It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
ZIONISM EATS ITS OWN
Israeli minister gets 24/7 guard, blames Jewish extremists Israel's government minister for public security Omer Barlev speaks to the media at the scene of a Palestinian shooting attack in Jerusalem's Old City, Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021. Barlev says he is now under round-the-clock protection after coming under threats from Jewish extremists. Barlev sparked an uproar earlier this month when he criticized a wave of violence by West Bank settlers against Palestinian civilians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
(AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Mon, December 27, 2021
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's government minister for public security on Monday said he is now under round-the-clock protection after coming under threats from Jewish extremists.
Omer Barlev also accused members of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's pro-settler Yemina party of contributing to the fraught atmosphere.
Barlev sparked an uproar earlier this month when he criticized a wave of violence by West Bank settlers against Palestinian civilians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Barlev, who oversees the national police force, said U.S. officials had raised concerns about the settler violence with him and that he pledged to address the issue.
“I will continue to fight Palestinian terrorism as if there is no extremist settler violence — and extremist settler violence as if there is no Palestinian terrorism,” he said at the time.
Right-wing politicians, including members of the coalition government, lashed out at Barlev, and Bennett played down the violence as the acts of a “marginal” few. Opposition politicians have gone further, saying his comments have invited Palestinian violence.
In a Twitter post on Monday, Barlev said he was now under 24-hour protection. “I'm threatened by Israeli Jews,” he wrote.
At a weekly meeting of his Labor Party, Barlev blamed fellow coalition members from Bennett's Yamina party for “turning me into the enemy of all settlers, and one who doesn’t understand security and terrorism by Palestinians against Israeli citizens.”
ILLEGAL AIR STRIKE Israeli air strike targets Syrian port of Latakia: state media
Syria (AFP/Valentina BRESCHI)
Mon, December 27, 2021, 9:10 PM·2 min read
An Israeli air strike hit Syria's Latakia port on Tuesday, the second such attack on the key facility this month, according to Syrian state media.
Since the outbreak of Syria's civil war in 2011, Israel has routinely carried out air strikes on its strife-torn neighbour, mostly targeting Syrian government troops as well as allied Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters.
"At around 03:21 AM, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression with several missiles from the direction of the Mediterranean... targeting the container yard in Latakia port," Syrian state news agency SANA cited a military source as saying.
The strike caused "significant material damage" and led to fires, it added.
Asked about the strike, an Israeli army spokesman said: "We don't comment on reports in foreign media".
On December 7, Israel carried out strikes on an Iranian arms shipment at Latakia, located in President Bashar al-Assad's western Syrian heartland, without causing any casualties.
That earlier attack, which was the first on the facility since the start of the war, triggered a series of explosions, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor with a wide network of sources in Syria.
In November, three soldiers and two Syrian fighters affiliated with Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah were killed in Israeli strikes, according to the monitoring group.
While the Jewish state rarely comments on individual strikes it carries out on its northern neighbour -- with which it is officially at war -- it has confirmed hundreds since 2011.
According to a report by the Israeli army, it hit around 50 targets in Syria in 2020.
In the deadliest operation since the strikes began, Israel killed 57 regime force members and allied fighters in eastern Syria overnight on January 13, 2021.
The Israeli military has repeatedly defended the operations as a bid to prevent its archfoe Iran from gaining a foothold on its doorstep.
Israel's head of military intelligence, Major General Aharon Haliva, has accused Iran of "continuing to promote subversion and terror" in the Middle East.
In a shadow war, Israel has targeted Iran's military sites in Syria and also carried out a sabotage campaign in Iran against its nuclear programme.
Tehran has been a key supporter of the Syrian government in the decade-old conflict.
It finances, arms and commands a number of Syrian and foreign militia groups fighting alongside the regular armed forces, chief among them Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah group.
The conflict in Syria has killed nearly 500,000 people since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful demonstrations.
Bur-rh/lb/dva
Israeli missiles hit targets near a Russian military airbase [video]
DAMASCUS, ($1=2,512.55 Syrian Pounds) – Early Tuesday morning, December 28, Israel launched an airstrike on targets near the port of Syria’s Latakia, learned BulgarianMilitary.com, citing Russian, Syrian, and Israeli sources.
According to the information provided at the moment, the Israelis have hit Iranian targets in the port of the Mediterranean city, which is only 15-20 km from the largest Russian airbase in Syria – Khmeimim. The airstrikes caused major explosions and fires.
Russian military experts have commented on the situation, questioning the effectiveness of Russia’s air defense systems in the region, which have not responded to airstrikes. Analysts at BulgarianMilitary.com suggest that there was a notification from Tel Aviv to Moscow that such strikes would be carried out. This claim is supported by the fact that in recent months Israel has avoided strikes near the Russian airbase in order not to activate Russian air defense systems. Today’s silence on the S-300 from the Khmeimim base is clear evidence of prior notification from Israel.
Photo credit: The Times of Israel
The Syrian military says fighter jets have been used to strike at the port of Latakia, but this is unlikely as airspace over Syria is closed, except for Russian planes.
Today’s Israeli attacks have targeted Iranian targets, who are believed to be using the port of Latakia to transport weapons to be used in the next phase of attacks on Israel. There is no information about victims, but there is serious material damage. Israeli-Iranian proxy war / cold war
Communication between Israel and Iran is mostly threatening and hostile. Such has been the relationship between the two countries for a very long time. This situation is known as the proxy conflict, the proxy war, or the Cold War between the two countries.
The conflict “appeared” on the world map after the Iranian revolution in 1979. In all the years to this day, Iran aims to destroy Israel as a state. Tehran supports groups and organizations that are hostile to the Jewish state and people. On the other hand, Israel is worried about Iran’sIran’s nuclear program. The proximity of the two countries worries Tel Aviv that Iranians could use them against Israel if Iran has nuclear weapons. Israel also finds its allies in the face of the United States and Saudi Arabia, which are apparent opponents of Iran.
Thus, this conflict gradually turned into an Israeli-Iranian war. The competition has been going on since the start of the Syrian civil war. According to Iran, Israel rules by an illegitimate “Zionist regime,” a Tehran problem. Iran’sIran’s other point of reference is that the United States is hostile to Muslims because it supports Israel.
