Time and the Tides Await Accountability

"The court has come to the conclusion that, contrary to what you claim, you worked in the concentration camp as a guard for about three years." 

"[In doing so, the defendant had assisted in the Nazis’ terror and murder mechanism]."

"You willingly supported this mass extermination with your activity. You watched deported people being cruelly tortured and murdered there every day for three years."

Presiding Judge Udo Lechtermann, war crimes trial, Brandenberg/Havel

 

"There has been a huge memory work, huge work on what happened in this camp that was almost forgotten." 

"The important thing here today was that he was proven guilty."

Lili Grumbach, granddaughter of Antoine Grumbach, surviving Sachsenhausen prisoner 

"Even if the defendant will probably not serve the full prison sentence due to his advanced age, the verdict is to be welcomed,."

"The thousands of people who worked in the concentration camps kept the murder machinery running."

"They were part of the system, so they should take responsibility for it."

"It is bitter that the defendant has denied his activities at that time until the end and has shown no remorse."

Josef Schuster, head, Central Council of Jews in Germany

Former Nazi concentration camp guard Josef Schütz, 101, hides his face behind a folder in a German court Tuesday, before he was convicted of more than 3,500 counts of accessory to murder  AFP via Getty Images

"[The sentence] sends a message that if you commit such crimes, even decades later, you might be brought to justice."

"And it’s a very important thing because it gives closure to the relatives of the victims."

"The fact that these people all of a sudden feel that their loss is being addressed and the suffering of their family who they lost in the camps is being addressed … is a very important thing."

Efraim Zuroff, head Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Jerusalem

It's never too late to repent. On the other hand, repentance in a court of justice is an admission of guilt.

And so, 101-year-old Josef Schuetz denied guilt and had no need to repent. He claimed innocence of the charges brought against him, that as an SS guard during the years 1943 to 1945 he was responsible as an accessory to annihilation of Europe's Jews, for the deaths of tens of thousands who passed through the gates of the Sachsenhausen death camp in Oranienburg.

"I don't know why I am here", he said, since he "did absolutely nothing wrong", for he had not worked at the camp. He had been an agricultural labourer in Pasewalk, 115 kilometres northeast of Sachsenhausen. The Sachsenhausen camp, north of Berlin, was established as the first site in 1936 in what would eventually become mass incarceration and mass murder of the Jews of Europe. An experimental site for which Adolf Hitler had assigned the SS control of what was to become a vast network of such camps throughout occupied Europe.

 

Sachsenhausen, model camp

 

There is no total agreement on the full death count at the camp; some estimates place it at 100,000, others between 40,000 and 50,000; a sizeable collected community of Jews meant for annihilation, but in the overall picture of six million Jewish lives extinguished, a relatively modest number. The camp's inmates died of various causes: starvation, disease, forced labour, medical experimentation, shooting, hanging, and gassing, all to achieve the goal of ridding Europe of its Jews.

Another 101-year-old, a survivor of the death camp, Leon Schwarzbaum left testimony and a statement that was read posthumously in March, asking the accused "to tell the historical truth". Another Holocaust survivor, 80-year-old Antoine Grumbach said as far as he was concerned the verdict helped to prove that Sachsenhausen was "an experimental extermination camp" which took his father's life.

Germany's antisemitism commissioner, Felix Klein stated that the sentencing of this man was nothing to celebrate since he "lived undisturbed for so long and the indictment came so late". The trial began in October, suspended on several occasions in view of Schuetz's ill health. He took part in the trial with his presence for about two-and-a-half hours every day, held in a gymnasium where Schuetz lives, in Brandenburg/Havel.

Although his lawyer, Stefan Waterkamp stated that "As early as 1978, investigators had information about him but did not pursue him", the public prosecutor responded that Schuetz had "knowingly and willingly" participated in crimes as a guard; evidence in hand that shared Schuetz's name, date and place of birth. Schuetz "willingly supported this mass extermination with your work", Judge Udo Lechtermann added.

Josef Schuetz found guilty as an accessory to the murder of over 3,500 prisoners. An accessory to attempted nurder between 1942 and 1945 at Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg. He has made history by becoming the oldest person to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity in the Holocaust years. There was no escaping his personal accounting, although it is a symbolic punishment; his age and health will rescue him from his penalty after a long life denied his victims. 

 

There are many more like him who will, in the final analysis, escape prosecution and the verdict identifying their actions complicit in the wholesale destruction of six million Jewish lives.

 

Prosecutors said that between 1942 and 1945, Schütz served as an SS guard at the Sachsenhausen camp outside Berlin, where tens of thousands of prisoners died   Associated Press

Biological Anomaly : Raising a LARGE Family

"Her case is a genetic predisposition to hyperovulate -- releasing multiple eggs in one cycle -- which significantly increases the chances of having multiple births." 

