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Israel

Game Changer? New Evidence Of Syrian Use Of Chemical Weapons

ARUTZ SHEVA, HAARETZ, JERUSALEM POST (Israel); REUTERS

Worldcrunch

TEL AVIV - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons against civilians, an Israeli Intelligence official stated on Tuesday.

Haaretz reports that the head of the Research Division at Military Intelligence, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun said: “To the best of our professional understanding, the regime has used lethal chemical weapons on a number of occasions, including the incident on March 19”.

Addressing a security conference at Tel Aviv University, he went on to describe the evidence that led him to this conclusion, including pictures of the affected area, as well as descriptions of victims with foam coming out of their mouths. The most likely agents used relied on sarin, which acts as a nerve agent and is fatal even in low doses.

"In Syria there is a large arsenal of chemical weapons, more than 1,000 tons of chemicals, thousands of aerial bombs and quite a lot of warheads and surface-to-surface missiles that can be armed with chemical weapons," said Brun.

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A Syrian soldier takes aim. Photo by U.S. Dept. Of Defense

He also said there was a possibility that Syria's chemical weapons could find their way into the hands of terrorists, "who don’t undertake normal cost-benefit calculations."

Attempts to transfer advanced weapons systems between Assad’s regime and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah were also addressed by Brun. Regarding what some reports recently deemed an Israeli attack on Syria, he affirmed: “the SA-17 missile launchers that were bombed in Syria were going to be transferred to Hezbollah.”

This issue, writes Haaretz, was also addressed by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Monday, when he said that the transfer of advanced weaponry was crossing a red line and when such a thing was done, “we act.”

Reuters reports that U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel seconded his Israeli counterpart, describing the use of chemical weapons as a “game changer.”

According to the Jerusalem Post, there have been three alleged Syrian chemical weapons attacks -- the aforementioned March 19 attack near Aleppo, another near Damascus, also in March, as well as one in Homs in December. In each case, Assad’s government and the rebels have blamed each other.

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Society

What's Spoiling The Kids: The Big Tech v. Bad Parenting Debate

Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a "hostile" world. It's a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.

Image of a kid wearing a blue striped sweater, using an ipad.

Children exposed to technology at a very young age are prominent today.

Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — A 2021 report from the United States (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) found that 42% of the country's high-school students persistently felt sad and 22% had thought about suicide. In other words, almost half of the country's young people are living in despair and a fifth of them have thought about killing themselves.

Such chilling figures are unprecedented in history. Many have suggested that this might be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but sadly, we can see depression has deeper causes, and the pandemic merely illustrated its complexity.

I have written before on possible links between severe depression and the time young people spend on social media. But this is just one aspect of the problem. Today, young people suffer frequent and intense emotional crises, and not just for all the hours spent staring at a screen. Another, possibly more important cause may lie in changes to the family composition and authority patterns at home.

Firstly: Families today have fewer members, who communicate less among themselves.

Young people marry at a later age, have fewer children and many opt for personal projects and pets instead of having children. Families are more diverse and flexible. In many countries, the number of children per woman is close to or less than one (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong among others).

In Colombia, women have on average 1.9 children, compared to 7.6 in 1970. Worldwide, women aged 15 to 49 years have on average 2.4 children, or half the average figure for 1970. The changes are much more pronounced in cities and among middle and upper-income groups.

Of further concern today is the decline in communication time at home, notably between parents and children. This is difficult to quantify, but reasons may include fewer household members, pervasive use of screens, mothers going to work, microwave ovens that have eliminated family cooking and meals and, thanks to new technologies, an increase in time spent on work, even at home. Our society is addicted to work and devotes little time to minors.

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