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The Week In News
their history has killed millions of people. Many were Muslims. Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.” He added that “by and large the Muslims have not applied the ‘eye for an eye’ law. Muslims don’t. The French shouldn’t.” This is not the first time that Mahathir had spewed hate. He has called Jews “hooked-nosed” and said that they “rule this world by proxy,” likening them to Nazis. He has repeatedly defended his right to make those remarks and said he is “glad to be labeled anti-Semitic.” Mahathir, who served as Malaysian premier twice for a total of 24 years, said that French President Emmanuel Macron was “not showing that he is civilized,” adding he was “very primitive.” “The French should teach their people to respect other people’s feelings. Since you have blamed all Muslims and the Muslims’ religion for what was done by one angry person, the Muslims have a right to punish the French. The boycott cannot compensate the wrongs committed by the French all these years,” he wrote. “In Malaysia, where there are people of many different races and religions, we have avoided serious conflicts between races because we are conscious of the need to be sensitive to the sensitivities of others.” Mahathir had led the Muslim-majority country for over two decades before his government’s collapse in February.
Smelly Feet Socks Scientists in Thailand say that they have developed a sock that can cure smelly feet. The socks have a special coating made from zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) with can prevent foot odor and bacterial infection. The coated socks were successfully used on 148 cadets by researchers at Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University in Thailand. Many soldiers and athletes are prone to suffer from pitted keratolysis, a condition when bacteria consume the keratin on the soles of the feet and give off an odor.
The cadets that received the special coated socks to wear for 14 days had significantly less foot odor than those who wore regular socks and were less prone to pitted keratolysis.
NOVEMBER 5, 2020 | The Jewish Home
The findings are being presented at the 29th European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress.
Corbyn Pushed Out
Jeremy Corbyn is being held accountable for his anti-Semitic views. Last week, Britain’s main opposition Labour party suspended its former leader following his response to a government watchdog report that said the party had broken equality laws in its handling of anti-Semitism complaints. “In light of his comments made today and his failure to retract them subsequently, the Labour Party has suspended Jeremy Corbyn pending investigation,” the party announced. Labour’s new leader Sir Keir Starmer said the report, which found Labour under Corbyn engaged in unlawful “harassment and discrimination,” marked a “day of shame” for the party. The party said Corbyn, its leader until April, was being suspended pending further investigation. Corbyn vowed to “strongly contest” the party’s decision, labeling it a “political” move. For now, he will be compelled to sit as an independent MP in the House of Commons. In a Facebook post earlier in the day responding to the report, Corbyn said he didn’t accept all of its findings and asserted that “the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.” “The equality body’s analysis points to a culture within the party which, at best, did not do enough to prevent anti-Semitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it,” the quality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said in a statement. The watchdog found the party responsible for unlawful acts in three major areas: political interference in anti-Semitism complaints, failing to provide adequate training to those handling anti-Semitism complaints, and harassment. There were 23 instances of “inappropriate involvement” by Corbyn’s office and others in the 70 files examined in the report, the EHRC said, with interference happening more frequently in complaints of anti-Semitism than in other discrimination allegations. Starmer – who replaced Corbyn in a party election in April, after it lost last December’s general elections in a landslide to the incumbent Conservative party under
Boris Johnson – has said he would fully cooperate with the EHRC’s report into anti-Semitism in the party. British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who had discouraged voters from supporting Labour under Corbyn in last year’s elections, said the report marked a “historic nadir for the Labour Party.” Jewish groups have accused Corbyn, a far-left politician, of allowing a massive surge in anti-Semitism within the ranks of the party that was once considered the natural home of British Jewry. Thousands of cases of alleged hate speech against Jews had been recorded within Labour since 2015, when Corbyn was elected to lead the party. Corbyn had vowed to punish any party member caught making racist statements, yet he defended a number of members who made vitriolic anti-Semitic remarks, and expelled hardly any members despite more than 850 formal complaints. For many, it seemed that Corbyn himself was the problem. Last year, he expressed regret for having defended a 2012 anti-Semitic mural in London’s East End. The mural, named Freedom of Humanity, was painted on a property near Brick Lane by the Los Angeles-based graffiti artist Kalen Ockerman. It depicted a group of men – seemingly caricatures of Jewish bankers and businessmen – counting their money on a Monopoly board balanced on the backs of unclothed workers. Last year, he was found to have authored a glowing foreword to a book that claims that Jews control global financial systems and describes them as “men of a single and peculiar race.” In addition, the Hamas terror group has thanked Corbyn for his solidarity in recognizing Palestinian mourning over the 71st anniversary of the formation of the State of Israel.
Saudi Arrested for Stabbing Amid tensions in France, on Thursday, a Saudi man stabbed and wounded a guard at the French consulate in the city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Authorities arrested the man, who they said stabbed the guard with a “sharp tool.” France had urged its citizens in the kingdom to be “on maximum alert.” In France, on that same day, a terrorist killed three people at a church in Nice. Muslims have been acting out since a French school teacher showed his students cartoons of Islam’s prophet Mohammed. Muslims have also called for the boycott of French products. Although Saudi Arabia has expressed outrage, it is far more muted than in other countries. The Saudi Foreign Ministry has said the kingdom “rejects any attempt to link Islam and terrorism, and denounces the offensive cartoons of the prophet.”
Saudi clerics have too condemned the caricatures, but have also cited the prophet’s “mercy, justice, tolerance.” Another prominent sheikh called on Muslims not to overreact. Diplomatic posts have been targeted in the past. A 2004 armed assault on the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah blamed on al-Qaeda killed five employees. In 2016, a suicide bomber blew himself up near that same U.S. Consulate, wounding two guards.
Van Gogh’s Delirium
According to researchers, it is likely that artist Van Gogh experienced “delirium” caused by alcohol withdrawal. In order to investigate the artist’s possible psychiatric disorders, experts interviewed art historians familiar with 902 letters from the artist – 820 to his brother, Theo – and studied medical records made by doctors who treated him. The Dutch master, who produced some 900 paintings during his lifetime, died by his own hand in 1890 at the age of 37 following years of mental illness. He is thought to have suffered from a combination of bipolar and borderline personality disorder, although these illnesses were never diagnosed. Researchers from The University Medical Center Groningen, in the Netherlands, say that they believe Van Gogh experienced two brief psychotic episodes, presumed to be delirium caused by alcohol withdrawal, following his admission to hospital after cutting off his own ear with a razor in 1888. Researchers say that the Dutch master experienced several severe depressive episodes in the last year of his life – at least one with psychotic features. In the study, published Monday in the International Journal of Bipolar Disorders, researchers say that the artist’s likely “masked epilepsy,” also known as “focal epilepsy” could have led to differing manifestations of anxiety, delusions and hallucinations. In Van Gogh’s case, it could have been caused as a result of brain damage linked to his alcohol abuse, malnutrition, poor sleep, and mental exhaustion. Because researchers cannot speak with Van Gogh directly, they relied on letters to his family, which may or may not have downplayed or embellished his symptoms. As such, their theories are mainly just that – theories.