Dr.Charles Kiggundu, gynecologist Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda

"I have grown up in tears, my man has passed me through a lot of suffering."

"All my time has been spent looking after my children and working to earn some money."

"I started taking on adult responsibilities at an early stage. I have not had joy, I think, since I was born."

"I can't say they [her children] are nagging because they are my children. I can't say I will abandon them because they are my children, and I love them."

Mariam Nahatanzi

"Mum is overwhelmed; the work is crushing her."

"We help where we can, like in cooking and washing, but she still carries the whole burden for the family."

"I feel for her."

Ivan Kibuka, mid-20s, eldest child

Mariam Nabatanzi has given birth to 44 children by the age of 40. Photo by Reuters

According to the Mayo Clinic, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome can be "life threatening". It can cause "blood clots, kidney failure, twisting of the ovary or breathing problems". Treatment, available in wealthy first-world nations, is not available in Uganda. Nabatanzi had an unfortunate upbringing from the very beginning of her life, with her mother who had five boys before her, abandoning her family when the last, the girl that would become a mother of 44, was born.

 

When she was very young, and away briefly at a relative's house, her stepmother had conspired to kill her stepchildren by placing broken glass in the food she served to the children. All the boys died, but Nabatanzi, who had been away, survived. When she was 12 years of age, she was sold into marriage. A year later she delivered twins. The fertility rate in Uganda averages to 5.6 children per woman representing one of Africa's highest, in comparison to the global average of 2.4 children. 

 

Nahatanzi, by age 40, given her rare medical condition had given birth to no fewer than 44 babies. After the first set of twins was born she gave birth to additional twins on three occasions. Then came five sets of triplets and five sets of quadruplets. She gave birth on one occasion only to a single child. Her husband absented himself for long stretches of time, only to impregnate her again on his return. Until he finally left for the last time taking their savings with him.

The mother of so many children was forced to turn to her own ingenuity and capacity for work alongside raising her brood to earn the money for their care. She has worked at hairdressing, event decorating, collecting and selling scrap metal, brewing local gin, and selling herbal medicine. Every bit of money she earns is used to buy food, medical care, clothing and to pay for her children's school fees. She cooks 25 kilograms of maize (corn) for her family daily.

She hangs portraits of her children graduating from school on the walls of her home with pride. Her eldest son was unable to continue secondary school for lack of money to continue paying fees. When she reached age 23, Nabatanzi had given birth to 25 children. She had appealed to doctors to help her stop having any more, but was advised to continue her pregnancies resulting from her ovary count.

She had her last child three years ago at which time a doctor informed her that he had "cut my uterus from inside". "Generally, I have tried to educate them. My dream is that my children go to school. They can lack anything [else], but they must go to school."

Nabatanzi (red hair) and some of her children. Photo by Reuters

Islam Quite Smply Incompatible with Gay Rights

"Around 2015 we were worried about this person. We have followed him, to a degree."

"In more recent times, he was not one of the people we were the most worried about."

Roger Berg, acting head of PST (Norwegian Domestic Security agency)

 

"We are sorry that once again we have to say that a Pride event must be cancelled."

"It is wrong, as the police claim, that this was meant to be a small event. We understand that people are now frustrated and still want to gather."

Oslo Pride

 

"I know how many of you felt when it turned out that the perpetrator belonged to the Islamic community. Many of you [Norway's Muslim community] experienced fear and unrest " 

"You should know this: We stand together, we are one community and we are responsible for the community together."

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere

People bring flowers and rainbow flags to pay tribute to the victims as they take part in a spontaneous Pride parade, following a shooting at the London Pub, a popular gay bar and nightclub, after the official event was cancelled, in Oslo, Norway, June 25, 2022. Haakon Mosvold Larsen/NTB/via REUTERS

Another shock in Norway. The country's right-wing (Anders Brevik) has already made it abundantly clear how much they fear and detest the entry to the Nordic country of people from the Middle East, people practising a different religion linked to a different history, culture and set of laws, not secular like that of most Western democracy, but theocratic, linked to and a mainstay of Islam which regulates every aspect of the Muslim faithful's lives.

Norway insists that it is open to immigration and migration from the Middle East, prepared to welcome and absorb people radically differently socialized than indigenous Norwegians. And the country's political elite make it a point of pride that their welcome is unconditional. Native Norwegians are not so sure. There has been a lashback of anti-Muslim sentiment, with a hefty third of Norwegians uncomfortable to say the least with the presence of Muslims among them.

