Amy Levy: the queer Jewish writer revered by Oscar Wilde but shunned by Victorian society

Largely unknown and unread, Amy Levy gave a voice to the silenced. Annie Lord reflects on a distant relative who challenged women’s place in society

Making waves: Levy’s work influenced modernists such as Virginia Woolf

In a dramatic monologue written by Victorian Jewish poet Amy Levy, a 17-year-old Xantippe sits at the loom. Newly married to Socrates, she is increasingly embittered at the life she is consigned to. “I spun until, methinks, I spun away/ The soul from out of my body, the high thoughts/ From out of my spirit.” She had thought that when she married Socrates, he might let her into his world of ideas. But he never thought her worthy: “I think, if he had stooped a little, and cared/ I might have risen nearer to his height/ And not lain shattered, neither fit for use/ As goodly household vessel, nor for that/ Finer thing which I had hoped to be.”

These lines, from “Xantippe”, were written in 1880 when Levy was just 20 years old. An ancient heroine taught to be nothing but gentle and quiet is a sad enough story on its own. But it is sadder still to know that 2,000 years after Xanthippe, the woman who gave her a voice suffered a patriarchal dismissal of her own. After receiving much criticism for her work, Levy died by suicide aged 27.

I know of Levy’s existence by chance. One day, at a rest stop on the M62, my granny brought out a copy of her completed works and told me I was very distantly related to her. I remember the car sickness more than I remember the story, but as I got older, I wanted to learn more about the woman with the dense fluffy eyebrows who sits unsmiling and straight-backed on the cover. Reading Levy all these years later – though I don’t believe in ghosts – I thank her for battling to write and to escape marriage. It is thanks to women like her that I get to live in a world where I can do the former, with almost no pressure to do the latter.

Born in London to a middle-class family, Levy was the first Jewish woman to attend Newham College in Cambridge. There she suffered an onslaught of antisemitism and sexism. It got so bad, in fact, that she felt compelled to leave. But she eventually found her people, attending the British Library reading rooms where she cultivated friendships with members of London’s intelligentsia, including Olive Schreiner, Clementina Black and Eleanor Marx.

In her short life, she published three novels and three books of poetry, many of which are still difficult to find in print. Though her writing influenced modernists such as William Butler Yeats and Virginia Woolf, it is only now that Levy is beginning to gain the recognition she deserves. Current critics describe how her work formed part of the “new woman movement” – a precursor to feminism which considered women’s presence in the public sphere. In Levy’s obituary, Oscar Wilde commended the presence of “sincerity, directness, and melancholy” in her work. Of her second novel, Reuben Sachs, he said, “Its uncompromising truths, its depth of feeling, and, above all, its absence of any single superfluous word, make it, in some sort, a classic.” He continued: “To write thus at six-and-twenty is given to very few.”

Not everyone was a fan. The comical, overblown portrayal of many of the Jewish characters in Reuben Sachs led to virulent attacks on Levy from the London Jewish community, who accused her of a spineless attack on her own. This and her ingratiation in radical and feminist organisations such as the Men and Women’s Club meant Levy was often subject to criticisms from all sides. Politically controversial, Levy was largely unknown and unread.
Being a woman in the Victorian era meant being oppressed. In workhouses those who “gossiped” were forced to wear scold’s bridles, iron muzzles which held down the tongue in order to render the wearer mute. Women who read too much or masturbated were deemed “crazy” and risked being chained up in Victorian “insane asylums”. In “Xantippe”, Levy spoke of the “lesson of dumb patience” women were forced to learn, and she continues this critique of women’s role in society through much of her work. In “A Ballad of Religion and Marriage”, Levy described marriage unceremoniously as the “domestic round of boiled and roast” and Christianity’s Father, Son and Holy Ghost sarcastically as “Pale and Defeated, rise and go”.

Another poem, “Magdelen”, is narrated by a “fallen” woman who is dying in a religious penitentiary where she was sent to redeem her former sins. Either a sex worker or a woman who had sex outside of marriage, she laments how strange it is that the lover she left behind is able to hurt her when she cared for him so much. Here, Levy writes of the “bare, blank” sunless rooms, “the parcelled hours; the pallet hard”, the “dreary faces here within” and a number of other punishments levelled against a woman whose only crime was love.

Often taking on a male voice in her writing, Levy addressed many of her poems to women lovers she had. In “Sinfonia Eroica”, a concert musician observes a woman called Sylvia in the audience: “Then back you lean’d your head, and I could note/ The upward outline of your perfect throat.” In a later poem “To Vernon Lee” – the pen name of Violet Paget, an author and scholar who travelled with Levy and who many believe to have been her romantic partner – two people exchange flowers and glances at each other’s bodies. “A snowy blackthorn flowered beyond my reach/ You broke a branch and gave it to me there/ I found for you a scarlet blossom rare.”

