Axiom Verge producer files suit against BadLand #Publishing for $200k
▻https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-03-15-axiom-verge-producer-files-suit-against-badland-publishing
Dan Adelman alleges publisher hasn’t paid share of European distribution earnings, flaked on promise of healthcare fund for developer’s ill son
Shoot and abandon: Israel barring wounded Gazan protesters’ access to medical care
B’Tselem | 14 March 2019
▻https://www.btselem.org/firearms/shoot_and_abandon_in_gaza
The Return Protests, which Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been holding near the fence with Israel to demand realization of the right of return and an end to the blockade on Gaza, began nearly a year ago and are still taking place. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), by the end of January 2019, a total of 27,942 people had been injured in these demonstrations, 14,768 of whom were treated in hospitals in Gaza. More than 6,300 had been injured by live fire. According to B’Tselem’s figures, by the end of February 2019, 200 protesters had been killed, including 39 minors and two women. Most of the casualties – killed or injured – had posed no danger to Israeli security forces, who were deployed on the other side of the fence.
Any healthcare system would be hard put to treat such an immense number of casualties. All the more so for the healthcare system in Gaza, which is on the verge of collapsing. Israel has kept Gaza under blockade for more than a decade, imposing restrictions on bringing in drugs, advanced medical equipment and spare parts for broken equipment, and barring doctors from travelling abroad for further training. The restriction on bringing drugs into Gaza has severely depleted local stores of vital drugs and equipment. Gaza also suffers from an intermittent supply of power, largely due to Israeli policy, and routine power cuts damage medical equipment. This has forced hospitals to cut services to a minimum, postponing non-urgent operations and releasing patients home earlier than medically advised.
Given the failing healthcare system in Gaza, injured protesters cannot receive the medical attention they need and must seek vital treatment abroad.
#Gaza
Who Maps the World ?
Too often, men. And money. But a team of OpenStreetMap users is working to draw new cartographic lines, making maps that more accurately—and equitably—reflect our space.
“For most of human history, maps have been very exclusive,” said Marie Price, the first woman president of the American Geographical Society, appointed 165 years into its 167-year history. “Only a few people got to make maps, and they were carefully guarded, and they were not participatory.” That’s slowly changing, she said, thanks to democratizing projects like OpenStreetMap (OSM).
OSM is the self-proclaimed Wikipedia of maps: It’s a free and open-source sketch of the globe, created by a volunteer pool that essentially crowd-sources the map, tracing parts of the world that haven’t yet been logged. Armed with satellite images, GPS coordinates, local community insights and map “tasks,” volunteer cartographers identify roads, paths, and buildings in remote areas and their own backyards. Then, experienced editors verify each element. Chances are, you use an OSM-sourced map every day without realizing it: Foursquare, Craigslist, Pinterest, Etsy, and Uber all use it in their direction services.
When commercial companies like Google decide to map the not-yet-mapped, they use “The Starbucks Test,” as OSMers like to call it. If you’re within a certain radius of a chain coffee shop, Google will invest in maps to make it easy to find. Everywhere else, especially in the developing world, other virtual cartographers have to fill in the gaps.
But despite OSM’s democratic aims, and despite the long (albeit mostly hidden) history of lady cartographers, the OSM volunteer community is still composed overwhelmingly of men. A comprehensive statistical breakdown of gender equity in the OSM space has not yet been conducted, but Rachel Levine, a GIS operations and training coordinator with the American Red Cross, said experts estimate that only 2 to 5 percent of OSMers are women. The professional field of cartography is also male-dominated, as is the smaller subset of GIS professionals. While it would follow that the numbers of mappers of color and LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming mappers are similarly small, those statistics have gone largely unexamined.
There is one arena where women’s OSM involvement, specifically, is growing, however: within organizations like Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) and Missing Maps, which work to develop parts of the map most needed for humanitarian relief, or during natural disasters.
When women decide what shows up on the map
HOT has worked on high-profile projects like the “crisis mapping” of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, and on humble but important ones, like helping one Zimbabwe community get on their city’s trash pickup list by highlighting piles of trash that littered the ground. Missing Maps is an umbrella group that aids it, made up of a coalition of NGOs, health organizations like the Red Cross, and data partners. It works to increase the number of volunteers contributing to humanitarian mapping projects by educating new mappers, and organizing thousands of map-a-thons a year.
In HOT’s most recent gender equity study, it found that 28 percent of remote mappers for its projects were women. And in micro-grant-funded field projects, when organizations worked directly with people from the communities they were mapping, women participants made up 48 percent.
That number dwarfs the percentage in the rest of the field, but parity (or majority) is still the ultimate aim. So in honor of International Women’s Day, Missing Maps organized about 20 feminist map-a-thons across the country, including one at the American Red Cross headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C., led by Levine along with a team of women volunteers. Price spoke as the guest of honor, and around 75 people attended: members of George Washington University’s Humanitarian Mapping Society, cartography enthusiasts, Red Cross volunteers and employees. There were women and men; new mappers and old.
I turned up with my computer and not one cartographical clue.
The project we embarked on together was commissioned by the Tanzanian Development Trust, which runs a safe house for girls in Tanzania facing the threat of genital mutilation. Its workers pick up and safely shelter girls from neighboring villages who fear they’ll be cut. When a girl calls for help, outreach workers need to know where to go pick them up, but they’re stuck in a Google Maps dead zone. Using OSM, volunteers from all over the world—including girls on the ground in Tanzania—are filling in the blanks.
When it comes to increasing access to health services, safety, and education—things women in many developing countries disproportionately lack—equitable cartographic representation matters. It’s the people who make the map who shape what shows up. On OMS, buildings aren’t just identified as buildings; they’re “tagged” with specifics according to mappers’ and editors’ preferences. “If two to five percent of our mappers are women, that means only a subset of that get[s] to decide what tags are important, and what tags get our attention,” said Levine.
Sports arenas? Lots of those. Strip clubs? Cities contain multitudes. Bars? More than one could possibly comprehend.
Meanwhile, childcare centers, health clinics, abortion clinics, and specialty clinics that deal with women’s health are vastly underrepresented. In 2011, the OSM community rejected an appeal to add the “childcare” tag at all. It was finally approved in 2013, and in the time since, it’s been used more than 12,000 times.
