Impulsive, Mercurial, Ill-Informed, Conflicted and Frighteningly Powerful

"The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country; [Russia is second and China is] a distant third [but catching up]."

"Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis."

"That process will begin immediately."

"They seem to all be nuclear testing. We halted [testing] many years ago, but with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also."

"I’d like to see a denuclearization. We’re actually talking to Russia about that, and China would be added to that if we do something."  

U.S. President Donald J. Trump

US President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he walks to Marine One in Washington, DC, October 24.  Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

 

"Either he is talking about testing missiles, but the United States already does that. Or he is talking about subcritical tests, but I don't think he has mastered that level of technology."

"Or he is talking about real tests, but no one does that, except North Korea." 

"We are almost certain that Russia and China are conducting subcritical tests that release a certain amount of energy but remain within the limits."

"[But] in the United States they are conducting more restrictive subcritical tests, with no energy release, no heat and no critical reaction."

"But it's an extremely complicated subject, and I don't know if he is at that level of subtlety."

Heloise Fayet, researcher, Institute of International Relations, France

 

"Initially, I thought Trump was reacting to Russia's announcements about new systems like the nuclear-powered cruise missile Burevestnik and the Poseidon torpedo."

"So my first interpretation was that Trump was referring to system testing, not warhead testing."

William Alberque, former head, NATO nuclear non-proliferation centre 

 

"Regarding the tests of Poseidon and Burevestnik, we hope that the information was conveyed correctly to President Trump."  

"This cannot in any way be interpreted as a nuclear test."

"The US is a sovereign country which has a right to make its sovereign decisions. But I want to recall President Putin's statement, which has been repeated many times: if someone departs from the moratorium, Russia will act accordingly."

"There is indeed an ongoing [nuclear testing] moratorium."

"Trump mentioned that other countries were allegedly testing nuclear weapons. Up until now, we have not known that anyone was testing. And if the reference was to the [nuclear-powered] Burevestnik  [cruise missile] test, that is by no means a nuclear test."

"All countries are developing their defense systems."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov 

A sub-surface atomic test is shown March 23, 1955 at the Nevada Test Site near Yucca Flats, Nev., AP/U.S. Atomic Energy Commission

"Trump is misinformed and out of touch. The US has no technical, military, or political justification for resuming nuclear explosive testing for the first time since 1992."

"Trump will trigger strong public opposition in Nevada, from all US allies, and it could trigger a chain reaction of nuclear testing by US adversaries, and blow apart the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty."

Daryl G Kimball, executive director of the ACA [Arms Control Association]  

At a time in the world when there is a general taut aura of suspicion and suspense, tense suppositions and subterfuge, while in various corners of the globe conflicts and bloodshed on a huge scale blight the landscape, among degradation of human rights, and three world powers are jockeying for position as global power giants what is most definitely not needed are gestures and potential acts that can only have the effect of further destabilizing nations' relations with one another. Cue the most powerful of world leaders musing abstractedly over a resumption of nuclear testing in this atmosphere. 

 

Like a powerful typhoon driving oceanic crests, this same world leader in his second leadership of the United States seems to enjoy shocking the leaders of foreign nations with his ill-advised bullying, whether it be targeting trade, upsetting the world economy -- including his own by default -- or busily shifting his diplomatic weight to occupy the seat of government control of other sovereign nations to obey his whimsical notions or pay the steep price of his displeasure.

 

Nuclear experts throughout the world are now attempting to decipher Mr. Trump's full agenda in his musing over nuclear testing which convinced him to peremptorily order his military to resume nuclear testing, in defiance of international treaties of long standing to stand back from active nuclear activities. 

That explosive revelation following over three decades of international agreements to cool the atmosphere of nuclear-rattling upsmanship leaves nuclear experts puzzled over the order given the Pentagon, as to its full meaning and implementation.  

"We know for certain that some figures in Washington are already considering the possibility of conducting live tests of their nuclear weapons."

"But if the U.S. conducts tests, then we will too."

Russian President Vladimir Putin 

In this photo taken from video distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025, the crew of the Bryansk nuclear submarine of the Russian navy prepares to conduct a practice launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile during the drills of Russia's nuclear forces.  AP/Russian Defense Ministry Press S

Aboard Air Force One, President Trump in his discussion with press reporters noted it had been "many years" since nuclear tests had been conducted by the United States, but it seemed to him that the time was now "appropriate" to begin testing once more, since in his opinion other countries are thus engaged. Russia last tested a nuclear weapon in 1990 and the U.S. followed in 1992. In the 21st Century thus far it is only North Korea that has tested nuclear devices. 

 

Following hard on President Vladimir Putin's announcement of Russia's testing of nuclear-powered nuclear-capable weapons -- a cruise missile and an underwater drone -- it seems that Mr. Trump has convinced himself that the U.S. must demonstrate its preparedness to match Moscow's feat, to garner the kind of attention that he craves, reflecting on the status of the power he holds. This time it was the Kremlin that sought to cool matters down, stressing that the tests did not constitute tests of atomic weapons, per se.

 

There are, in fact, tests already carried out by the U.S. on its weaponry, similar to the recent Russian tests. The U.S. carried out tests in September of its nuclear-capable Trident missiles. Testing of the missiles, not the nuclear payload they are meant to carry. The issue has been sufficiently confused as to convince some experts that the American president has swayed toward the testing of atomic warheads. And while computer-based simulations of tests render accurate dimensions of such tests, making actual tests redundant, there are groups supporting Mr. Trump, lobbying for nuclear testing resumption.

