Isabella

Congratulations to the Astronauts that left Earth over the weekend.
Good choice
 

Look at Switzerland's per capita! 

Google rescinded offers for more than 2,000 people who had agreed to work as contractors or temps, The New York Times reported Friday. Last month, CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged to employees that hiring and investments would slow as the coronavirus pandemic created uncertainty for businesses across industries. Google’s reported decision to rescind offers from contractors and temp workers once again draws attention to a vast portion of the company’s workforce that does not enjoy the same benefits and protections of its full-time employees. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/29/google-said-to-rescind-job-offers-for-thousands-of-contractors-temps.html

A Russian-controlled ‘court’ in occupied Crimea has rejected the appeal brought by Serhiy Filatov, a 47-year-old Jehovah’s Witness from Dzhankoy, against his six-year prison sentence for practising his faith.  Russia has now not only reinstated Soviet persecution of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but is breaching international law by applying such repressive measures on illegally occupied territory.
The hearing before ‘judge’ Edward Belousov, of the Crimean High Court, was held on 26 May behind closed doors.  This was due to restrictions over the pandemic but did mean that Filatov, who took part by video link from the SIZO [remand prison] was deprived of the chance to see his family and all those who would have wished to show their support.  
The closed hearing also makes it unclear whether Belousov made any pretence of examining the appeal.  This seems unlikely since he upheld the manifestly wrongful six-year sentence in a medium security prison colony handed down on 5 March 2020 by ‘judge’ Maria Yermakova, from the Dzhankoy District Court.  The sentence also includes a five-year ban on engaging in educational work involving public addresses or publications in the media or posting information in the media or Internet, as well as a one-year term of restricted liberty after the prison term.  
Filatov was found to have prayed, together with others, in his own home, which the Russian-controlled prosecutor and court chose to view as “undermining constitutional order and state security”.  He was charged under Article 282.2 § 1 of Russia’s criminal code which punishes for something termed ‘organization of the activities of an extremist organization.”   Russia treats the presumption of innocence with the same contempt it shows religious freedom, and Filatov was swiftly added to Russia’s notorious ‘list of extremists and terrorists’, with this bringing serious economic restrictions.  He was not, however, held in detention, and was taken into custody after the sentence was announced on 5 March.  He has been held at the Simferopol SIZO [remand prison], where the overcrowding, filth and unsanitary conditions are a danger to life and health.  Now that the appeal has failed, he may be moved, in violation this time also of the European Court of Human Rights, to Russia.
http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1590495374

https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2020/05/26/meet-astronauts-robert-behnken-douglas-hurley

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to regulate or shut down social media companies, one day after Twitter Inc. for the first time added a warning to some of his tweets prompting readers to fact-check the president's claims.
Trump, without offering any evidence, reiterated his accusations of political bias by such technology platforms, tweeting: "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen."
Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-social-media-twitter-fact-check-1.5586285

DENVER — Heartbreak and hope happen every day inside hospitals.
The James family experienced heartbreak when 26-year-old Amber James couldn't breathe. She went to a nearby hospital in Thornton but was transferred to Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center in Denver when her condition got worse. 
James tested positive for COVID-19 while she was 33 weeks pregnant. 
“I’m here at home powerless not knowing what to do I can’t do anything," said Brett James, her husband, who was not allowed to visit her. "I had never been away from her while she was sick. Ever." 
Less than 24 hours after Amber was transferred, doctors put her on a ventilator. 
The next day, doctors performed an emergency cesarean section to save her baby. 
“And it came to the point where we needed to get the baby out for baby’s sake and it was a risk to mom," said Dr. Roy Bergstrom, an OB Hospitalist in the Obstetrix Medical Group who helped care for Amber James. 
Bergstrom said he and his team have performed more than a dozen emergency cesarean sections on moms with COVID-19. 
This one was different. 
“We’re Jehovah's Witnesses so we don’t accept blood, and that was the biggest struggle for me," said Brett James. "Because the doctor just straight told me, he’s like, 'so if she starts bleeding, you want us to let her die?' Just like that. And well yeah that’s our religion and that’s what we believe in." 
Bergstrom said he had conversations with Amber James about this before she was intubated. 
“It was definitely both an ethically challenging thing, and an emotionally challenging thing knowing that may come to be a factor in her care," he said. 
Luckily, there were no complications in Amber's C-section, and baby Michilah survived. 
https://www.9news.com/article/news/health/doctors-deliver-mothers-baby-while-shes-unconscious-on-a-ventilator-because-of-covid-19/73-6f33adf5-9c2d-4f5f-a155-370effe4d357

