“Jesus
said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”
(John
11:25)
Yet
Shall (S)He Live
GODREPORTS
In her near-death experience, Jesus and Satan disputed over her life
By Mark Ellis
June 12, 2019
At a summer swim party with her youth group after church, the unthinkable happened to Steffani Besch. A young prankster gave her a shove as she stood next to the pool, she hit her head on the edge, lost consciousness, and spent 30 minutes at the bottom of the pool.
At the time, Steffani, 13, lived with her family in Dodge City, Kansas. “Dad had just taken a new job in Longmont Colorado, so he told us the night before this happened that we were moving in two weeks, so that’s how the swimming party came about,” she recounts.
“The next day was Sunday, July 29, 1979 and I told my youth group we were moving.”
After the service, eight members of her youth group drove from Dodge City to Jetmore because their local pool was closed for maintenance.
It was a hot summer day and the pool was overly crowded. Someone let in more people than the legal limit and overloaded the chlorine, so the water appeared cloudy.
There was a frenzy of splashing and activity, with many kids playing tag and other games. Steffani and her friend Tami swam toward the deep end.
After a time, the lifeguards blew a whistle for a 10-minute break and everyone got out of the water. Following the break Steffani and Tami stood next to the edge of the pool and were talking. They didn’t notice their friend Tad sneak up behind them with mischief in his eyes.
He pushed both girls into the water. Tami went out far enough to clear the edge, but Steffani’s head snapped back and hit the cement.
“It knocked me out, but nobody saw. The next thing I’m in the bottom of the pool.”
She didn’t even let out a scream! Amidst the jam-packed frenzy of kids swimming, nobody noticed her body drifting toward the bottom.
When Tami got out she looked for Steffani and saw her underwater, but thought she was swimming to the other side. “She waited and waited and when I didn’t come back, then she couldn’t see me anymore. She didn’t know where I went.”
She checked with other kids in the youth group. Finally she had a feeling something wasn’t right. She went to the female lifeguard on duty at the time.
“I can’t find my friend and I’m afraid!” she cried out.
Incredibly, the lifeguard dismissed her. “If somebody needed help I would have seen it,” the lifeguard said brusquely. “You need to go and search for her.”
Tami went to the other kids in the youth group and shared her mounting alarm.
The pool drain was so strong it pulled Steffani to the bottom and held her fast to its grate. “Kids were playing tag and stuff so it looked like somebody was swimming on the very bottom of the pool. Nobody paid attention.”
But the clock was ticking. Time is critical when a person is knocked unconscious and stops breathing. According to medical professionals, permanent brain damage begins after only four minutes without oxygen, and death can occur as soon as four to six minutes later.
One of the pastors’ daughters, Laurie, yelled Steffani’s name and nobody answered.
The youth group broke into teams and began their search for Steffani throughout the sprawling complex. They went around the circumference of the pool, surveyed the baby pool, the concession stand, checked both restrooms, went outside the fenced area, and even checked on the roof because teens sometimes went up there to sunbathe.
Finally Cheri, the other pastor’s daughter, felt led to jump into the deep end. She dove as deeply as she could until it hurt her ears, but she couldn’t make it to the bottom. Without a facemask, her eyes could barely discern the shape of a body underneath her.
Thirty long minutes had passed since Steffani went missing.
Cheri burst up to the surface and cried out, “I think something is down there! I can see something.”
A young man standing nearby, the son of the local sheriff, dove in to see if he could find her. “I was curled up in the fetal position stuck on the drain at the bottom. He was able to lift me up and bring me up to the surface,” she says.
Another young man from the youth group, Dan, helped pull her out. When they stretched out her body on the pool deck they were stunned by Steffani’s appearance. Her eyes had rolled back in her head and she appeared lifeless.
Steffani’s friends began to gather around her. One by one, they began to speak the name of Jesus. “That’s the only thing they knew to do, was say the name of Jesus, while they stood there figuring out what to do,” she says.
The lifeguard attempted CPR, but it was to no avail.
Tami ran to call Steffani’s parents, Warren and AdaMarie. When Steffani’s father picked up the phone he heard Tami’s hysterical voice on the other end: “They found Steffani on the bottom of the pool! They said she’s dead, but you have to come right away. They are taking her to the hospital.”
A young woman working at the complex grabbed the phone from Tami. “It’s true what she’s telling you,” she told Steffani’s stunned father. A friend from church happened to arrive at their house as Steffani’s parents were leaving.
“When Shirley arrived my parents told her what happened and she went inside our house and prayed and interceded for my life. She prayed and cried out to God that I would live and not die and that my brain would be protected – no brain damage,” she recounts.
An ambulance transported Steffani to a small hospital nearby that doubled as a nursing facility. A doctor on call, who happened to be playing golf, was informed of the situation. The doctor was told she had already expired. “They thought I was dead. There was nothing they could do. They kept me in the hallway covered with a sheet because they didn’t know what to do.”
During the emergency, something remarkable happened to Steffani.
“I had an experience with the Lord and I literally saw my spirit leave my body and I saw my natural body on the bottom of the pool,” she recalls.
After her spirit left her body, she remembers walking across the bottom of the pool, then up the silver stairs that exit the pool.
As her spirit left the pool she looked upward. “I was looking into space and just shot through like a rocket. I went through the atmosphere. It was so fast, in the twinkling of an eye I was there.
“The next thing I know I was at the gates of heaven and there was a battle for my life. I heard Satan say she’s coming with me. I heard the Lord say no she’s not. This went back and forth three times.
Then she heard Jesus say: It is not her time yet and when it is she will be with me.
Steffani recalls the gates of heaven being very tall and white. “I remember brilliant colors. I mostly remember the feel, because there was no fear. There was such a knowing of love and that I was safe and protected. Nothing else, even the arguing over my life didn’t affect me. I knew I was safe,” she says.
Immediately after Jesus said she will be with me, Steffani opened her eyes on the hospital gurney. “It was slow motion, hard to breathe. I remember seeing my youth group. Some were leaning against the wall crying.”
Her father walked in through the doors and kneeled down briefly. Then he got up and pulled the sheet back that had been covering her face and she said, “Hi daddy,” very weakly.
