Day: September 11, 2023

Russian Armenian man also with Wagner Group leader Yevgeny …  NEWS.am

Germany Adds Georgia and Moldova to List of Safe Countries of Origin  U.S. News & World Report

Donald Trump Wants to Give His Favorite Corporations Another Giant Tax Cut in a Second Term: Report  Vanity Fair

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Russia’s Central Election Commission said Monday that the country’s ruling party won the most votes in elections held in occupied Ukrainian regions, as Kyiv and the West denounced the ballots as a sham. The votes were held as Russian authorities attempt to tighten their grip on territories Moscow illegally annexed a year ago and still does not fully control.

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White supremacists have recently attempted to disrupt services at dozens of synagogues by calling in false reports to police. Sometimes they claim that there was a bomb in the building or that a mass shooting is taking place.

The wave of threats is ongoing. A Bay Area synagogue was forced to evacuate Friday following false report to the local sheriff’s department. Two guest speakers — Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street — were among those escorted out.

Experts say that the extremists behind the calls target institutions that post live video of their services online. They hope to watch in real-time as police burst into the sanctuary to respond to the false threats.

Given light attendance at summer Shabbat services, the cases where congregations have been forced to evacuate had limited impact. But that could change this month, with High Holiday services drawing the largest crowds of the year.

Here are some steps that security professionals say you can take to keep your congregation safe:

Before a potential swatting or bomb threat incident occurs:

• Make sure your synagogue has a security committee and security plan
• Establish good working relationships with your local law enforcement departments. Let them know High Holiday services draw big crowds and that synagogues are facing both swatting and bomb threats
• Consider asking law enforcement to have a presence at your High Holiday services
• Alert your congregation’s leadership, as well as ushers and greeters, that such incidents might occur
• Develop a plan in advance so everyone can evacuate safely if necessary

Tip: Some cities allow individuals to place their address in a police database of locations that may be targeted by swatting. The list is intended to help officers know they should proceed with caution. However, synagogues might be reluctant to use these tools because they also may face real threats requiring a quick police response.

A member of the local bomb squad checks a suspicious bag in Washington, D.C., in 2021. There are important differences between swatting calls and bomb threats, even though the two share some characteristics. Photo by Getty Images

What to do during a swatting incident or after receiving a bomb threat?

Swatting incidents and bomb threats are alike, in that both seek to disrupt synagogue activities. But there are key differences. 

Swatting involves someone making a false report to police. These are intended to provoke a significant response that could catch a Jewish congregation by surprise. For example, over the summer police received calls falsely reporting that a suicidal individual was barricaded inside of a New Jersey synagogue bathroom. Another caller claimed that there was an active shooter at a synagogue in Texas. Law enforcement officers who respond to these incidents may act aggressively, because they could have been told that people inside the synagogue may pose a threat to congregants.

Bomb threats can also involve false reports made to police. But, unlike swatting incidents, the report can be made directly to a synagogue rather than to police. That means staff or volunteers must determine how to respond. Bomb threats also generally provoke a less aggressive response from police than, for example, false reports of a mass shooting in progress. Finally, it is usually relatively simple to determine that a swatting call relayed false information. It can take much longer to resolve a bomb threat, which may necessitate a thorough search of the building or careful examination of a suspicious item by a bomb squad. The FBI has a thorough guide on how institutions should handle bomb threats and how leaders can prepare.

Here is some advice for both situations from the FBI, Secure Community Network, and the Cybersmile Foundation:

Bomb threats

• Document: If you receive a bomb threat by phone, letter, email or in-person, make sure to document all the information. Record any calls if you can. Preserve written threats and note the wording of verbal threats when you are sure you are safe.
• Observe: Keep an eye out for suspicious items that meet the criteria of the FBI’s “HOT” acronym: “H” for hidden, “O” for obviously suspicious and “T” for not typical. Do not touch or move these items and immediately notify whoever is in charge of security decisions at your synagogue.
• Next steps: The relevant decision maker can follow the FBI’s bomb threat guidance to determine next steps, including possible evacuation or calls to the police.