Doctors have been tagged more than 80,000 times, while healthcare facilities that specialize in abortion have been tagged only 10; gynecology, near 1,500; midwife, 233, fertility clinics, none. Only one building has been tagged as a domestic violence facility, and 15 as a gender-based violence facility. That’s not because these facilities don’t exist—it’s because the men mapping them don’t know they do, or don’t care enough to notice.
In 2011, the OSM community rejected an appeal to add the “childcare” tag at all. It was finally approved in 2013, and in the time since, it’s been used more than 12,000 times.
So much of the importance of mapping is about navigating the world safely. For women, especially women in less developed countries, that safety is harder to secure. “If we tag something as a public toilet, does that mean it has facilities for women? Does it mean the facilities are safe?” asked Levine. “When we’re tagging specifically, ‘This is a female toilet,’ that means somebody has gone in and said, ‘This is accessible to me.’ When women aren’t doing the tagging, we just get the toilet tag.”
“Women’s geography,” Price tells her students, is made up of more than bridges and tunnels. It’s shaped by asking things like: Where on the map do you feel safe? How would you walk from A to B in the city without having to look over your shoulder? It’s hard to map these intangibles—but not impossible.
“Women [already] share that information or intuitively pick it up watching other women,” Price said. “Those kinds of things could be mapped. Maybe not in an OSM environment, but that happens when cartography goes into many different hands and people think of different ways of how we know space, classify space, and value space.”
That’s why Levine believes that the emphasis on recruiting women mapmakers, especially for field projects like the Tanzanian one, is above all else a practical one. “Women are the ones who know the health facilities; they know what’s safe and unsafe; they know where their kids go to play; they know where to buy groceries,” she said. “And we have found that by going to them directly, we get better data, and we get that data faster.”
Recording more women-centric spaces doesn’t account for the many LGBTQ or non-binary spaces that go unmapped, a gap the International Women’s Day event didn’t overtly address. But elsewhere on the internet, projects like “Queering the Map” seek to identify queer spaces across the globe, preserving memories of LGBTQ awakenings, love stories, and acts of resistance. Instead of women’s health centers, the Queered Map opens a space to tag gay bars, or park benches where two women once fell in love, or the street in Oakland someone decided to change their “pronouns to they/them.” It’s a more subjective way to label space, and less institutionalized than the global OSM network. But that’s sort of the point.
Service through cartography
The concentration of women mappers in humanitarian projects is partly due to the framing of cartography as a service-driven skill, Levine said, rather than a technical one. That perception reflects the broader dynamics that alienate women from STEM fields—the idea that women should work as nurturers, not coders—but many women at the map-a-thon agreed that it was a drive to volunteer that first drew them to OSM.
Maiya Kondratieff and Grace Poillucci, freshmen at George Washington University, are roommates. Both of them unexpectedly fell into digital mapping this year after seeing GW’s Humanitarian Mapping Society advertised at the university club fair. They were joined at the Missing Maps event by fellow society member Ethan Casserino, a third-year at GW.
“It wasn’t presented as a tech-y thing; more like service work,” said Kondratieff. “And our e-board is mostly even” in terms of gender representation, she added. One of those older leaders of the group spent much of the night hurrying around, dishing out pizza and handing out stickers. Later, she stopped, leaned over Kondratieff’s shoulder, and helped her solve a bug in her map.
Rhys, a cartography professional who asked not to be identified by last name, graduated from GW in 2016 and majored in geography. A lot of her women peers, she said, found their way into cartography based on an interest in art or graphic design. As things become more technology-heavy, she’s observed a large male influx. “It’s daunting for some people,” she said.
Another big barrier to women’s involvement in OSM, besides the already vast disparities in the tech sphere, Levine said, is time. All OSM work is volunteer-based. “Women have less free time because the work we’re doing in our free time is not considered work,” said Levine. “Cleaning duties, childcare, are often not considered shared behaviors. When the women are putting the baby asleep, the man is mapping.”
As a designer with DevelopmentSeed, a data technology group that is partnering with OSM to improve its maps, Ali Felski has been interviewing dozens of OSM users across the country about how they interact with the site. Most of them, she said, are older, retired men with time on their hands. “Mapping is less community-based. It’s technically detailed, and there aren’t a lot of nice instructions,” she said, factors that she thinks might be correlated with women’s hesitance to join the field. “I think it’s just a communication problem.”
Building that communication often starts with education. According to a PayScale gender-by-major analysis conducted in 2009, 72 percent of undergraduate geography majors were men. At GW, that may be changing. While the geography major is small, it’s woman-dominated: 13 women and 10 men are in the graduate program. Price has taught generations of GW students (including Rhys, who counts her as a mentor), and leads the department with six other women, exactly matching the department’s seven men.
Organizations like YouthMappers, which has 113 chapters spread among 35 countries, are supporting students in creating their own university OSM communities. And a lot of the students who participate are women. An estimated 40 percent of the 5,000 students who take part in YouthMappers are female, and a quarter of their chapters have more than 50 percent participation, said Marcela Zeballos, a research associate and 2009 graduate of GW. The group also champions women’s empowerment initiatives like Let Girls Map, which runs from International Women’s Day in March to International Day of the Girl in October.
I didn’t get to map much at the event, but that night I kicked off the Let Girls Map season snuggled in bed, tagging buildings and drawing roads. I learned to curve paths and square edges, hypnotized by the seemingly endless satellite footage of Starbucks-free woods.
The gaps in my local geographical knowledge, though, were unsurprisingly vast: I didn’t know if the buildings I was outlining were bathrooms or houses or restaurants, and couldn’t really discern a highway from a path from a driveway. And when my “unknown line” is a Tanzanian woman’s escape route, the stakes are high. That’s why HOT projects also depend on community members, some equipped with old-fashioned pens and paper, to hone in on the details.
But map-a-thons like this get people engaged, and OSM-literate. They begin to build the sense of community that DevelopmentSeed’s Felski wished OSM didn’t lack. At an event like this, led and attended by women in the cartography field (or who may soon enter it), it’s easy to forget how few there really are.