Much of Levy’s love went unrequited. Often in her writing, this draws her towards thoughts of death. “To live – it is my doom – / Lonely as in a tomb,” she writes in “Religion”. Seen through her eyes, the world is grey and tainted, a place of unimaginable pain not worth enduring. “The dust in his throat, the worm in his eyes” begins an “Epitaph on a common person who died in bed”. She seems to think he’s better off in the ground: “He will never stretch out his hands in vain/ Groping and groping – never again. Never ask for bread and get a stone instead.”

At age 26, Levy wrote her second novel, Reuben Sachs, a Jane Austen-style romance between the aspiring young lawyer Reuben and his poor cousin Judith. In a particularly telling moment, Reuben’s mother and sister sit “in the growing dusk, amid the plush ottomans, stamped velvet tables, and other Philistine splendours” of their drawing room. He enters the house and asks, “Why do women always invariably sit in the dark?” There’s a dual meaning at play in his words. You hope the gutsy, spirited protagonist Judith might find the light, but she places her happiness in the hands of patriarchal society. Soon after marrying her rich but dull suitor Bertie Harrison-Lee, Judith realises her mistake. It’s already too late. “There is nothing more terrible, more tragic,” writes Levy, ”than this ignorance of a woman of her own nature, her own possibilities, her own passions.”

Levy’s satirical critique of what she perceived as “materialistic values and preoccupations of the middle-class London Jewish community” – as Meri-Jane Rochelson, associate professor of English at Florida International University, put it – angered many of her critics. “[Levy] apparently delights in the task of persuading the general public that her own kith and kin are the most hideous type of vulgarity,” one reviewer wrote in The Jewish World, in 1889. “She revels in misrepresentations of their customs and the modes of thought.” Shunned by the Jewish community for what they perceived as an attack on their culture, and rejected by high society for her controversial views on the role of women, Levy was pushed out of both where she came from and where she had tried to belong.

No one knows why Levy chose to end her life – whether it was the criticisms levelled against her, the constraints placed on women, her unrequited loves, her worsening deafness, her depression, or a toxic combination of them all. In the ending lines of her “Xantippe”, the now elderly heroine challenges her maids: “Why stand ye so in silence?” she asks, commanding them to open the windows so that she can escape her room’s stale air and drink up the sun: “Throw it wide/ The casement, quick, why tarry? – give me air – O fling it wide I say, and give me light!” I wish the world had given Levy light. We suffer the loss of what more she had to bring.

DEAD AT 103

Vera Lynn, singer, born 20 March 1917, died 18 June 2020

Dame Vera Lynn death: Singer and Second World War ‘Forces’ Sweetheart’ dies aged 103

Lynn died surrounded by her close family
Ellie Harrison
1 hour ago

Dame Vera Lynn, the British singer whose songs were hugely popular during the Second World War, has died aged 103.

A statement from her family said: "The family are deeply saddened to announce the passing of one of Britain's best-loved entertainers at the age of 103.

"Dame Vera Lynn, who lived in Ditchling, East Sussex, passed away earlier today, 18 June 2020, surrounded by her close family."

Lynn was widely known as "the Forces' Sweetheart" as her performances inspired and gave hope to troops in Egypt, India, and Burma during the war.

The songs most associated with her include "We'll Meet Again" and "The White Cliffs of Dover".

She was born in 1917 in the London suburb of East Ham, the daughter of a plumber. After discovering her talent for singing early on, she was performing in local clubs by the age of seven. At 11, she left school to pursue a career as a dancer and singer.

Lynn celebrated her 103rd birthday in March, marking the occasion by releasing a new video for "We’ll Meet Again", including a voiceover aimed at cheering up the British public during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We are facing a very challenging time at the moment, and I know many people are worried about the future,” she said.

“I’m greatly encouraged that despite these struggles, we have seen people joining together.

“Music is so good for the soul, and during these hard times we must all help each other to find moments of joy.”

Dame Vera Lynn: War-time singer who spoke to the heart of a nation

Her signature tune, ‘We’ll Meet Again’, struck a deep chord from the home front to the front line

Robin Cross THE INDEPENDENT

The WWII icon recently spoke of the bravery and sacrifice of those that lived through the Second World War ( Getty )

For those who lived through the Second World War few names are more evocative of the period than that of Dame Vera Lynn, and no song more calculated to stir the embers of nostalgia than her signature tune, “We’ll Meet Again”. Its promise of reunion “some sunny day” spoke directly to families separated by war, and its appeal to “keep smiling through” struck a deep chord from the home front to the front line.