The 42-year-old suspect in the attack that took place during an LGBTQ festival in Oslo, was no recent immigrant. He was brought by his family to Norway while still an infant, so he has lived in Norway all his life. He is considered to be a radicalized Islamist, and was recognized as such from 2015 onward by Norwegian police authorities, but not considered to be a high-value threat. As with most of these terrorist actions, he has been described as mentally ill.

 

2 dead, 21 wounded in Norway LGBT nightclub shooting  (photo credit: REUTERS)

 

Married, children, he has lived on the dole for years. Iranian by birth, he was arrested after a shooting in the nightlife district of the country's capital early on Saturday, held on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and terrorism. It was actually people on the scene who followed him after the shooting and took him into initial custody until the arrival of police. Two people were killed and another 21 were injured in what has been named an "Islamist terror act".

Clearly, he was 'radicalized' while a long-time citizen of the country. Clerics established in mosques throughout the non-Islamic world are known to be involved in introducing impressionable young Muslims to the concept of jihad and violent missions in the glories of martyrdom. Police in Oslo have thus far had no luck in their attempts to question the man identified as Zaniar Matapour.

He has made his own demands, however, that he would make a statement to be recorded and videotaped only if it were to be released to the public "with no time delay so it won't be censored or manipulated", his defence lawyer explained. Clearly, a type of 'manifesto' that he believes will deliver a welcome message that Gay Pride and LGBTQ festivities are sinful and not permitted by Islam. Punishment is their due and he assigned himself to deliver that punishment; death to the unbeliever.

The killer opened fire at three locations; outside and inside the London Pub, a popular gay bar in Oslo. Despite which police investigators feel confident in stating it was yet too soon in their investigation to determine whether the man had specifically targeted the gay community. Police found two weapons at the scene, one a fully automatic gun. Despite which, police recommend that all further LGBTQ events be cancelled for the present, not ruling out further and ongoing threats.

 

 

Regressing To Female Servitude In Male Decision-Making

"We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion."

"Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives."

Justice Samuel Alito, Supreme Court of the United States of America

 

"We will continue to protect patients from any state who [sic] comes to our state for abortion care."

"We will resist intrusions by out-of-state prosecutors, law enforcement or vigilantes trying to investigate patients receiving services in our states."

Oregon Governor Kate Brown

 

"This decision carves our nation in two -- states that trust the personal and professional decisions of women and doctors, and states where craven politicians control and criminalize those choices."

"Connecticut is a safe state, but we will need to be vigilant ... to defend our rights."

Connecticut State Attorney General William Tong

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is a long-awaited win for some Americans, and a terrifying loss for others. The country will soon ban or prohibit abortion in 25 states.

This year, long before the U.S. Supreme Court handed down their decision on the constitutionality of abortion, the New Hampshire Legislature considered then rejected a bill that was meant to give potential fathers the right to veto a woman's abortion. "They push the envelope. They're always trying to propose things that in the moment seem outrageous or fringe, but the more they push it over time, it becomes normalized", stated Jessica Arona, senior lawyer for reproductive freedom for the American Civil Liberties Union.

This new turn of events could very wellm and will be, viewed as that proverbial 'foot in the door', whereby law and justice in the United States will now bring around to a state of normalcy an attitude of social acceptance that women may no longer in the Democratic Republic of the United States of America presume to believe that they are entitled to make the final decision over whether to continue a pregnancy, to bring a child into the world. Rather, under a new, societally-accepted 'norm', they will be compelled to.

Back to the patriarchal attitudes of the 19th century, before women began campaigning for rights of decision-making over their bodies, over their futures, over their right to make decisions to impact the trajectory of their fortunes or misfortunes in an aspirational future over which in these new circumstances they have lost the ultimate control they cherished. Women's struggle to make their voices heard, to successfully make the argument that their very human rights as individuals, their future health and well-being should be in their hands, not in the control of an elected body of political representatives.

People of the Western world, the democratic countries that consider themselves enlightened in the belief that women's rights are to be respected, that the rationale for accepting the reasons that such decision making is of primary importance for women is that they are logical, intelligent and responsible beings; that laws respecting and upholding the rights of men are not necessarily those that women require as a reflection of their biological function.

Those who consider themselves part of the more societally-advanced developed world where equality of station and opportunity and rights under the law are observed, have viewed the laws stricturing women's rights in less-developed countries, in countries where male legislators believe they should control all aspects of women's lives, whether through the lens of ideology or religious devotion, as symbolic of backward nations. The most technologically developed, most prosperous, most prominent and dominant nation in the world has now regressed in its recognition of the need for just legislation.

