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Russia Flag, Anthem Banned from Olympics

Russia has been banned from using its flag and anthem in the next two Olympics and any world championship for the next two years for its involvement in a massive doping scandal.

The ruling was handed down by The Court of Arbitration for Sport, a Swiss international court founded by multiple sports leagues in 1984 to mediate athletic disputes between countries. As punishment for what the World Anti-Doping Agency called “widespread abuse of performance enhancing drugs,” Russia will be banned from using its name, flag, and anthem and from hosting major sports competitions until 2022.

The ruling means that Russian athletes will not be banned from competing at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the 2022 Winter Olympics in China, and the World Cup in Doha in 2022. Rather than wearing their national attire, Russian athletes will be outfitted in uniforms labeled simply “Neutral Athlete” or “Neutral Team.”

In a small concession, the Court allowed Russian athletes to wear their national colors as long as it did not resemble their flag and to write “Russia” on their uniform in small letters. RUSADA, Russia’s anti-doping body, was also fined $1.27 million.

The Court’s decision is a small win for Moscow, as the international body halved the four-year ban recommended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

“It has considered matters of proportionality and, in particular, the need to effect cultural change and encourage the next generation of Russian athletes to participate in clean international sport,” the panel stated.

The decision was hailed by WADA President Witold Bańka as a victory despite the Court having had rejected its recommended four-year ban. “The panel has clearly upheld our findings that the Russian authorities brazenly and illegally manipulated the Moscow Laboratory data in an effort to cover up an institutionalized doping scheme,” Bańka said.

The ruling was met by disbelief and condemnation throughout the world by athletes and anti-doping activists who asserted that the twoyear ban was inordinately lenient. U.S. anti-doping agency head Travis Tygar blasted the decision as a “weak, watered-down outcome” for “robbing sport and clean athletes.”

“To once again escape a meaningful consequence proportional to the crimes, much less a real ban, is a catastrophic blow to clean athletes, the integrity of sport, and the rule of law,” said Tygar.

WADA had slapped Russia with a four-year ban in 2019 after uncovering a vast doping campaign by Russian Olympians during the 2014 Sochi Games. The scandal saw Russian authorities purposely doctoring testing data and manipulating results to cover up their country’s systematic use of performance enhancing drugs.

The four-year ban was subsequently appealed by Moscow, leading to Friday’s court ruling.

U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Targeted

At least eight Katyusha rockets landed in Baghdad’s Green Zone on Sunday in an attack authorities say targeted the U.S. Embassy.

An Iraqi security guard was said to be killed in the shelling, while half a dozen vehicles were damaged along

with a residential building.

The U.S. Embassy confirmed the attack, saying in a statement that its C-RAM missile defense system deflected the projectiles in midair. The deafening booms of the interceptors were reportedly loud enough to be heard on the other side of the Tigris River, a distance of at least 35 kilometers from the heavily fortified Green Zone.

“The U.S. Embassy confirms rockets targeting the International Zone [Green Zone] resulted in the engagement of embassy defensive systems,” the Embassy said in a statement. “We call on all Iraqi political and governmental leaders to take steps to prevent such attacks and hold accountable those responsible.”

The rocket fire is thought to be the work of Iranian-backed militias, who have frequently targeted the U.S. Embassy in recent years. In early 2020, a U.S. contractor was killed during a particularly heavy barrage, leading President Donald Trump to order the killing of Quds Force Commander General Qassam Sulemeini.

While the rocket fire decreased markedly after Sulemeini was killed in an airstrike, it didn’t cease completely. The shelling led the U.S. to pull out the majority of its remaining personnel earlier this month out of concern for their safety.

In September, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened to shutter the U.S. Embassy entirely if the rocket fire didn’t stop, telling Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi that Washington would target militia leaders directly in retaliation.

Super-Spreader COVID-19 Strain

Dozens of countries worldwide have banned flights from the UK after authorities discovered a new variant of COVID-19.

