#1976 uganda news

[simply-ivanka]

Blaming Israel for Rescuing Its People

Hamas hid four hostages in a crowded civilian area and fired on rescuers.

Wall Street Journal

By The Editorial Board

It’s rare good news in a grinding war. On Saturday Israeli commandos rescued four hostages from two civilian buildings near the heart of Gaza’s Nuseirat market. It was a high-risk but well-planned and -executed mission that is a morale boost for Israelis.

Arnon Zamora was killed while leading the rescue mission at the head of his force. He will go down in history with Yoni Netanyahu, the fallen leader of Israel’s 1976 raid to free hostages in Entebbe, Uganda.

Noa Argamani, age 26, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40, were all abducted during the music-festival massacre. A video showed Ms. Argamani begging for her life. Eight months later she heard a knock on the door: “It’s the IDF, we’ve come to rescue you.” She can now visit her terminally ill mother. Mr. Jan was mobbed on his return by friends chanting, “He is one of us, and we will never give him up,” a refrain of sports teammates now given new meaning. Mr. Jan’s father died hours before his son’s return.

The non-surprise is that professional anti-Israel voices, United Nations officials and the European Union foreign-policy chief rushed to attack Israel. Egypt condemned the operation “in the strongest terms.” How dare Israel rescue its own citizens. Didn’t it know there would be casualties? The BBC asked whether Israel gave a warning that the rescue raid was coming. Seriously? A tip-off to terrorists? Perhaps read them Miranda rights too.

“BREAKING: Gaza’s Health Ministry says 274 Palestinians were killed during the Israeli operation,” reports the Associated Press, only 48 hours after it had exposed how the Hamas ministry’s daily death tolls are “at odds with underlying data.” When will the media stop taking the kidnappers at their word?

Haters of Israel will blame it and excuse Hamas every time, and the media are easily manipulated into playing along. The Hamas figure is likely inflated, and it includes the terrorists killed trying to stop the rescue as well as those who hid the hostages.

Hamas started the war with a massacre, took these hostages and hid them in a crowded civilian area. Then, when Israel came to free them, Hamas responded with heavy fire, including RPGs—yet people are condemning Israel. It makes us wonder if the West has lost the moral discernment and instinct for self-preservation needed to defend itself in a world of killers.

Hamas could not survive if not for its enablers around the world.

[tieflingkisser]

Instruments of Dehuman­ization

How U.S. laws—branding Palestinians as “terrorists” and redefining anti-Semitism—serve Israel’s interests.

In 1979 Benjamin Netanyahu and his father Benzion—both newly returned to Israel—convened, in Jerusalem, the first-ever conference on “international terrorism.” The event was hosted by the Jonathan Institute, which the Netanyahus had formed in 1976 in the memory of their son and brother Jonathan, an Israeli fighter killed in a raid on Entebbe International Airport in Uganda to rescue passengers on a hijacked plane. The conference brought together Israeli military and political officials (among them current and future prime ministers Menachem Begin and Shimon Peres) with U.S. neoconservative groups and politicians. At the conference the Netanyahus peddled a novel view of terrorism that presented it as a satanic threat from irrational, demonic enemies that was anathema to Western values of freedom and democracy and aimed to destroy the West itself. In order to save themselves, Benzion Netanyahu argued, Western countries had to abandon commitments to international law and multilateral, UN-led action and instead use whatever means necessary to annihilate the threat of terrorism. To the Americans at the conference, the new definition was appealing. It could be used to challenge popular skepticism about U.S. military force following Vietnam: if terrorists presented a real, existential threat to the United States, it was both desirable and necessary to use U.S. military force to confront that threat from wherever it might emanate. It was also appealing to the neocons as a tool to be used in the United States’ struggle against the Soviet Union, in order to recast the Soviet Union as a purveyor and sponsor of terrorism threatening the West.   For the Netanyahus, however, the concept of terrorism served a different objective, namely, to equate the “evil” of terrorist activity with Arabs and Muslims generally—and Palestinians in particular. In drawing these connections, the Netanyahus hoped that questions about the political legitimacy of the Israeli occupation could be pushed under the rug and Palestinian resistance to it would become a stand-in for the West’s besiegement by Islamist terrorism. The 1979 conference marked the beginning of sustained Israeli-led efforts to reshape U.S. law and policy to delegitimize Palestinian efforts at self-determination and liberation. In the years since the conference convening, U.S. law has systematically singled out Palestinians for discriminatory treatment in both explicit and implicit ways—more so than any other population and certainly no other population of such comparatively small size. These laws, which exist at both the federal and state level, have effectively transformed the U.S. legal system into an extension of the Israeli state itself. Many of these laws frame Palestinians as “terrorists” and treat certain kinds of support for the Palestinian cause as tantamount to supporting terrorist activity. More recently, Israel and its allies have adopted yet another strategy to quash pro-Palestine advocacy, which focuses on and promotes an expanded notion of anti-Semitism that includes criticism of Israel. Using this approach, these groups have succeeded in passing laws that depict support and advocacy for Palestine as anti-Semitic and illegitimate no matter how peaceful.

[soulmusicsongs]

Soul Around The World in 33 songs

Soul music became popular around the world, influencing countless artists across the world. We’ve put together a list with awesome soul tracks form Africa, Asia, Europa and Latin America.

