We’ve reached a turning point in the legal efforts by the Ohio History Connection to reclaim the Newark Octagon for the public. The trial to determine the compensation the Ohio History Connection (OHC) must pay to Moundbuilders Country Club (MCC) to buy back their leasehold on the Octagon is scheduled for May 28.

The Ohio Supreme Court in 2022 ruled that the OHC could use eminent domain to buy back the lease which had allowed MCC over a century ago to build an 18-hole golf course within and around the Octagon itself, and thus play a game on this sacred structure. The court’s ruling was necessary for UNESCO to name the Octagon and other Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks as Ohio’s first World Heritage site, which it did in 2023. 

In 2014, we wrote an article titled “The Blind Alley of J Street and Liberal American Zionism.” At the time, Benjamin Netanyahu was in his sixth continuous year as Israel’s prime minister, while President Obama was well into his second term. And J Street, an emerging organization of Jews aligned with the Democratic administration, had momentum as “the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans.”

 From the outset, ever since its founding in 2007, J Street has implicitly offered itself as a liberal alternative to the hardline American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which was established more than four decades earlier. An avowed purpose of J Street has been to seek a humane resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while maintaining fervent allegiance to Israel as “the Jewish state.” 

BANGKOK, Thailand -- China and the U.S. are competing for liquid real estate, undersea resources, and military advantage among the South Pacific's isolated island nations, and trying to manipulate their economies, airstrips, seaports, and security forces.

China is widely perceived as expanding its Belt and Road network across the Pacific's watery "Blue Continent" to eventually reach North, Central, and South America plus the Antarctica, and empower Beijing's military, markets, international policies, and diplomacy.

On May 2, China scored a victory when the strategic Solomon Islands elected pro-Beijing Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele, 55, formerly foreign minister in the China-friendly government of outgoing prime minister Manasseh Sogavare.

The U.S., Australia, New Zealand and their allies were already worried because the two countries signed a 2022 bilateral Solomon Islands Security Agreement.

Critics feared the China-Solomon Islands pact could allow Beijing to construct a navy base on the islands, 1,200 miles (2,000 kms) northeast of Australia.

Please be informed that the Committee will hold the Commemoration “1948 - 2024: The Ongoing Palestinian Nakba” on Friday, 17 May 2024, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (New York time), in-person, at the ECOSOC Chamber. The event will also be livestreamed on UN Web TV.    

The event, organized as a panel discussion, will examine the historical context of the 1948 events and the ongoing process of the Nakba over the past 76 years, culminating in the current war on Gaza. It will also present testimony on the current conflict and highlight international obligations and responsibilities.