My daughter started screaming and I couldn't breathe. The moment a single rocket destroyed my neighbourhood in Gaza

'Yahoo News - Insights’ is a new series in which we hear directly from people with an inside track of the big issues. Here, Palestinian aid worker Mahmoud Shalabi talks about his experience of Gaza's internet blackout and his neighbourhood being destroyed.


Yahoo News Staff
Thu, 2 November 2023 

Mahmoud Shalabi, Senior Programme Manager in Gaza for Medical Aid for Palestinians. Mahmoud and his family live in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza.

Mahmoud Shalabi is senior programme manager in Gaza for the UK charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. He lives with his wife and three children in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza. Despite the risk of Israeli bombing raids, he has stayed at home to distribute aid to people in desperate need.

In a voice note taken on Sunday, sent to Yahoo News via WhatsApp, Shalabi shares a harrowing account of the moment “one simple rocket” killed 10 people and destroyed his neighbourhood in the middle of a blackout. This is an edited version of his voicenote. You can watch a video taken by Shalabi lower down in this article

I have no idea what the type of bombs that were used were but they were really devastating and vicious. We were just hoping that this bombardment would never reach us.

That night we barely slept. The next day, around 5pm, I was sitting with my kids on the sofa and suddenly there was a huge explosion – I've never heard this sound before.

My child, my daughter, she started screaming and panically, hysterically crying. I hugged her and I made sure that she's okay.

I told her there is nothing wrong with us, we are all okay, hamdulillah [praise be to God], there's nothing happening to us and I made sure that all my children, the three of them, were sitting together and that their mum was next to them and then I went outside.

Mahmoud Shalabi is determined to stay in his hometown to help those in need (Medical Aid for Palestinians) (Medical Aid for Palestinians)

I opened the door and I honestly could not see in front of me and could not breathe.

It was grey. It was cement. It was gunpowder. It was everything. Tiny particles scattered all over around me and I couldn't actually go out. I shut the door closed. I took one of the masks - the remnants of COVID-19 - soaked it in water put it on my nose and mouth and went outside.

My neighbourhood was destroyed - one simple rocket, just one rocket that hit a neighbour’s home without warning and totally destroyed that neighbour’s home and around seven adjacent homes around it. At least 10 of my neighbours were killed, including children - and many others were injured - let alone the panic that happened in the children and the women. The fear I saw in the eyes of people.

Watch Shalabi's harrowing description of a rocket strike in Gaza

My neighbourhood is full of the colour grey - I hate the colour grey now. Everything is covered in rubble; everything is covered in particles of cement and gunpowder and it's very dangerous to walk right now in my neighbourhood. The aerial bombardments continued all around us, we didn't manage to sleep.

The attacks were coupled with the blackout of the internet and the telecommunication in Gaza City, all of Gaza Strip actually, so we didn't have signals.

We didn't have the 2G network which we were using to send simple WhatsApp messages that were reaching our loved ones. Minutes later, we weren’t able to call, we weren't able to have proper internet connection when there wasn’t electricity. It meant a total blackout and total darkness for the people in Gaza, so we weren't actually aware what was happening around us.

Vehicles and buildings were caked with grey dust following the airstrike 

(Mahmoud Shalabi/Medical Aid for Palestinians)

This was all coupled with rumours that the Israelis were about to have a very vast ground invasion, so you can imagine the level of anxiety that the people were living in.

I was awake at 4am, I couldn't sleep and suddenly the phone started buzzing. The network returned, immediately I started receiving phone calls from my sisters who are internally displaced in Gaza now in the south asking about how we were, because we couldn't reach each other. We started immediately calling our loved ones making sure that they know we are safe and that we are still standing in the north of Gaza.

Mahmoud Shalabi says he 'hates the colour grey now' following the airstrike 

(Mahmoud Shalabi/Medical Aid for Palestinians) 

What was really scary in the cut of the networks was the fact that when an airstrike happened you couldn't reach the civil defence and the ambulance services and tell them that there was an airstrike happening.

The best people could do at that stage is, if there was a car available - a neighbour’s car, a taxi, whatever - to take some of the injured people or the killed to the nearest hospital. They would immediately start informing the civil defence and the ambulance services at the location.

I'm still safe, my family is all safe, but I'm not sure what's going to happen next.

A ceasefire would be really welcome at this stage, as the basic commodities in the north of Gaza are very scarce right now. Every time you go to the local shop near you there is nothing and it becomes even emptier and emptier as the days pass.