“They started asking me questions and I remember saying my head hurt. I knew my name and birthdate. The nurses tried to discuss what to do with me.”
Amazingly, they released Steffani from the hospital.
“They sent me home but I would go in and out of consciousness. I remember laying in my mom and dad’s bed and feeling really weak and it hurt to breathe.”
Steffani attempted to stand up and passed out.
Alarmed by her condition, Steffani’s parents transported her to the emergency room at Dodge City Hospital. They medical staff proceeded to ask her questions: “Do you know what happened? How long were you under the water?”
When a doctor touched her head she cried out. “That’s when she found the spot. She checked and discovered I had a concussion.”
The doctor shook her head. “I don’t understand this. None of this makes sense. There is no water in her lungs.”
Steffani conveyed her difficulty breathing.
“I can tell the chlorine had to be strong,” the doctor observed, “because probably what is hurting is that you swallowed water but it went straight to your stomach. It looks raw in your stomach.”
Then Steffani startled the medical staff with an unexpected testimony. “I know what happened to me,” she said. “Jesus saved my life. He saved my life today. He gave me my life back.”
In response to her surprising words, everyone in the room clapped their hands. “We don’t have an explanation,” the doctor said. “The only thing we can say is we are going to call this a miracle.”
They kept Steffani for 24 hours of observation. Throughout the day and into the night, nurses and doctors came into her room. “I want to see this miracle,” they said.
As planned, Steffani’s family moved to Colorado in two weeks, which inhibited the spread of the story. “It was a while before I started to share my story,” she says. A few years later, she remembers sharing about it at a prayer meeting at her mother’s prompting.
“I shut down for a long time, keeping things within myself. I didn’t share it a lot because sometimes when you share it people look at you like you’re nuts,” she says.
She sought the Lord about the “argument” over her life between Jesus and Satan. She viewed Jesus as her Good Shepherd and that nothing would be able to snatch her away from His grip.
She wondered how there could be an argument if she was secure in Him.
Then Jesus impressed this on her heart: That’s where you were. You were in the palm of my hand and nothing could snatch you away from me.
“What about the arguing?” she asked.
The enemy argued for Moses’ body. That’s in Jude, He replied.
So Steffani opened the Scripture to Jude 9 and was surprised to see this passage:
“But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’”
In the last 10 years, Steffani has become more open about sharing her story. “People told me people need to know that God does miracles every single day.
“It’s not just a story; He really does raise the dead.”
Steffani Besch is an associate women’s pastor at Rez Church in Loveland, Colorado. She has been married to David for 31 years and they have three grown sons.
CHRISMANEWS
Medical Study Proves Validity of Speaking in Tongues
July 18, 2019 LIGHTWORKERS
(Photo by Alan Retratos from Pexels)
In 2008, the University of Pennsylvania released findings from a medical study proving that the practice of speaking in tongues is sourced by the Holy Spirit. In the study, participants' brain activity was monitored while they spoke in tongues, giving the medical researchers scientific insight into the parts of the brain active while speaking in these "heavenly tongues"—and the results were astounding.
Much of the study is outlined in the below piece by ABC News, findings that are well worth the watch.
Speaking in tongues, as ABC News accurately states, "is an ancient practice mentioned in the Bible. [Apostle] Paul called it 'speaking in the tongues of angels.' Jesus' apostles were first said to do it at Pentecost."
It is this spiritual phenomenon that Dr. Andrew Newberg, while at the University of Pennsylvania, set out to find an explanation "for what most regard as unexplainable." While trying to discover the relationship between faith and science, his study quickly ascertained that speaking in tongues is absolutely not regular language. Newberg states to ABC News: "It's not language—it's not regular language at least that would normally activate the frontal lobe [of the brain]."
So what did Newberg's medical study show happens to the brain during one's deepest moments of faith then?
Newberg shares the heart of his study: "If we're really going to look at this very, very powerful force in human history of religion and spirituality, I think we really have to take a look at how that affects our brain, what's changing or turning on or turning off in our brain" during those extremely deep and powerful moments of faith.
And "remarkably he discovered that what's happening to [the test subjects when they pray in tongues] neurologically looks a lot like what they say is happening to them spiritually."
When test subjects prayed in their native language, their brain activity indicated normal behavior for speech in the frontal lobe. However, when the same test subjects prayed in tongues, their brain activity showed something extremely different. "[The test subject's] scan showed that the frontal lobe, the part of the brain that controls language, was active when he prayed in English. But for the most part, it fell quiet when he prayed in tongues."
Dr. Newberg confirmed this finding saying, "When they are actually engaged in this whole very intense spiritual practice for them, their frontal lobes tend to go down in activity, but I think it's very consistent with the kind of experience that they have because they say that they are not in charge—it's the voice of God, the Spirit of God that's moving through them."
The study found many other fascinating findings that affirm that speaking in tongues is truly a spiritual gift and not a mental practice. We encourage you to watch the full ABC News piece to learn more.
***
Strange Sounds
Elon Musk is making implants to link your brain with a smartphone and read your mind
July 19, 2019
After electric vehicles and rockets… Elon Musk now wants to read your mind…
And insert Bluetooth-enabled implants into your brain to enable telepathy and repair motor function in people with injuries.
Speaking on Tuesday, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX said his Neuralink devices will consist of a tiny chip connected to 1,000 wires measuring one-tenth the width of a human hair.
The chip features a USB-C port, the same adapter used by Apple’s Macbooks, and connects via Bluebooth to a small computer worn over the ear and to a smartphone, Musk said.
“If you’re going to stick something in a brain, you want it not to be large,” Musk said, playing up the device’s diminutive size.
Neuralink
Neuralink, a startup founded by Musk, says the devices can be used by those seeking a memory boost or by stroke victims, cancer patients, quadriplegics or others with congenital defects.
The company says up to 10 units can be placed in a patient’s brain. The chips will connect to an iPhone app that the user can control.
The devices will be installed by a robot built by the startup. Musk said the robot, when operated by a surgeon, will drill 2 millimeter holes in a person’s skull. The chip part of the device will plug the hole in the patient’s skull.
