SATANISM; GOTHIC MODERNISM

The text of the Missa Niger (Black Mass) presented here is clearly based on a particular, apparently older, edition of the standard Roman Catholic Latin Missal. Each and every phrase throughout the Missa Niger, is taken verbatim from this as yet undetermined edition of the Roman Missal (albeit with modifications to reflect a Satanic viewpoint). A variety of verses from the Psalms are present in the Black Mass, all of which also appear in the context of various portions of ceremonies and rites found in the Latin Missal (some found only in versions at least earlier than the 1930s). The English translations in the Black Mass are also taken from Roman Catholic English translations of a Roman Missal (it may be that the compiler of the Black Mass was working from an early dual-language Latin-English version of the Roman Catholic Missal). The creators of the text chose their verses and selections very carefully, to express in the best way possible the Satanic meanings hidden within a slight reworking of the Latin phrases. It should be noted that, although the writers of the medieval drinkers and gamblers masses had a different goal for their masses, the techniques they used to invert the Latin phrases into a parody of the Mass, are very similar to those used by the writer(s) of the present Latin Black Mass.

It goes without saying that the Missa Niger only has meaning to someone who was well versed in Roman Catholic tradition, and who is immersed in the world of the Latin writings and liturgy of the Church.  In a certain sense, it can be said that the people who performed the Missa Niger were Roman Catholics, or at least were practicing a ritual which would only have meaning to one who was either Roman Catholic, or who was so deeply involved with the Roman Catholic rituals that it would be difficult to refer to them as something other than Roman Catholic.  The fact that they were expressing hatred of Christ and of Christian doctrines, does not preclude the possibility that the rite of the Missa Niger sprang forth purely and naturally from within the Roman Catholic Church itself.

The methods for obtaining a consecrated host are especially significant.  In order to obtain a consecrated host, the Satanic practitioner would have to somehow trick the Church into believing that they were sincere in their acceptance of the Sacrament - the body of Christ.  When they were given the consecrated host by the priest, instead of swallowing it, they secretly smuggled it out of the Church and took it to use as the central focus of the Missa Niger.  With the body of Jesus Christ, in the form of the consecrated host, being successfully "kidnapped" from the protection of the Church, there was nothing to prevent it from being subjected to the rites of the Black Mass and the will of the Devil.

Missa Niger - The Black Mass

The text of the Black Mass presented here is based directly on the text published by Aubrey Melech. Corrections to the text have been made only where the errors in the Latin text are obvious - as in grammatical errors or misspelled and missing words, which can be easily corrected when comparing the text with the original Latin of the Roman Missal .

Missa Niger PDF 

Doctors and Poischers 
Dr. Gabriel Legué 
1893

In a book which has just been published and which is entitled Physicians and Poisers, Dr. Legue has endeavored to prove that in the days of Molière the humoral theories of Galen triumphed in the Faculty, leading to the murderous abuse of bloodletting, - the small benign, benign clyster. He pointed out the puerile dissertations to which these merticoles devoted hours.

Then he exposed the doctors' reports with the great ladies, the Sable marquises and Sévigné among others.

Finally poison and poisoners naturally led him to take care of the Brinvilliers, the Voisin, and more particularly of Mademoiselle de Fontanges, who did not die poisoned as has hitherto been believed, and Racine, so well accused of poisoning the Park, his mistress, that Louvois did not hesitate to sign the arrest order of the poet.

He took advantage of this opportunity to describe the famous black mass said by the Abbe Guibourg on the body of Madame de Montespan.

It is this chapter of the book that we publish here.

THE BLACK MASS

It was at the time of the greatest vogue of La Voisin, at the end of the month of January, 1678. That evening, the curfew had long been sounded, when a curtained chair with curtains hermetically sealed leather, stopped rue Beauregard in front of a house located a short distance from Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle church. The knocking was probably a signal agreed because the door opened almost immediately. The stranger came down from her chair, and then a woman dressed with the luxury of high-ranking people appeared, her face covered with a mask. A young girl received the visitor and brought her into a low room. This house was none other than that of La Voisin. We then crossed a garden. At the

A room all stretched with black was arranged, and at the bottom stood an altar prepared as for the sacrifice of the mass. Behind, there was a funerary drapery, carrying a white cross woven into the fabric. The altar consisted of a mattress covered with a mortuary cloth with a tabernacle surmounted by a cross in the middle and surrounded by black candles. These candles were made with the fat of the condemned hanged by the executioner (2). A venerable priest, about seventy years old, was there, clad in white vestments, embroidered with black pine cones. He was waiting for the stranger. It was the Abbé Guibourg (3).

As we can see, the staging was prepared by a clever hand, by an ingenious brain who knew his time, and who knew that before anything else it was necessary to strike the imagination.

When the one expected - followed by the young person who was none other than Marguerite Voisin, daughter of the Voisin - came in, she undressed immediately. Then one of those splendid nudes appeared, made to try the chisel of a Coysevox or a Coustouet who revealed forms of a marvelous opulence: the fleshy and serpentine hips supported a torso with impeccable lines and the overflowing throat accused all the power and the ardor of a fiery temperament. The face was still masked, but a crinkled blond hair was seen rolling down to the ground, heavy, well made to bear the weight of a diadem, and in which had had to stray many times the lips of a prince in love, because this woman, we guessed it, did not

Yes, it was she, the beautiful, the provocative, the immodest creature, for whom La Valliere had cried all her tears. It was she who indulged in the obscene curiosity of an old man, she who voluntarily offered her body to serve as an altar for the celebration of a sacrilegious mass and on which a minister of the Catholic religion was going to bring down the host by pronouncing the words of the consecration. It was Montespan, as Mignard painted it, before showing us Francoise d'Aubigne in a smart dress and devout headdress, and who introduced us to the proud graces of Athenais de Mortemart, to that opulent nudity gilded by a last ray of youth. And this woman,

She lay down on this strange altar, her legs hanging down on one side, and on the other, her head resting on a pillow that supported an upturned chair. Abbe Guibourg placed the cross on the marchioness's chest, spread a napkin over his belly, and set down the chalice; after which the impious ceremony began, Marguerite Voisin fulfilling the office of clerk.

At the different phases of the sacrifice, when the celebrant must kiss the altar, Guibourg kissed the body of the Marquise de Montespan.

The obscene form that this mass took is thus sufficiently demonstrated by these lustful touches. But precisely because of this impious parody of the Catholic rite, in agreement with the Marquise de Montespan, an aged priest had been chosen on whom such an act was no longer to produce any effect (5).

The moment of consecration had arrived. The bell of Marguerite Voisin resounded; but it was a knell she was ringing! A door opened. A woman was seen carrying a child of two or three years in her arms. The mind turns away with horror from this sinister scene. The imagination can hardly conceive the details. A frail being, a little boy bought a shield from the one who gave it to the world, to the most abject of creatures, threw the strangeness of his touching grace into this cursed sanctuary. A frightful mystery, that night there was a priest, a minister of the Gospel, to kill one of those whom Christ had said while stroking their fair heads: "Let the little children come to me! " Mute, bewildered, the unhappy little being looked around him. Guibourg seized the frail victim and raised him above the chalice, pronouncing the satanic words: "Astaroth, Asmodeus, princes of friendship, I implore you to accept the sacrifice that I present to you of this child for the children. things I ask you. " (6) then setting it on the table and killed it without being troubled by his sweet look, without the sight of her delicate envelope where he had cut his life in flower startled by the slightest fiber .

What terrifying cry, promptly stifled by the associates of Guibourg, answered this monstrous act!

History shows us that there are assassins whom an innocent look has set back in the execution of the murder, but, more barbarous than the worst scoundrels, the priest (7) did not hesitate to commit this dreadful crime. So the child let his head fall, like a lamb under the butcher's knife, and the blood streamed in the gold of the chalice, on the priest's clothing, and defiled the naked limbs of the one who served him as an accomplice. The descendant of one of the noblest lineages in France had not a cry, not a revolt, to prevent the accomplishment of such a monstrosity.

We who evoke, through the past, this atrocious scene, we are moved to the bottom of the soul, and it seems to us to hear the voice of Guibourg pronouncing the sacramental words, waving in the chalice the red dew human: "This is my body, this is my blood. "

This consecration ended, the officiant read aloud this strange and incomprehensible formula written on virgin parchment:

"I (here Guibourg spoke in a low voice the names, names and qualities of Francoise Athenais de Mortemart, Marquise de Montespan), request the friendship of the King and that of Monseigneur the Dauphin, and that it be continued to me; that the queen be sterile; that the King leaves his bed and his table for me and my parents; may my servants and servants be agreeable to him. Darling and respected by the great lords, may I be called to the advice of the King and know what is going on there; and that this friendship redoubling more than in the past, the Roy leaves and does not look at Fontanges; and that the Queen being repudiated, I can marry the King. » (8)

At last, when the odious mass was completed, the priest tore the entrails of the child, laid them in a prepared receptacle, with the blood and the remaining host fragment of the communion, and handed them to the Marquise de Montespan.

