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Resources updated between Monday, June 12, 2017 and Sunday, June 18, 2017
June 18, 2017
June 16, 2017
Authorities said Friday that a female Border Police officer died after succumbing to her wounds following a suspected coordinated attack carried out by three terrorists in multiple areas of the Old City in Jerusalem.
Hadas Malka, 23, was taken to the emergency care unit at nearby Hadassah University Medical Center following the attack. Hospital officials later pronounced her death after failing to save her life.
Police said that the suspects used an "automatic weapon and knives" during the assault.
Two individuals were also evacuated to Hadassah University Medical Center in moderate and light condition after sustaining wounds from the attack. The hospital said it was treating another patient for shock.
"We saw two wounded civilians near the Damascus Gate, a man of about 40 and a young man of about 22," an MDA spokesperson said in a statement.
"They were fully conscious and suffered from 'penetrating injuries'... We provided them with emergency medical treatment and evacuated them to the hospital with their condition being moderate and stable."
A police spokesperson said that the three terrorist were "shot and killed" following the attacks. Police added that at least one of the suspects used an automatic weapon and "opened fire" during the incident.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that the event was a coordinated attack carried out by suspected Palestinian terrorists.
They were later named as 19-year-old Bara Ibrahim Muhammad Saleh; Adel Hassan Ahmad Anakush, 18; and Osama Ahmad Mustafa Atta, 19, according to statement released by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).
All three, according to the statement, had "a background in terrorist activities," or were arrested by Israeli authorities before Friday's attack.
According to The Jerusalem Post's sister publication Maariv, the first attack occurred near Damascus Gate at the entrance of the Old City when two assailants armed with knives attempted to stab members of a Border Police Unit, critically wounding the female officer.
Maariv added that one of the attackers also carried a homemade automatic weapon. The weapon jammed, however, before the assailant could cause more casualties.
The second attack reportedly occurred near Zedekiah's Cave, located in the Muslim quarter of the Old City. It remains unclear if anyone was wounded following the incident. The suspect was also shot and killed by authorities.
Police have blocked the area off and are currently investigating the situation.
"Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter to human rights groups telling them that Washington was evaluating the U.N. Human Rights Council and that continued U.S. participation would depend on considerable reform of the body.
Tillerson did not elaborate on the kinds of reforms the United States wanted. But in a speech delivered last week before the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley provided the long-awaited details...
The council's three biggest problems are:
June 15, 2017
"Indigenous activists from all around the world are calling on a United Nations committee to make cultural appropriation a criminal offense.
The 189-delegate committee, which is a subset of the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization, has been in Geneva this week working on a task that it began in 2001: Creating international regulations would ban people from "stealing" indigenous art, dance, and medicine.
Now, it's important to emphasize that these advocates are not simply asking the UN to issue a statement calling out cultural appropriation as harmful; they actually want to implement laws and institute enforcement mechanisms to punish it as a criminal offense. As reported by CBC News, James Anaya, the dean of law at the University Colorado, spoke to the committee on Monday and demanded that the final document 'obligate states to create effective criminal and civil enforcement procedures to recognize and prevent the non-consensual taking and illegitimate possession, sale and export of traditional cultural expressions.'
This is, of course, incredibly stupid. Almost everything in the world has been called "cultural appropriation" by now, and it would be hard to think of a single person who might not end up inadvertently violating one of these laws..."
A UN Committee Is Considering Making "Cultural Appropriation" Illegal Worldwide Article
Released North Korea detainee Otto Warmbier suffered extensive brain damage and shows no current signs of botulism, doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center said Thursday.
The 22-year-old has not spoken or "engaged in any purposeful movements" since arriving in the country Tuesday night, said Dr. Daniel Kanter, professor of neurology and director of the Neurocritical Care Program.
"He shows no signs of understanding language or responding to verbal commands," the doctor said, adding that Warmbier's condition is best described as "unresponsive wakefulness."
The doctors said they could not speculate on what caused his injuries. They said they had no information about the kind of care he received in North Korea.
The earliest images of his brain from North Korea are dated April 2016, Kanter said. An analysis suggests the injury likely occurred in the preceding weeks.
"This pattern of brain injury is usually seen as result of cardiopulmonary arrest where the blood supply to brain is inadequate for a period of time resulting in the death of brain tissue," he said. The doctors would not discuss Warmbier's prognosis.
Recently released North Korea detainee Otto Warmbier has suffered severe neurological damage and his family flatly rejects the regime's explanation for his condition, reporters were told Thursday in his Ohio hometown.
