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This Day in History: September 17
1978 – Camp David Accords concluded. The Camp David Accords, negotiated by U.S. President Jimmy Carter, were completed this day in 1978, leading to a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel and a broader framework for pursuing peace in the Middle East.
1991 – North Korea and South Korea were admitted to the United Nations.
1787 – The U.S. Constitution was signed by 39 delegates of the Constitutional Convention.
The ‘Dawn of a New Middle East’
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‘The Dawn of a New Middle East’: Israel Signs Historic ‘Abraham Accord’ With UAE, Bahrain at White House Emily Jones (Sep 16, 2020) “They are choosing a future in which Arabs and Israelis, Muslims, Jews, and Christians can live together, pray together, and dream together side by side in harmony, community and peace.” -President Donald Trump  [CBN News] The world witnessed an historic step towards peace in the Middle East after two Arab countries signed peace agreements with Israel after meeting with President Trump in Washington. (Image: Flickr-White House) The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain just signed the deals on the White House south lawn this afternoon. President Trump presided over the signing ceremony on the White House’s South Lawn, declaring the step signals “the dawn of a new Middle East”, saying the deals will “change the course of history.” “They are choosing a future in which Arabs and Israelis, Muslims, Jews, and Christians can live together, pray together, and dream together side by side in harmony, community and peace,” Trump said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed the two historic diplomatic deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The deal Israel signed with the UAE is officially a peace treaty, Netanyahu said Monday. It was previously unclear if the deal would be normalization or peace since Israel and the UAE have never been at war. The deal Israel signed with Bahrain is a declaration of intent to make peace with Bahrain. This is because there was not enough time to draw up a full agreement since Friday when ties between Bahrain and Israel were announced, The Jerusalem Post reports. The peace treaty with the UAE will have to be brought before a vote in Israel’s cabinet and then the Knesset after Netanyahu signs it. The treaty will only be finalized after it is approved by the cabinet. Meanwhile, Israel’s declaration with Bahrain is just a joint statement that does not need Knesset approval. Trump also signed the Israel-UAE and Israel-Bahrain deals, as a “witness” or “observer.” In addition to the individual bilateral agreements Israel will sign with the UAE and Bahrain, all three countries are signing a trilateral document. The specific details of the deals have yet to be revealed. “We have worked on this for very many years,” said Netanyahu. “This is a great turning point in the history of Israel and in the history of the Middle East. It will have a great and positive effect on every citizen of Israel. I also promise you, according to what I see here, that additional countries are on the way.” Evangelical leader Johnnie Moore, who was at the White House for the event, tweeted it is a new era of peace and prosperity for the Middle East and called the Israeli and Arab leaders courageous for striking the deal. Before the signing ceremony, Netanyahu and Trump held a bilateral meeting at the White House, and then leaders from all four countries met. The signing of these so-called “Abrahamic Accords” comes after months of diplomatic work spearheaded by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who led the negotiations. “These agreements are a huge accomplishment for the countries involved and have led to a tremendous sense of hope and optimism in the region,” said Kushner. “Instead of focusing on past conflicts, people are now focused on creating a vibrant future filled with endless possibilities.” The agreements could usher in a seismic shift in the Middle East. If Saudi Arabia were to follow, this would have major implications for Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. Experts believe other Muslim countries that could soon establish ties with Israel include Oman, Sudan, and Morocco. The Palestinians have strongly condemned the deals and consider them a stab in the back. While the UAE has said Israel agreed not to move forward with its contentious plans to annex up to 30% of the West Bank, Biblical Judea and Samaria, Netanyahu has insisted that annexation remains on the table and is merely suspended. The UAE and Bahrain become the third and fourth Arab countries to make peace with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan |
In Abuja, Nigeria failing public power supply disrupts operations at primary health centres
SITTING on a bench in the waiting room at Wumba Primary Health Centre, located in Apo Resettlement Area, an outskirt of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital
The Problem With Prophets
The world has never done a real good job of listening to prophets. The Old Testament prophets didn’t have a lot of success throughout the long history of Israel. They came along regularly and warned people to repent. Several of them were stoned to death for their troubles, and many were treated in an abrupt …
Refugees and Human Trafficking
Global refugee flows are currently at the highest levels in history. While many refugees already face perilous journeys, harsh living conditions in camps, and discrimination in host countries, they are also at risk of a human rights violation too often insufficiently addressed in security and conflict prevention efforts: human trafficking.