Of the 87 Jehovah's Witnesses on trial in 39 cases for "continuing the activities of a banned extremist organisation" for exercising freedom of religion or belief, 85-year-old Yelena Zayshchuk is the oldest. Five fellow defendants in her case are in their sixties or seventies. All face up to six years' imprisonment if convicted. Two defendants in their sixties died in April before trials began.
At least 18 of the 87 Jehovah's Witnesses on trial on charges of "continuing the activities of a banned extremist organisation" for exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief are in their sixties, seventies or eighties. Another defendant died in Kirov in April shortly before the first full hearing was due in his trial. Another man died in Smolensk in April after investigators submitted the case against him to prosecutors and before it reached court. Both those who died were in their sixties.
 
 
The oldest defendant is 85-year-old Yelena Zayshchuk, whom the FSB security service took in for questioning after raiding her home in Vladivostok in April 2018. Her family "do not understand why they are persecuting an elderly and sick person who has done nothing wrong to anyone", Jehovah's Witnesses commented (see below).

Among the other six on trial with Zayshchuk is Nina Purge, who is due to be 80 on 19 June. Four of the other defendants are women in their sixties or seventies. The Judge has sent the case back to prosecutors (see below).

Yury Geraskov, who died in Kirov at the age of 64, had not spent any time in detention, but "stress connected with persecution for his faith had negatively affected Yury's health", Jehovah's Witnesses noted (see below).

Viktor Malkov, who died in Smolensk at the age of 61, had spent eight months in detention and nearly four months under house arrest. He had suffered from coronary heart disease and kidney problems. "Viktor's health was largely influenced by poor conditions in pre-trial detention centres and the stress associated with criminal prosecution", Jehovah's Witnesses noted (see below).

Sergey Mysin is on trial in Ulyanovsk despite serious health concerns. Jehovah's Witnesses say he was discharged early from intensive care in October 2019 after FSB security service officers went to the hospital to insist on his treatment being stopped. The Ulyanovsk Region FSB refused to answer any questions from Forum 18 on the incident (see below).

Two of the other defendants are men who have already been convicted in another, overlapping trial (see below).

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, there is no sign of early release, however, for those Jehovah's Witnesses currently in pre-trial detention. Several are worried about the danger of contracting the disease (see below).

The Moscow-based Public Verdict human rights group warns of poor conditions in Russian prisons, such as "overcrowding, poor ventilation, lack of medical staff, poor medical care, and serious health problems, including chronic conditions and lowered immunity among inmates and staff alike" (see below).

Nina Purge
Read full article: http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2571

‘Express burials’ raise fears that Nicaragua is hiding a coronavirus tragedy
Such “express burials” have become increasingly common in this Central American country, raising suspicions that the authoritarian government is trying to hide the extent of the coronavirus tragedy within its borders.
As the virus that causes covid-19 has spread across the globe, Nicaragua has stood out in Latin America for an almost complete lack of restrictions to contain it. The government of President Daniel Ortega has kept offices and schools open. Authorities deny the virus has spread widely; in this nation of 6 million, one of the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, they insist there have been only 25 cases and eight deaths.
Sixty-seven doctors or other health-care workers have been infected with the coronavirus, according to the independent Nicaraguan Medical Unit. It bases its count on symptoms and lung X-rays, because tests are scarce and controlled by the government.
Around 90 patients with severe respiratory disease were being treated Friday at the Hospital España in the western city of Chinandega, where Maltez died, according to hospital officials who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Doctors there suspect most are covid-19 cases. Among those who are believed to have been infected recently are top hospital officials, radiologists, internists and nurses.
The government doesn’t recognize any of those infections as covid-19. It did not respond to several requests for comment.
“The hospitals are overwhelmed, the health system is maxxed out,” said Taki Moreno, president of the Pulmonologists’ Association.
Read full article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-nicaragua-quick-burials-ortega-hiding-deaths/2020/05/17/288d29ac-9633-11ea-87a3-22d324235636_story.html