В Свобода Бе Роден Ти - Трио Обектив И Естрадния Оркестър На Българското Радио (Да Танцуваме = Non Stop Dancing, 1979) - Bulgaria

Africa Is Home - Joe Mensah (Joe Mensah, 1975) - Ghana

Akale Wube - Getatchew Mekuria (Getatchew Mekuria And His Saxophone, 1972) - Ethiopia

Alabeke (Part 1) - Dan Satch & His Atomic 8 Dance Band Of Aba (Alabeke (Part 1) / Alabeke (Part 2), 197?) - Nigeria

All Of My Life - Jack Kane (Blackjack County Chain / All Of My Life, 1970) - Canada

Black Man's Cry - Lever Brothers Gay Flamingoes (Secrets Of The Pan, 1973) - Barbados

Cocaine Blues - W. Ambros (Nie Und Nimmer, 1979) - Austria

Dankasa - Uppers International (Dankasa/ Neriba Lanchina, 1973) - Ghana

Ebolo - Bell'a Njoh (Bell'a Njoh, 1978) - Cameroon

El Fen - Aït Messlaïne (Yémma / El Fen, 1976) - Algeria

Gaccia Ad' Avè - Leone Di Lernia E La Sua "New Rock Band" (Canzoni Rock Tranesi, 1975) - Italy

Hijack - The Cliques (Salsa Hits, 1975) - Philipinnes

Hold On, I'm Coming - Zoo Nee Voo (The World Of Zoo Nee Voo , 1968) - Japan

Ifetayo - Black Truth Rhythm Band (Ifetayo "Love Excells All", 1976) - Trinidad

Kadia Blues - Orchestre De La Paillotte (Volume 2, 1967) - Guinea

Kenoru Lebitcha - Alemayehu Eshete (Tikur Gissila / Kenoru Lebitcha, 1972) - Ethiopia

Lupita - Nico Gomez And His Afro Percussion Inc. (Ritual, 1971) - Belgium

Nina - Afro 70 (Em Moçambique, 1977) - Mozambique

No Intension - The Yoruba Singers (Ojinga's Own, 1974) - Guyana

Oh Baby I Don't Love You Anymore - Wolfgang Dauner Quintet (The Oimels, 1969) - Germany

Ole - The Black Santiagos (Ole/ Adan Egbomi, 1972) - Benin

Pygmy - Akira Ishikawa & Count Buffalos (Uganda, 1972) - Japan

Quit Hold - R. Conrado, A. Scuderi, P. Montanari (Bass Modulations, 1973) - Italy

Samari Bolga - Uppers Chapter Two (Walahi Talahi / Samari Bolga, 1976) - Ghana

Shando - Xoliso ‎(Shingwanyana, 1974) - South Africa

Soul House - Max Greger (Hifi-Stereo, 1970) - Germany

The Spoiler - Vigon (Greatest Hits, 1972) - France

Stasera Canto Io (Funky Broadway)- Patrick Samson Set (Sono Nero, 1968) - Italy

Tenkim Kpoho - Mary Afi Usuah (African Woman, 1978) - Nigeria

That's How I Feel - Jiro Inagaki & His Soul Media (In The Groove, 1973) - Japan

El Tiempo Apremia = Time Is Tight - Los Lazos (Como Has Hecho, 1970) - Mexico

Vamonos - Elkin & Nelson (Elkin & Nelson, 1974) - Spain

Yaraal Sa Doom - Super Jamono De Dakar (Ndaxami, 1981) - Senegal

More Soul Around the World

Soul Around The World in 34 songs

Soul Around The World in 27 Songs

Soul Around the World in 20 tracks

Soul Around The World in 22 tracks

African Funk from the Seventies

Jamaicans Got Soul

Funk from Peru

Funk from Belgium

Caribbean Soul: 20 awesome tracks

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 7.4 (after 1940)

1941 – Nazi crimes against the Polish nation: Nazi troops massacre Polish scientists and writers in the captured Ukrainian city of Lviv. 1941 – World War II: The Burning of the Riga synagogues: The Great Choral Synagogue in German-occupied Riga is burnt with 300 Jews locked in the basement. 1942 – World War II: The 250-day Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimea ends when the city falls to Axis forces. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world's largest tank battle, begins in the village of Prokhorovka. 1943 – World War II: In Gibraltar, a Royal Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into the sea in an apparent accident moments after takeoff, killing sixteen passengers on board, including general Władysław Sikorski, the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army and the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile; only the pilot survives. 1946 – The Kielce pogrom against Jewish Holocaust survivors in Poland. 1946 – After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule by various powers, the Philippines attains full independence from the United States. 1947 – The "Indian Independence Bill" is presented before the British House of Commons, proposing the independence of the Provinces of British India into two sovereign countries: India and Pakistan. 1950 – Cold War: Radio Free Europe first broadcasts. 1951 – Cold War: A court in Czechoslovakia sentences American journalist William N. Oatis to ten years in prison on charges of espionage. 1951 – William Shockley announces the invention of the junction transistor. 1954 – Food rationing in Great Britain ends, with the lifting of restrictions on sale and purchase of meat, 14 years after it began early in World War II, and nearly a decade after the war's end. 1960 – Due to the post-Independence Day admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state on August 21, 1959, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, almost ten and a half months later (see Flag Acts (United States)). 1961 – On its maiden voyage, the Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-19 suffers a complete loss of coolant to its reactor. The crew are able to effect repairs, but 22 of them die of radiation poisoning over the following two years. 1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act into United States law. The act went into effect the next year. 1976 – Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists. 1982 – Space Shuttle program: Columbia lands at Edwards Air Force Base at the end of the program's final test flight, STS-4. President Ronald Reagan declares the Space Shuttle to be operational. 1994 – Rwandan genocide: Kigali, the Rwandan capital, is captured by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, ending the genocide in the city. 1997 – NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars. 1998 – Japan launches the Nozomi probe to Mars, joining the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation. 2001 – Vladivostok Air Flight 352 crashes on approach to Irkutsk Airport killing all 145 people on board. 2002 – A Boeing 707 crashes near Bangui M'Poko International Airport in Bangui, Central African Republic, killing 28. 2004 – The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the World Trade Center site in New York City. 2004 – Greece beats Portugal in the UEFA Euro 2004 Final and becomes European Champion for first time in its history. 2005 – The Deep Impact collider hits the comet Tempel 1. 2006 – Space Shuttle program: Discovery launches STS-121 to the International Space Station. The event gained wide media attention as it was the only shuttle launch in the program's history to occur on the United States' Independence Day. 2009 – The first of four days of bombings begins on the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao. 2012 – The discovery of particles consistent with the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider is announced at CERN.

[yhwhrulz]

Worthy Brief - September 28, 2023

In war you need chutzpah!

