The problem that I had was that the doctors could not find what was causing my problem.
I was eventually advised to go for a therapeutic pregnancy, hoping that my immune level would stay higher afterwards.
I laud the fact that this is happening but will they get very far with the Chinese, the government that at the very least descriminates against their Uighur Moslem minority?
Presumably, China wants peace in order to regenerate their market economy.
It is deplorable what has been done in the NW China to the indigenous Uyghur peoples by the countries governing Han regime. Also, effectively genocide but you may also have noted, without more than a few words of condemnation from the outside world.
Currently, and for some time, Isreal has been upgrading its surveillance system in the occupied areas using Chinese products. This is a known fact. If they now are engaging in discussions regarding a ceasefire/pause or cessation and return of hostages, I can only think there is more in play than we realise.
That’s just crap algorithms pushing the same stuff. If you buy a pair of hedge trimmers online, you can be sure that at least 50% of all the adds you see inthe next week will be imploring you to by hedge trimmers.
That is, of course,if you actually see any adverts at all 
Algorithms and the autosuggestion online is something that concerns me a bit.
At the moment we are just looking at marketing but there is more, possibly already in play.
I do not belong to any social media sites beyond SF but I do read selected free and subscribed media sites. These often mention the phenomenon of men frequently thinking about Romans. Someone did mention on SF earlier that this is a euphemism but I’m wondering if maybe its an experiment for something else.
Did someone (or AI) introduce the topic onto social media to monitor how much traction it would get? A sort of tech Salem witches are everywhere idea. The more social media members talk about Romans and forward conversations, the more others feel they should be part of it. The human animal is quite sheep like and FOMO is a powerful tool.
What if more sinister topics are introduced? Knowing exactly where, how quickly and in what way to do that would be useful. A few fake (employed) social media members and just about any ‘belief’ can garner a massive following.
I always felt the dangers of AI lie not what it can do but in what bad actors can be doing with it.
For instance, in the lead up to the next UK general election, how much fear of immigrants can be motivated into a pro-Conservatives vote?
A moment to interject that even in war there are international laws, though these may morally be less clear. Legal minds see events differently.
An article in NYT by David French, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former constitutional litigator:
For any who cannot read but want a balanced view, I reprint in part
While some of the people protesting Israel are vicious anti-Semites, there are many millions of others who look at the undeniable horror in Gaza and are understandably desperate for it to stop. Any decent human being looks at the toll in civilian life — especially the toll in children’s lives — and recoils.
There’s a certain misguided logic in focusing most peace efforts on Israel. Israel, unlike Hamas, has demonstrated in years past that it will respond to international pressure. This means that protesting Israel feels less futile than protesting Hamas. In addition, protesters may believe that Hamas has been punished enough or that the civilian price is just too high, even if it means that Hamas survives to attempt “a second, a third, a fourth” attack, as a member of the Hamas Politburo, Ghazi Hamad, promised in an interview on Lebanese television on Oct. 24.
I have a different view. World pressure, including pressure from diplomats and from the streets, should focus on Hamas. Demand that it end the war by laying down its arms and freeing the hostages. By focusing on Israel, the protests and other forms of public pressure have the effect of undermining the core principles of the law of armed conflict and the rules-based international order itself.
I know that sounds like a bold claim, but let’s take a step back and look at the modern history of attempting to regulate, limit and (hopefully) abolish war. The goals have been clear — outlaw wars of aggression, enforce the law of war and preserve the system by defeating aggressors and holding lawbreakers personally accountable for their crimes.
Yet the public demands for a cease-fire advance the interests of the unlawful aggressor (even if protesters hate Hamas) by attempting to block Israel’s exercise of its inherent right to self-defense. A cease-fire is different from a humanitarian pause. A cease-fire instead leaves the attacking force in place, able to rest, rearm and attack again — as it has promised it will do.
I’m not naïve. I don’t for a moment believe that defeating Hamas and removing it from power solves the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel cannot live up to its own democratic promise or its own liberal ideals if, for example, it indulges its own dangerous radicals. But I do know that placing more pressure on Israel than Hamas to end the conflict and save civilian lives is exactly backward. The international system depends on opposing the aggressor and punishing crimes. Protests that aim their demands more at Israel than Hamas impede justice, erode the international order and undermine the quest for a real and lasting peace.