The civil war in Syria
The Syrian civil war has been going on for almost a decade. Attempts by movements such as the Syrian Democratic Forces to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have failed.
The Syrian democratic forces are armed by allies and the United States, while the Syrian army is armed mainly by Russia. Russia is the only country officially invited to Syria by President Bashar al-Assad.
In 2017, the United States launched a massive missile strike on Bashar al-Assad’s forces after a report emerged that the Syrian president had used chemical weapons to attack his people in the country. Syria and Russia deny such actions.
During his tenure, US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw much of US troops from Syria, leaving several troops to guard Syria’s oil fields on the pretext of “falling into the hands of Islamic State.”
With the withdrawal of the United States, Turkey comes to the fore, declaring it necessary to deal with the Kurds and the PKK movement in the northern part of the country, which borders Turkey. That is why Erdogan is sending troops in an attempt to build a stable and secure 30km zone between Syria and Turkey, which will prevent future terrorist attacks on Turkish territory, as it is.
***
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Israeli warplanes strike Syria’s Latakia port SANA says attack caused ‘significant material damage’
Ibrahim Mukhtar
|28.12.2021 ISTANBUL
Israeli warplanes struck the Syrian port of Latakia early Tuesday, in the second such attack this month, according to the state news agency SANA.
"The Israeli enemy carried out an air aggression at dawn today, with missiles from the direction of Mediterranean, west of the city of Latakia, targeting the container yard in the commercial port in Latakia," SANA said, citing a military source.
It said the attack caused “significant material damage”.
The agency said the Israeli attack targeted “oils and spare parts for machinery and cars”.
A hospital and a number of buildings sustained damage in the attack, SANA said, without giving any reports of casualties.
There was no comment from the Israeli military on the report.
In the last four years, regime-controlled areas in Syria have come under frequent Israeli attacks targeting sites and military bases used by regime forces and Iran-backed militias.
ECONOMIC WARFARE Syria reports 2nd Israeli attack on vital port in a month In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, firefighters work at the scene of missiles attack, at the seaport of the coastal city of Latakia, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021. Israeli missiles fired from the Mediterranean struck the Syrian port of Latakia early Tuesday, igniting a fire in the container terminal, Syrian state media reported, in the second such attack on the vital facility this month. (SANA via AP)More
Mon, December 27, 2021
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Israeli missiles fired from the Mediterranean struck the Syrian port of Latakia early Tuesday, igniting a fire in the container terminal, Syrian state media reported, in the second such attack on the vital facility this month.
It is also a rare targeting of the port handling most imports for Syria, which has been ravaged by a decade-old civil war and western-imposed sanctions.
The state news agency SANA quoted a military official as saying that Israeli missiles fired from the west of Latakia hit the port's container terminal, igniting fires that caused major damage. The unidentified official said firefighters were battling the flames for nearly an hour after the attack.
Syria's state-run Al-Ikhbariyah TV ran footage showing flames and smoke rising from the terminal. It reported damage to residential buildings, a hospital, shops and some tourist sites near the port.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from the missile attacks, which activated Syrian air defenses, according to SANA.
A similar attack was reported on Dec. 7, when Israeli warplanes targeted the container terminal, causing fires and explosions.
An Al-Ikhbariyah TV reporter in the area said Tuesday's attack appeared to have been larger and the explosions could be heard in Tartus, another coastal city more than 80 kilometers (nearly 50 miles) away. The reporter said ambulances were rushed to the scene but it remained unclear if there were any casualties.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitoring group, said at the time that the Dec. 7 airstrike hit arms shipments for Iran-backed fighters.
There was no comment from the Israeli military, which has conducted hundreds of airstrikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria during its 10-year civil war, but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.
Some past strikes have targeted the main airport in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Israel has acknowledged that it targets bases of Iran-allied militias, such as Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, which has fighters in Syria. It says it attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for the militias.
Israel hits Syrian port for second time this month - Syrian army Firefighters douse flames after Syrian state media reported an Israeli missile attack in a container storage area, at Syrian port of Latakia
Mon, December 27, 2021
AMMAN (Reuters) -Israel launched an air strike on Syria's main port of Latakia on Tuesday in the second such attack this month, the Syrian army said, setting ablaze the container storage area where two port sources said Iran has been storing munitions.
An Israeli military spokesperson declined to comment saying: "We don't comment on foreign reports."
Official Syrian reports made no mention of any casualties. A source familiar with the operations of the port said the strike hit a container area where large consignments of Iranian munitions that had arrived last month were stored.
"These blasts and huge fires were caused by the explosions from the munitions stored in a warehouse close to commercial cargo," the source who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter told Reuters.
Syrian state news agency SANA quoted the head of the Latakia fire brigade as saying the containers targeted in the strike contained oils and spare parts for machines and cars.
Israel has mounted frequent attacks against what it says are Iranian targets in Syria, where Tehran-backed forces led by Lebanon's Hezbollah have deployed over the last decade in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war.
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz, visiting an Israeli air-force base did not speak about the specific incident on Tuesday but warned his country would not allow Iran to use Syria to threaten Israel.
"I call upon the region's countries to stop Iran from violating their sovereignty and people. Israel will not allow Iran to funnel balance-breaching weapons to its proxies and threaten our citizens," Gantz said.
Another Syrian source familiar with Iranian military movements in Syria said Tehran had in recent months transferred weapons by sea as it sought to dodge intensified Israeli strikes that struck eastern Syria near a weapons supply corridor along the border with Iraq.
The drone strikes disabled several large weapons convoys sent by Tehran from Iraq, he added in information confirmed by a Western intelligence source.
Iran has expanded its military presence in Syria in recent years where it now has a foothold in most state-controlled areas where thousands of its militias and local paramilitary groups are under its command, Western intelligence sources say.
Citing a military source, SANA said Israel had carried out the air strike targeting the container storage area at 3.21 a.m. (0121 GMT), causing a fire and leading to "big material damages".