Just this year the Queen referenced the song in an extraordinary address to the nation at the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown. In an effort to calm the country and reassure families that had been separated by the unprecedented restrictions, the monarch insisted that Britons “will meet again”.

A photograph taken in the summer of 1942 captures Lynn’s unforced and unassuming personality, one of the keys to her stamina in a show business career which spanned many decades. Out in Pimlico and doing her bit on a recruiting drive for London’s Fire Guard, Vera shares a mug of tea with the troops outside a mobile canteen, Tea Car No 110. Smartly dressed and surrounded by servicemen grinning bashfully in the presence of a star, she retains the gawky charm of the girl next door, just the sort of date the soldiers’ mothers wanted their sons to bring home. The pneumatic American movie star Betty Grable was the “Forces’ Pin-Up”, but the homely Lynn – “Our Vera” – was the “Forces’ Sweetheart”.

Vera Margaret Welch was brought up in a working-class home in the flat, straight streets of London’s East Ham. The family had modest show business connections – her Uncle George did a George Robey impersonation in working men’s clubs and her father was master of ceremonies at the Saturday-night dances held in the East Ham Working Men’s Club.

The clubs were Vera’s training ground. She made her professional debut at the age of seven as a “distinctive child vocalist”, singing such 24-carat tearjerkers as “What is a Mammy, Daddy?” at venues like the Mildmay Club in Newington Green, where the rows of seats had ledges on their backs for beer glasses and the chairman and club committee sat in front of the stage at a long table. 

Starring in ‘One Exciting Night’, 1944 (Rex)

The clubs of north and east London were a tough school for the tall, thin girl with a penetrating low-pitched voice: 7/6d for three songs and 1/6d for an encore. After seven years of singing in the clubs, and a lengthy stint with a juvenile troupe rejoicing in the name of Madame Harris’ Kracker Kabaret Kids, young Vera was an accomplished professional and a familiar figure in the Denmark Street offices of music publishers. Vera Welch had also become Vera Lynn, adopting her grandmother’s more comfortable sounding maiden name for professional purposes.

Her first break came when she was spotted singing at the Poplar Baths by Howard Baker, London’s self-styled “gig king”, whose agency ran up to 20 bands bearing his name. As a “croonette” with Baker, Lynn mastered microphone technique and developed her distinctive plangent style. Most of her songs needed to be transposed down into unusual keys, automatically giving them a “different” sound which was reinforced by great clarity of phrasing and the transparently sincere delivery of simple, sentimental lyrics. As Lynn later observed, “I sang as if I believed in them because I did believe them.”

From 1935 Lynn began a purposeful ascent of the show business ladder, although there were some early setbacks: a disastrous engagement with Billy Cotton, a bandleader notoriously hostile to female vocalists, which ended after 10 days; and rejection by Henry Hall after an audition for the BBC Dance Orchestra. The up-and-coming Joe Loss was more sympathetic and Vera made her radio debut with him before moving over to sing with Charlie Kunz’ Casini Club orchestra. Her first solo record, released in February 1936, had “Up the Wooden Steps to Bedfordshire” on the A-side, backed by “That’s What Loneliness Means to Me”.

After 18 months with Kunz, Lynn joined the suave Bert Ambrose, whose orchestra was the leading dance band of the day. Ambrose was originally doubtful about her suitability. His new vocalist had no pretensions to chic and he already had a popular female singer in the shape of the American Evelyn Hall, with whom Lynn was later to conduct a long, smouldering feud. However, Ambrose’s manager Joe Brannelly, another American, convinced Ambrose of Lynn’s talent and she made her debut with his band in the Radio Luxembourg studio at Bush House in a programme sponsored by Lifebuoy soap – hygiene by radio was all the rage in the 1930s. At first she was not a full-time member of the Ambrose set-up, joining him for radio broadcasts and recording sessions. Later Vera sang with the Ambrose Octet, which toured the variety theatres at the top of the bill.

Now earning £40 a week, Lynn was able to afford previously undreamt-of luxuries, including a nine-room house in Barking purchased for £1,175. She also paid £200 for a green Austin 10 in which she drove home every night straight after the show, politely declining all invitations to clubs and parties.

War had already broken out when she recorded “We’ll Meet Again” in November 1939. It was the first of three wartime songs which she made her own. “The White Cliffs of Dover”, improbably invested with bluebirds, struck a straightforwardly patriotic note while the third, “Yours”, was a romantic song of yearning and separation.

