Climate Movement

 Almost a decade ago, parties to the Paris treaty agreed to work toward limiting temperature rise this century to 1.5ºC—but 2024 was the hottest year in human history, and countries around the world show no signs of reining in planet-wrecking fossil fuels anywhere near the degree that scientists warn is necessary to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown.

"Crossing 1.5ºC for a whole calendar year is a wake-up call for the world," said Olympic gold medalist and XR U.K. spokesperson Etienne Stott, highlighting another alarming record from last year. "If we want to avoid crossing further tipping points we need a complete transformation of society."

Extinction Rebellion and other climate groups held a funeral for the Paris agreement's 1.5°C temperature target in Cambridge, England on May 10, 2025. (Photo: Derek Langley)

Scientists from universities in the United Kingdom and Germany warned in a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Earth System Dynamics last month that humankind is at risk of triggering various climate tipping points absent urgent action to dramatically reduce emissions from fossil fuels.

"There are levers policymakers can pull to rapidly phase out fossil fuels, but this requires standing up to powerful interests," Stott said Saturday. "Activists need to build power, resilience, and the world we want to see in our communities; but we also need to keep seeking the spark that will cause the worldwide transformation we need to see."

In addition to the Cambridge and U.K. arms of Extinction Rebellion, Saturday's action was organized by Cambridge Greenpeace, Cambridge Stop the War, and the Organization of Radical Cambridge Activists (ORCA).

Varsity, the independent student newspaper at the University of Cambridge, reported that the marchers "rallied at Christ's Pieces, where they heard from one of the organizers, who emphasised the harm caused by exceeding 1.5ºC of warming."

"The march then proceeded up Christ's Lane and down Sidney Street, led by a group of 'Red Rebels,' dressed in red robes with faces painted white, followed by 'pall bearers' carrying coffins painted black, with the words 'Inaction Is Death' in white," according to Varsity. "The procession was completed by a samba band who drummed as they walked, followed by protesters carrying a large sign reading 'Don't silence the science,' along with many other smaller placards."

Members of the "Red Rebel Brigade" led a procession around Cambridge, England as part of a funeral for the Paris agreement's 1.5°C temperature target on May 10, 2025. (Photo: Albert Arhó)

Photos from organizers show participants displaying banners with messages such as "No Future on a Dead Planet," and additional messages painted on the black coffins: "1.5ºC Is Dead," "Act Now," "Ecocide," "RIP Earth," and "Web of Life."

"Politicians have broken their promises to keep global temperature rises to a livable 1.5ºC," declared Zoe Flint, a spokesperson for XR Cambridge. "For decades, people around the world have been resisting environmental devastation in their own communities and beyond—often facing state repression and violence as a result."

"With dozens of political protesters now in prison in this country, that repression has come to the U.K. too," Flint noted. "But when those least responsible for climate breakdown suffer the worst effects, we can't afford to give up the fight."

Truth

 

St. Louis Photo courtesy of Hashim Hakim

The Fruit of Islam (F.O.I., the men of the Nation of Islam) continue the mission of propagation and sharing the faith of Islam by bringing the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad directly to the people through The Final Call newspaper.

Every week, whether rain, snow, or intense heat, the F.O.I. strive to be like their teacher, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, by being in the highways and byways of cities large and small, striving to make our communities a decent and safe place to live.

We thank the F.O.I for their dedicated service.

Greensboro, NC

Miami

Orlando, Florida

Boston

St. Louis Photo courtesy of Hashim Hakim

El Dorado, Arkan

Extra 50% tariff on China

 

The White House has published a document confirming that China's 34% tariff rate - set to come into effect in a few hours - will be increased to 84%.

Chinese exports to the US had already been subjected to 20% tariffs. This means that the total tariffs on Chinese goods will reach a whopping 104%.

The move comes "in recognition of the fact that the PRC has announced that it will retaliate against the United States", the White House statement reads.

After Trump unveiled a 34% so-called "reciprocal" tariff on Chinese goods, China slapped its own 34% counter-tariff on US goods.

530,000 Hispanic Immigrants

 

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer looks on during an anti-immigration op. in Escondido, Calif., July 8, 2019. (Photo by AP)

The Trump administration has plans to revoke the legal status of potentially more than half-a-million immigrants currently living in the United States.

An  order issued on Friday by the Department of Homeland Security, which will be effective on April 24, cuts short a two-year humanitarian “parole" program granted to immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The move follows an earlier Trump administration decision to end what it called the "broad abuse" of humanitarian parole, a long-standing legal tool presidents have used to allow people from countries where there's war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the United States.

A total of 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelan immigrants, who entered the United States in the past three years, are vulnerable to potential deportation around that date.

The Trump administration has also ended a contract that provides legal aid to migrant children entering the country without a parent or guardian, raising concerns that children will now be forced to go through the complex US legal system without help from any grown-up.