In the United States, where over the past decade the divide between Democrats and Republicans, left and right have become hugely polarized, the battle for women's legal rights must now be taken up again. Since the Supreme Court has ruled that each state has the legal right under the constitution to interpret the legality of abortion, fractures will only deepen across the nation. Most Americans are in agreement that abortion rights are health rights for women. One in ten Americans reject that reality. And that minority now rules.

 

"With sorrow -- for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American  women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection -- we dissent."

"[Abortion opponents now could pursue a nationwide ban] from  the moment of conception and without exceptions for rape or incest."

"Can a State bar women from travelling to another State to obtain an abortion? Can a State prohibit advertising out-of-state abortions or helping women get to out-of-town state providers?"

"Can a State interfere with the mailing of drugs used for medication abortions?"

Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan

Abortion-rights supporters protest against the Supreme Court decision on the steps of a courthouse in New Orleans Friday. Louisiana will have one of the strictest bans on abortion. (Sophia Germer/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate/The Associated Press)

"The space station, high above, is a microcosm ... an international collection of people living in a finite area with finite resources, just like the planet below."

"I got to see the world, in effect, take one breath out of 4.5 billion breaths ... There has been life, uninterrupted, on Earth, for four billion years."

"That's really optimism-building. Life isn't going anywhere. The world isn't going anywhere."

"The question is: How good a quality of life do we want for people, and how sustainable do we want it to be?" 

"Everyone on the space station, their lives are in each other's hands If anybody makes a mistake, everyone else dies."

"[If ever we doubt our capacity to collaborate, we need only] look up, morning and night, and watch the space station fly over. It's a pretty clear example of what we do together when we do things right."

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield

"You flush the toilet, and yesterday's coffee becomes today's water."

"It is the greatest lesson of the international space station; the opportunity to learn how effective collaboration actually works [in hoping to address climate change collaboratively]." 

"You're developing technologies, many of which are going to help with the greening economy and ... enable us to have less environmental impact."

"[Earth is] a beautiful blue oasis cast against the infinite void of space."

Astronaut Dave Williams

 

"The globe, like the ISS, is a closed loop. It depends on finely-tuned connections between the land, oceans, atmosphere, the freshwater cycle, flora and fauna."

"The planet is whole. And it's integrated."

"[A mutant virus originating in Asia and wreaking havoc on the world may seem unbelievable to most, but] for an astronaut, that is very easy to appreciate."

"The view out the window takes everyone by surprise. There's [something] about seeing the Earth with  our naked eyeball and seeing it from above The privileged position that you have, somehow, it just amplifies the beauty and majesty of it all." 

"[The view of the Earth from space was] personally transformative. Viewed from afar, our marbled-blue planet is alone for hundreds of millions of kilometres, surrounded by nothing but void."

"There is a network of ground-based measurements for greenhouse gases across the world. But the thing about those measurements is it's so unequally distributed ... If you ever want a global picture, it's really lacking. And satellites can do that."

Astronaut Robert Thirsk

Views from the International Space Station  Space Adventure

The limited living resources on the International Space Station leads to people within the confines of the station performing everyday personal routines from sleeping, eating, reading, writing, discussing theories and examining and interpreting viewed and experimental issues, to work together, both independently and as a team to make the most of the resources available to them. All aboard the station are keenly aware of their isolation, emphasizing their reliance on technology and on their collegial, professional relations with their astronaut peers.

 

Yet the conditions in which they must perform their tasks motivate them to appreciate the closed-loop heating and water systems that make them independent of outside sources for vital day-to-day management of their needs. The astronaut team on board at any given time represent members from the international community bringing with them a range of technical and professional expertise, with all working to maintain and operate the "habitability systems" of the station.

 

And they liken that situation and their experiences to those of the planet. Humanity's natural habitat with its related resources that make life possible and manageable for all creatures that exist on Earth. There is the stewardship of resources and the absolute need to be aware of how we are using and abusing those resources along with a dire need to communally agree to husband them and not to violate the very source of our habitable world. The space economy valued at $424 billion is set to create new employment opportunities linked to climate innovation.

TheNakedScientists.com

 

But the innovative technology developed to make space travel and exploration and experimentation feasible itself has benefits for greater use on Earth itself. Necessity, the mother of invention, saw many new technical innovations to fit into a temporary lifestyle aboard a closed space capsule where inhabitants had to be self-reliant, making use of whatever was available to them for survival. Technology in food preparation suitable for a weightless atmosphere, and the fabrication of new metals more durable and flexible and tougher...