Down the table, the undergraduates Kondratieff and Casserino chatted, eyes trained at the rural Tanzanian landscape unfolding on their laptop screens. “You should minor in GIS,” Casserino urged.
“Maybe I will,” she replied.
►https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/03/who-maps-the-world/555272
#femmes #cartographie #cartes #genre #argent #femmes_cartographes
ping @reka @odilon
via @isskein
The normalization of deviance
Social normalization of deviance means that people within the organization become so much accustomed to a deviation that they don’t consider it as deviant, despite the fact that they far exceed their own rules for the elementary safety
—Diane Vaughan, 1996
The normalization of deviance in healthcare delivery, by John Banja
▻https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2821100
In other words, mistakes such as failing to check or record a lab finding, ordering the wrong drug, or entering a lab finding in the wrong patient’s chart are usually not enough to guarantee an occurrence of harm. The recipe for disaster additionally requires these errors, lapses, or mistakes to go unattended, unappreciated, or unresolved for an extended period of time.
In software Engineering, by Dan Luu
►https://danluu.com/wat
In engineering (and eventually life in general), by Foone Turing
▻https://foone.wordpress.com/2019/02/14/normalization-of-deviance
Behind China’s Corruption Crackdown: Whistleblowers
▻https://www.forbes.com/sites/riskmap/2015/02/12/behind-chinas-corruption-crackdown-whistleblowers/#5e02f2532e89
By Kent D. Kedl
SHANGHAI – A top concern for most multinational companies doing business in China the last year has been the Chinese government’s dogged crackdown against corruption. Ask CEOs in China what wakes them at 2 a.m. in a cold sweat and their answer is simple: the dreaded “dawn raid.” What is less widely known is the outsized role that whistleblowers have played. Almost every major fraud or corruption crisis faced by multinational companies in the past year kicked off because of a whistleblower allegation. According to Chinese officials, four out of every five anti-corruption investigations are initiated by whistleblowers. Often these are former and disgruntled employees, suppliers, distributors, consumers, scammers and competitors—some complaints are legitimate, others not.
Whistleblower complaints in China have historically been an internal matter; any reports were logged with senior management and subject to internal investigations. But there has been a significant trend toward reporting—or threatening to report—directly to Chinese regulators. Whistleblowers are discovering the power of involving regulatory authorities in China to help them achieve their objectives, which range from reporting and rectifying a genuine integrity and governance issue, to extortive attempts to extract monetary or other concessions from management, or simply to take revenge following disputes. In the new, turbo-charged China environment for regulatory oversight, such whistleblowers represent a significant source of risk for multinational corporations.
Several market dynamics have converged to create this perfect storm of opportunity for whistleblowers in China. They include an uptick in regulatory enforcement, a slowing economy and new pressures on investigators.
Regulatory oversight and enforcement began to increase in 2013 and shows no sign of down. Regulators that were quite passive in the past will maintain their more active and aggressive stance, and multinationals are on their collective radars. China’s political leadership has provided a mandate for regulator activity and we will continue to see high levels of enforcement, particularly in the key sectors of healthcare, automotive and consumer products, with likely increasing enforcement in energy, telecoms, infrastructure and real estate.
The slowdown in the Chinese economy means two things. First, companies are not hiring aggressively and employees find it harder to seek alternative employment. Second, companies are restructuring commercial agreements with distributors and suppliers who are feeling the squeeze on their own business. The combined effect is that both employees and third parties have additional incentive to leverage information of potentially unethical or illegal activity. Threatening to blow the whistle to regulatory authorities is an often-successful way for them to retain their positions, even if they are themselves complicit in the activity they are threatening to report.
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Meanwhile, Chinese regulators are under pressure to deliver results. Pressure to resolve a case with a finding against a foreign company may come from the whistleblower, the media or their own peers; regardless of the legitimacy or accuracy of the claims being made. Within agencies, investigators have additional pressure and targets from their bosses. They will often confront the company with allegations taken verbatim from a whistleblower letter, typically without performing much (if any) due diligence on an allegation’s veracity.
It often unfolds like this. A company is approached by a mid-level regulator with vague allegations of “impropriety.” The company might be told that “we have information that one of your distributors is taking bribes” and will be asked to investigate itself and report back to the authorities on the findings. The company will not be shown any specific evidence nor will it be given any legal basis for the regulator’s suspicion – but will often be threatened with legal or administrative action if it doesn’t cooperate (fines, loss of license, employee detentions, etc.). In many cases, regulators return the results of a company’s own investigation with additional “guidance” on other areas to examine, until the company presents the desired investigative findings and evidence: this is often what is meant by “cooperating with the authorities.”
So what can companies do to limit their own risk of a regulatory investigation? It starts with thinking through the processes they use to accept and process whistleblower allegations. Getting ahead of any allegations and proactively correcting any perceived wrongdoing can help to stave off a visit from the regulators. Best practice in China includes four items:
Understanding the regulators: Nearly every company’s stakeholder map in China has changed drastically in the past two years, so it is critical to take a fresh look at the broad spectrum of regulators against a given business and identify which regulators would be legitimately interested in what parts of the business. For example, a company that relies heavily on third-party distributors to sell to customers will be vulnerable to allegations of bribery and corruption, which would be investigated by local Administration of Industry and Commerce (AIC) offices to investigate. Companies with a fragmented business structure and many sales offices in China may get called out on not paying the proper amount in local taxes, resulting in a State Administration of Tax (SAT) visit. For each type of allegation, a company can identify which regulator might be interested and how active they are in each province where the company operates. From there, a company can begin to understand what the regulators look for and how they operate, and get ahead of any allegations of wrongdoing.
Create a feedback loop to in-country management: Whistleblower allegations should be handled by a neutral party, not by the operation against whom the allegations are leveled. However, this does not mean a multinational company should keep its China management team in the dark about allegations of wrongdoing in China. In-country managers need basic information in order to monitor the risk of whistleblowers reporting to local regulators. Too often, an office in China will be dealing with a regulator but have no idea that an allegation along similar lines was made to their head office whistleblower hotline a few weeks earlier. Tracking allegations over geography and time is also essential. Companies who log and track the details of whistleblower complaints often see patterns that can be dealt with; ahead of any regulator getting involved.