Trump’s immigration policy and the selective targeting of Hispanic communities

Trump’s immigration policy and the selective targeting of Hispanic communities

Donald Trump has framed his immigration policies as crucial for safeguarding national security. However, these policies have a sharp focus on Hispanic communities.

President Donald Trump had promised on his campaign trail to deport millions of people who are in the US illegally, and as president, he has also been ending legal pathways for immigrants to enter the US and to stay.

His anti-immigration policy has repeatedly been challenged across the United States by federal judges.

The Trump administration is already being sued by a group of American citizens and immigrants for ending the humanitarian parole, seeking to reinstate the program for the four nationalities.

India slams West

 Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has criticized the West’s double standards on global issues, including Kashmir, claiming that an “invasion” had been recharacterized as a dispute.

Speaking on March 18 at the Raisina Dialogue, an international forum hosted by the Observer Research Foundation and the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, Jaishankar said that when Western countries intervene in other nations, “it’s in pursuance of democratic freedoms,” while interventions in the West’s sphere “seem to have very malign intentions.” 

“After the Second World War, the longest-standing illegal presence—what I would call the occupation of territory by another country—pertains to India, specifically what we saw in Kashmir,” Jaishankar said. “We went to the UN, where what was an invasion was turned into a dispute.

The attacker and the victim were put on par. Who were the culpable parties? The UK, Canada, Belgium, Australia, and the USA. So, pardon me, I have some question marks on that one.”

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The minister was referring to a long-standing confrontation between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, which is claimed by both nations and has remained a point of contention between the two nuclear-armed neighbors since they achieved independence from British rule in 1947.

New Delhi has long accused its neighbor of supporting and financing terrorism, both within its borders and in India. Islamabad, for its part, has accused India of committing human rights violations in Kashmir.

On March 18, India criticized Pakistan’s comments on Jammu and Kashmir, following Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent remarks on the subject in a podcast with Lex Fridman.

Modi said that every attempt to foster peace with Pakistan had been met with “hostility and betrayal” and expressed hope that wisdom would prevail in Islamabad to improve bilateral ties. Pakistan’s Foreign Office labeled Modi’s assertions as “misleading and one-sided.” 

Jaishankar also pointed out the international community’s inconsistent stance on the Taliban. Once shunned as an outlier, the Taliban were later embraced in diplomatic talks in Doha and Oslo, only to be criticized again later for their actions. Jaishankar questioned the basis for this shift, suggesting that the West’s perception of the Taliban is driven by self-interest.

The minister described it as essential for institutions such as the UN to audit the record of international affairs over the last eight decades and to recognize that global balances have shifted. 

“If we need to have an order, there must be fairness,” Jaishankar said, calling for “a strong UN” which would also be “a fair UN.” He argued that a “strong” global order must have some “basic consistency of standards.” 

The Wiz Deal

 

Demonstrators carry a banner and block an entrance to the Google I/O conference in Mountain View, California on May 14, 2024. (Photo by Albert Arhó)

Google paid $32 billion earlier this week in order to purchase Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz, which is run and staffed by dozens of ex-Unit 8200 members, the specialist cyber-spying arm of the Israeli military.

The acquisition will mark the single largest transfer of former Israeli spies into an American company.

Israel’s Unit 8200 is a secretive cyber warfare team that is said to be building the artificial intelligence (AI) systems that helped the regime commit the genocide against Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

Unit 8200 wrote the programming and designed the algorithms that automated the genocide of Gaza and was also responsible for the pager attack in Lebanon. Now the men and women who helped design the architecture of apartheid are swallowed by the US tech-surveillance complex.

Advocacy groups say AI and machine learning are central to the architecture of occupation and apartheid established before the genocidal Gaza campaign, from the use of facial recognition technology, and AI-directed guns at checkpoints, to spy apps known as ‘Blue Wolf’ and ‘Red Wolf’.

The Wiz deal represents a huge tax coup for the Israeli regime. It will bring around $5 billion dollars in revenue for the war economy, or around 0.6% of Israel’s entire GDP. Zionists have already expressed the benefits in terms of the warplanes and missiles they will pay for to conduct genocide.

Google is heavily invested in Israel. It opened offices there nearly 20 years ago, has bought a number of Israeli start-up tech companies in recent years, and former CEO Eric Schmidt has pledged loyalty to Netanyahu on numerous occasions over the years.

All the key figures at Google and its mother company, Alphabet, are proud Zionists. From Schmidt to current CEO Sundar Pichai to founder Sergey Brin to Anat Ashkenazi, the chief financial officer of Alphabet.

At a time when Israel’s economy is faltering, the regime is experiencing an outflow of people, its military can’t win in Gaza and Netanyahu is in deep trouble, the Wiz deal provides a much-needed tonic.

It keeps a critical business sector for Israel ticking over and provides a reassuring sense of business as usual in a blood-soaked land.