Sitting in the space station and viewing space through its generous windows, astronauts watch the unfolding of natural events on one side of the world after another. Forest fires in Siberia drift over to North America, diminishing air quality there. An initially unassuming atmospheric depression in the south Atlantic becomes a Category 4 or 6 hurricane affecting residents along the Gulf Coast. The ISS travels at 8 km/s; 25 times the speed of sound, completing a single orbit of the globe every 90 minutes. ISS occupants witness a sunrise and a sunset every 45 minutes.

Astronauts from their perch within the ISS can see the ecological crisis in real time, every day, peering out and down at the world below them. Jagged strips peeled deep into the Earth's crust from mining ventures; polluting smog, grey and opaque, hovering over cities below. Clear-cut in the Amazon rainforest to make way for agriculture. It isn't only astronauts eyeing the world from above. Satellite companies now keep an eye on emissions from their space vantage. GHGSat Inc. sends satellites into space to track methane emissions.

One of its satellites detected 13 plumes of methane emissions from a coal mine in Russia in January, the largest methane leak ever detected by the company. Methane is 25 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Methane leaks were pinpointed by a GHGSat satellite in Turkmenistan where emissions equivalent to 240,000 gas-powered cars were being released into the atmosphere. A landfill in Pakistan was detected in 2021 with a methane plume.

The astronauts failed to breach a divide on the solutions to the climate crisis, but did reach agreement that addressing the issue would require precise political cooperation. On a planetary scale, pointed out Mr. Williams, disagreements are more complex, involving greater numbers of authorities making it difficult to find solutions that work for all governments. The difference: "We're just a bunch of people up there" remarked Mr. Hadfield. "All the crews from all the nations, the cultures that are represented, have a single-minded focus on accomplishing the mission objectives", pointed out Mr. Thirsk.

A common language of equally felt responsibility is the first step, they argued. Astronauts aboard the ISS are required to speak English and Russian, while English serves as the interstellar lingua franca. Yet, said Mr. Thirsk, even so, "when you're on board the space station as a crew member, most of us tend to think of ourselves as humans first." Humans are not regimented nor disciplined to think as a multi-reliant group like bees or ants. Therein lies our reasoning brilliance and our potential failure.

"I do worry about the motives of some of these world leaders who have created an unstable geopolitical situation. I don't se the older generation showing enough leadership in making the difficult decisions, today."

"It's really easy to be critical of the lack of collaboration. There are areas that, quite clearly, where we are not collaborating here on Earth and areas that we are."

Astronaut Robert Thirsk

Business Insider

Supplying Ukraine With Military Materiel : Canada

"We get hit with machine gun fire  and mortars, we have to hide them [the cars they use instead of armoured military vehicles] in the woods. It's been surreal, but we're using what we've got"

"I hate to say it -- and don't get me wrong, I'm a proud Canadian -- but a lot of it [military equipment sent by Canada to Ukraine] is just junk. You're down here helping these people and someone says, 'Oh, this is from Canada'. But it's a training tourniquet you can't use in the field. The night vision [goggles] they sent down, half of them worked and half of them didn't."

"I know the equipment is there and I know we can send it. We needed it yesterday. There is going to be a big push down here in the south and if we don't keep the momentum going, it's going to stop dead in its tracks."

"It's small things -- like using Motorola radios that the Russians can pick up. Some guys are still rocking steel plates [instead of body armour]. But we're pushing forward no matter what. There's no choice."

"[I came to Ukraine with] certain skill sets [and] because I believe in life, I don't believe in death."

"The guys I'm with, I started training them in March. We've stuck together the whole time and that's a big thing. I'm proud of these guys. We've been in a lot of contact and a lot of situations where I thought I was a goner But my friends have had my back."

"If we keep doing what we're doing and we get the supplies we need, I think we'll be able to take back everything they took after February 25."

"I know there is policy and procedure and politics involved. But there shouldn't be. Just send it. When it comes down to this kind of war, timing is absolutely everything. You need stuff yesterday." 

James Challice, Canadian Forces veteran, volunteer trainer, fighter w/Ukrainian troops

Members of the Ukrainian National Guard patrol during a reconnaissance mission in a recently retaken village on the outskirts of Kharkiv. (Bernat Armangue/The Associated Press)

Like most other Ukrainian civilians-turned-soldier in Ukraine, Canadian volunteer James Chalice has become accustomed to travelling to the front -- to take his place among other foreign volunteers and Ukrainian men who until February 24 were civilians knowing little-to-nothing of handling weapons, military strategy and fighting -- not in military troop vehicles, but with the use of private cars. In a country unprepared for war, never quite believing its larger, militarized neighbour would ever stoop to invading and engaging it in an existential battle, both rudimentary and more complex military equipment is in short supply.

