about the intelligence community’s behavior regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.

The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about [wrongdoing] from others.”

The internal properties of the newly revised “Disclosure of Urgent Concern” form, which the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) requires to be submitted under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), show that the document was uploaded on September 24, 2019, at 4:25 p.m., just days before the anti-Trump complaint was declassified and released to the public. The markings on the document state that it was revised in August 2019, but no specific date of revision is disclosed.

The complaint alleges that President Donald Trump broke the law during a phone call with the Ukrainian president. In his complaint, which was dated August 12, 2019, the complainant acknowledged he was “not a direct witness” to the wrongdoing he claims Trump committed.

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How about a Bipartisan Treaty against the Criminalization of Elections? By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on September 28th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/how-about-a-bipartisan-treaty-against-the

Setting aside Hunter Biden, there was no impropriety in President Trump’s asking Zelensky to assist the Justice Department’s investigation into the origins of the Russia probe.

Back home in the Bronx is where I first heard the old saw about the Irishman who, coming upon a donnybrook at the local pub, asks a bystander: “Is this a private fight or can anybody join?”

I was a much younger fellow then. The prospect becomes less alluring with age, so I have some trepidation stepping in between two old friends, Andrew Napolitano and Joe DiGenova. Through intermediary hosts, the pair — Napolitano a former New Jersey Superior Court jurist and law professor, DiGenova a former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and prominent defense lawyer — brawled this week on Fox News (where I, like they, contribute regularly).

I’m going to steer clear of the pugnacious to-ing and fro-ing. Let’s consider the intriguing legal issue that ignited it.

Judge Napolitano argues that the July 25 conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky contains the makings of a campaign-finance crime. He highlights Trump’s request for Ukraine’s help in investigating then–vice president Joe Biden. In 2016, Biden pressured Kyiv to drop a corruption investigation of Burisma, a natural gas company that paid Biden’s son, Hunter, big bucks to sit on its board.

Biden, of course, is one of the favorites for the Democratic presidential nomination. Napolitano reasons that the information Trump sought from Ukraine would be a form of “opposition research” that could be seen as an in-kind donation to Trump’s reelection campaign, which should be deemed illegal because the law prohibits foreign contributions and attempts to acquire them. (Napolitano also raised the “arguable” possibility of a bribery offense, on the theory that Trump was withholding defense aid as a corrupt quid pro quo to get the Biden information. But he emphasized the foreign contribution issue. That is his stronger argument, and I am focusing on it, given that the Trump-Zelensky transcript does not support a quid pro quo demand; plus bribery, in any event, raises the same “thing of value” proof problems addressed below.)

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