On Sunday evening, Canada banned all air travel to Britain for a three-day period until more information about the mutation was available.

“We focused on the new variant of COVID-19 identified in the UK, and we have decided to implement new border restrictions in order to keep you – and people right across the country – safe,” tweeted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Joining Canada in suspending flights from the United Kingdom for 72 hours were Argentina, Chile and Colombia. In France, officials implemented a 48-hour moratorium on flights and closed the Channel Tunnel, resulting in massive gridlock from trucks unable to cross the border.

Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands suspended flights as well, while Ireland banned all travel from England for 48 hours.

Meanwhile, Israel banned travel from Britain and forbade entry to travelers from Denmark and South Africa. Despite common policy allowing Israeli citizens to choose where they would quarantine upon arrival, arrivals from the aforementioned countries on Sunday were forced to isolate in state-run hotels.

“We need to close the whole world immediately – just let business people fly according to protocol, and limit those returning to tight quarantine. It’s an extreme step, but if there is a result, it will be difficult,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

The wave of travel bans comes after a new COVID-19 variant was discovered in England that the government says may be “up to 70% more contagious” than the existing version. The mutation is prevalent primarily in the country’s south and led Prime Minister Boris Johnson to classify London as Tier 4, the highest possible level of restrictions.

In a press conference on Saturday, Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said that the new COVID-19 strain made up 60% of infections in London. It has since been discovered in Denmark, the Netherlands, and in Australia.

However, experts say that there is no evidence that the mutant strain will be resistant to vaccines. “While it has not yet been definitively proven that the strain is more infectious, the numbers Johnson presented on Saturday were a projection, based on data that shows a recent rise in infections in areas where this spe-

Jacob Moran-Gilad from Ben-Gurion University’s School of Public Health.

“Mutations in viruses are nothing new, neither are they new to COVID-19,” added Moran-Gilad. “There are currently more than 1,000 known mutations to the novel coronavirus that was first found in Wuhan, most of which are inconsequential.”

Couscous is now part of an elite group.

The Berber dish joined the UN list of the world’s intangible cultural heritage last week, rekindling a debate over its origins.

The countries that submitted the listing to UNESCO – Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania – are different culturally but their common love of the grain staple runs deep.

“Couscous, present at every social or cultural event, is at once ordinary and special,” their joint presentation argued.

“Ordinary because of the frequency of its use in a family setting, and special because of the unifying and propitiatory role it plays at convivial community occasions at which food is shared.”

Bland by itself, couscous is served with meat or fish, spicy stews, chickpeas and vegetables in a mouth-watering variety of dishes.

“I think it is originally Moroccan,” Hamudi Abulafia, a chef in a Moroccan restaurant in Tel Aviv told Channel 13 News, “but there is a Tunisian employee here who says it is Tuni-

cific mutation was found,” said Prof.

Couscous Accolades

sian.”

Depending on where the dish originates, couscous can take on different forms and styles not only in the size of the grain but also in the way it is presented.

Restaurant owner Hicham Hazzoum in Morocco was among the couscous connoisseurs who applauded UNESCO’s honor.

“I think we are the only Arab countries to have a high regard for this dish,” he said. “It is impossible not to eat it every Friday. Moroccans are crazy about couscous and even children love it. It shows that the couscous flame will never go out.”

Couscous – also known as Seksu, Kusksi and Kseksu – is as elementary in the region as rice or noodles are to Asian cuisine, the staple without which no meal is complete.

Couscous is prepared from wheat or barley, and sometimes from maize, millet or sorghum, which is ground into semolina. It’s then rolled into pellets which are sieved and later soaked and repeatedly steamed.

“Women, in particular, play a fundamental role in the preparation and consumption of the dish, and in practicing and preserving the related symbolic value systems,” said the paper.

The girls learn not only the techniques but also “the songs, gestures, characteristic oral expressions and ritual organization” that go along with the process.