Warmbier, a 22-year-old college student who returned Tuesday to the United States after 17 months in detention, is in stable condition at University of Cincinnati Medical Center but has a "severe neurological injury," hospital spokeswoman Kelly Martin said.
Martin declined to elaborate, saying doctors will share more information about Warmbier's condition in a separate news conference Thursday afternoon.
But Warmbier's father left no doubt he blames North Korea, blasting the secretive regime in a 23-minute news conference at his son's alma mater, Wyoming High School north of Cincinnati.
The family doesn't believe North Korea's explanation that Otto fell into a coma after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill shortly after he was sentenced in March 2016, Fred Warmbier said.
"Even if you believe their explanation of botulism and a sleeping pill causing a coma -- and we don't -- there is no excuse for any civilized nation to have kept his condition a secret and denied him top-notch medical care for so long," Warmbier said.
The father, wearing the cream sport coat his son wore during his televised trial in North Korea, stopped short of saying how he believed his son was injured.
"We're going to leave that to the doctors (to explain) today," he said.
He called on North Korea to release other American detainees.
"There's no excuse for the way the North Koreans treated our son. And no excuse for the way they've treated so many others," he said. "No other family should have to endure what the Warmbiers have." Conviction and release
Otto Warmbier was a University of Virginia student when he was detained in January 2016 at the airport in Pyongyang while on his way home. He had been on a tour of the reclusive country, his parents said.
North Korean authorities claimed they had security footage of him trying to steal a banner containing a political slogan that was hanging from a wall of his Pyongyang hotel.
That was used as evidence in his hourlong trial. He was found guilty of committing a "hostile act" against the country and sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years of hard labor. It was the last time he was seen publicly before this week.
His parents learned of their son's condition -- what North Korea called a coma -- only last week, they said in a statement.
Critical of Obama administration
Fred Warmbier appeared critical of the Obama administration's handling of Otto's detention, saying the family heeded the US government's initial advice to take a low profile "without result."
They kept quiet "on the false premise that (North Korea) would treat Otto fairly and let him go," he said.
He said he and his wife, Cindy, decided this year that the "time for strategic patience was over," and so they did media interviews and traveled to Washington to meet the State Department's special representative for North Korean policy, Joseph Yun.
Yun met in May with North Korean representatives in Norway, and the North Koreans agreed that Swedish representatives would be allowed to visit Otto Warmbier and three other US detainees, a senior State Department official said on condition of anonymity this week.
After the Swedes visited one detainee, North Korea representatives sought another meeting with Yun, and it was at that June 6 meeting in New York that North Korea's UN ambassador told Yun that Warmbier was in a coma, the official said.
North Korea released Warmbier six days later.
Fred Warmbier praised the Trump administration's efforts: "They have our thanks for bringing Otto home."
When asked whether then-President Barack Obama could have done more, Warmbier replied, "I think the results speak for themselves."
Father, supporters share emotional moment
The father saluted his son as a brilliant, adventurous and courageous man who did what he could to endure brutality and terror.
Fred Warmbier shared an emotional moment with supporters after he left the news conference. While driving away, he saw a group of about 150 people wearing blue and white shirts, and ribbons of the same color combination, in support of Otto at a nearby intersection.
He left the vehicle and spoke to the crowd. Some were in tears as he spoke to them.
"I'm proud of my son," he said.
"We're proud of him, too," some in the crowd shouted back.
Three other US detainees
Warmbier's release coincided with basketball star Dennis Rodman's latest visit to North Korea, though Michael Anton, a US national security spokesman, told CNN there is no connection between the two.
Fred Warmbier said the same Thursday.
"Dennis Rodman had nothing to do with Otto," he said.
Rodman was asked by reporters Tuesday if he would bring up the cases of Warmbier and three other Americans detained in North Korea. "That's not my purpose right now," he said. "My purpose is to go over there and try to see if I can keep bringing sports to North Korea."
The other Americans held by Pyongyang are Kim Sang Duk and Kim Hak-song, academics who worked at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, and businessman named Kim Dong Chul.
U.S. Student, Detained in North Korea, Returns Home with Severe Brain Injury Document
Akram was 7 years old when he learned how to behead a person. The lessons started with pictures that showed the way to decapitate an enemy. He then graduated from drawings to a town square, where he witnessed a real beheading.
Akram, now 8, was a prisoner of ISIS for 2 ½ half years. In captivity, he underwent brutal training, including torture, as he learned to become a child soldier.