Genesis 14:14-16 Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his three hundred and eighteen trained servants who were born in his own house, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. He divided his forces against them by night, and he and his servants attacked them and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus. So he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his brother Lot and his goods, as well as the women and the people.

Abraham's rescue of Lot and his household from the four Mesopotamian Kings in the middle of the night was an act of holy chutzpah! Israel's first patriarch demonstrated great faith, courage, family loyalty, and military strategy during this successful rescue operation.

This story of Abraham reminded me of another story in modern Israeli history. It was on June 27, 1976, when a jetliner was hijacked by a Palestinian Liberation group and taken to Uganda.

In an astounding rescue, 100 elite Israeli commandos led by Yoni Netanyahu, (Benjamin Netanyahu's older brother) traveled over 2,500 miles to Kampala, Uganda and liberated scores of passengers taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists from a hijacked airplane. "Operation Thunderbolt" took place on July 4, 1976, whereby 103 hostages were saved, while only three died. Yoni Netanyahu was the one Israeli who sacrificed his life for this mission. The seemingly impossible rescue, which also took place at night, required a week of planning and lasted just 90 minutes. It was totally unexpected and unprecedented in modern history and became a model for rescue team training in the US military.

These two examples of courage and daring ought to inspire us in certain situations where evil should be boldly and radically confronted. There are times when we, too, can and should operate with holy chutzpah, surprising the enemy with fearless courage, faith-filled action, and laser-sharp strategy. "I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you." [Luke 10:19]

There is a time to wage war with holy chutzpah. When our cause is righteous and the goal is rescue and deliverance from evil then we ought not to be passive. In these situations, we need the Lord's strategy and the courage which comes with true righteousness. Perhaps it will require a strong word spoken in love; perhaps a day or a week of serious fasting and prayer. It may even involve addressing an evil spirit as the Apostle Paul did in Philippi [Acts 16:18]. There are times for radical action without fear that it can’t be done. Our Lord, on the cross, exemplified tremendous courage and heroism to rescue us from our sins and the devil's power. In the power of His Spirit, we also can be instruments of dramatic deliverance – with Holy chutzpah!

Your family in the Lord with much agape love,

George, Baht Rivka, Obadiah and Elianna (Dallas, TX) (Jacksonville, Florida)

Editor's Note: My wife is on a roll with new music! Check out her encouraging new release called Awake My Soul! - https://worthynews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b94ae97bb66e693a4850359ec&id=f556f91930&e=546629276c

Editor's Note: We are planning our Winter Tour so if you would like us to minister at your congregation, home fellowship, or Israel focused event, be sure to let us know ASAP. You can send an email to george [ @ ] worthyministries.com for more information.

[irreplaceable-spark]

“Bibi: My Story,” Benjamin Netanyahu on His Life and Times

Benjamin Netanyahu is the past and soon to be again prime minister of Israel. In his new book, Bibi: My Story, Netanyahu describes how he went from an Israeli American high school student in Philadelphia to a member of the Israeli Defense Force, detouring along the way to study architecture and get a master’s degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1976. His studies were interrupted when his brother Yoni was killed in the raid on Entebbe, Uganda, which inspired Bibi to return to Israel and dedicate his life to protecting that state. This interview covers those events as well as his rise to the top of Israeli politics—multiple times.

[jacobsvoice]

Bibi’s Memories and Victories

(December 5, 2022 / JNS) It is not surprising that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has written a lengthy memoir (654 pages). Bibi, published just as Netanyahu was elected to serve yet another term, is a fascinating—if occasionally tediously detailed—recounting of his remarkable political career.

Netanyahu identifies his “life’s mission” as “to help secure the future of my ancient people who suffered so much and have contributed so much to humanity.” The rebirth of Israel, after millennia during which Jews wandered in the wilderness of dependence upon other nations for their survival, is indeed a miracle of history. Netanyahu fits his life story into that narrative.

For five years after Israel’s stunning victory in the Six-Day War (1967), Netanyahu served as an officer in Sayeret Matkal, the elite special forces unit of the IDF. Relocating to the United States, he graduated from MIT and became Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. Returning to Israel, he was elected to the Knesset in 1988, launching his remarkable political career.

Along the way, there was tragedy as well as triumph. Netanyahu’s beloved older brother Yoni, who had preceded him as an officer in Sayeret Matkal, was murdered in 1976 during the rescue of Israeli hostages held captive by terrorists at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. Netanyahu evocatively describes feeling “like a man on a rack whose limbs are torn from him one by one.”

Netanyahu was unrelenting in his ambition and success. In 1996 he defeated Shimon Peres to become Israel’s youngest-ever prime minister. Ever since, he has been on a political rollercoaster. He served as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s minister of foreign affairs and minister of finance before returning as prime minister in 2009, a position he held until 2021 and will now occupy again.

Among the most interesting parts of Netanyahu’s autobiography is the description of his strained relationship with former President Barack Obama, indisputably America’s least Israel-friendly president. Early on, Netanyahu realized that he was “heading into an inevitable confrontation with Israel’s most important ally.” Obama’s “espousal of the Palestinian narrative”—that Israeli Jews are “neo-colonials usurping the land from native Arab inhabitants”—framed their difficult relationship.

Obama seemed determined to “steamroll” Netanyahu into accepting a Palestinian state on the precarious pre-1967 borders that enclosed Israel before it regained biblical Judea and Samaria in the Six-Day War. The president’s insistence on a settlement freeze and two-state solution became an enduring source of contention between them, while Obama’s linkage of the suffering of Palestinians to the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust was, to Netanyahu (and countless others), “outlandish”—if not appalling.

Netanyahu understood that “being a moral people won’t save you from conquest and carnage, which was the history of the Jewish people for two thousand years.” Zionism, he writes, meant “giving the Jewish people the power to defend themselves,” which “was the central mission of my years in office.”

