DISEASES-ANIMAL TO HUMAN ( 500 million Dead )
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 billion) of (8 billion) to kill with sword,(WEAPONS)(500 million) and with hunger,(FAMINE)(500 million) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES)(500 million) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE)(500 million).
THE WORLD TOTALS OF COVID-19 ARE DEATHS 272,286 AND OVERALL PEOPLE RECOVERED 3,902,628. AND IN AMERICA 76,101 DEATHS AND 1,268.520.AND IN CANADA 66 313 AND 4,663 DEATHS.
Jerusalem municipality says its daycares will open Tuesday-Row over closure of kindergartens for Lag B’Omer, just 2 days after they reopen-Teachers union says daycare staff can work voluntarily on Tuesday; Treasury said to tell union it will be taken into account in negotiations over possible school year extension-By TOI staff-may 8,20-Today, 3:52 pm
A row broke out Friday between parents, kindergarten staff and teachers unions after the latter suggested daycares could voluntarily remain open Tuesday for the festival of Lag B’Omer, after outcry that they would shut their doors just two days after reopening.“In the last few days, we have received many requests, expressing a desire to volunteer for Lag B’Omer and create educational continuity and a sense of security and routine for kindergarten children,” the union of kindergarten workers said in a statement. “We see this as a noble initiative, indicating a deep commitment to kindergarten children and the State of Israel. Therefore, in light of these special circumstances, we call upon kindergarten staff who want and are ready to help students, to come and volunteer during the Lag B’Omer vacation.”Yaffa Ben-David, head of the Israel Teachers’ Union, welcomed the initiative for Lag B’Omer, which is a normal work day for most, but reiterated that staff should not be forced to work without pay, the Kan public broadcaster reported.“The principle that educational staff should not give up their days off still stands. We will not force teaching staff to work without pay. At the same time, the teaching staff is a dedicated public and there were kindergarten workers who expressed their willingness to volunteer on Lag B’Omer to maintain continuity.”According to Channel 13 news, the Treasury has written to Ben-David and asked her to allow teachers to work on Tuesday, saying it will be taken into account during negotiations over a possible extension of the academic year to make up for days lost to the lockdown.Channel 12 reported that the statements caused disquiet among some teachers, who felt the situation would pit them against parents if they chose not to work that day.“How dare Ben-David pass it on to us so that she looks good? She offered and we are the witches who don’t want to do it,” wrote one in an anonymous group. “Very simple — I don’t volunteer at my job,” another kindergarten teacher wrote.Meanwhile, the Jerusalem municipality announced that kindergartens under its jurisdiction would remain open and that the salaries of anyone working would be covered by city hall.Children aged 3-6 are expected to return to kindergartens and preschools on Sunday in groups of no more than 18. The majority will attend only three days a week so that the limits can be maintained, and there won’t be afternoon programs, meaning the day will end at 2 p.m.The children will be further divided into two permanent subgroups to operate in separate spaces in the kindergartens and courtyards.Getting small children into daycare is seen as key to helping parents return to work as the lockdown restrictions ease.Children wearing face masks play in a field at HaSharon Park, in Hadera, Israel, on March 23, 2020. (Chen Leopold/Flash90) But with kindergartens set to run only until 2 p.m. and schools ending at around 1 p.m., the national parents’ forum on Friday called on Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon to release compensation payments for the restarting of afterschool programs.“Wake up. Stop the delusion of a return to routine. What sort of routine is it when we are forced to leave work at noon to collect our children or worse, remain home to care for them. Release the financial aid for the programs,” the organization said in a statement to the Kan public broadcaster.The Health Ministry on Wednesday okayed a deal under which government-supervised daycares for children up to the age of 3 will also be allowed to open Sunday, albeit with caps on class sizes that may keep thousands of toddlers at home.Private facilities are additionally said to have reached an agreement with the Finance Ministry over compensation for a 40-day shutdown that brought public life to a near-standstill, however they have not yet received final protocols from the Health Ministry.Israel is in the midst of emerging from the lockdown and reopening stores, schools, kindergartens and more, as the number of new infections have appeared to slow to a mere trickle.
Israeli students wear protective face masks as they return to school for the first time since the outbreakIn Israeli schools, grades 1-3 and 11-12 returned to school this week with smaller classes and strict health procedures.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he expects all students will return to classes by the end of the month, while universities and colleges are set to reopen on June 14. Schools will likely have to rotate attendance, as they do not have enough classroom space for all students to maintain social distancing at the same time.At schools, pupils were being divided into groups, each of which, under Education Ministry guidelines, was to remain together for all classes and breaks. Each group was to have dedicated bathrooms as well.Schools were among the first institutions to shut down in mid-March, a move that was quickly followed by stricter measures that brought the economy to a virtual standstill and forced many to remain at home as the country sought to prevent a large outbreak of COVID-19.
OIL IN ISRAEL
JOB 29:6
6 When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;
GENESIS 12:3
3 And I will bless them that bless thee,(ISRAEL) and curse (DESTROY) him that curseth thee:(DESTROY THEM) and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
GENESIS 14:10
10 And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits;(CRUDE OIL) and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain
DEUTERONOMY 33:19,24
19 They (ISRAEL) shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness: for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.