Lynn left Ambrose to go solo in the summer of 1940, popularising “Yours” in the revue Applesauce which co-starred Max Miller. It was not the stage, however, but radio which was to immortalise her. During the war the BBC bound together the nation at home and the forces overseas. In April, 1940 Lynn had been voted the British Expeditionary Force’s favourite singer, well ahead of Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland and Bing Crosby. Soon the BBC was deluged with letters from servicemen asking Vera to sing their requests on the air. The result was a half-hour show, Sincerely Yours, produced by Howard Thomas and broadcast every Sunday night on the Forces Programme immediately after the nine o’clock news.

“Sincerely Yours”, which began in November 1941 and ran until 1947, established Lynn’s unique relationship with the men of the forces and their families at home. The original billing in The Radio Times read: “To the men of the Forces: a letter in words and music from Vera Lynn, accompanied by Fred Hartley and his orchestra.” To establish an intimate link with individuals in an audience which swelled to nearly seven million, Lynn visited hospitals and nursing homes before the show so that she could tell Gunner Jones or Bombardier Brown that his wife had just had a baby and that mother and child were doing fine. Fellow broadcaster Wilfred Pickles paid her this tribute: “When Vera visited hospitals and then, on the Forces Programme, told the fighting men about their new babies, she was not merely reading a script; she really saw every child – and took flowers to all the mothers.”

Lynn’s immense popularity led to starring roles in three undemanding films, We’ll Meet Again (1942), Rhythm Serenade (1943) and One Exciting Night. The last was released in 1944, during which she made a gruelling ENSA tour of North Africa, the Middle East and the Arakan front in Burma. In the Far East she played to her smallest-ever audience, two badly wounded soldiers in a casualty clearing station.
With troops in Burma, 1942 (Rex)

The strain of the war years caught up with Lynn in the autumn of 1945 when she collapsed on stage in Sheffield. Her daughter Virginia was born in March 1946, and she did not return to work until February 1947, in the depths of an Arctic winter which left Lynn and her family snowbound in their house on the Sussex Downs. Relations with the BBC also became frosty, and in 1949 she was told by the corporation’s head of light entertainment: that her kind of music was finished and that she should change her style. Friendly relations with the BBC were not resumed for seven years.

In fact Lynn was entering the busiest period of her life, shrewdly managed by her eagle-eyed husband Harry Lewis, a former member of the Ambrose orchestra and Squadronnaire, whom she had married in 1941.

In 1952, while she was starring in London Laughs at the Adelphi Theatre, Lynn topped the charts in Britain and the United States with “Auf wiederseh’n, Sweetheart”. Her unflappability steered her past the reefs of rock’n’roll and through the minefields of live television (she was already a veteran, having made her first TV broadcast from the Alexandra Palace in 1938). She made regular overseas forays, to Australia and New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, and was also in constant demand in Scandinavia and Holland, where her wartime broadcasts were fondly remembered by an audience who risked their lives to listen to them.

In spite of the onset of emphysema in the late 1960s, she kept fit and continued to work hard, showing a stately turn of foot amid the flailing flares of the Young Generation in her BBC television series of the 1970s.

Lynn established an intimate link with her audiences (Rex)

In 1968 she was awarded the OBE and seven years later was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She was a tireless worker for charities and in the early 1990s lent her weight to the campaign for war widows’ pensions. On the 50th anniversary of VE-Day, in 2005, she made a surprise appearance at a celebratory concert in Trafalgar Square, delivering a speech praising British veterans of the Second World War, calling on the younger generation to remember their sacrifice and, movingly, closing with a few bars of “We’ll Meet Again”. In the same year, following the Royal British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance, she urged the Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins to assume the mantle of Forces’ Sweetheart. She reminded her audience of the dead and wounded in contemporary conflicts, telling them, “Those boys gave their lives and some came home badly injured, and for some families, life would never be the same. We should always remember, we should never forget and we should teach the children to remember.”

The singer was still dipping in and out of public life in her final years. In June 2019, she recorded a voice message to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day. In the recording, which was played to a Royal British Legion cruise, she said: “Hello boys, Vera Lynn here. I wish you and your carers a memorable trip to Normandy. It will be nostalgic and sure to bring back lots of memories. Rest assured we will never forget all you did for us. I’m sending you all my best wishes for the trip.”

And on the eve of the 75th anniversary of VE Day this year, she spoke of the bravery and sacrifice of those that lived through the Second World War. “Hope remains even in the most difficult of times,” she said.