Investigate outside the four walls: All whistleblower allegations should be thoroughly investigated; a simple “audit” will not suffice. Looking outside of their own books and records allows companies to trace allegations back to activities of third-parties and other outsiders. Any confirmatory evidence of conflicts of interest or collusion will not be found within a company’s four walls.
Don’t give in to extortion: Companies that receive an extortive threat to report information to a regulator must resist the temptation to immediately concede to any demands. It may seem like an effective short term solution, but there is a very high risk that it comes back to cause bigger problems in future. It is critical that multinational companies cooperate with Chinese regulators and one’s “attitude” will be important to reaching a conclusion; however, there are many ways to be “cooperative” and companies should consider all scenarios before responding.
Kent Kedl is the Shanghai-based Managing Director for Greater China and North Asia at Control Risks, the global risk consultancy.
#technology’s Role in Helping #veterans Deal With #ptsd
▻https://hackernoon.com/technologys-role-in-helping-veterans-deal-with-ptsd-7ad736a4ab06?source=
Living with PTSD can be very challenging for veterans trying to integrate back into civilian life. As part of dealing with battle experiences, about 20 percent of veterans end up abusing drugs or alcohol after they return home, according to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.They state that PTSD affects roughly 33 percent of soldiers. The symptoms of PTSD are difficult to live with and can include depression, difficulty sleeping, isolation, aggression, irritation, fear, and self-destructive behaviors. Veterans use alcohol and drugs to lessen the symptoms, but such dependency inevitably makes things worse.The VA also reports that 20 veterans suffering from PTSD take their lives every day. Because of that statistic, developers have created some innovative #apps to help vets who have (...)
AI, ML and Big Data in Healthcare
▻https://hackernoon.com/ai-ml-and-big-data-in-healthcare-89c21f31ca9e?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3
Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t a new idea, but it’s only in recent years that our technology has caught up to the point at which it has practical uses. We’re a long way away from true artificial intelligence like the human-like robots and computers that we see in science fiction movies, but we are at least in a place where AI can outperform human beings at certain tasks.And AI could be particularly powerful in the health care industry. One piece of research from Accenture found that key clinical health AI applications can potentially create $150 billion in annual savings for the US health care economy by 2026. Another report from Tractica found that the AI health care market will be worth $34 billion by 2025.AI is great at performing repetitive tasks, and there’s no shortage of them in (...)
#artificial-intelligence #big-data #big-data-healthcare #digital-health #machine-learning
What #data #privacy Means for the Future of #blockchain
▻https://hackernoon.com/what-data-privacy-means-for-the-future-of-blockchain-c0212cd16680?source
Data Analytics and BlockchainData analytics and machine learning are hugely valuable, providing insights and spurring advancements in many industries including IoT, healthcare, and financial services.Today’s blockchain platforms cannot directly support applications that compute over sensitive data.Unfortunately, the data that powers these advancements is often highly sensitive. For example, medical research requires access to sensitive patient data. In many cases this data cannot be accessed or shared due to privacy concerns. This results in data silos in which data is not used for its full potential value.Blockchain can help solve this problem, though several challenges remain. For example, one would like to use smart contracts to allow researchers to run machine learning over (...)
Smarter #education, Smarter AI
▻https://hackernoon.com/smarter-education-smarter-ai-d1cfe92c806e?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4
We must pay more attention to artificial intelligence in the classroomPhoto by Drew Graham on UnsplashArtificial Intelligence has the potential to make us smarter, healthier and more entrepreneurial.This is one of my conclusions from evaluating healthcare start-ups for government investment. I have been doing this for over five years and it’s an excellent way to keep connected to the latest #business and technological trends.One trend that I have noticed recently is that AI-based applications have gradually started to dominate the business plan proposals that I receive. We see AI solutions in the diagnosis of patients, image analysis, drug development, clinical trials, fall detection systems, etc.So, when a student made the following observation in a class that I was teaching on business (...)
How #blockchain Technology can help aid the #healthcare Industry
▻https://hackernoon.com/how-blockchain-technology-can-help-aid-the-healthcare-industry-b917c241f
By Alex LibertasWhat are Cryptocurrencies?The term blockchain technology is synonymous with perhaps the more established phrase of ‘Cryptocurrency’. Simply put the blockchain is the technology that powers Cryptocurrencies, with #bitcoin being the most recognised and celebrated.In 2008 Satoshi Nakamato, an unknown individual that is potentially a pseudonym for a person or group of people, introduced Bitcoin to the world.Bitcoin can be described as a form of electronic cash. It is a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator, that can be sent from user-to-user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries.In 2019, over ten years later, there are over 1990 Cryptocurrencies that are currently established and in circulation. It is (...)
’Vulnerable migrants and wellbeing study’ highlights barriers to healthcare for migrants.
A pilot study by the University of Birmingham has identified major barriers to healthcare access for migrants, including denial of entitlements, administrative issues, lack of understanding, language barriers and fears of being arrested.
▻https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2019/02/vulnerable-migrants-and-wellbeing-study-highlights-barriers-to-healthc
#accès_à_la_santé #accès_aux_droits #santé #réfugiés #asile #migrations #UK #Angleterre #langue #barrières_linguistiques #vulnérabilité
Innovate Don’t Regulate: The Message of George #gilder’s Life After #google
▻https://hackernoon.com/innovate-dont-regulate-the-message-of-george-gilder-s-life-after-google-
Big Shot Republicans are besieging companies like Google and Facebook. This most recently was evidenced by the grilling in the House Judiciary Committee of Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO.As Wired Magazine — a shrewd source of sophisticated tech thinking — observed:“Pichai began his testimony by insisting that he leads Google ‘without political bias.’“We are a company that provides platforms for diverse perspectives and opinions — and we have no shortage of them among our own employees,” the soft-spoken CEO said in his opening remarks.“But that didn’t stop lawmakers from bombarding him with anecdotes that suggested otherwise. Why is it, wondered Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH), that when he Googled the Republicans’ proposed healthcare bill in 2017, only negative stories popped up? Rep. Steve King (R-IA) asked (...)