Now, this Mass, which was said in 1678, was the last of all those which had been celebrated for the same purpose and with the same ceremonial, since the year 1667 (9), at which time the Marquise entered into relations with the Voisin.

It is impossible to explain how the love, the eloquent and sublime movement which is the noble commentary of the origin of the races, could have given birth to these sanguinary instincts, these terrifying vertigos of desire, this irresistible need to profane the divine idea and to parody a holy ceremony? Can the man who loves be cruel? Is not the true and immutable privilege of passion to communicate to the hardest, the most vain of mortals, that delicate bending of the heart, this tenderness and this immolation of the will to a superior principle, to the interests of a to be loved above all beings? When prehistoric legends show us Herakles, hitherto invincible, tamed by a woman's gaze, and spinning with ivory spinning the tenuous and silky thread, symbol of the bond with which Omphale chained him, did they not wish to show by that the heart of the beast vanquished by the mysterious and adorable wound, by the sacred sting of love? If it was enough for a woman's look, for a caress of the voice to soften the impassibles and demi-gods, how, I repeat, to explain that modern passion has seen the emergence of. barbaric customs that, on the contrary, the only name of Eros made disappear from the earth at the dawn of humanity. explain that modern passion has seen the emergence of. barbaric customs that, on the contrary, the only name of Eros made disappear from the earth at the dawn of humanity. explain that modern passion has seen the emergence of. barbaric customs that, on the contrary, the only name of Eros made disappear from the earth at the dawn of humanity.

Dr. G. LEGUE

It was about ten o'clock in the evening when Madame de Montespan came to Beauregard Street. According to the daughter Voisin she did not leave until midnight.

Library. Nat. Brother 7608, Trial of the Neighbor.

(2) The learned and regretted M. Ravaissoa, in the very interesting notes of his Archives de la Bastille, says that La Voisin was the mistress of Sanson, the executioner, who lived on Rue Beauregard. It is a mistake. Charles Sanson de Longval was appointed executor of the high works in Paris on September 23, 1688, that is to say, eight years after the execution of the Voisin. (National Archives, V, 540.)

On July 11, 1699, Charles Sanson married Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle, Jeanne-Renée Dubut, daughter of a master turner on Beauregard Street. The Sanson lived in a large building in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Jean, in the Faubourg Poissonniere.

The famous Me Guillaume, the very one who executed the Marquise de Brinvilliers so hastily, was also designated as having been the lover of La Voisin. My opinion is that the executioner in question here was none other than Nicolas Levasseur, said Lariviere, who was dismissed in 1588 by Parliament's decree. This Levasseur lived in the Rue Beauregard, and was the lover of the neighbor, and at the same time the friend of the husband. He had taken for confessor and confidant the too celebrated abbot Davot, vicar of Bonne-Nouvelle, burned alive in the Place de Greve for impiety and sacrilege. Levasseur, in the circumstances, obtained not to act as executioner, and Gavot was executed by his assistants.

(3) Thus the daughter Neighbor, in her declaration describes the priestly vestments of Guibourg.

(4) Library Nat. manuscripts F. Fr. 7608. Trial of the Neighbor, declaration of Marguerite Voisin.

(5) Here is translated in a few Latin words the way one proceeded in the black masses: Quotiescumque altare osculandum erat Presbyler osculabatur corpus, hostiamque consecrabat super pudenda, quibus hostio portiunculam inserebat: Missa tandem peracta, Presbyter mulierem inibat, and manibus suis in calice mersis, pudenda sua and muliebria lavabat.

(6) Nat. Library Manuscripts Fonds Fr. 7608.

(7) In a second note addressed to Louvois, La Reynie again portrays Guibourg: "This man who can not be compared to any other, on the number of poisonings, on the trade of poison and evil spells, on sacrilegious and ungodly, knowing and being known of all that is scoundrels, convinced of a great number of horrible crimes and suspected of having been part of many others, this man who slaughtered and sacrificed several children, who besides the sacrileges of which he is convinced confesses abominations which can not be conceived. »(Nation Library Manuscripts F. Fr. 7608.)

(8) Nat. Library Manuscripts Fonds Fr. 1608.

(9) Beynie, in one of the many memoirs addressed to Louvois, insists particularly on the black masses celebrated by Guibourg, and he firmly believes in the guilt of Madame de Montespan. "Guibourg, La Filastre, and Galet," he writes, "have agreed upon it after the question of the Filastre woman and the confrontation, and have made a complete proof of these facts with each other. "

Colbert, frightened by these revelations, wished at all costs to save Madame de Montespan, of whom he was the ally and the friend. He had recourse to the lights of a famous lawyer, Claude Duplessis, and communicated to him the reports of La Reynie and the interrogations of the accused. Duplessis, who had the talent to confuse everything, was able to draw from these documents, while not believing himself in them, a semblance of proof for the guilt of Mme. De Montespan and Vivonne, and the memoir which he composed. A real plea in favor of the favorite, was given to the king. After having read it, Louis XIV decided that Madame de Montespan would not be involved in this sad affair, and he had himself addressed directly to the minutes "in thought," adds La Reynie, "to give notice of the charges against Mme. Montespan to those who,

For his part, the lieutenant of police sent to Louis XIV, through Louvois, an absolutely overwhelming memory for Madame de Montespan concerning black masses and powders intended for the king. From this report it follows that "the charges against Madame de Montespan were again confirmed, the Filastre having retracted only the first fact" that is to say that relating to the poisoning of Mme de Fontanges. This second memorial proved to the king how well the accusation was founded, and to put an end to these monstrous revelations, Louis XIV did not hesitate to order President Boucherat to close the sittings of the Ardent Chamber.

EUGENE COMMENTS 

THE NATURE OF ROMAN CATHOLIC SATANISM IN FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION WAS A COVER FOR THE MEDICAL ART OF ABORTION CONDUCTED BY VOISIN AND A CATHOLIC PRIEST FOR THE LADIES OF THE COURT OF COURSE A CHURCH FATHER WAS NEVER ONE TO WASTE A SACRIFICE, AS F.T. RHODES POINTS OUT IN HIS BOOK THE SATANIC MASS, THE MISSAE IN USE ACTUALLY ORIGINATED EARLIER IN THE PERIOD OF HEAVY TITHING, WHERE YOU COULD PAY OFF ANY SIN, THE POOR BROTHERS IN CHRIST WOULD DO A MURDER OR DEATH MASS FOR A FEW SOU.

The Arab uprisings in 2020: There is no return to the old status quo

The wave of protests across the Arab world that began a decade ago will continue to be a long, uncertain and painful ordeal

Alain Gabon
1 January 2020 

An Iraqi protester walks past graffiti in Baghdad on 20 December (AFP)

Applied to a region as volatile, combustible and uncertain as the Middle East and North Africa, the forecasting exercise is always tricky and risky. No analyst who specialised in the region saw the 2011 Arab Spring coming.

Those momentous events, which continue to structure the region both politically and symbolically, took everyone by surprise - including both local and foreign governments, as well as the demonstrators themselves, who often declared how they did not think anything like this could really happen.

Now, they know it can.
No return to the status quo

This new awareness of their own revolutionary or reformist capabilities - the knowledge that they can exist as powerful non-state actors capable of toppling even the most apparently stable regimes, such as Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt or Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s Tunisia - will remain a major factor in the years and decades to come.

In a region where the “Arab street” never had any real say, and where the political order was always determined by forces well beyond their control, including powerful imperialist foreign governments, it is no exaggeration to liken the 2011 Arab Spring and its continuing aftermath to the 1789 French Revolution. Such a momentous change cannot be erased, no matter how hard repressive regimes and their Western or Russian backers - which typically support them unconditionally, regardless of the atrocities they commit - will try.


They will cling to their privilege at any cost, including brutal police and military repression, and massacres of their own populations

In 2020, as in the preceding, restless two years, there will be no return to the old status quo, because people - especially younger generations - have now become agents of history, fully aware of themselves as a force for change.

Besides this recent Arab awakening, persistent structural conditions, including stagnant, sluggish or regressive economies; declining living standards among large segments of MENA populations, including the educated middle class; and repressive governments, will continue to make genuine human development impossible, denying these populations a true place as full citizens in their own countries. These factors will continue to fuel the new culture of protest and dissent.
Contrary dynamics

These countries will remain dominated by the conflict that for years has pitted against each other - in a direct, frontal and often violent clash - two antagonistic, uncompromising and irreconcilable forces: the dynamic of popular democratisation through never-ending waves of mass protest, and the contrary dynamic of autocratic restoration.

The latter is best exemplified by the post-2011 rise of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt, the surprising comeback of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the autocratic turn of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, or the new assertiveness of the Saudi and Emirati regimes.

Those regimes, backed by Western allies who have chosen to remain firmly on the side of the oppressors - and Israel, of course, should be on that list - will fight tooth and nail “until the last Syrian” (or Iraqi, or Lebanese, or Algerian) to preserve whatever they can of the old, obsolete status quo. They will cling to their privilege at any cost, including brutal police and military repression, and massacres of their own populations.


