Israeli ministers asked to test for virus as COVID cases soar

The requirement is a first for cabinet meetings in Israel since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Published: DECEMBER 26, 2021 09:21

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/coronavirus/article-689771

Israeli ministers were required to take rapid antigen COVID-19 tests ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting in order to ensure that they were not carrying the virus.

This is the first time all ministers, even if fully vaccinated, have been asked to test. The move comes as COVID cases, including Omicron cases, have been spiking.

There were 760 people diagnosed with COVID on Shabbat, the Health Ministry reported Sunday morning. However, the lower number is only because of a decline in testing over the weekend, as more than 2% of the people screened tested positive.

The number of active cases has continued to rise, reaching close to 12,000 by Sunday morning. Moreover, serious cases have spiked to 98.

On December 12, two weeks ago, there were only two new severe cases. On December 19, last Sunday, there were six. Today, the Health Ministry reported an additional nine new cases.

There are more than 1,100 Omicron cases already diagnosed in Israel, the minister reported Saturday night.

“We are no longer at the beginning of the wave, but in its midst,” said MK Gilad Kariv, chair of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, on Sunday.

Sunday’s cabinet meeting is taking place in the Golan Heights, rather than in Jerusalem as usual, as ministers intend to pass a plan to encourage and promote growth in the region.

The ministers will also discuss a plan to infuse an additional NIS 150 million into the country’s tourism ministry as the skies remain closed in an effort to ward off Omicron. The aid package is expected to pass.

Iran threatens nuclear explosion in Israel’s Dimona facility

The IRGC threatened to attack the Dimona nuclear facility, as well as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, in a series of tweets.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL

Published: DECEMBER 25, 2021 23:28

Updated: DECEMBER 26, 2021 09:47

https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-689758

The IRGC account, with its 12,100 followers, posted a video showing multiple explosions in a desert. “Then on the day, we [God] will deal you the fiercest blow. We will surely inflict punishment, “ the IRGC wrote in Arabic, citing a quote from the Koran, adding the hashtag “Dimona.” The video is post-dated to Friday.

The account provides a link to the IRGC’s Telegram account, with its 376,084 subscribers. Both the IRGC Twitter account and Telegram account show the IRGC logo—an arm raised while clutching a rifle.

The IRGC Arabic account only follows the Farsi language Twitter account of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, as well as a backup account for IRGC Arabic.

A December 13 tweet from the IRGC account reads: "In the event of foolishness on the part of the Zionist regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran is no longer ready to destroy Tel Aviv and Haifa, but to liberate holy Quds. If the security of the holy land of Iran is compromised, no one will taste the moment of security, whether those who are at 1,000 km or at 10,000 km.“

Quds is the Arabic name for the capital of Israel, Jerusalem.

Sheina Vojoudi, an Iranian dissident who fled the Islamic Republic due to repression and who closely tracks Iranian regime social media activity told The Jerusalem Post that “An army is supposed to protect and defend the people and the soil of its country but I dont see any sign of my country in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, no name of Iran or the Iranian people is even mentioned in it.

"The Persian term Sepah-e Pasdaran has a great value and has its root in ancient Persian but the IRGC ruined it. Why should the IRGC publish its statements mostly in Arabic while the official language of Iran is Persian and most of the people in Iran speak and everyone understands Persian? Because it’s talking to its proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, Hashd al Shabi and the other entities under its commands not the Iranian people.

"The IRGC’s priority is the complete destruction of Israel and to follow Khomeini’s Ideology instead of defending its own people," he said.

In 2019, the US designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization. The US State Department—under both Democrat and Republican administrations—has classified the Iranian regime as the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism. The IRGC is estimated to have murdered over 600 US military personnel in the Middle East.

The London-based Iran International news channel tweeted on Friday: "The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency says the Revolutionary Guards have simulated missile strikes against Israel's Dimona nuclear facility in the 'Great Prophet 17' military exercises."

The Post reported last week that an Arabic language Twitter account of the Islamic Republic of Iran published an image on December 17 that showed the planned burned elimination of the Jewish state in 2022.

The picture shows Israel composed of nails and matches and a book of matches next to words in Hebrew and English declaring: “Just try and you will see.”

The book of matches, which is situated next to Israel in the image, says “Ballistic matchstick” and shows an Iranian regime flag on it. The apparent message is that the clerical regime is prepared to detonate the matches to destroy Israel in 2022.

In late November, the spokesman for the Islamic Republic of Iran’s armed forces, Brig.-Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, urged the total elimination of the Jewish state during an interview with an Iranian regime-controlled media outlet.

"We will not back off from the annihilation of Israel, even one millimeter. We want to destroy Zionism in the world,” Shekarchi told the Iranian Students News Agency.

On December 15 the Tehran Times wrote on its front page “One wrong move,” with military targets listed within Israel.

‘I want to kill my first Jew,’ London attacker tells Jewish victim

While desecrating a Menorah this Hanukkah, a London man attacked a local Jewish man, yelling "You are Jewish. I am going to kill you."