Fire fighters were working to extinguish the blaze, it quoted the head of the Latakia fire brigade as saying. Syrian state TV footage showed flames and smoke in the container area.
Citing its correspondent, state-run broadcaster al-Ikhbariya said a number of residential buildings, a hospital and a number of shops and tourist facilities had been damaged by the power of the blasts.
Russia, which has been Assad's most powerful ally during the war, operates an air base at Hmeimim some 20 kms (12 miles) away from Latakia.
(Reporting by Yasmin Hussein and Alaa Swilam in Cairo and Jeffrey Heller and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Writing by Alaa Swilam/ Tom Perry/ Suleiman al Khalidi; Editing by Michael Perry, Gareth Jones and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Fire contained after reported Israeli attack on Syrian port 1 / 9 In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, flames and smoke rise from burning containers at the scene of a missile attack, at the seaport of the coastal city of Latakia, Syria, early Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021. Israeli missiles fired from the Mediterranean struck the Syrian port of Latakia early Tuesday, igniting a fire in the container terminal, Syrian state media reported, in the second such attack on the vital facility this month.
(SANA via AP) SARAH EL DEEB Tue, December 28, 2021
BEIRUT (AP) — Firefighters contained a blaze that raged for hours in Syria's port of Latakia on Tuesday, officials said, hours after Israel launched missiles from the Mediterranean Sea, igniting the fire in the container terminal. It was the second such attack on the vital facility this month.
The early morning raid targeted the port that handles most of the imports to Syria, a country ravaged by a decade-old civil war and Western-imposed sanctions. Another attack took place Dec. 7, when Syrian media reported Israeli warplanes hit the container terminal, also igniting a major fire.
Syrian officials and state media said Tuesday's attack caused more damage and the explosion could be heard miles away. Syrian air defenses were activated when the missiles started to fall on the terminal at around 3:20 a.m., state media reported.
A military official said Israeli missiles were fired from the sea, west of Latakia, hitting the terminal and igniting fires that caused major damage. The unidentified official quoted by the official state news agency SANA said firefighters battled the flames after the attack.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from the missile attack, according to SANA.
Syria's state-run Al-Ikhbariyah TV ran footage showing flames and smoke rising from the terminal. It later aired images of broken glass and other damage at residential buildings and cars parked in the area near the port. It said a nearby hospital was also impacted.
An Al-Ikhbariyah reporter said Tuesday’s attack could be heard in Tartus, another coastal city more than 80 kilometers (nearly 50 miles) away.
Maj. Mohannad Jafaar, head of the Latakia fire department, said 12 fire trucks worked for hours to contain the fire. He said the containers that were hit held spare auto parts and oil but there were no casualties. Footage from the area showed large black plumes of smoke over the port as various fires burned around the terminal.
Port manager Amjad Suleiman told Al-Ikhbariyah the damage was much larger than that caused by the Dec. 7 attack and required a major effort to move in-tact containers away from the flames.
At the time of the Dec. 7 attack, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitoring group, said the airstrike hit arms shipments destined for Iran-backed fighters.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the reported strikes in Syria. But in a year-end statement issued by the military, chief of staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi boasted of success in disrupting weapons shipments to Israel’s enemies in the region.
“The increase in the scope of operations over the past year has led to a significant disruption of the movement of weapons into the various arenas by our enemies,” he said. The statement did not elaborate.
In its year-end assessment, the Israeli military confirmed carrying out strikes on dozens of targets in Syria in what it called “the campaign between the wars.” Three targets also were struck in Lebanon, it said. It gave no further details.
It also reported about 100 operations by the Israeli Navy, including dozens of “special operations.” It did not elaborate, but the navy operates in both the Mediterranean and Red seas.
The Israeli military rarely comments on individual attacks or discusses details of such operations.
Some past strikes have targeted the main airport in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
Israel says it targets bases of Iran-allied militias, such as Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, which has fighters in Syria. It says it attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for the militias.
___
Associated Press writer Joseph Federman contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
ILLEGAL OCCUPATION
Syria denounces Israeli plans to double number of Golan settlers
FILE PHOTO: Fences are seen on the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights
Mon, December 27, 2021,
BEIRUT (Reuters) -Syria on Monday condemned Israeli plans to double within five years the number of Jewish settlers in the Golan Heights captured from Syria in 1967 as a "dangerous and unprecedented escalation", Syrian state media reported.
"Syria strongly condemns the dangerous and unprecedented escalation by the Israeli occupation authorities" in the Golan, the state-run SANA news agency said, adding Damascus would seek to use all legally available means to retake the territory.
Speaking to Syrian TV station al-Ekhbariya, foreign minister Faisal Mekdad called Israel's actions against Syria "criminal" and said they violated the 1981 U.N. Resolution 497 declaring Israel's effective annexation of the Golan as "null and void."
Israel has mounted frequent attacks against what it describes as Iranian targets in Syria, where Tehran-backed forces including Lebanon's Hezbollah have deployed over the last decade to support President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's war.
Israel annexed the 1,200-square-kilometre (460-square-mile) Golan Heights in 1981, an action not recognised by the international community. Syria demands the return of the Golan, which also overlooks Lebanon and borders Jordan. (Reporting by Omar FahmyAdditional reporting by Lilian Wagdy Writing by Ahmad Elhamy in Cairo and Timour Azhari in Beirut;Editing by Howard Goller)
Massive New Bird Flu Outbreak Could Be 2022’s Deadly Pandemic
Noga Tarnopolsky Mon, December 27, 2021
Israel’s National Security Council has assumed control of a massive bird flu outbreak in the Galilee, which scientists warn could become a “mass disaster” for humans.
Over half a billion migrating birds pass through the area every year, heading for warm African winters or balmy European summers, making this a catastrophic location for a major bird flu outbreak—right at the nexus of global avian travel.
The virus can be deadly if it infects people. The World Health Organization says more than half of the confirmed 863 human cases it has tracked since 2003 proved fatal. Most strains or variants of avian flu, H5N1, are relatively difficult to transmit to people.