In 1962, Lynn won a Gold Disc for a stirring version of “Land of Hope and Glory”, but her attempt to rekindle the spirit of wartime solidarity during the Falklands conflict with an ill-judged flag-wagger, “The Land I Love”, fell on deaf ears. Forty years on Britain was another country. Nevertheless, in 1989 the enduring affection in which she was held by the British public was demonstrated by the huge queues of fans who waited patiently for Vera to sign copies of her personal account of the wartime home front, We’ll Meet Again. The book was a No 1 best-seller and was followed in 1990 by a sequel, Unsung Heroines, a celebration of women’s contribution to the war effort. Her unflagging professionalism, and perfect pitch, were in evidence at the book’s launch in the display hall of the Imperial War Museum where, under the looming bulk of a German V-2 rocket, she treated her guests to a flawless unaccompanied rendering of the song which made her famous, “We’ll Meet Again”.

Vera Lynn, singer, born 20 March 1917, died 18 June 2020

RADIO BLASTS WITH 'REGULAR RHYTHMS' AND UNKNOWN ORIGIN COMING FROM SPACE, SCIENTISTS SAY


New detections represent the 'the most definitive pattern we’ve seen from one of these sources', according to researchers
Andrew Griffin THE INDEPENDENT 6/18/2020

Researchers have picked up strange, repeating rhythms in blasts of energy coming from an unknown source in space.

The blasts are known as fast radio bursts, or FRBs, and are coming to Earth in a stable, repeating pattern, according to a new paper detailing the discovery.

Researchers still do not know the source of those bursts. Though they must come from some very extreme, intense part of the universe, there is no way of knowing what process gives rise to them.

The first FRB was picked up in 2007 and scientists have gone on to find more than 100 since. Initially, they were detected only as individual blasts, but in recent times researchers have found repeating sources.

Now astronomers have started to find bursts repeating in a pattern, where they seem to switch off and on in a predictable pattern.
Read more

Scientists find exact location of radio blasts coming from space

The latest discovery sends out random bursts of radio waves over a four-day window, and then goes quiet for 12 days, before beginning again.

Researchers watched the bursts for more than 500 days, noting that the 16-day pattern occurred consistently over that time, making it the most definitive pattern yet seen.

“This FRB we’re reporting now is like clockwork,” says Kiyoshi Masui, assistant professor of physics in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

“It’s the most definitive pattern we’ve seen from one of these sources. And it’s a big clue that we can use to start hunting down the physics of what’s causing these bright flashes, which nobody really understands.”

The discovery is reported in a new article, titled 'Periodic activity from a fast radio burst source', published in Nature today.

The latest FRBs were picked up by CHIME, a radio telescope in British Columbia that began its work in 2017. Since then, it quickly started picking up FRBs, using a technique that allows it to stare at the entire sky rather than moving around if and when any burst is detected.

The repeating nature of the burst could give new insight into where they are coming from.

Possibilities include one single object such as a neutron star that is spinning and wobbling in space. That could explain the pattern to the blasts, since the 16-day period may be the time it takes for the object to spin around, with the four days of activity the ones in which it is pointing towards us.

The blasts could also be the result of a binary system such as a neutron star orbiting around another neutron star or black hole. The pattern could be the result of the orbit between , and the interaction between the two objects, which would explain their regular pattern, scientists say.

Another involves a static radio source that is going around a central star – that star could be letting out a cloud of gas that magnify the radio emissions and send them powerfully towards Earth. The repeating pattern could therefore be an indication of when that source travels through its clouds.

The CHIME telescope works to keep exploring FRB, measuring one roughly each day. It will also keep watching the newly discovered burst, and any changes in its properties could offer an important hint about where it is coming from.

Rayshard Brooks death: Trump says 'you can't resist a police officer like that' and claims officer 'heard a shot'


President complains that police were unfairly treated during protests

Gino Spocchia


Donald Trump has described Rayshard Brooks' death as a “terrible situation” whilst appearing to lay blame the black victim, saying “you can’t resist a police officer.”

The US president’s comments came on Fox News on Wednesday night after the Atlanta cop who shot Brooks dead last week, Garrett Rolfe, was charged with felony murder among other charges.

“I thought it was a terrible situation, but you can’t resist a police officer,” Mr Trump told Sean Hannity on Fox News. “And, you know, if you have a disagreement you have to take it up after the fact.”

Prosecutors said 27-year-old Brooks, who had stolen a stun gun from officers before attempting to leave the scene outside an Atlanta Wendy’s last week, posed no threat when police shot and killed him.

The white Atlanta cop was also said to have kicked Brooks, who was then wounded on the ground, and denied medical treatment for some time.

Still, the president said on Wednesday that whilst Brooks’s death was “very sad,” US police departments had “have not been treated fairly in our country, but again, you can’t resist a police officer”

The president added that he had seen a report from Rolfe’s lawyer which argued the policeman had “heard a sound like ... a gunshot” before shooting Brooks.

“So that’s an interesting, you know, I don’t know” if “I necessarily believe that...but that’s a very interesting thing”, said Mr Trump.