“The interface to the chip is wireless, so you have no wires poking out of your head. That’s very important,” Musk added.
Trials could start before the end of 2020, Musk said, likening the procedure to Lasik eye correction surgery, which requires local anesthetic.
Musk has said this latest project is an attempt to use artificial intelligence (AI) to have a positive effect on humanity. He has previously tried to draw attention to AI’s potential to harm humans.
He has invested some $100 million in San Francisco-based Neuralink, according to the New York Times.
Musk’s plan to develop human computer implants comes on the heels of similar efforts by Google and Facebook. But critics aren’t so sure customers should trust tech companies with data ported directly from the brain.
Who will get the data?
“The idea of entrusting big enterprise with our brain data should create a certain level discomfort for society,” said Daniel Newman, principal analyst at Futurum Research and co-author of the book Human/Machine.
“There is no evidence that we should trust or be comfortable with moving in this direction,” he added.
While the technology could help those with some type of brain injury or trauma, “Gathering data from raw brain activity could put people in great risk, and could be used to influence, manipulate and exploit them,” Frederike Kaltheuner of Privacy International told CNN Business. “Who has access to this data? Is this data shared with third parties? People need to be in full control over their data.“
The tech industry is coming under heightened scrutiny over how it handles data.
France fined Google parent company Alphabet in January for violating EU online privacy rules. Facebook reportedly faces a major fine in the United States over its own data privacy violations.
Tesla has also suffered data leaks. In 2018, researchers at security firm RedLock said Tesla’s cloud storage was breached to mine cryptocurrency.
Tesla has also suffered data leaks. In 2018, researchers at security firm RedLock said Tesla’s cloud storage was breached to mine cryptocurrency.
Big companies have never enough. after controlling the world, they want to control your soul… We have to fight against this new kind of slavery… At least I will try!
***
PC
Microsoft Invests $1 Billion to Create a World-Saving AI
The money is going to OpenAI, a San Francisco-based company co-founded by Elon Musk. Whether or not creating an artificial general intelligence is even possible remains up for debate, but OpenAI has been bullish on the prospect.
By Michael Kan
July 22, 2019 3:54PM EST
Microsoft's latest goal is the stuff of sci-fi novels: To build an AI that's smart enough to run society, and solve our most pressing problems. On Monday, the company said it wants to lay the foundation for its creation by investing $1 billion into OpenAI, a San Francisco-based company co-founded by Elon Musk.
The investment's overarching aim is toward an artificial general intelligence (AGI), as opposed to narrow AI. Currently, the most cutting-edge AI programs have been designed to focus on a single task, whether it's beating a human at a videogame or creating fake, but life-like photos.
AGI is far more ambitious: Imagine a computer smart enough to master one field, and then another, and another, and then using that knowledge for the betterment of mankind. "The creation of AGI will be the most important technological development in human history, with the potential to shape the trajectory of humanity," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in today's announcement. "Our mission is to ensure that AGI technology benefits all of humanity."
Whether or not creating an AGI is even possible remains up for debate.Meanwhile, others may cringe at the thought of an AI with the intellect to match and exceed humanity. However, OpenAI has been bullish on the prospect. The company points to the breakthroughs researchers have made in last decade in getting AI algorithms to recognize images, translate languages, and control robots. One of OpenAI's own AI projects can write fiction like a human can (sort of).
However, creating new AI-based technologies costs a lot of money. Not only does it require programming, but also renting access to thousands of servers. So OpenAI has been seeking funding. "The most obvious way to cover costs is to build a product, but that would mean changing our focus. Instead, we intend to license some of our pre-AGI technologies, with Microsoft becoming our preferred partner for commercializing them," Altman wrote in a separate blog post.
How OpenAI will exactly create an AGI wasn't mentioned. But as part of today's investment, OpenAI will port its research over to Microsoft's Azure cloud computing service. The two companies also plan on jointly building new supercomputing technologies to power next-generation AI algorithms. This will involve creating hardware that can simulate the way biological brains work through what's called artificial neural networks.
Although OpenAI isn't alone in trying to create an AGI, the company was founded in 2015 with the goal of developing artificial intelligence responsibly, amid fearsthe same technologies may one day pose a serious threat to human society. "We believe it's crucial that AGI is deployed safely and securely and that its economic benefits are widely distributed," Altman added.
***
BUSINESS INSIDER
Australian researchers just released the world's first AI-developed vaccine and it could prevent another horror flu season
SHARON MASIGE
July 9, 2019
Aussie researchers are trialling a vaccine developed by AI. Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
Researchers at Flinders University have developed a new vaccine believed to be the first in the world to be designed by artificial intelligence (AI).
Funded by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the vaccine is currently being rolled out for 12-month trials in the US.
The rammifications could be huge, with the technology expected to be able to create better vaccines years ahead of humans and at a fraction of the cost.
A team at Flinders University in South Australia has developed a new vaccine believed to be the first human drug in the world to be completely designed by artificial intelligence (AI).
While drugs have been designed using computers before, this vaccine went one step further being independently created by an AI program called SAM (Search Algorithm for Ligands).
Flinders University Professor Nikolai Petrovsky who led the development told Business Insider Australia its name is derived from what it was tasked to do: search the universe for all conceivable compounds to find a good human drug (also called a ligand).
“We had to teach the AI program on a set of compounds that are known to activate the human immune system, and a set of compounds that don’t work. The job of the AI was then to work out for itself what distinguished a drug that worked from one that doesn’t,” Petrovsky said, who is also the Research Director of Australian biotechnology company Vaxine.
“We then developed another program, called the synthetic chemist which generated trillions of different chemical compounds that we then fed to SAM so that it could sift through all of these to find candidates that it thought might be good human immune drugs.”
The team then took the top candidates SAM identified, synthesised them in a lab and tested them on human blood cells to see if they would work.
“This confirmed that SAM not only had the ability to identify good drugs but in fact had come up with better human immune drugs than currently exist,” Nikolai said. “So we then took these drugs created by SAM into development with animal testing to confirm their ability to boost influenza vaccine effectiveness.”
Petrovsky said this potentially shortens the normal drug discovery and development process by decades and saves hundreds of millions of dollars.