“There could be a mutation that also infects people and turns into a mass disaster,” said Leshem, a zoologist at Tel Aviv University and director of the International Center for the Study of Bird Migration at Latrun.
So far, at least 5,400 wild cranes have died infected with the new H5N1 avian flu, which Israeli authorities fear could expand into a global emergency.
Of the 30,000 Eurasian cranes passing this winter at the Hula Nature Reserve, 17 percent are dead, and scientists fear the worst for their surviving brethren, at least 10,000 of which appear to be ailing. The infection of the cranes is the same strain of avian flu which infected chicken coops throughout northern Israel, and led to the cull in recent days of nearly 1 million birds.
Israelis will be without their beloved chicken schnitzel—and without eggs—until a supply chain of imported birds is established.
The deaths of thousands of wild birds in the Hula Nature Reserve, one of the world’s premier bird sanctuaries, “is an extraordinary event with global ramifications,” warned Tel Aviv University Professor of Zoology Noga Kronfeld Shor in an interview with Reshet Bet Radio.
Shor, who is also the chief scientist at Israel’s Ministry of the Environment, noted that the carcasses of other waterbirds, such as pelicans and egrets, have already been found.
Israelis have been warned not to approach any wild bird that looks sick, and not to touch any bird droppings.
Yoav Motro, a specialist in vertebrates and locusts at Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture, said that for now, H5N1 is presenting “like the opposite of COVID. Compared to COVID, the chances of [humans] catching this are very, very slight—but unlike COVID, the risks of dying from it if you do catch it are very high.”
“It is a tragic ecological event,” he said. “And we simply do not know how it will end, or where it will lead.”
Israeli scientists don’t yet know the full scale of the die-off in Israel because of the dangers inherent in fishing around marshes and wetlands. Observing birds that shy away from human contact and the urgent matter of retrieving bird carcasses is proving even more challenging because of the lack of waterproof protective gear currently available in the arid country.
While the disaster is evident in the Hula Valley, in Israel’s fertile north, crane mortality has also been observed in other sites, though not yet in Jerusalem, according to Yotam Bashan of the Jerusalem Bird Observatory.
“There is no way to know what is going to happen,” Motro said in an interview with The Daily Beast. “When you identify avian flu in chicken coops you kill all the chickens and disinfect the coops. In the wild, at this level of infection, I don't know where it will lead. I’m worried.”
Shalom Bar Tal, an experienced wildlife photographer, told The Daily Beast that he was one of the only people allowed nocturnal access to observe the dead and dying birds. “It could turn into an ecological disaster no less significant than the corona epidemic,” he said.
For now, no Israeli is known to be infected with H5N1, but Israelis who were exposed to wild birds are taking the antiviral Tamiflu.
Both Motro and Bar Tal noted the heartrending scenes of weak, infected cranes leaning over their dead. Cranes mate for life and live in strong family units, Motro said. “That means that when one dies, the rest of the family—I don’t know how to define it—but it mourns.”
The cranes’ close physical proximity to one another and tight-knit family structure almost ensures, he said, that when one crane dies, “a close family member will be the next to die.”
“There is no treatment,” he said, “no way to help.”
We can only hope it doesn’t mutate and jump species.
Bird flu kills thousands of cranes in Israel, poultry also culled
Cranes gather during the migration season on a foggy morning at Hula Nature Reserve, in northern Israel
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -An outbreak of avian flu has killed more than 5,000 migratory cranes in Israel, prompting authorities to declare a popular nature reserve off-limits to visitors and warn of a possible egg shortage as poultry birds are culled as a precaution.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met his national security adviser and other experts to discuss efforts to contain the outbreak and prevent it passing into humans. So far no human transmission has been reported, Bennett's office said.
Israeli media said children who had visited the reserve may have touched a stricken crane and thus contributed to the spread of the flu. "This is the worst blow to wildlife in the country's history," Environment Minister Tamar Zandberg tweeted as rangers in hazardous material suits collected carcasses of the cranes from the lake at the Hula Nature Reserve and outlying marshes.
Hundreds of thousands of chickens had been culled, she said.
Authorities were looking to ease import quotas and bring in eggs from abroad to head off an egg shortage due to the cull.
(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Aliosn Williams)
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M Miami payday loan operator promised investors huge returns. SEC says they lost millions
Jay Weaver Tue, December 28, 2021
After his mother underwent brain surgery for cancer last year, Andres Zorrilla desperately needed to raise money for her post-op treatment and so he tried to withdraw $30,000 that he had invested in a Miami payday loan company.
But Zorrilla says Efrain Betancourt Jr., the CEO of Sky Group USA, LLC, blew him off, ignoring his stream of calls and an email about the “family crisis” along with an attached photo of his mother showing the surgical stitches on her head.
“That’s when I started to get suspicious and worried,” said Zorrilla, 38, who also referred his wife, her brother and several other business associates to Betancourt as investors in his Miami-based payday loan business.
“I found out it was all bulls---. ... The guy was just stealing money.”
All told, hundreds of investors — most from South Florida’s Venezuelan-American community — were dazzled by Betancourt’s polished sales pitch of high-interest returns on their investments in his short-term loan operation. Their faith in Betancourt, who falsely claimed to have law and computer engineering degrees in the United States, cost them dearly, according to court and other legal records.
In September, the Securities and Exchange Commission in Miami filed a civil lawsuit against Betancourt and his company, accusing them of committing securities violations in a scheme that authorities described as “affinity fraud.” In the civil enforcement action, the SEC says Betancourt and Sky Group sold more than 500 investors fraudulent promissory notes totaling $66 million. In effect, Betancourt raised millions from them to finance high-interest loans made to borrowers across the country.
According to the SEC complaint, Betancourt spent most of the money on a luxurious lifestyle — including a new Miami waterfront condo and a wedding to his fourth wife in Monaco — while using at least $19 million Ponzi-style to make interest payments to some investors to keep them at bay.
Betancourt, 33, and his company, Sky Group, are named as defendants in the SEC civil matter; they have not been charged criminally. Loan defense
Betancourt’s defense attorney in the SEC case, Mark David Hunter, did not return several email and phone messages seeking comment. In a motion to dismiss the SEC’s complaint, Hunter argued that promissory notes are not securities like stocks and bonds but rather are loans; therefore, his client and Sky Group did not break the law when they failed to pay back the lenders.