 

"America must prepare to test nuclear weapons", stated the influential conservative think tank Heritage Foundation in a January report, referencing a "deteriorating security environment". The Russian defence ministry was ordered by Vladimir Putin in 2023 to see that its nuclear agency Rosatom must "ensure readiness for testing Russian nuclear weapons", in response to his own uneasiness over NATO's potential response to his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.   

"[The  resumption of such tests] could trigger a chain reaction of nuclear testing by America's adversaries, and blow apart the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty."

Daryl Kimball, executive director, Arms Control Association, Washington 

 

"If by testing he means nuclear explosive testing, that would be reckless, probably not possible for 18 months, would cost money that Congress would have to approve." 

"[It would] most certainly [encourage  countries like Russia, China, India and Pakistan to resume their own tests]."

"Unlike the United States, all these countries would have much to gain by restarting nuclear testing."

Hans Kristensen, director, Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists 

An nuclear-capable Trident missile is fired from a U.S. submarine. Photo by Getty Images

 

 

Smoking Contraband Illicit Synthetic Drugs in Nevada Prisons

"That is the most utilized synthetic drug that's out there, because it has the most dramatic effect when they reprint these letters."

"That's all being driven by the synthetic drug problem we have." 

"Those synthetic drugs affect everybody differently. One person can die; one person can be seriously changed of behaviour where their behaviour becomes so erratic and violent."

"Others can just collapse and pass out and become unconscious for hours."

Nevada Department of Corrections director JamesDzurenda 

AP Photo/Pat Sullivan

 

Ink printed on mailed correspondence is responsible for a substantial increase of overdoses in the Nevada prisons inmate population, according to the state's chief of prisons. And that is because difficult-to-detect synthetic drugs have been mixed into the ink used to print those letters. Hospitalization of inmates has increased substantially, with at least 127 inmates with suspected overdoses having been hospitalized in the current year. This, in comparison with 59 hospitalized for the same reason in all of 2024.

 

Four years earlier, Prisons Director James Dzurenda explained at an October 16 Interim Finance Committee meeting, only five inmates had overdosed. Six of seven prison homicides reported in 2025 were also connected to the synthetic drug, he advised state lawmakers revealing that the crisis was responsible for his coming before the committee to ask it to allocate some $350,000 to have a firm conduct a "comprehensive operations study" at High Desert Prison. To identify the connection between the smuggled synthetic drug and high prison operations overtime costs.

 

The very issue of increased hospitalizations was responsible for burgeoning overtime costs, he stressed. These are drugs, he explained, comprised for the most part of a chemical whose manufactured use is to kill wasps. The chemical is injected by traffickers into partially filled ink cartridges. The cartridges are then used to print pages laced with the chemical, and the final stage is to mail them into the prisons. 

 

High Desert State Prison. (Photo: Michael Lyle)

 

Each of those printed pages can be cut up to produce hundreds of smaller doses. And those small doses can then be smoked to take advantage of the drug properties inherent in the synthetic compounds. This, he said, is a growing national phenomenon. Each ensuing overdose requires that the affected inmate be hospitalized and monitored by law enforcement. The process takes corrections officers away from their normally assigned duties, contributing to overtime.

 

The chemical odour has become so prevalent in housing units, that it has become difficult to track the origin, making the situation that much more frustrating. The department had bought a single mail scanner, constantly in use since 2024. These are costly deices, worth $250,000 for each one. The intention is to acquire more of these mail scanners capable of detecting the presence of the drug, enabling the seizure of the contraband before it does its damage both to inmates and the bottom operations line of the prison system.  

 

Inmates in the yard at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City. Photo by David Calvert.

 

 

War Crimes in Civil War-Ravaged Sudan

 

"[I am] deeply alarmed [by reports of civilian casualties and forced displacement from El-Fasher]."

"With fighters pushing further into the city and escape routes cut off, hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped and terrified — shelled, starving and without access to food, health care or safety."

"[There is a dire need for an] immediate ceasefire [throughout the region]."

"[The UN has life-saving supplies ready, but due to the intensified attacks in the region, it has made it impossible for workers to get aid in]."

"Safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access must be allowed to reach all civilians in need."

Tom Fletcher, emergency relief co-ordinator, United Nations

 

"Our liberation of [El Fasher] is the liberation of Sudan, all the way to Port Sudan...."

"We are coming and we are coming heavy." 

"The new Sudan goes forward, the old Sudan gets destroyed."

RSF second-in-command Abdelrahim Dagalo 

 

"[The Rapid Support Forces [RSF] committed heinous crimes against innocent civilians in the city of El-Fasher, where more than 2,000 unarmed citizens were executed and killed on October 26 and 27, most of them women, children and the elderly."

Joint Forces, allies of the Sudanese military  

Camp for displaced families who fled from al-Fashir to Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan. Photograph: Mohammed Jamal/Reuters

 

Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah al Burham stated his forces had withdrawn from El-Fasher "to a safer location". In so doing, he acknowledged that his defense operations had lost the battle for the strategic city, leaving the Rapid Support Forces now in full control of all of Darfur. Even so, he made a pledge to continue to fight "until this land is purified". Despite which, analysts conclude that Sudan has now been partitioned along an east-west axis. The RSF has set up a parallel government from a territory that will prove extremely difficult for the military to extract them. 