24 And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.
DEUTERONOMY 12:3
13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields;(OIL) and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;
GENESIS 27:28-29,39
28 Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness(OIL) of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine:
29 Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee.
39 And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness(OIL) of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above;
DEUTERONOMY 13:3-16,19,24
13 And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the LORD be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath,(OIL)
14 And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon,
15 And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills,(CRUDE OIL)
16 And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.
19 They shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness: for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.
24 And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.
GENESIS 49:1,12,20,25 (WERE THE OIL SHOULD BE DISCOVERED BY THE BIBLE)(FOOT OF ASHER)
1 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.
12 His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.(OIL)
20 Out of Asher his bread shall be fat,(OIL) and he shall yield royal dainties.
22 Joseph is a fruitful bough,(NATION) even a fruitful bough by a well;(OIL) whose branches run over the wall:
25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under,(OIL WELLS) blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
26 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.(FOOT OF ASHUR)
Overruling Environment Ministry, planners advance contentious oil shale project-The Times of Israel-Rotem Energy Mineral Partnership given go ahead to order environmental survey for plan to mine shale oil in southern Israel, and heat it with plastic waste to create oil, power-By Sue Surkes-may 8,20-Today, 4:18 pm
A planning committee this week rejected an Environmental Protection Ministry call to throw out a controversial project that seeks to combine oil shale with plastic waste to create oil and generate power.Members of the southern region planning committee voted 12 to four on Monday to allow the Rotem Energy Mineral Partnership (REM) to commission an environmental impact survey for their plans.The decision was made despite the committee’s recognition and acceptance of the fact, put forward by the Environmental Protection Ministry and environmental organizations, that oil shale is a significant source of pollution, that its mining and use therefore runs contrary to government policy to move from fossil fuels toward renewable energy sources and that it also conflicts with policy on the treatment of waste.In a statement Friday, the Ministry said the project should have been rejected outright and that there was no need for an environmental survey, although it would adhere to the committee’s decision.The REM partnership, controlled by the Australian Casella family-owned Northwood Exploration, plans to build a complex in the Rotem Plain industrial area in southern Israel. The site will include an oil shale mine, a factory where the oil shale will be combined with 200,000 tons of plastic waste each year and heated to produce 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, and a power plant generating some 70 megawatts of electric power for use in the factory and for sale.Sorting of plastic waste. (BizTV screenshot) REM already has a conditional license from the Energy Ministry’s petroleum commissioner to look for oil shale, but not to start mining. The exploratory license expires in November 2028.Oil shale reserves at the mine are estimated at 245 million tons and plans call for the extraction of 1.8 million tons each year.The process of pyrolisis — the decomposition of materials at very high temperatures — would also require some 380,000 cubic meters of water per year for purposes such as damping down dust removed from the factory.In accepting the company’s request to proceed with an environmental impact survey, the committee instructed the Environmental Protection Ministry to devise criteria, and asked the Energy Ministry to draw up a position paper on the plans, detailing its policy on oil shale in general and its views on reducing polluting gases that contribute to global warming while transitioning to renewable energy.The committee also asked the Energy Ministry to comment on the extent to which it would be worthwhile accessing phosphates located beneath the oil shale layers.‘No new permits for oil shale exploration’In February, the government announced that it would no longer issue new permits for oil shale exploration.The Energy Ministry said that it would not be renewing the license of Rotem Amfert Negev Ltd., owned by Israel Chemicals Ltd., to continue oil shale extraction beyond May 2021.But it did say that two other licenses — one granted to REM and the other to Shafir Civil and Marine Engineering’s operation near the Ramon Crater — would be judged according to environmental criteria to be drawn up by the Environmental Protection Ministry.REM’s board of directors is chaired by Dr. Yaakov Mimran, formerly responsible for oil and gas affairs at the Energy Ministry. Eitan Cabel, a former Labor Party parliamentarian and Knesset Economics Affairs Committee chairman, is a member of REM’s board.Eitan Cabel, a former Labor Party parliamentarian and Knesset Economics Affairs Committee chairman, is a member of REM’s board. (BizTV screenshot).Interviewed by BizTV in December, Cabel said that the REM project had great “environmental potential to deal with global warming gases.” He said nobody knew what to do with plastic waste, which was either sent overseas or to landfill (Israel produces a million tons of plastic annually, an estimated 75 percent of which comes from single use plastic), that the mining of the shale oil was “going on anyway,” and that the process would produce an oil that was about as polluting as gas.Dr. Yonathan Aikhenbaum, campaigns manager at Greenpeace Israel, told The Times of Israel on Thursday that “Eitan has got lost. The immediate problem with plastic is not the plastic that is sent to landfill but the plastic that gets into nature, and this has no connection with the project. REM is proposing to burn plastic in order to convert it into a resource that harms health, the environment and the climate — oil — and that is not good news. The solution to the plastic problem is to stop using it.”He described oil shale as the “dirtiest kind of oil that exists. It pollutes, not only because the final product — oil — pollutes, but because of the destructive production process, which requires a lot of energy, as well as the mining, which releases huge quantities of small particles and contaminating materials into the air.”The environmental advocacy organization, Adam Teva V’Din, said in a statement that, “especially now, during the coronavirus pandemic, when we are all experiencing the significance of the global environmental crises and the committee is forced to meet online due to the need for social distancing, we would expect committee members to put great emphasis on the environment and public health, to insist on the public’s welfare and to conduct a deep discussion that takes into account climate issues and air pollution.”The organization agreed with the company on the need to generate jobs in the Negev but said this should be done by expanding sustainable energy projects, not at the expense of public health.