Zorrilla, who works in real estate financing in Miami, said he felt badly not only for himself but for his wife, her brother and several others whom he had introduced to Betancourt.
“He made a lot of money and went a little crazy with the money,” said Zorrilla, whose immediate family invested a total of $150,000 and received some interest payments but lost all of their principal. “That’s how he was able to get away with this Ponzi scheme for so long.”
Betancourt’s alleged scheme, outlined in the SEC complaint, lasted from January 2016 to just before the coronavirus pandemic struck the country in March 2020. As countless borrowers defaulted on their payday loans, his company, Sky Group, incurred a severe cash-flow problem and was unable to make interest payments on investors’ promissory notes.
Miami attorney Rick Diaz, who is representing Zorrilla, his wife, Melissa Montoya, and her brother, Juan Pablo Montoya, in efforts to recover their investment losses, described Betancourt as a “mini-Madoff.” His reference is to the late New York financial adviser, Bernard Madoff, who ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in the nation’s history.
“I’ve handled and deposed and defended Ponzi schemers over the years,” Diaz told the Miami Herald. “Efrain Betancourt is the smoothest, cruelest and most arrogant, selfish and narcissistic of them all.”
Earlier this month, Betancourt gave a deposition in which he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination while being questioned by Diaz. In a prior deposition, Betancourt, who was born in Venezuela and raised in the Miami area, admitted that he did not have law and computer engineering degrees in the United States. But he insisted that his payday loan business was legitimate, despite charging interest rates much higher than Florida’s annual cap of 18 percent. He also said that the people who invested in his company were “lenders” involved in financing short-term, high-interest loans. He called them “business transactions.”
“I made it very clear that they were investing into a payday portfolio,” Betancourt told Diaz in a May 2021 deposition. “Now the payday portfolio has risks.” Promise of high returns
According to the SEC’s complaint, Sky Group and Betancourt falsely told investors that the company would use investors’ money solely to make payday loans and cover the costs of such loans, promising them annual rates of return as high as 120 percent on the notes.
In reality, the complaint says, Betancourt misappropriated at least $2.9 million for personal use. Among his expenses: an extravagant wedding at a chateau on the French Riviera, vacations to Disney resorts and the Caribbean, and costs associated with the purchase of a luxury Miami condominium at Epic Residences on Biscayne Boulevard. He also used some of the money for service on his personal Piper airplane, SEC officials said.
Epic Residences has also sued Betancourt, claiming he owes more than $65,000 in condo and hotel assessments, according to court records.
Betancourt is also accused of transferring at least another $3.6 million to friends and family, including his ex-wife, Angelica Betancourt, and to EEB Capital Group LLC for “no apparent legitimate business purpose,” according to the SEC complaint. That company’s bank accounts were controlled by Betancourt and his current wife, Leidy Badillo, the complaint says.
In court papers, EEB Capital’s lawyer, James Sallah, acknowledged that Betancourt and his current wife, Badillo, were signatories on the company’s bank accounts but denied the SEC’s allegation that EEB received $1.5 million of Sky Group investors’ funds for “no apparent legitimate purpose.”
For her part, Angelica Betancourt denied that she received $1.2 million from Sky Group, as alleged in the SEC complaint. She said she only earned an annual salary of $60,000 from the payday loan company, according to her lawyer, Diaz, who also represents Zorrilla and others who sued her ex-husband.
In addition to the SEC complaint, there are at least a half-dozen lawsuits and arbitration cases filed against Betancourt and Sky Group.
Among the plaintiffs: Victor Segura and his daughter, Johanna Segura, who lost $200,000 after investing in his alleged loan scheme. They saw themselves as “investors,” not “lenders,” as Betancourt has tried to portray them and others in his defense. But the Seguras’ lawyers, Gerardo Vazquez and Steven Herzberg, counter that Betancourt has merely construed their investments as promissory notes to make them look like loans, not securities.
According to the Seguras’ federal lawsuit, “Sky Group and Betancourt used substantial investor funds for purposes other than the cash advances [to Payday loan borrowers], including paying for operating expenses and compensation to Sky Group’s executives ... along with payment of commissions to its unregistered advisors, brokers and sales agents.” SEC alleges fraud
SEC officials accused Betancourt of lying to his payday loan investors.
Their complaint alleges that Betancourt and Sky Group misled investors by promising extraordinary returns on their promissory notes and representing that the payday loan business was profitable, even though Sky Group did not generate enough revenues to cover principal and interest payments due to investors. Betancourt was able to circumvent Florida’s caps on usury rates by making the payday loans through Utah, which allows far higher loan terms, until his business model collapsed.
“The scheme unraveled in July 2019, when Betancourt told investors that Sky Group was suspending investor repayments on the notes,” according to the SEC complaint filed in Miami federal court. “Even then, Betancourt and Sky Group continued to lie, falsely blaming the suspension of repayments on a vendor responsible for processing the company’s investor repayments.”
“We continue to caution investors to be wary of any investment that promises returns that are too good to be true,” said Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office.
The SEC is seeking permanent injunctions against and financial penalties from the defendants.
Stereotypes about homelessness don’t measure up to reality. It’s more complex than it seems
Sara Busick Mon, December 27, 2021
I was taking an Uber to the CATCH office one day, when the usual small talk about who I am and what I do for a living ensued. “I work for CATCH. We work with people experiencing homelessness and help them find solutions to their housing crises as quickly as possible.”
“BAH!” the Uber driver replied. “From what I can tell most of them want to be homeless.”
Sara Busick
Forgetting how polarizing homelessness can be, I replied, “Well, the folks out here have experienced incredible amounts of trauma, and that is the main reason they are in the situation they’re in.”
The Uber driver scoffed, “Trauma? We all have trauma, don’t you have trauma? I have trauma, and I turned out fine. It’s people who don’t want to work for a living.”
At this point we pulled up to CATCH, and I exited the car. I was frustrated with this man and how he talked about the people I serve.