 

This is a bloody civil war, with the RSF, formerly in partnership with the Sudanese army, since April of 2023 challenging the Sudanese government for total control of Darfur. Formerly known as the Janjaweed, horsed Arab militia in conjunction with the previous government of Omar al-Bashir who was found by the ICC to have been guilty of war crimes in Darfur, the power struggle between the two forces led to their violent separation and the challenge that followed. Since then, over 150,000 people have been killed, with over 14 million displaced in the fighting.  

"The shelling was so intense on Saturday that we had no choice but to flee El-Fashir."

"Along the way, the RSF filmed us and we were beaten and insulted - and they stole what we had on the journey."

"A number of people were captured and ransoms were demanded for their release. Some of those who were taken were later executed."

"During the journey, many people were arrested, and we suffered greatly from hunger and thirst."

Displaced Darfurian  

People arriving in Tawila have been describing the extreme violence they faced as they fled el-Fasher. AFP/Getty Images

 

 Ethnically-motivated atrocities in the western Sudanese city of El-Fasher have been reported since it fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, concluding the years-long siege that made life an utter misery for those city dwellers who were unable to flee, with the city surrounded by RSF forces. Over 18 months of siege warfare had created fear and threats of starvation for those forced to remain in the city, trapping 260,000 people without external aid being able to reach them. 

 

The Rapid Support Forces now has control over every state capital in the sprawling Darfur region comprised of mostly non-Arab, Black farming communities. NGOs, along with local groups had given warning that mass atrocities would be triggered by El-Fasher's fall to the RSF and those predictions are ringing true. Open-source intelligence and satellite imagery have confirmed the dire state of affairs now reigning for the residents of the city. 

 

According to Volker Turk, UN rights chief, there is a growing risk of "ethnically motivated violations and atrocities", as his office was "receiving multiple, alarming reports that the Rapid Support Forces are carrying out atrocities, including summary executions". According to pro-democracy activists, El-Fasher residents endured "the worst forms of violence and ethnic cleansing" since control of the area was claimed by the RSF.

 

A fighter known for executing civilians in RSF-controlled areas was shown in a video released by local activists shooting a group of unarmed civilians seated on the ground. They were killed at point-blank range. As many as 15,000 civilians from non-Arab groups in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina have been reported to be killed by the paramilitaries, with their track record of atrocities. The Sudanese army itself has also been accused of war crimes.

 

The paramilitary RSF Forces have taken over el-Fasher prompting fears of the lives of thousands of civilians   Image: UNICEF/Xinhua/IMAGO

 

 El-Fasher was considered to represent one of he grimmest places in war-torn Sudan -- thanks to a war labelled by the UN as among the world's worst humanitarian crises. Located outside the city, displacement camps were declared to be in famine. Within El-Fasher, the quarter-million population in desperation turned to eating animal feed to stay alive.  

"[The city] appears to be in a systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing of Fur, Zaghawa, and Berti indigenous non-Arab communities through forced displacement and summary execution."

"[This includes what appears to be] door-to-door clearance operations."

Yale University Humanitarian Research Lab 

 

 

"[The crisis is] the final stage of the Darfur genocide."

"I have seen videos of ditches and trenches entirely full of friends, neighbours and family members’ bodies."

"There have been reports of entire families hanging from trees."

Emi Mahmoud, Darfur Internally Displaced People Network  

 

 

The Russian Two-Front Threat

"The decisive tests are now complete."

"[I've ordered the preparation of' infrastructure to put this weapon into service in the Russian armed forces."

"[This missile is a] unique creation that no one else in the world possesses."

"[The Burevestnik has] unlimited range."

Russian President Vladimir Putin  

Reuters

 

The development by the Russian military of the nuclear-powered missile named the 'Burevestnik' was originally announced in 2018, along with a number of other technically-advanced military weaponry that President Putin introduced to the world, with gloating satisfaction. It has only now been refined and proven through test flights that it is more than capable of living up to the descriptions used by Mr. Putin those seven years ago. 

 

The missile flew for 15 hours during the October 21st, (and last) test before its announcement as having fulfilled its promise. The Burevestnik travelled 14,000 kilometres, according to Russia's military chief of staff Valery Gerasimov, who assured that that was not the weapon's upper limit. "The technical characteristics of the Burevestnik allow it to be used with guaranteed precision against highly protected sites located at any distance", he added.

 

The Burevestnik cruise missile. 1tv.ru

 

The missile indeed has formidable powers; in that it has the capability to evade all defence systems. Unspoken among the details of the missile's technological feats is a future and looming interaction with the United States whose own arsenal of similar weaponry constitute a potential threat to Russia. The announcement, amidst the grinding war that Moscow imposed on Kyiv, in an imperialist territorial threat made real, sees Mr. Putin glorying in the prospect of enlarging Russian geographic holdings, while holding its greatest adversary at bay with the threat of a bold new, advanced weapon awaiting deployment.

 

The peace talks that U.S. President Donald Trump was so confident would lead to a cessation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict have led nowhere while incidentally gifting Russia with delays enabling it to further consolidate its position in Ukraine as the war grinds on with territorial losses for Ukraine, even while the Ukrainian military makes extraordinarily good use of its own new drone weaponry that have proven to be useful in hitting targets within Russia itself, such as oil and energy terminals.

 

Preparation of the Burevestnik cruise missile for testing. Russian Defense Ministry

 

The lack of movement on Russia's part regarding concessions to Ukraine appear to have finally convinced Mr. Trump that his Russian counterpart was merely stringing him along for time, and making him look amateurishly foolish in his trust that Mr. Putin would be amenable to reason. Now that it is clear to him that Russia means what it says when it set out to 'rescue' Ukrainians from their 'neo-Nazi' government and bring a fifth of the country under its aegis, sanctions were slapped on Russia's two largest oil companies. 