US-DR Congo Deal

 

This image shows a copper and cobalt mine northwest of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, January 29, 2013. (Photo by Reuters)

The United States is reportedly engaged in exploratory talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) regarding a potential deal on rare earth elements, marking the latest effort by the Donald Trump administration to secure access to vital resources overseas following unsuccessful negotiations with Ukraine.

According to a report published in the Financial Times (FT) on Saturday, the proposed agreement involves the US gaining access to crucial minerals in exchange for providing security assistance to the African nation.

FT cited unnamed sources as saying talks between Washington and Kinshasa about a potential mineral deal have intensified recently, “although several obstacles remain” and they are “at a relatively early stage.”

According to reports by the United Nations, rebels backed by Rwandan troops have taken large swathes of land in eastern DRC, looting the resources of the mineral-rich region.

Kinshasa “invites the USA, whose companies source strategic raw materials from Rwanda ... to purchase them directly from us the rightful owners,” Tina Salama, a spokesperson for President Felix Tshisekedi, wrote on X last month.

Rebels are aiming to consolidate their hold in Congo’s east, which has trillions of dollars of mostly untapped mineral wealth,  including cobalt, lithium, tantalum, and uranium.

In this regard, DRC Senator Pierre Kanda Kalambayi has sent a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, urging the Americans to partner up with Kinasha.

“The United States is well-positioned to forge an enduring partnership with the DRC – a nation that possesses over $24 trillion in untapped reserves of critical minerals,” Kalambayi -- who chairs the Senate’s Committee on Defense, Security and Border Protection -- wrote in his letter. 

He said, in return for minerals, the African nation would expect the US military to increase its cooperation with Kinshasa’s forces, including training and arming them with weapons and equipment.

Late last month, an anticipated deal for Ukraine to hand over natural resources revenues to the United States, abruptly fell apart during an explosive meeting in the Oval Office.

Over the meeting, President Trump and Vice President JD Vance harshly criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for not being grateful enough for US support, and sought to strong-arm him into making a peace deal with Russia to end the war.

The planned signing of the US-Ukraine agreement did not happen, and Zelensky left the White House grounds without answering reporters’ questions.

Supporting Sudan

 

Iftar and fundraiser for Sudan at the Sudanese Community Center in West Philadelphia. The event was sponsored by Philly For Sudan and The Llah Organization. Photo: Nabil Muhammad

During this holy month of Ramadan, I attended an iftar (daily breaking of the fast) and fundraiser held March 15 at the West Philadelphia-based Sudanese American Community Center.

The funds raised at the iftar will go to Sudan-based “ground organizations who are providing food, shelter, medical supplies and medical help,” for the displaced, mostly women and children, said Tibian el-Sharief, a member of Philly For Sudan, one of two organizations sponsoring the event. The money was collected from ticket sales, donations and an auction. 

Ms. Sharief is the daughter of Sudanese-born parents. She is a social worker and a nursing student. Her organization consists of youth activists and was founded to promote the liberation of Sudan, raise awareness about the proxy war happening in Sudan, and also

“create or build  active Sudanese communities in the United States.” She explained Philly For Sudan is also involved in creative ways of “supporting the efforts of Sudanese youth and organizations on the ground in Sudan.” 

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Tahya Eldreny is chief operating officer and co-founder of the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based, all-volunteer LLAH Organization, and a co-sponsor of the iftar. “We came here to hold our very first event in Philadelphia, to help fundraise for Sudan. We have organized this event in collaboration with Philly For Sudan.”

Ms. Eldreny, was born in Egypt and came to America when she was 11. Members of her organization are very diverse, she explained. “We have members from Sudan, Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon. We also have members from Tunisia, Morocco and Nigeria. So, it’s a very diverse organization.”

Concerning Sudan, Ms. Eldreny said, “It’s a country that has been abused by a lot of foreign powers and also by neighboring countries, which is very unfortunate.”

She added, “The problem when it comes to Sudan, along with other African countries, people just think we were made for this. People don’t pay attention to African causes. They think that we have always been poor, we have always been struggling, which is very untrue.”

“How come we (appear to have always) been violent when we were only introduced to a gun when we were colonized? So, when it comes to African issues, it’s very unfortunate that when we are advocating about our causes, we have to humanize our own experience as Africans and tell them that what we’re going through is not normal, and it’s not okay, just because we’re African,” said Ms. Eldreny.

“Our African history was never about violence, was never about corruption, was never about hatred. We were quite the opposite. We are a people that lived very peacefully and who existed in such a beautiful way with simple rules of humanity,” she continued. 

Ms. Eldreny notes the downward spiraling of Africa as a civilization came “when others (mainly Europeans and Americans) learned that we had (natural and mineral) resources that we did not abuse. So, they came to abuse it. And this is what brings us back to Sudan,” she said.