Blog Post by Guest Blogger for Women Around the World December 31, 2019
Global refugee flows have reached the highest levels in history as over twenty-five million people have been forced to leave their home countries. Many refugees already face perilous journeys, harsh living conditions in camps, and discrimination in host countries, but they are also at risk of a human rights violation too often insufficiently addressed in security and conflict prevention efforts: human trafficking.Among migrants traveling to Europe through North Africa, alone, more than 70 percent have been trafficked or exploited, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Conflict-induced displacement can increase the risk of trafficking. Capitalizing on their vulnerability, traffickers deceive refugees into fraudulent travel and employment arrangements. Between 2012 and 2015, some Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in Myanmar boarded ships to Malaysia or Thailand with the promise of lucrative jobs. Instead, traffickers kept them captive at sea in fishing vessels—where they were deprived of water and food, and some were raped, tortured, or killed—or in slave-like camps at the Malaysia-Thailand border, demanding up to $2,000 for their release. In Libya, traffickers have taken advantage of the increased flow of African refugees and migrants on their way to Europe. Some migrants have paid fees to be smuggled to Tripoli, but are then abandoned in the desert or southern cities of the country where they are susceptible to trafficking. Armed groups impose “passage taxes” along the migration routes and some migrants have been bought and sold on “open slave markets” or held arbitrarily in detention centers where they are subject to forced labor and sexual violence.
Women Around the World
Women Around the World examines the relationship between the advancement of women and U.S. foreign policy interests, including prosperity and stability. 1-2 times weekly.
Punitive immigration policies and lack of access to safe migration options further exacerbate refugees’ vulnerability to trafficking. Many trafficking victims refrain from seeking government and law enforcement assistance, fearing not only arrest due to their irregular migration status, but also retributive violence from their exploiters. In Venezuela, hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the ongoing humanitarian crisis have not been permitted legal status in neighboring countries. Without official documentation, access to resources, and awareness of their rights, they become easy targets of traffickers. Along the border to Colombia, for example, Venezuelan women report that armed groups demand sex as payment for crossing.
More than 70 percent of detected trafficking victims are female. Displaced women and girls face specific vulnerabilities to human trafficking—particularly sex trafficking and forced marriage—due to long-standing gender inequalities and ineffective social and legal protection systems, conditions that are exacerbated during conflict and crisis settings. In Central America, women migrants fleeing gang violence and poverty have been forced into prostitution by their smugglers, and in China, traffickers have targeted female North Korean refugees and forced them into marriages. A sex trafficking ring in Lebanon recruited Syrian women and girls with false promises of employment and then subjected them to sexual exploitation, abuse, and forced abortions.
Human trafficking is both a grave human rights violation and a security concern that not only funds transnational criminal groups but also inhibits long-term stability. Survivors of human trafficking, particularly those subjected to sex trafficking, often experience lasting stigma and marginalization from community members. Consequently, women and girls may face limited employment and marriage opportunities, which fuel intergenerational poverty andisolation as their support structures unravel. By undermining community relations and development, human trafficking in displacement settings fosters broader economic instability detrimental to rebuilding and peacebuilding efforts.
Despite these security implications, U.S. policies on human trafficking too often remain disconnected from broader conflict-prevention and security initiatives. In order to more effectively prevent human trafficking in refugees and advance peace and stability, the U.S. government should: invest in research on the relationship between human trafficking, conflict, and migration; ensure that its policies on conflict and security issues better incorporate human trafficking (and vice-versa); and prioritize prevention, justice, and protection efforts for refugee trafficking survivors.
Only by acknowledging the intersection between conflict-induced migration and human trafficking can security efforts be effective in a world with record numbers of displaced people.