 

Adamant that the Donbas in its entirety is Russia's, Mr. Putin made it clear he would not set a timetable or an end to the conflict. "We are not going to align anything with any dates or events -- we will base our actions on military rationality." 

"[Mr. Putin's announcement of a nuclear-powered cruise missile test is] not appropriate, [given Washington’s efforts to negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine]."

"He ought to get the war [in Ukraine] ended. A war that should have taken one week is now soon in its fourth year."

"That's what he ought to do instead of testing missiles."

U.S. President Donald Trump

Where's Sunny?!!!

"I live in a big house all by myself, and I just wanted to have a beating heart in this building. She is nothing but love and sweetness."

"This dog suffers from separation anxiety probably because of the loss of her first owner."

"She is always following me around. She's my best pal. She's an amazing doggie."

Norman Feigenbaum, 93, Los Angeles resident 

 

"He was very distraught and did not know what to do." 

"[The vast nature preserve where the dog was tracked to] doesn't have any water in it. At that point, it had not rained here for months. It was very concerning as to how she was surviving."

"[Between the coyotes and lack of food and water] there is no doubt she was on borrowed time."

"They [lost dogs wandering about aimlessly] don't go to sleep when they're out; they're on alert all the time. They have to be for their survival."

"She wanted to get back to him; she just didn't know how."

Jennifer Justice, volunteer, Dog Days Search and Rescue

Feigenbaum adopted Sunny four years ago from a shelter after her previous owner had died.

 

Seven-year-old Sunny, constant companion of Norman Feigenbaum was nowhere to be seen when the 93-year-old returned from a brief shopping trip and called out to her as he entered their home. The man kept calling his yellow Lab's name, going from room to room in the house they shared (Mr. Feigenbaum's wife had died in 2016, and the lonely man had gone to a shelter four years ago where Sunny, at age three, was being housed, and he adopted her to fill a void in his life.) "She was gone", he realized. 

 

It seemed obvious to the distraught man that Sunny had wanted to find him and go with him wherever he was headed; in this case, the grocery store. Thus motivated, she had managed to scale a six-foot backyard wall, having exited the house through the doggie door he'd had installed for her convenience and his. Needing help to track down Sunny, Mr. Feigenbaum contacted Dog Days Search and Rescue, a non-profit whose purpose is to help to reunite lost animals with their humans.

 

Volunteers with the rescue group distributed posters and Mr. Feigenbaum drove about on his scooter, handing out flyers to passersby. Someone, it turned out, had seen Sunny the very day she disappeared, spotting her on the very same route that Mr. Feigenbaum took to get to the grocery store. Scouring the area for days, volunteers were unable to find Sunny, and thus a week went by. "It was distressing to everybody", said Jennifer Justice whose group contacted local media to help advertise the missing dog.

 

As it happened, someone living in a house that overlooks a large nature preserve some half-mile north of Mr. Feigenbaum's house had seen a yellow lab wandering about. After seeing one of the posters, the homeowners contacted Dog Days Search and Rescue. How Sunny managed to get into the Chatsworth Nature Preserve was a puzzler. e, explained Ms. Justice, "However, the coyotes have made several holes along the fence line. Crews go in there and do some work and I think that's how she actually got in."

 

Sunny was found near the Chatsworth Reservoir in Los Angeles, the rescue shared.

 

Problem: the nature preserve is an 1,325-acre open-space preserve, and rescuers ran into problems attempting to access the private property. When rescue volunteers finally were permitted to enter the preserve, no trace was found of Sunny. Cameras and traps were set up along the fence line by the rescue team hoping Sunny might exit through one of the coyote holes and enter a trap baited with food and with Mr. Feigenbaum's unwashed socks. Sunny was seen on the cameras sniffing the socks, but failed to exit the preserve.

 

Rescuers camped out in their cars for hours each day, while Mr. Feigenbaum sat outside the fence, calling out to Sunny. Rescuers were frustrated in their attempts to contact the proper authorities with the preserve,  hoping to get permission to set up traps in the preserve itself. "It was very frustrating", Ms. Justice  recounted; "Everyone we called kept saying, 'I'm not the right person'." Finally they managed to get through for permission to access the preserve where they set up traps, twelve days after Sunny had disappeared. 

 

"Within a few hours we got her", said Ms. Justice. "She was scared. She didn't know who we were, and there was a lot of fussing going on." Sunny looked thin, and kept falling asleep. Mr. Feigenbaum was  telephoned to inform him of Sunny's rescue, then they drove directly to his house with Sunny. Sunny's tail went on metronome overdrive as soon as she saw her human. "She had a huge smile on her face", said Ms. Justice. "It was very obvious that he was her person, and he was so incredibly happy to get his dog back."   

"I was so excited and relieved. My baby was coming back to me."

"I was absolutely staggered and still am. The response has been incredible, and I'm very grateful."

"She is back to her old self. She won't leave my side."

"Without her, there's nothing."

Norman Feigenbaum 

Norman Feigenbaum, 93, had an emotional reunion (pictured) with his Labrador, Sunny, after she went missing for nearly two weeks.

 

Office Romance, Anyone?!!

"We specify the two years before cohabitation as the 'dating period' and define the first year of this period as the event year of interest when estimating the impact of forming a relationship with a coworker." 

"A potentially useful firm-level intervention based on our results is to prevent managers from having a direct influence on the career trajectories of their subordinate partners."

"Our  findings suggest that other employees dislike these relationships, particularly when they are associated with higher earnings for the subordinate partner."