The research received funding from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – part of the country’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) – and has begun 12-month clinical trials across the US.
“We already know from animal testing that the vaccine is highly protective against flu, outperforming the existing vaccines. Now we just need to confirm this in humans,” Petrovsky said.
The new vaccine comes at the same time as a high number of influenza-related cases in Australia. Before June 2019, 228 people had died from flu related complications, including 57 people in New South Wales and 48 people in Victoria.
Associate Professor Dimitar Sajkov highlighted the need for a better flu vaccine after a number of influenza sufferers this year had already received the 2019 flu vaccine.
“It is tremendous to see such a promising vaccine that we developed with the very first human trials being done at Flinders, progressing onto the world stage,” he said in a statement.
“So far in 2019 there have been over 96 thousand confirmed cases across Australia. The number in WA nearly doubled to 10 thousand, as did the number of deaths, there have been 57 deaths recorded in NSW, 44 in SA, and nearly 40 in Queensland.”
Petrovsky hopes this vaccine will prove to be more effective than the existing vaccines and will go on to complement or replace them as the standard seasonal flu shot.
“If this is the case then the same technology we are using for flu vaccines can be applied to improve or develop many other vaccines,” he added
It’s not the first time that Flinders University has had a breakthrough in the vaccine department. In 2009, the team was the first to develop a swine flu vaccine.
Where’s the money?
Despite the groundbreaking work the Flinders University team completed, Petrovsky said it’s challenging to receive funding for new vaccines in Australia.
“Australia has a great record at publishing basic medical science and has a poor track record of developing new drugs or treatments,” he said.
“(But) funding bodies in Australia like NHMRC (The National Health and Medical Research Council) direct the vast majority of their funding to the “big end of town”, i.e. the large research institutes. This makes it very difficult for researchers based outside the large institutes or the biggest universities to compete and get research funding. It is particularly difficult for hospital-based researchers like ourselves to get any traction in this system, despite the fact that past Nobel prizes including Barry Marshall’s came out of hospital-based research.”
Such a situation means local researchers are often forced to go overseas.
“As an act of desperation, I took a grant application rejected by NHMRC and submitted it to the US NIH (National Institute of Health) as a last-ditch attempt to save my career in research. Much to my surprise and joy, the original US grant application was successful, allowing my research to survive.”
Petrovsky has since received more than 10 NIH grants and supplements totalling more than US$50 million. He said that even by US standards, it was an “extraordinary outcome”.
“I think this is because the US system values ambitious, innovative and futuristic research whereas Australian funding bodies are highly conservative and only fund me-too incremental research where the outcome is largely already known,” he said.
An NHMRC spokesperson told Business Insider Australia in an email: “Funding applications for health and medical research projects are subject to rigorous, expert peer review against published criteria, to ensure transparency, probity and fairness.
“Therefore only applications – including applications for the development of flu vaccines – of the highest quality are funded by NHMRC.”
(To coin a cliche, what could possibly go wrong?)
***
Big League Politics
CPS Is Taking Kids Away Based on ‘Predictive Analytics’ Computer Program To Judge Parents
By Patrick Howley
July 9, 2019
Child Protective Services (CPS) is using a “Predictive Analytics” computer program to determine whether or not parents should be allowed to keep their children.
A father from Ohio named Aaron described on The Campaign Show with Patrick HowleySunday on Patriots Soapbox that predictive analysis was used against him as he fought to keep his daughter, who was taken away for three years by CPS and placed in foster care.
Health Impact News reported: “In several cases reported to Health Impact News, we have already seen such allegations used against parents. Social workers have literally written in their reports to the courts that a parent has characteristics that might indicate that they may abuse or neglect their child in the future, even though there is no evidence that they have harmed their child in the past. This is reminiscent of George Orwell’s “thought police” in the dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is inconsistent with one of the foundational principles underlying the U.S. Constitution, that of the presumption of innocence. Some have equated the predictive analysis model with racial profiling, because the algorithms tend to disproportionately target people who are poor or part of a minority group.”
***
The Guardian
By the Jaffa Gate, final showdown looms in battle over Jerusalem’s historic hotel
Palestinian tenant of New Imperial Hotel makes plea after supreme court backs Jewish settlers’ bid to buy property
Sarah Helm
July 21, 2019
The New Imperial Hotel overlooks Jaffa Gate in the Christian Quarter. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Standing on a balcony at the New Imperial Hotel, overlooking Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City, 75-year-old Walid Dajani last week declared a one-man war on Jewish settlers.
Officials from Israel’s supreme court had served an eviction notice against Dajani following a ruling last month that the disputed 2005 sale of the historic 40-room hotel to a radical settler group was valid. The Jewish settlers’ organisation Ateret Cohanim immediately branded him “a squatter” and threatened to seize the building. Such a move would establish a strategically valuable settler presence just inside Jaffa Gate, the main entrance to the ancient city’s Christian Quarter.
According to Dajani, the settlers – who seek to create a Jewish majority throughout the Old City which, along with East Jerusalem, was annexed by Israel in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 – are enacting “the rape of Jaffa Gate”. His family has owned land on nearby Mount Zion for 800 years, and has run the New Imperial since 1949. “From this moment I am embarking on the fight of my life,” he said, calling on Christians, Muslims, Jews and world leaders to fall in behind him. “On my back, they will take me out.”
So far his appeal for international support has been met mostly with silence. But earlier this month, local Christian leaders, terrified of the political and religious consequences of the settlers’ takeover, demonstrated inside Jaffa Gate.
Archbishop Theodosius Attulah, spokesperson for the Greek Orthodox church, criticised the supreme court decision, saying the sale was fraudulent. “The Christian properties have been a target for 70 years, but this is the most dangerous so far. It is aimed at marginalising Palestinian influence and weakening the Christian presence in the Old City. It will not be tolerated.
“Jerusalem is sacred to the three monotheistic religions, the purpose of the move is to transform the city into a place of hatred and struggle,” he said.
