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Ruth King

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israeli Scientists Find Mechanism That Causes Cancer Cells to Self-Destruct Hana Levi Julian

By on March 29th, 2017

Israeli scientists have made an enormous discovery that can help lead
to a new treatment for at least two of the most resistant cancers that
exist: pancreatic and triple negative breast cancer.

Many cancer patients struggle with the adverse effects of
chemotherapy, still the most prescribed cancer treatment. For patients
with pancreatic cancer and other aggressive cancers, the forecast is
more grim: there is no known effective therapy.

A new Tel Aviv University study published last month in Oncotarget
discloses the role of three proteins in killing fast-duplicating
cancer cells while they’re dividing. The research, led by Prof. Malka
Cohen-Armon of TAU’s Sackler School of Medicine, finds that these
proteins can be specifically modified during the division process —
mitosis — to unleash an inherent “death mechanism” that
self-eradicates duplicating cancer cells.

“The discovery of an exclusive mechanism that kills cancer cells
without impairing healthy cells, and the fact that this mechanism
works on a variety of rapidly proliferating human cancer cells, is
very exciting,” Prof. Cohen-Armon said. “According to the mechanism we
discovered, the faster cancer cells proliferate, the faster and more
efficiently they will be eradicated. The mechanism unleashed during
mitosis may be suitable for treating aggressive cancers that are
unaffected by traditional chemotherapy.

“Our experiments in cell cultures tested a variety of incurable human
cancer types — breast, lung, ovary, colon, pancreas, blood, brain,”
Prof. Cohen-Armon continued. “This discovery impacts existing cancer
research by identifying a new specific target mechanism that
exclusively and rapidly eradicates cancer cells without damaging
normally proliferating human cells.”

The research was conducted in collaboration with Prof. Shai Izraeli
and Dr. Talia Golan of the Cancer Research Center at Sheba Medical
Center, Tel Hashomer, and Prof. Tamar Peretz, head of the Sharett
Institute of Oncology at Hadassah Medical Center, Ein Kerem.

A new target for cancer research

The newly-discovered mechanism involves the modification of specific
proteins that affect the construction and stability of the spindle,
the microtubular structure that prepares duplicated chromosomes for
segregation into “daughter” cells during cell division.

The researchers found that certain compounds called Phenanthridine
derivatives were able to impair the activity of these proteins, which
can distort the spindle structure and prevent the segregation of
chromosomes. Once the proteins were modified, the cell was prevented
from splitting, and this induced the cell’s rapid self-destruction.

“The mechanism we identified during the mitosis of cancer cells is
specifically targeted by the Phenanthridine derivatives we tested,”
Prof. Cohen-Armon said. “However, a variety of additional drugs that
also modify these specific proteins may now be developed for cancer
cell self-destruction during cell division. The faster the cancer
cells proliferate, the more quickly they are expected to die.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Terrorism Trend Setters – The Palestinians By Rachel Ehrenfeld

By on March 29th, 2017

http://acdemocracy.org/terrorism-trend-setters-theRight: Hit the gas at 199 [km/h] for Al-Aqsa,” urges the Palestinian “Run over Organization” calling on Palestinians to use their cars to kill Jews. [Facebook, “Fatah – The Main Page” Nov. 6, 2014]” Source: Palestinian Media Watch. –

Plowing into crowds in speeding cars to kill large numbers of people and stabbing more when the car is forced to stop, is becoming the rage among jihadists operating in Europe. Most counter-terrorism experts in major media outlets claim these are signs of a new trend of terrorism by individuals “inspired” to commit such heinous crimes by ISIS but decline to mention radical Political Islam as the origin.

The Palestinian loving Europeans are now shocked by jihadist attacks the like Israelis had to cope with for many decades.

Israeli civilians have been terrorized for years by speeding car and knife attacks by Palestinians who are inspired by the same jihadist ideology as the London, Brussels, Paris, Munich and Nice attackers. While ISIS followers receive some funding and help from local supporters, the Palestinian terrorists are encouraged to launch such attacks by the Palestinian Authority and are guaranteed a national hero status, large financial rewards and special benefits to their families.

The flow of funds rewarding Palestinian terrorists’ atrocities using cars, knives, guns and explosives against Israelis have been steadily on the rise since the establishment of the PA in 1993. The more incitement by the Palestinian leadership, the more funds to the PA coffers. Some originated in the Gulf-States and Iran, but most of the money have been flowing from the European Union, the United Nations, and the United States. It was not designated for terrorist activities but for “Humanitarian Aid” in the spirit of the PA, the PLO and HAMAS’s support of future orphans and widows. No amount evidence provided by Israelis of the PA ongoing incitement and payments for terrorists stopped the money flow. To the contrary, funding of the Palestinians increased over the years. Moreover, the international donor community increased funding to Palestinian murderers who claimed they are forced to commit such crimes by the occupying Israelis. This has been going on since the establishment of the PA in 1993.