"This means that regardless of whether the earnings gains obtained are due to favouritism, the appearance of favouritism should be curtailed as it can lead other workers to leave the firm." 

"Regardless of the cause, higher earnings gains for those in relationships with a workplace manager could lead to resentment among co-workers who might [rightly or wrongly] view this as preferential treatment."

Researchers: British Columbia/California/Finland

Photo: Liubomyr Vorona / iStock / Getty Images

 

Published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass., the paper, The Impacts of Romantic Relationships With the Boss is an intriguing study of the development of intimate relations between an employee and that employee's supervisor, out of which rises preferential treatment seen in improved position, increased salary, and the offense such a situation draws from other employees recognizing the office romance as unfair and possibly injurious to their own aspirations toward upward mobility and recognition.

 

The conclusion of the study producing the paper examining links between relationships with an executive and an employee and increased salary concludes that  entry into such a relationship with a manager sees the subordinate's earnings increase to an average of six percent. On the opposite side of the relationship ledger, a sundering of the relationship has the effect of triggering an 'abrupt' 18 percent decline in earnings. As well, a side effect enters the picture...that of other workers' perceptions of such romantic relationships. To the extent that the greater the subordinate's wage gains, the greater the demoralizing effect on other employees. 

 

 Data retrieved from Statistics Finland were used by the researchers to analyze employment administration statistics of Finnish office workers over 3 decades in a variety of sectors. Salary information for 1,020 manager-subordinate workplace couples as well as 728 instances of relationship breakdowns were studied by the research team. The end of a relationship was identified as the moment the workplace couple stopped living together. Determining a relationship's inauguration proved more elusive.

 

 

 

"Understanding the economic impact of these interactions (of colleagues who begin a relationship but live separately) would be interesting, but it is beyond the scope of our data", they stated of the study that recognized mostly female subordinates dating male managers to discover that these women realized raw earnings growth of 22 percent between the year before the dating period began and the year following, in comparison to 16 percent growth in the same period among a control group. 

 

 A "clear and stark pattern" for women was found who broke up with a workplace manager, whose earnings fell by 18 percent the year following the breakup whereas women who broke up with a manager from a different workplace saw slower earnings growth yet no earning drop. The researchers attempted to determine whether the salary bump was related to favouritism or whether it was merit; the second likely if the subordinate was picking up new skills or being mentored by the new partner. 

 

"While it is challenging to distinguish between the two, we provide some suggestive evidence", they concluded. Salary increase dropped dramatically if either partner moved to a new workplace while the relationship continued. Workplaces where manager/subordinate relationships occurred, also were those where a higher number of workers departed, of both sexes. A workplace with 71 employees on average would experience an additional four departures linked to romantic entanglements. 

 

The conclusion was that a more direct intervention would be the banning of such relationships. McDonald's for example fired its CEO in 2019 as a result of a consensual relationship with a subordinate. "Yet such bans come with their own costs. If similar rules had existed at Microsoft or Sidley Austin Law Firm, Bill and Melinda Gates and Barack and Michelle Obama [respectively] would have been barred from dating." 

 

 Asia Business Daily

 

Lawsuit: Iraqi-Canadian-Jewish Family Vs Scofflaw France

"We all thought that it was lost, that we would never get it back."

"I realized that this is not just about a house, it's about human rights. That was my motivating factor. It is hugely unfair. They are occupying our house."

"If you have art that's stolen or a house that's stolen, it's the same thing."

"It wasn't a person or a company who stole it, it's a country. And France was taking advantage of our misfortune and that's not right. They're a G7 country and they also stand up for human rights."

"So how are they doing this? It doesn't make sense."

Philip Khazzam, Montreal businessman, grandson of Ezra Lawee 

 

"[The Lawee family] were robbed of their property. When the regime of M. Saddam Hussein ordered the confiscation of all the property of Iraqi nationals of the Jewish faith."

"[Iraq's claim to the house had no legal basis and was] purely and simply a plunder. [An Iraqi law for] the dispossession of Jewish people from their properties in Iraq when they returned to Israel [did not apply here; not only does it abuse international human rights but because the Lawees didn't leave in the airlift program and didn't settle in Israel]." 

"It creates a very difficult situation for France, which occupies Jewish property seized in violation of rules, values of our Republic, and international law."

"Apparently we did not understand each other well. This property is not the property of France. This property is also not the property of Iraq because it has been plundered and stolen."

"This building is the property of my clients and of them alone."

Lawyer Jean-Pierre Mignard 

A historic aerial shot of the house, known in the family as Beit Lawee (Picture: courtesy of Philip Khazzam)

 

In the 1930s in Iraq, two Iraqi Jewish businessmen, brothers Ezra Lawee and Khedouri Lawee, built a grand house for joint co-occupation of their two families. The mansion was built near the Tigris River, an area of the Middle East once historically known as Mesopotamia. The mansion boasts a stately entrance with stone steps curving before a round portico of four columns under an ornate balcony. This is a building of note which is central to a contentious international dispute. A building that houses the embassy of France in Iraq. For which France pays rent to the government of Iraq.

 

Iraq confiscated the property when the Lawee family fled their country of birth in the 1950s during a period of deadly pogroms. The descendants of the original Lawee brothers quietly campaigned for decades for compensation from France. Finally, they filed a lawsuit in Paris against the French government. Prior to the authoritarian aura prevailing in Iraq along with pogroms, tranquility for the Jewish minority prevailed in the  Muslim-majority country where Jews have lived for millennia. Before 1950, the Jewish Iraqi demographic represented 3% of the entire population. 