Bibi’s preening occasionally overflows, as when he writes that “Israel’s international standing was boosted by the fact that I was repeatedly ranked by Forbes magazine among the most powerful people in the world.” Or when he lists by name the 19 countries he visited to open new economic and political opportunities for Israel.

Unlike Bibi’s strained relationship with Obama, his rapport with President Donald Trump resulted in significant benefits for Israel. They included American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and the legality of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. Normalization agreements with Arab countries (known as the Abraham Accords) effectively ended the Palestinian “veto” over Israel-Arab relations.

Netanyahu’s narrative ends in 2020, but having now returned as prime minister, an even longer updated edition of his book is assured. It will surely provide him with a renewed opportunity to bolster his unrivaled stature in Israeli history.

Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of twelve books, including Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel 1896-2016, selected for Mosaic by Ruth Wisse and Martin Kramer as a Best Book for 2019.

[common-grounds-blog]

Disease spreads in Uganda

Uganda is struggling to contain its second deadly Ebola Virus Disease outbreak. This outbreak was first detected in a small farming community on September 20th. As of November 8th 2022, there have been 156 people infected and 74 deaths. 

The CDC states “Ebola virus was first described in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since then, the virus has emerged periodically and infected people in several African countries.” The disease is described as “A deadly viral infection caused by the virus ebola, that leads to profuse internal and external bleeding and eventually leading to organ failure.”

In 2014-2016 the Ebola outbreak in small african villages made its way across the globe and became an epidemic. 

The disease has currently spread throughout eight districts in Uganda. The World Health Organization has sent warnings that neighboring countries should prepare for the infection. The CDC issued for American health workers to be on the lookout for patients who have traveled to Uganda in the last three weeks. The CDC also issued for health workers to be on the lookout for possible symptoms of Ebola, such as fever, headache, fatigue and unexpected bleeding. In October, federal officials ordered that U.S. traveling passengers that have been in Uganda in the past 21 days should arrive at select airports for enhanced screening for Ebola.

-

I personally am surprised that I even found this article, it has seemed to me that most news outlets since covid have only reported on covid.

It seems as if they are trying to get the virus under control there in Uganda, they have closed some schools down and have warned neighboring countries to prepare, so I am hopeful that it won't spread like it has in years past. Also hoping that since covid people will take better precautions for other viruses and diseases to prevent the spread. 

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, CNN,

[rilwansbloggg]

HOW COOKING MAKES US HUMANS

For my third topic for this project, i have decided to write about How Cooking Made us Humans(Stream How Cooking Made Us Human with Professor Richard Wrangham by Bridging the Gaps: A Portal for Curious Minds | Listen online for free on SoundCloud). A conversation between Professor Richard Wrangham who is the speaker and Dr. Waseem Akhtar, the host. I chose this topic because it focuses on Human origin and evolution which is very important because studying our origin provides insights into our biological history and functions. It also highlights how humans have benefited from being able to adapt to their immediate environment.

Some of the lessons learnt from the above conversation about How cooking makes us humans include: (i)Human are incapable of relying on raw wild food because we don't have the digestive capacity for it. (ii)Being able to cook our own food gave us a whole series of new adaptations e.g physiological, behavioral and anatomical. (iii)Human beings started cooking about 250,000 years ago. (iv) Raw food is good for fat people who are looking to lose weight.

The guest speaker, Professor Richard Wrangham (born 1948, PhD, Cambridge University, 1975) is Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and founded the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in 1987. He has conducted extensive research on primate ecology, nutrition, and social behaviour. He is best known for his work on the evolution of human warfare, described in the book Demonic Males, and on the role of cooking in human evolution, described in the book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Together with Elizabeth Ross, he co-founded the Kasiisi Project in 1997, and serves as a patron of the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP)[1]. Below is a list of some of his research and field experiences:

1968 Oxford Bongo Expedition to Kenya, studying ecology of bongo, Boocercus euryceros, and land management of Cherangani Hills. Numerous small grants. Three months.

Assistant biologist in Kafue National Park, Zambia, studying behavioral ecology of waterbuck, Kobus defassa. Nine months.

1969 Oxford University Expedition to Kenya, studying insectivore ecology at high altitude. Numerous small grants. Three months.

1970-1971 Research assistant in Gombe national Park, Tanzania, studying behaviour of chimpanzees Pan troglodytes. Twelve months.

1971-1973 Research student in Gombe National park, Tanzania, studying chimpanzee behavioural ecology. W.T. Grant Foundation. One Year.

1975 Behavioural ecology of gelada baboons, Theropithecus gelada, in Simien National Park, Ethiopia. Science Research Council. Five months. (This study was funded for three years. It was aborted because of political turmoil.)

1976-1977 Field supervision of primate studies in Rwanda (gorillas) and Kenya (baboons). Two months.

1978 Laboratory studies of primate diets, Cambridge. Bedford Fund, King's College. One month.

1978-1979 Behavioural ecology of vervet monkeys, Cercopithecus aethiops , in Amboseli National Park, Kenya. Science Research Council. Eight months.

1980-1981 Ecology and social organization of Balese and Bambuti people. Ituri forest, Zaire. National Science Foundation, L.S.B. Leakey Foundation. Nine months.

1983 Experimental study of primate feeding behaviour, San Diego Zoo and Los Angeles Zoo. Two months.

1984 Field study of chimpanzee medicinal plants, Gombe National Park, Tanzania; and pilot study of chimpanzees in Kibale Forest, Uganda. L.S.B. Leakey Foundation. Two months.

1986 Chimpanzee field site reconnaissance in western Uganda. Rackham Grant (University of Michigan).[2]

[1] Richard W. Wrangham (Foreword by of In the Shadow of Man) (goodreads.com)

[2] https://www.discoverlife.org/who/CV/Wrangham,_Richard.html

[mubahood360]

Healthy Heart Africa programme expands to Uganda to help tackle hypertension problem – UGNEWS24 Uganda has become the fifth country in Africa to implement the Healthy Heart Africa program after the Ministry of Health signed a memorandum of understanding with AstraZeneca.