Sudan is a country that was colonized for so many years and was the victim of corruption in government, Ms. Eldreny explained. That corruption “still serves the colonizers who left just a few years ago,” she added.

As Sudan’s civil war approaches two years on April 15, the spiraling out-of-control war-torn country appears to be hurling toward a complex and divisive abyss. “The next phase of developments in Sudan.

Africa’s third largest country by area bordering seven countries and the strategic Red Sea, may have far-reaching consequences for the politically fragile Horn of Africa,” penned Mahesh Sachdev, the president of Eco-Diplomacy & Strategies, a consult and advisory firm in Delhi, India.

In the former ambassador’s opinion piece, on ndtv.com titled, “Sudan Is Staring At A Second Partition, Thanks To Two Warlords,” he suggests a second partisan may be inevitable. The first was the creation of the U.S.-encouraged, “failed” state of South Sudan, Africa’s latest nation-state.

According to Sachdev “… some observers see an east-west partition of Sudan as a natural progression in the unwinnable civil war. They expect that such a division would bring an end to the spread-out civil war that has devastated the entire country.”

Follow @MickyAlbi on X

Political Sincerity

 

China has put forward a five-point proposal aimed at addressing Western-fueled disputes over Iran’s nuclear energy program, rejecting the use of force and illegal sanctions against the Islamic Republic and urging the United States to adopt a “sincere” political attitude towards the matter.

The initiative was announced by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during a high-level meeting in Beijing on March 14, where he met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov and Kazem Gharibabadi, an Iranian deputy foreign minister.

The proposal emphasizes resolving the disputes through peaceful, political, and diplomatic means, explicitly rejecting the use of coercion and unlawful coercive economic measures that the U.S. and its allies have been indulging in.

It urges all parties to uphold “common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security” while working to create conditions for resumption of dialogue and negotiation involving all the concerned sides.

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‘Balance in rights, responsibilities’

Among its key points, the plan stresses the need to balance rights and responsibilities, affirming Iran’s right to pursue peaceful nuclear energy as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT).

China also calls for renewed commitment to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 nuclear agreement between the Islamic Republic and world countries, including the U.S., China, and Russia—which was left by Washington in 2018—as the foundation for new consensus.

In the same context, Beijing urges the United States to demonstrate “political sincerity” by returning to negotiations without preconditions.

Additionally, the Chinese foreign minister warned against any hasty intervention by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), cautioning that initiating the so-called “snapback mechanism”—whose application restores all of the UN’s sanctions against Iran—”could undo years of diplomatic progress.”

Instead, he calls for a step-by-step, reciprocal approach where all sides engage in constructive dialogue and seek mutually acceptable solutions through consultation.

The proposal came amid Western sanctions against Iran, threats of military action, and threats of initiating the “snapback.”

The West tries to justify the drive, which observers denounce as headstrong and irresponsible, by accusing Tehran of diverting its nuclear work towards “military purposes” and alleging lack of proper cooperation between the country and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear agency.

The campaign comes while Iran remains the most verified Member State of the IAEA, having been subject to the agency’s most comprehensive and frequent verification processes over decades.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei—through a relevant fatwa (religious decree)—has banned pursuance, acquisition, and storage of non-conventional weapons by the Islamic Republic that remains a signatory to the NPT at the same time.

Beijing’s proposal came as part of its push for de-escalation and facilitation of negotiations to maintain regional and global stability.

It, meanwhile, chimed in with Russia’s stiff opposition of restoration of the UN’s anti-Iran sanctions.

Earlier this month, Russia’s Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov had likewise condemned an effort on the part of the UK, France, and Germany—the U.S.’s allies in the JCPOA—to activate the “snapback.”

Ulyanov had reminded that with their violations of the JCPOA, the trio had lost any right to invoke the deal’s mechanisms, including the snapback provision. “We recommend that Berlin, London, and Paris abandon their illusions about the snapback and instead focus on finding a political and diplomatic way out of the situation they have created,” the official had said.

Russia has also expressed strong opposition to Washington’s “maximum pressure” strategy concerning Iran, under which it has returned and even intensified the sanctions and left the nuclear deal.

Moscow has argued that the American attitude undermined regional stability and diplomatic efforts, reminding that Tehran remained in compliance with its obligations under the NPT and that any alleged concerns had to be addressed through dialogue rather than forceful measures. 

DNA breakthrough

Dr. Michael L. Blakey, project and scientific director for the African Burial Ground, is doing the breakthrough work at Howard University, an historic Black college in Washington.

Dr. Blakey has opened up the possibility of slave descendants tracing their ancestry to specific areas in Nigeria, Niger, Senegal and Benin. Up until now specific genetic tracing had been difficult and left mostly to guess work.

“I know that it may seem slow and tedious,” said Dr. Blakey, commenting on why it has taken from 1993 to now to make public the work done at Howard University in respect to the anthropological research. “As the biggest, most sophisticated, and most noted bio-archaeological project in the United States, one can expect unusual time, effort, and technological problems. We planned for this and are within a reasonable range of our projected time frame for completing the project.”

