OPINION

THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The Fight for Israel’s Democracy Continues
April 1, 2023

Credit...Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York

Times; photographs by Getty Images

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists

whose views are informed by expertise, research,
debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate
from the newsroom.

In a triumph for democracy, a remarkable popular uprising has compelled Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to suspend his far-right coalition’s assault on the country’s judiciary. Over
the past few months, Israelis from across the social and political spectrum — labor unions, Army
reservists, diplomats, health workers and students — have filled the streets to deliver a full-throated
rejection of Mr. Netanyahu’s plan to remove almost all legal restraints on his government.

There is much there to celebrate, especially when elected autocrats in many parts of the world are
succeeding in weakening the rule of law so they can trample on human rights, silence dissent and punish
political enemies.

The popular outrage peaked last Sunday, when Mr. Netanyahu summarily fired the defense
minister, Yoav Gallant, a conservative former general, after Mr. Gallant warned that strong opposition in
the ranks of the military to the judicial changes posed a “clear and immediate and tangible danger” to
national security.

But this victory for the protesters is not yet a victory for Israel. So far, Mr. Netanyahu has done no
more than to put the judicial overhaul — which would effectively neuter the independence of the
judiciary by allowing a majority in Parliament to overrule Supreme Court rulings — on hold until after
the Parliament’s Passover break.

The potential damage to Israeli democracy goes far beyond the courts. The effect, as protesters
who took to the streets understood, would be to undermine the written and unwritten checks and
balances of Israeli government. As the president of Israel’s Supreme Court, Justice Esther Hayut, said in
a speech in January, the proposed “reforms” are an “unrestrained attack on the legal system,” which
would render the democratic identity of the state of Israel “unrecognizable.”

Now that Mr. Netanyahu has stepped back from his initial demands, the street protests may lose
some of their momentum. But Israelis who are fighting for their democracy continue to be vigilant.

For this reason, the pressure on Mr. Netanyahu and his government must be sustained by Israelis
and by Israel’s true friends, especially the United States. The strong bonds that have long linked America
and Israel are based on shared values, democracy first among them. President Biden was right to defend
those values, issuing an unusually strong rebuke on Tuesday: “Like many strong supporters of Israel, I’m
very concerned,” he said. “I’m concerned that they get this straight. They cannot continue down this
road.”
 The pressure must be sustained also because the attack on the judiciary was only the beginning of
a broad campaign by the ultranationalist and ultrareligious parties, one that seeks to give Jewish settlers
a far freer hand in further expanding and legalizing the West Bank settlements, change the status quo on
the Temple Mount and relegate Arab citizens to a second-class status.

The broader agenda was underscored when the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a
settler convicted in the past of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization, said he agreed to
delay the judicial reform only after Mr. Netanyahu promised to create a “national guard” that would
report directly to Mr. Ben-Gvir’s ministry, giving him what amounts to a militia outside the control of
the responsibly led police or army.

These measures would fundamentally alter Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state, an
identity that has always rested on a delicate balance between the secular and the religious, the
progressive and the traditional, and the Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities of Israel’s Jews. And it
would make the creation of a Palestinian state effectively impossible.

As this board has argued for years, the security and even survival of the Jewish state depend on
eventually achieving a durable peace settlement with the Palestinians, to include the formation of a state
of their own. The two-state solution has been all but moribund, in part because of political disarray and
corruption on the Palestinian side. But were the far-right parties to succeed in their designs on the West
Bank and the Temple Mount or in curtailing the rights of Israeli Arabs, Israel would be on an untenable
path in its treatment of Palestinians and Arab citizens, and the door to a negotiated settlement with the
Palestinians would be closed. And as Mr. Netanyahu must understand, that could in turn jeopardize the
tentative ties Israel has forged with Arab states through the Abraham Accords, which he hopes to make
one of his lasting legacies.

The call for reforming the judiciary is not in itself misguided. At its founding 75 years ago, Israel
failed to produce a constitution, relegating the formulation of “basic laws” and legal guidelines instead to
the Parliament and the Supreme Court. A sort of common law evolved, with the high court assuming the
power to review the legality of government actions, while the task of appointing judges fell to a
committee of judges, jurists and politicians. An independent attorney general and legal watchdogs in
government departments further extended a system of checks and balances. As Israel has moved
politically to the right in recent years, some conservatives have argued that the judiciary has remained a
self-perpetuating and unrepresentative body of justices with a left-wing outlook.