As world marks VE Day, talk turns again to war, but this time against a virus-The Times of Israel-‘World War II was created by a madman who thought he could take over control of the world,’ says D-Day veteran, but with COVID-19, ‘we still don’t know why we are dying’-By Raf Casert-may 8,20-Today, 12:38 pm
BRUSSELS (AP) — On Friday’s 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, talk of war is afoot again — this time against a disease that has killed at least a quarter of a million people worldwide.Instead of parades, remembrances and one last great hurrah for veterans now mostly in their nineties, it’s a time of coronavirus lockdown and loneliness, with memories bitter and sweet — sometimes with a lingering Vera Lynn song evergreen in the background.For so many who went through the horrific 1939-1945 years and enjoyed peace since, Friday felt as suffocating as the thrill of victory was liberating three-quarters of a century ago.We are at war!”It sounded like a cry from some past, bellicose era or a Hollywood movie, but instead it was French President Emmanuel Macron speaking in a March 16 national address. He used the phrase “we are at war” six times to emphasize the threat of COVID-19 to his country as he announced a lockdown well-nigh unprecedented since World War II in its restrictions on personal freedoms.Close to France’s Normandy D-Day beaches where he fought in perhaps the most momentous day of that war — the June 6, 1944, landings of allied troops in Nazi-occupied France — former US army medic Charles Shay was listening to Macron.In this Wednesday, May 1, 2019 file photo, World War II and D-Day veteran Charles Norman Shay, from Maine, poses at the Charles Shay monument on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) Now 95, he said surviving D-Day at 19 taught him this much. “When my time comes there is not much I can do about it.” Yet Macron’s comparison didn’t fully fit his experience.“World War II was created by a madman who thought he could take over control of the world,” Shay said. But with the virus, “we still don’t know why we are dying.”Cloistered in his village of Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse amid purple wisteria and pink peonies, he feels frustrated at all the cancellations that won’t let him see fellow veterans on Omaha Beach in the coming weeks — ageing friends he might never see again.It is thus across much of the world, with parades scrapped from Moscow to London and the United States.“We’re the last remaining veterans”The sense of wistful melancholy hangs as a heavy, dark cloak over the countries that were victorious in 1945.In few regions is VE Day celebrated with more fervor than in the former Soviet Union, whose Red Army paid a terrible toll before the final breakthrough to Berlin. Eight time zones east of Normandy, Valentina Efremova, 96, lives among the memorabilia of her Great Patriotic War when she was a nurse caring for front-line Soviet soldiers.She still dresses for the occasion and carries a chestful of medals.Valentina Efremova, a 96-year-old World War II veteran, who served as a nurse in field hospitals on the frontlines throughout the war, speaks during her interview with the Associated Press in Yakutsk, Russia, April 30, 2020 . (AP Photo/Alex Lee) She, too, had been counting on something better so late in her life and is downcast on the chances of being able to attend some last worthy ceremony. “We’re the last remaining veterans. We won’t be able to celebrate the 80th anniversary,” she said.“The danger did not come from the air we breathe”Some say today’s younger generations should put things into perspective when lamenting their lockdown hardships such as closed barbers, restaurants, bars and gyms. Many still have full fridges, and a strange knock on the door will likely be nothing more sinister than an online order delivery.Compare and contrast that with Marcel Schmetz and Myriam Silberman. Through a twist of geographical fate, Schmetz’s family home became part of German territory as the Nazis invaded Belgium, and although he was too young, his brother Henri, at 17, had to join the German army — a potential death sentence.“So we succeeded in hiding him at home while we had German soldiers around our house practically every day. He remained locked up like that for a year and a half,” Schmetz said.He now runs a war museum with his wife Mathilde, where part of the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last bid to change the tide of the war, took place and he has re-created the old family room, where a mannequin dressed as Henri is sitting. But what was supposed to be the highlight of the year is now spent in isolation in the shut-down museum.The current-day war comparison especially grates with 82-year-old Myriam Silberman, who as a kid had to hide under a fake identity in Belgium’s southern city of Mons for three years because she is Jewish. If discovered, she would likely have been deported and murdered.“Today’s generation might think that there is maybe a link but this is incomparable,” she said. “I was five years old, but I could go out as the danger did not come from the air we breathe. The danger came from potential traitors … we were living with a permanent fear, even as children.”US WWII photographer Tony Vaccaro waves to the audience during the inauguration of the Tony Vaccaro Square, in front of the Saint-Briac-sur-Mer city hall, western France, June 7, 2014. (AP Photo/ Jean Sebastien Evrard, Pool) Amid the bleakness of the pandemic, some veterans still know how to win that 2020 war too — spurious comparison or not. Take Tony Vaccaro, 97. He was thrown into World War II with the 83rd Infantry division which fought, like Charles Shay, in Normandy, and then came to Schmetz’s doorstep for the Battle of the Bulge. On top of his military gear, he also carried a camera, and became a fashion and celebrity photographer after the war.COVID-19 caught up with him last month. Like everything bad life threw at him, he shook it off, attributing his survival to plain “fortune.”But for the longevity that is allowing him to celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE Day he has a different explanation. “Wine,” he said from his Queens, New York, home. “Red wine — Vino Rosso.”