1 Like
I find much to disagree with there, and think that much the same was said by the Nazis when speaking about the French Resistance. The latter were not terrorists, they were legitimately and bravely fighting against an occupying power.
I admit that the circumstances are not exactly the same, but there are echos imo.
2 Likes
That’s not remotely balanced! Either it’s politically naive (which I doubt) or it’s cynically presenting itself as being reasonable and unbiassed.
2 Likes
Shooting the messenger. That will fix it. 
1 Like
Yesterday I think it was someone quoted an interview with a previous Israeli Prime Minister and he was asked:
‘If you were born a Palestinian in Palestine, what would you have been now?’
The answer was swift and unequivocal:
‘A terrorist’.
Much as we deplore the events of October the 7th, and most of us around the world do, it has to be placed in the context of history.
@Susannah he wasn’t shooting you, he was disagreeing with your opinion of the article. Much as I have done above, that’s all. 
I can agree with that.
“Pollitically naive” and “cynically presenting itself” sounded harsh.
Susannah, I appreciate you posting the article because this conversation does need to be balanced by a recognition of the role played by Hamas too. Yes, most of us would probably want to be terrorists if we were palestinian, but I’d hope few of us would find the Oct 7th events acceptable, even if we had been living in Gaza for years.
One of the things that I’ve wondered recently is whether, if the hostages had not been taken, Israel would have encroached more heavily into Gaza, and whether the possible truce now being mooted would have not been considered. Hard to know if a terrible wrong may have yet inhibited other wrongs.
1 Like
I have to agree. Either Hamas is a terrorist organisation and should be treated as such, or not and it should be treated as a legitimate elected government. The West has chosen the former. The issue for me is that Israel, which claims to be a liberal democracy is acting like a terrorist state.
I think this is a good article.
Ahh but that wasn’t aimed you Sussanah, it was aimed at David French. I did read his article until about halfway through when I got fed up. I don’t think he had any point to make. All the US had to do to justify the war French participated in was show some evidence of WMDs, which of course they didn’t, and that makes the US a perpetrator of war crimes. All Israel has to do is to show some evidence that hospitals are being used as command centres, as described in the animation they produced weeks ago. Otherwise Israel is guilty of war crimes. So far all we have are two Kalashnikovs, a pair of boots and a door in a tunnel. Why haven’t we seen beyond that door yet?
1 Like
Or whether the savages in Hamas are just cleverer than the savages in the Israeli war cabinet?
They may well be more adept, because they’ve had more practice on live subjects with no-one to interfere.
3 Likes
Their outlook is that there will be neither a home for liberal Isrealis or Arab Istaelis.
What a shame.
1 Like
Isreal may be forced into a ceasefire but a solution for the future may be impossible. With decades of mistreatment, dehumanising rhetoric and unaddressed issues, how can any sort of trust ever evolve?
This, by NYT editor seems to describe the chasm
The conflict now involves fundamentalist religious ideologies, distinct in critical regards but equally convinced that all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River has been deeded to them by God.
A political and military struggle between two national movements for the same land can be resolved by compromise, at least in theory. France and Germany settled their differences in Alsace-Lorraine. Peace came to Ireland. But absolutist claims of divine right to territory appear impossible to reconcile.
“If we cannot get beyond the walls, share this land, and come to value life over death, we are all doomed,” Ms. Daoud said. “Every three years or so, we will be sending kids of 18 and 19 to their deaths.”
Roger Cohen is the Paris bureau chief. He has worked for The Times for 33 years and has served as a foreign correspondent, foreign editor and an Opinion columnist. In 2023, he won a Pulitzer Prize and George Polk Award as part of Times teams covering the war in Ukraine.
2 Likes
I am sure they would have, and that what is still standing of Gaza wouldn’t be, and that they would have ramped up their activities on the West Bank.
3 Likes
Yes, these lunatics have been pandered to for far too long. They’re fundamentalist views should no more be entertained than any other religious fundamentalist views, no matter what religion or cult. Israel created this problem, the role of the international community IMO is to ensure, through sanctions or whatever other legal means, to ensure they do.
3 Likes