Israel just admitted arming anti-Assad Syrian rebels. Big mistake - Middle East News
Haaretz.com - Daniel J. Levy Jan 30, 2019 5:03 PM
▻https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-israel-just-admitted-arming-anti-assad-syrian-rebels-big-mistake-1
In his final days as the Israel Defense Forces’ Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot confirmed, on the record, that Israel had directly supported anti-Assad Syrian rebel factions in the Golan Heights by arming them.
This revelation marks a direct break from Israel’s previous media policy on such matters. Until now, Israel has insisted it has only provided humanitarian aid to civilians (through field hospitals on the Golan Heights and in permanent healthcare facilities in northern Israel), and has consistently denied or refused to comment on any other assistance.
In short, none other than Israel’s most (until recently) senior serving soldier has admitted that up until his statement, his country’s officially stated position on the Syrian civil war was built on the lie of non-intervention.
As uncomfortable as this may initially seem, though, it is unsurprising. Israel has a long history of conducting unconventional warfare. That form of combat is defined by the U.S. government’s National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 as “activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow an occupying power or government by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary or guerrilla force in a denied area” in the pursuit of various security-related strategic objectives.
While the United States and Iran are both practitioners of unconventional warfare par excellence, they primarily tend to do so with obvious and longer-term strategic allies, i.e. the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance fighters in Afghanistan, and various Shia militias in post-2003 Iraq.
In contrast, Israel has always shown a remarkable willingness to form short-term tactical partnerships with forces and entities explicitly hostile to its very existence, as long as that alliance is able to offer some kind of security-related benefits.
The best example of this is Israel’s decision to arm Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War, despite the Islamic Republic of Iran’s strong anti-Zionist rhetoric and foreign policy. During the 1980s, Iraq remained Jerusalem’s primary conventional (and arguably existential) military threat. Aiding Tehran to continue fighting an attritional war against Baghdad reduced the risk the latter posed against Israel.
Similarly, throughout the civil war in Yemen in the 1960s, Israel covertly supported the royalist Houthi forces fighting Egyptian-backed republicans. Given Egypt’s very heavy military footprint in Yemen at the time (as many as a third of all Egyptian troops were deployed to the country during this period), Israelis reasoned that this military attrition would undermine their fighting capacity closer to home, which was arguably proven by Egypt’s lacklustre performance in the Six Day War.
Although technically not unconventional warfare, Israel long and openly backed the South Lebanon Army, giving it years of experience in arming, training, and mentoring a partner indigenous force.
More recently, though, Israel’s policy of supporting certain anti-Assad rebel groups remains consistent with past precedents of with whom and why it engages in unconventional warfare. Israel’s most pressing strategic concern and potential threat in Syria is an Iranian encroachment onto its northern border, either directly, or through an experienced and dangerous proxy such as Hezbollah, key to the Assad regime’s survival.
For a number of reasons, Israel committing troops to overt large-scale operations in Syria to prevent this is simply unfeasible. To this end, identifying and subsequently supporting a local partner capable of helping Israel achieve this strategic goal is far more sensible, and realistic.
Open source details of Israel’s project to support anti-Assad rebel groups are sparse, and have been since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.
Reports of this first arose towards the end of 2014, and one described how United Nations officials had witnessed Syrian rebels transferring injured patients to Israel, as well as “IDF soldiers on the Israeli side handing over two boxes to armed Syrian opposition members on the Syrian side.” The same report also stated that UN observers said they saw “two IDF soldiers on the eastern side of the border fence opening the gate and letting two people enter Israel.”
Since then, a steady stream of similar reports continued to detail Israeli contacts with the Syrian rebels, with the best being written and researched by Elizabeth Tsurkov. In February, 2014 she wrote an outstanding feature for War On The Rocks, where she identified Liwaa’ Fursan al-Jolan and Firqat Ahrar Nawa as two groups benefiting from Israeli support, named Iyad Moro as “Israel’s contact person in Beit Jann,” and stated that weaponry, munitions, and cash were Israel’s main form of military aid.
She also describes how Israel has supported its allied groups in fighting local affiliates of Islamic State with drone strikes and high-precision missile attacks, strongly suggesting, in my view, the presence of embedded Israeli liaison officers of some kind.
A 2017 report published by the United Nations describes how IDF personnel were observed passing supplies over the Syrian border to unidentified armed individuals approaching them with convoys of mules, and although Israel claims that these engagements were humanitarian in nature, this fails to explain the presence of weaponry amongst the unidentified individuals receiving supplies from them.
Writing for Foreign Policy in September 2018, Tsurkov again detailed how Israel was supporting the Syrian rebel factions, stating that material support came in the form of “assault rifles, machine guns, mortar launchers and transport vehicles,” which were delivered “through three gates connecting the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to Syria - the same crossings Israel used to deliver humanitarian aid to residents of southern Syria suffering from years of civil war.” She also dates this support to have begun way back in 2013.
The one part of Israel’s involvement in the Syrian Civil War which has been enthusiastically publicised, though, has been its ongoing humanitarian operations in the Golan. Dubbed “Operation Good Neighbor,” this was established in June 2016, and its stated aim is to “provide humanitarian aid to as many people as possible while maintaining Israel’s policy of non-involvement in the conflict.”
Quite clearly, this is - at least in parts - a lie, as even since before its official commencement, Israel was seemingly engaging with and supporting various anti-Assad factions.
Although Operation Good Neighbor patently did undertake significant humanitarian efforts in southern Syria for desperate Syrian civilians (including providing free medical treatment, infrastructure support, and civilian aid such as food and fuel), it has long been my personal belief that it was primarily a smokescreen for Israel’s covert unconventional warfare efforts in the country.
Although it may be argued that deniability was initially necessary to protect Israel’s Syrian beneficiaries who could not be seen to be working with Jerusalem for any number of reasons (such as the likely detrimental impact this would have on their local reputation if not lives), this does not justify Israel’s outright lying on the subject. Instead, it could have mimicked the altogether more sensible approach of the British government towards United Kingdom Special Forces, which is simply to restate their position of not commenting, confirming, or denying any potentially relevant information or assertions.
Israel is generous in its provision of humanitarian aid to the less fortunate, but I find it impossible to believe that its efforts in Syria were primarily guided by altruism when a strategic objective as important as preventing Iran and its proxies gaining a toehold on its northern border was at stake.