Freed by Kurdish fighters two months ago, along with a younger brother and sister, he is now in a refugee camp 25 miles east of Duhok, a Kurdish-controlled city in northern Iraq. Their mother is still in captivity.
The nightmare began when Akram and his mother were shot while fleeing ISIS invaders. Akram was taken to the ISIS-controlled city of Mosul, where doctors removed five bullets from his back.
During his first three months in captivity, he was regularly beaten if he didn't learn his lessons about Islam. He was forced to study Arabic in order to read the Koran. Akram is a Yazidi, a member of an ancient non-Muslim minority in Iraq. In 2014, ISIS attempted to massacre the Yazidis in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq, charging that they are infidels who must be destroyed.
Jan Kizilhan, a 50-year-old German psychologist of Kurdish background, treats victims of ISIS torture. In a recent telephone interview, he spoke about Akram's unimaginable childhood. Kizilhan said that Akram is often unable to sleep because of nightmares. He also beats his younger siblings, an expression of underlying anger at his brutal treatment in ISIS captivity.
Kizilhan said Akram is already showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, an affliction of soldiers who fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kizilhan said he has to speak very slowly to Akram, and must frequently repeat things.
When interviewed by Kizilhan, Akram bites his nails. His eyes dart around the room, without making human contact.
The scrawny boy with close-cropped brown hair tells Kizilhan that his captors often threatened to cut off his hands. He then runs his fingers around his neck and says they also repeatedly warned him that they would decapitate him if he were defiant during weapons training. He has learned to fire a variety of weapons.
ISIS would only let Akram see his mother when he showed progress in becoming a good soldier. "He missed her and didn't think he could survive without her," said Kizilhan. "This was how they controlled him."
The first step toward helping Akram is to build trust, said Kizilhan, to show him that there is an alternate society where barbaric behavior is not the norm. Naji Hamo, a psychologist who is Kizilhan's student, will undertake the effort to build this trust.
Kizilhan has brought more than 1,000 severely traumatized Yazidis to a treatment facility near Stuttgart in the German state of Baden Wurttenberg, which has allocated $107 million over three years to operate the treatment center.
Reflecting on the history of man's cruelty, Kizilhan cited the Turkish massacre of the Armenians and the millions of Jews gassed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Then he spoke of the personal emotional toll he experiences when he witnesses the destruction of Akram's childhood.
He recalls another tragic victim of ISIS, a mother who refused to convert to Islam and refused to learn Arabic, or read the Koran. ISIS punished her by placing her 2-year-old daughter in a black box in the torrid August heat.
Despite the mother's sobbing pleas, ISIS would not let the girl out of the box. On the seventh day, when the child was near death, the bearded ISIS guard broke her back in two places. She died two days later. The mother cried uncontrollably when she told Kizilhan this story.
"I have to learn to distance myself from the Akrams of the world," he said. "Otherwise I will not be able to treat him."
How can people be so cruel?
This is the question that Kizilhan asks himself, but he finds no answer.
ISIS Child Soldier Tortured, Taught How to Behead ISIS Enemies Document
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution today that will create a new counter-terrorism office to operate without a definition of terrorism.
The resolution to create the new entity, called the "Office of Counter-Terrorism," was introduced by the President of the General Assembly, Peter Thomson of Fiji, who described it as the first "major institutional reform" initiative of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The "reform" is reported to be a means to plant a Russian in a new high level post within the U.N. secretariat. The new Under-Secretary-General position, mandated to provide "strategic leadership" on U.N. counter-terror efforts, is expected to be filled by Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.
UN expands its counter-terrorism bureaucracy minus a definition of terrorism Development
Sudan, where "development" includes genocide and crimes against humanity, was elected by a whopping 175 of 193 members of the U.N. General Assembly today to serve on the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a body composed of 54 U.N. member states.
ECOSOC's mandate is to "advance the three dimensions of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental." How Sudan advances development at home according to the U.S. State Department's country report on human rights practices in Sudan:
"[A]erial bombardments of civilian areas by military forces and attacks on civilians by government and other armed groups...and abuses perpetrated by [National Intelligence and Security Services personnel] with impunity," as well as "[a]ttacks on villages often includ[ing] killing and beating of civilians; sexual and gender-based violence; forced displacement; looting and burning entire villages; destroying food stores and other infrastructure necessary for sustaining life; and attacks on humanitarian targets, including humanitarian facilities..."