But then my social worker training kicked in. The driver’s life experiences had led him to believe that people experiencing homelessness are there because of a failing of their own moral character, and not as a victim of incredible and insurmountable circumstances.
People do not like to be around situations that make them uncomfortable. We tend to try to avoid or rationalize them to restore our own comfort. And let me tell you, the reality of homelessness is extremely uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable to think about experiencing homelessness yourself, and it is uncomfortable to think about the fact that we live in a system, as a nation, where homelessness is seen as something acceptable as long as you’ve done something to “deserve it.”
Homelessness is more complex than anyone might realize. People experiencing homelessness in Ada County are incredibly vulnerable. They are generally disabled in some way, physically, mentally, or both. Sixty percent of the people I work with have an income and are victims of circumstance to a booming housing market. One in four of them is over the age of 62. And roughly 1/3 of the families we serve are women who are fleeing domestic violence.
Those are uncomfortable statistics and to stomach it, we dehumanize it. We attach that moral failing of character as the why behind someone’s homelessness. We tell ourselves that these are “bad people” who “chose this life,” that fixing the issue is “on them,” and that it’s simply “their fault.”
In reality, it’s more complex than that. There are many things outside of their realm of control: generational poverty; growing up in broken systems; survival; systemic racism; inadequate resources; and so much more. What we are seeing is the fallout of unstable systems play out right here in our community. And that can be scary.
I know this to be true through the work that I do. It is an uphill battle. Working in homeless services, I’ve met some of the kindest, funniest, and wisest people I’ve ever known, with amazing stories of resilience. And it is for them that I continue to fight for solutions.
Join me in ending homlessness in the Treasure Valley. Educate yourself and others on the reality of homlessness. Connect service providers, like those of us at CATCH, with property developers and owners to provide housing. Volunteer for organizations that are often understaffed and overworked. And more than anything, when you encounter someone experiencing homelessness, choose to look them in the eye and honor them with the same dignity you would any other human.
Sara Busick serves as CATCH’s Program Director for Our Path Home Connect. The program works with 50+ partnership agencies to connect people experiencing a housing crisis to resources aimed at resolving their situation as quickly as possible.
The long history of how Jesus came to resemble a white European
Anna Swartwood House, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of South Carolina Tue, December 28, 2021 Painting depicting transfiguration of Jesus, a story in the New Testament when Jesus becomes radiant upon a mountain. Artist Raphael /Collections Hallwyl Museum, CC BY-SA
The portrayal of Jesus as a white, European man has come under renewed scrutiny during this period of introspection over the legacy of racism in society.
As protesters called for the removal of Confederate statues in the U.S., activist Shaun King went further, suggesting that murals and artwork depicting “white Jesus” should “come down.”
As a European Renaissance art historian, I study the evolving image of Jesus Christ from A.D. 1350 to 1600. Some of the best-known depictions of Christ, from Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” to Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, were produced during this period.
But the all-time most-reproduced image of Jesus comes from another period. It is Warner Sallman’s light-eyed, light-haired “Head of Christ” from 1940. Sallman, a former commercial artist who created art for advertising campaigns, successfully marketed this picture worldwide.
Through Sallman’s partnerships with two Christian publishing companies, one Protestant and one Catholic, the Head of Christ came to be included on everything from prayer cards to stained glass, faux oil paintings, calendars, hymnals and night lights.
Sallman’s painting culminates a long tradition of white Europeans creating and disseminating pictures of Christ made in their own image. In search of the holy face
The historical Jesus likely had the brown eyes and skin of other first-century Jews from Galilee, a region in biblical Israel. But no one knows exactly what Jesus looked like. There are no known images of Jesus from his lifetime, and while the Old Testament Kings Saul and David are explicitly called tall and handsome in the Bible, there is little indication of Jesus’ appearance in the Old or New Testaments. ‘The Good Shepherd.’ Joseph Wilpert
Even these texts are contradictory: The Old Testament prophet Isaiah reads that the coming savior “had no beauty or majesty,” while the Book of Psalms claims he was “fairer than the children of men,” the word “fair” referring to physical beauty.
The earliest images of Jesus Christ emerged in the first through third centuries A.D., amidst concerns about idolatry. They were less about capturing the actual appearance of Christ than about clarifying his role as a ruler or as a savior.
To clearly indicate these roles, early Christian artists often relied on syncretism, meaning they combined visual formats from other cultures.
Probably the most popular syncretic image is Christ as the Good Shepherd, a beardless, youthful figure based on pagan representations of Orpheus, Hermes and Apollo.
In other common depictions, Christ wears the toga or other attributes of the emperor. The theologian Richard Viladesau argues that the mature bearded Christ, with long hair in the “Syrian” style, combines characteristics of the Greek god Zeus and the Old Testament figure Samson, among others. Christ as self-portraitist
The first portraits of Christ, in the sense of authoritative likenesses, were believed to be self-portraits: the miraculous “image not made by human hands,” or acheiropoietos. Acheiropoietos. Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow
This belief originated in the seventh century A.D., based on a legend that Christ healed King Abgar of Edessa in modern-day Urfa, Turkey, through a miraculous image of his face, now known as the Mandylion.
A similar legend adopted by Western Christianity between the 11th and 14th centuries recounts how, before his death by crucifixion, Christ left an impression of his face on the veil of Saint Veronica, an image known as the volto santo, or “Holy Face.”
These two images, along with other similar relics, have formed the basis of iconic traditions about the “true image” of Christ.
From the perspective of art history, these artifacts reinforced an already standardized image of a bearded Christ with shoulder-length, dark hair.
In the Renaissance, European artists began to combine the icon and the portrait, making Christ in their own likeness. This happened for a variety of reasons, from identifying with the human suffering of Christ to commenting on one’s own creative power.
The 15th-century Sicilian painter Antonello da Messina, for example, painted small pictures of the suffering Christ formatted exactly like his portraits of regular people, with the subject positioned between a fictive parapet and a plain black background and signed “Antonello da Messina painted me.”