[thegikitiki]

Operation Entebbe, July 3rd & 4th, 1976

   Read More About This Event on Wikipedia

[girlactionfigure]

He Was Rescued and Became A Rescuer

Paying it forward

Arieh Oz was a child survivor of the Holocaust who was saved by a Dutch family who hid him and his sister for three years. He later became a Lt. Col. in the Israeli Air Force who flew a rescue plane at Entebbe and piloted 1,122 Ethiopian Jews to safety in Operation Solomon.

Arieh was born Harry Klausner to a non-religious Jewish family in Wuppertal, Germany in 1936. The Klausners, like many other Jewish families, were thoroughly assimilated and proud Germans, identifying strongly with German culture and with minimal interest in Judaism. After the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938, when Jews were murdered and synagogues destroyed throughout Germany and Austria, the Klausners realized there was no future for them in their beloved Germany, and they relocated to Holland, which seemed to be a more tolerant place, although life was far from normal. Harry and his sister Ruth were not allowed to attend school, and they had to wear the yellow star marking them as Jewish wherever they went. Still, life was bearable, until 1942, when the Nazis began arresting Jews and deporting them to concentration camps.

Harry’s parents hurriedly made plans to keep the family safe. With the help of their friend Nel van der Spek, a teacher and leader in the Dutch Resistance, they were introduced to Oepke and Jitske Haitsma, Dutch farmers with three young children, who agreed to take the two Klausner children into their home. Harry’s mother Rosa found a hiding place with another non-Jew, Petronella Ketel, and his father managed to escape Europe and flee to Palestine, then under British rule.

At only six years old, Harry and his sister Ruth, aged twelve, moved in with the Dutch farm family, who were complete strangers and didn’t even speak the same language. The Klausner children learned Dutch, did farmwork, and attended church with their hosts. The Haitsmas barely had enough money to feed their own family, but they shared what little they had with the two Jewish children, and the Hitsma kids were forbidden to have playdates with other children for fear the secret would come out. Once a year, Harry and Ruth were dressed in disguise and taken to visit their mother in her hiding place.

The Nazis were ruthless in searching out Jews, and the Klausner kids hid in a cramped attic during multiple raids by Nazi storm troopers and were never found. For three years they stayed with the heroic Haitsma family, living in constant fear of discovery. In September 1944, Allied forces began to liberate Holland. Eight-year-old Harry, hiding in the attic, heard fighter planes overhead each night, and listened so closely that he was able to distinguish which were German and which belonged to the Allies. As he lay there in the darkness, Harry decided that if he were fortunate enough to survive the war and reach adulthood, he would become a pilot.

The war ended in 1945, and the children’s nightmare came to an end when their mother, who had stayed safe and sound in her hiding place, showed up to retrieve them. In 1946 they traveled to Palestine to reunite with their father, which was nothing short of a miracle considering the fate of most German Jews. Harry later remembered how strange it was to see his father, who felt like a total stranger to him.

Anxious to leave behind all traces of the country that had so cruelly betrayed them, the Klausners changed their name to Oz, and Harry Klausner became Arieh Oz. Once again he had to learn a new language, and started school for the first time at age eleven. It was extremely difficult, but Arieh was strong and resilient, and graduated from high school the third in his class. Now it was time to fulfill his childhood dream, and he was accepted into the elite Israel Air Force Flight School. Arieh proudly earned his pilot’s wings in 1956 and excelled at his chosen career, soon becoming a flight instructor and then a young captain.

In the late 1950’s, the IDF began purchasing jumbo planes to fly long routes, carrying weapons from Europe and providing humanitarian aid to African countries facing famine. They needed someone to command this new fleet, and despite his young age, Arieh was the best man for the job. He was promoted to Lt. Col. Oz, founder of the Israeli Air Force’s International Squadron. He recruited the best pilots in Israel to join his team, and later explained, “We completed many intricate, complex and difficult missions. We had three planes operating every week, two of which flew to France to bring weapons and one of which flew to countries in Africa for aid and assistance.”

After the Six Day War in 1967, Arieh left the IDF and became a pilot for El Al, Israel’s largest airline. In 1972, thirty years after he and Ruth had moved in with the kind-hearted Haitsmas’, Arieh flew the Dutch family to Israel to celebrate his son’s bar mitzvah, and to be honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem.

Although not on active military duty, Arieh continued to participate in many top-secret and specialized missions. In 1976, terrorists hijacked Air France Flight 139 and forced the pilot to land in Entebbe, Uganda. The 248 passengers were held hostage for two days, after which the non-Jewish hostages were released, leaving 94 Jews stuck on board the plane, repeatedly threatened with death by the vicious terrorists.

To end the crisis, the IDF worked with Israeli intelligence agency Mossad to plan a bold rescue operation. An expert on delicate, dangerous missions, Arieh was chosen as one of four pilots to take down the terrorists and save the hostages. For seven hours, Arieh flew under radar to Entebbe, where the terrorists had cut the lights on the runway and he had to land the aircraft in the darkness. His bravery and calmness under pressure helped save 102 hostages and kill the terrorists. Sadly, three hostages lost their lives, along with an IDF commander, Lt. Col. Yoni Netanyahu, brother of the current Israeli prime minister.

In 1991, Arieh was selected to lead another, very different, mission of heroism. He was a pilot of Operation Solomon, a covert Israeli military operation to airlift thousands of Ethiopian Jews, suffering from grinding poverty and religious persecution, to the Jewish homeland. He later recalled, “I flew a Jumbo 747 aircraft – the first 747 ever to land in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. You won’t believe it but I brought, on one plane, 1,087 Ethiopian Jews to Israel.” The number was later revised to 1,122, because some of the Ethiopian mothers, still wary of the Israelis and not knowing what to expect, hid young children in their clothing and bags. The flight holds the Guinness World Record for most passengers ever carried by a commercial airline.

Arieh retired from El Al in 2001 with 28,000 flight hours, andd then served as aviation consultant and accident investigator for the Israeli Ministry of Transport. He published his autobiography, “Quest for Freedom,” in 2014. Arieh lives in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, with his wife of over sixty years, Bat-sheva. They have three children and seven grandchildren.