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It is now being projected by the office of Memoralization, under the direction of Ms. Peggy King Jorde, that reinternment of the 427 skeletal remains of Colonial-era Black Americans buried in lower Manhattan’s 283 year old “African Burial Ground” will take place in December 2000 or in the spring of 2001.

The African Burial Ground, an 18th century cemetery, was rediscovered by archaeologists in 1991 during the pre-construction surveys for a new federal office building. During the 1700s, when the burial ground was mainly in use, Africans made up from 14.4 percent to 20.9 percent of New York City’s population.

Consistent with the marginal status of Africans in colonial society, the burial ground was described as a desolate piece of unappropriated land and was located outside of the city limits. According to city maps, by the late 1700s the oldest portions of the cemetery were already being covered over by development. As the city expanded, the existence of the African Burial Ground was eventually forgotten.

On the question of origins, the historians have determined that one-third of New York’s 18th century African population was born in Africa and that most of the remaining two-thirds spent some time in the Caribbean prior to sale in New York.

“Shipping data provides information on the ports from which enslaved Africans embarked for New York,” said Dr. Blakey, of the Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Historians connected with the African Burial Ground Project have begun to track the locations of wars in the African interior that would have produced captives who would have been brought to those shipping points from which the slaves were dispatched. If, for instance, ships left Elmina Castle in Ghana with cargo of 400 slaves, these slaves would have come from a variety of ethnic groups, most having been captured in war.

“In this way we have learned that a broad range of West and Central Africans, among others, are possibly among the dead,” said Dr. Blakey.

DNA testing has been done on 40 of the skeletal remains and that is through the mitochondria DNA that is inherited maternally, according to Dr. Blakey.

“Our goal was to pinpoint the actual geographic place of origin,” said Dr. Rick Kittles, a geneticist and biological anthropologist at the Department of Microbiology at Howard University. “The present regions of West and Central Africa have historically been shown to be the origin of many of the Africans who were enslaved here and other countries.”

Of the 427 skeletal remains studied at Howard University there were 26 crania intact , which could be studied. Although Dr. Blakey cautions that the results are far from conclusive, he can safely say that there is a close match with the Ashanti.

“We do not have an Ashanti data base,” the professor said. “We need to study at least 300 of the remains to be totally sure.”

When all of the DNA work is completed there will be data bases established at Howard University; at the University of Maryland, which will be under the care of geneticist Dr. Fatimah Jackson; and at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture where Blacks of the Diaspora can have three samples of DNA taken at a cost of $350 each to trace one’s ancestry.

The success of the DNA research is the good news. The bad news, according to Dr. Blakey, is that funding runs out at the end of the month of December. “We have been funded through a system of extensions which come every two weeks,” Dr. Blakey said. The federal General Service Administration oversees the African Burial Ground Project and according to Dr. Blakey, “GSA tells us they have submitted our proposal for $750,000 to complete the DNA study to the White House Office of Budget and Management. To date $5.4 million has been spent on the Howard research by the GSA. Howard University has also contributed money to the research.

Ms. Ayo Harrington, president of Friends of the African Burial Ground, a group credited with getting movement from GSA on bringing the issue of the African Burial Ground to closure, said it is important for the DNA research to continue.

“Complete research would provide a genetic pool through which African Americans could attempt an ancestral match. In light of the premeditated practice and laws established during slavery, through which this country successfully destroyed most connections to our ancestry, there is no question about the importance of this one time opportunity for African Americans and what the endeavor would signify worldwide.”

Mental

 

Depression in children

(photo credit: INGIMAGE)

“Here in Israel, we are seeing more anxiety and stress since Oct. 7 among adolescents and teens than ever before,” says Yael Avraham, a social worker and manager in the trauma field at ELEM.

Israelis are a resilient people. Despite Oct. 7, sirens, terror attacks, harrowing red alerts with missiles flying overhead, and COVID isolation, which all took tolls on our well-being, somehow we are still going about our lives, fighting, and serving our country. We are even the fifth-“happiest” country of the 143 countries ranked in the World Happiness Report, a partnership of Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

But for some people, happiness is a transient state that comes and goes; and for those in a never-ending battle with depression, the clouds seldom, if ever, dissipate. In writing this article, I found that our “happy” country has parents, doctors, and healthcare providers who refuse to go on record about the state of mental health in Israel.

As I write this, parents in Karnei Shomron are reeling from a teen suicide, one of several within several years, and are asking what they can do to assist their youth through the labyrinth of hormones, situational pain, and mental anguish that make youth want to give up and end their lives.