 

Iraq was receptive to the Nazi propaganda during the Second World War, as was much of the Arab world at the time. What followed was a period of mass violence against Jews. In 1948 when Israel declared its national return to its ancestral Judean land mass, Iraq joined an Arab military coalition that included Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, along with a token Saudi Arabian contingent, to challenge the nascent Jewish state and destroy its foundation. A battle that the combined armies failed to win, against a basically impromptu Israeli military, fighting for its very life.

 

The French Embassy in Baghdad, Dec. 31, 2020    X.com/@FranceBagdad

 

Discriminatory laws, public violence, executions, looting and religious repression followed, targeting the Arabized Jewish population throughout the Middle East, forcing some 300,000 of them into exile, dispossessed of their property and goods. An international airlift operation between 1951/52 brought Jews from Iraq to Israel, but the wealthy Lawee family chose to travel to England, then New York, and finally to resettle in Canada, in 1954 where they re-established their business representing General Motors in a dealership.

 

In their absence from Iraq, a caretaker watched their property on their behalf. Then in 1964, five years after achieving their Canadian citizenship, the brothers leased their Iraqi mansion to the French government in an agreement that encompassed the mansion, caretaker's home, two garages and a walled garden and greenhouse, a prestigious location for France with its investment and influence in Iraq. France paid rent to the Lawee brothers, attested to by documents. Then suddenly in 1970 the rental payments were cut off. Rather than pay the Lawee owners of the property, France had agreed to pay the Iraqi government.

 

In response the Lawee brothers sent government officials in Paris appeals over the rent owing them, but no resolution appeared. Following the defeat of Saddam Hussein, France continued its payment of rent to the Iraqi government, ignoring the family's appeals. After years of war, France resumed its presence at the Lawee mansion in 2004. The family hired Lucien Bouchard, lawyer, former Quebec premier, to renew their legal campaign. The Lawee brothers were still listed in Iraqi records as owners of the property. Mr. Bouchard's interventions were unsuccessful. 

 

IRAQI JEWS in Israel protest their counterparts’ persecution under the Ba’ath regime. (Photo Credit Fritz Cohen)

 

Finally, the family hired a lawyer in Paris. The lawyer they chose had influence in high places in the French government. Jean-Pierre Mignard was close to Francois Hollande, and supported Emmanuel Macron. He wrote to his government in 2021 directly to France's foreign affairs minister. The family supplied copies of 22 documents attesting to their ownership of the property; comprised of architectural drawings, photos from the 1930s, title deeds, lease contracts, birth certificates, the Iraqi passports of the brothers, and their wills. Still nothing. 

 

The value of the house and property fluctuates in estimates ranging from $10 million to over $20 million (US). The family feels that France owes them $10 million in rent never paid over the years. It is willing to cede the property to French ownership, once their responsibility to recompense the Lawee family follows through. Friday marked the deadline for both sides' submissions of documentation to the administration court in Paris, in this court battle. A trial is expected to take place in 2026.  

"France refuses to acknowledge any responsibility, claiming that it is a decision made by the Iraqi government. This is false."

"France could at least continue to pay the rent [to the owners] which would indicate that it is not complicit in the spoliation of Iraq." 

 "We want France to be condemned, and we feel ashamed and sad because we are French lawyers and this is our country." 

French lawyer Jean-Pierre Mignard 

The French government has ignored the family's request for reparations. Getty Images

 

 

COVID mRNA Vaccines a Survival Boost to Cancer Patients

"The implications are extraordinary -- this could revolutionize the entire field of oncologic care."

"We could design an even better nonspecific vaccine to mobilize and reset the immune response, in a way that could essentially be a universal, off-the-shelf cancer vaccine for all cancer patients."

"One of the mechanisms for how this works is when you give an mRNA vaccine, that acts as a flare that starts moving all of these immune cells from bad areas like the tumor to good areas like the lymph nodes." 

"If this can double what we're achieving currently, or even incrementally -- 5%, 10% -- that means a lot to those patients, especially if this can be leveraged across different cancers for different patients." 

Elias Sayour, UF Health pediatric oncologist, Stop Children's Cancer/Bonnie R. Freeman Professor for Pediatric Oncology Research

 

"Although not yet proven to be causal, this is the type of treatment benefit that we strive for and hope to see with therapeutic interventions -- but rarely do."  

"I think the urgency and importance of doing the confirmatory work can't be overstated."

Duane Mitchell, director, UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute 

Receiving a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine near the start of cancer immunotherapy dramatically improved survival in advanced lung and skin cancer patients. The discovery hints at a new era of universal, immune-boosting cancer vaccines. Credit: Shutterstock

 

"This data is incredibly exciting, but it needs to be confirmed in a Phase III clinical  trial."

"The COVID-19 mRNA vaccine acts like a siren and activates the immune system throughout the entire body, [including inside the tumour, where it] starts programming a response to kill the cancer." 

"We were amazed at the results in our patients." 

"We’re sensitizing immune-resistant tumors to immune therapy." 

Adam Grippin, radiation oncologist, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 

 

During the COVID pandemic, COVID-19 vaccines rallied the human immune system to fight off the often-deadly virus. What those mRNA vaccines also did, it turns out, was to almost double median survival-length of cancer patients, as a new retrospective study points out, by researchers at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and the University of Florida, who published their findings recently in the journal Nature. 