Nashville officials buried Covid-19 numbers in order to gaslight the public to keep bars and restaurants shut down
Thursday, September 17, 2020 by: Mike Adams
(Natural News) Today we are calling for the arrest and prosecution of top government officials in Nashville, TN, who have now been caught red-handed covering up the very low numbers of infections at restaurants and bars in order to gaslight the public and justify draconian business closures and lock downs.
A bombshell investigation by Fox 17, WZTV in Nashville, has uncovered once-secret emails that reveal a shocking conspiracy to deliberately deceive the public by withholding covid-19 infections statistics that would have shown that bars and restaurants are not spreading infections.
While nursing homes and construction sites were found to have produced over 1,000 cases of coronavirus infections (each), bars and restaurants reported only 22 cases, reports Fox 17. From there, the cover-up begins. As Fox 17 reports:
Leslie Waller from the health department asks, “This isn’t going to be publicly released, right? Just info for Mayor’s Office?”
“Correct, not for public consumption,” writes senior advisor Benjamin Eagles.
A month later, the health department was asked point blank about the rumor there are only 80 cases traced to bars and restaurants.
Tennessee Lookout reporter Nate Rau asks, “The figure you gave of ‘more than 80’ does lead to a natural question: If there have been over 20,000 positive cases of COVID-19 in Davidson and only 80 or so are traced to restaurants and bars, doesn’t that mean restaurants and bars aren’t a very big problem?”
Health department official Brian Todd asked five health department officials, “Please advise how you recommend I respond.”
The name at the top of the response is clipped off but you may find the answer unacceptable.
“My two cents. We have certainly refused to give counts per bar because those numbers are low per site.
We could still release the total though, and then a response to the over 80 could be because that number is increasing all the time and we don’t want to say a specific number.”
Neither the health department nor the mayor’s office would confirm the authenticity of the emails but councilmember Steve Glover had a Metro staff attorney inquire. Here’s the official answer:
“I was able to get verification from the Mayor’s Office and the Department of Health that these emails are real,” the staff attorney answered.
Glover says this is Metro Nashville orchestrating a cover up.
“They are fabricating information,” Glover said. “They’ve blown there entire credibility Dennis. Its gone, I don’t trust a thing they say going forward …nothing.”
They were “managing” the propaganda to deliberately mislead the public
What these emails show is that Nashville officials — almost all Democrats, of course — were carrying out acts of criminal fraud against the people of Tennessee. They were deliberately engineering or shaping the propaganda in order to mislead the public and try to justify lockdowns and closures that could not normally be justified if they had reported the real numbers.
Brian Todd, one of the officials involved, reportedly asked five other government officials how he should “respond” to questions about the data, implying that he couldn’t simply tell the truth and wanted to know how to shape the response to mislead the public.
It’s clear that the Nashville Mayor’s office would only share “bad” information with the public, while covering up “good” numbers that might justify reopening local businesses.
This is the weaponization of government against the people, isn’t it? Instead of local government working to help local citizens overcome the economic devastation of lockdowns and closures, these government officials were acting as enemies of the local people. As if they were waging a war against them!
As Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, “The Dem Mayor of Nashville KNOWINGLY LIED ABOUT COVID DATA to justify shutting down bars & restaurants, killing countless jobs & small businesses in the process. Everyone involved should face jail time. How many other Dem run cities is this happening in?”
What Edo poll says about Nigeria’s democracy
Expectedly, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has promised a free and fair election, saying, “Your votes will count.”
Source: What Edo poll says about Nigeria’s democracy | International Centre for Investigative Reporting
Nigeria’s Former President Jonathan advocates election grading system within Commonwealth
“I associate myself with the efforts to improve Commonwealth election observer experience in line with the Revised Commonwealth Guidelines for the Conduct of Election Observation in Member Countries.
Air pollution caused 11,200 premature deaths, $2.1b loss in Lagos, Nigeria in 2018- World Bank report
Road transport, industrial emissions and generators were identified in the report as the main sources of air pollution in Lagos.
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