Swatting

• Greeters and guards: Having a greeter or guard stationed outside the building or sanctuary can help provide accurate information to police who show up in response to a swatting call.
• Remain calm: Responding officers may believe they are dealing with a serious emergency. You can help defuse this tension by staying calm and encouraging others to do the same.
• Cooperate: If police respond to the incident aggressively, cooperate with their instructions and give them time to determine whether the report they received was false.
• Notify: As soon as it is safe to do so, notify the relevant authorities. These could include those who handle security for your communal institutions — like the local Jewish federation — and national groups like the Secure Community Network. You might also consider filing a police report, as swatting calls are typically illegal.

Cantor Kalix Jacobson, when they were a student, sings the High Holidays services at Hebrew Tabernacle of Washington Heights. White supremacists appear to be targeting Jewish institutions that livestream their services, and while experts aren’t recommending that synagogues stop doing so there are some ways to protect the video feeds. Photo by Getty Images

How to keep your synagogue livestream safe

One thing this summer’s swatting incidents and bomb threats targeting Jewish institutions had in common was that the perpetrators appeared to be selecting synagogues that were live streaming their services. Security experts have made clear that they are not calling on congregations to stop putting live video of their services online. But there are some precautions you can take to limit access to the video feed — which could discourage bad actors by making it harder for them to watch any potential mayhem unfold.

• Zoom: The popular video conferencing service has a guide on how to keep “uninvited guests” out of your livestreams. Options include including requiring viewers to sign into an account, using a meeting passcode and “locking” the meeting so that nobody can join after it has started without permission
• Facebook Live: Many synagogues post their services on Facebook Live, and the social media platform also has options for restricting who can see these videos. They include limiting viewership based on location, and posting a live video that only members of a certain Facebook group, like one belonging to your congregation can view.

The post How to protect your congregation from swatting and bomb threats during High Holiday services appeared first on The Forward.

(Jewish News of Greater Phoenix via JTA) — In a June 8 interview with Jewish News of Greater Phoenix for an article on the 75th anniversary of the Arizona weekly, Leni Reiss spoke candidly about her then nine-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

“I’m getting wonderful treatment and have wonderful doctors and I’m not letting myself be sad,” said Reiss, the former longtime editor of Jewish News. “I’m not bringing anybody down with me.”

She also expressed how “unbelievably wonderful” her family and friends had been since her diagnosis.

Reiss died on Sept. 6, after turning 84 on Aug. 25.

Between her work editing and writing for Jewish News and her lay leadership roles in a range of organizations — including Hadassah, the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix — Reiss was a fixture in the Phoenix Jewish community for six decades, noted for her outgoing personality, quick wit, creative ideas and flair, along with a wide network of friends and colleagues.

On the national level, for many years she directed Do The Right Thing, a mentoring program for college journalists that originated at the New York Jewish Week and was sponsored by the Jewish federation network. From 2005 to 2019, she was associate program director of The Conversation, a North American annual retreat for leaders and emerging leaders in Jewish life, sponsored by  the New York Jewish Week.

She was also a member of the board of the Jewish Investigative Journalism Fund, sponsored by the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Foundation Philanthropies, in the 1980s and ’90s.

“Leni brought enthusiasm, compassion, curiosity and humor to her interactions with people,” said Gary Rosenblatt, the former editor and publisher of the New York Jewish Week. “She was as thoroughly professional in her journalism — reporting and editing — as she was thoroughly charming in her personal life.”

Over the years, Reiss was invited on more than a dozen press trips to Israel and traveled to Lebanon right after the 1982 war there. She told of how she and fellow journalists were on a road outside of Beirut where they had to watch where they walked because of landmines, and how she investigated a cave used by the Palestine Liberation Organization, where there was still ammunition lying on the ground. During that trip, she met professional colleagues whom she kept in touch with for decades.

Raised in New York, Reiss attended Ohio State University, where she got a degree in education and met her husband, Barry, who was from Newark, New Jersey. She joined him in Arizona (“under great duress,” she would say) in August 1961 with their six-month-old son, Mitchell.

Settling into her new home, she joined the Jewish Community Center and met other young mothers there. Reiss then joined Hadassah and became involved with the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix’s young leadership group.

“My Jewish life really took off and never stopped,” she said during a 2008 interview for the Arizona Jewish Historical Society’s Arizona Memory Project. “I credit the Jewish community here with a very full and wonderful family life.”