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Published: DECEMBER 26, 2021 01:50

Updated: DECEMBER 26, 2021 07:49

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-689759

A Jewish man was violently attacked by a man carrying what appeared to be a knife in an antisemitic attack in West Hampstead, North London on December 2nd, according to antisemitic watchdog Antisemitism.org.

According to the police report, the victim saw the alleged attacker desecrating a Menorah on West Hampstead Square, pulling it down before proceeding to stamp on it and shout antisemitic abuse. The attacker, described as between 25-to-30-years-old, approached the victim and aggressively said, “You look Jewish.”

“Are you Jewish?” the attacker asked. The victim said “No,” to which the man replied, “Good, I want to find a Jew to kill.” The victim then entered a nearby supermarket and called the police, who said they did not consider the case to be an urgent matter before promising to respond an hour later.

The attacker then continued pulling down the Menorah and harassing local residents in the neighborhood, which has a sizable Jewish population. The victim and a supermarket employee then confronted the attacker as he threatened a young woman, which led the attacker to re-focus his attention on the man. “I knew you were Jewish, you lied to me… You are Jewish. I am going to kill you,” the attacker yelled as he approached the man. He then said something in Arabic before allegedly declaring “I want to kill my first Jew.”

The attacker then chased the victim into the supermarket and pushed the victim as hard as he could with both hands on the victim’s chest, forcing the victim to take a step backward – all the while the same ominous line: “You are Jewish. I am going to kill you.” The attacker then viciously punched the victim several times in the head, shouting Arabic phrases and at one point saying “I am not going away until you are dead.”

As the victim finally began to run away, dropping his hat and heavy coat that was slowing him down, the attacker revealed a knife and allegedly said “I will kill you now, you Jew,” before making a throat-slitting gesture at the fleeing man and taking his hat and coat, which he left at the scene. None of the contents of the bag or jacket had been taken.

“What this victim has suffered is unspeakable, and it is only thanks to his quick thinking that he survived the ordeal without even worse injury than he endured. The delayed response of the police, despite the close proximity of a police station just up the road, is deeply concerning, and the result is that a man who apparently wants to kill Jews is now at liberty,” said Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism.

“This is the most heinous of a considerable number of antisemitic crimes that we have reported over the course of Chanukah. The sad truth is that our nation’s capital is not nearly as safe as it should be for Jewish people who wish to celebrate a festival or, in this case, simply go about their daily lives. Unless the police and the justice system step up and ensure that antisemitic criminals face the full consequences of their despicable actions, this will not change,” Silverman continued.

After the incident ended, the police were again called and finally responded to the incident. After the police inaction – amplified by the fact that the police station was only half a mile away – the victim called the “Community Security Trust” (CST), a British charity whose purpose is to provide safety, security, and advice to the Jewish community in the UK.

The assailant remains at large, per police. “Officers have carried out a number of inquiries and have today released a CCTV image of a man they need to speak with. Anyone who recognizes the man is asked to call police via 101 or tweet @MetCC,” Metropolitan Police said.

Hybrid happiness: Managing organizational happiness in the new reality

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-689764

In recent years, organizations are realizing, more profoundly than ever, that human capital is their most precious resource.

This understanding, and the panic it aroused, have become routine topics in the daily media: the difficulties involved in recruitment and the benefits various companies offer their employees.

As it befits the new reality of the labor market, the work environment has changed considerably in terms of physical locations and work output. Whatever the specific changes occurring in each company, human resources departments are forced to reinvent themselves to respond effectively to the new situation.

Since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic and the immediate changes it triggered in the work market, we, the managers, and the HR departments have been dealing extensively with the advantages we can offer existing and potential employees. These advantages amount to much more than traditional benefits. For example, at BUYME, the company that coined the concept of “organizational happiness,” we chose to focus on the daily routine of our employees and the challenges that affect their work-life balance. We uncovered three central challenges: working from the office, adverse impact on employee creativity and family happiness.

The office

Arriving at the office every morning is no longer the routine. Research commissioned by Cisco at the end of last year found that nine out of 10 employees would prefer combining work from the home and office after the pandemic ends. In addition, five out of 10 employees would prefer to continue working full time from home.

The organizational happiness administrations now face a new responsibility of making the office a desirable place for employees so that more of them would choose to come there every day. To this end, the company needs to create an enjoyable work environment through happy hours, workers’ activities and workshops and other value-adding propositions in the office.

Happy hours will be with us for the long term. However, they are not meant only to indulge employees before going for the weekend. Instead, they create personal connection and social "magic" at the workplace. Changes in work methods and COVID made happy hours even more critical for employees’ well-being since they create personal and friendly bonds between employees.

Employee creativity

Employee creativity is an essential element in every organization. Many HR and organizational happiness managers stress that working from home inevitably leads to decreased interaction between employees and compromised creativity. A recent MIT research year demonstrated that creative deliverables correlate directly with joint working time employees spend together.