Bug experts dismiss worry about US ‘murder hornets’ as hype-Entomologist May Berenbaum says mosquito is in fact the scariest insect, which WHO says causes millions of yearly deaths worldwide from malaria, dengue fever and other diseases-By Seth Borenstein-may 8,20-Today, 7:31 am
AP — Insect experts say people should calm down about the big bug with the nickname “murder hornet” — unless you are a beekeeper or a honeybee.The Asian giant hornets found in Washington state that grabbed headlines this week aren’t big killers of humans, although it does happen on rare occasions. But the world’s largest hornets do decapitate entire hives of honeybees, and that crucial food pollinator is already in big trouble.Numerous bug experts told The Associated Press that what they call hornet “hype” reminds them of the 1970s public scare when Africanized honeybees, nicknamed “killer bees,” started moving north from South America. While these more aggressive bees did make it up to Texas and the Southwest, they didn’t live up to the horror-movie moniker. However, they also do kill people in rare situations.This time it’s hornets with the homicidal nickname, which bug experts want to ditch.A dead Asian giant hornet sent from Japan is held on a pin by Sven Spichiger, an entomologist with the Washington State Department of Agriculture, May 4, 2020, in Olympia, Washington (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) “They are not ‘murder hornets.’ They are just hornets,” said Washington Agriculture Department entomologist Chris Looney, who is working on the state’s search for these large hornets.The facts are, experts said, two dead hornets were found in Washington last December, a lone Canadian live nest was found and wiped out last September and no live hornets have yet been seen this year.Looney has a message for Americans: These hornets are not coming to get you. “The number of people who are stung and have to seek medical attention is incredibly small,” he said in an interview.While its nickname exaggerates the human health threat, experts said this hornet is especially big — two inches long — so it does carry more and stronger toxin.“It’s a really nasty sting for humans,” said University of Georgia bee expert Keith Delaplane. “It’s like the Africanized bee … A dozen (stings) you are OK; 100 not so much.”University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum said of the worry: “People are afraid of the wrong thing. The scariest insect out there are mosquitoes. People don’t think twice about them. If anyone’s a murder insect, it would be a mosquito.”May Berenbaum, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reacts after President Barack Obama presented her the National Medal of Science during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Nov. 20, 2014 (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Mosquitoes are responsible for millions of yearly deaths worldwide from malaria, dengue fever and other diseases, according to the World Health Organization. Asian giant hornets at most kill a few dozen people a year and some experts said it’s probably far less.Hornet, wasp and bee stings kill on average 62 people a year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.In Japan, Korea and China, “people have co-existed with this hornet for thousands of years,” said Doug Yanega, senior scientist at the University of California Riverside Entomology Research Museum.Yet bug experts across the country are getting worried calls from people who wrongly think they saw the Asian hornet.“This is 99% media hype and frankly I’m getting tired of it,” said University of Delaware entomologist Doug Tallamy. “Murder hornet? Please.”Retired University of Montana bee expert Jerry Bromenshenk said in an email, “One nest, one individual hornet, hopefully, does not make an invasion. … Do we want this hornet — surely not. But the media hype is turbo charged.”For bees and the people who rely on them for a living this could be yet another massive problem, but it is not one yet.The number of US honeybees has been dropping for years, with the winter of 2018-19 one of the worst on record. That’s because of problems such as mites, diseases, pesticides and loss of food.The new hornets would be different. If they get into a hive, they tear the heads off worker bees and the hive pretty much dies. Asian honeybees have defenses — they start buzzing, raising the temperature and cook the invading hornet to death — but honeybees in America don’t.The worry for beekeeping in Washington is based on a worst-case scenario that officials have to take seriously, Looney said.Washington State Department of Agriculture entomologist Chris Looney puts a new lure into a trap after checking it for an Asian giant hornet, May 7, 2020, in Blaine, Washington (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, Pool) Yet even for bees, the invasive hornets are far down on the list of real threats, not as big a worry as the parasitic “zombie fly” because more of those have been seen in several states, Berenbaum said.For people, the hornets are scary because the world is already frightened by coronavirus and our innate fight-or-flight mechanisms are activated, putting people on edge, said risk expert David Ropeik, author of “How Risky Is It, Really?”“This year is unbelievable in a horrible, horrible way. Why shouldn’t there be murder hornets?” Berenbaum said.