Reiss started at Jewish News in 1976, working as a columnist and staff writer under then-owners Pearl and Cecil Newmark. She was promoted to managing editor when the Newmarks’ daughter, Flo Eckstein and her husband, Paul, bought the paper in 1981. Reiss worked as managing editor until May 1994.

“I valued her friendship, energy, creativity, commitment to the Jewish community and devotion to getting the facts right in every story,” said Eckstein in an email to Jewish News. Under her leadership, wrote Eckstein, Jewish News won numerous reporting and editing awards from the American Jewish Press Association. “She and I nearly always participated in our association’s annual meetings to accept them in person,” she said.

Reiss was a winner of the Joseph Polakoff Award for Distinguished Service to Jewish Journalism, cited for her career at Jewish News and for chairing several of the AJPA’s editorial workshops.

Rae Janvey, a senior consultant to The Conversation who worked closely with Leni, noted: “The world has lost a warm, loving, generous and larger than life heart-full human being. It was a gift to partner with Leni in our group for all these years. She was a linchpin to the joy we all felt.”

When Reiss left Jewish News, she continued writing for various local and national publications as a freelancer. Locally, she also volunteered her time to Book Pals, a public school literacy program.

During her career, she interviewed prime ministers, politicians and was invited to the White House twice. The second time, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama invited her to the White House Hanukkah party.

But her first White House visit was much more memorable.

Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush was getting ready to run for president and had just returned from a trip to the Middle East and wanted press coverage, so he invited a handful of journalists from Jewish newspapers across the country to the White House.

Her flight leaving Phoenix was six hours late and through a “series of misadventures,” she arrived in Philadelphia in the middle of the night to a closed terminal. At 6 a.m., when the ticket window opened, she got on a flight to Washington, D.C., without her luggage.

She called White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater and explained the situation. “I’m wearing jeans, sneakers and a Western shirt. I don’t want to in any way seem disrespectful, but I want to come to the White House,” she said.

Fitzwater told her to come, so she took a cab to the White House. When Bush entered the room, he asked, “Which one of you is the young woman from Phoenix?” Reiss said, “Oh, that would be me,” and stood up. He came over to her, and taking her hands in his, told her, “I’m so sorry for what you had to go through.”

Perhaps her favorite story was about her off-the-cuff interview with Sammy Davis Jr. on board a flight to Israel during the Lebanon War. En route to entertain the Israeli troops, he came down from the first-class upper deck of the plane, and Leni introduced herself and convinced him to sit and talk with her for a few minutes. Soon, a crowd of passengers gathered around them, taking pictures. At that point, Leni turned and commented to the star: “Don’t worry, Sammy, this happens to me wherever I go.”

Reiss is survived by her husband, Barry; children Mitchell (Elissa) Reiss and Andrean Maron (Scott Weiss); grandchildren Jasmine, Ethan, Brooke, Isaac and Jory Weiss and Matana, Eden and Shai Maron.

A version of this article appeared in Jewish News of Greater Phoenix.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Leni Reiss, longtime editor of Arizona Jewish weekly, dies at 84 appeared first on The Forward.

Villagers wept for lost relatives in the rubble of their homes on Monday as the death toll from Morocco’s deadliest earthquake in more than six decades rose to more than 2,800 and rescuers raced against time to find survivors.

Search teams from Spain, Britain and Qatar were joining Moroccan rescue efforts after a 6.8 magnitude quake struck late on Friday in the High Atlas Mountains, with the epicentre 72 km (45 miles) southwest of Marrakech.

State TV reported the death toll had risen to 2,862 with 2,562 people injured. Rescuers said the traditional mud brick houses ubiquitous in the region reduced the chances of finding survivors because they had crumbled.

Among the dead was 7-year-old Suleiman Aytnasr, whose mother had carried him to his bedroom after he fell asleep in the living room of their home in a hamlet outside Talat N’Yaaqoub, in one of the worst-hit areas. He had been about to start a new school year.

“As she came back, the earthquake happened and the ceiling was destroyed and fell on him,” said Suleiman’s father, Brahim Aytnasr, whose eyes were red from crying. He had spent Monday trying to salvage items from the debris of his house.