It is not clear whether Mr. Netanyahu has much room to maneuver in his coalition. Through most
of his 27 years in and out of the prime minister’s office, he has been viewed as a master of political
survival, but also as fundamentally cautious. Yet his actions have been sharply curtailed in recent years
by an ongoing trial for corruption, which has made it ever more difficult for him to find coalition
partners (and has also given him personal reasons to resent the judiciary). After a series of inconclusive
elections in recent years, Mr. Netanyahu managed to stay in office only by forging an alliance with
the radical fringe. And with only a four-seat majority in the Parliament, that fringe could take him down
at any moment.

The ultranationalist and ultrareligious parties to which Mr. Netanyahu has linked his fate will not
lightly abandon their designs. Their way is destructive for Israel, for the peace process, for Israel’s
fledgling relations with Arab states and for its long relationship with the United States.
The untold thousands who went into the streets clearly saw the threat to the legal bulwark of their
democracy. They, and their strong supporters in the Biden administration and the American public,
should also understand that the danger to the future of their state is far from over.
 Who wants mandatory ROTC?
By: Edilberto C. de Jesus - @inquirerdotnet1

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:03 AM May 04, 2023

The question still concerns national security, as it did in 1935. Preparing for
independence but fearful of war with Japan, the Commonwealth government passed
its first law, the National Defense Act that required college students to enroll in Reserve
Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). Though triggered by the exposure of corruption and
crime in the implementation of ROTC, the passage of the National Service Training
Program in 2001, making ROTC optional, also followed from the military assessment of
the country’s radically altered security environment.

Hence, the perspectives of the Department of National Defense (DND)-Armed

Forces of the Philippines on the legislative bills, numbering over 25 last December, to
restore Commonwealth-style mandatory ROTC (MROTC) should carry the heaviest
weight. Current demand for evidence-based legislation raises public expectations that
their authors had addressed the concerns of the institution with the broadest expertise
on the issue and the burden for its implementation.

DND-AFP has judiciously avoided public comment on the subject. It would be imprudent for
DND-AFP officers, constitutionally subordinate to civilian authorities, to oppose openly policies
proposed by powerful politicians. Their views surface in their professional analysis of security threats.
Coincidentally, also last December, DND-AFP declared that it had achieved strategic victory
over the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army. Insurgency remains a concern,
though less than in the 50s to the 80s. Internal political problems have led to communal violence in
the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) that may require DND-AFP
intervention, but, notwithstanding the jihadist occupation of Marawi, the establishment of BARMM
has moderated the terrorist threat.
Meanwhile, maritime competition in the South China Sea, the Ukraine war, and United States-
People’s Republic of China (PRC) confrontation over Taiwan reflect a volatile global geopolitical
environment that calls for a review of DND-AFP mission and mandate and the resulting changes in
policies, which it may demand. President Fidel Ramos started this reassessment in 1995, following
two milestone events: the closure of American bases in the Philippines and the Chinese occupation of
Mischief Reef in the West Philippine Sea, claimed and earlier controlled by the Philippines as part of
its United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea recognized exclusive economic zone.
The result was the AFP Modernization Act (AFPMA), which laid out a 15-year plan to
improve the country’s capacity for self-defense. In 2012, the confrontation with the PRC in the
Scarborough Shoal prompted the extension of the AFPMA to 2027 with a $40 billion budget to
support the DND-AFP pivot from internal security to external defense operations.
EDITORIAL

Preparing for El Niño

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:07 AM April 28, 2023

With the official weather bureau forecasting

an 80-percent probability of El Niño in the
coming months, pertinent government
agencies have no excuse to dawdle on their
job and should now speed up preparations
for this catastrophic but expected weather
phenomenon. According to the Philippine
Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical
Services Administration, the probability of
an El Niño occurrence has increased from 55
percent to 80 percent in June, July, August,
and September, with an El Niño alert set to
be issued next month.
ADVERTISEMENT

El Niño, which is caused by the seasonal warming of the Pacific Ocean, upsets
normal weather patterns and brings heavy rainfall in some countries, and dry spells
and drought in others, including the Philippines. Fishermen from South America first
noticed the phenomenon in the 1600s, and noted that it usually occurred toward the
Christmas season, hence the name El Niño which refers to the child Jesus. Climate
change however has broken that pattern such that El Niño may be expected in other
months of the year.