The showdown is the culmination of a lengthy court wrangle dating back to a suspect secret sale of Greek Orthodox-owned properties to settlers, authorised by a now deposed Greek Patriarchate. Three properties were involved: the New Imperial Hotel and the Petra Hotel, both in the Jaffa Gate plaza, and a house in the Muslim Quarter.
The Greek Orthodox church, the largest private landowner in Israel and the occupied territories, has often sold property in East Jerusalem to Jewish settlers who deploy dubious means to secure deals. The New Imperial Hotel was sold behind Dajani’s back, despite the fact that he is a protected tenant, and the $1.8m deal for the three properties was signed by a Greek official who has since disappeared.
Michael Sfard, a leading Israeli human rights lawyer, said it was hard to believe the supreme court ruling would stand. “The price itself should have shown this was suspicious. It’s the cost of a two-bed flat in Tel Aviv,” he said.
“The hotel is priceless,” said Dajani, whose protected tenancy was legally agreed with the previous Greek patriarch for three generations. “The furniture alone is worth half a million,” he added.Dajani fears representatives of the settlers will seek entry to the hotel any day. He has been watching his security cameras and monitoring suspicious activity on hotel booking websites. He says he has learned that hotel “clients” linked to the settler group had taken rooms in the hotel through Booking.com and were already inside the property. He has closed the rooftop restaurant to prevent incursions from adjoining buildings.
He invited the EU delegate in Jerusalem to book rooms at the hotel for each member country as a show of support and to prevent a takeover by “fake guests”, but received no reply. “They didn’t even drop by for a coffee to show support.”
Since Donald Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem last year, recognising the city as Israel’s capital, European diplomats have floundered, unable to show alternative leadership. Meanwhile, the demoralised Palestinian community in the city is carved off by the imposing separation barrier from the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah in the West Bank.
On Friday, however, Dajani received news that an appeal to King Abdullah of Jordan may bear fruit. Feelers had also been put out to the Vatican, and a visiting official from Jeremy Corbyn’s office had dropped by with messages of support.
Even so, looking across from the Imperial’s roof to the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the city’s other sacred sites, Dajani’s shoulders slumped a little. “We have to do the impossible,” he said. “When I look at the walls opposite, I see them cry, asking: ‘Where are the people who love Jerusalem?’”
Zero Hedge
JPMorgan: We Believe The Dollar Could Lose Its Status As World's Reserve Currency
by Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/23/2019 - 12:55
Almost eight year ago, we first presented a chart first created by JPMorgan's Michael Cembalest, which showed very simply and vividly that reserve currencies don't last forever, and that in the not too distant future, the US Dollar would also lose its status as the world's most important currency, since it is never different this time.
As Cembalest put it back in January 2012, "I am reminded of the following remark from late MIT economist Rudiger Dornbusch: 'Crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.'"
Perhaps it is not a coincidence then that in light of the growing number of mentions of MMT and various other terminal, destructive monetary policies that have been proposed to kick on the current financial system the can just a little bit longer, that the topic of longevity of reserve currency status is once again becoming all the rage, and none other than JPMorgan's Private Bank ask in this month's investment strategy note whether "the dollar's "exorbitant privilege" is coming to an end?"
So why is JPM, after first creating the iconic chart above which has since spread virally across all financial corners of the internet, not only worried that the dollar's reserve status may be coming to an end, but in fact goes so far as to state that "we believe the dollar could lose its status as the world’s dominant currency (which could see it depreciate over the medium term) due to structural reasons as well as cyclical impediments."
(JP Morgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States and sixth largest in the world. If they are acknowledging this it would seem to indicate the downfall and the collapse of the dollar is close at hand. )
GlobalResearch
“With 5G, We are Guinea Pigs”: Swiss Magazine Reports First 5G Injuries in Geneva
By Marc David
Global Research, July 22, 2019
L’illustre 18 July 2019
This article was originally published in French on L’illustré, translated into English by Claire Edwards on EMFacts Consultancy.
Since 5G antennas were installed near their home in the heart of Geneva, these residents of the same area suffer from various health problems. Are they victims of a technology whose dangers were not sufficiently tested? A doctor and member of parliament speaks out.
Gathered in the apartment of one of the two, on the fifth floor of a building in the centre of Geneva, these residents of the same area look at each other. What they have in common is insomnia, tinnitus, headaches. And a lot of unanswered questions. The youngest, Johan Perruchoud, 29, has lived there for 11 years and is not the type to cultivate any sort of hatred of invasive technology. He is a healthy young man, active and positive, who has just returned from four years in New York and makes finely crafted videos and films for the media or for individuals, often working in his room with his computer.
“Like in a microwave oven”
For him and for his neighbour it all started in April.
“I’ve never had a problem with Wi- Fi or any of that and never had problems sleeping – and then suddenly I had trouble falling asleep. In particular at home I felt – how can I put it? – like I was in a microwave. I didn’t feel good in the house, as if I was surrounded by ghosts.”
When he looked on Facebook and on the website of the Confederation, he saw that three 5G antennas had been put into service nearby and that other people were complaining of identical problems, headaches, tiredness.
“Was it psychological? I don’t know. But for the first time, although I have never had earaches while composing my music, my ears started whistling. It woke me up at night. All of this was unusual.”
He was assailed by the unpleasant sensation of being used, caught up in something not of his own making. So he called Swisscom. Scarcely ten minutes after he had filled out the basic form, a representative called him back sounding all empathetic.
“He was immediately on the defensive. He explained to me that tests had taken place and that everything was fine. At the end, for form’s sake, he wished me a good recovery.”
Today, Johan is a little better, although his sinuses have been blocked for the past two months; an infection he has never experienced before.
Image on the right: Elidan Arzoni
Elidan Arzoni, 50, on the Rue de Coutance, in Geneva.
“When they installed 5G, I felt bad from one day to the next.”
The solution: move home?
His neighbour Elidan Arzoni, 50, is not doing any better. On the same day, the actor, stage director and director of the Metamorphosis Company started having the same symptoms, but more acutely.
“It happened overnight”, he says, “My ears started to make very loud sounds, whereas at the time I didn’t even know what tinnitus was.”