This former Canadian military veteran who chose to put his life on the line in the greater interest of helping to train civilians to enable them to counter an enemy aggressor on their own soil, has turned from training Ukrainian civilians to become adept at fighting a war they never expected would interrupt their lives, to fighting alongside them, in the embattled Kherson region in the south of the country.

 

Moscow's authorities in occupied Kherson have floated holding a referendum on integrating with Russia

 

Mr. Challice's government in Canada is prepared to announce its intention of sending a few dozen decommissioned Coyote light armoured vehicles to Ukraine. Canada's retired General Rick Hillier, former chief of the defence staff, doesn't think much of Canada's efforts to date in fulfilling its ongoing pledge to do all it can in support of Ukraine's defence. As far as General Hillier is concerned, Canada has been tardy in delivering on its promise. It should long since have delivered 250 LAVs, 50 Leopard tanks and 18 M777 howitzers out of its stock of military equipment.

Ukrainian defence forces in the south are engaged in pushing back the Russians gradually in spite of being outgunned; for each big gun Ukraine fires, Russia sends back five. Ukrainians lack the most basic of equipment such as encrypted phones and body armour, recounted Mr. Challice. In the south, the terrain offers little cover. "It's hard to mobilize a large number of troops because there is only the treeline and fields for cover", he explained. Flush with ample munition,s the Russian military has been indiscriminate in shelling treelines.

Putin's army, points out General Hillier, has learned a lesson from its first months of surprise failure in attempting to take Kyiv and having to retreat in the face of staunch Ukrainian resistance which cost Russia a number of leading commanders. Russia has resorted to keeping its military men at a safe distance, reliant instead on the use of longer range artillery. Its superior electronic war machinery is being used to pull Ukrainian defence forces into a vice which will not allow them to activate reserves or to counterattack. Russia is waiting for the Ukrainian forces to run out of weaponry and ammunition.

 

Ukrainian troops fire ordnances during a training exercise in the central Dnipropetrovsk region. Western countries have vowed to continue supplying Ukraine with weapons. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

General Hillier knows of estimates of a mere one-tenth of committed aid having landed in Ukraine. Some Western equipment is in the field, however; over 150 towed howitzers have been delivered by a number of donor countries, along with 120 rocket launchers. And four badly needed high mobility artillery rocket systems arrived from the U.S. Still, Ukraine hankers for 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers to give it a fighting chance for an effective defence against the invaders. 

Recently, an incursion into the fields and drainage ditches of the south on a mission to extract bodies of dead Ukrainians, Mr. Challice saw a teammate die from a bullet to his neck. "It happens everyday now. It's reality. I'll have time to think about it when I come home. If I come home", he said philosophically. His team, he said, has been incentivized to advance for the prize of taking back villages occupied by the Russians where atrocities have taken place and that is everywhere. He was informed by one woman whose husband had been tortured in their backyard, then shot in the back of the head.

Another man who had been isolated in a bomb shelter for six weeks, discovered later that his wife and daughter had been raped, murdered and left in a shallow grave. The horror of atrocities revealed to have taken place in the Russian occupation of Bucha was not, after all, an isolated anomaly. There were massacres everywhere the Russian military occupied a village, a town, a city suburb.

 

"The longer this goes on, the higher the probability of Russia breaking through or of Ukraine collapsing. The West can change that equation by delivering what it has promised."

"Ukraine is in a dire situation and the West will be complicit in any Russian victory."

Rick Hillier, former Chief of Defence Staff, Canada

The Creme de la Creme of the Science World : A Life Well Spent

Dr.Michael Rudnicki, Fellow, Royal Society

"As I became older, I met patients and kids with these terrible diseases including Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The motivation now is to do something positive to impact their lives, and I think this work is pointing in that direction."

"This [stem cell research] is really Canada's science. We are world leaders in stem cell research. We punch well above our weight."

"This is a true area of strategic strength in Canada. Something all Canadians should be proud of."

"Where an individual working in a laboratory can make discoveries that can contribute to human knowledge, this is fundamentally exciting. It is a life well spent."

"I am working hard to make my place, but I never dreamed I would be elected to The Royal Society. That is very humbling."

"It is a tremendous honour. I am humbled. It gives me goosebumps."

Michael Rudnicki, 63, senior scientist director regenerative medicine, Sprott Centre for Stem Cell Research, The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; scientific director Canadian Stem Cell Network

The Royal Society in Crane Court, London, 17th Century

Born in Ottawa, Dr. Rudnicki was fascinated with Jacques Cousteau's work and inspired  to become a marine biologist. In the end, at university he decided on biology, then became interested in molecular biology. Ever since, his career has been devoted to the field of stem cell research. Research he has pioneered in transforming science's knowledge of muscle development and regeneration, leading to novel stem cell-based approaches in the treatment of muscular dystrophy.

