Nevada

Senior Israeli official flees US after paedophilia arrest, sparking debate over Israeli impunity

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Tom Artiom Alexandrovich [LinkedIn]

In another example of what many claim to be Israel’s undue influence over the US, a senior Israeli official facing serious paedophilia charges fled the country after being arrested in a law enforcement sting operation in Nevada.

Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, 38, a high-ranking figure in Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, an agency operating under the direct supervision of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, was arrested by Las Vegas police during a multi-agency investigation targeting online child predators.

According to police statements, Alexandrovich was one of eight individuals apprehended as part of the sting. He was charged with the felony offence of “luring a child with a computer for sex acts” and later released on $10,000 bail. He subsequently returned to Israel, prompting questions about how and why a foreign national accused of such a crime was allowed to leave the US before facing trial.

Read: Accused of paedophilia, Jewish-Americans are escaping to Israel, report finds

The Israeli Cyber Directorate initially claimed the incident involved only “questioning” and insisted the trip was “unrelated to work matters”. However, police documents obtained by Israeli media contradict this, confirming Alexandrovich was indeed arrested and charged in the US and yet still managed to evade justice.

The scandal has provoked widespread outrage and online debate, with critics accusing Israeli authorities of helping Alexandrovich evade US justice. Many questioned why he was allowed to leave the country despite the severity of the allegations and whether Israeli diplomatic or political channels intervened.

Observers have pointed to the striking silence from US authorities following his return to Israel. Some have compared the case to the scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender widely accused of running a global blackmail operation with political protection. Epstein, who had longstanding ties to Israeli figures and intelligence-linked networks, has long been suspected of operating as a Mossad asset.

This is not the first time Israeli officials have been accused of misconduct abroad. Last month, Yossi Shelley, Israel’s ambassador to the UAE and a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was recalled following reports of inappropriate behaviour. Emirati officials complained of Shelley’s frequenting of “dubious places” and his abusive conduct towards local staff. He reportedly boasted openly about his exploits with sex workers.

The Alexandrovich case has further inflamed concerns over what critics call “Israeli exceptionalism” in Western legal systems, the idea that Israeli nationals and institutions are shielded from accountability due to political alliances, particularly in the US.

One of the most widely circulated posts came from US activist and journalist Shaun King, whose thread on the case garnered millions of views before being abruptly deleted by X.

“In the middle of the night, @elonmusk deleted EVERY SINGLE TWEET I’ve made about the Israeli pedophile, Tom Alexandrovich,” King wrote. “Every retweet. Every link to my articles. Hundreds of my tweets about Tom Alexandrovich are gone.”

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Amid Soaring Temps, Heat-Related Deaths Have More Than Doubled Since 1999

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

A sign says, “Stop: Extreme Heat Danger,” at the Golden Canyon Trailhead in Death Valley, California on July 9, 2023.
 (Photo: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

“It is likely that continued increases in average temperatures, the number of ‘hot days,’ and the frequency and intensity of heatwaves could be playing a role,” said one researcher.

As 55 million people in the U.S. Midwest faced heat alerts on Monday, research published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association showed that heat-related deaths in the country rose 117% between 1999 and 2023.

“The current trajectory that we’re on, in terms of warming and the change in the climate, is starting to actually show up in increased deaths,” lead author Jeffrey Howard, an associate professor of public health at the University of Texas at San Antonio, told USA Today. “That’s something that we hadn’t had measured before.”

Using a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention platform, Howard and co-authors from Pennsylvania State University and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences analyzed all deaths from those 25 years coded for “hyperthermia of newborn,” “effects of heat and light,” or “exposure to excessive natural heat” as either a contributing or underlying cause of death.

They found 21,518 deaths for the full period, with 1,069 in 1999. The lowest annual figure was in 2004 (311) and the highest was in 2023 (2,325). Last year was the hottest on record globally and scientists are already warning that this year is expected to continue that trend.

“As temperatures continue to rise because of climate change, the recent increasing trend is likely to continue.”

Last year broke the record that was set in 2016—a year that’s also significant in the new study: “The number of heat-related deaths… showed year-to-year variability, with spikes in 2006 and 2011, before showing steady increases after 2016.”

Howard told CBS News that “it is likely that continued increases in average temperatures, the number of ‘hot days,’ and the frequency and intensity of heatwaves could be playing a role” in the rise since 2016.

“There is also a social and behavioral component as well,” he added, “including differences in access to air conditioning, outdoor work, the number of unhoused individuals, and things like that.”

The researcher noted that Arizona, California, Nevada, and Texas had the highest heat-related deaths—which he said is “not terribly surprising because we know that these are some of the hottest regions in the country, but it does reinforce that the risk varies regionally.”

The paper warns that “as temperatures continue to rise because of climate change, the recent increasing trend is likely to continue. Local authorities in high-risk areas should consider investing in the expansion of access to hydration centers and public cooling centers or other buildings with air conditioning.”

The authors also acknowledged limitations of their research—including “the potential for misclassification of causes of death, leading to possible underestimation of heat-related mortality rates; potential bias from increasing awareness over time; and lack of data for vulnerable subgroups”—meaning the true death toll could be higher.

A legal memo published in June by the watchdog Public Citizen detailed how local or state prosecutors could bring criminal charges against oil and gas companies for deaths from extreme heat made more likely by the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.

“These victims deserve justice no less than the victims of street-level homicides,” said Aaron Regunberg, senior policy counsel for the group. “And this memo shows that prosecutors have a path to secure that justice, if they choose to pursue it.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Continue ReadingAmid Soaring Temps, Heat-Related Deaths Have More Than Doubled Since 1999