The 16th-century German artist Albrecht Dürer blurred the line between the holy face and his own image in a famous self-portrait of 1500. In this, he posed frontally like an icon, with his beard and luxuriant shoulder-length hair recalling Christ’s. The “AD” monogram could stand equally for “Albrecht Dürer” or “Anno Domini” – “in the year of our Lord.” In whose image?
This phenomenon was not restricted to Europe: There are 16th- and 17th-century pictures of Jesus with, for example, Ethiopian and Indian features.
In Europe, however, the image of a light-skinned European Christ began to influence other parts of the world through European trade and colonization.
The Italian painter Andrea Mantegna’s “Adoration of the Magi” from A.D. 1505 features three distinct magi, who, according to one contemporary tradition, came from Africa, the Middle East and Asia. They present expensive objects of porcelain, agate and brass that would have been prized imports from China and the Persian and Ottoman empires.
But Jesus’ light skin and blues eyes suggest that he is not Middle Eastern but European-born. And the faux-Hebrew script embroidered on Mary’s cuffs and hemline belie a complicated relationship to the Judaism of the Holy Family.
In Mantegna’s Italy, anti-Semitic myths were already prevalent among the majority Christian population, with Jewish people often segregated to their own quarters of major cities.
Artists tried to distance Jesus and his parents from their Jewishness. Even seemingly small attributes like pierced ears – earrings were associated with Jewish women, their removal with a conversion to Christianity – could represent a transition toward the Christianity represented by Jesus.
Much later, anti-Semitic forces in Europe including the Nazis would attempt to divorce Jesus totally from his Judaism in favor of an Aryan stereotype. White Jesus abroad
As Europeans colonized increasingly farther-flung lands, they brought a European Jesus with them. Jesuit missionaries established painting schools that taught new converts Christian art in a European mode.
A small altarpiece made in the school of Giovanni Niccolò, the Italian Jesuit who founded the “Seminary of Painters” in Kumamoto, Japan, around 1590, combines a traditional Japanese gilt and mother-of-pearl shrine with a painting of a distinctly white, European Madonna and Child.
In colonial Latin America – called “New Spain” by European colonists – images of a white Jesus reinforced a caste system where white, Christian Europeans occupied the top tier, while those with darker skin from perceived intermixing with native populations ranked considerably lower.
Artist Nicolas Correa’s 1695 painting of Saint Rose of Lima, the first Catholic saint born in “New Spain,” shows her metaphorical marriage to a blond, light-skinned Christ. Legacies of likeness
In a multiracial but unequal America, there was a disproportionate representation of a white Jesus in the media. It wasn’t only Warner Sallman’s Head of Christ that was depicted widely; a large proportion of actors who have played Jesus on television and film have been white with blue eyes.
Pictures of Jesus historically have served many purposes, from symbolically presenting his power to depicting his actual likeness. But representation matters, and viewers need to understand the complicated history of the images of Christ they consume.
Durham renters told they needed to be gone by New Year’s until media got involved
Sara Pequeño Mon, December 27, 2021
Surrounded by houses with Christmas decorations and “Black Lives Matter” yard signs, a set of properties in Durham’s Walltown neighborhood stood bare the Monday before Christmas, save for the crowd and their white boards standing between two of the buildings.
The group — organizers, neighbors, elected officials and a few camera crews — were gathered around the residents of Braswell Properties apartments physically and figuratively.
On Nov. 29, the people living in the homes received a letter from Reformation Asset Management, a company representing new ownership, telling the 12 families living in the duplexes that they had to be out by New Year’s Eve or face legal consequences. That changed after the tenants went to the media last week — now, the property manager says they have more time.
Let’s be clear: The property manager appears to have done nothing that violates North Carolina’s tenant laws. But this also is true: at least a dozen households are going through the intense stressors of finding a new home and moving, in the busiest month of year, in a season of goodwill, in a city that is rapidly pushing out underserved members of the community.
“They are being very ugly,” resident Janice Sanchez said at the press conference. “They don’t want to even do nothing to even try to give us a break. So this is where we are at. It’s Christmastime, [but] we can’t even think on that level.”
Sanchez, a mother and grandmother, said she had only been renting for a few months when she was sent the notice.
Charles Bulthuis, the owner of Reformation Asset Management and new manager of the property, said the previous owner had informed tenants in October that he intended to sell and told them not to pay rent for November or December.
Varon Braswell, the son of the properties’ longtime owner, said he never asked Bulthuis or his company to take over conversations with the neighbors, since the deeds were not officially signed until the week the tenants spoke out. He also did not instruct the group to stall rent payments.
“You could’ve had a little bit more compassion, just throwing letters out telling them to vacate,” Braswell said of Bulthuis. “I wouldn’t have dared authorize that.”
Bulthuis said his employees have attempted to contact the current residents and assist them in finding new, similarly priced apartments, but have had difficulty getting cooperation.
Resident Luz Romero said her experience has contradicted that.
“I have [been] calling RAM since the first week we got the letter and I don’t get an answer back,” she said in a written statement. “I have also emailed them. Till this day I have no answer. For RAM to say that is outrageous.”
The new property owners, two Chapel Hill residents who have asked Bulthuis to speak on their behalf, are concerned about being fined or sued because of the previous owner’s inaction.
Some residents say the city has been contacted over the years, but with little progress. The City of Durham only has three complaints about these particular properties, and visited two of the homes in the last week. The city found that in both homes, the repairs needed would not require removing the tenants. Bulthuis disagrees, but he said last week that tenants will no longer be required to leave by the 31st. The non-profit Housing for New Hope stepped up to assist the residents after seeing the story in the media.
That’s good. But this entire situation shows who is least important in Durham’s cutthroat housing market, and those who get the worst of it are the residents receiving mixed messages from two different landlords about what’s happening.
These residents are immigrants, children, the elderly, and most importantly, the people we allow to be collateral damage in development, even if the development means better, still affordable housing. It’s why conversations about development get so complicated any time they arise, and in the Triangle, they arise often. If not a story with a clear villain, the story of Braswell Properties in Durham is a story with clear victims.