In the least violent cases, such as Lebanon or Algeria, the powers-that-be will offer a few minor or cosmetic reforms, such as changing a prime minister or president, in hopes of appeasing protesters. But given the new political culture and historical awareness that has taken root, especially among the young, globalised generations, this will not work.

There is no returning to the old status quo. The Arab revival will continue to be a long, uncertain and painful ordeal, well beyond 2020.

What is certain is that the process will continue, in particular because of the new culture of political protest and pro-democracy activism, coupled with an admirable absence of fear on the part of the younger generations, even in the face of the worst forms of regime violence and repression. They have seen and experienced it for years now, in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere - and yet they still take to the streets.
Regional geopolitical forces

Geopolitically, there are a few more things that can be relatively safely predicted, despite the looming question of whether US President Donald Trump will remain in office beyond 2020.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel will remain the most powerful regional hegemons, while the Egyptian, Syrian and Algerian regimes will remain reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces of stagnation or regression, stubbornly standing in the way of democratisation and human development.

2010-2019: The Middle East's decade of revolutionRead More »

Syria under Assad will continue the surprising comeback on the regional and world stage that it started this year. It is likely that Assad himself, who committed war crimes, will be increasingly recognised again as Syria’s sole and legitimate president for pragmatic reasons; everybody, even foes such as Turkey, the US and the EU, now understand he is apparently invincible and will not be removed.

Despite its domestic political problems, Israel, now fully a right-wing, nationalist ethno-state of the worst kind, will continue its colonialist policies, including the annexation of Palestinian land through settlements and oppression of Palestinians. This is likely to continue with complete impunity and the continuing support of the US, whether Trump is reelected or not; and with the cowardly silence and passive complicity of the EU and other Arab states, notably Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia and Sisi’s Egypt.

The brave Tunisia will pursue its relatively lonely democratic journey, despite an awful economic situation and little help from Western and other Arab states, while flareups will continue in Iraq and Lebanon, which have witnessed two of the most active pro-democracy uprisings of the past two years.
De-escalation of armed conflicts

One can also make the daring bet that two of the worst, most violent conflicts of the past several years, in Syria and Yemen, will be scaled back substantially and possibly move towards a resolution. We are already seeing various diplomatic initiatives, notably the agreement between Russia and Turkey to create a buffer zone in northeastern Syria.

The determining factor for a possible resolution in Syria is the military victory on the ground by Assad’s forces, backed by their Russian and Iranian allies.


Sadly, the fates of the two stateless peoples of the region, Palestinians and Kurds, will not improve and are likely to get even worse

In Yemen, it is the utter failure of Saudi Arabia’s aggression and the mounting pressure from its allies, including the US, to stop this horrible and useless war. The costs of the war amid serious economic and social issues at home, including youth unemployment and declining standards of living, could also push Riyadh to finally pull out.

Sadly, the fates of the two stateless peoples of the region, Palestinians and Kurds, will not improve and are likely to get even worse - especially for Palestinians, now that they have been openly abandoned by the US and EU, and have become an obvious embarrassment for Arab regimes, several of which (including Saudi Arabia and Egypt) have switched to Israel’s side.
Mounting domestic turmoil

On a more optimistic note, despite alarmist talk about a possible major regional or international military conflagration (Israel-Iran, US-Russia, etc), that remains unlikely. The main reason is that all the major actors - Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US - are fully aware they would have little to gain, but a lot to lose. So far, they have carefully calibrated their military operations to avoid a major escalation that could lead to an all-out war.

Turkey’s offensive in northern Syria, limited in geographic scope, duration and number of civilian casualties, is a good recent example. Meanwhile, Israel has resisted the temptation to reinvade Lebanon to target Hezbollah, while its strikes against Syria and Iran have also been limited.
 

Lebanese protesters set an Israeli flag ablaze during demonstrations on 21 October in Beirut (AFP)

The US has learned its Iraq lesson the hard way, and Trump, despite his bravado and military threats against Iran and Turkey, has not started a new war - unlike his predecessors. His non-interventionist, withdrawal policy is also very much congruent with that of the Obama administration.

Indeed, there is much more policy continuity between Trump and former President Barack Obama than analysts and media have been willing to acknowledge. Militarily, Trump has been even more moderate than Obama, who not only took drone killings, assassinations, and transnational secret forces operations to a whole new level, but also foolishly - though reluctantly - dragged the US into the Sarkozy-led NATO adventure in Libya, with the consequences including the destruction of that state, reminiscent of Iraq in 2003.

At least Trump has done nothing of that kind, and has often proven to be less hawkish than the Democrats, including the neocon Hillary Clinton and his own political-military establishment, which has been roasting him for pulling out of Syria.
Multiple fault lines

As the new decade begins, the region will remain riven by multiple faultlines, power plays for regional or religious domination, and intersecting conflicts, by which even a minor local conflict can quickly acquires a regional - and then international - dimension, sucking in multiple foreign powers to prolong the conflict and make it even more deadly, as we have seen in Yemen.


As a new decade begins, the region will continue to be a major playground for regional and international power plays

Similarly, in Syria, what started as a domestic civil war between Assad and his opposition quickly took on a regional and international dimension, sucking in Russia, the US, Turkey, Iran, Israel, the EU and more. The same is true of Libya, which has seen interventions of various types by Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE, Russia and the US.

Alas, there is no reason to believe those specificities of the Middle East will somehow cease to produce their debilitating and violent effects. As a new decade begins, the region will continue to be a major playground for regional and international power plays, hegemonic competition and proxy wars.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Alain Gabon
Dr. Alain Gabon is Associate Professor of French Studies and Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures at Virginia Wesleyan University in Virginia Beach, USA. He has written and lectured widely in the US, Europe and beyond on contemporary French culture, politics, literature and the arts and more recently on Islam and Muslims. His works have been published in several countries in academic journals, think tanks, and mainstream and specialized media such as Saphirnews, Milestones. Commentaries on the Islamic World, and Les Cahiers de l'Islam. His recent essay entitled “The Twin Myths of the Western ‘Jihadist Threat’ and ‘Islamic Radicalisation ‘” is available in French and English on the site of the UK Cordoba Foundation.

'Terrorist in a suit': Condemnation of Trump's threats to target Iran's cultural sites
Tehran says US president's threat to target sites 'important to... Iranian culture' would be tantamount to war crimes

A relief depicting King Darius at Iran's National Museum in Tehran (AFP)
By
MEE staff
Published date: 5 January 2020 

President Donald Trump's threat to target Iran's cultural sites if Tehran attacks US assets in the Middle East.

Iran described Trump as a "terrorist in a suit" after he threatened to target 52 sites across the country, including some "important to... Iranian culture" following Tehran's pledge to avenge the death of Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike on Friday.

Trump made his threats in a series of tweets in response to condemnation by Iranian officials after the US president ordered the assassination of Soleimani.

The United States has "targeted 52 Iranian sites," some "at a very high level and important to Iran and the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD," Trump said.

He added that the 52 targets represented the number of American hostages held by Iran in the US embassy in 1979 during the country's Islamic revolution.



....targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denied on Sunday that Trump said he would target Iranian cultural sites.

"President Trump didn't say he'd go after a cultural site - read what he said," Pompeo said on Fox News.

Responding to Trump's tweets, Javaz Azari-Jahromi, Iran's information minister, tweeted: "Like ISIS, Like Hitler, Like Genghis! They all hate cultures. Trump is a terrorist in a suit. He will learn history very soon that nobody can defeat Iranian national and culture."

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned Trump's comments and said that targeting cultural sites would be tantamount to "war crimes".

"Targeting cultural sites is a war crime," Zarif tweeted on Sunday. "Whether kicking or screaming, end of US malign presence in West Asia has begun."



-Having committed grave breaches of int'l law in Friday's cowardly assassinations, @realdonaldtrump threatens to commit again new breaches of JUS COGENS;

-Targeting cultural sites is a WAR CRIME;

-Whether kicking or screaming, end of US malign presence in West Asia has begun.— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 5, 2020

United Nations resolution 2347 condemns the unlawful destruction of cultural heritage.

Tehran also summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents US interests in Iran, in response to Trump's threats and described his comments as similar to Mongol threats to ransack cultural sites.
'America has gone down this path before'

Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told Middle East Eye: "Donald Trump's reckless threats to bomb 52 sites in Iran, including cultural sites, constitute another dangerous escalation that may divert headlines from impeachment, but only at the cost of making America less safe.

"Only a few months ago, Trump called off an attack on Iran with 10 minutes to spare, leaving his advisors in shock. Trump showed restraint and insisted - somewhat convincingly - that he did not want war.



During WWII the US bombed Japanese cultural sites to destroy the population’s morale. Trump & the people he’s surrounded himself are of the same breed as ultra jingoists like Curtis Lemay. Would not put it past him to nuke #Iran. This is red alert for the international community.— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) January 4, 2020

"Now, however, he seems determined to elicit a violent reaction from Iran so that he can start a full-scale war. The only thing that has changed since this past summer is impeachment," Parsi said.