This extreme weather condition has been known to cause the outbreak of
diseases, heat stress, and respiratory ailments, as well as wreak devastation on
agricultural lands that result in lower crop yields and, consequently, longstanding food
shortages. Over the past decade, the Philippines has incurred P463 billion in damages
from extreme weather events, 62 percent of that in the agriculture sector. The fisheries
sector has not been spared, with warm ocean waters dispersing and driving schools of
fish into deeper waters and drastically reducing one’s catch. Severe temperatures and
lower ocean waters have also exposed and bleached fragile coral reefs, killed plankton,
and triggered fish kills. Forest fires, degraded water sources, and other environmental
risks can also be expected.

While there’s little that humans can do to influence El Niño’s onset, duration, and
intensity, its severe effects can be mitigated with sound policy interventions,
preemptive government actions, and long-term strategies informed by science.
Expected to lead these initiatives is the Department of Agriculture (DA), and its acting
secretary, President Marcos himself.

So far, the DA has outlined its plans to help the fisheries and agriculture sector
cope with El Niño’s effects, including putting up more water-related infrastructure
such as hydroelectric power plants, irrigation canals, and diversion dams. Small scale
irrigation projects would also be developed or rehabilitated, and made available to
farmers. The DA also said that it has already identified hybrid varieties of rice and
other high value crops that can be planted during dry spells.

All well and good, though it remains to be seen if the agency blamed for spotty
policies behind the skyrocketing prices of sugar, rice, and onions could follow through
its plans and prove detractors wrong.

For his part, the President could have expounded on his announced plan for the
government to slowly convert the country’s dependence on water supply from
underground to surface water, since conventional wisdom has it that groundwater,
being less polluted, is easier and cheaper to treat than surface water. Knowing about
the risk of groundwater depletion and the reduction of water in streams and lakes, as
well as the deterioration of water quality, should be enough to convince most people to
go for it. The plan to help local government units install their own water supply
systems should rain prove insufficient is sound, however. As is the executive order that
the President said he had signed to create an office to manage the country’s water
resources.

Just as noteworthy is the mitigation and adaptation plan set up by the Disaster Risk
Reduction and Management Unit that includes the promotion of drought-tolerant and
early maturing crop varieties, organic fertilizer to increase retention of soil moisture,
the adjustment of the planting calendar, and crop shifting.

Small farmers too can actively prepare themselves for the expected drought by
following a crop rotation schedule, installing drip irrigation, and shifting from water-
intensive to more robust crops that can withstand hotter or drier conditions. They can
also reach out to the concerned agencies, like the Bureau of Plant Industry, for
technical advice on the right plant varieties, and monitor weather forecasts to be able
to plan their planting season accordingly. Commercial establishments and even
ordinary households should be encouraged to do their part in conserving water as
well, since this precious resource would prove even more limited under the strain of El
Niño.

The government too should actively honor its commitments to the Paris Agreement on
climate change, and look beyond short-term solutions meant to ease the ill effects of
this extreme weather event. Because the bigger picture here is that climate change is
getting worse, with El Niño being an early but no less deadly manifestation. Which
means no amount of preparation is ever too much.

SCIENCE WRITING IN CAMPUS JOURNALISM

1,797 11

Learn about Prezi

AR

Alyana Karla Raymundo

Updated Sept. 5, 2019

TRANSCRIPT

Technical
“Anti-mosquito” cane toads released in QC may be lethal to dogs, humans
From CNN Philippines:
A warning for residents in Barangay Old Balara in Quezon City: Those frogs released in your neighborhood may end up
killing more than just mosquitoes.
Wildlife biologist Carmela Española told CNN Philippines that the more than 1,000 cane toads released in the area in a drive
against dengue could harm dogs and people.
Española said touching these frogs could cause nausea and severe allergy — and sometimes, much worse.
“It has caused death in the past, there have been records of it causing death,” she said.
The release of the frogs in creeks in the village was met with criticism online, with some netizens pointing out that these
amphibians may cause harm to pets and humans. Others said the toads may be an invasive species.
Content
Ethics
Science News
Science Editorial
Science Feature
SCIENCE WRITING IN CAMPUS JOURNALISM
Alyana Karla P. Raymundo

Science Writing
Writing about scientific subject matter, often in a non-technical manner for an audience of non-scientists.
Write a science feature about:
http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/Science-Writing-term.htm

Areas
To produce a science section that stands out, the school publication must come up with something different.