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 billion) of (8 billion) to kill with sword,(WEAPONS)(500 million) and with hunger,(FAMINE)(500 million) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES)(500 million) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE)(500 million).
THE WORLD TOTALS OF COVID-19 ARE DEATHS 272,286 AND OVERALL PEOPLE RECOVERED 3,902,628. AND IN AMERICA 76,101 DEATHS AND 1,268.520.AND IN CANADA 66 313 AND 4,663 DEATHS.
Jerusalem municipality says its daycares will open Tuesday-Row over closure of kindergartens for Lag B’Omer, just 2 days after they reopen-Teachers union says daycare staff can work voluntarily on Tuesday; Treasury said to tell union it will be taken into account in negotiations over possible school year extension-By TOI staff-may 8,20-Today, 3:52 pm
A row broke out Friday between parents, kindergarten staff and teachers unions after the latter suggested daycares could voluntarily remain open Tuesday for the festival of Lag B’Omer, after outcry that they would shut their doors just two days after reopening.“In the last few days, we have received many requests, expressing a desire to volunteer for Lag B’Omer and create educational continuity and a sense of security and routine for kindergarten children,” the union of kindergarten workers said in a statement. “We see this as a noble initiative, indicating a deep commitment to kindergarten children and the State of Israel. Therefore, in light of these special circumstances, we call upon kindergarten staff who want and are ready to help students, to come and volunteer during the Lag B’Omer vacation.”Yaffa Ben-David, head of the Israel Teachers’ Union, welcomed the initiative for Lag B’Omer, which is a normal work day for most, but reiterated that staff should not be forced to work without pay, the Kan public broadcaster reported.“The principle that educational staff should not give up their days off still stands. We will not force teaching staff to work without pay. At the same time, the teaching staff is a dedicated public and there were kindergarten workers who expressed their willingness to volunteer on Lag B’Omer to maintain continuity.”According to Channel 13 news, the Treasury has written to Ben-David and asked her to allow teachers to work on Tuesday, saying it will be taken into account during negotiations over a possible extension of the academic year to make up for days lost to the lockdown.Channel 12 reported that the statements caused disquiet among some teachers, who felt the situation would pit them against parents if they chose not to work that day.“How dare Ben-David pass it on to us so that she looks good? She offered and we are the witches who don’t want to do it,” wrote one in an anonymous group. “Very simple — I don’t volunteer at my job,” another kindergarten teacher wrote.Meanwhile, the Jerusalem municipality announced that kindergartens under its jurisdiction would remain open and that the salaries of anyone working would be covered by city hall.Children aged 3-6 are expected to return to kindergartens and preschools on Sunday in groups of no more than 18. The majority will attend only three days a week so that the limits can be maintained, and there won’t be afternoon programs, meaning the day will end at 2 p.m.The children will be further divided into two permanent subgroups to operate in separate spaces in the kindergartens and courtyards.Getting small children into daycare is seen as key to helping parents return to work as the lockdown restrictions ease.Children wearing face masks play in a field at HaSharon Park, in Hadera, Israel, on March 23, 2020. (Chen Leopold/Flash90) But with kindergartens set to run only until 2 p.m. and schools ending at around 1 p.m., the national parents’ forum on Friday called on Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon to release compensation payments for the restarting of afterschool programs.“Wake up. Stop the delusion of a return to routine. What sort of routine is it when we are forced to leave work at noon to collect our children or worse, remain home to care for them. Release the financial aid for the programs,” the organization said in a statement to the Kan public broadcaster.The Health Ministry on Wednesday okayed a deal under which government-supervised daycares for children up to the age of 3 will also be allowed to open Sunday, albeit with caps on class sizes that may keep thousands of toddlers at home.Private facilities are additionally said to have reached an agreement with the Finance Ministry over compensation for a 40-day shutdown that brought public life to a near-standstill, however they have not yet received final protocols from the Health Ministry.Israel is in the midst of emerging from the lockdown and reopening stores, schools, kindergartens and more, as the number of new infections have appeared to slow to a mere trickle.
Israeli students wear protective face masks as they return to school for the first time since the outbreakIn Israeli schools, grades 1-3 and 11-12 returned to school this week with smaller classes and strict health procedures.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he expects all students will return to classes by the end of the month, while universities and colleges are set to reopen on June 14. Schools will likely have to rotate attendance, as they do not have enough classroom space for all students to maintain social distancing at the same time.At schools, pupils were being divided into groups, each of which, under Education Ministry guidelines, was to remain together for all classes and breaks. Each group was to have dedicated bathrooms as well.Schools were among the first institutions to shut down in mid-March, a move that was quickly followed by stricter measures that brought the economy to a virtual standstill and forced many to remain at home as the country sought to prevent a large outbreak of COVID-19.
OIL IN ISRAEL
JOB 29:6
6 When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;
GENESIS 12:3
3 And I will bless them that bless thee,(ISRAEL) and curse (DESTROY) him that curseth thee:(DESTROY THEM) and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
GENESIS 14:10
10 And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits;(CRUDE OIL) and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain
DEUTERONOMY 33:19,24
19 They (ISRAEL) shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness: for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.