Northeastern State University grad, Miss Indian Oklahoma to share passion for STEM careers
Examiner Enterprise Staff Reports Tue, December 28, 2021 2021-22 Miss Indian Oklahoma Madison Whitekiller
TAHLEQUAH — Cherokee Nation citizen Madison Whitekiller’s education at Northeastern State University began as a non-STEM major despite her interest in the field.
The 2021-2022 Miss Indian Oklahoma winner said she had never met a Native American in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) field before starting her education at the university.
However, with the support of mentors like Dr. Cammi Valdez, assistant professor of chemistry at NSU, Whitekiller was able to make the transition to a biochemistry major and begin laboratory research on campus.
Now, Whitekiller is hoping to use her role as Miss Indian Oklahoma to encourage young Native Americans to pursue the same field she has grown so passionate about.
“I want to use my year as Miss Indian Oklahoma to encourage the students who have a passion for STEM to pursue it and help better our tribes in the process,” Whitekiller said.
Whitekiller graduated from NSU with her bachelor’s degree on Dec. 18 but will continue to fulfill her duties as Miss Indian Oklahoma as part of her post-graduation life by being involved in tribal communities through cultural appearances and service events.
The Oklahoma Federation of Indian Women started the Miss Indian Oklahoma pageant in 1973. Today the competition focuses not only on the beauty of the American Indian woman, but also their current issues, academics and cultural traditions. Whitekiller was crowned the latest Miss Indian Oklahoma in November.
Whitekiller, who grew up in Verdigris, attributes much of her personal growth to the community of educators and students at NSU, namely those at the Native American Support Center, Center for Tribal Studies and the chemistry department.
After graduation, Whitekiller plans to attend medical school to become a physician and serve tribal communities.
“I want to train to become a physician and work in rural or underserved communities with a high Native American population,” Whitekiller said. “Indigenous people face incredibly high rates of health disparities, and I want to have even just a small impact on reducing these rates.”
'Way to honor Native Americans': Local man leading way on Warrior's Path project
Charles Romans, The Daily Independent, Ashland, Ky. Mon, December 27, 2021
Dec. 27—GRAYSON — When local man Max Hammond spoke before the Grayson City Council earlier this month, the information he presented concerned the Warrior's Path, an ancient trail winding its way through Kentucky.
"The path stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes," Hammond said. "And to our great fortune, the Warrior's Path crosses through the heart of eastern Kentucky."
Hammond said the Paleo Indians, the Adena and the Hopewell were the first people who walked this path, adding that the path was so old Indigenous people followed the mastodon upon it. "But the path for me begins with the War of 1812."
Hammond said that a few years ago a gentleman had reached out to him and said he possessed artifacts that had been handed down to him through the generations of his family.
The man's great-great-great grandfather came into the area in the 1700s and had a son. That son became known as Colonel Plummer. At the onset of the War of 1812 a group of miners had been sent to Carter Caves, into a particular cave known as Saltpeter Cave. And as the miners began to dig, they uncovered some remarkable artifacts, Hammond said. It was Colonel Plummer who instructed the miners to save these artifacts rather than cast them aside.
Colonel Plummer was the long Scout for the miners, scouting out locations where components of gunpowder might be found. As he searched, Hammond said that Colonel Plummer would look under rock outcroppings and natural shelters for those things all through Carter County.
"He found things that have no comparison anywhere in the known world," Hammond said. What he found, Hammond said, were things that the Smithsonian Institute would love to have. Colonel Plummer found sites that had not been looted or undergone any sort of archeological excavation.
"He found objects laying on top of the ground and on top of boulders," Hammond said. "He found them as if the Native Americans had just walked away from them."
The gunpowder they made from the saltpeter and the bat guano was used during the War of 1812, Hammond told the council.
"We don't talk much about the War of 1812, but other than WWI and WWII, it was probably the most important war to the state of Kentucky," Hammond said. "The reason it is important to Kentucky is that it started at Fort Boonesboro in about 1778. It started when a British General and a Shawnee Chief marched down from Chillicothe to Fort Boonesboro and laid siege to it. And from that point onward it was a constant war between the British, Native Americans and Kentuckians."
Hammond said Kentuckians figured prominently in that war and suffered great losses, including war crimes the equivalent of murder perpetrated by the British and their allies. In total, Hammond said 64% of the known casualties suffered in the War of 1812 were suffered by Kentuckians that fought as far north as Detroit and into Canada. Along with the gunpowder made from Kentucky materials, 468 cannonballs made in Kentucky were used in the last battle of that war, the Battle of New Orleans.
"This path will celebrate that," Hammond said. "And it is the first path in Kentucky that also honors and celebrates the Native Americans.
"When Mister Plummer came to me with all of these amazing artifacts," Hammond said, "I thought the best way to get a museum to show off these artifacts was to get a trail that celebrated the Native Americans."
Hammond said, unknown to him at the time, there was a marker in southern Kentucky showing the Warrior's Path. Once he was introduced to the woman who had researched it, Hammond said they applied to the National Parks Service for a trail that would run from the Cumberland Gap to the Ohio River.
"This is a way to honor Native Americans, and tell the whole story of Kentucky," Hammond said.
"It's a story about the pioneers and the Native Americans," he said. "The good, the bad, and the ugly. We aren't going to pull any punches, and we are going to expel the myth that we were all taught in school that no Native Americans ever lived in the state of Kentucky."
Hammond said the Warrior's Path project has been approved by the National Park Service and the Kentucky Native American Heritage Commission. They are working with 20 counties and other agencies on the project, Hammond said.
"The National Parks Service said that they intend to make this a nationally recognized trail, if we meet a few conditions," he said, adding that these conditions were things the group had already planned to do.
"One condition is that this will be a multi-use trail," Hammond said. The group intends for it to be a motorized trail a hiking trail, a mountain bike trail, a kayak trail and a horseback trail. And one day perhaps connect it with its southern and northern roots.
Hammond said the different legs of the Warrior's Path can become important from a tourism standpoint as well, but its most important contributions will be historical and cultural.
"This was a very important area to so many Native American people," Hammond said. "It was a hub of culture and trade which many have forgotten or chosen not to remember. And we need to change that."