At the same time he felt pains on the left side and at the back of his skull. And such violent discomfort in his heart that he thought he was having a heart attack and went to the hospital emergency room two days later. There, after a few tests, he was reassured to be told that he had a “sportsman’s heart”. When he raised the issue of the presence of the antennas, the nurse replied that nobody was trained to provide information on the potential effects of those transmitters. “The only advice I was given was to move. …” To him, there is no doubt: the arrival of the antennas was the cause of his ills. “It is a no-brainer. Even Swisscom confirmed it in terms of the timing. And I’m in very good health, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I never go to the doctor.” He states that his wife and children of 9, 16 and 21 are also newly suffering from insomnia.
More vocal than Johan, the actor does not hide his concern. He wrote to the President of the State Council, Antonio Hodgers (The Greens), and simply got told that everything was legal with this new technology. Dissatisfied, he does not hide his feelings:
“How can we forget that the Confederation is the majority shareholder of Swisscom? As soon as you come up against the financial interests of these people, they go into total denial. Nobody is interested in the citizens. Even the forthcoming report (Ed.: scheduled for the summer of 2019 and produced by a working group in collaboration with the Federal Office for Communication, it was just postponed until the end of the year) will not address the aspect of health. If cases of leukaemia or brain cancers start mounting up, it will take years for them to be confirmed.”
Out of the question to live under an antenna
Since then, he’s coped with his earaches, “but it’s unliveable, it’s very strong”. On Facebook, where he talks openly about his situation, he has to deal with attacks and accept being treated as backward. That said, there is no question of his moving home:
“Why should I leave my home when I’m a citizen of Geneva and I pay my taxes here? That would be totally undemocratic. And where would I go anyway, given that there will soon be antennas everywhere? Right now, I feel like an undesirable. I don’t know where to flee. My work and my children are here.”
Equally disturbing: when he goes to neighbouring France, his pains subside. They come back as soon as he returns to the city. Installed rapidly in Switzerland, 5G antennas raise the issue of the health consequences of electrosmog.
As for Johan, he says that he is gradually getting used to it. However, he has promised himself that, if he had children, it would be out of the question for his family to live near an antenna.
“In my view, what’s happening will have an impact on our generation when we’re older.”
Worse: if he understands the progress that 5G can bring in some specific areas such as medical or research fields, he thinks that, “for people, it’s virtually useless”.
The two neighbours’ parting comments are on the same wavelength: “We feel like guinea pigs.” Is anyone going to pay attention?
The precise location of the various antennas on the territory of Switzerland, see this.
A doctor accuses: “We are in danger of a catastrophe”
The practitioner and PDC member Bertrand Buchs filed the motion for a moratorium on 5G in Geneva. He sounds the alarm.
What is your reaction to this testimony from citizens?
I’m seeing more and more of this. In the absence of clear studies, we have no right to tell these people that they are imagining their ills.
With the shorter waves of 5G, nobody knows what can happen. Especially when you consider their potentiation, in other words, their mixture with 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi.
Why did you file the motion?
They are treating us like idiots. Where this is concerned, our authorities are going against common sense. The precautionary principle is clearly violated. Why do so many antennas appear in just two months (Ed.: a hundred in Switzerland today and 90% coverage of the territory by the end of the year)? Whereas for any given drug, it takes years to evaluate whether it is good or bad? Everything is going too fast. We are in the midst of a race to the first operator to have 5G installed, which is happening in such haste, although there is no objective urgency to install 5G. For the population, it’s virtually useless. They could have done as Germany did, where 5G is restricted to certain businesses, and heavily monitored.
What‘s at stake?
As nothing is seen or felt, the public believes that there is zero risk, a bit like in the nuclear field. However, there is a risk of us experiencing a catastrophe in a few years, in terms of tumours, for example. The State will be liable.
What do you recommend?
I repeat, after having tried to inform myself in the databases that I have access to as a doctor: no serious study exists yet, which is not surprising when you know that this technology was developed in China, then in the United States. In Switzerland, we could open up a line for people who feel ill, listen to these complaints and examine them. Our country has the means and the skills. The debate must be launched because this story is far from over. But here, we just get “Move along, there’s nothing to see…”.
All images in this article are from L’illustre
The original source of this article is L’illustre
***
MailOnline
Military chiefs urge next PM to 'send in the MARINES' to protect ships as Iran taunts UK with footage of moment balaclava-clad commandos abseiled from helicopter and hijacked British tanker in 'tit-for-tat' strike
The Stena Impero was seized in the Strait of Hormuz at 4pm yesterday by Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces
British-registered tanker was ordered to turn to the north and was taken into Iranian territorial waters
Warship HMS Montrose, which was patrolling the Persian Gulf, did a U-turn and raced to help captured ship
A second vessel, the British-operated Mesdar was seized by Iran but was released after being inspected
Following an emergency COBRA meeting, Iran was warned it faces 'serious consequences' for their actions
By DARREN BOYLE FOR MAILONLINE and MARK NICHOL FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
PUBLISHED: 16:42, 20 July 2019 | UPDATED: 07:06, 21 July 2019
The footage showed troops wearing ski masks and carrying machine guns (pictured) rappelling to its deck from a helicopter before capturing the British oil tanker last night
***
RT
Iranian TV shows national flag flown on seized British ship
Published time: 22 Jul, 2019 00:34 Edited time: 22 Jul, 2019 08:52
The UK-registered oil tanker Stena Impero flies an Iranian flag in a footage provided by Iranian state TV © Ruptly
Iranian state TV has released footage showing the UK-registered oil tanker Stena Impero with an Iranian flag hoisted over it. The vessel appears to be docked at the port of Bandar Abbas on Iran’s southern coast.
In a video posted by Press TV on Sunday, the Swedish-owned ship that sailed under the UK flag is seen brandishing Iran's green, white and red banner. The short clip also shows a patrol boat that appears to be circling the waters near the vessel. The ship appears empty except for several people that can be seen on the upper deck.
Iran has accused the Stena Impero's crew of ignoring a distress signal after an “accident” with a shipping boat. Tehran says the tanker instead changed its course, sailing in the wrong direction of a shipping lane.