“I hope he gets a fair shake because police have not been treated fairly in our country,” said the president. “They ended up in a very terrible disagreement and look at the way it ended. Very bad. Very bad.”

Atlanta’s police chief walked-out this weekend over Brooks’s death, as demonstrations against systemic racism and police violence continue amid calls for both police abolishment and reform.

The president on Tuesday signed an executive order banning chokeholds in certain situations, some four weeks on from George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody on 25 May.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/rayshard-brooks-death-trump-police-officer-resist-charge-shooting-a9572321.html

In Yemen, a deadly concoction of arms sales, conflict and Covid-19


Without a ceasefire, a humanitarian catastrophe fuelled
by Western arms shipments is about to get much worse.

Yemeni Houthi loyalists at a tribal gathering in Sana’a, 20 February 2020 (Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)

Published 10 Jun 2020 REBECCA BARBER


In April, the UN Security Council issued a statement endorsing the UN Secretary-General’s call for a ceasefire in Yemen to better enable a response to Covid-19. The Council recognised that the humanitarian crisis in Yemen made the country “exceptionally vulnerable”, and that any further military escalation would “hinder the access of humanitarian and healthcare workers and the availability of healthcare facilities”.

The Council is right to be concerned. Thus far, Yemen has confirmed just 469 Covid-19 infections. But testing rates are among the lowest in the world, and the fatality rate – at 24% – is one of the highest, suggesting that the real caseload is much higher. The UN Secretary General said last week that there was “every reason to believe that community transmission is already underway across the country”.

Even without Covid-19, after more than five years of war, Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The conflict has devastated the economy, destroyed civilian infrastructure and brought the provision of basic services to the brink of collapse. The health system has been particularly hard hit. Hospitals have been bombed, only half the country’s health facilities are fully functioning, power cuts are common, and items such as personal protective equipment and ventilators are in short supply.


As concerns about the spread of Covid-19 in Yemen have escalated, arms sales have continued.

The conflict in Yemen has been fuelled by arms supplied by foreign states to the Saudi Arabian–led international coalition (or SLC), which since 2015 has been engaged in a military campaign to oust the Houthi rebels. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest arms importer. Most of its arms come from the US, followed by the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Canada. Other SLC members Egypt and the UAE are also among the world’s leading arms importers, receiving most of their weapons from the US and France.

Since 2015, arms exports to the SLC have continued despite overwhelming evidence that the SLC has been violating human rights and international humanitarian law in Yemen. Most of the civilians killed in the conflict have been killed in SLC airstrikes, many of which have targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure – schools, houses, markets, farms, factories. Some of these attacks were carried out with weapons supplied by Western states. A report released by human rights organisations last year documented 27 “apparently unlawful Saudi/UAE-led Coalition attacks” on civilian homes, educational and health facilities, businesses and gatherings that appeared to have used weapons made in the US or UK.

The supply of arms to the SLC has prompted efforts to block arms sales through legislative and judicial processes. Last year the UK Court of Appeal ruled that the UK Government had acted illegally by exporting arms to Saudi Arabia without assessing whether the SLC had been violating international humanitarian law. In the US, Congress has repeatedly tried to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia, but every time has been overruled by presidential veto. The European Parliament has called for an EU-wide arms embargo on Saudi Arabia.
UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock (onscreen) briefs members of the Security Council during a video teleconference on the situation in Yemen, 16 April 2020 (UN Photo)

As concerns about the spread of Covid-19 in Yemen have escalated, arms sales have continued. In April, Canada lifted a moratorium on arms exports to Saudi Arabia, and in May, the US approved a possible sale of thousands of armoured vehicles to the UAE. Germany has approved US$341 million in arms sales to Egypt and $8.5 million to the UAE this year alone.

In other words, members of the Security Council have called for a ceasefire while simultaneously providing arms to enable the fighting in Yemen to continue.

This is not the only irony in the Security Council’s response to the conflict. The other is that in 2014 the Council established a sanctions regime for those found to be violating international human rights and humanitarian law. It established a Panel of Experts to review the evidence and help it decide whom to impose sanctions on. Every year since 2016, the Panel of Experts has reported to the Council that all parties to the conflict in Yemen have violated human rights and international humanitarian law, and it has recommended that sanctions be imposed against individuals from all parties. The Security Council has responded by imposing sanctions and an arms embargo against Houthi-aligned individuals, while studiously ignoring the evidence regarding the SLC’s airstrikes and violations of human rights and international humanitarian law – that is to say: the evidence from its own Panel of Experts, which it established for the specific purpose of assisting it to designate individuals and entities to be subject to sanctions.

