World News in Brief

JTA

The suspensions, announced by both countries on Tuesday, followed a damning report alleging corruption at the organisation’s highest levels.

An internal report leaked on Monday alleged graft and sexual misconduct at UNRWA, which was thrown into crisis after the United States last year announced it would no longer fund it. The allegations are now being scrutinised by UN investigators.

Switzerland’s suspension will have an impact on money slated for 2020, not the $22.5 million (R319.2 million) already earmarked for 2019, Swiss officials told media there. The Netherlands, which funds UNRWA to the tune of about $15 million (R212.8 million) annually, will suspend its contributions “until we get satisfactory answers”, Sigrid Kaag, the Netherlands’ minister for international aid, told the NOS broadcaster.

A copy of the damning report obtained by AFP describes “credible and corroborated” allegations of serious ethical abuses, including involving UNRWA’s top official, Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl.

The US decision caused a financial shortfall of $446 million (R6.3 billion) in the agency’s budget of $1.2 billion (R17 billion). Before the scandal was exposed, Krahenbuhl said he expected to end 2019 with a deficit of at least $211 million (R3 billion).

Outcry over French official’s swastika cake

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has called for the firing of a city council member from the French city of Montpellier over a birthday cake decorated with a swastika.

Montpellier councillor Djamel Boumaaz, a former member of France’s far-right National Front Party, received the cake with a black swastika on a white background surrounded by cherry filling for his 40th birthday, and posted a photo of it on social media. The tweet has since been removed.

The Wiesenthal Center posted a screenshot of the tweet on its Twitter page, and called on the European Coalition of Cities Against Racism “to condemn Boumaaz, and to urge the mayor of Montpellier to take measures to remove him from his municipal functions”.

Boumaaz’s Twitter feed includes many references to the quenelle, an inverted Hitler salute, and a tweet in which he doctors a photo of the Gaza border to look like a concentration camp. In 2016, he wrote that his Twitter account was “forbidden to dogs and Jews”.

He told the French newspaper Le Parisien that he received the cake two years ago from a supporter, and that the message that accompanied the cake noted that he turned it down. He said the police investigated it at the time following complaints from social-media users, and the case was ultimately closed.

Gal Gadot’s eight-year-old in ‘Angry Birds 2’

Gal Gadot should watch out – her eight-year-old daughter might upstage her one day.

Alma Varsano, Gadot’s older daughter with her Israeli real-estate-developer husband Yaron Varsano, is the voice of one of the hatchlings in The Angry Birds Movie 2, which is scheduled to be released in mid-August.

She is joined by other children of actresses: Faith Urban, 8, and Sunday Urban, 11 – Nicole Kidman’s daughters with Keith Urban – and Genesis Tennon, the daughter of Viola Davis.

“Looks like I’m out of a job – so proud of my little hatchling Alma,” Gadot posted on Instagram with a clip from the movie.

Canada won’t reschedule poll

Canada isn’t changing the date of its national elections, even though they fall on a Jewish holiday.

Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault announced on Monday that he wouldn’t recommend changing the date, which coincides with the last days of Sukkot. Last week, the country’s federal court ordered him to review a prior decision.

The government was responding to a lawsuit filed by an orthodox Jewish candidate in Canada’s federal election, and a Jewish voter. They said holding elections on 21 October, which is Shemini Atzeret, one of the last days of the Sukkot holiday, discriminated against observant Canadian Jews.

Of the four advance polling days, three are on other Jewish holidays or Shabbat, when observant Jews are prohibited from working, travelling, actively using electricity, or performing a variety of work tasks. A special ballot can be sent by mail.

Since 2007, Canadian law has mandated that national elections be held on the third Monday in October in the fourth calendar year following the previous election.

US law helps care for Holocaust survivors

Bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the United States House of Representatives that will prioritise health care and nutrition services for Holocaust survivors.

The bill, the Trauma-Informed Modernization of Eldercare for Holocaust Survivors Act or TIME for Holocaust Survivors Act, was introduced earlier this month in the senate. It increases the chances that survivors can age in their own homes rather than an in institutions.

It was introduced by Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is Jewish, and Representatives Donna Shalala, and Elise Stefanik.

The bill incorporates several provisions into the Older Americans Act to ensure that Holocaust survivors have care and services tailored to their needs.

“My district has among the largest populations of survivors in the country. The trauma and grief that these survivors endured is unimaginable. The TIME for Holocaust Survivors Act can tend to that unique pain in this closing chapter of their lives, and allow them to live out their remaining years with dignity,” Wasserman Schultz said.

There are about 80 000 Holocaust survivors living in the US, with one-third of them living at or below the poverty line. Institutionalised settings, with confined spaces or restrictions on food, can induce panic, anxiety, and trauma due to their Holocaust experiences, the bill notes.