Mahmoud Shalabi told how several families lost their homes as a result of one single rocket (Mahmoud Shalabi/Medical Aid for Palestinians) 

The water pipe that used to provide water for my neighbourhood has been hit two days ago, so I haven't had water since Thursday. The list goes on.

As a humanitarian, I am unable to do my work because of the lack of communication, but also due to the fact that suppliers in the north of Gaza have no items available, and - if there are items available - they need cash in advance to be able to secure items and to deliver them.

And with the closure of the banks and the fact that the majority of them actually are not functioning in the north of Gaza, this is impossible.

So, I can't as a humanitarian even do my work. I can't help the people who are still standing in the north of Gaza in the schools who are internally displaced at their relatives houses etc.

I'm asking for safe corridors, I'm asking for a ceasefire and for this bloodshed to stop.

Edited by James Hockaday

UK Tories stoke culture wars at 'anti-woke' conference

Peter HUTCHISON
Thu, 2 November 2023 

Similar debates about 'culture war' issues have been had in the United States (Oli SCARFF)

Right-wing thinkers from around the world gathered in London this week, giving an indication of how far Britain's ruling Conservative party could make the so-called culture wars an issue for the general election and beyond.

Speakers at the inaugural Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference railed against "woke capitalism", lamented Western decline and hit out at economic regulation and multiculturalism.

"The culture war matters," Conservative MP Danny Kruger, from the right wing of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's party, told AFP after interviewing former Australian leader John Howard on stage.

"A lot of Conservatives think that it's a distraction, that it's just the concern of rival fanatics on either side.

"Actually, it's about the core character of our country and about the future for our children."

Prominent Tory lawmakers mixed with high-profile US Republicans and online Conservative influencers and television personalities during the three-day event in Greenwich, which ended Wednesday.

Organisers billed the gathering as a "major" get-together of international political, business, and cultural leaders who want alternatives to "big government and top-down solutions".

UK government ministers Michael Gove and Kemi Badenoch spoke, as did former US House of Representatives speaker Kevin McCarthy, controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and US TV doctor Mehmet Oz.

Current House speaker and Donald Trump ally Mike Johnson and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination Vivek Ramaswamy both addressed the conference virtually.

Ramaswamy slammed "woke capitalism", dubbing it a "cancer" on society, while McCarthy hit out at "the impact of cancel culture" and called for an end to "victimhood".

- Drift right -

Right-wing broadcaster GB News -- which employs several Tory MPs as presenters and recently announced the signing of former prime minister Boris Johnson -- had a stand at the conference.

British financier Paul Marshall, the channel's major investor, sits on ARC's advisory board.

He suggested that "crony capitalism" could reduce free market capitalism to "a form of corporatism not so different to socialism itself".

Marshall joined Ramaswamy and others in criticising Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards related to ethical investment.

The gathering comes after the National Conservatism Conference held in May, a similar meeting which was also seen as evidence of the Tories' drift to the right.

The Conservatives lag well behind the main opposition Labour party in most opinion polls ahead of a general election that Sunak must call by the end of next year.

The Tory leader has indicated he will push culture war issues as he tries to see off Keir Starmer's centre-left party to win a fifth-consecutive term for the Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010.

Sunak has rolled back green energy policies, pledged to stop small boats carrying migrants from France and referenced gender identity as he tries to put clear water between the two parties.

- Immigration -

He told his party's conference last month: "We shouldn't get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can't."

"I think the Prime Minister's instincts are very good on these questions," said Kruger, 49.

"So, I'm encouraged by what I see him say. I think on policy though we do need to do more, certainly on migration (and) also on the curriculum in our schools and our family policy.

"The question is whether he's able to push the necessary changes through what is a very resistant political machine," he added, hinting at opposition from those on the centre of the party.

During her address, fellow Conservative MP Miriam Cates bemoaned the "erosion of family life," adding: "Unless fertility rate decline is reversed we are heading for a future of certain economic stagnation or destabilising mass immigration or both."

A defeat for the Conservatives at the next election is likely to lead to a bitter fight for the direction of the party.

Business Secretary Badenoch, tipped by many as a possible future leader, told the conference that companies and individuals should not be "distracted by all sorts of silly things, like pronouns and what critical race theory is saying and measuring people's skin colour".

ARC CEO Philippa Stroud, a Conservative Party member who sits in Britain's upper House of Lords, said the conference "has been about telling a better story about who we are here in the West".