To be clear: states such as the US, the UK, France, Canada, Germany and others who have supplied arms to the SLC have contributed to the destruction of Yemen’s infrastructure. In doing so, they have aided in the collapse of Yemen’s healthcare system, and thus increased the country’s vulnerability to Covid-19. These countries should now hold themselves responsible for enabling a response to the outbreak. This means immediately ceasing arms sales to members of the SLC, funding the humanitarian response to enable aid agencies to respond to Covid-19, and supporting a Security Council resolution that extends the existing sanctions regime to include individuals engaged in violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, from all sides of the conflict.

FAA 'made mistakes' with 737 Max oversight, agency chief says


Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Steve Dickson speaks during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Pool Photo by Graeme Jennings/UPI | License Photo
June 17 (UPI) -- The head of the Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged Wednesday that the agency and Boeing "made mistakes" that led to two 737 Max aircraft crashing within months of each other and killing hundreds of people.

Members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation ripped into FAA Administrator Steve Dickson during a hearing examining the agency's process of certifying aircraft.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accused Dickson of not taking responsibility for the FAA's faults when the latter used passive voice to tell lawmakers "mistakes were made."

"So, unknown somebodies made unspecified mistakes for which there were no repercussions," Cruz said. "What mistakes were made and who made them?"

Dickson rephrased his remark.

"The manufacturer made mistakes and the FAA made mistakes in its oversight. The full implications of the flight control system were not understood as design changes were made," he said.

Boeing and individual governments worldwide grounded the 737 Max in spring 2019 after the crashes occurred over the span of about six months.

Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the Java Sea on Oct. 29, 2018, killing all 189 passengers and crew on board. The plane was en route from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang -- both in Indonesia.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed months later on March 10, 2019, in Bishoftu, Ethiopia, about 6 minutes after takeoff. The crash killed all 157 on board who were en route from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Nairobi, Kenya.

Aviation investigators linked both crashes to a malfunction of the planes' Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, which can affect pitch in an aircraft. When pilots attempted to respond to the system, it caused them to nose dive.
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Senators at Wednesday's hearing accused the FAA of stonewalling a congressional investigation into the agency's certification process.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said there was a "lack of responsiveness" to the panel's request for documents.

"It's hard not to conclude your team at the FAA has deliberately attempted to keep us in the dark," he told Dickson.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Mass., said that since Dickson took control of the FAA, the "culture of secrecy ... has only been aggravated."

"The fact of the matter is that the FAA has been complicit in these crashes by failing to do more diligent oversight," he said.

The senator said the FAA should do more of the work of evaluating aircraft instead of simply overseeing as manufacturers conduct tests.

As Dickson testified, an attendee raised a sign behind him featuring photos of crash victims.

Michael Stumo, the father of Flight 302 passenger Samya Stumo, testified in the afternoon.

"The first crash should not have happened," he said. "The second crash is inexcusable.

"They gambled, we lost."
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New diamond frog species found in northern Madagascar


Though the coloration of the new species, Rhombophryne ellae, is unlike most other diamond frogs, its red to orange flash markings on its legs are common among hopping amphibians. Photo by Mark D. Scherz

June 16 (UPI) -- Scientists have discovered a new species of diamond frog in the dense tropical forests of northern Madagascar. The new species, Rhombophryne ellae, belongs to a genus that has doubled in diversity over last decade.

The diamond frog was found inside northern Madagascar's Montagne d'Ambre National Park, which is known for its rich biodiversity.

While the national park's flora and fauna are relatively well-studied, its forests continue to offer up previously undescribed species.

In recent years, the park's reptile and amphibian populations have offered scientists a wealth of surprises. Rhombophryne ellae -- described Tuesday in the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution -- is only the latest.

"As soon as I saw this frog, I knew it was a new species," lead researcher Mark D. Scherz said in a news release. "The orange flash-markings on the legs and the large black spots on the hip made it immediately obvious to me.

"During my master's and Ph.D. research, I studied this genus and described several species," said Scherz, herpetologist with the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology in Germany. "There are no described species with such orange legs, and only few species have these black markings on the hip."

Often, new species look so similar to their relatives that scientists must resort to DNA analysis to confirm two species are genetically -- and taxonomically -- distinct. The new diamond frog species is so visibly distinct, scientists didn't need to wait for the genomic sequencing results -- they knew.

The newly named frog's closest relative is an undescribed frog from Tsaratanana, an area 300 miles south of Montagne d'Ambre National Park.

Though the new species is quite different from most other diamond frogs, he is one of many hopping amphibians to boast red to orange flash-markings. Although the color pattern has evolved dozens of times in frogs, scientists still aren't sure of its function.