Its timing is interesting and telling as well. Operation Good Neighbor was formally put in place just months after the Assad regime began its Russian-backed counter-offensive against the rebel factions, and ceased when the rebels were pushed out of southern Syria in September 2018.
But it’s not as if that September there were no longer civilians who could benefit from Israeli humanitarian aid, but an absence of partners to whom Israel could feasibly directly dispatch arms and other supplies. Although Israel did participate in the rescue of a number of White Helmets, this was done in a relatively passive manner (allowing their convoy to drive to Jordan through Israeli territory), and also artfully avoided escalating any kind of conflict with the Assad’s forces and associated foreign allies.
Popular opinion - both in Israel and amongst Diaspora Jews - was loud and clear about the ethical necessity of protecting Syrian civilians (especially from historically-resonant gas attacks). But it’s unlikely this pressure swung Israel to intervene in Syria. Israel already had a strong interest in keeping Iran and its proxies out southern Syria, and that would have remained the case, irrespective of gas attacks against civilians.
Although Israel has gone to great lengths to conceal its efforts at unconventional warfare within the Syrian civil war, it need not have. Its activities are consistent with its previous efforts at promoting strategic objectives through sometimes unlikely, if not counter-intuitive, regional partners.
Perhaps the reason why Eisenkot admitted that this support was taking place was because he knew that it could not be concealed forever, not least since the fall of the smokescreen provided by Operation Good Neighbor. But the manner in which Israel operated may have longer-term consequences.
Israel is unlikely to change how it operates in the future, but may very well find future potential tactical partners less than willing to cooperate with it. In both southern Lebanon and now Syria, Israel’s former partners have found themselves exposed to dangers borne out of collaboration, and seemingly abandoned.
With that kind of history and record, it is likely that unless they find themselves in desperate straits, future potential partners will think twice before accepting support from, and working with, Israel.
For years, Israel has religiously adhered to the official party line that the country’s policy was non-intervention, and this has now been exposed as a lie. Such a loss of public credibility may significantly inhibit its abilities to conduct influence operations in the future.
Daniel J. Levy is a graduate of the Universities of Leeds and Oxford, where his academic research focused on Iranian proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine. He lives in the UK and is the Founding Director of The Ortakoy Security Group. Twitter: @danielhalevy
Dutch surgeon wins landmark ’right to be forgotten’ case
▻https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/21/dutch-surgeon-wins-landmark-right-to-be-forgotten-case-google
Ruling will ensure doctors no longer judged by Google on fitness to practise, lawyer says
A Dutch surgeon formally disciplined for her medical negligence has won a legal action to remove Google search results about her case in a landmark “right to be forgotten” ruling. The doctor’s registration on the register of healthcare professionals was initially suspended by a disciplinary panel because of her postoperative care of a patient. After an appeal, this was changed to a conditional suspension (...)
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/fbde65974450039ed768867127c0ff5522dc6b31/0_273_6144_3686/master/6144.jpg
“These displaced people live in fear of being attacked at any time”
After increased insecurity in the Tillabéry region of Niger caused large numbers of people to flee their homes, MSF carried out an emergency response in early January 2019.
MSF deputy head of mission Boulama Elhadji Gori describes the situation.
Why did MSF carry out an emergency response in the rural area of #Dessa in the #Tillabéry region last week?
A state of emergency was declared recently in the department of Tillabéry, in the region of the same name. Like many other departments in the region, Tillabéry faces many security challenges.
The people living in this border area between Mali and Niger find themselves trapped in violence that comes from two directions: on one side, the community conflict; on the other, the activities of non-state armed groups.
After receiving information about people being displaced in the region, an MSF team visited the immediate area, where they saw first-hand the precarious situation in which the displaced people were living.
We are talking about a total of 1,287 people at three sites within a five-kilometre radius. These people were already vulnerable, having been displaced several times already.
What were people’s main needs?
These people had been forced to leave their homes, their fields and often their animals in order to escape the violence orchestrated by armed groups and other opportunists. Because of the hostilities in the area, basic services such as schools and health centres have been closed.
The displaced people lack shelter, food, healthcare and protection. They are also drinking untreated river water, which brings the risk of various diseases.
Given the urgency of their needs, and in the absence of other humanitarian organisations, the MSF team decided to launch a response.
What did MSF’s response involve?
Our medical team conducted 170 medical consultations, mainly for respiratory infections, malaria, dermatitis and severe malnutrition, as well as 20 antenatal consultations.
We also assessed the nutritional status of children and vaccinated nearly 130 children against measles. Five mental health promotion sessions were organised for approximately 160 people.
Several patients were referred to the health centre for follow-up care, which MSF was also involved in. Our team distributed essential relief items to 220 families, including blankets, cooking utensils, washing kits, mosquito nets and jerry cans.
To make sure that people have safe drinking water, the teams distributed 4,000 water purification tablets, and ran sessions on how to use them.
Who are the displaced people?
“Most of the people who fled the violence are women, children and the elderly, of different ethnicities, living in the border area between Mali and Niger. There are also a number of young people who reject violence and want to settle in places that are considered more secure.
The displaced include refugees from Mali and internally displaced people from Niger.
The majority of the displaced people live in fear of being attacked at any time, because of what they have already experienced – their villages being attacked, assassinations, their markets burned down, their animals stolen, and living with the threat of death.
Other than this emergency response, what is MSF doing in Tillabéry region?
MSF has been working in Niger’s Bani-Bangou department, near the border with Mali, since November 2018. Long before the state of emergency was declared, schools, health centres and other social infrastructure were not functioning because of the violence.
MSF is working in the area to ensure access to free quality medical care for displaced people and local communities. We support two health centres and five health posts.
We are also monitoring the situation in other areas which could potentially receive newly displaced people, or where there are needs not covered by other organisations, particularly in the area around Innates. MSF also supports medical services, from health posts to hospitals, in Bani-Bangou and Ouallam.
Our teams work in collaboration with the Ministry of Health. In December 2018, we treated 4,599 people, provided 452 antenatal consultations and assisted 22 births. In addition, 588 children under the age of two received routine immunisations, and 34 women of childbearing age were vaccinated against tetanus. We also referred to hospital seven patients in need of emergency treatment.