For their heroic actions in saving persecuted Jews, we honor Arieh Oz and Oepke & Jitske Haitsma as this week’s Thursday Heroes.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

John Brisker

Between his departure of the NBA and when he disappeared, Brisker attempted several business ventures that failed. His wife Michele filed for divorce in 1977 and claimed he abused her to the point she is deaf in her left ear. He and his girlfriend also had a daughter on February 1978. His brother Ralph has not seen him since 1976 and his mother in 1975. His teammate and friend, Spencer Haywood, said Brisker visited him at his New York home sometime in 1976 or 1977. Haywood claimed Brisker returned from Africa and still held a grudge against his last basketball coach. He planned on returning to Africa, but Haywood tried to take Brisker's passport. Haywood thought Brisker was in "dark, shady places" and it was possible he showed his friend a picture of Idi Amin, who was the dictator of Uganda at the time. Before Brisker left, Haywood remembered telling him, "You don't need to go back over there. You don't sound too healthy. And there's some anger you need to deal with. It's not Russell. It's you."

According to King County court documents, Brisker travelled to Uganda to launch an "import-export business." He rang his girlfriend in Seattle on April 11, 1978 from Kampala, Uganda. There has been no contact from him as since then.

Since his disappearance, there have been many speculations on Brisker's fate. A former teammate, Tom Burleson claimed, "He went to Uganda and it was as a mercenary and he was fighting over there. His wife went with him, and he was captured by Idi Amin's men. And Idi Amin had him prepared and they served him and his wife banquet style.” 

The King County Medical Examiner of King County, Washington officially declared Brisker dead in May 1985 for the purpose of settling his estate. He left behind two young daughters, his house in Redmond, Washington and $29,000 in his bank account.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 2.6 (after 1950)

1951 – The Canadian Army enters combat in the Korean War. 1951 – The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The accident kills 85 people and injures over 500 more. The wreck is one of the worst rail disasters in American history. 1952 – Elizabeth II becomes Queen of the United Kingdom and her other Realms and Territories and Head of the Commonwealth upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a tree house at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya. 1958 – Eight Manchester United F.C. players and 15 other passengers are killed in the Munich air disaster. 1959 – Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit. 1959 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished. 1973 – The Ms  7.6 Luhuo earthquake strikes Sichuan Province, causing widespread destruction and killing at least 2,199 people. 1976 – In testimony before a United States Senate subcommittee, Lockheed Corporation president Carl Kotchian admits that the company had paid out approximately $3 million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. 1978 – The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Nor'easters in New England history, hit the region, with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of four inches an hour. 1981 – The National Resistance Army of Uganda launches an attack on a Ugandan Army installation in the central Mubende District to begin the Ugandan Bush War. 1987 – Justice Mary Gaudron becomes the first woman to be appointed to the High Court of Australia. 1988 – Michael Jordan makes his signature slam dunk from the free throw line inspiring Air Jordan and the Jumpman logo. 1989 – The Round Table Talks start in Poland, thus marking the beginning of the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe. 1996 – Willamette Valley Flood: Floods in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, United States, causes over US$500 million in property damage throughout the Pacific Northwest. 1996 – Birgenair Flight 301 crashed off the coast of the Dominican Republic, killing all 189 people on board. This is the deadliest aviation accident involving a Boeing 757. 1998 – Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport. 2000 – Second Chechen War: Russia captures Grozny, Chechnya, forcing the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria government into exile. 2006 – Stephen Harper becomes Prime Minister of Canada. 2012 – A magnitude 6.7 earthquake hits the central Philippine island of Negros, leaving 112 people dead. 2016 – An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 strikes southern Taiwan, killing 117 people. 2018 – SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, a super heavy launch vehicle, makes its maiden flight. 2021 – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken suspends agreements with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to send asylum seekers back to their home countries. 2023 – Two earthquakes measuring Mww 7.8 and 7.5 struck near the border between Turkey and Syria with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XII (Extreme). The earthquakes resulted in numerous aftershocks and a death toll of 57,658 people.

[fencesandfrogs]

i. the first news story about aids was published may 18, 1981, almost exactly forty years ago.

ii. senior year, decade day, the eighties. i wear a leater jacket and a white tee shirt and carry a sign that says, "health care is a right."

iii. tuskegee. it's one of those words. i say it, and it says the rest for me.

iv. positive — the first line of the amazon blurb — "Paige Rawl has been HIV positive since birth, but growing up, she never felt like her illness defined her."

v. david carr, 1959. three anonymous congolese men and women, 1959, 1960, 1966. robert rayford, 1969. fifty children from uganda, 1973. arvid noe, 1976. grethe rask, 1976. did i miss anyone?

vi. my mother tells me that the aids crisis did not happen in the eighties. the implication is, she would have known. i am too angry to do anything but search for image after image of protests. she believes me. she does not apologize.

vii. positive — from a goodread's review — "Many young people don't know who Ryan White was."

viii. do you know what it is like to watch everyone you love die, powerless to stop them? i don't, but i know someone who does.

ix. i'd be lying if i said i forgot about the drug users. let me not, here. let me try to be better. let me say, they did not deserve this, either. their lives were worth something. they did not deserve to have them tossed away.

x. i have read heartbeats (melvin dixon) so many times, if you say to me, "sweetheart," i finish, "don't stop."

xi. my friends wear neon, legwarmers, blocky sweaters and too much eyeshadow. i am jealous of what image the eighties conjures in their mind.

xii. positive — from the top goodread's review — "one that will resonate deeply with the thousands of children and adults whose lives have been touched by bullying."

xiii. i read the book pandemic in fifth grade; i don't think my teacher realized it was in her classroom. but too late; it tells me of an ongoing pandemic we are not treating. i am still learning what it is to be gay, now, i learn what it means.

xiv. i'd be lying if i said i'm better than the rest. i told you this story starts in the eighties; it starts in the seventies, with junkies and whores. it starts in the seventies, with women dying of unexplained cancers, pneumonias, calling cards of what will later be named for the next group to die.