"It is increasingly difficult to find a logic in Trump's behaviour beyond his desperation to survive politically. But Americans and Iranians should not have to die for his political benefit.

"America has gone down this path before - an administration notoriously known for lying provides 'razor thin’ evidence to justify a military escalation that can spark a war and that puts Americans in peril.

"Last time, thousands of Iraqis and Americans were killed and an entire region was destabilized. This time, it will be worse," Parsi said.
Thousands mourn Soleimani across Iran

The ramping up of threats from both sides came as tens of thousands lined the streets of the Iranian city of Ahvaz on Sunday to mourn Soleimani's death.

Live state TV footage showed thousands of mourners marching through Ahvaz beating their chests.

Local authorities plan to take Soleimani's body to the holy city of Mashhad later on Sunday.

They will then take his body to Tehran and the holy city of Qom on Monday, for public mourning processions, then to his hometown of Kerman for burial on Tuesday.

---30---

Protesters in US rally against prospect of war with Iran
Protester's sign reads: 'Need a distraction? Start of a war.' Trump faces trial in Senate following his impeachment by House of Representatives in Ukraine scandal

Protesters demonstrate outside White House, in New York’s Times Square, at Trump Tower in Chicago and at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin among other locations (AFP)
By
MEE and agencies
Published date: 4 January 2020

Protesters took to the streets of Washington and other US cities on Saturday to condemn the air strike in Iraq ordered by President Donald Trump that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and Trump's decision to send about 3,000 more troops to the Middle East.

"No justice, no peace. US out of the Middle East," hundreds of demonstrators chanted outside the White House before marching to the Trump International Hotel a few blocks away, Reuters said.

More than 70 protests across the country were planned for Saturday, many organised by Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), a US-based anti-war coalition, in cooperation with more than a dozen other such groups including Code Pink, The Hill said on its website. Protesters demonstrated outside the White House, in New York’s Times Square, at Trump Tower in Chicago and at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, among other locations.

"Need a distraction? Start of a war," read a sign held by Sam Crook, 66. Trump faces a looming trial in the Senate following his impeachment by the House of Representatives in the Ukraine scandal. Crook described himself as concerned. "This country is in the grip of somebody who's mentally unstable, I mean Donald Trump, that is. He's not right in the head," Crook told AFP.

Protesters stream through New York's Times Square on Saturday (Reuters)

Speakers at the Washington event included Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg as well as actress and activist Jane Fonda, 82, who last year was arrested at a climate change protest on the steps of the US Capitol.

"The younger people here should know that all of the wars fought since you were born have been fought over oil," Fonda, 82, told the crowd, adding that "we can't anymore lose lives and kill people and ruin an environment because of oil."

"Going to a march doesn't do a lot, but at least I can come out and say something, that I'm opposed to this stuff," said protester Steve Lane of Bethesda, Maryland. "And maybe if enough people do the same thing, Trump will listen."

Soleimani, regarded as the second-most powerful figure in Iran, was killed in the US strike on his convoy at Baghdad airport on Friday in a dramatic escalation of hostilities in the Middle East between Iran and the United States and its allies.

Public opinion polls show that Americans, in general, have been opposed to US military interventions overseas. A survey last year by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs indicated that 27 percent of Americans believe military interventions make the United States safer, while almost half said they make the country less safe.

Code Pink organiser Medea Benjamin told the Guardian she believed that as the US anti-war movement stirs, people will follow. "We've been in the desert for the last 10 years, and now we're anxious to build up a robust anti-war organisation again."

Code Pink first rose to prominence protesting against the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

---30---

US detains more than 60 Iranian-Americans at Canadian border
Iranian-Americans detained by US Customs and Border Control as they return from a concert in Canada

Detentions come after US kills top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani (AFP/File photo)

By
MEE staff
Published date: 5 January 2020 22:07

The United States detained more than 60 Iranian-Americans at a US-Canada border crossing in the state of Washington, according to the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Many were crossing the Peace Arch Border in Blaine, Washington, returning home from an Iranian pop concert on Saturday in Vancouver, Canada.

Once reaching the border, more than 60 people were detained at length and questioned by the US Customs and Border Control (CBP).



Protesters in US rally against prospect of war with Iran

Read More »


"Many more are turned around at the border and refused the opportunity to enter the United States due to a lack of capacity for Customs and Border Patrol to detain them," CAIR's Washington chapter said in a joint news release with Hoda Katebi, an Iranian American community organiser and fashion blogger.

Washington Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal tweeted that she was "deeply disturbed" by the reports of these detentions.

CAIR reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had issued a national order to CBP to "report" and detain anyone with Iranian heritage entering the US who was deemed potentially suspicious, regardless of their citizenship status.

"This is a HUGE DEAL. Iranians who have been born and raised in the USA are literally being ILLEGALLY DETAINED for 11+ hours for NO REASON & interrogated with intrusive and inappropriate questions about political opinions, what courses they or their parents studied in college," Katebi tweeted.

CBP said it was not detaining individuals because of their country of origin.

"Social media posts that CBP is detaining Iranian-Americans and refusing their entry into the US because of their country of origin are false. Reports that DHS/CBP has issued a related directive are also false," CBP spokesperson Michael Friel told Middle East Eye in an email.

CAIR Washington's executive director, Masih Fouladi, said the reports of detentions "are extremely troubling and potentially constitute illegal detentions of United States citizens".

Mana Mostatabi, communications director at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), told Middle East Eye that potentially as many as 150 individuals have been detained, with some being held for 11-16 hours.

Individuals were asked about their relatives, occupations, birthdays, the last time they visited Iran and their opinions on current tensions, Mostatabi said, according to initial research conducted by NIAC.

"The common denominator is Iranian heritage, which should raise immediate concerns of discriminatory and illegal actions targeting on the basis of national origin," Mostatabi said.

She also noted there were additional unconfirmed reports of detentions at San Francisco Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.

The detentions come amid extremely heightened tensions between the US and Iran after Washington killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike on Friday.

Anti-war protesters took to the streets of the US capital, as well as about 70 other US cities, on Saturday to condemn the actions of President Donald Trump.

---30---

For 2020, Lebanese protesters vow to make new year revolutions

Demonstrators gathered in Beirut determined to push forward in the new year despite obstacles

Lebanese demonstrators warm themselves around a fire in downtown Beirut as they celebrate New Year's Eve (MEE/Lynn Chaya)

By
Kareem Chehayeb in  Beirut
Published date: 1 January 2020

“Down with the rule of the banks!” singer Sandy Chamoun chanted with the crowd as her band, The Great Departed, finished their set and got off the stage in downtown Beirut’s Martyrs Square on New Year’s Eve.

In pictures: Protesters around the region ring in the new 

year defiant and hopeful Read More »


The crowd huddled together in the cold, chanting popular protest slogans while on stage a screen flashed vignettes of the protest movement that first erupted 76 days ago on 17 October.

Alongside these images, demonstrators could read: “Happy New Lebanon.”

“We talked about spending the nights in squares, rather than partying,” Saseen, one of the organisers of the evening told Middle East Eye.

The popular movement that has swept across the country has united calls for the downfall of Lebanon’s political system and for a much needed economic reform.

As the country’s economic situation has only gotten worse in the past few months, demonstrators oscillated between concern and determination as they geared up to enter 2020.
All invited, except the status quo

A stone’s throw away from Martyrs Square, a cluster of tents set up by protesters, often demolished and burned to the ground by political partisans, also stood as a meeting space for those wishing to ring in the new year.

While some protesters played cards, listened to music, took pictures by protest graffiti or socialised, the gathering turned into an unexpected party of its own.

A derbakeh drum suddenly appeared; then a tambourine, some pots and pans, and soon people gathered singing and dancing along to revolutionary songs and chants.

Demonstrators dance in a protest tent in downtown Beirut, 

31 December 2019 (MEE/Lynn Chaya)

As the crowd grew inside one of the white tents, Saseen and other volunteers took shifts serving homemade food. Children selling bottles of water on the streets found shelter in the tent and joined in on the festivities.

“[We] shared with anyone who wanted it,” Saseen said. “[There were] many people passing through the tent.”

The convivial and rebellious atmosphere in downtown Beirut did not convince everyone.

Jad Abou Jaoudeh, the head of news and political programmes for Lebanon’s OTV channel, owned by President Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, mocked the event.

“Revolutions and a night out don’t mix,” he said in a tweet - to which one protester responded: “Nobody invited you in the first place.”
Reclaiming downtown Beirut

Downtown Beirut has been a key meeting place for protesters in Lebanon, and New Year’s Eve was no exception.

Aside from its proximity to parliament and the Grand Serail - the government headquarters - the capital’s historical commercial district was turned into a privatised luxury ghost town during its post-civil war reconstruction.

'Trust is lost': Protests continue in Beirut as Lebanon picks 

new PM Read More »


Due to rampant construction and privatisation, Beirut sorely lacks in public spaces. For many, the demonstrators’ tent city downtown - with community kitchens, legal support services, recycling and open discussion spaces - is a symbol of reclaiming space that had been taken away from them.