This week the internationally renowned scientist, honoured for his stem cell research, in particular for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, was inducted into the charter of The Royal Society, London. The Royal Society is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence, its members representing the world's most eminent scientists, including Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. Only a dozen Canadians have been members of this 362-year-old academy. In the induction ceremony of which Dr. Rudnicki was a part, four others were Nobel laureates.

 

Dreamtime.com

Some people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy do not live beyond their 20s, a disease with no known cure. Duchenne is a genetic disorder of progressive muscle degeneration and weakness that becomes life-limiting. Treatment may enable some of its sufferers to live into their 30s. Untying this Gordian knot of nature's biological blips has led Dr. Ruckniki to focus his scrutiny and efforts on finding a possible solution in life-extending therapy, if not a cure.

In 1961 two Canadian scientists -- James Till and Ernest McCulloch -- were first to demonstrate the existence of stem cells in studying the effects of radiation on mice bone narrow at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto. Research now considered a seminal scientific discovery of the last century, a match in discovery as important to that of DNA/double helix.

The Royal Society has its Fellows sign a charter book dating back o 1662. Annually, about 700 scientists are nominated to The Royal Society. Of that number around fifty are voted in by members. There have been roughly 8,000 members since the founding of The Royal Society. There are 1,700 current members listed in that distinguished group of scientists who have laboured to make the world a better place, among them Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

"The very first ‘learned society’ meeting on 28 November 1660 followed a lecture at Gresham College by Christopher Wren. Joined by other leading polymaths including Robert Boyle and John Wilkins, the group soon received royal approval, and from 1663 it would be known as 'The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge'."

"The Royal Society's motto 'Nullius in verba' is taken to mean 'take nobody's word for it'. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment."

The Royal Society

No Heroes Among These Uvalde Officers of the Law

"I don't care if you have on flip-flops and Bermuda shorts, you go in!"

"The officers had weapons, the children had none. The officers had body armour, the children had none. The officers had training, the subject had none."

"One hour, 14 minutes and eight seconds -- that is how long the children waited, and the teachers waited, in room 111 to be rescued."

"The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children."

" Obviously, not enough training was done in this situation, plain and simple. Because terrible decisions were made by the on-site commander."

"You don't wait for a SWAT team. You have one officer, that's enough."

Col. Steve McCraw, director, Texas Department of Public Safety

Police blocked off the road leading to the scene of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24   Sergio Flores for The Texas Tribune

Exploding with undisguised scorn in testifying before a state Senate hearing over the Robb Elementary School mass murders, the director of its public safety department excoriated the Uvalde school district police chief, Pete Arredondo who had been in charge on that fateful May 24 day when the attack that took the lives of 19 young children and two of their teachers in a massacre of stunning proportions shocked the country and turned its attention on the easy accessibility of gun ownership for a mentally unstable 18-year-old.

Members of the Texas state senate sat silently as hours of testimony passed before them with the inexplicable evidence of police dispatched to the scene having enough officers responding in those critical first moments of the school invasion by a well-armed and obviously dangerous shooter to stop the massacre before it unfolded. Three minutes after the gunman entered the school the first responders could have entered the door leading to the classroom where children and their teachers were held hostage to murderous intent.

What did in actual fact occur was the stationing of police officers holding rifles in a hallway as time passed critically. For over an hour they waited for others to arrive as backup with more fire power and protective shields. Waiting as fear and suspense grew in the sinister situation, with desperate parents begging the police to move in, to disable the shooter, to save their vulnerable children from certain death. The parents were ignored, some even taken briefly into custody.

As a police action in a situation of grave and imminent danger to small children held captive by a man intent on committing the most reprehensible crimes imaginable, the response was criminally abysmal, an "abject failure" in the opinion of the director of public safety. Eventually the gunman was confronted and permanently disabled, sent to his death, but his monstrous work was already done in the deaths of 21 living souls.

Desperate, frightened children hid as best they could, they disguised themselves to appear dead, they hid themselves under furniture, in closets, they called 911 begging for police to arrive. And all the while police were there, just outside the door where death stalked the children. The courageous officers of the law stood waiting, waiting, waiting, and so did the children. Those who survived the horror will never again be children, they will be haunted for the rest of their natural lives.

the classroom door would easily have opened had any of the officers turned the door handle. The lock had earlier been reported broken so it could not be locked from the interior. None of the officers attempted to move the door open, waiting instead for someone to produce a key. "I have great reasons to believe it was never secured. How about trying the door and seeing if it's locked?", said Col. McRae scathingly.