xv. we are discussing the basics of comparative government. my teacher asks to read my sign. i cannot resist saying the-government-failed-them. i don't know if it's supposed to be make people laugh; all i know is, i know it's not a joke.

xvi. positive — an advanced reader's edition, held in my hands like it is made of dust, because i didn't need to see the cover to know what positive meant — misses the point. or it doesn't, people who read it do. or it does, and i just won't forget another name.

xvii. i know a dying man, who wouldn't take drugs that would keep him alive. i know a dying man, who was finally convinced, but not before the pneumonia set in. i know a dying man, and i wonder how many are left.

xviii. almost half of the people killed in concentration camps were not jewish, and yet, jews were the ones who experienced the rest of it.

xix. on a evacuation drill, someone makes a joke, and i don't stop talking until his eyes widen, until he has seen photos of quilt squares, until i am sure he understands. and even then, i never trust him.

xx. how many people died because the government was afraid of something else? how many? is this a countable or uncountable infinity? isn't there always another person?

xxi. april, day of silence. it's supposed to be for those who have been bullied, i think of it as a moment of collective mourning.

xxii. i wonder if the irony is intentional, because ryan white is a name i know as the first person who mattered, after an anonymous slaughter of deaths for those underserving of life.

xxiii. operation condor. it's one of those phrases. i say it, and it says the rest for me.

xxiv. can you imagine? or not here or we don't do that or we're free are only true if you do not know the word tuskegee or operation condor or grid or words i don't know, because i'd be lying if i said i did.

xxv. the problem with learning your history is you learn how many people forgot it.

[xtruss]

After 604 Years, White Storks are Nesting in Britain Again

Despite their 600-year absence, white storks have remained an important symbol in folklore, children’s stories, on pub and hotel signs, and in family names and nicknames down the centuries.

As part of ongoing efforts to restore nature in the U.K., a project is bringing beloved white storks back to the British countryside.

— July 15, 2020 | National Geographic | By Isabella Tree

A female white stork greets her mate as he brings nesting material to the top of an oak tree at Knepp Estate, in southeastern England. This year, white storks at Knepp became the first of their kind known to have bred in Britain since 1414.

Britain's White Stork Project, which aims to establish 50 breeding pairs by 2030, is part of a wider effort to restore nature.

KNEPP ESTATE, ENGLAND — High in an oak tree in the county of West Sussex, in southeastern England, a pair of free-flying white storks hatched three chicks. It was May 6, 2020, a landmark moment: It had been 604 years since the previous written record of white storks breeding anywhere in Britain. Two weeks after those first chicks emerged at Knepp Estate, another pair of storks, in another shaggy nest of sticks in a nearby oak, hatched three more.

“This achievement is beyond thrilling. We dreamed of this moment, and now the storks have done it—we have British-born chicks again!” says Tim Mackrill, a reintroduction expert with the White Stork Project. Launched in 2016, the project aims to establish 50 breeding pairs of white storks in southern Britain by 2030.

More than three feet tall, with snow-white bodies, black wings spanning seven feet, and long, red legs, white storks often nest on roofs in towns and villages across Europe, where they’re much loved. As spring migrants from wintering grounds in Kenya and Uganda and as far south as South Africa, they’re associated with good luck and rebirth—hence the fairy tale of white storks delivering new-born babies in slings from their beaks. The joyful bill-clattering of a courting pair atop their nest—a resonant knocking made by the rapid opening and closing of their beak, with head thrown back to amplify the sound through their throat pouch—associates white storks with marital tenderness.

No one knows for certain why storks disappeared from Britain, though their appearance on the menus of medieval banquets suggests that they may simply have been targeted for food. Despite their 600-year absence, however, white storks have remained an important symbol, featuring in folklore, children’s stories and illuminated manuscripts, on pub and hotel signs, and in family names and nicknames down the centuries. The White Stork Project hopes that excitement about the return of these charismatic birds will spark greater public interest in nature recovery in the U.K. and, perhaps, pave the way for more species reintroductions.

In recent months, the newcomers at Knepp indeed have been a cause for celebration—a distraction from the gloomy statistics of COVID-19 and a focus of public empathy, their actions even seeming to mirror those of humans under lockdown. At the end of March as people hunkered at home, the white storks began incubating their eggs. In mid-May with travel restrictions to nature areas in the U.K.lifted, the two sets of eggs hatched, allowing hundreds of visitors to see the chicks for themselves.

In the past few days, the first set of chicks have fledged the nest, flying down to the ground to feed on grasshoppers under the watchful eye of their parents and roosting in nearby trees at night. During the coming weeks, just as airline flights begin opening up and people take to the skies once more, the adventurous young storks will fly farther afield, perhaps even following their parents and popping over to Europe for a spell.

Although recent decades have been hard on white storks in Europe, they aren’t endangered. Draining of wetlands, habitat for amphibians and small fish the birds eat, and pesticide-driven absences of insects that supplement their diet, combined with fatalities from collisions with power lines, have led to declines in many parts of Europe. These losses in part have been offset by reintroductions in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, and Sweden.

Emblems of a Wider Movement

In the U.K.—one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, ranked 189th out of 218 countries, according to a Biodiversity Intactness Index run by the Predicts project—more than two-fifths of mammals, insects, birds, and other wildlife have seen significant declines since the 1970s. White storks are emblematic of a wider movement to repair nature in the country, of which Knepp Estate—run by my husband, Charlie Burrell, and me—is a pioneer.

To kickstart natural processes, in 2000 we began rewilding our 3,500 acres of depleted, loss-making farmland. This hinged on restoring the river, ponds, and wetlands, allowing thorny scrub and trees to regenerate, and introducing free-roaming herbivores such as old English longhorn cattle, Exmoor ponies, and Tamworth pigs as proxies of extinct aurochs, tarpans, and wild boars. Then we stood back and allowed nature to take over.