The mayor of Karnei Shomron, Yonatan Kuznitz, declined to comment, saying the feelings are too intense and raw.One Israeli doctor I interviewed refused to be quoted on the record, calling the mental health system “outrageous.”According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated that worldwide, 4.4% of 10- to 14 year olds, and 5.5% of 15 to 19 year olds experience an anxiety disorder. Depression is estimated to occur among 1.4% of adolescents aged 10-14 and 3.5% of 15 to 19 year olds, and suicide is the third-leading cause of death in older adolescents and young adults (15-29).

“Here in Israel, we are seeing more anxiety and stress since Oct. 7 among adolescents and teens than ever before,” says Yael Avraham, a social worker and manager in the trauma field at ELEM, Israel’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated to treating troubled and at-risk youth. “Our kids are more afraid. More parents are reaching out for therapy. Our clinic has become a full-time job.”

MENTAL ILLNESS requires constant self-care and positive choices. (credit: YOSSI ZAMIR/FLASH90)

If you add bullying and social media pressure that comes with a click of their cellphones, fragile, sensitive youth, particularly those with mental illness, face a greater risk of suicide, she says.It’s a story that many do not want to talk about, but one that must be told.

Many myths about mental illness must be addressed. These include the following:

Mental illness manifests only in adults.

This is not true. There is evidence that mental illness can surface even in very young children and throughout their teenage years. Many young people who have bipolar disorder (manic depression) are initially diagnosed with ADHD, according to psychiatrists I spoke to. The problem is, that when a child is medicated with stimulants like Ritalin, in some cases the drug can have dangerous effects and can even cause psychosis.

Mental illness is not like physical illness.

This is false. What many do not realize is that mental illness is a physical illness – the result of unbalanced brain chemistry, which can become exacerbated as hormones shift in a growing child or teen.

Mental illness is a direct result of bad parenting.

False. While behavioral symptoms can be triggered by events or family issues, the most predictive factor for mental illness is often a family history of mental illness. Is it triggered by nature or nurture? Most doctors believe that mental illness is a genetic hand-me-down, like diabetes, hypertension, or any other family trait that is transmitted from one generation to the next. While external conditions can trigger the illness, the genetic predisposition must be there. In Israel, where Jews marry mostly Jews, genetic conditions are likely to be expressed more consistently.

RABBI SHALOM HAMMER, a former educator, lecturer at the IDF, and hesder yeshiva teacher, established the organization Gila’s Way (www.gilasway.com) after his daughter Gila died by suicide several years ago. He began speaking about suicide prevention just three days after getting up from his daughter’s shiva, and helping others became his life’s mission. He was brought to Karnei Shomron the night after the fifth anniversary of Gila’s death to speak to the parents and grandparents of the town, who were naturally concerned.

“You can have mental illness without suicidal ideations, and you can have suicidal ideations without having mental illness, but often they are intertwined,” he says.

“Life took a 180-degree turn for me,” he explains. “I had to somehow make sense of Gila’s death in order to help others understand the complexities and possibly save lives.”

Record

The collective backlog for Elbit Systems, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and IAI has risen by over 25%, compared with a 23% surge for all of 2023.

The Arrow 3 air defense system, used for the first time on November 9, 2023, to intercept a missile fired at Eilat by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.

(photo credit: MINISTRY OF DEFENSE)

Israel's defense industry, comprising of Elbit Systems, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI),  is set to reach a historic record in sales of weapons, according to a Thursday Wall Street Journal report.

The collective backlog for the three companies has risen by over 25%, according to the report, compared with a 23% surge for all of 2023.

Defense systems such as the Iron Dome and the Arrow missile, which have been proved on the battlefield in over a year of war have given rise to such sales among foreign actors, according to the report. 

 This was reiterated by a statement made to the publication by Slovakia's Defense Ministry who signed a €560 million deal to purchase the Barak MX Integrated Air Defense System, developed by IAI. 