Outrage Over EU Ritual Slaughter Ban

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ban on ritual slaughter, paving the way for the prohibition to become binding law.

In the ruling, the court refused to appeal a law passed in Belgium requiring animals to be stunned prior to slaughter. Stunning animals is against Jewish and Islamic law, which require livestock to be awake at the time of their death.

In upholding the ruling, the court rejected arguments by religious groups that the stunning requirement infringed on their religious freedom. The decision effectively outlaws all forms of Jewish and Islamic ritual slaughter in the European Union and is the first time the EU’s highest court has supported such legislation.

“The court concludes that the measures contained in the decree allow a fair balance to be struck between the importance attached to animal welfare and the freedom of Jewish and Muslim believers to manifest their religion,” the ruling said.

A slew of Jewish leaders blasted the ruling after the decision was handed down last Thursday, calling the ban a form “of religious persecution” that would effectively make religious life impossible on the continent.

“This decision goes even further than expected and flies in the face of recent statements from the European institutions that Jewish life is to be treasured and respected,” said Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, who heads the Conference of European Rabbis.

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, who chairs the European Jewish Association, called the court’s decision “a sad day for European Jewry” and vowed to appeal the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights.

“What a terrible message to send to European Jewry, that you and your practices are not welcome here. This is a basic denial of our rights as European citizens,” Rabbi Margolin said.

“The fight continues, and we will not admit defeat until we have exhausted all our legal remedies, which is not yet the case,” added Yohan Benizri, head of the Belgian Federation of Jewish Organisations.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned the legal ruling in an unusually strong statement, charging that the verdict was “sending a harsh message to all European Jewry.”

“Beyond the fact that this decision harms the freedom of worship and religion in Europe, a core value of the EU, it also signals to Jewish communities that the Jewish way of life is unwanted in Europe,” the ministry noted.

While stunning animals at the time of slaughter had already been an EU-wide requirement, meat destined for Jewish and Islamic communities had previously been exempt from the rule. Attempts by animal rights activists to close the loophole had consistently been rebuffed by the courts until Thurs-

day’s ruling.

Life Sentence for Terrorist

Stephan Balliet was handed down a life sentence by a German court, putting the terrorist behind bars for a deadly attack that could have been the worst anti-Semitic atrocity since World War II on German soil.

The judges at the court in Magdeburg found him “seriously culpable” – he will be effectively barred from early release after 15 years.

Presiding Judge Ursula Mertens described it as a “cowardly attack” as she announced the verdict.

Balliet attempted to enter a synagogue in the city of Halle on Yom Kippur last year. More than 50 people were inside the shul. Balliet was barred from entering by a bolted, locked door.

After failing to storm the temple on October 9, 2019, Balliet, 28, shot dead a female passerby and a man at a kebab shop.

He was charged with two counts of murder and multiple counts of attempted murder in a case that deeply

rattled the country and fueled fears about rising right-wing extremism and anti-Jewish violence, 75 years after the end of the Nazi era.

During his five-month trial, Balliet denied the Holocaust in open court – a crime in Germany – and expressed no remorse to those targeted, many of whom are co-plaintiffs in the case.

“The attack on the synagogue in Halle was one of the most repulsive anti-Semitic acts since World War II,” prosecutor Kai Lohse told the court.

During the trial, Balliet insisted that “attacking the synagogue was not a mistake; they are my enemies.”

Dressed in military garb, he filmed the attack and broadcast it on the internet, prefacing it with a manifesto espousing his misogynist, neo-fascist ideology.

The government’s point man against anti-Semitism, Felix Klein, called the trial “a good opportunity to bring about debate in society about anti-Semitism.”

Crimes targeting Jews and their belief have risen steadily in Germany in recent years, with 2,032 offenses recorded in 2019, up 13 percent on the previous year.