Hence, happiness administrations should conceive solutions for producing and preserving employee interaction. Creativity is critical for success in Israel’s thriving tech industry, which bears the title of "Start-Up Nation." Organizing work peers’ gatherings in the company’s offices or off-site is one way of sparking collaborations and encouraging cross-fertilization, resulting in increased employee creativity.

The family happiness

The COVID pandemic proved that the hybrid work model is not a fleeting trend. Instead, it is a stage in the organizational evolution, at the least because an increased number of employees seek to combine working from home and the office. Moreover, they regard this model as a prerequisite for their continued work in that organization.

The third challenge posed by the new reality is the understanding that organizational happiness does not hinge only on employee happiness. Since the work environment turned hybrid, families are far more influenced by the parents’ workplace than before. The children and spouses spend a longer time near the employee working from home.

Children watch their parents working and are influenced by their work.

In other words, families have become another target audience of the organization. Whereas previously, happiness administrations organized happy hours for employees only, they now need to organize "happy meals" as an element the whole family can enjoy at home.

China's tallest rocket deploys two satellites

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202112/24/WS61c52ecfa310cdd39bc7d417.html

The launch of a modified Long March 7A carrier rocket on Thursday that sent two experimental satellites into space marked the debut mission of China's tallest rocket.

The 60.7-meter-tall rocket blasted off at 6:12 pm from a coastal launch tower at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province before placing the Shiyan 12-01 and 12-02 satellites into their orbits, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the nation's major space contractor, said.

Developed by the company's China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing, the two satellites-whose name translates as experiment-are tasked with surveying the spatial environment and conducting related technological tests, the State-owned enterprise said in a brief statement issued after the launch.

It was the first time China has used one rocket to deploy two large satellites to high-altitude orbits. To make the flight possible, engineers at the company's China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology in Beijing used a new fairing-the top structure on a rocket that contains satellites or other payloads-that was higher than those on the two previously launched Long March 7As, said Wei Yuanming, a chief designer of Long March 7A.

The original version of the Long March 7A is 60.1 meters tall, about 1.8 meters taller than the second-tallest Chinese rocket-the Long March 2F.

Pang Zhihao, a space industry observer in Beijing, said that extending the length of a rocket is not easy because engineers are then required to make many related modifications to the rocket.

The first Long March 7A was launched in March last year but the flight failed due to technical malfunctions. The rocket conducted its second mission in March this year, successfully deploying the New Technology Demonstrator 9 experimental satellite into orbit.

According to designers, the Long March 7A has a liftoff weight of 573 metric tons and a core-stage diameter of 3.35 meters. It is capable of placing a 7-ton spacecraft into geosynchronous transfer orbit.

Thursday's flight also marked this year's 45th liftoff of the Long March rocket family, which is the pillar of China's space programs. All of the Long March rocket launches this year have been successful.

China has carried out more space missions than any other spacefaring nation this year, with 52 orbital launches.

Dinosaur embryo study backs ancestral link to birds

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202112/23/WS61c3d4bea310cdd39bc7d07a.html

A new study examining an embryo from a fossilized dinosaur egg has provided further evidence supporting the notion that modern birds evolved from dinosaurs.

The embryo fossil was discovered in rocks in Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, around the year 2000 and is housed in the Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum in Fujian province, where it was dubbed "Baby Yingliang".

Estimated to be 27 centimeters from head to tail, the creature lies inside a 17-cm-long egg. Paleontologists believe it belongs to a toothless theropod dinosaur, or oviraptorosaur, dating back 72 to 66 million years, within the Cretaceous Period.

The posture of the embryo within the egg implies that these dinosaurs developed birdlike postures close to hatching, according to the study published in the journal iScience on Wednesday.

Scientists from China, Britain and Canada who worked on the study found the posture of "Baby Yingliang" unique among known dinosaur embryos-its head lies below the body, with the feet on either side and the back curled along the blunt end of the egg. Previously unrecognized in dinosaurs, this posture is similar to that of modern bird embryos.

Before hatching, birds are known to develop a series of tucking postures, bending their body and extending their head under their wings. Embryos that fail to attain such postures have a higher chance of death due to unsuccessful hatching.

By comparing "Baby Yingliang" with the embryos of other dinosaurs and birds, the research team proposed that such prehatching behavior, which was previously thought unique to birds, evolved in theropod dinosaurs tens or hundreds of millions of years ago.

Fion Waisum Ma, joint first author and PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham, said the dinosaur embryo study could help bolster people's understanding of dinosaur growth and reproduction.

"It is interesting to see this dinosaur embryo and a chicken embryo pose in a similar way inside the egg, which possibly indicates similar prehatching behaviors," Ma added.

Steve Brusatte from the University of Edinburgh, who is part of the research team, said this little prenatal dinosaur looks just like a baby bird curled up in its egg, providing yet "more evidence that many features of today's birds first evolved in their dinosaur ancestors".

Dinosaur embryos are some of the rarest fossils. To further test the hypothesis, more embryo fossil discoveries are needed, said coauthor Xing Lida, professor at the China University of Geosciences in Beijing.