Science Writer

Roles
A SCIENCE WRITER should be able to communicate clearly and effectively so that he can popularize and translate scientific
reports into stories.
INTERPRETER
of Science and Technology and its benefit to mankind.

TRANSLATOR
of scientific or technical jargon into simple language.
Basically, news about science.
"Gulayan sa Paaralan revives Hydrophonics"
"Antipolenos fear Swine Flu"
Troubling return
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:16 AM September 05, 2019
It’s another health nightmare waiting to happen — unless the nation acts quickly.
On top of the twin epidemics of measles and dengue afflicting thousands of Filipinos, mostly children, at present, the
Department of Health (DOH) has revealed that two samples taken from Manila’s sewage this year tested positive for vaccine-
derived poliovirus (VDPV).
Why is this deeply troubling news? Because the Philippines has been certified polio-free since 2000 by the DOH, with the last
recorded polio case in 1993.
The return of the polio virus thus indicates a breakdown in the public health program that eradicated the disease and helps
keep it at bay. That appears to be the drop in oral polio vaccine (OPV) coverage in recent years, exacerbated by the
widespread vaccine scare generated by the Dengvaxia controversy.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/123767/troubling-return#ixzz5yfUFpg5D
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook
What issues in your school/community are affected by science?
Promote scientific literacy.
• Focus on the facts
• Analysis of the issue must be based on scientific facts and following the scientific method
• Assumptions raised must be based on solid logic and following the scientific method
"What the health!"
"Radiating radiation"
"Mallnutrition"
Research, research, research.
• Science fair
• School events
• Local science
community
A newspaper article written by or on behalf of an editor that gives an opinion on a science issue.
Integrate values in science.
Present technical and complicated scientific concepts/ideas, that can be easily understood.

Essentials
of
Science
Writing
-mobile games
-junk food
-the science of love
-habits
-K-Pop
Human interest story that also looks into science.
Write for your audience
Localize science stories.
Advocate environmental awareness.
Celebrate the wonders of nature.

Elements of
Science Writing
Clearly written lead
Catchy and appropriate headline
Utilizes graphs, tables, sharp, properly cropped and captioned pictures
Coherence
Presents relevant and timely issues
on S&T
Uses scientific/ technical jargon to a minimum level
Utilizes
facts from interviews, document reviews, data analyses, and other reliable sources
Cites scientific references, statistics, and relevant figures/facts to support credibility of statements and/or narratives
https://www.slideshare.net/556/conceptualizing20the20-science20section?qid=fff00bdf-3e97-4337-a870-
2ec0776a52cd&v=&b=&from_search=16

Where can you get Science News?

 Researchers discover largest 'raptor' dinosaurs lived millions of years
earlier than we knew
by University of Kansas

Utahraptor is going to need 10 million more candles on its next birthday cake.

A geological study of the rock formation that encased a fossilized example of the world's biggest "raptor"
shows it's 10 million years older than previously understood. The report, co-written by a researcher with
the University of Kansas, recently appeared in the journal Geosciences.

"We determined the age of the dinosaur Utahraptor and found that it was much older than previously
supposed," said Gregory Ludvigson, emeritus senior scientist with the Kansas Geological Survey at KU,
who collaborated on the investigation. "That finding has important implications for the evolutionary
history of dinosaurs."

The fieldwork took place in Utah at the well-known Utahraptor Ridge site, named for larger cousins of
the ferocious velociraptor dinosaur (known to fans of "Jurassic Park").

The ridge is home to Stikes Quarry, a fossil quicksand deposit packed with dinosaur fossils that are
largely intact and preserved—in much the same positions as when they died. Stikes Quarry is part of
the Cedar Mountain Formation, a rock unit containing fossils of more kinds of dinosaurs than any
formation in the world.

"We also learned to our complete surprise that the rock strata from the Stikes Dinosaur Quarry were
deposited during a global change episode known as the Weissert Event," Ludvigson said. "This is an
agenda-setting discovery that will reverberate for decades."

More than a decade ago, Ludvigson, along with Jim Kirkland, state paleontologist with the Utah
Geological Survey, and Matt Joeckel, state geologist and director of the Conservation and Survey
Division at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, joined together to tackle that question.