The head of the Ports and Maritime Organization in Iran’s southern Hormozgan Province, Allah-Morad Afifipoor, told Press TV that it’s unclear how much time the probe will take, saying it would depend on the crew’s cooperation and Tehran’s ability to obtain the relevant documentation.
On Saturday, Iranian news agency ISNA said the crew, which consists of 18 Indians, three Russians, a Latvian national, and a Filipino, remains on board and may be subject to “technical questioning.”
The UK, in a letter to the UN Security Council, challenged the Iranian Navy's account, saying the Stena Impero was seized in Omani territorial waters and had done nothing wrong.
A recently-surfaced tense radio exchange between the Iranian Navy and the British frigate HMS Montrose, which was near the site of the incident, shows the British side advising the Stena Impero to defy Iran's demands. "As you are conducting transit passage in a recognized international strait, under international law your passage must not be impaired, impeded, obstructed or hampered,” the Montrose radioed to the tanker. The Iranians said that they intended "no challenge" and needed to inspect the vessel for “security reasons.”
***
The Guardian
Boris Johnson elected new Tory leader
Former foreign secretary will succeed Theresa May as Britain’s next prime minister after beating Jeremy Hunt
Heather Stewart
July 23, 2019
'Deliver Brexit and unite the country': Boris Johnson's first speech as Tory leader
Boris Johnson will become Britain’s next prime minister after winning a convincing victory over Jeremy Hunt in the Conservative party leadership race.
The former mayor of London, who has long cherished an ambition to lead his country, won 66% of the votes – 92,153, to Hunt’s 46,656. Turnout was 87.4% among 159,320 party members.
In a characteristically lighthearted acceptance speech, Johnson conceded that even some of his own supporters may “wonder quite what they have done”.
He claimed the Tory party had historically demonstrated it could “manage the jostling instincts in the human heart” – such as those of owning a home and helping the poorest in society.
“Today, at this pivotal moment in our history, we again have to reconcile two noble sets of instincts – between the deep desire for friendship and free trade and mutual support and security and defence between Britain and our European partners; and the simultaneous desire, equally heartfelt, for democratic self-government in this country.”
He reminded his audience of ministers and party staff of his campaign mantra: “Deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat Jeremy Corbyn.”
Saying “some wag” had pointed out that this spelled “dud”, he joked that the final e – “E for energise” – had been left out. “I say to all the doubters: dude, we are going to energise the country!”
And Johnson said he would “get Brexit done by 31 October” with a “new spirit of can-do”.
“We are once again going to believe in ourselves and what we can achieve, and like some slumbering giant we are going to rise and ping off the guy-ropes of self-doubt and negativity.”
The result of the contest was announced by the joint chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, Cheryl Gillam. Her colleague, Charles Walker, first urged MPs to be “kinder” to the new leader than they had been to Theresa May.
Brandon Lewis, the Conservative party chair, introduced the slick event at a conference centre in Westminster, saying the race had shown that his party was fundamentally united.
Johnson’s victory was almost immediately welcomed by Donald Trump, who tweeted: “He will be great!”
But Johnson was left in no doubt about the opposition he will face from his own benches if he attempts to force through a no-deal Brexit. Alan Duncan quit as a Foreign Office minister on Monday and Anne Milton as education minister on Tuesday, rather than serve under Johnson.
The chancellor, Philip Hammond, the justice secretary, David Gauke, and the international development secretary, Rory Stewart, are expected to join them on the backbenches after the leadership change.
Stewart confirmed he would return to the backbenches on Wednesday, tweeting: “Backbench tomorrow serving Cumbria. Thank you all. More walking!”
Johnson addressed Tory MPs at a meeting of the 1922 Committee on Tuesday afternoon, as well as thanking party staff and his own campaign team.
He will not take office formally until Wednesday afternoon. May will face her final prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons before tendering her resignation to the Queen.
Johnson will then go to Buckingham Palace for his appointment to be confirmed before being driven to Downing Street to give a speech in front of the black door of No 10.
He takes charge at a perilous political moment. The Conservatives’ wafer-thin parliamentary working majority is expected to be eroded further next week – to just two – if the Liberal Democrats win the Brecon and Radnorshire byelection.
Johnson has faced a furious internal revolt even before arriving in Downing Street, with several key cabinet ministers, including Hammond saying they would resign rather than serve under him.
They have been alarmed by Johnson’s insistence that he is willing to countenance leaving the European Union without a deal on 31 October, rather than postpone Brexit once again, even if that meant proroguing parliament.
Despite painstaking media management, his campaign has been dogged by a series of controversies, including the revelation that police had been called to a noisy argument at the home he shares with his partner, Carrie Symonds.
***
THE SUN
FRIGHT SHOW UK weather – Incredible pics show lightning storms hitting Britain overnight as UK braces for ‘hottest day EVER’
By Jenny Awford And Joe Duggan
24th July 2019, 8:52 am
Updated: 24th July 2019, 1:45 pm
The tip of the 95-storey skyscraper is illuminated by bolts of lightning during the dazzling electric storm
GIZMODO
Enter the Microscopic World of Bugs With These Award-Winning Garden Photos
Yessenia Funes
June 24, 2019
FEE
How Gratitude Can Rewire Your Brain for Happiness and Success
Showing gratitude can serve as a light that can help lead us back to where we need to be when we get lost in darkness.
Friday, July 19, 2019
Photo by Paulette Wooten on Unsplash
Brittany Hunter
Over 40 million Americans are struggling with mental health concerns, according to Mental Health America (MHA). Since MHA released its first State of Mental Health in America report in 2015, there have already been “alarming increases” in adult suicidal ideation and major depressive episodes in young people, demonstrating how serious this problem has become.
As someone who suffers from depression, I can tell you firsthand how debilitating mental health issues can be and it can feel as if there are no remedies available to really address the problem. If you go see a doctor, you will likely be prescribed medication. And while some find this approach helpful, others, like myself, have fallen victim to some of the horrendous side-effects of antidepressants, which include severe weight gain, an increase in suicidal thoughts, and even death.
But what if instead of taking a pill that comes with a list of risk factors, something as simple as gratitude could be the answer? This might sound overly simplistic, but as it turns out, there is actually science to back up this claim.
