Kenyan marathoner to compete for Israel in Rio Olympics
(JNS.org) Kenyan-born marathoner Lonah Chemtai is expected to compete for Israel at the Olympics Games in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil next month after gaining a last minute approval.
Israeli marathoner Lonah Chemtai with her husband and coach Dan Salpeter. Credit: Facebook.
“I am very proud [to represent Israel] and I hope to achieve a new personal best time,” Chemtai told Reuters.
Chemtai, who grew up a rural village in western Kenya, first came to Israel in 2009 to care of the children of her country’s ambassador to Israel. The 27-year-old runner recently gained Israeli citizenship after marrying her coach, Dan Salpeter, in Kenya earlier this year. Her inclusion on the Olympic team was only granted days before the deadline for her eligibility.
Despite achieving a personal best time of two hours and 40 minutes, Chemtai is not expected to compete for a medal in Rio, where top female runners generally average times closer to two hours and 20 minutes.
“A personal best in Rio very much depends on the conditions, which can change from day to day, so it’s hard to know. … But Lonah still has tremendous potential to improve greatly over the next 10 years and even beyond,” Salpeter said.
Israel is expected to send at least 47 athletes to the Rio Olympics, making it the largest-ever delegation for the Jewish state.
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Paraguayan leader makes historic first visit to Israel
(JNS.org) Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes made the first official visit by a leader of his country to Israel on Tuesday where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“President Cartes, Horacio, bienvenidos, it’s my pleasure to welcome you and your entire delegation to Israel on this historic visit, the first visit of a President of Paraguay to Israel. It reflects something very deep,” Netanyahu said in a joint meeting.
Our relationship, Netanyahu continued, “It reflects something very deep…Not only the growing partnership between our two countries but also your personal friendship for the State of Israel and also some deeper roots of, some parallels, in our history: Small countries surrounded by a lot of big countries, not always on the friendliest terms. The hope of securing prosperous, secure future in our region.”
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the two leaders signed a number of agreements to cooperate in areas such as legal matters, education, the Holocaust and culture as well as a Memorandum of Understanding on technical assistance for Paraguay. It was agreed that Israel would send a delegation to Paraguay to boost agricultural output and that Paraguay would send a delegation to Israel to learn about technology.
Paraguay was one of 33 United Nations members to vote in support of U.N. Resolution 181 that helped to create the State of Israel in 1947.
“In the name of my country, of all the population I want you to know Israel is in the heart of all Paraguay. We like you very much,” President Cartes said.
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U.S. State Department denies existence of ‘secret document’ on Iran nuclear deal
(JNS.org) The U.S. State Department has denied the existence of a so-called “secret document” in the Iranian nuclear deal that outlines how Iran would be able to more quickly produce a nuclear weapon by ramping up its uranium enrichment after the year 2027.
“There is no secret document or secret deal,” U.S. State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner said.
Instead, Toner said the document “appears to be Iran’s long-term enrichment R&D plan that was submitted by Iran to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) as part of its initial Addition Protocol declaration.”
Toner added that the Iran deal “explicitly refers to this document,” and that its substance was made available to the U.S. Congress “on multiple occasions” before and after the deal.
On Monday, the Associated Press obtained a document which was the only part of the nuclear deal that was not made public last year. The document outlines how key restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program will ease in slightly more than a decade, which will cut the time Tehran needs to produce a nuclear weapon from a year to six months.
“As of January 2027—11 years after the deal was implemented—Iran can start replacing its mainstay centrifuges with thousands of advanced machines,” the Associated Press wrote in its report. “From year 11 to 13, says the document, Iran can install centrifuges up to five times as efficient as the 5,060 machines it is now restricted to using….Because they are more effective, they will allow Iran to enrich at more than twice the rate it is doing now.”
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Iranian FM boasts about country’s ability to produce nukes in post-deal era
(JNS.org) Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif boasted about his country’s ability to bring its nuclear weapons program back to life after the Islamic Republic’s nuclear deal with world powers begins to expire in a decade.
On Monday, the Associated Press obtained a document which was the only part of the nuclear deal that was not made public last year. The document outlines how key restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program will ease in slightly more than a decade, which will cut the time that Tehran needs to produce a nuclear weapon from a year to six months.
Zarif said that the document, which outlines Iran’s post-deal uranium enrichment program, is a “matter of pride” and that it was created by Iran’s “negotiators and industry experts,” Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Additionally, Zarif said that the addendum to the nuclear deal will soon be made public.
“God willing, when the complete text of the document is published, it will be clear where we will stand in 15 years,” he said.
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Mayor of Atlanta defends ties with Israeli police despite Black Lives Matter demands
(JNS.org) The Mayor of Atlanta on Monday said that Israeli police officers will continue to train the Atlanta police department despite demands made by ALTisREADY, a group affiliated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
“There was a demand that I stop allowing the Atlanta Police Department to train with the Israeli police department,” Mayor Reed said at a press conference.
“I’m not going to do that. I happen to believe that the Israeli police department has some of the best counter-terrorism techniques in the world and it benefits our police department from that long-standing relationship,” he said.
Some BLM protestors, and representatives from NAACP, the Nation of Islam and Southern Christian Leadership Council, as well as others, met with Reed on Monday in a closed door meeting in order to address crimes involving people of color by local police, CBS46 News Atlanta reported.
Other protestor groups were left out of the meeting, including ALTisREADY, but their demands were reviewed by the mayor.
ALTisREADY lists on its website that “the people demand a termination to APD’s involvement in the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, that trains our officers in Apartheid Israel.”
This is not the first time that the cause of the BLM movement has become conflated with a pro-Palestinian cause. On July 7 the NYU branch of the group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) posted on Facebook that “many U.S. police departments train with the Israeli Defense Forces,” and these are “the same forces behind the genocide of black people in America are behind the genocide of Palestinians. The IDF assists the NYPD and other American police departments in their oppression and murder of black people.”
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