Genocidal Sudanese Regime Elected to U.N. Body Mandated to Advance Living Conditions Development
As he testified on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was asked whether the Trump administration supports the World Trade Organization.
Tillerson responded, 'Yes, but W.T.O. needs some reform.'
Then, Tillerson was asked whether the administration supports the United Nations. His response was superb.
'Yes, the U.N. needs a lot of reform.'
I say superb for a simple reason.
Namely, because unless the U.S. qualifies its support for the U.N. to that institution's reform, it will continue failing...
For a start, as I've explained, the U.N. is terribly dysfunctional. Originally designed to provide for global peace, today's U.N. is hamstrung by a bureaucracy that seeks consensus above all else.
It's a consensus with a heavy price tag. Over the last 25 years, from Bosnia to Rwanda to Syria, the U.N.'s impotence has allowed hundreds of thousands of innocent people to die. Those deaths haunt the U.N.'s pristine corridors.
Yet incompetence is far from the U.N.'s only issue.
The organization is also hugely wasteful...
Of course, if the U.N. doesn't want to reform, then that also okay.
In that case, European governments - those who regard themselves as the world's great peacemakers - can make up the difference."
June 14, 2017
A newly released report issued by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres accuses Israel of damaging Palestinian social and economic conditions, while minimizing Israeli security concerns and whitewashing Palestinian responsibility for their own conditions. The report was drafted by the infamous Lebanon-based Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), a UN commission which was recently forced to withdraw a report accusing Israel of apartheid and whose former head resigned in wake of the scandal. However, the Secretary-General had no problem putting his name on the new report, which maintains ESCWA's anti-Israel bias.
The report includes a litany of complaints and allegations against Israel:
UN Secretary-General Produces Another UN Report Condemning Israel and Minimizing Palestinian Terror Development
"The World Health Organization (WHO), the troubled United Nations health agency, has just elected a controversial new director-general. The choice should disturb taxpayers, members of Congress, and the Trump administration.
We'll soon hear condemnation of the administration's plan for steep cuts in funding of international organizations, as proposed by the White House's budget blueprint. Cuts to WHO will draw dire warnings about global pandemics and cries for America to do more.
Global public health is, indeed, critical to American interests at home and abroad, and the U.S. government is the largest contributor to WHO's approximately $2 billion budget. However, like other U.N. subsidiaries, WHO is plagued by persistent wasteful spending, utter disregard for transparency, pervasive incompetence, and failure to adhere to even basic democratic standards. None of these problems are new, but they are worsening, and the latest developments underscore the need for tough love in the form of responsible stewardship of our largesse.
The May 23 election of Ethiopian politician Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to head WHO is the latest evidence that reform won't come from WHO itself. Dr. Tedros, as he likes to be called (he has a Ph.D. in community health), is a leader of Ethiopia's brutal minority party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, a wing of the ruling Marxist-rooted Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. He served the violently repressive regime as minister of foreign affairs from 2012 to 2016, after a stint as health minister...
The AP obtained documents showing that WHO 'routinely has spent about $200 million a year on travel expenses, more than what it doles out to fight some of the biggest problems in public health, including AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.'..."
Stop Funding the U.N.'s Health Agency Until It Cleans Up Its Act Article
June 13, 2017
"United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday dismissed calls by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to shut down UNRWA, the UN agency for 'Palestinian refugees'.
Netanyahu's call came after terror tunnels were discovered underneath one of UNRWA's schools in Gaza. Guterres 'is concerned about recent public criticism of UNRWA and the integrity of its operations,' spokesman Farhan Haq said, according to AFP.
'He wishes to express his support for UNRWA and his admiration for the role it plays in delivering essential services and protecting the rights of millions of Palestine refugees across the Middle East.'
Guterres also 'calls on all member states to continue their support to the agency in order for UNRWA to be in a position to fulfill impartially and efficiently its essential role,' Haq added...
The discovery of a terror tunnel underneath an UNRWA school is not the first time that UNRWA has been found to be involved with Hamas.
During the 2014 counterterrorism Operation Protective Edge, Hamas rockets were discovered inside an UNRWA school building.
Likewise, a booby-trapped UNRWA clinic was detonated, killing three IDF soldiers. Aside from the massive amounts of explosives hidden in the walls of the clinic, it was revealed that it stood on top of dozens of terror tunnels, showing how UNRWA is closely embedded with Hamas.
More recently, it was revealed that Suhail al-Hindi, a Gaza employee of UNRWA, had been elected to Hamas's political bureau..."