R-ONE - SING

Cry for Justice

I am a student of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. The Qur’an says “every nation has received a messenger”—and my beloved Muslim family believes that the final messenger is Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. But when Prophet Muhammad came, the Western world had not been discovered, America had not been founded, slavery had not begun, and the Native American people, who are the owners of this country, had not met an enemy that deprived them and us of life, liberty and the pursuit of their happiness. America is in need of a divine messenger and a warner from God. America is in need of someone to help her to keep her from a destructive fall. Advertisement A criminal nation (America) and the current condition, a people kidnapped, enslaved and robbed The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan Inside America is a people that did not ask to come here; a people that were brought out of their native land and people, and brought on a westerly course. And here we are, the Black man and woman in North America: What is our condition? A people robbed and spoiled. … Nearly 50 million of us who do not know our origin in the world, 50 million of us are ill-acquainted with our own history so that today they are “kind enough” to give us a month to study a History that is older than the Sun, Moon and Stars. Slavery is a crime! Then America is a criminal. Kidnapping is a crime! Then America is a criminal. Robbery is a crime! Then America is a criminal to bring us from our native land and people, and rob us of a connection to our native land and people. You have Irish here; they have a connection. You have Italians here, you have Greeks—everybody has a connection. Ours was cut off. That’s a crime. Black man and woman: You don’t wear the names of your parents. We wear the names of our former slave masters and their children. That’s a crime. Other people can speak words of their native language or mother tongue, but for us, “mother” gone, “father” gone; “motherless child” sees a hard time. That’s a crime. “Slavery”: Selling another human being like a piece of property; then, if we disobeyed master, to be beaten, to be burned at the stake, to be castrated. All of these horrible things have happened to us as a people. To my dear Christian family: We have to consider that for 300 years they never taught us to read. The Bible was a locked book, and any White person of decency that tried to teach us to read was severely punished; and so, in the 1700s, they thought it not incompatible to have us as “slaves,” and then to make us “Christians.” I submit to you that we were never made Christians to bring us closer to Jesus, because if we were as close to Jesus as we could be, as we should be—as we must be—we would never be in the condition that we are. And the church would never be an instrument of disunity rather than an instrument of unity of all the Christian family. Nobody changed our condition, so God, as He did in the past, intervened in our affairs and in America’s affairs. And His pattern is the same: He doesn’t run to the ruler to choose a messenger. He doesn’t go to the college to choose a messenger. He goes among the oppressed, the poor, the weak, the disadvantaged, and out of them He chooses a man and feeds that man the truth that will deliver his people and the truth that will warn the government that has mistreated his people, that perhaps they might listen and avoid utter and complete destruction. So we believe that The One Who was to come has indeed come, called in your Bible “The Son of Man,” Who would come out of The East, for as the scripture teaches in the Book of Matthew, Chapter 24, verse 27: “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” He would come: Habakkuk the prophet saw Him coming! Isaiah the prophet saw Him coming! Moses saw Him coming; Jesus talked about His coming! “As it was,” Matthew 24:37 teaches, “in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man.” Is it like that today? What was it like in the “days of Noah”? The scripture teaches in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 6, verse 5 that “every imagination of the peoples’ hearts was to do evil.” How about America today? A robbery every 15 seconds? A murder every 30 seconds? Murder, robbery, rape and racist killing, and our own fratricidal conflict killing one another: This doesn’t have anything to do with Jesus. It doesn’t have anything to do with Prophet Muhammad. I know my president, Brother Barack Obama, was trying to keep away from saying “Islamic terrorism”; and today, I want to help my brother—I want to talk about the root of “terror.” And I have a word to say to you, brothers and sisters, about “terrorism” and the universal cry that is intensifying in the people for justice. I hate the division that is manifested in the world today, particularly in the world of Islam, where we are witnessing the killing of Christians because they are Christians, the killing of Jews because they are Jews, and those who kill Muslims simply because we are Muslims. I would like to say those things that unite us, to say the things to make us see each other as a “family,” and to say those things that will demonstrate to the world that God has raised a light in the midst of the darkness of America that shines back towards The East where all the prophets came. The “light of the prophets” has gone out in The East, and it is now alive and well in The West. Today I’m going to weave all the scriptures together, and in that process weave us together as a beautiful garment of many colors like Joseph’s coat, that you may see where we fit, and why the universal cry that is intensifying for justice has called God out of His hiding place. ‘The Day of Judgment’ in which we now live The Al-Fatihah, which is to the Muslims like “The Lord’s Prayer” is to our Christian family: Elijah Muhammad would say this prayer, “In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, The Beneficent, the Merciful, Master of the Day of Judgment”—but he added something—“in which we now live.” That’s where I’m going today; because for religious scholars and leaders to think that The Day of Judgment is “afar off”: You’re in it right now. And that’s why if you watch the weather, the meteorologists can’t get it right. That’s why there’s trouble all over the Earth, because we are at the end of the time of this world. Dear pastors, pay attention: The Bible teaches “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever would believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” I cannot allow you to think that God loves this world, because if you think that way you’ll want to stay in it; you’ll see yourself as desirous of being a part of it. My poor brother president: He’ll never be able to bring peace, no matter how sincere his heart is. I’m so sorry that he wanted to be Pharaoh in the time of the end of Pharaoh. I’m so sorry that he wanted to be Pharaoh