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/perpetual-crisis-now-who-telling-us-covid-19-may-never-go-away
The truth is that this pandemic could still potentially be in the early chapters.  The Spanish Flu pandemic lasted for three full years, and we could possibly be facing a similar scenario.
And this week WHO official Mike Ryan warned that this virus could even become “endemic”, and if that happens it “may never go away”…
In other words, Ryan is saying that this virus could become like a flu that keeps reappearing year after year.
So what are we going to do if that happens?
Are we supposed to have shutdowns every year whenever a new wave of COVID-19 infections starts happening?

In Hitler camps, one is there AGAINST your will..... but I guess you do not see this reality - due to the OCD.
I read on this forum recently how you guys pulled brother Lett apart for owning a property which could be sold and used together with his pension when older. He was wise but all you saw was avarice and a person who is materialistic..... so now you change your positions very quickly when it suits you...... like a wind blown hither and tither. No integrity.
All I see in the letter above is a person who has become institutionalized and had become a free-loader which quickly turned to bitterness...... because he had stopped serving jehovah a long time ago.  The comfort and security offered him (he was hoping for life) was like having a free  provider - just appointed for you. He had lost his goal of why he went to serve at Bethal in the first place. The self-sacrificing spirit was maybe never there! or was lost along the way.
He knew things could change at any time and he also knew he can go and serve where the need is greater.  Bitterness grew because he now had to go out of his comfort zone and work and preach like other pioneers. 
If he was really old  - he would qualify for a state pension and still go and preach where the need is greater - like I am doing. I get less pension than the average American, even less than the refugees, but it works for me. I am grateful to get it.
If he really wanted to serve God he would get on with serving and trust jehovah to survive - like many other pioneers do.  I know of many older ones who have to work and pioneer - like Paul did.  They trust in jehovah.
Technology has changed.... we no longer use books......and many of us gave up great careers and education..... but are not bitter about it. We gave it up willingly to serve where-ever we were needed, through hardship, hunger, beatings, shipwreck, adversity etc... as Paul said. 
 

PLANS to turn a vacant retail unit into a Kingdom Hall for Jehovah’s Witnesses have been approved.
Eden District Council has given the go-ahead for The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of Britain’s proposal for the half-acre site, on the A66, Coupland Beck, in Appleby.
According to the design and access statement: “The proposal is located adjacent a residential property.
“The area is open rural farmland with just a handful of houses.
“These comprise generally of two storey stone homes, render and rough cast walls under, generally, a slate roof.”
It also stated: “The local congregation was established in the mid 1950’s and has steadily grown since then to approximately 75.
“At present they meet in the township of Bongate where their present hall has undergone several alterations to cater for the growing numbers.
Read more: https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/18434061.jehovahs-witnesses-cumbria-given-approval-place-worship/

Aleksandr is married, has two daughters and eight grandchildren. He has two accreditations. He mastered the trades of lathe worker, forging and manufacturing; worked as a lumberjack and as an engineer. Having become a Christian, Aleksandr Ivshin refused to participate in military training. Now he is under persecution as an ”extremist.”
https://jw-russia.org/en/prisoners/ivshin.html

More than 4,000 prisoners of concentration camps wore purple triangles on their chests. Because of their faith, they refused to salute Hitler, pick up weapons and fight. On the 75th anniversary of the liberation, the peace-loving Jehovah’s Witnesses are again in prison, this time in Russia. How did the liberating country become an oppressor?
https://jw-russia.org/en/news/2020/05/3.html

So true dear @Arauna

Yes, these one and two-room shacks do not have toilets..... and 3 to 4 people live there. The west complain about small things....... they have no clue how the really poor live. 

Estuvieron visitando y estimulando a nuestros hermanos mayores de edad ❤✔

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