U.N. Secretary-General concerned about the criticism of UNRWA, not the actual scandals Article
"The United Nations has confirmed that its top official in Myanmar is being moved from her position...
Internal UN documents - shown to the BBC - said the organisation had become "glaringly dysfunctional", and wracked by internal tensions.
A UN spokeswoman confirmed Ms Lok-Dessallien, a Canadian citizen, was being 'rotated', saying this had nothing to do with her performance which she said had been 'consistently appreciated'.
Late last year as tens of thousands of Rohingya fled rape and abuse at the hands of Burmese soldiers, the UN team inside Myanmar was strangely silent.
Ms Lok-Dessallien and her spokesman declined simple requests for information; and on one absurd occasion she visited the conflict area, but on her return refused to allow journalists to film or record her words at a press conference.
The BBC was told that on numerous occasions aid workers with a human rights focus were deliberately excluded from important meetings..."
U.N.'s top Myanmar official failed to prioritize human rights Article
June 12, 2017
At a meeting of the UN committee charged with allowing NGOs to gain greater access to the UN, but whose members include states infamous for denying freedom of speech and association, Iran tried to censor the speech of the United States delegate regarding an NGO dedicated to monitoring Iranian human rights violations. The censorship attempt occurred on June 12, 2017, during the final meeting of the 2017 session of the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations held to adopt the 2017 report.
The draft report being considered included a summary of the statements made by Iran and the U.S. during consideration of the application of the U.S. NGO "Iran Human Rights Documentation Center" back on May 30, 2017. May 30th marked the 15th time over a period of 7 years that the NGO's application had been blocked. Iran blocked the NGO's application for UN accreditation at the May 30 meeting by asking what legal documents they intend to translate and distribute in Persian/Farsi and the amount of resources allocated to this activity. During the consideration, the U.S. strongly objected to Iran's question, noted that the NGO had responded to each unnecessary question asked of it, and asked that Iran withdraw its question and that the U.S.'s statement be reflected in the record of the meeting.
According to the summary of the meeting in the report of the 2017 session, the U.S. noted that the NGO had "dutifully" responded to the NGO Committee's requests for information. At the June 12 meeting to adopt the committee report, Iran objected to the word "dutifully" appearing in the report, arguing that the U.S. had not used that word when it issued its statement during the May 30 meeting. The U.S. responded that Iran had no right to edit another member state's statement and that "dutifully" accurately reflected what the U.S. had said.
After Iran again objected that the report should be accurate and not include a word the U.S. had not said in its original statement, the U.S. said that it was stating now, on the record, that the NGO had answered all questions asked of it "dutifully." Iran argued that the U.S. was not entitled to reopen its original statement.
After an hour's debate, the committee adopted without a vote the report as introduced, including the word "dutifully."
But when it was all over, Iran still succeeded in derailing the NGO's application for accreditation.
At UN NGO Committee Meeting, Iran Tries to Censor U.S. Delegation Development
"Last February, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres traveled to Cairo to outline his vision for peace in the Arab world in a major speech. His advisors privately urged him to signal U.N. concerns about rampant human rights violations by the Egyptian government, and included a brief passage in his speech highlighting the importance of civil liberties.
It never got uttered.
The omission provided early insight into a U.N. leader who has chosen to tread lightly on human rights issues as he seeks to carve out a role for himself as a potential peacemaker around the world. In meetings with influential foreign autocrats, from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud, Guterres has shown an aversion to delivering stern lectures about crackdowns on journalists and human rights advocates.
'He doesn't talk about these things; he doesn't like bringing them up,' said one European ambassador based at the United Nations...
But the U.N. leader's reticence about trumpeting human rights concerns from the podium has vexed some diplomats and human rights advocates, who argue that it is all the more important for the U.N. chief to confront abuses at a time when the United States under President Donald Trump, as well as some of its European allies, has downgraded the importance of human rights in its own foreign policy...
If the Trump administration's retreat from human rights advocacy seemingly makes Guterres' role all the more important, Washington's animus toward the United Nations - Trump has proposed slashing U.S. funding for the U.N. - also has him watching his steps.
'The wrecking ball in Washington has led him to tread more cautiously than he might have on human rights,' [Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth] Roth said...
In his Cairo speech, Guterres chose to ditch his script, delivering a partly extemporaneous address. 'Did he intentionally leave out the positive words about the importance of civil society? Or did he just ad lib nearly the whole thing, and forget about civil society?,' said one U.N. diplomat. 'I can't answer that.'..."