when God has come to put an end to that “Egypt” which old Egypt was a sign of. God did not love this world. He declared its destruction the day of its inception. He gave this world six days. … And to my Seventh Day Adventist family: In “the seventh day,” God would come. And you, Black man and woman: You think so little of yourself. Though you sing the song “What He Did for Others He Can Do for Us”—but He hadn’t done it yet; and you have rejected the gift of life that He wishes to give to you because you are so in love with your former slave masters, and their children. You want to be a part of this. Wrong. The scripture teaches, “Come out of her, My people. Babylon has fallen and has become a habitation of devils.” Do you really think you’re a saint? Let’s discuss this, because if we are “saints” then God helps righteousness. What is a “devil”? A rebel against God and His way; and not only one who is a transgressor, but leads others into transgression. Brothers and sisters, I just want you to pay attention to my words; if “the seat gets a little hot,” I’m not after you, I’m after what’s sitting up inside you that makes you an enemy of God and an enemy of yourself. … If you fear, you won’t live to see justice. If you are a scared-to-death people, you are scared of the power of the enemy because you’re not acquainted with The Power of God. “God so loved the world”: When you use the definite article, you’re talking about that world that is “the example of worlds,” and is why this world will not last! God so loved the world that was in His Mind, that He gave His only begotten son to bring that world into existence because this one is perishing—and if you love this world, you will go down with it as it’s going! That is why you have to be told the truth that will set you free. Free of what? Free of your oppressor. Free of the tyranny of those who terrorize you. Free of that fear that makes you into a “little boy” in the face of your enemy, when God wants to make you a man. ‘The Cry of the Human Family in Demand of Justice’: With 100 percent dissatisfaction, what power will bring about 100 percent change? God’s world is in need of a truth that will set up a government where everybody can live in peace under real freedom, real justice, and real equality. Christian family: You pray for it every Sunday, and even through the week! You don’t pray for “this world,” but you say “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” “The Will of God” is not being done today in any country, including the holiest places of Christianity and Islam, and Judaism; so we can go from Jerusalem to Mecca, to Medinah, to Rome—to wherever you think is a “holy place,” it has been defiled. And those of us who think that we are “holy” because we like to put on robes, and strut like peacocks in front of the ignorant as though we are “holy”: You have never been holy. Even if you tried, you haven’t made it. So let us disabuse ourselves of the arrogance of self-righteousness, and the hypocrisy of it. “There is none righteous, no not one.” (That’s what the Book says.) If this were God’s world, there wouldn’t be 100 percent dissatisfaction. Trouble is breaking out in all the countries, and America, “the land of the free”—and the home of the slave, as well as “the brave”: There’s trouble in Ferguson, trouble in St. Louis, trouble in Chicago, trouble in New York, trouble everywhere you look. Because “justice” is not where we look; it’s injustice that is the order of the day. Seven billion people on our planet are upset, angry, dissatisfied with those who lead and govern their lives and the institutions that have been put into place by various governments to govern lives of the people of the Earth. This intense cry for justice demands The Presence of God—and we find Him in The Great Mahdi (or Mahadiah, or “Guide that is Self-Guided”). The poor Muslim world, trying to get back to the pristine purity of the faith of Muhammad: You haven’t made it, have you? And you won’t make it because you are not guided right. That’s why God sent a Guide; because we’ve lost the way. Christians: You’ve lost the path of Jesus; in fact, most of you never knew his path. You know his name, you know something about his goodness, his beauty as a human being, and you love to praise him in song, in dance, and in preaching, but our hearts are far removed from living the life that he wanted us to live. So what good is it to know the name of a great one, to talk about him, and then deny him in our actions? Every nation on Earth now: If you listen to the politics of each nation, they’re running on a theme, or a plan, about “change” to satisfy the dissatisfied elements. But no change can satisfy the demand of the Human Family for justice. No change orchestrated by those presently in power could ever satisfy the cry of the people. You know why? Because this cry is not a cry that comes out of some petty hurt or pain; it’s not a cry to “fix the unions,” it’s not a cry to “straighten out the politics,” it’s not a cry to “get the mosque right or the church right”—it’s so much deeper than that. The change that will satisfy the cry of humanity can only come not from any present ruler, but from God Himself. No institution that presently exists can satisfy the cry of the people; no government—and no religious order. Again, no religious order can satisfy the cry that is coming up out of the people in your own order, much less the order of someone else. And you know why? Because what is demanded out of the very Nature of God, and the nature and order of His creation that is inside the nature of the people, that has been stirred, now, by the cry for justice: There’s something in you that is crying out, and it cannot be met in the political arena, or the voting booth. Now, you can vote for whoever you want for mayor. But it is an exercise in futility; because you are never going to get what you think you might get if you put “the right man” in office. I don’t care what his color is—he can’t fix it because he doesn’t know enough to solve the problems. The problems are too complex, and the cry continues to get stronger and stronger. … The people are crying out for The Kingdom of God to be established on the Earth. This is why God says through the Book of Revelation, “There will be a new heaven and a new earth, and the former things will pass away.” That not only means there will be a new sun, a new moon, new stars; that is in the works now, but we will never live to see it for it’s billions of years in the future. But The God with perfect knowledge is dissatisfied even with what we think is already “perfect,” so there will be a new sun, a new moon, a new star—but that is not what the scripture is talking about. A “new heaven” means a new spiritual order, and a new political order governed by the spiritual order that will bring human beings together. Not on the basis of color of skin, or ethnicity or biology, but on the basis of our desire to do that which is right.