“Public spaces are meant to be meeting points...and are also open for people to protest, celebrate, and express [themselves],” Ghinwa Abu Zein told MEE.

Abu Zein left Beirut for Amsterdam nearly five years ago to find better work opportunities. She has since helped organise solidarity protests there, and returned to her home country to spend the end of the year with family.

Describing much of life in Lebanon as “segregated between different components of society” - whether along sectarian or class lines - she feels the uprising and its consolidation in downtown Beirut has been an opportunity to counter that.

“This revolution is giving us the opportunity to literally ‘see’ each other and celebrate the new year together,” she explained. “They [the country’s rulers] never wanted us to meet or unite.”
A new decade of uncertainty for Lebanon

Lebanon has not gently gone into the new decade, amid a nose-diving economy and ongoing political paralysis between its embattled ruling parties and the protest movement.

Lebanon is facing its worst financial crisis since its 15-year civil war, as its public debt stands among the largest in the world.

Credit rating agency Fitch downgraded Lebanon’s rating for a third time in 2019 in mid-December to “CCC”, indicating that debt restructuring is “probable” in light of the political, economic, and financial situation. Standard and Poor’s also slashed Lebanon’s credit rating in December anticipating a “negative” outlook.

Meanwhile, new Hezbollah-backed Prime Minister-designate Hasan Diab has not been viewed kindly by protesters, as political paralysis between ruling parties stall the formation of a new cabinet.

Lebanese banks continue to hoard currency, leaving people struggling to withdraw funds, with some banks preventing customers from taking out more than $100 a week.

The situation has become so dire, a new group was formed in order to protest inside bank branches until people are allowed to withdraw the money they need or cash their salary cheques.


'We need to believe it's important to be happy, not just to survive'

- Saseen, demonstrator

Given the strained economic context, it came as no surprise that at midnight, new year’s greetings eventually turned into angry and emotional slogans against Lebanon’s government and banks.

Saseen, though not surprised, admitted that the overall situation has dampened the festive atmosphere

“People were laughing and drinking, but there was also planning and discussions about the future,” he admitted, though he did not appear fazed.

“We need to believe it's important to be happy, not just to survive.”

Dana, another fellow protester out that evening, said she felt hopeful despite the hardships.

"It’s been inspiring to see such a broad cross-section of society represented these two months since the start of the revolution,” she told MEE. “We enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of the revolution so far and prepare for a difficult year ahead.

“It leaves me with more hope, especially seeing the sense of collective responsibility which contributed to the success of the evening. We all have a stake in seeing the revolution succeed."

Only the Left Can Defeat Antisemitism
BY RAPHAEL MAGARIK  JACOBIN 

The recent spate of antisemitic attacks is horrendous. The best way to fight it is to reject the centrist idea that antisemitism transcends politics.

A member of an Orthodox Jewish community walks through a Brooklyn neighborhood on December 29, 2019 in New York City. Spencer Platt / Getty


Last weekend’s stabbing of five Orthodox Jews at a Hanukkah party in Monsey, New York, is deeply disturbing. It comes after a series of violent, antisemitic attacks in the New York area, ranging from a shooting at a Jersey City kosher supermarket to beatings on the streets of Brooklyn. Shockingly, in New York, the capital city of diaspora Jewry, some are now afraid to display visible signs of their religion. And so, the question becomes: What is to be done?

Unfortunately, in both the Jewish institutional and political world, centrists have produced a pernicious, mystifying response, one that will not only do nothing to fight antisemitism, but that may make things much worse. Only the Left has a real alternative.

Centrist pundits insist that hatred of Jews transcends politics. As Tablet writer Yair Rosenberg tweeted in the wake of the Monsey attack, “Anti-Semitism predates the modern left and right . . . No community or ideology is immune. Attempts to pin the hate on one part of the political spectrum are attempts to excuse one’s allies at the expense of Jewish lives.” At the Forward, opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon wrote the bizarrely titled “Why No One Can Talk About The Attacks Against Orthodox Jews,” even as discussion of the heinous assault proliferated in major newspapers and on social media. Because the perpetrators of recent attacks have not been white, Ungar-Sargon argued, they have proven difficult to assimilate into liberal narratives about Trump and white supremacists: “In the fight against anti-Semitism, you don’t get to easily blame your traditional enemies.” According to the Forward editor, we therefore need to break free of “those rigid ideologies to which so many are enslaved” and “fight this fight together.” Benjamin Wittes soon made the same argument for the Atlantic.


While the antisemitism-is-everywhere narrative presents itself as sober and mature, almost by definition, it makes overcoming antisemitism impossible. If antisemitism is ubiquitous, then what can be done? If antisemitism’s causes are infinitely diverse, if it cannot be connected to specific material circumstances and ideologies, then what does it even mean to combat it?

This confusion is evident in a December 30 New York Times op-ed from New York congresswoman Nita Lowey and American Jewish Committee leader David Harris. The piece, which promises specific answers, rehashes the familiar points about antisemitism’s “multiple ideological sources,” assailing those who would “exploit the issue to undermine their political opponent.” But without a politics of antisemitism, there is no coherent fight against it. Instead, Lowey and Harris offer platitudes: “recognize the problem for what it is: an epidemic”; “we cannot allow this situation to become the ‘new normal’”; and “more needs to be done.” Try to translate these ideas into concrete policy proposals: it cannot be done, because they are devoid of content. Similarly, Lowey and Harris identify apolitical culprits: the passage of time since the Holocaust, the dangers of “social media” and the “Internet,” and the decline of faith in liberal pluralism. Bereft of political analysis, the fight against antisemitism becomes an exercise in nostalgia.

But the centrist narrative can produce one kind of response: a doubling down on the status quo. If you imagine antisemitism apolitically, then your solutions will involve the state’s normal, everyday functions: in this case, police violence. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has intensified the police presence in Jewish neighborhoods. Governor Andrew Cuomo called the Monsey attack “domestic terrorism,” pressing for it to be prosecuted harshly, even though the assailant seems to be most in need of treatment for his schizophrenia. Meanwhile, in another Times op-ed, Mitchell D. Silber, a former NYPD higher-up, urged more intense policing, including police training for synagogues and, startlingly, “undercover officers dressed as observant Jews.” Such policing will inevitably result in violence against black and brown people (potentially including Jews of color). And it is hard to imagine that disguising cops in black hats and sidelocks will endear observant Jews to overpoliced people of color.

Police chiefs, of course, have no interest in defeating antisemitism, any more than they would in a world without crime: these are their reasons for existing — the constant, impossible-to-define enemies that legitimate state violence. And, in various ways, the same is true of centrist elected officials and Jewish institutions, all of whom depend heavily on the symbolic politics of sermonizing against bigotry.

Only the Left can offer a real alternative, because only we can offer a political analysis of antisemitism. That analysis must emphasize the fact that, especially when the perpetrators are poor and black, the culprits are white supremacy and capitalism — which benefit precisely by dividing oppressed groups against each other. This is not “rigid ideology” — it is the basic story of antisemitism, in which Jews serve as handy intermediaries (moneylenders, administrators of feudal lands, small shopkeepers) between elites and the most marginalized. Jews have always been useful to the powers that be (and now to capital) precisely because they make convenient targets of popular rage: better a pogrom than a revolution. Those elites then cynically tell Jews that our only safety lies in clinging tightly to the state and its protections. But that is nonsense. Allying with police departments and posting armed guards will only inspire more resentment and hostility toward Jews from the victims of state violence.

Only the Left can defeat antisemitism, because only the Left can name enemies: white supremacy, the police state, a radically unequal society sustained in part by the cynical redirection of popular rage against Jews. Most basically, there is no solution to antisemitic violence in New York — or, for that matter, to any violence — that does not involve making New York a more equal, fairer place for all its inhabitants. And if American Jews want something more than police escorts and sympathetic tweets, then we have no choice but solidarity.

FURTHER READING

Anti-Zionism Is Not Antisemitism
Hadas Thier

How Labour Became “Antisemitic”
Greg Philo

Antisemitism and the Crisis of Liberalism
Benjamin Balthaser

The Right Wing’s Antisemitism Is Lethal
Noah Kulwin

This Penn heart patient is a 9-year-old boxer dog named Sophie
Sophie underwent a cardiac ablation procedure in a Perelman School of Medicine translational research lab to treat her arrhythmia—the first time a dog with her diagnosis received such a treatment. Veterinary cardiologist Anna Gelzer says of the collaboration, “It’s the best of both worlds.”
Cardiology resident Alexandra Crooks and cardiologist Anna Gelzer of the School of Veterinary Medicine headed up care for 9-year-old Sophie, the beloved pet of Karen Cortellino, pictured here with her son Alex Peña. Not long after the ablation procedure, Cortellino says the boxer was “back to her perky self.” (Image: John Donges/Penn Vet)


For Karen Cortellino, her 9-year-old dog Sophie is more than just a companion.