"It has lessons for everyone, everywhere, regardless of their political colours," she told AFP.

pdh/phz/gw

 Purple Catholicism

The real threat of AI isn’t what you think

AI has the capacity to undermine our understanding of the human person.

Photo by Andy Kelly/Unsplash/Creative Commons

By 

Charles C. Camosy

(RNS) — It seems as if every time we turn around there’s a new worry about artificial intelligence. AI is going to take over the nuclear launch codes and kill us all. Or was it just going to shut down the electrical grid? Maybe just the internet? 

Wait, wasn’t it going to enslave us and use us as sources of energy? Or just replace all the creatives who provide us all of our music and movies? Isn’t that what the Hollywood strike was all about?

Some of these worries are legitimate. Some are fairy tales that have already been explored in dozens of popular movies over the last couple generations. (Paging HAL!)

While we’re obsessed with its dystopic downsides, we fail to account for the good things that AI may do for us in the coming years, from cancer screenings to road design. AI is going to change countless lives for the better.

But there is a foundational threat posed by AI that we all seem to be ignoring, one very much related to theology and an enchanted view of what academics sometimes call moral anthropology. AI has the capacity to undermine our understanding of the human person.

Let me explain by way of example.

RELATED: Artificial intelligence program poised to shake up Catholic education, doctrine

This past week, OpenAI announced that its algorithmic language model and imaging platform “can now see, hear, and speak.” For instance, show AI an image of a bike and ask it how to lower the seat: Open AI’s platform can analyze the image, determine what kind of bike is in the image, search its databases, and spit back the likely answer — in text or voice audio.

OpenAI announcement of new features. Screen grab

AI is not, of course, really thinking. “It” is a series of algorithms and neural networks with access to a very large database made by human beings. As one professor at the University of Michigan who studies machine learning put it, “Stop using anthropomorphic language to describe models.”

There’s that Greek word “anthropos” — human — again. The professor is worried that when we use language that assumes the form or structures of the human, we are implicitly corrupting the way we think about AI. We are fooling ourselves into thinking that a language model or image platform could be, well, like us.

But the worry goes deeper than that, in the opposite direction. While some may be inclined to move closer to the view that AI is like us, the broader culture is actually primed to move closer to the view that we are like AI. Indeed, many students in my classes in recent years have said something like, “Well, aren’t we just essentially organic machines? What is substantially different about the way we analyze a photo, engage a database, and spit back an answer to a question?

The underlying problem here is our culture’s advanced state of what the philosopher Charles Taylor called “disenchantment,” especially when it comes to our understanding of ourselves. In the secular age of the post-Christian West, our cultural subjectivity no longer has a way to make sense of supernatural concepts, such as being made in the image and likeness of God, of the soul, grace, a will that is transcendent and free, or (in some extreme cases) even consciousness.

We do have a way of making sense of machines, computers, algorithms, neural nets — basically all forms of matter in motion. The last few centuries and especially the last few decades have been preparing us to imagine ourselves as very similar to AI. Our ability to see, hear, speak and other actions of beings, which are no longer considered supernatural, are therefore comparable to the actions of other kinds of neural nets.

If we explained AI to a medieval person, there is zero chance that they would confuse it with creatures like us. Their cultural idea of how humans are formed simply wouldn’t allow them to make that mistake.

RELATED: Meet the Christian creators designing chatbots ‘with a biblical worldview’

I, too, fundamentally dissent from our 21st-century reductionist view of the human person. Instead I choose to go with the wisdom of Jedi Master Yoda, who taught Luke Skywalker in “The Empire Strikes Back” that we are not mere “crude matter,” but are, rather, “luminous beings.” We are ensouled creatures whose form reflects the image and likeness of God.

Let us similarly respond to AI with prudence and care, neither rejecting the life-changingly good things that will come with it nor uncritically accepting every dangerous or destructive application. But, above all, let us resist the idea that AI is like us or (even worse) that we are like AI. Neither could be further from the truth.

September 29, 2023

 HOMONUCLUS

Biotech’s repugnant new advance is worthy of everyone’s critical attention

Scientists have swapped human reproduction for a different process entirely.

Image by Gerd Altmann/Pixabay/Creative Commons

By 

Charles C. Camosy, Joe Vukov

(RNS) — Scientists have created a human embryo without the use of sperm or an egg — a true test-tube baby. Such embryos cannot (yet) develop into full-grown human beings. Even if transplanted into a uterus, the specimen could never attach to the uterine wall.