What are people’s main needs in this region? And what are the challenges of assisting them?
People in this region need food, essential relief items, physical and mental healthcare, clean water, good sanitation and hygiene, and protection.
The main challenge we face is the climate of insecurity in the region, which can make it difficult to reach the people who need assistance.
▻https://www.msf.org/displaced-people-tillabery-niger-living-fear
#IDPs #déplacés_internes #réfugiés_maliens #Mali #Niger #migrations #réfugiés
Architecting a #hyperledger Solution — Things to keep in mind
▻https://hackernoon.com/architecting-a-hyperledger-solution-things-to-keep-in-mind-78033e6fee75?
Architecting a Hyperledger SolutionAt the time of writing this article, there are not many resources available to derive the nodes and architect a Hypderledger Fabric solution. I hope this post will bring some amount of clarity in designing an enterprise level hyperledger fabric solutionYou will have to keep following things in mind while architecting a hyperledger solution –1. Fabric has a highly modular and configurable #architecture suitable for a broad range of industry use cases including banking, finance, insurance, healthcare, human resources, supply chain.The Fabric platform is also permissioned. Unlike a public permissionless network where the participants are known to each other, instead fabric is anonymous and therefore fully untrusted. This means that while the participants may (...)
#blockchain and the Sustainable Development Goals
▻https://hackernoon.com/blockchain-and-the-sustainable-development-goals-c51c52e0af28?source=rss
By: Laura Marissa CullellMarketing & Operations OfficerCan technology progress human rights? Provide humanitarian aid? Help combat Climate Change? Address issues of identity, trafficking, and provide access to food?The answer to these questions is yes. And Blockchain is a fantastic space to explore these issues right now.In the last article of our series on Unique and Interesting Use Cases for Blockchain, I explore some of the applications of blockchain to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Part I explored just some of the use cases of this innovative tech in the oil and gas industry. Part II saw the possibilities for blockchain in the Music Industry. Part III looked at the possibilities of blockchain in healthcare.For the past couple of months, I’ve been working on my (...)
#blockchain-technology #sustainable-development #sdgs #human-rights
Un autre hiver... un de plus...
Winter conditions add to migrant hardship in northern Greece
Freezing weather is exacerbating difficult conditions for migrants in overcrowded refugee camps in northern Greece. Last week the cold spell led to a protest by dozens of migrants at a camp near Thessaloniki. Greek officials have blamed the number of people flooding into the camp from the islands and across the Turkish border. But could the situation have been prevented?
Harsh winter conditions hit northern Greece a few days into the new year, bringing sub-zero temperatures, strong winds, snow and ice. In the Diavata refugee camp near the port city of Thessaloniki, several hundred people are struggling with basic survival. Yet every week, despite the weather conditions, more continue to arrive.
“They don’t think about this kind of thing, they just want to move on,” said one man at Diavata after another Afghan family arrived in the snow. “They just think that in the next stage from Turkey, when they go to Greece, everything will be fine.”
Camp protests
When they reach Diavata, the migrants find the reality is different. The camp is full to capacity, with around 800 registered asylum seekers. On top of these, there are between 500 and 650 people living at the site without having been registered by migration authorities.
“Most of them have built their own makeshift shelters and tents, which are not providing them with the protection needed,” says Mike Bonke, the Greece country director of the Arbeiter Samariter Bund (ASB), an NGO providing support services to Diavata. “They have no (safe) heating, washing and sanitation and cooking facilities.”
Last week, the difficult conditions prompted around 40 migrants to hold a protest outside the camp, burning tires and blockading the road. A truck driver tried to get through the barricade resulting in a fight which left one man in hospital.
The driver lost his patience and started swearing at the migrants, who threw rocks and broke his windscreen, reports said. The driver and four migrants were charged with causing grievous bodily harm, according to the Greek daily, Katherimini.
Conditions create health concerns
Diavata is just one of a number of migrant facilities in northern Greece to have been affected by the cold snap. An NGO contacted by InfoMigrants said that Orestiada, near the Evros river to the east, was covered in snow. Migrants in the critically overcrowded camps on the islands too are contending with snow, frozen water pipes and icy roads.
According to the ASB, the refugee reception camps lack resources to cope with the current conditions. “Healthcare services at all (refugee reception) sites are not adequate,” Bonke says.
Agis Terzidis, an advisor to the Greek Minister of Health and Vice-President of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) which coordinates healthcare provision to migrants and refugees, admits that the cold weather, in addition to the poor conditions and overcrowding in the camps, is exacerbating migrants’ health problems. “We have people living in conditions that are not acceptable for anyone,” he says.
National health system must step up
In response to the worsening situation, there are plans to boost EU-funded medical teams operating in camps throughout the country, including the islands, Agis Terzidis says. But he told InfoMigrants that from now on, more pressure would be put on the Greek national health system and local hospitals to tackle the problem, rather than medical staff in the camps themselves.
Terzidis also insisted that fixing the situation in the camps was “not in the mandate” of the CDC, as it was chiefly a result of greater numbers of people arriving and consequent overcrowding.
Instead, the CDC’s main priority remains vaccinating migrants to prevent outbreaks of hepatitis, measles and other infectious diseases. It also focuses on treating those suffering from chronic diseases, some of whom will likely succumb to the harsh winter conditions.
Too many people
With more bleak weather predicted, a vegetable garden is being planned in the Diavata camp, giving the residents something to look forward to. That will have to be abandoned if more people start to arrive when the weather improves.
The camps continue to be under pressure from the large and unpredictable numbers of arrivals. Currently there are around 20 arrivals per week at Diavata, but that could quickly escalate to hundreds. So far, Greek authorities do not seem to have taken steps to limit how many end up at the camps seeking protection.
I think we can all agree that this situation should have been solved by registering these refugees in the Greek Migration system and providing them with dignified and safe shelters.
_ Mike Bonke, Greece country director, Arbeiter Samariter Bund
As both government and army staff and their NGO colleagues in the camps remain powerless to solve the problem of overcrowding, their main task will be to protect migrants from harm and exposure as the winter enters its coldest months.