No amount evidence provided by Israelis of the PA ongoing incitement and payments for terrorists stopped the money flow. To the contrary. The louder the Palestinian murderers claimed to be victims, forced to terrorism by the occupying Israelis, the more sympathy and funds from their donors, especially the EU.

Last week attack near the British Parliament was not the first jihadist attack in the United Kingdom. But successive British government and apparently the security services have turned a blind eye to the evolving terrorist tactics used by the Palestinian against Israelis. And until Theresa May became Prime Minster last year, they have also paid no attention to ever-growing, public and often violent Palestinian anti-Israeli incitement and activities, including BDS, everywhere in the U.K. The Kafiya clad Palestinians have been setting the global jihadist terrorist trend for many decades. Ignoring that was a mistake many Britons, and other infidels will be paying for with their lives.

As a reminder, here are a few examples of widely publicized Palestinian terror incitement:

Palestinians encouraged for vehicular terrorist attacks against Jews. PA Twitter

Zahran Barbah, A Gazan writing under the Facebook hashtag “Stab,” posted the anatomical chart showing how to make attacks as deadly as possible. October 16, 2015

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

In the Nunes Affair, Don’t Lose Sight of the Unanswered Questions Aspects of the FBI’s handling of the Flynn case deserve further scrutiny. By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on March 29th, 2017

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446210/devin-nunes-investigation-chairman-house-intel-committee-michael-flynn

Let us stipulate that it would be difficult for House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) and the Trump White House to have handled a critical intelligence matter any worse.

Still, the questions Nunes has raised are more important than the fact that he shot himself in the foot while pursuing the answers.

The chairman says he was invited by an unidentified intelligence official to review classified documents on the White House grounds — at the Old Executive Office Building, it appears, where the National Security Council has secure facilities for that purpose. These documents purportedly show that communications from Trump transition officials, and perhaps Trump himself, were intercepted during intelligence-agency monitoring of foreign powers; and Nunes says the monitoring in question appears unrelated to Russia’s meddling in the U.S. election.

Nunes reports that the documents he was shown suggest that the Obama administration may have been using its foreign-intelligence powers to shadow the incoming Trump team. Though the communications in question were lawfully intercepted, Nunes suggests that the identities of Trump officials should have been “masked” (i.e., concealed) under standard minimization rules that guide the dissemination of classified foreign intelligence throughout the “community” of U.S. intelligence agencies. Instead, the identities of the Trump officials were revealed and widely transmitted to people with no apparent need to know about the officials’ communications — some of which, in Nunes’s description, had “little or no apparent foreign-intelligence value.”

Nunes’s account cannot be verified because the documents he reviewed have not been disclosed, nor reviewed by anyone else who is talking. Meanwhile, rather than first sharing what he learned with members of the important committee he chairs, Nunes went to the White House to brief President Trump.

This is bizarre for two reasons. First, the classified information Nunes reviewed belongs to the executive branch, which the president leads. Trump does not need to be briefed by a member of Congress; he can direct the appropriate intelligence officials to brief him — and could then declassify and publicize any information he believes the public should have (redacting any information that could compromise critical intelligence secrets, methods and sources). Second, Nunes, who served on the Trump transition team, leads a committee responsible for getting to the bottom of both alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and the executive branch’s potential abuse of its foreign-intelligence collection power. By opening himself up to the charge that his first loyalty is to the White House rather than to his committee’s investigation, Nunes damages both his own credibility and the perception that his committee can conduct a reliable investigation.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Weighing Aspirations, Trump Argues for Increased Defense Spending : Herbert London

By on March 28th, 2017

Dr. Herbert I. London is the President of the London Center for Policy Research and is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has written or contributed to 30 books and as a social critic, his work has been published in many prominent publications.

The post-Cold War ‘military industrial complex’ isn’t applicable to today’s terrorist enemies

During President Trump’s recent address to Congress, he said we must add $54 billion of spending to the defense budget in order to bolster the nation’s defense capabilities. Considering the $1 trillion in defense sequestration during the Obama years, this number may be relatively modest. The problem is making an assessment of what’s adequate and necessary.
Defense spending in the age of advanced military hardware is an exercise in reading tea leaves. The number of variables in any equation often overwhelms the serious analyst.
Take the F-35 as an example. The head of the program said that the cost of the aircraft will be reduced to $85 million by 2018. But that number has significance only if seen against a backdrop of lifetime use. An aircraft with an 8,000 to 10,000 flight hour cycle is more expensive than one with a 5,000 hour life.
Then, there’s the question of mission. An aircraft designed to perform a single mission—e.g. the A-10 Warthog—is cheaper to build than an aircraft capable of multiple missions. However, single mission planes will necessitate a larger than anticipated force and arguably a budget increase.
In today’s environment, it’s also appropriate to ask whether the aircraft is manned or unmanned. Perhaps it’s wise to spend more on anti-air weapons and less on fighters and interceptors. Could stand-off platforms be less expensive in the long term than fighters and interceptors? Could stand-off weapons render Russian and Chinese airplanes irrelevant?