24 And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.
DEUTERONOMY 12:3
13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields;(OIL) and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;
GENESIS 27:28-29,39
28 Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness(OIL) of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine:
29 Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee.
39 And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness(OIL) of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above;
DEUTERONOMY 13:3-16,19,24
13 And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the LORD be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath,(OIL)
14 And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon,
15 And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills,(CRUDE OIL)
16 And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.
19 They shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness: for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.
24 And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.
GENESIS 49:1,12,20,25 (WERE THE OIL SHOULD BE DISCOVERED BY THE BIBLE)(FOOT OF ASHER)
1 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.
12 His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.(OIL)
20 Out of Asher his bread shall be fat,(OIL) and he shall yield royal dainties.
22 Joseph is a fruitful bough,(NATION) even a fruitful bough by a well;(OIL) whose branches run over the wall:
25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under,(OIL WELLS) blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
26 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.(FOOT OF ASHUR)
Overruling Environment Ministry, planners advance contentious oil shale project-The Times of Israel-Rotem Energy Mineral Partnership given go ahead to order environmental survey for plan to mine shale oil in southern Israel, and heat it with plastic waste to create oil, power-By Sue Surkes-may 8,20-Today, 4:18 pm
A planning committee this week rejected an Environmental Protection Ministry call to throw out a controversial project that seeks to combine oil shale with plastic waste to create oil and generate power.Members of the southern region planning committee voted 12 to four on Monday to allow the Rotem Energy Mineral Partnership (REM) to commission an environmental impact survey for their plans.The decision was made despite the committee’s recognition and acceptance of the fact, put forward by the Environmental Protection Ministry and environmental organizations, that oil shale is a significant source of pollution, that its mining and use therefore runs contrary to government policy to move from fossil fuels toward renewable energy sources and that it also conflicts with policy on the treatment of waste.In a statement Friday, the Ministry said the project should have been rejected outright and that there was no need for an environmental survey, although it would adhere to the committee’s decision.The REM partnership, controlled by the Australian Casella family-owned Northwood Exploration, plans to build a complex in the Rotem Plain industrial area in southern Israel. The site will include an oil shale mine, a factory where the oil shale will be combined with 200,000 tons of plastic waste each year and heated to produce 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, and a power plant generating some 70 megawatts of electric power for use in the factory and for sale.Sorting of plastic waste. (BizTV screenshot) REM already has a conditional license from the Energy Ministry’s petroleum commissioner to look for oil shale, but not to start mining. The exploratory license expires in November 2028.Oil shale reserves at the mine are estimated at 245 million tons and plans call for the extraction of 1.8 million tons each year.The process of pyrolisis — the decomposition of materials at very high temperatures — would also require some 380,000 cubic meters of water per year for purposes such as damping down dust removed from the factory.In accepting the company’s request to proceed with an environmental impact survey, the committee instructed the Environmental Protection Ministry to devise criteria, and asked the Energy Ministry to draw up a position paper on the plans, detailing its policy on oil shale in general and its views on reducing polluting gases that contribute to global warming while transitioning to renewable energy.The committee also asked the Energy Ministry to comment on the extent to which it would be worthwhile accessing phosphates located beneath the oil shale layers.‘No new permits for oil shale exploration’In February, the government announced that it would no longer issue new permits for oil shale exploration.The Energy Ministry said that it would not be renewing the license of Rotem Amfert Negev Ltd., owned by Israel Chemicals Ltd., to continue oil shale extraction beyond May 2021.But it did say that two other licenses — one granted to REM and the other to Shafir Civil and Marine Engineering’s operation near the Ramon Crater — would be judged according to environmental criteria to be drawn up by the Environmental Protection Ministry.REM’s board of directors is chaired by Dr. Yaakov Mimran, formerly responsible for oil and gas affairs at the Energy Ministry. Eitan Cabel, a former Labor Party parliamentarian and Knesset Economics Affairs Committee chairman, is a member of REM’s board.Eitan Cabel, a former Labor Party parliamentarian and Knesset Economics Affairs Committee chairman, is a member of REM’s board. (BizTV screenshot).Interviewed by BizTV in December, Cabel said that the REM project had great “environmental potential to deal with global warming gases.” He said nobody knew what to do with plastic waste, which was either sent overseas or to landfill (Israel produces a million tons of plastic annually, an estimated 75 percent of which comes from single use plastic), that the mining of the shale oil was “going on anyway,” and that the process would produce an oil that was about as polluting as gas.Dr. Yonathan Aikhenbaum, campaigns manager at Greenpeace Israel, told The Times of Israel on Thursday that “Eitan has got lost. The immediate problem with plastic is not the plastic that is sent to landfill but the plastic that gets into nature, and this has no connection with the project. REM is proposing to burn plastic in order to convert it into a resource that harms health, the environment and the climate — oil — and that is not good news. The solution to the plastic problem is to stop using it.”He described oil shale as the “dirtiest kind of oil that exists. It pollutes, not only because the final product — oil — pollutes, but because of the destructive production process, which requires a lot of energy, as well as the mining, which releases huge quantities of small particles and contaminating materials into the air.”The environmental advocacy organization, Adam Teva V’Din, said in a statement that, “especially now, during the coronavirus pandemic, when we are all experiencing the significance of the global environmental crises and the committee is forced to meet online due to the need for social distancing, we would expect committee members to put great emphasis on the environment and public health, to insist on the public’s welfare and to conduct a deep discussion that takes into account climate issues and air pollution.”The organization agreed with the company on the need to generate jobs in the Negev but said this should be done by expanding sustainable energy projects, not at the expense of public health.