“There’s this bumper sticker that says, ‘Rescue dogs: Who rescued who?’” says Cortellino, a physician from New Jersey. “That’s exactly how I feel.” Eight years ago, she adopted Sophie, a boxer, two weeks after the death of the family’s first boxer, and “she’s been Mommy’s baby ever since.”

A few months ago, however, Sophie’s star rose even higher: She became the first dog with a particular type of heart disease—arrhythmogenic right ventricle cardiomyopathy (ARVC)—to be treated with cardiac ablation.

Anna Gelzer, a cardiologist in Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, led Sophie through the procedure, together with cardiology resident Alexandra Crooks. But the equipment and expertise to perform an ablation, in which a high energy catheter tip burns tiny portions of damaged heart tissue to restore normal rhythms, wouldn’t have been possible without collaborators from just down the street. At the Perelman School of Medicine’s Translational Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratory, Director Cory Tschabrunn and members of his team worked hand-in-hand with their veterinary colleagues to plan out and provide Sophie a procedure that mirrors the best that human medicine has to offer.

“This collaboration and this close distance between our hospitals allows us to be able to utilize the tremendous access to all this knowledge,” says Gelzer. “And from our experience with Sophie and other dogs to come, we may able to glean information that will be valuable to human medicine. It’s the best of both worlds.”

For Gelzer and Crooks, Sophie is a pilot case for a study now backed by two grants that will support cardiac mapping and ablation procedures for six additional dogs. Currently, cardiac ablation is only available for pet dogs in two other sites in the world, one in Italy and one in Ohio. Sophie’s case puts Penn Vet on the map. While the equipment necessary to perform ablations is costly, access to Penn Medicine’s translational electrophysiology lab has opened the possibility that Penn Vet may one day be able to provide committed dog owners a more durable alternative to medication for treating their pets’ arrhythmias.
A scary spell

ARVC is not an uncommon diagnosis in boxers. Some studies estimate as much as a quarter of the breed may have the inherited disease, which is also prevalent in American bulldogs. But Sophie’s heart was not top of mind in early July, when she had surgery to repair a torn ligament in her left knee. Two weeks later, Cortellino took her for a follow-up visit at their local veterinary hospital to have her stitches removed.
Sophie’s diagnosis of ARVC meant she could suffer a life-threatening arrhythmia, despite starting medications to reduce that risk. (Image: John Donges/Penn Vet)

“Everything was great and literally we were just about walking out the door when Sophie collapsed,” Cortellino says.

Sophie received emergency care, was transferred to another veterinary facility with a cardiac department, and was soon diagnosed with ARVC. A strikingly similar condition affects roughly 1 in 1,000 humans. In both dogs and humans, the disease, which doesn’t manifest until adulthood, causes a deterioration of the tissues in the heart muscle, leading to occasional episodes when the heart beats very fast.

The condition increases the risk of sudden death. While drugs like beta blockers and sodium channel blockers can mitigate this risk, arrhythmias can sometimes break through these medications.

RELATED
Cutting-edge science moves to the clinic to help ‘our furry friends’ fight cancer
Going out of the box to learn to treat exotic creatures
Meaningful science, with students at the helm
Where ethics, welfare, and sustainability meet swine
Celebrating five years of working dogs at Penn

“It was kind of a somber picture when she was diagnosed,” Cortellino says. “She could have a fatal arrhythmia at any time: today, next month, next year, three years from now.”

Cortellino, capitalizing on her medical training, began researching alternative treatment options. In humans with a diagnosis similar to Sophie’s, the treatment of choice is an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD). But, as Gelzer explained to Cortellino when she reached out about this possibility, that option is not yet tenable for dogs.

“ICDs are designed to recognize human arrhythmias,” Gelzer says. “But they’re not able to distinguish the normal variation in heart rate that a dog is capable of from a life-threatening arrhythmia.”

An affectionate dog awaiting its owners’ return home for work, for example, might get so excited upon hearing a key turn in the door that its heart rate could jump from 40 to 200 beats per minute within the space of a few heartbeats. If that dog was outfitted with an ICD, the device might interpret the rate change as an arrhythmia and misfire, triggering a painful and possibly traumatic shock.

But Gelzer did have an alternative proposal for Cortellino, one that could address the underlying cause of Sophie’s heart condition. The only catch was that it had never been done in a dog with ARVC before.
Ideal expertise

When Cortellino emailed Gelzer, the timing was good. Gelzer had been thinking about options for curing cases like Sophie’s for many years. And she had the right kind of expertise to be considering that possibility.

In 2000, when Gelzer was a junior faculty member at Penn Vet, she worked with David Callans, an expert on cardiac electrophysiology at the School of Medicine. At the time, they collaborated on basic cardiac research, using pig models. Gelzer remembers wishing they could apply the technique of ablations to dogs, which develop heart conditions similar to humans.

Fast forward 15 years, after time away from Penn Vet in positions at Cornell and University of Liverpool, Gelzer returned and reconnected with Callans. His old basic research lab was no longer operating, but Gelzer continued to reach out to him for consultations from time to time, or attended rounds for human patients in his group.


This collaboration and this close distance between our hospitals allows us to be able to utilize the tremendous access to all this knowledge.Veterinary cardiologist Anna Gelzer of the School of Veterinary Medicine
Twitter
Facebook

Roughly a year ago, when discussing one of Gelzer’s cases, Callans connected her with Tschabrunn, who had recently set up his lab in Penn Medicine’s Smilow Center for Translational Research as part of the recently established Electrophysiology Translational Center of Excellence (EP-TCE) initiative, led by Francis Marchlinski, director of cardiac electrophysiology for Penn Medicine. Marchlinski and the Penn EP team have been pioneers in the evaluation and treatment of patients with inherited arrhythmia disorders like ARVC.

Tschabrunn’s primary research interests focus on the development of clinically relevant translational research models to elucidate the underlying pathophysiology and mechanisms of complex arrhythmias and the creation of new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies for treating cardiovascular diseases. He also performs, in close collaboration with Marchlinski and with support from the Winkelman Family Fund in Cardiovascular Innovation, clinical research in human patients with ARVC.

As such, Tschabrunn responded with enthusiasm upon hearing of Gelzer’s interest in pursuing ablations in dogs, particularly those with ARVC. The two struck up a collaboration that brought together the latest in technique and technology in cardiac electrophysiology with deep knowledge in veterinary cardiology.

“This was an exciting opportunity not only in terms of a research collaboration,” says Tschabrunn, “but we also had the chance to help a patient by combining our expertise and resources that are really only available at just a few institutions in the world.”
Not a bandage

Ablations are “routine care” for many cases of arrhythmias in people. “You approach the heart through the blood vessel, get in the right spot, and—with all the expertise and knowledge of the practitioner—you can find the damaged area and burn it,” says Gelzer. “And then maybe the patient doesn’t need to be on medications that can have side effects and are in some cases not that effective.”

Gelzer saw Sophie, a healthy dog aside from her heart condition, as an excellent candidate for an ablation. Cortellino, while a bit nervous about putting her beloved dog into uncharted medical territory, was comforted by Gelzer’s and Crooks’s clear expertise, their warm manner with Sophie, and their openness and honesty about the procedure’s upsides—and possible risks.

“I was a little nervous—a lot nervous—but we thought to ourselves, really, what’s our alternative?” Cortellino says. “As my son said, ‘Look Mom, at the very least, Sophie is contributing to the possible welfare of other dogs.’ So there was a small element of altruism in putting Sophie through this, in addition to hoping for a more definitive treatment for her condition.”

Before the surgery, the veterinarians gathered data on the patterns of Sophie’s arrhythmias using a device called a Reveal LINQ, implanted just beneath her skin. The LINQ—which is also used in humans—records a continuous electrocardiogram (ECG) as a loop recorder, storing abnormal rhythm strips for up to three years, giving clinicians a more complete picture of abnormal heart activity than a quick office visit ECG. That information was used during the procedure to zero in on the correct area of the heart to target with the ablation.
Performing the mapping of Sophie’s heart and the ablation procedure was a team effort, involving experts from both the School of Veterinary Medicine and the Perelman School of Medicine. “I think the openness and enthusiasm for this type of multidisciplinary collaboration is a major strength of this University,” says Cory Tschabrunn (to right of Sophie, with black glasses around neck), who directs the translational electrophysiology lab where it happened. (Image: Anna Gelzer)

The morning of the procedure, Gelzer used her own car to drive Sophie the short distance from Penn Vet’s Ryan Hospital to the Smilow Center. When she brought the dog up to the lab, a full complement of experts awaited her: not only Crooks, Tschabrunn and his team, and Giacomo Gianotti, head of anesthesia at Ryan, but also two anesthesia residents, Penn Vet’s two other cardiology faculty, Marc Kraus and Mark Oyama, two other cardiology residents, a cardiology research intern, experts on the machines that were used in the procedure, veterinary nurses, and interested observers.

“The number of people we had in one room for one patient, it blows my mind,” says Gianotti. “Everyone had a specific role, and it took a lot of training and cooperation to get there.”