Yet, what we have here is still a (disabled) human embryo. Without parents. 

Are you disgusted? We believe that if you have a well-formed conscience, this is a good and proper reaction to this development.

We cannot always and everywhere trust a reaction of repugnance; at times, such a reaction is simply the result of ingrained biases and stereotypes. But there is often a certain wisdom in our repulsion. Repugnance can assert itself as a moral alarm and response to real moral distress.

This is such a time. 

The creation of a human embryo without sperm and egg shares some important similarities with other artificial reproductive technologies, such as in vitro fertilization and certain surrogacy practices that involve the creation of human embryos outside the human body. Perhaps most strikingly, the procedure overlaps the process of modifying genes using novel techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9. In both cases, a manufactured human embryo is the result of direct human intervention. 

Tellingly, CRISPR-Cas9 has been known to be used only once on human embryos. The scientist who performed the procedure, He Jiankui, was roundly and firmly criticized by the medical and ethics community and served a prison sentence for his work. Meanwhile, leading scientists — including Emmanuelle Charpentier, one of the creators of the technique — have called for a moratorium on its use on human embryos.

The creation of a human embryo without sperm or egg also goes beyond what we have seen in previous artificial reproductive technology and genetic engineering techniques. In vitro fertilization and even CRISPR-Cas9 involve direct human intervention in the reproductive process. Yet, all of them work by modifying or intervening with existing human embryos or gametes. 

The manufacture of a human embryo without sperm or egg, by contrast, aims to build a human embryo from scratch. The process is less a tweak to human reproduction or bending it to our own will than replacing it with something different altogether. Heretofore we have aimed to eliminate variability, inconvenience or inefficiency from human reproduction. With this new development, the aim is different: to swap human reproduction for a different process entirely. 

The charge of playing God comes to mind. The charge is over-attributed and sometimes reveals more about our biases than something morally real, but in this case it is apt. There are at least two kinds of playing God: An overstepping by humans into spheres of action that should be reserved for the divine, and a hubristic attempt to meddle with the world in ways that our all-too-human intellects simply do not understand. In creating human embryos from scratch, we risk playing God in both senses. 

One of us is a philosopher and the other a theologian. We are both convinced that a Catholic understanding of reproduction could be a cultural antidote to the toxic understanding of reproduction that has led to the development of an eggless, spermless embryo. Our position is not aligned with some kind of revisionist attempt to “take us back to the 1950s” (or some such dismissive phrase), but is rather at the heart of the perspective that Pope Francis and the Vatican reaffirmed just a few months ago. 

As Christianity yields to a consumerist reproductive throwaway culture, the logic of the marketplace takes over. Instead of seeing the creation of new human beings as pro-creation with God (our ultimate creator), who offers them as an unmerited gift, we now think of it as yet another transaction between individuals. I have resources (money, insurance) and you have skills and facilities (medical training and fertility labs)? Well, then who is anyone to come between autonomous actors pursuing their self-interests?

Our post-Christian culture is already well advanced down this pathway, as couples, individuals and even “throuples” demand control over the embryos and future children they purchase in the marketplace. We’ve had decades, actually, of privileged people demanding the ability to purchase ova and sperm based on the donor’s IQ, attractiveness, participation in varsity athletics, and more. Sex selection is par for the course in many contexts. And of course our throwaway culture simply discards the prenatal human beings who don’t fit the market-based criteria. 

But here again we have something that is genuinely new. Instead of modifying or intervening (albeit dramatically!) into the process God created for procreation, this new technology has the potential to obliterate it. Catholics, other Christians and all people of good will must make our voices heard on this and work to make creation of such embryos illegal.

It may seem, and we may be told, that we can trust the process to stay where it is — that no actual reproduction would ever take place using this new technology. But the history outlined above shows that is a very, very bad bet. In a culture that becomes more and more dominated by the logic of the marketplace and by a commitment to a kind of relativism that welcomes virtually any vision of the good, who are we to impose our view onto others who think differently? They should be able to make their transaction and we should butt out.

It will do us no good to pretend that this is a retreat to a kind of moral neutrality. The marketplace has its own logic and its own goods. It rewards the privileged while exploiting the marginalized. There is no view from nowhere on this question. No neutral place to hide. We can and must explicitly and firmly take a stand with a particular vision of the good. And the Catholic vision stands ready to provide precisely what is necessary in this context.