As world marks VE Day, talk turns again to war, but this time against a virus-The Times of Israel-‘World War II was created by a madman who thought he could take over control of the world,’ says D-Day veteran, but with COVID-19, ‘we still don’t know why we are dying’-By Raf Casert-may 8,20-Today, 12:38 pm
BRUSSELS (AP) — On Friday’s 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, talk of war is afoot again — this time against a disease that has killed at least a quarter of a million people worldwide.Instead of parades, remembrances and one last great hurrah for veterans now mostly in their nineties, it’s a time of coronavirus lockdown and loneliness, with memories bitter and sweet — sometimes with a lingering Vera Lynn song evergreen in the background.For so many who went through the horrific 1939-1945 years and enjoyed peace since, Friday felt as suffocating as the thrill of victory was liberating three-quarters of a century ago.We are at war!”It sounded like a cry from some past, bellicose era or a Hollywood movie, but instead it was French President Emmanuel Macron speaking in a March 16 national address. He used the phrase “we are at war” six times to emphasize the threat of COVID-19 to his country as he announced a lockdown well-nigh unprecedented since World War II in its restrictions on personal freedoms.Close to France’s Normandy D-Day beaches where he fought in perhaps the most momentous day of that war — the June 6, 1944, landings of allied troops in Nazi-occupied France — former US army medic Charles Shay was listening to Macron.In this Wednesday, May 1, 2019 file photo, World War II and D-Day veteran Charles Norman Shay, from Maine, poses at the Charles Shay monument on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) Now 95, he said surviving D-Day at 19 taught him this much. “When my time comes there is not much I can do about it.” Yet Macron’s comparison didn’t fully fit his experience.“World War II was created by a madman who thought he could take over control of the world,” Shay said. But with the virus, “we still don’t know why we are dying.”Cloistered in his village of Bretteville-l’Orgueilleuse amid purple wisteria and pink peonies, he feels frustrated at all the cancellations that won’t let him see fellow veterans on Omaha Beach in the coming weeks — ageing friends he might never see again.It is thus across much of the world, with parades scrapped from Moscow to London and the United States.“We’re the last remaining veterans”The sense of wistful melancholy hangs as a heavy, dark cloak over the countries that were victorious in 1945.In few regions is VE Day celebrated with more fervor than in the former Soviet Union, whose Red Army paid a terrible toll before the final breakthrough to Berlin. Eight time zones east of Normandy, Valentina Efremova, 96, lives among the memorabilia of her Great Patriotic War when she was a nurse caring for front-line Soviet soldiers.She still dresses for the occasion and carries a chestful of medals.Valentina Efremova, a 96-year-old World War II veteran, who served as a nurse in field hospitals on the frontlines throughout the war, speaks during her interview with the Associated Press in Yakutsk, Russia, April 30, 2020 . (AP Photo/Alex Lee) She, too, had been counting on something better so late in her life and is downcast on the chances of being able to attend some last worthy ceremony. “We’re the last remaining veterans. We won’t be able to celebrate the 80th anniversary,” she said.“The danger did not come from the air we breathe”Some say today’s younger generations should put things into perspective when lamenting their lockdown hardships such as closed barbers, restaurants, bars and gyms. Many still have full fridges, and a strange knock on the door will likely be nothing more sinister than an online order delivery.Compare and contrast that with Marcel Schmetz and Myriam Silberman. Through a twist of geographical fate, Schmetz’s family home became part of German territory as the Nazis invaded Belgium, and although he was too young, his brother Henri, at 17, had to join the German army — a potential death sentence.“So we succeeded in hiding him at home while we had German soldiers around our house practically every day. He remained locked up like that for a year and a half,” Schmetz said.He now runs a war museum with his wife Mathilde, where part of the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last bid to change the tide of the war, took place and he has re-created the old family room, where a mannequin dressed as Henri is sitting. But what was supposed to be the highlight of the year is now spent in isolation in the shut-down museum.The current-day war comparison especially grates with 82-year-old Myriam Silberman, who as a kid had to hide under a fake identity in Belgium’s southern city of Mons for three years because she is Jewish. If discovered, she would likely have been deported and murdered.“Today’s generation might think that there is maybe a link but this is incomparable,” she said. “I was five years old, but I could go out as the danger did not come from the air we breathe. The danger came from potential traitors … we were living with a permanent fear, even as children.”US WWII photographer Tony Vaccaro waves to the audience during the inauguration of the Tony Vaccaro Square, in front of the Saint-Briac-sur-Mer city hall, western France, June 7, 2014. (AP Photo/ Jean Sebastien Evrard, Pool) Amid the bleakness of the pandemic, some veterans still know how to win that 2020 war too — spurious comparison or not. Take Tony Vaccaro, 97. He was thrown into World War II with the 83rd Infantry division which fought, like Charles Shay, in Normandy, and then came to Schmetz’s doorstep for the Battle of the Bulge. On top of his military gear, he also carried a camera, and became a fashion and celebrity photographer after the war.COVID-19 caught up with him last month. Like everything bad life threw at him, he shook it off, attributing his survival to plain “fortune.”But for the longevity that is allowing him to celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE Day he has a different explanation. “Wine,” he said from his Queens, New York, home. “Red wine — Vino Rosso.”