By browsing, rootling, trampling, wallowing, and dispersing seeds in their dung, these animals have created complex, novel ecosystems, swiftly and with astonishing results. Knepp is now a breeding hot spot for endangered nightingales, turtle doves, and purple emperor butterflies. It’s home to all five species of owls In the U.K. and 13 of the 18 bat species. More than 1,600 insect species have been recorded, many of them nationally rare. All these creatures have found haven at Knepp on their own, attracted by emerging habitats and food resources.

The white storks, however, have needed help to re-establish themselves. Every year, 20 or so of the birds venture to England from Europe, but finding no other storks nesting here, they fly on. Like herons and egrets, white storks nest in colonies for safety in numbers, social learning, and ease of finding a replacement should a mate die. Without this group reassurance, they’re unlikely to attempt to breed.

European reintroduction projects have pioneered a way of mimicking a colony by raising white storks in large pens in open countryside, using non-flying rescue birds and captive-bred birds with clipped wings, to attract wild storks. Eventually, wild birds breed with the captive storks, and their offspring migrate, returning loyally to their natal site. (Read about the resurgance of white storks in France.)

In 2016, the government-approved White Stork Project chose Knepp as its starter site. The project is a partnership among three private landowners and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, an international charity founded by writer Gerald Durrell to save species from extinction; the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, experts in bird reintroductions across Europe; and Cotswold Wildlife Park, a privately owned zoo in Oxfordshire. Knepp’s biodiverse wetlands and grasslands and open-grown trees for nesting are perfect habitat for storks. (Coincidentally, the name of the village of Storrington, just nine miles from Knepp, is derived from Estorchestone, meaning Abode of the Storks in Saxon English. The village sign features two white storks.) Two other locations—Wadhurst Park Estate, in East Sussex, and Wintershall Estate, in Surrey—were identified for establishing supplementary release pens the following year.

Knepp welcomed the first cohort of 20 juvenile storks donated from Warsaw Zoo, in Poland, into its six-acre pen in December 2016. With them were four non-flying Polish wild adults—birds injured in road accidents or by power-lines—to help instill natural social behavior in the juveniles. This replicates successful reintroductions in Sweden and Alsace, in France, where a breeding program begun in 1976 has seen white stork numbers grow from fewer than 10 mating pairs to more than 600 today.

One of the nesting females at Knepp, a particularly bold five-year-old from the first set of Polish imports, flew to France in 2018, where she spent a year with wild birds before returning to Knepp to pair up with one of the storks in her pen. (We know this because of reported sightings identifying the conspicuous ring-tag on her leg.) Another GPS-tagged juvenile raised at Knepp migrated to Rabat, Morocco, last year and is now in Spain. The male of the other nesting pair is a wild bird, one of several already attracted by the presence of the new colony.

Native or Not?

Not everyone in the U.K. embraces the White Stork Project. Opponents argue that historical evidence for white storks in Britain is slim and that they shouldn’t be considered a native species. Alfred Newton in A Dictionary of Birds, published in 1896, thought the white stork “had never been a native or even inhabitant of this country.”

Moreover, critics say, for this “new” species to attain “native” status, the birds should form colonies on their own, without human involvement. They point to the spontaneous recent arrivals in southeastern England of little egrets and great white egrets. “I would rather…allow natural colonization of our birdlife,” says Lizzie Bruce, director of British Birds magazine. To her, the white stork effort “feels more like a vanity project, especially as the species is of least concern” for conservation triage.

Birders echo that sentiment on social media, saying it would be better to focus not on a flamboyant species that isn’t endangered but on birds, such as the tree sparrow, that are struggling to survive but have less obvious appeal. Some conservationists who worry about the effects white storks might have on habitats or prey species such as insects and amphibians have called for environmental impact studies. This seems an impossible challenge, given the potential extent of the birds’ feeding range in southeastern England, the relatively small number of storks involved, and the variety of their food sources, including earthworms.

None of these criticisms trouble Ian Newton, a former visiting professor of ornithology at the University of Oxford and former senior ornithologist at the Natural Environment Research Council, the U.K.’s leading public funder of environmental science. (Newton is not affiliated with the White Stork Project.) The white stork, he says, is represented in bone remains at the Bronze Age site of Jarlshof, in Shetland; the Iron Age site of Dragonby, in Lincolnshire; the Roman site of Silchester, in Hampshire; and the Saxon site at Westminster Abbey, in London—all from long before the previous written record, in 1416, of white storks nesting in Britain.

“If we restrict ourselves to reintroducing species well-recorded in the historical record, we would exclude from consideration all those species which disappeared earlier but for which Britain still offers suitable habitat,” such as Dalmatian pelicans, night herons, and eagle owls, Newton says. Reintroductions, to his mind, offer not only the joy of seeing lost species return but also great potential for conservation.

“Generally speaking, the more widespread a species within its natural range, the more abundant and secure it is in the longer term,” Newton says, adding that reintroductions of charismatic species attract “an enormous amount of interest and support from the general public. This can benefit local economies and attract money into conservation that would otherwise be spent on other activities.” Further, the storks themselves may bolster other species. In Europe, their gigantic, shaggy nests provide nesting habitats for numerous birds such as starlings and house and tree sparrows.

Knepp’s white storks have already become something of a media phenomenon, with extensive coverage domestically but also by French and Polish TV. More than 2,500 visitors have seen the chicks since COVID-19 restrictions were relaxed, and 20 miles away, a gigantic mural on the city of Brighton’s busy North Road depicts white storks flying in to feed their chicks. The mural, expressing a heightened appreciation for both clean air and nature under lockdown, exhorts us to Let Nature Breathe—a suggestion, perhaps, that the U.K.’s magnificent white storks indeed are heralding new beginnings.

— Editor's note: This story was corrected on July 17, 2020, to say white storks had been gone from Britain for 604 years and that the juvenile that migrated to Morocco in 2019 is now in Spain.

— Isabella Tree is a freelance journalist and author. In 2018, her book Wilding—Returning Nature to Our Farm won the Richard Jefferies Award for Nature Writing and was voted one of the 10 best science books by Smithsonian magazine.