Unfortunately, there are forces even within the church itself that are apparently trying to undermine the Church’s teaching in this regard — precisely where it is so obviously and importantly true and needed the most. Those of us who agree with Francis’ vision of resisting a consumerist, throwaway culture with the logic of gift and openness to life must redouble our efforts to make our voices heard on this new and repugnant biotechnological development.

September 18, 2023

(Joe Vukov is an associate professor of philosophy and associate director of the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola University Chicago. He is also the author, most recently, of The Perils of Perfection. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

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https://teoriaevolutiva.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/firestone-shulamith-dialectic-sex-case-feminist-revolution.pdf

The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution 

In THE DIALECTIC OF SEX: THE CASE FOR FEMINIST. REVOLUTION, Shulamith Firestone cuts into the prejudice against women (and children)--amplified through the.

Opinion
This All Souls’ Day, experience moments of connection with those who have gone before us

This is an intentional act of cultivating relationship with our ancestors.

People hold candles over a tomb decorated with flowers at a cemetery in Atzompa, Mexico, Oct. 31, 2023. In a tradition that coincides with All Saints’ Day on Nov. 1 and All Souls’ Day on Nov. 2, families decorate graves with flowers and candles and spend the night in the cemetery, eating and drinking as they keep company with their dearly departed.
(AP Photo/Maria Alferez)

November 1, 2023

By 

Christine Paintner

(RNS) — In Celtic tradition there are many moments considered to be a “thin time,” which means that heaven and earth feel closer and we might experience moments of connection to those who have gone before us in ways that we don’t usually.

These moments include the daily portals of dawn and dusk as the world moves from dark to light and back to dark again. They also include the eight threshold moments of the year, which are the solstices, the equinoxes and the cross-quarter days that fall between the solstices and equinoxes. Of these eight, Samhain, which falls on Nov. 1, is considered to be the thinnest time, when the ancestors and spirits walk among us. The door between the spiritual and the physical is even further open than at other times.

Samhain is the start of the dark half of the year. It is the season of rest, incubation and mystery. It is the season of dreamtime and the perfect time of year to open your heart to connect with those who journeyed before you. Winter invites us to gather inside, grow still with the landscape and listen for the voices we may not hear during other times of the year. These may be the sounds of our own inner wisdom or the voices of those who came before us.

Listen for the messages of the ancestors in those days especially — they will speak their wisdom through raven and stone, tree and rain, dreams and synchronicities. This is the language through which we receive these gifts and only need to open ourselves to them.

The Celtic feast of Samhain coincides with the Christian celebration of All Saints’ Day on Nov. 1 and All Souls’ Day on Nov. 2, which begin a whole month in honor of those who have died. We tend to neglect our ancestral heritage in our Western culture, but in other cultures, remembering the ancestors is an intuitive and essential way of beginning anything new. We don’t recognize the tremendous wisdom we can draw on from those who have traveled the journey before us and whose DNA we carry in every fiber of our bodies.

Ritual has a way of bridging the gap between the visible and invisible worlds and between the conscious and unconscious knowing. We can open ourselves to communication from our grandmothers and grandfathers. What we work on consciously through ritual and prayer has an impact in the world of the ancestors. Ritual is the intentional cultivation of relationship, but communication happens in spontaneous ways as well.

In Christian ritual and liturgy, there is the celebration on the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls. Some churches keep a Book of the Dead, in which the names of loved ones who died are written and kept near the altar so they may be remembered at Masses throughout November.

November is the month of the dead, and churches often have special Masses of remembrance throughout the month as well as setting up a special ancestral altar somewhere in the church space where members can bring photos, flowers and other offerings. Many churches also have votive candles available all year, which people can light either as a prayer for themselves or another or in remembrance of a loved one.

In medieval Europe, there were many practices for All Souls’ Day, including creating altars, celebrating requiem Masses, lighting candles and bonfires, visiting graves, ringing bells and making soul cakes, which were small, round, spiced loaves to commemorate the dead that were given out to people who came door to door.

We communicate with ancestors much in the way we would communicate with angels and saints — through dreams, visions, synchronicity, nature, ritual and imagination. We call upon them through prayer, we honor them through ritual offerings, and we ask them for guidance.