Bug experts dismiss worry about US ‘murder hornets’ as hype-Entomologist May Berenbaum says mosquito is in fact the scariest insect, which WHO says causes millions of yearly deaths worldwide from malaria, dengue fever and other diseases-By Seth Borenstein-may 8,20-Today, 7:31 am
AP — Insect experts say people should calm down about the big bug with the nickname “murder hornet” — unless you are a beekeeper or a honeybee.The Asian giant hornets found in Washington state that grabbed headlines this week aren’t big killers of humans, although it does happen on rare occasions. But the world’s largest hornets do decapitate entire hives of honeybees, and that crucial food pollinator is already in big trouble.Numerous bug experts told The Associated Press that what they call hornet “hype” reminds them of the 1970s public scare when Africanized honeybees, nicknamed “killer bees,” started moving north from South America. While these more aggressive bees did make it up to Texas and the Southwest, they didn’t live up to the horror-movie moniker. However, they also do kill people in rare situations.This time it’s hornets with the homicidal nickname, which bug experts want to ditch.A dead Asian giant hornet sent from Japan is held on a pin by Sven Spichiger, an entomologist with the Washington State Department of Agriculture, May 4, 2020, in Olympia, Washington (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) “They are not ‘murder hornets.’ They are just hornets,” said Washington Agriculture Department entomologist Chris Looney, who is working on the state’s search for these large hornets.The facts are, experts said, two dead hornets were found in Washington last December, a lone Canadian live nest was found and wiped out last September and no live hornets have yet been seen this year.Looney has a message for Americans: These hornets are not coming to get you. “The number of people who are stung and have to seek medical attention is incredibly small,” he said in an interview.While its nickname exaggerates the human health threat, experts said this hornet is especially big — two inches long — so it does carry more and stronger toxin.“It’s a really nasty sting for humans,” said University of Georgia bee expert Keith Delaplane. “It’s like the Africanized bee … A dozen (stings) you are OK; 100 not so much.”University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum said of the worry: “People are afraid of the wrong thing. The scariest insect out there are mosquitoes. People don’t think twice about them. If anyone’s a murder insect, it would be a mosquito.”May Berenbaum, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reacts after President Barack Obama presented her the National Medal of Science during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Nov. 20, 2014 (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Mosquitoes are responsible for millions of yearly deaths worldwide from malaria, dengue fever and other diseases, according to the World Health Organization. Asian giant hornets at most kill a few dozen people a year and some experts said it’s probably far less.Hornet, wasp and bee stings kill on average 62 people a year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.In Japan, Korea and China, “people have co-existed with this hornet for thousands of years,” said Doug Yanega, senior scientist at the University of California Riverside Entomology Research Museum.Yet bug experts across the country are getting worried calls from people who wrongly think they saw the Asian hornet.“This is 99% media hype and frankly I’m getting tired of it,” said University of Delaware entomologist Doug Tallamy. “Murder hornet? Please.”Retired University of Montana bee expert Jerry Bromenshenk said in an email, “One nest, one individual hornet, hopefully, does not make an invasion. … Do we want this hornet — surely not. But the media hype is turbo charged.”For bees and the people who rely on them for a living this could be yet another massive problem, but it is not one yet.The number of US honeybees has been dropping for years, with the winter of 2018-19 one of the worst on record. That’s because of problems such as mites, diseases, pesticides and loss of food.The new hornets would be different. If they get into a hive, they tear the heads off worker bees and the hive pretty much dies. Asian honeybees have defenses — they start buzzing, raising the temperature and cook the invading hornet to death — but honeybees in America don’t.The worry for beekeeping in Washington is based on a worst-case scenario that officials have to take seriously, Looney said.Washington State Department of Agriculture entomologist Chris Looney puts a new lure into a trap after checking it for an Asian giant hornet, May 7, 2020, in Blaine, Washington (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, Pool) Yet even for bees, the invasive hornets are far down on the list of real threats, not as big a worry as the parasitic “zombie fly” because more of those have been seen in several states, Berenbaum said.For people, the hornets are scary because the world is already frightened by coronavirus and our innate fight-or-flight mechanisms are activated, putting people on edge, said risk expert David Ropeik, author of “How Risky Is It, Really?”“This year is unbelievable in a horrible, horrible way. Why shouldn’t there be murder hornets?” Berenbaum said.