 

Records of over a thousand patients who had begun approved immunotherapy for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer and melanoma (a type of skin cancer), comparing those who received coronavirus RNA vaccines against those who had not, comprised the backbone of the study.  The hope is that scientists    may develop a universal off-the-shelf vaccine for patients with various cancers, but the findings arrive at a difficult juncture for research into vaccines using messenger RNA. 

 

Those vaccines, with a single-stranded molecule instructs the immune system -- without infecting the body -- teaching cells to produce a harmless virus protein. The Operation Warp Speed program introduced by President Trump's first administration  saw scientists scramble to use the mRNA platform to develop vaccines in less than a year following detection of the Coronavirus, whereas such vaccine development can take up to 10 to 15 years in the development process.

 

The study scientists examined records of close to 900 patients with advanced lung cancer, to find that those who were inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines within 100 days of beginning cancer immunotherapy experienced median survival of 37.3 months in comparison with 20.6 months for those not vaccinated. Those patients whose melanoma had not spread, also showed improved median survival when vaccinated. 

 

The reason why mRNA vaccines proved so effective in awakening the immune system to the presence of cancer is not yet fully understood but it is hypothesized that it may be related to RNA's role in the evolution of life. "RNA preceded DNA evolutionarily, so cells don't like RNA from the outside world coming in", explained Elias Sayour, one of the paper's authors. 

 

A healthcare worker prepares a shot of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in La Paz, Bolivia, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Juan Karita, File) 

 

 

 

 

Fascist Moscow Slandering Democratic Kyiv

"You see, if we just stop, it means forgetting the root causes of this conflict which the American administration clearly understood."

"I am referring to ensuring Ukraine's non-aligned, non-nuclear status, which implies refraining from any attempts to draw it into NATO."

"[Freezing the fighting at this point] would mean only one things: a large part of Ukraine would remain under Nazi rule."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov 

 

"Russia's Stalling Tactics have shown time and time again that Ukraine is the only party serious about peace."

"We can all see that Putin continues to choose violence and destruction."

Joint statement by Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland 

 

"Let it [the contested region] be cut the way it is."

"It's cut up right now. I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia... I said: cut and stop at the battle line."

"Go home. Stop fighting, stop killing people."

U.S. President Donald Trump 

Russia has rejected European calls for a ceasefire based on existing front lines  Reuters

 

President Trump's call on Tuesday to freeze Ukraine fighting at the current front line was rejected by Russia. Last week the U.S. president stated he believed that Vladimir Putin wanted to secure a deal. Yet Trump's most recent demand for "an immediate ceasefire" was sloughed off by Russian foreign Minister Lavrov, as a non-starter "which has suddenly become a topic of discussion again". 

 

Calling it the opposite of what was agreed to at the Alaska summit when Trump and Putin met in August. At that juncture Trump had left off pressuring Putin to end the fighting before negotiations began.

 

On Saturday, Trump stated that both Russia and Ukraine should agree to stop fighting, that Kyiv and Moscow had to "stop the war immediately at the current battle lines". Following which Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and top E.U. officials signed off on a statement Tuesday giving their support to the proposal for a ceasefire along the existing line of contact, prior to any talks. 

 

Firefighters work at the site of a building housing a kindergarten hit by a Russian drone strike, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday, Nov.22. (Sofiia Gatilova/Reuters)

 

As for Russia's efforts at negotiations and its interest in ending the conflict, the statement reflected the group's skepticism about Russian sincerity. It is this very disagreement  that was likely responsible for the  delay in a planned face-to-face meeting between Lavrov and Secretary of State Marco Rubio set for this week in preparation for the proposed Trump-Putin summit in Budapest. That would be replaced, stated Lavrov, with phone contact between the two leaders.

 

Trump had accepted Putin's rejection of a ceasefire, at the Alaska summit. It had been decided that the best way to end the war was to "go directly to a peace agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere ceasefire agreement which often times do not hold up", Trump had recorded on Truth Social, his social media site. 

 

Since no agreement was reached, and the matter was left up in the  air for future discussion, Russia felt free to ramp  up its attacks on Ukraine while resisting Trump's later calls for a meeting between Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Putin once again demanded during Thursday's phone call with Trump, that Ukraine surrender all of Donetsk region, including territory Russia had yet to conquer, clarified U.S. officials.

 

On Friday at a subsequent White House meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump urged him to surrender all of the Donbas, inclusive of Donetsk region, portraying it as an opportunity to get a deal, rather than see his country destroyed by Russia. This was yet another meeting with a tense atmosphere prevailing, according to people familiar with the exchange that had taken place.

 

Nevertheless at the conclusion of the inconclusive meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump echoed a stance that Zelenskyy had endorsed, calling for a ceasefire along the front line, as it currently stood. A call that served to incense Lavrov, no doubt in emulation of Vladimir Putin's reaction. 

 

 

 

Screams Before Silence

"Hamas is a political force."

"When you think of Hamas, you should not necessarily think of cutthroats, people armed to the teeth, or fighters. It's not like that." 

"Our collective obliviousness to what led, 100 years ago, to the Third Reich’s expansionism and the genocide of people not in conformity with the 'pure race' is asinine. And it is leading to the commission of yet another genocide..."

"Fellow Europeans, Italians, Germans: after the Holocaust, we should instinctively know that Genocide starts with dehumanizing the Other. If Israel's current attack agst [sic] Palestinians doesnt [sic] prompt our strong reaction, the darkest page of our recent history has taught us nothing."

"...Many Jewish people worldwide, unconditionally in love with Israel, live a lie. Premised upon the invisibilization/erasure [sic] of the Palestinians, Israel's founding ideology [and lie] is now leading to a genocide. What a disgraceful epilogue."