The procedure was long and complex, taking place in different stages. First, to locate the areas of unhealthy heart tissue that had been indicated by the ECG, the clinicians used an advanced mapping system based on GPS technology called CARTO.

“You put a patch on the bottom and top of the dog,” Gelzer says. “You then use those as your points of orientation as you advance the catheter and create a map of the inside of the heart. It’s great because you don’t have to use fluoroscopy, so nobody is exposed to X-rays.”
The technology Tschabrunn and Gelzer and colleagues used during the procedure mirrors that employed during a human intervention. At right, a map of Sophie’s heart guided the clinicians in making tiny burns to eliminate damaged heart tissue. (Image: Eva Larouche-Lebel)

The CARTO system maps the voltage of the heart tissue, a technique pioneered by Marchlinski and Callans nearly two decades ago and a continued area of Tschabrunn's research focus today in both the translational and clinical PE laboratories. Decreased voltage corresponds with diseased tissue. They confirmed these areas by artificially introducing extra heart beats into Sophie’s normal rhythm. But Sophie’s heart resisted these challenges, a sign that her disease was being kept in check by her medications.

The heart mapping and challenges did, however, allow the clinicians to reproduce the abnormal beats that they had seen on the ECG, giving them more evidence that they were targeting the right areas for ablation. Guided by that information, Tschabrunn used precisely directed radiofrequency to burn millimeter-sized portions of the tissue inside Sophie’s right ventricle, one of the lower chambers of the heart.

Throughout the several-hours-long procedure, Gelzer and Crooks sent texts with updates to Cortellino. “While it was nerve-wracking, I really felt that Sophie was in good hands,” she says.

And all went smoothly. “Sophie did amazing,” Gelzer says. “After we were done, we pulled the catheter out, she rested, and then went home the next day.”
Paving the way

Gelzer and Tschabrunn recently performed another ablation on a canine patient, and they are hopeful that the outcomes from the study will lay the groundwork for ablation to become a more routine option for dogs and their owners.

“My long-term hope for Penn Vet is that any arrhythmia that is potentially ablatable, we will be able to offer ablation therapy,” she says. “It’s not going to be the right option for every owner or dog, but with the right case, the right circumstance, it’s a very promising and rewarding treatment to be able to provide.”

Members of the team on both the veterinary and medical sides share enthusiasm about the information that canine patients will be able to lend to human medicine as well. “There is a lot we can learn about cardiac disease pathology from veterinary patients like Sophie,” says Tschabrunn. “It is extremely difficult or nearly impossible to model human-like inherited cardiac diseases and complex arrhythmias in the laboratory, but similar diseases can occur naturally in dogs. This provides us a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of these diseases and develop new treatments for human and veterinarian patients alike.”
From Sophie’s case and others that follow, researchers hope to glean information that could benefit both human and veterinary patients in the future. (Image: Alexandra Crooks)

This type of mutually beneficial exchange highlights the value of a One Health approach to medicine, one that takes advantage of the remarkable similarities between humans and our companion animals, says Oliver Garden, who heads the Department of Clinical Sciences and Advanced Medicine at Penn Vet.

“If ever there was a thrilling example of One Health in action, this is it,” says Garden. “Sophie’s case brings new heights to our department’s ethos of advanced medicine. And the work of such a transdisciplinary team, in this case involving members of our own esteemed faculty collaborating with experts at the Perelman School of Medicine, is nothing short of breathtaking.”

Tschabrunn concurs. “I think the openness and enthusiasm for this type of multi-disciplinary collaboration is a major strength of this University,” he says. “It is only possible in places like Penn, which brings together the expertise from faculty across so many diverse schools coupled with extraordinary facilities and resources all on a single campus. There’s always something incredible going on that you can be a part of.”

And Cortellino and her family are reaping the benefits: “Sophie is back to her perky self.”

Anna Gelzer is professor of cardiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

Alexandra Crooks is a resident in cardiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

Giacomo Gianotti is associate professor of clinical anesthesiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

Oliver Garden is the Henry and Corinne R. Bower Professor of Medicine and chair of the Department of Clinical Sciences and Advanced Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

Cory Tschabrunn is an instructor of medicine and director of the Translational Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.


David Callans is professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

Francis Marchlinksi is the Richard T. and Angela Clark President’s Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

Homepage photo: A grateful Sophie offers affection to cardiology resident Alexandra Crooks at a follow-up appointment after her ablation procedure. (Image: John Donges/Penn Vet)

A global take on Lebanon protests
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have poured into the streets of Lebanon. Penn Today speaks to two experts to find out why.



During the last two months, hundreds of thousands of protesters have poured into the streets of Lebanon, decrying what they say is a corrupt system that benefits the political elite but fails to provide basic services or stabilize the economy. Penn Today spoke to two experts on Lebanon, Marwan Kraidy, director of the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication, and Lama Mourad, a postdoctoral fellow at Perry World House, to get their take on what sparked the protests, what the marchers seek, and what it means for the country and the region.

Kraidy is an expert in global communication and a specialist in Arab media and politics. Mourad specializes in comparative politics and the politics of migration, with a focus on the Middle East.


What spurred these protests?



Kraidy: The apparent trigger was the telecommunications minister saying they were going to tax WhatsApp calls, but something like that alone wouldn’t cause such massive and enduring protests. There was always political corruption in Lebanon, but there was a scaling up of corruption in the post-war period and with the Hariri family coming into power.

It really has to do with a buildup of one thing after another in the past few years. About five years ago Lebanon had a major garbage crisis. Soon after came issues of traffic jams and flooding. People begin to connect the dots that all of it was due to corruption. Politicians are fighting like the Mafia about who is going to get the biggest commission. When you hire a contractor who is beholden to a politician, most of the contract goes to bribes. What actually gets executed on the ground is below quality, doesn’t meet the basic standards, and just doesn’t work.

All these ‘bread and butter’ issues illustrated the actual impact of corruption and mismanagement on people’s daily lives. It was no longer an abstract notion of corruption that you could ignore, and people are very, very angry.

Mourad: The WhatsApp tax was part of a set of regressive taxes that focused on the lower middle class. Telecommunications costs in Lebanon are among the highest in the world because of the embeddedness and corruption of telecom with the state. About 84% of Lebanese use WhatsApp because it’s incredibly expensive to make phone calls. The outrage wasn’t about WhatsApp at all, it was actually about putting the burden of economic crisis on people who can least afford it.

But even more critical to the protests was a sudden outburst of wildfires in the weeks before the WhatsApp tax. The government showed shocking incompetence and mismanagement. They had firefighting helicopters but couldn’t use them because they hadn’t been repaired.

So, you had voluntary firefighting units from Palestinian refugee camps fight the fires, alongside the ill-equipped Lebanese firefighters. You had riot police trucks being used to fight the fires, highlighting the irony that the government had enough money to invest in the repressive apparatus of the state rather than in the public good.

As much as the fires showed the ineptitude and neglect of the government, they also showed the strength of citizen initiative. It gave people a sense of their own power and agency.



Who are the protesters and what do they want?



Mourad: The makeup of the protestors has changed over time. The first weeks of the protest had a strong presence of ‘deprived’ classes, essentially unemployed and poor classes. Increasingly, the protestors are of a more middle- and educated-class background, particularly in Beirut, but there’s still a wide representation of Lebanese society.

One thing that has remained the same is that protests are happening all over the country, not concentrated in the capital, as they usually are in Lebanon. You see protests from the absolute north, which is a very agricultural and rural working-class area, to the southern areas that Hezbollah and other main Shia parties control and are not normally places where you see large-scale mobilization.

There are central demands that everyone agrees on: the resignation of the government and a call for socio-economic justice. Costs should not fall on citizens; they should be taken up by the banks that are largely the drivers of the crisis and by the state itself.

The chant you have heard since Day 1 is that that all the parties and ruling elite are held responsible for this.

We’re also seeing a really strong presence of women, which is remarkable, and their demands center around feminist issues and issues of the right to pass on citizenship, which are intertwined.



How bad is the country’s economic plight?



Kraidy: The risk of financial collapse is very high. Rating agencies like Moody’s have downgraded the Lebanese economy, saying essentially, ‘Look, there is so much corruption. If you are going go and invest in a business in Lebanon, you’re going to spend half your capital on bribery.’

You have a very indebted country, and when you have corruption that’s preventing economic growth, you cannot pay the debt. The banking sector functions like a Ponzi scheme. People are putting their cards in ATMS machines and nothing is coming out because of severe bank restrictions. Citizens are very anxious, they’re very stressed, and that’s why they’re in the streets.

Mourad: The situation is bleak and getting worse by the day. There are capital controls in place that are not state sanctioned and not legal. Banks are limiting what average citizens can withdraw, sometimes only $300 a week; yet there’s widespread sense that those with political contacts have been able to take their money out. The fear right now is that large depositors have taken their money out of the country’s banks, and it’s just regular citizens who are having their money held hostage. Because there is no transparency in the banking sector, we only have a vague sense of the losses.