Henri Nouwen offers us this wisdom: As we grow older we have more and more people to remember, people who have died before us. It is very important to remember those who have loved us and those we have loved. Remembering them means letting their spirits inspire us in our daily lives. They can become part of our spiritual communities and gently help us as we make decisions on our journeys. Parents, spouses, children and friends can become true spiritual companions after they have died. Sometimes they can become even more intimate to us after death than when they were with us in life. Remembering the dead is choosing their ongoing companionship.

I especially love that final sentence: “Remembering the dead is choosing their ongoing companionship.” This is an intentional act of cultivating relationship.

The first fundamental blessing we can offer gratitude for is the gift of life itself. No matter what kind of family we came from, no matter how much suffering was caused, there is the fundamental impulse toward life that we can celebrate. We can give thanks for being here, being fully alive and even having the privilege of taking time to do this healing work: to explore spiritual practices and to ponder what makes our lives meaningful. Many of our ancestors never had that luxury.

Many worked very long hours for little reward and were never able to pause and ask themselves how their own generational connection could bring more wisdom to their lives.

I like to remember as well that in the midst of my ancestors’ struggles there was at least some resilience and courage developed that I have inherited. This is the second fundamental blessing we can offer gratitude for. I may never know what they went through exactly, but I can sometimes feel their sturdiness and how they endured. They too lived through times of war and plague and economic struggle.

Sometimes when I go outside at night and can see the brilliance of the stars, I remember that my ancestors also had moments of wonder and awe standing with their faces upturned toward the vast expanse of the universe. I remember that they too had moments of delight, of joy, of dancing, no matter how hard their lives were.

(Christine Valters Paintner is the author of “The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk With Us Toward Holiness” (Sorin Books), from which this column is adapted with permission. She is the online abbess for Abbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery offering classes and resources on contemplative practice and creative expression. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Is religion good for you? The answer is complicated, new global Gallup report finds.

A review of 10 years of global polling looks at the complicated connection between spirituality and health.

Photo by Pedro Lima/Unsplash/Creative Commons

By 

Bob Smietana

(RNS) — A new report from Gallup finds that religious people around the world report being more positive, have more social support, and are more involved in their communities than those who are not religious.

The study, based on 10 years of data, also finds the well-being of religious people varies from country to country and is often hard to measure. Even if researchers find that religion is good for you, people who are not religious may not care about its benefits or want anything to do with it.

“Gallup World Poll data from 2012-2022 find, on a number of wellbeing measures, that people who are religious have better wellbeing than people who are not,” according to the report, which was published Tuesday (Oct. 10).

The study included data about nine aspects of people’s lives, from their positive interactions with others and their social life to their civic engagement and physical health. Each of the nine indexes included a score of 0 to 100, based on answers to a series of questions.

For the positive experience index, respondents were asked questions such as “Did you smile or laugh today?” and “Were you treated with respect?” For civic engagement, they were asked questions about whether they gave to charity or helped a stranger. The physical health index asked if they had health issues that kept them from doing things people their age usually do and whether they were in physical pain. For community basics, they were asked about housing and infrastructure.

“Basic Relationship of Religiosity and Wellbeing Outcomes” Graphic courtesy Gallup

Religious people scored higher on five of Gallup’s indexes: social life (77.6 compared with 73.7 for nonreligious people), positive experience (69 to 65), community basics (59.7 to 55.6), optimism (49.4 to 48.4) and civic engagement (35.8 to 31).

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RELATED: Study: Religion and spirituality can aid youth mental health crisis

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They scored about the same as nonreligious people in two indexes: a “life evaluation” of whether they were thriving or suffering and their local economic confidence.

Religious people scored lower on two indexes: negative experience and physical health.

The differences between religious and nonreligious people were most prominent in highly religious countries.

Researchers noted that even small differences can have a significant impact on a global scale.

“Basic Relationships of Religiosity and Wellbeing Outcomes by Country Level of Religiosity, Gallup World Poll Data, 2012-2022” Graphic courtesy Gallup

“Each one-point difference in index scores between religious and nonreligious people represents an effect for an estimated 40 million adults worldwide,” according to the report. “For example, the four-point difference between religious and nonreligious people on the Positive Experience Index means that an estimated 160 million more adults worldwide have positive experiences than would be the case if those adults were not religious.”

The report suggests religion and spirituality could be a possible asset in dealing with the mental health crisis in many countries. However, they noted, the number of people interested in or involved in religion is declining.

For the report, Gallup partnered with the Radiant Foundation, which promotes a positive view of religion and spirituality and is associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Jeff Jones, Gallup poll senior editor, said measuring the impact of religion and spirituality on wellness is complicated, especially as people become less religious and the way they practice spirituality evolves.