Now that Rhombophryne ellae is official in the scientific literature, Scherz and his colleagues will turn their attention to the frog's unnamed relatives. In Madagascar, the work of biological discovery is never-ending.

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"The discovery of such a distinctive species within a comparatively well-studied park points towards the gaps in our knowledge of the amphibians of the tropics," Scherz said.

"It also highlights the role that bad weather, especially cyclones, can play in bringing otherwise hidden frogs out of hiding -- Rhombophryne ellae was caught just as Cyclone Ava was moving in on Madagascar, and several other species my colleagues and I have recently described were also caught under similar cyclonic conditions," he said.

State Department approves $862.3M sale of Sidewinder missiles to Canada


Captain Steve Boatright, an F-16C Fighting Falcon pilot with the 34th Fighter Squadron "Rude Rams", located at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, fires an AIM-9M Sidewinder heat-seeking missile at an MQM-107 "Streaker" sub-scale aerial target drone over the Gulf of Mexico recently. Photo by Michael Ammons/U.S. Air Force | License Photo

June 16 (UPI) -- The State Department announced Tuesday that it had approved a possible $862.3 million sale of 50 Sidewinder AIM-9X Block II Tactical missiles and related equipment to the Canadian government.

"This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to improve the military capability of Canada, a NATO ally that is an important force for ensuring political stability and economic progress and a contributor to military, peacekeeping and humanitarian operations around the world," said DSCA's statement.

According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the government of Canada requested 50) Sidewinder AIM-9X Block II Tactical missiles; 50 Sidewinder AIM-9X Block II Captive Air Training Missiles, 10 Sidewinder AIM-9X Block II Special Air Training Missiles and assorted related equipment, as well as technical and logistics support, upgrades to the Advanced Distributed Combat Training System to ensure flight trainers remain current with the new technologies and software development.

The prime contractors on this deal will be Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing and Collins Aerospace.

In April 2019 Raytheon was awarded a $12.1 million contract for AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles for the United States and 21 allies.

The AIM-9X Sidewinder missile includes advanced infrared-tracking, short-range, air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles, and the Block II variant has a redesigned fuse and a digital ignition safety device to enhance ground handling and in-flight safety.

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About 1 in 7 worldwide can't afford food or shelter, survey shows

A displaced girl waits for water at a temporary shelter in Kabul, Afghanistan, on April 29. Gallup's index listed Afghanistan as the nation with the greatest share of citizens in the "high" vulnerability range. File Photo by Hedayatullah Amid/EPA-EFE

June 16 (UPI) -- About 750 million people worldwide are unable to afford food or shelter, or both, according to a new research report published Tuesday.

Gallup reported in its Basic Needs Vulnerability Index that about one in seven adults classify as part of the "high vulnerability" group, meaning they struggle to afford food and/or shelter and don't have any support systems.

The figures, compiled in almost 150 countries last year, said every nation has "high vulnerability" populations. Afghanistan has the greatest share in this group, 50 percent, and several nations -- including Britain, Sweden and Singapore -- have the lowest share at 1 percent.

Gallup's index found that a person's health plays a factor in their vulnerability classification.

"More than four in 10 of the highly vulnerable (41 percent) say they have health problems that keep them from doing activities that people their age normally do," Gallup wrote. "This percentage drops to 29 percent among those who are moderately vulnerable and to 14 percent among those with low vulnerability."

Nearly half of the world's population, 47 percent, is in the "low" vulnerability category -- those who can afford food and shelter and have supporting systems like relatives or friends.

Thirty-nine percent fell into the "moderate" category -- those who, at times, were unable to afford the basics but have friends or family for support.

Other very highly vulnerable populations were found in Benin (49 percent), Malawi (36 percent) and Togo (34 percent). India, home to one of the world's fastest-growing economies, is listed in the "high" category with 30 percent of its population vulnerable.

Five percent of the United States fell into the "high" vulnerability group, tied with Russia, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.

Gallup surveyed more than 140,000 people in 142 nations to compile the index, which has a margin of error between 1.5 and 5.4 points.
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Researchers baffled by 'completely weird' underwater tornado

May 27 (UPI) -- Researchers said a tornadolike formation caught on camera off the coast of Australia was "completely weird."

Schmidt Ocean Institute researchers were performing live commentary on a live-stream video of a remotely operated vehicle dive in Coral Sea Marine Park, off the Queensland coast, when the underwater tornado appeared on the sea floor.

The commentators described the formation as "amazing," "completely weird" and "really unusual."

Marine geologist Robin Beaman, one of the scientists performing the commentary, said the formation was reminiscent of a benthic storm, which involves waves traveling under the surface and creating turbulence near the ocean floor.

The scientists said they do not know the cause of the whirling water.