The scientists and colleagues they recruited took two research approaches: One path—uranium/lead
dating of zircon crystals—involved analyzing samples of these minerals collected at different depths in
the rock layers. The second looked at changes in the relative abundance of two types of stable carbon
isotopes found in buried organic matter.
By comparing results to periods in Earth's history when global changes in the carbon cycle were known
to have occurred, the team showed rocks in the Yellow Cat Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation—
and the Utahraptor fossils found within—are 10 million years older than previously known.

Earlier estimates put the age of the rocks and fossils at 125 million years old.

"That's a lot of evolutionary time," Ludvigson said. "It's kind of a vindication of something Jim's argued
for some time, but arguing doesn't put an absolute age on it, and that's important to him."

The revised age indicates the rocks at the Stikes Quarry are at least 135 million years old. The lower
part of the Yellow Cat Member encompasses even older strata. The findings narrow the gap in the rock
record at the boundary between the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods in Utah.

"Before, we had a 25-million-year gap between them," said Kirkland, who first named and described the
dinosaur Utahraptor ostrommaysi in 1993. "That's a third of the age of mammals, more than double the
length of time for hominid evolution. It's a big chunk of time. Anything can happen over 25 million years
if you have no record of what's going on. We've plugged that record, for the most part."

The work is published in the journal Geosciences.

 The Power of Climate Change – New Research Sheds Light on the End of
Ancient Indus Megacities
According to recent findings by Cambridge University researchers, an ancient stalagmite from a
Himalayan cave contains evidence of multiple prolonged and severe droughts that may have led to the
collapse of the Indus Civilization during the Bronze Age.
The onset of the dry spell, which began roughly 4,200 years ago and persisted for over 200 years,
coincided with the reorganization of the Indus Civilization, a sprawling urban civilization that
encompassed parts of present-day Pakistan and India.

“Multiple lines of evidence allow us to piece together the nature of these droughts from different angles
— and confirm they are in agreement,” said lead author of the research Alena Giesche, who conducted
the research as part of her Ph.D. in Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences.

Giesche and the team identified distinct periods of below-average rainfall in both the summer and
winter seasons. “The evidence for drought affecting both cropping seasons is extremely significant for
understanding the impact of this period of climate change upon human populations,” said Petrie. He
adds that the droughts during this period increased in duration, to the point where the third would have
been multi-generational in length.

The findings support existing evidence that the decline of the Indus megacities was linked to climate
change. “But what’s been a mystery until now is information on the drought duration and the season
they happened in,” said Giesche. “That extra detail is really important when we consider cultural
memory and how people make adaptations when faced with environmental change.”

According to Petrie: “The archaeological evidence indicates that over a 200-year period, the ancient
inhabitants took various steps to adapt and remain sustainable in the face of this new normal.” During
this transformation, larger urban sites were depopulated in favor of smaller rural settlements towards
the eastern extent of the area occupied by Indus populations. At the same time, agriculture shifted
towards reliance on summer crops, especially drought-tolerant millets, and the population transitioned
to a lifestyle that appears to have been more self-reliant.

Megadroughts have recently become a popular cause to explain a number of cultural transformations,
including the Indus Valley, explains David Hodell, study co-author from Cambridge’s Department of
Earth Sciences: “But the links are generally fuzzy because of difficulties involved in comparing climatic
and archaeological records.” This is now changing because, “Palaeoclimate records are becoming
progressively better at refining changes in rainfall on a seasonal and annual basis, which directly affects
people’s decision-making,” said Hodell.

The team is now looking to expand their climate reconstructions to western parts of the Indus River
Region, where the winter rainfall system becomes more dominant than the Indian Summer Monsoon,
“What we really need are more records like this, from a west-east oriented transect across the region
where the summer and winter monsoons interact — and, crucially, capturing the beginning of this arid
period,” said Giesche.

“Currently, we have a huge blind spot on our maps extending across Afghanistan and Pakistan where the
Indian summer monsoon and the Westerlies interact,” said Prof Sebastian Breitenbach, co-author and
palaeoclimatologist at Northumbria University. “Sadly, the political situation is unlikely to allow for this
kind of research in the near future.”

“There’s more work to be done by both palaeoclimatologists and archaeologists,” said Hodell. “We are
fortunate in Cambridge to have the two departments next door to one another.”