“With the changing nature of religious landscapes and spiritual practice, it can make quantitative measurement amid the changes challenging, as the traditional forms of spirituality — namely, attending formal religious services, are becoming less common and people are seeking other ways to fulfill their spiritual needs,” Jones said in an email.

“Civic Engagement Index, Religious vs. Not Religious People, by Region” Graphic courtesy Gallup

The report, which also includes quotes from experts and a review of past research on the connection between wellness and religion, notes that even as researchers become more aware of the positive outcomes of religion, people are less interested in religion around the world.

While they have no polling data on the decline of religion, the report suggests several causes for that decline — including growing polarization that pits religious and nonreligious people against each other. Nonreligious people at times see religious people as a threat. Religious people, especially from larger faith groups, can wield their power in ways that others see as harmful.

“Religious groups and individuals — particularly from the dominant religious group in a society — who are hostile to other religious groups may promote a cultural context that is harmful to the wellbeing of those outside the group. Resentment toward the dominant group may also tune people out to their messages, both those that are harmful (out‑group animosity) but also that are helpful (serving others),” the report states.

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RELATED: Being ‘godless’ might be good for your health, new study finds

N.L. wants details on environmental impact before huge hydrogen project can go ahead

By Canadian Press | November 1st 2023


ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — The Newfoundland and Labrador government has asked the company vying to build one of the country's first large-scale green hydrogen plants to provide more information about the project's effects on the environment.

World Energy GH2 must include more details in its environmental assessment of the massive development, called Project Nujio’qonik, the Department of Environment and Climate Change said Wednesday.

The department said in an email that requiring additional information is a routine part of the environmental assessment process, "particularly as a project becomes more defined."

World Energy GH2 is hoping to erect two wind farms, each of up to 164 wind turbines, on western Newfoundland's Port au Port Peninsula and in the nearby Codroy Valley area, as well as a hydrogen and ammonia production plant in the neighbouring town of Stephenville.

The company is led by Clearwater Seafoods co-founder John Risley and Brendan Paddick, a former chair of Nalcor Energy, the province's now-defunct Crown energy corporation. Their ambitions in the province have sparked protests in western Newfoundland, where some residents say they're concerned about Project Nujio’qonik's footprint in an area home to a delicate ecosystem.

In a letter to World Energy GH2 chief executive officer Sean Leet, Environment Minister Bernard Davis said the company's environmental impact statement is "deficient."

The letter dated Oct. 31 and posted to the provincial government's website asks for more information about the project's water use and its emergency response and contingency plans. It also asks for an "assessment of potential environmental and cumulative effects."


Where solar panels go when they die
By Izzy Ross | News | October 30th 2023Race Against Climate Change

The amended assessment will then go through a 50-day period of public consultation, the letter said. Davis writes that he will deliver a verdict on the project within 70 days of receiving the new documents.

In a statement Wednesday, World Energy GH2 said it was hoping to be released from further environmental assessments with conditions.

World Energy GH2 must include more details in its environmental assessment of the massive development, called Project Nujio’qonik, the Department of Environment and Climate Change said.

"This amendment process is not unusual for a project of this scale," the emailed statement said. "We will work with government to comply with the amendment requirements."

The federal government said in late September that the project would not be subject to its impact assessment process.

The green hydrogen that GH2 is promoting uses renewable power like wind to split hydrogen from water molecules by electrolysis. Green hydrogen has no emissions, but it costs more to make than hydrogen produced from fossil fuels.

Hydrogen is mainly used to help in oil refineries and to make fertilizer, iron and steel, and methanol, an alcohol used in some paints and plastics and construction materials. In the low-carbon economy transition, hydrogen can play a bigger role as a source of energy to power cars, heavy vehicles, planes and cargo ships, and to replace coal and natural gas as a source of electricity.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2023.

CLOSING ARGUMENTS —

US says Sam Bankman-Fried lied to jury, isn’t as “clueless” as he claims

With trial nearly over, defense says SBF is not a "villain" or "monster."

JON BRODKIN - 11/1/2023

Enlarge / Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried arrives for a bail revocation hearing at US District Court on August 11, 2023, in New York City.

Getty Images | Michael Santiago73WITH

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's monthlong criminal trial neared its end today as the prosecution and defense presented closing arguments.