State legislators wanted to know why it was that state troopers who arrived on the scene failed to take charge. The explanation? They did not have legal authority to do that. Three officers with two rifles entered the building under three minutes following the gunman's entry to the school hefting his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle. Soon afterward several more officers entered. The two who were early entering the hallway had been grazed by gunfire. And that was enough to put them out of the business of saving children's lives.

Visitors paid their respects at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on June 2. Twenty-one people, including 19 children, were killed by a gunman at the school on May 24    Lucas Boland/Corpus Christi Caller-Times via REUTERS

Riding the Devil in Afghanistan

"There's a lot of good people here. Engineers, doctors, educated people."

"But they have problems with drugs. The problem is getting worse, day by day."

Drug addict, Pul-e-Sukhta underpass, Kabul, Afghanistan

 

"I was a graduate from school and I prepared for college and loved a girl and I was unsuccessful. The family did not approve."

"After that, there was no chance for me, so I just used heroin to calm myself."

"When I came out [of Kabul's Ibn Sina rehabilitation hospital], what could I do? There was still no work."

"I have been to the hospital, but I became addicted again when I left."

Syed Ramin, 32, drug addict, Kabul

 

"By order of our supreme leader, Haibatullah, there has been a decision to reduce the problem."

"Nowadays there has come a reduction of our drug problem."

Abdul Nasir Munqad, Taliban leader appointee, hospital director

 

"Our problem is different to European countries, where people take drugs for pleasure. If we ask our patients, they have no jobs, they have no income."

"We started our religious classes because our country is a religious country and it has a good effect. It is our experience that we can root out this problem with religious classes." 

Dr. Atiq Azimi, secretary to the Ibn Sima rehabilitation hospital director

Drug addicts rounded up by the Taliban and forced to shave their heads brace for 45 days of withdrawal at the Avicenna Medical Hospital for Drug Treatment in Kabul. Many others have been sent to prisons that lack any drug treatment

Afghanistan is held to have one of the highest proportions of opium or opiate use within its population, in the world. In a nation of 39 million people, the country has an estimated 1.9 to 2.3 million regular drug users, according to a survey undertaken in 2015. The situation has become worse since then with the economic collapse that struck the country when international aid that supported many of Afghanistan's institutions disappeared with the return of the Taliban.

In one place along the outskirts of the capital Kabul, there are nearly a thousand drug addicts who shelter under a bridge in a western neighbourhood of the city. People stumble about, barely conscious of their surroundings, skeletal, disinterested in anything, focusing on drugs. To the curious onlooker many of those who exist within this area appear to be close to death. Yet among the living corpses, tradespeople selling tea move about.

Above the bridge underpass a regular stream of traffic moves, its noise barely noticed by those of the living dead below. All efforts to put a stop to the country's drug trade have failed. There is a burgeoning new trade in methamphetamine, exacerbating the situation where traditionally opiates ruled the market. Most of the addicts living under the bridge relate their stories of addiction to heroin or meth; some explain their addictions began as migrant workers in Iran.

Others speak of the dangers of grinding tours of the southern provinces while with the Afghan military, fighting the Taliban, which led them to drug use. When the Taliban resumed power in August of 2021 one of the initiatives it spoke of was to solve the country's addiction problem. They took to rounding up thousands of addicts off the streets, to force them into the Ibn Sina rehabilitation hospital.

Taliban fighters round up drug addicts in Kabul.

There are a thousand beds in the hospital and following the Taliban raids such crowding occurred as to see three patients in each of those beds. Overcrowding led to violence and conditions where little prospect of weaning addicts away from drugs seemed possible. Hospital doctors persuaded the Taliban to stop funneling addicts into the hospital. Many were taken to prisons instead. The hospital, now administered by a former prisoner of Bagram high-security prison, houses far fewer patients now.

Each of those patients undergoes a 45-day program to help with drug withdrawal where the firs 14 days are devoted to detoxification, followed by rehabilitation. Since enforced roundups were stopped almost all patients are 'voluntary'. Brought by their families to the hospital they cannot leave during treatment in a situation which houses them like inmates. Some of the patients try to escape their confinement. There are frequent clashes between patients and staff and violence occasionally breaks out.

"There are big differences between treating drug addicts in prisons and proper addiction-treatment centers. If patients think they are being forced to quit addiction...they will never accept treatment."
"No one can quit drugs if they are not ready to. The only way a drug addict can quit is to satisfy himself and prepare himself psychologically, which is not possible in prison." 

Salem Sadid, local psychologist, Farah, Afghanistan

"Definitely when there are economic hardships, when the population is displaced, they want to seek mechanisms to cope with their hardships."

"That definitely makes people vulnerable to more regular drug use."

Kamran Niaz, Office on Drugs and Crime, United Nations