What has been the reaction of the government?



Mourad: Up until a few days ago, there was minimal outright repression, but efforts to discredit the protestors have been widespread despite some politicians claiming that they agree with the demands of the protestors. More recently, there’s been a more heavy-handed crackdown informally by political parties as well as by state security services. The major response, however, has been largely to try and wait things out without providing any real solutions or proposals.

Kraidy: The thing about Lebanon is there is free speech. It is dysfunctional, but it is nonetheless a democracy, so multiple viewpoints are competing for attention at all times, which prevents it from becoming a dictatorship. This partly explains the fact that after two-and-a-half months of protests, there has been only one casualty, as opposed to Hong Kong, Chile, Baghdad, where 80 people were shot in a single day.



How has the international community responded?



Kraidy: Right now the calming parties are the Europeans. Lebanon has a population of about 4 million people. On top of this you have at least 1.5 million Syrian refugees. The last thing the French, the Italians, the Greeks, and the Germans want is for things to escalate because where are these refugees going to go? To Europe.

The U.S. administration has made statements that basically they see this as an opportunity to weaken the roll of Hezbollah in Lebanese politics.

The U.S. matters a great deal, but the problem right now is the U.S. is busy with its own problems. And the French are having their own problems, like Chile, Algeria, Yemen, Hong Kong.

This type of unrest is everywhere because you have a global system built for the interests of the super wealthy, and people are realizing it.

I think we need to get used to the notion that the default mode is going to be instability rather than stability because it used to be that instability was treated as the exceptional crisis. I think what we are seeing now is that’s no longer the case.



What does this all mean for the region?



Kraidy: I think there is a consensus that things shouldn’t blow up because if things blow up in Lebanon the whole region gets sucked in.

Everyone has a hand in Lebanon. It is a proxy space for many conflicts and tensions to play out: The U.S. against Iran. The Saudis, the Israelis, the Russians, the French, the Turks are all involved, and there are big stakes. Historic tensions are exacerbated by the fact that Lebanon is going to be key to rebuilding Syria, so there are major economic stakes. So the Chinese are moving in economically, taking over some shipping and transportation infrastructures.

The rebuilding of Syria will be the contract of the century. You have an entire country that’s destroyed. You need roads, you need public transportation, you need schools, you need hospitals, you need electrical grids and cell phone grids.



How will this be resolved?



Kraidy: My hope is the protests get more organized and actually elect representatives. There are very interesting things going on in the capital. There are tents all around Beirut with people holding teach-ins about deliberative democracy and how to get rid of corruption—high-level conversations.

You have a new generation that’s agitating for a different kind of Lebanon, with post-sectarian politics. I think it’s going to be difficult because you have a very wily, very entrenched political class that knows exactly what emotional fibers to manipulate. So far, they have failed to take over and the protesters are holding steady.

If there are new parliamentary elections things may change, but, again, the danger is that you move from an extremely corrupt status quo to anarchy, and nobody wants that because there are enough people who remember the days of the Civil War. There are enough people who are cognizant of what happened next door in Syria and Iraq that I think there’s hesitation to push too far too quickly. These things take time.

---30---

Transit Strikes Continue In France As Unions Look To Put More Pressure On Government

January 2, 2020
Heard on All Things Considered


ELEANOR BEARDSLEY

Download
Transcript

The rail strikes in France protesting planned changes to the national retirement system are now the longest in recent memory — and unions are calling for wider disruption.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Now to France, where trains have been disrupted, and the Paris subway has been largely paralyzed. Workers in France are protesting proposed changes to the country's retirement system, and the strike is now in its 29th day. That makes it the longest transport strike France has seen in modern times. There is no end in sight. Au contraire, the unions want to step up the pressure on the government. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley is in Paris.

Hey there, Eleanor.

ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.

KELLY: I can't imagine Day 29 of the metro not working. How are people dealing with this?

BEARDSLEY: Well, it has been really difficult, especially leading into the holidays. I mean, you know, you have shopping and parties to go to. The streets were snarled not just with cars that people had to take, but with scooters and bikes. It was insane. Of course, the metros were closed. You couldn't get anywhere.

KELLY: Yeah.

BEARDSLEY: But there's been a lull for the last week because of the holidays. But we're sort of anticipating renewed chaos on Monday. The government had asked for a holiday truce. The unions rejected it. The rail workers actually seem more determined than ever.

Take a listen to this. It's the sound from an incident this week when a Paris metro driver crossed the strike line. Her colleagues surrounded her on the platform and tried to block her from getting on the train.

(SOUNDBITE OF BOOING)

BEARDSLEY: So yeah, tempers are high. But keep in mind, Mary Louise, that this is only a small minority of workers striking, but they can paralyze the system 'cause they're train drivers. And now one of the major unions is calling to ramp it up, like to block oil refineries.

KELLY: This sounds extreme over changes to the retirement system. What is it exactly that President Macron wants to do?

BEARDSLEY: Well, he said - you know, he ran on this in his campaign. He wants to simplify and streamline what he says is a complicated system with 42 different retirement plans into one national system. But he also wants to raise the retirement age where you can get a full pension to 64 from 62. And that's one of the reason the train workers are striking. Some of them, depending on the, you know, difficulty of their job, have been able to retire early. That would go. The government wants to get rid of special perks for train drivers. But you know what? Critics say the government has really done a poor job of explaining and selling this reform.

KELLY: And how is President Macron responding to all this turmoil? Does he sound as determined as ever to go ahead?

BEARDSLEY: He does, but he also sounds like he has a tin ear is what people are saying. You know, every New Year's Eve, the president gives an address, and he lays out a path for the future. And he makes the French feel good. If there are problems, he tries to calm their worries. He didn't do that. Here he is talking.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

EMMANUEL MACRON: (Speaking French).

BEARDSLEY: So basically, Mary Louise, he said he's going to do the reform. He's said it's going to be a more egalitarian system and more just. But he just sort of repeated everything he said before. And he came across as detached and sort of above it all.

Unions were furious because they said he was acting like the strike had never even been happening. They say that Macron's plan will be less equal, less jobs and it's going to destroy a public system that was built on solidarity not only between rich and poor, but between different generations. He wants to turn it into a privatized system that will benefit the rich and pension funds who want a part of it.

KELLY: Eleanor, where does public opinion stand on this? Do people sympathize with the strikers?

BEARDSLEY: Just barely, Mary Louise. Fifty-one percent of the French support the strikers, and they're against the reform. They're also scared they're going to get less and have to work longer. But no one really understands the issues. I was at a New Year's Eve dinner party, and everyone was arguing over the table about what it would and wouldn't do. So we're just going to have to wait till Monday. Everyone is dreading the commute. And we'll see how things go.

KELLY: (Laughter) The dreaded Monday commute. That is NPR's Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.

Wishing you all the best for the new year. And good luck with that Monday commute.

BEARDSLEY: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF ODEZENNE SONG, "SOUFFLE LE VENT")

Copyright © 2020 NPR

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=FRANCE

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=GENERAL+STRIKE

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=FRANCE+STRIKE

French air crews cancel plans for January strike

French airline crews have called off plans for strike action running from January 3rd.

Photo: AFP

The SNPL union, the largest union representing French pilots and air crew, has announced that after talks with the government, its members will no longer be walking out from January 3rd, as had previously been threatened.

So far, air crews have not taken part in the mass transportation strikes that have hit France since December 5th, although some ground crew and air traffic controllers joined the first few days of the strike.

Unions representing air crew and pilots had been conducting separate talks with the French government over the proposed reform to the French pension system.

It was reported that the scrapping of regimes that allowed air crew to retire earlier than 62 was a particular concern.

Just before Christmas, union leaders announced that unless significant progress was made, their members would be taking part in unlimited strike action running from January 3rd.

However the SNPL union, which has the biggest membership among pilots, has now called off the strike action.

The unions representing cabin crew - the SNPNC-FO, Unsa, Unac-CGC - have also withdrawn their strike notice.

The concessions the government offered are reported to be around retirement age - with pilots still able to retire at 60 and a later introduction of the new scheme for cabin crew, so that anyone born before 1987 can continue to retire at the age of 55.

These among several overtures the government has made to unions on the subject of the proposed reforms.

The thrust of the government's proposal is to replace France's current highly complicated pension system, with 42 different regimes for different professions, with one universal system that offers the same retirement and the same pension calculation formula to everyone.

This would do away with the 'special regimes' which offer early retirement and a generous pension pot and which are particularly common in the public sector.

Concessions have also been offered to ballet dancers, who were on strike, about the implementation of the new regime and transition period at the end of their careers.

The government has also delayed the implementation of the new scheme, so it now only affects people born after 1975.

The strikes are now the longest mass transportation strikes since in France since the 1980s, overtaking the three weeks of industrial action that hit the country in 1995, also over pension reform. In that case after three weeks of strikes the government withdrew its pension proposals.

---30---

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=FRANCE

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=GENERAL+STRIKE

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=FRANCE+STRIKE