A Suspicious Gift

Bosnian prospectors opened an investigation after a Serb leader gifted a 300-year-old Ukrainian religious icon to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The icon was given to Lavrov during his visit to Bosnia last Monday by Milorad Dodik, Bosnia’s Serb member of its three-person rotating presidency. The figurine is highly valuable and believed to originate in the Ukrainian city of Lugansk, which has been wracked by intermittent warfare.

A photo published by the Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA showed a stamp confirming the figurine’s authenticity along with writing in Ukrainian suggesting that it originated in Lugansk.

Now, prosecutors are probing whether the icon was illegally smuggled out of Ukraine by Bosnians fighting with pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine. Kiev has been locked in a battle since 2014 with Russian-backed separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

“If it’s true that this is an icon that comes from Ukraine, which was brought from Ukraine to Banja Luka, during the conflict in Ukraine, if it was stolen…then someone needs to go to jail,” said Zeljko Komsic, who serves as Bosnia’s Croat member of the rotating presidency.

The gift to Lavrov resulted in a diplomatic crisis with Ukraine, who demanded that Sarajevo provide “clarification and full information on the circumstances of this case” on how the figurine ended up in Bosnia. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry added that failing to cooperate would mean that Bosnia “supported the aggressive policies and military actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine.”

Bosnia hopes that the investigation will mollify Ukraine and avoid a diplomatic crisis with one of its staunchest regional allies.

“It would be normal to have a very urgent reaction because it is a very serious inquiry, not to say an accusation,” said Bosnian Foreign Minister Bisera Turkovic. “Enormous damage is done to Bosnia when a high-ranking official is accused of donating something that has been stolen and is someone’s cultural treasure.”

Space Race Scientist Faced Anti-Semitism

A new article explores how a Soviet engineer pioneered space travel despite facing a deluge of anti-Semitism throughout his career.

Anatoliy Davidovich Daron passed away on June 24 in a dilapidated apartment in Brighton Beach, New York, where he had lived since 1998. But prior to emigrating to the United States, the Jewish engineer played a major role in the “Space Race” between the U.S. and the Soviet Union that characterized the Cold War.

A rocket scientist by training, Daron worked for 50 years at Experimental Design Bureau No. 456 (OKB-456), the Soviet Russia’s top aeronautical research center. There, he pioneered a series of cutting-edge inventions which underpinned Russia’s space program.

Among Daron’s developments were the RD-107 and RD-108 rocket engines that replaced solid fuel with liquid propellants that were able to withstand extreme temperatures. These engines later powered all of Russia’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) and launched all of the Soviet Union’s piloted spacecrafts- Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz.

“The new cooling method made it possible to raise the temperature higher without overheating the vessel,” said Daron’s widow, Vera, in an interview with the Times of Israel. “To this day, only these rocket engines are used to fly humans into space.”

Daron also served as the lead engineer on the R-9, Moscow’s first silo-based ICBM, and a slew of medium range missiles. In 1957, the quiet scientist was awarded the Order of Lenin, Russia’s highest civilian medal, for leading the development team that launched the Sputnik satellite.

Yet despite his engineering brilliance, Daron battled anti-Semitism throughout his career that threatened his advancement in Russia’s military research industries. In 1953, Daron was the victim of the “Doctors’ Plot,” a conspiracy theory promoted by Soviet Chairman Joseph Stalin surrounding an alleged group of Jewish physicians who were accused of planning to kill Russian leaders.

The aftermath led to a wave of firings of Jewish professionals, while a media campaign accused Soviet Jews of being disloyal to their country.

“He lost his job. He tried to get another job. He was temporarily unemployed,” noted Asif Siddiqi, a Professor of Soviet History at Fordham University. “It was only after Stalin died that he was able to get his job back. If Stalin had lived, Daron would never have done the work he did.”

Ironically, being implicated in the “Doctors’ Plot” eventually assisted Daron when he attempted to immigrate to the U.S. in 1998 in