Footage from the remote village of Imi N’Tala, filmed by Spanish rescuer Antonio Nogales of the aid group Bomberos Unidos Sin Fronteras (United Firefighters Without Borders), showed men and dogs clambering over steep slopes covered in rubble.

“The level of destruction is … absolute,” said Nogales, struggling to find the right word to describe what he was seeing. “Not a single house has stayed upright.”

Despite the scale of the damage, he said rescuers searching with dogs still hoped to find survivors.

“I am sure that in the coming days there will be some rescues, we think that there may still be people in the collapsed structures, that there may have been pockets of air, and as I say, we never give up hope,” he said.

After an initial response that was described as too slow by some survivors, search and rescue efforts appeared to be speeding up on Monday, with tent camps appearing in some locations where people were preparing for a fourth night outdoors.

A video filmed by Moroccan outlet 2M showed a military helicopter flying over an area close to the epicentre, dropping sacks of essential supplies to isolated families.

With much of the quake zone in hard-to-reach areas, the authorities have not issued any estimates for the number of people missing.

The harm done to Morocco’s cultural heritage has been emerging gradually. Buildings in Marrakech old city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were damaged. The quake also did major damage to the historically significant 12th-century Tinmel Mosque.

Residents in Tinmel, a remote village closer to the epicentre where 15 people were killed, said they had been sharing food, water and medicine, but desperately needed tents and blankets to shelter from the cold mountain nights.

The mother of a 15-day-old child said she needed milk formula and medicine for her baby.

It was the North African country’s deadliest earthquake since 1960, when a tremor was estimated to have killed at least 12,000 people, and the most powerful since at least 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

In a televised statement on Sunday, government spokesperson Mustapha Baytas defended the government’s response, saying every effort was being made on the ground.

The army said it was reinforcing search-and-rescue teams, providing drinking water and distributing food, tents and blankets.

King Mohammed VI has not addressed the nation since the disaster. Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch told local media the government would compensate victims, but gave few details.

Morocco has accepted offers of aid from Spain and Britain, which both sent search-and-rescue specialists with sniffer dogs, from the United Arab Emirates, and from Qatar, which said on Sunday a search-and-rescue team was on its way.

State TV said the government had assessed needs and considered the importance of coordinating relief efforts before accepting help, and that it might accept relief offers from other countries later.

($1 = 0.9323 euros)

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Wall Street advanced and the dollar retreated on Monday, as investors looked ahead to Wednesday’s inflation data, while the Bank of Japan suggested it could be moving toward closing the door on an era of negative interest rates.

The tech-laden Nasdaq led all three major U.S. stock indexes higher in the wake of last week’s net losses, with electric automaker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) providing the biggest boost to the upside.

The relatively languid session appeared to be the calm before a storm of U.S. economic data this week, with Wednesday’s crucial consumer prices report (CPI) paramount.

“We’re in the horse latitudes, with lack of directional breezes prior to the Fed meeting,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist of CFRA Research in New York. “What’s driving the markets today is the anticipation of what may come later this week.”

“Investors are focusing on how they will respond to Wednesday’s CPI report,” Stovall added.

Analysts expect inflation to have heated up last month, driven by rising oil costs. The core measure, which strips away volatile food and energy prices, is seen cooling on an annual basis.

The hotly anticipated CPI data will give market participants a snapshot of August inflation, and could provide some illumination regarding the duration of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s restrictive policy cycle.

The Fed, which has left the door open to further interest rate hikes, has pledged to remain agile in its response to economic data.

Financial markets have essentially baked in a rate pause at the conclusion of its September 19-20 monetary policy meeting, beyond which the path forward grows less certain, according to CME’s FedWatch tool.

Elsewhere, comments from Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kazuo Ueda raised the possibility that Japan could begin moving away from its era of negative interest rates.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 99.48 points, or 0.29%, to 34,676.07, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 28.1 points, or 0.63%, to 4,485.59 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 151.73 points, or 1.1%, to 13,913.26.

European shares closed higher, led higher by mining stocks as investors girded themselves for the U.S. CPI print and the European Central Bank’s (ECB) approaching policy decision, expected later in the week.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index (.STOXX) rose 0.34% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS) gained 0.65%.