▻http://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/14401/winter-conditions-add-to-migrant-hardship-in-northern-greece
#Grèce #asile #migrations #réfugiés #camps_de_réfugiés #neige #froid #Salonique #Softex #Diavata #résistance #protestation
Everything the Western Mainstream Media Outlets Get Wrong When Covering Poor Countries
▻https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/11/everything-the-western-mainstream-media-outlets-get-wrong-when-coverin
8) The media’s errors regarding poverty extend to its default definition of it. It sees poverty as how much stuff people can buy, rather than, for example, access to culture, education, and healthcare. When covering other countries’ situations, it doesn’t include their perspective on what good living consists of.
How is Technology Transforming #healthcare at Home
▻https://hackernoon.com/how-is-technology-transforming-healthcare-at-home-1ce827b355b9?source=rs
The potential for Transforming Healthcare at Home is growing tremendously▻https://medium.com/media/24aafa5d9039edf21952f173b4f78fad/hrefThe world today;Is experiencing a dramatic change in age demographics. Considering America as a prime example, it is estimated — In the year 2019, the group of people of age older than 65 will outnumber the group of those younger than five. As life expectancy increases, the number of people living with different chronic conditions and functional impairments, for instance, dementia, diabetes and the inability to manage household chores with growing age are further increasing.People belonging to the “old age” group are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases and require more care and attention. In such times, the need of the hour is to discover and (...)
#telehealth #home-healthcare #remote-patient-monitoring #healthcare-technology
How to Think About #Empire | Boston Review
►http://bostonreview.net/literature-culture-global-justice/arundhati-roy-avni-sejpal-challenging-%E2%80%9Cpost-%E2%80%9D-postcolo
Another “update” that we ought to think about is that new technology could ensure that the world no longer needs a vast working class. What will then emerge is a restive population of people who play no part in economic activity—a surplus population if you like, one that will need to be managed and controlled. Our digital coordinates will ensure that controlling us is easy. Our movements, friendships, relationships, bank accounts, access to money, food, education, healthcare, information (fake, as well as real), even our desires and feelings—all of it is increasingly surveilled and policed by forces we are hardly aware of. How long will it be before the elite of the world feel that almost all the world’s problems could be solved if only they could get rid of that #surplus #population? If only they could delicately annihilate specific populations in specific ways—using humane and democratic methods, of course. Preferably in the name of justice and liberty. Nothing on an industrial scale, like gas chambers or Fat Men and Little Boys. What else are smart nukes and germ warfare for?
Will Artificial Intelligence Lead a #healthcare Renaissance in 2019?
▻https://hackernoon.com/will-artificial-intelligence-lead-a-healthcare-renaissance-in-2019-b08a2
Recognizing the Opportunities for Advanced Computing in HealthcareThe two topics of healthcare and technology have truly joined forces together to create a revolutionary era for healthcare today. I studied Biochemistry as one of my double majors at UC Berkeley many moons ago but decided to enter the field of Computer Science & application development when I entered the marketplace. At the time breakthroughs surrounding healthcare weren’t happening fast enough but now, with the combination of advancements in genetics, medical research, and the democratization of advanced data computing techniques, we are getting a glimpse into the future possibilities in improving healthcare substantially.Why it Hasn’t Happened YetThere is a multitude of reasons that have contributed to why AI hasn’t (...)
#healthcare-renaissance #api #image-processing #artificial-intelligence
UK scientists test breathalyser for detecting early #cancers | Society | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/03/uk-scientists-test-breathalyser-for-detecting-early-cancers
A breathalyser test that could revolutionise cancer diagnosis is being tested in the UK. The Breath Biopsy device is designed to detect cancer hallmarks in molecules exhaled by patients.
Scientists hope it will lead to a simpler, cheaper method of spotting cancers early. The breathalyser has the potential to save thousands of lives and millions of pounds in healthcare costs, its developers have claimed.
The two-year trial, taking place at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, is recruiting 1,500 participants, including healthy individuals as well as cancer patients.
Initially, patients with suspected oesophageal and stomach cancers will be asked to try the test. Later it will be extended to include prostate, kidney, bladder, liver and pancreatic cancers.
A young refugee in Libya asked could he draw & send me illustrations to explain the journey tens of thousands of Eritreans make, between escaping the dictatorship in their home country & trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. I’ll share them in this thread.
NB: Sorry, I should clarify that these weren’t done by a child. The guy is overage but suggested drawing the journey would be the easiest way of describing it.
Here’s the first picture, which shows the conversation between a mother & her son, who’s telling her he’s decided to go to Libya:
The second picture shows the journey across the desert from Sudan to Libya, in the packed lorries & smaller cars #smugglers use to transport people. Some people die at this stage:
The third picture shows what happens once refugees & migrants reach Libya: they’re locked in buildings owned by smugglers until their families can pay ransoms - often much, much more than what was agreed. If their families don’t pay they’re tortured, women raped & some are killed:
The fourth picture shows people whose families have paid smugglers (sometimes multiple times) trying to cross the sea from Libya to Italy. “Most people (who) go to sea die or return to Libya & few arrive to dream land.”
The final drawing shows the detention centres refugees & migrants are imprisoned in, after they’re returned to Libya from the sea. “Life inside the centres hell… Police is very hard, no mercy. Not enough eat, water, healthcare… Police get person to work by force.”
Our Poor, Defenseless Military Industrial Complex | FAIR
▻https://fair.org/home/our-poor-defenseless-military-industrial-complex
... disent les #MSM étatsuniens
Even these figures do not include military pensions and veterans’ healthcare, or nuclear weapons, and therefore the true total is possibly greater than all other countries combined. Military spending is approaching the highest in recorded history of any country, and the increase in military spending Trump approved last year alone would be enough to make public colleges and universities across the US free to all.
Considering the problems of unemployment, poverty, climate change and infrastructure in the US, perhaps tooling up for an intercontinental war against two nuclear-armed superpowers is not the most effective use of trillions of dollars. That reducing a $716 billion war budget can be presented as a threat to the nation, and that “#defense” can refer to wars in Taiwan or the Baltic, illustrates the depth of the media’s imperial mindset, and goes to show President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the power of the military industrial complex went unheeded.