"Time to #UNseatIsrael from the UN."

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese  

A general view shows the assembly during a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in Iran, at the United Nations in Geneva. (Valentin Flauraud/AFP)

  

After two years of conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza, following hard on Palestinian terrorism committing unspeakable atrocities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the guns are silent. Almost. The guns are still there. But the full-blown assaults one on the other have been stilled. Hamas deliberately and with malice aforethought planned a devastatingly traumatic event in an orgy of hate and blood-lust, when it dispatched four thousand operatives, mostly representing Hamas, but also Fatah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, with orders to commit mass rape, torture, a wide arc of killing, and the abduction of Israeli children, civilian men and women, and foreign farm workers as hostages.

 

Matters were too silent for too long as far as Hamas, which had signed a ceasefire/hudna with Israel, felt, and matters were proceeding that disturbed their agenda of isolating Israel, demoralizing its population and finagling the Jewish state's elimination, when important Arab/Muslim countries like the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, joined Egypt and Jordan in signing a peace agreement with Israel  under the Abraham Accords, with signals that more would follow. The atrocities the Palestinian terrorist groups, joined by two thousand ordinary Palestinian civilians, wrought in Israel that day were flagrant examples of sadistic savagery meant to traumatize the Israeli population and shock its government. It did all of that.

 

 

And then the enormity of the event, the depth of the depravity in mutilating girls and women while raping and murdering them, of burning entire families alive in their homes, of killing anyone the marauding terrorists found in the streets unaware of a vicious armed invasion taking place, and hunting down thousands of fearful young Israelis at a music festival  to rape, murder and abduct, galvanized the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces into a response, where the military following government orders set out to destroy Palestinian terror, its infrastructures, its weapons depots, its hiding places, while searching for the hostages.

 

The Gaza population was offered as a sacrifice to terrorism's goals with the deliberate intention on the part of Hamas leaders, to have as much collateral damage as possible inflicted on their populace to serve as a springboard in presenting Israel as a genocidal aggressor, augmenting their general representation of Palestinian victimhood at the hands of an oppressor that had nothing better to do than target Palestinians for death, a complete inversion of the Hamas covenant that bound it to the complete eradication of the Jewish state from the Middle East, and the death of Jews anywhere.

 

Screams Before Silence, presents testimonies from victims, rescuers, and researchers about the violence perpetrated by Hamas on October 7

 

Latent antisemitism comes alive when Israel is portrayed as a heartless aggressor, and those in any society that seem to have Jew-hate imprinted in their DNA are always eager to take such charges at face value, justifying their own beliefs about Jewish intentions to rule the world. The United Nations, the international institution whose stated goal is world peace, assigned an arm to oversee conditions and give aid to Palestinians in Gaza through UNRWA, and like the UN's Francesca Albanese, its appointed heads have always been thorough antisemites, while their employment of local Palestinians featured members of the various terrorist groups; neutrality is an unknown concept there, as is fairness and decency.

 

The people of Gaza have been ruled for the past several decades by an Islamist totalitarian government. Funded by the international community, overseen by the United Nations which has never had a problem defending the ongoing violence that Palestinians perpetrated over the last 80 years on Israel, while their leaders refused time and again to lay down arms and malice and agree to recognizing Israel's right of existence and establishing a state of their own alongside Israel. Their solution was a one-state settlement; a Palestinian state and no room for the presence of a Jewish state.

 

Armed fighters in Khan Younis, southern Gaza on Monday.  Abed Rahim Khatib / DPA via Getty Images

 

Now that the conflict has been paused, settled, awaiting results, plans are afoot to reconstruct Gaza once Hamas has surrendered its arms and faded into history. Hamas has no intention of doing either, despite its agreement to the ceasefire and its conditions, and the anxiety of the Middle East (with the exception of the Iran axis) to cement peace between Israel and 'Palestine'. In foreign parts across the world, Europe and North America, the massed protests supporting Palestine (and Hamas) calling for a ceasefire, should rightly see a mass sigh of relief, but those who were dedicated to achieving a ceasefire, were also firmly dedicated to opposing Israel's existence.

 

That hasn't changed, thanks to a massive influx of Muslim supporters of Palestine having over time infiltrated Western society, finding common cause with Western homegrown socialists, Marxists, 'progressive' academics and unions and just plain old closet Jew-haters, feeling free now to exit their dank basements to rally alongside fellow antisemites. 

 

And Gaza? How's it faring? If you're a member of Hamas, very well. As a civilian Palestinian who desperately wants an end to endless conflict, to repression, to threats and violence, not so good. Because, no longer distracted with shielding itself from Israeli fire meant to destroy the presence of terrorists, Hamas can now devote all its time to rebranding itself as the rightful governance of the territory they plotted to be the recipient of an Israeli response. Now Hamas is free to 'identify' those Palestinians they claim opposed their rule, and chose to collaborate with Israel or with Palestinian clans opposed to Hamas.

 

The order of the day now in Gaza is threats, beatings, public executions and full-blown violence between Hamas operatives charged to destroy family clans that reject Hamas as the ruling power in Gaza. Hamas once again rules that part of the territory where the IDF has no presence. Insisting they are implementing law and order, and executing the 'criminals' in Palestinian society. The population of Gaza once again faces the threat of death from its leaders, now that Hamas gangsters have emerged fully uniformed from their tunnels. Score-settling has turned a war zone into a death zone.

 

Masked gunmen prepare to execute a group of men in Gaza City.  via Reuters