Bankman-Fried is accused of defrauding customers and investors of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and its affiliate Alameda Research. "This was a pyramid of deceit built by the defendant on a foundation of lies and false promises, all to get money," US prosecutor Nicolas Roos told the jury today, according to Reuters. "Eventually it collapsed, leaving thousands of victims in its wake."

Roos described how FTX customers lost their investments when the exchange collapsed, the Associated Press wrote. "Who was responsible?" Roos said, pointing at the defendant. "This man, Samuel Bankman-Fried. What happened? He spent his customers' money and he lied to them about it."

"The defendant was gambling with customer money," Roos reportedly said. "When he took the money, and he played roulette with it, he was stealing."

The case is in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, located in Manhattan. A 12-person jury will decide whether Bankman-Fried is guilty of seven charges that have maximum sentences totaling 110 years.
SBF “schemed and lied,” isn’t actually “clueless”

Roos said there is "no serious dispute" that $10 billion in FTX customer money went missing and that the jury needs to decide whether Bankman-Fried knew his actions were wrong, according to CNBC. "The defendant schemed and lied to get money, which he spent," he said.

Bankman-Fried "took the money, he knew it was wrong, he did it anyway," Roos said, according to CNN. The former crypto mogul "thought he was smarter" and that "he could talk his way out of it," Roos said.

Roos also told the jury that Bankman-Fried lied on the witness stand. "He told a story and he lied to you," Roos said, according to the AP.

Bankman-Fried chose to testify in what experts called a risky move. He tried to shift the blame to others and repeatedly answered "I'm not sure" or "I can't recall" to questions from US prosecutor Danielle Sassoon. Judge Lewis Kaplan rebuked Bankman-Fried for giving evasive answers.

Bankman-Fried answered with some version of "I can't recall" over 140 times, Roos reportedly told the jury. "To believe his story, you'd have to ignore the evidence," CNBC quoted Roos as saying. "You'd have to believe the defendant, who graduated from MIT and built two multibillion-dollar companies, was actually clueless."Advertisement


According to TechCrunch, Roos emphasized that FTX used customer funds without their knowledge or approval, even though FTX's terms of service stated that users' deposits belonged to users. "Customer funds belong to customers and can't be used," but there was a "huge difference between what FTX said it had for customers versus what it actually had," Roos was quoted as saying. "This is not about complicated crypto [terms]. It's about deception. It's about lies. It's about stealing, greed."
Defense: SBF isn’t a villain or monster

Roos' closing argument lasted several hours on Wednesday. Bankman-Fried's lawyer, Mark Cohen, began his closing argument in the late afternoon. Jury deliberations are likely to begin Thursday.

"Cohen said prosecutors elicited testimony about Bankman-Fried's sex life and appearance—the former billionaire was known for his unkempt mop of curly locks and wearing shorts and T-shirts—to try to get the jury to dislike him," Reuters wrote.

"Every movie needs a villain," Cohen said. "And let's face it, an awkward high school math nerd doesn't look particularly villainous. So what did they do? They wrote him into the movie as a villain." Cohen also said that "time and again, the government has sought to turn Sam into some sort of villain, some sort of monster."

The prosecution's case relied partly on testimony of former FTX executives who pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government. Caroline Ellison, the former Alameda Research CEO who dated Bankman-Fried, testified earlier that Bankman-Fried directed her to commit crimes and that "I would always ultimately defer to Sam."

One key topic was Alameda borrowing FTX customer deposits. Bankman-Fried said he believed that the borrowing was allowed under FTX's terms of service, but acknowledged that he only "skimmed over" parts of the terms.

The seven charges are wire fraud on customers of FTX, conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers of FTX, wire fraud on lenders to Alameda Research, conspiracy to commit wire fraud on lenders to Alameda Research, conspiracy to commit securities fraud on investors in FTX, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud on customers of FTX in connection with purchases and sales of cryptocurrency and swaps, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

An indictment said that Bankman-Fried "misappropriated and embezzled FTX customer deposits and used billions of dollars in stolen funds... to enrich himself; to support the operations of FTX; to fund speculative venture investments; to help fund over a hundred million dollars in campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans to seek to influence cryptocurrency regulation; and to pay for Alameda's operating costs." He was also accused of making "false and fraudulent statements and representations to FTX's investors and Alameda's lenders."

JON BRODKIN has been a reporter for Ars Technica since 2011 and covers a wide array of telecom and tech policy topics. Jon graduated from Boston University with a degree in journalism and has been a full-time journalist for over 20 years.