Emerging market stocks rose 0.48%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) closed 0.37% higher, while Japan’s Nikkei (.N225) lost 0.43%.

The dollar lost ground against a basket of world currencies, as the sterling continued its recovery from a last week’s three-month low and the euro strengthened. The Yen surged against the greenback following Ueda’s comments.

The dollar index (.DXY) fell 0.54%, with the euro up 0.43% to $1.0745.

The Japanese yen strengthened 0.84% versus the greenback at 146.59 per dollar, while Sterling was last trading at $1.2509, up 0.36% on the day.

U.S. Treasury yields inched higher in anticipation of the CPI report.

Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 9/32 in price to yield 4.29%, from 4.256% late on Friday.

The 30-year bond last fell 24/32 in price to yield 4.3772%, from 4.332% late on Friday.

Oil prices inched down from ten-month highs reached last week, having been driven higher by supply demands related to Russian and Saudi output cuts.

U.S. crude dipped 0.25% to settle at $87.29 per barrel, while Brent settled at $90.64 per barrel, down 0.01% on the day.

Gold prices headed higher in opposition to the dollar.

Spot gold added 0.2% to $1,920.60 an ounce.

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Authorities in eastern Libya said at least 2,000 people were killed and thousands more were missing after a massive flood ripped through the city of Derna following a heavy storm and rain.

The head of the Red Crescent aid group in the region had earlier on Monday said Derna’s death toll was at 150 and expected to hit 250. Reuters could not independently verify either figure.

Ahmed Mismari, the spokesperson for the Libyan National Army (LNA) that controls eastern Libya, said in a televised news conference that the disaster came after dams above Derna had collapsed, “sweeping whole neighbourhoods with their residents into the sea”.

Mismari put the number of missing at 5,000-6,000.

Libya is politically divided between east and west and public services have crumbled since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that prompted years of conflict. The internationally recognised government in Tripoli does not control eastern areas.

Osama Hamad, the head of a parallel eastern-based administration, told local television that more than 2,000 were dead and thousands more missing.

Storm Daniel swept in over the Mediterranean on Sunday, swamping roads and destroying buildings in Derna, and hitting other settlements along the coast, including Libya’s second biggest city of Benghazi.

Photographs of Derna, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed a wide torrent running through the city centre where a far narrower waterway had previously flowed. Ruined buildings stood on either side.

Footage on social media and broadcast by eastern Libya’s Almostkbal TV showed people stranded on the roofs of their vehicles calling for help and waters washing away cars.

“The missing are in the thousands, and the dead exceed 2,000,” Osama Hamad told al-Masar TV. “Entire neighbourhoods in Derna have disappeared, along with their residents … swept away by water.”

Mismari said seven members of the LNA, which is commanded by Khalifa Haftar, had died in the flood.

Derna resident Saleh al-Obaidi said he had managed to flee with his family, though houses in a valley near the city had collapsed.

“People were asleep and woke up and found their homes surrounded by water,” he told Reuters.

Ahmed Mohamed, another resident, said: “We were asleep, and when we woke up, we found water besieging the house. We are inside and trying to get out.”

Almostkbal TV posted pictures of a collapsed road between Sousse and Shahat, home to the Greek-founded and UNESCO-listed archaeological site Cyrene.

Witnesses said the water level had reached three metres (10 feet) in Derna.

Libya’s eastern-based parliament declared three days of mourning. Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, prime minister of the interim government in Tripoli, also declared three days of mourning in all the affected cities, calling them “disaster areas”.

Four major oil ports in Libya – Ras Lanuf, Zueitina, Brega and Es Sidra – were closed from Saturday evening for three days, two oil engineers told Reuters.

Search-and-rescue operations were ongoing, witnesses said. Authorities declared a state of extreme emergency, closing schools and stores and imposing a curfew.

In Tripoli, the interim government directed all state agencies to “immediately deal” with the damage and floods in eastern cities, but his administration has no sway in the east.

However, Dbeibah’s government works closely with the Central Bank of Libya, which disburses funds to government departments across the country.

The United Nations in Libya said it was following the storm closely and would “provide urgent relief assistance in support of response efforts at local and national levels”.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani instructed the government to send aid to the affected area in eastern Libya, Qatar’s state news agency reported.

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