Not Just Self-Help Mumbo Jumbo, It’s Science
A few years ago, Dr. Joshua Brown, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University and his colleague, Dr. Joel Wong, an associate professor of counseling psychology at Indiana University set out to answer one question:
How can they help clients derive the greatest possible benefit from treatment in the shortest amount of time?
Over the course of their research, the pair came to the conclusion that the answer to this question could be found in supplementing traditional therapy sessions with gratitude exercises. Over the last decade, several studies have found that those who routinely count their blessings are overall happier and experience less depression. However, while much of this research focused on those who did not suffer from mental health concerns, Brown and Wong set out to see if gratitude could make a noticeable difference for those struggling with mental health issues.
Brown and Wong, along with others, conducted a study comprised of nearly 300 college students who had each sought mental health counseling on campus. The participants were recruited right before they began counseling and each suffered from some degree of anxiety and depression. The student participants were separated into three groups. In addition to therapy, the first group was asked to write a letter of gratitude to another person each week for three weeks. The second group was asked to dig deep and write about their negative life experiences. And the third group was not asked to do any sort of writing activity. And the results were fascinating.
Brown and Wong write:
What did we find? Compared with the participants who wrote about negative experiences or only received counseling, those who wrote gratitude letters reported significantly better mental health four weeks and 12 weeks after their writing exercise ended. This suggests that gratitude writing can be beneficial not just for healthy, well-adjusted individuals, but also for those who struggle with mental health concerns. In fact, it seems, practicing gratitude on top of receiving psychological counseling carries greater benefits than counseling alone, even when that gratitude practice is brief.
Digging even deeper into their findings and looking specifically at how gratitude impacts the mind and body, Brown and Wong made four groundbreaking discoveries:
Gratitude unshackles us from toxic emotions.
Gratitude helps even if you don’t share it.
Gratitude’s benefits take time.
Gratitude has lasting effects on the brain.
From personal experience, I can attest to the findings discovered in Brown and Wong’s research. Like so many others, I periodically find myself trapped in a thick darkness from which it feels as though there is no escape. Over the course of my three decades—give or take a few years—on this earth, I have tried every remedy known to man from medication to psychotherapy and everything in between. While some resources have helped more than others, nothing has had as profound an impact on my mental state, and my life, quite like gratitude journaling has.
A Little Gratitude Goes a Long Way
The winter of 2019 was particularly rough for me. Already in the midst of a depressive episode, my mental state was worsened when my boyfriend broke up with me a week before the holidays, just days after my doctors had discovered a large tumor in my left breast. To make matters worse, my career was struggling, my finances were a mess, and I was missing my family, who lived 2,000 miles away. Generally speaking, my life was not going the way I had hoped and I was slowly drowning in my own self-pity.
“Why do bad things keep happening to me?” I thought to myself. “For once, can’t something just go right?” Depression or not, we have all arrived at this place before and we have all experienced these types of negative thoughts and emotions. Truthfully speaking, in a world full of suffering and obstacles, it’s quite a feat to not feel this way a majority of the time.
My mind seemed eager to remind me of all the things that had been going wrong in my life and everything I didn’t have. Yet, I finally found solace when I started making a concerted effort to pay attention to all the blessings I had been given.
Just when things were at their darkest, a friend suggested that I begin keeping a gratitude journal. I wasn’t initially sold on the idea that something so simple could reverse my mood and penetrate my darkness. But I figured I didn’t have much to lose and decided to give it a try.
Even on mornings when it was hard just to get out of bed, I forced myself to get up and make a list of everything for which I was grateful. Oddly enough, while my life had felt devoid of meaning and goodness for the previous several months, each morning that I sat down with my journal I never found myself at a loss for what to write.
The words effortlessly flowed from my pen as I jotted down at least ten people or things for which I was thankful each day. In the depths of my sorrow, I had been so focused on what I didn’t have, I had completely forgotten to be thankful for everything I did have.
How fortunate I was to have a roof over my head, food in my kitchen, and, most importantly, a group of friends who refused to give up on me even when my depression made loving me a trying task. After a few weeks had passed, and my gratitude journal was filled with pages of tangible blessings—mostly comprised of the amazing people who were a part of my life—my mood slowly began to change. As it turns out, showing gratitude can serve as a light that can help lead us back to where we need to be when we get lost in darkness.
As Albert Schweitzer once wrote,
At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
To say gratitude journaling fixed everything and cured my depression would be a lie. But it played an integral role in getting me out of the crisis I was in.
Modern humans live busy lives. With everything that is going on, many probably wonder how they could possibly manage to spare the time to sit down and list all their blessings in a daily journal. The truth is, for the sake of our mental health and well being, most of us can’t afford to skip this vital practice.
Showing gratitude doesn’t have to be a complex or time-consuming exercise. In fact, for those interested in starting a journal but wary of the time it may take, The Five Minute Journal offers a great way to get started and, as the title says, will not take up a lot of your time.
Each page of The Five Minute Journal features an inspirational quote and is separated into a day and night portion. For the day section, you write three things you are thankful for along with three things that would make your day great, along with a daily affirmation.
At night, you write about three great things that happened to you during your day and fill out a sentence or two about how the day could have gone even better.
While not a strict “gratitude only” journal, it sets the foundation for gratitude journaling for those who, like I was in the beginning, are not yet completely sold on this tactic. And, if you are mindful and consistent, in a matter of a few weeks you will begin to notice a change in your mindset, however small it might be at first. As Eckhart Tolle says, "Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance."
Every time I get inside a car, I put my seatbelt on to guard against potential accidents. I don’t forget this step, because it’s important to my livelihood. Likewise, every morning when I wake up, I get out of bed and fill out my gratitude journal to stave off the negativity and guard against depression. My gratitude journal is not a luxury that I attend to only when it is convenient or when I have time. It is a necessity and a reminder of how much I have, even in moments when I feel as though I have lost everything. To set yourself up for success and keep the demons at bay, showing gratitude is just what the doctor ordered.
(“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” Philippians 4:8)
***
Until
next week...keep on believing.
Almondtree Productions
“Let
every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.”
(Psalm 150:6)