Support for UNRWA's survival

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) provides life-saving humanitarian aid for 5·4 million Palestine refugees now entering their eighth decade of statelessness and conflict. About a third of Palestine refugees still live in 58 recognised camps. UNRWA operates 702 schools and 144 health centres, some of which are affected by the ongoing humanitarian disasters in Syria and the Gaza Strip. It has dramatically reduced the prevalence of infectious diseases, mortality, and illiteracy. Its social services include rebuilding infrastructure and homes that have been destroyed by conflict and providing cash assistance and micro-finance loans for Palestinians whose rights are curtailed and who are denied the right of return to their homeland

The Depth of the Massacre Story : A Commentary and a Japanese Translation of Dayr Yasin. (Series of the Destroyed Palestinian Villages, No. 4). Authored by Sharif Kana’ana and Nihad Zeitawi.

This paper presents a commentary and a Japanese translation of Deir Yassin: The Destroyed Palestinian Villages, No. 4 (1987. Kana’ana, Sharif, and Nihad Zeitawi. Birzeit: Center for Research and Documentation of Palestinian Society.). The original book is written in Modern Standard Arabic (its descriptive part) and in the village dialect (citations from villagers’ speeches). It is one of the publications from a research project conducted from 1986 to 1998 at Birzeit University, located in the West Bank of the occupied Palestinian territories. This research project aimed to collect and record Palestinian refugees’ oral narratives of their native villages that were destroyed in 1948 because of the establishment of the State of Israel. The book is composed of the following four chapters: (1) The popular history of the village; (2) The clans and families; (3) The village in the 1940s; and (4) The politics, the escape, and the exodus. This project preceded a new wave of historical accounts in Palestinian refugee communities of their original village, and more than 120 similar books have been published since then, recording their homeland based on the former villagers’ narratives. It is noteworthy that these books based on oral history began to be written after the Palestinian diaspora leaders were defeated in Beirut (1982). Many Israeli and Palestinian researchers have argued over the question of why Palestinian Arabs became refugees in 1948. As Israel has ruled most of the area in the region, the historiographies in Israel have dominated the Palestinian historical narrative. Especially after the 1980s, when Israeli historians started to publish their research on the cause of the refugee problem based on the then newly declassified state archives, the "positivist" historiographies gained a great influence over the historical dispute as a whole. In this renewed debate, the Palestinian oral histor y was sidelined again and was regarded as a distor ted narrative. This translated text is dedicated to the village of Deir Yassin, which will always be linked with the massacre that took place in 1948. Although Deir Yassin is the village that has most often been refer red to in the historical dispute, refugees’ memor y of the village reveals the rich layers of folklore that once existed there. The villagers’ narratives show us how much the destruction of their homeland means to them, a point that has long been dismissed in the traditional historical dispute

A Case of Cornelia de Lange Syndrome: Difficulty in Prenatal Diagnosis

We report a case of Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS) where prenatal diagnosis was not made even with major anomaly. A 33-year-old Japanese woman was referred to our institution at 23 weeks of gestation because of fetal forearm defect. Ultrasound examination revealed short forearms and short humeri and femurs (–2.1 SD). The fetal estimated body weight was 450 g (–1.3 SD). Fetal MRI at 26 weeks of gestation revealed short forearms and hypoplasty of hand fingers. Fetal growth restriction became evident thereafter, leading to intrauterine fetal death occurring at 29 weeks of gestation. A stillbirth baby was of 798 g in body weight and 33.0 cm in length. External examination showed a low hairline, synophrys, low-set ear, hypertrichosis, and smooth long philtrum with thin lips. The neck appeared short and broad. Finally, CdLS was diagnosed. The prenatal diagnosis might be possible as the arm findings were totally characteristic in a small fetus, regardless of whether an overhanging upper lip was identified. Because CdLS is a rare condition, it is important to consider its possibility as a part of differential diagnosis

Massive Subchorionic Thrombohematoma (Breus’ Mole) Associated with Fetal Growth Restriction, Oligohydramnios, and Intrauterine Fetal Death

Massive subchorionic thrombohematoma (MST), termed Breus’ mole, is a rare condition in which a large maternal blood clot separates the chorionic plate from the villous chorion. Common complications of MST include fetal growth restriction, preeclampsia, and intrauterine fetal death. Here, we present a case of a 17-year-old Japanese woman referred to our institution at 21 weeks of gestation. Ultrasound examination revealed a large placental mass with mixed high and low echogenicity measuring approximately 7.6 cm in thickness. Doppler examination showed absence of end-diastolic velocity of the umbilical artery. At 22 weeks of gestation, the patient had a stillbirth weighing 138g. The placenta weighed 502 g and was 8 cm thick, and the total blood loss was 270 g. Macroscopic examination revealed that a subchorionic blood clot measuring 12 cm × 5 cm covered a large portion of the placenta with well-defined margins on the fetal surface. Microscopic examination revealed an intervillous hematoma and fibrinous deposits directly beneath the chorionic plate with adjacent compressive effects. Based on these findings, MST was diagnosed. Because MST is rare, it must be considered in the differential diagnosis of parental conditions. Magnetic resonance imaging can be optimal for diagnosing MST when ultrasound diagnosis is difficult

Lateral Export of Dissolved Inorganic and Organic Carbon from a Small Mangrove Estuary with Tidal Fluctuation

The significance of aquatic lateral carbon (C) export in mangrove ecosystems highlights the extensive contribution of aquatic pathways to the net ecosystem carbon budget. However, few studies have investigated lateral fluxes of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and inorganic carbon (DIC), partly due to methodological difficulty. Therefore, we evaluated area-based lateral C fluxes in a small mangrove estuary that only had one exit for water exchange to the coast. We sampled water from the mouth of the creek and integrated discharge and consecutive concentration of mangrove-derived C (ΔC). Then, we estimated the area-normalized C fluxes based on the inundated mangrove area. DIC and DOC concentrations at the river mouth increased during ebb tide during both summer and winter. We quantified the ΔC in the estuary using a two-component conservative mixing model of freshwater and seawater. DIC and DOC proportions of ΔC concentrations at the river mouth during ebb tide was between 34% and 56% in the winter and 26% and 42% in the summer, respectively. DIC and DOC fluxes from the estuary were estimated to be 1.36 g C m−2 d−1 and 0.20 g C m−2 d−1 in the winter and 3.35 g C m−2 d−1 and 0.86 g C m−2 d−1 in the summer, respectively. Based on our method, daily fluxes are mangrove area-based DIC and DOC lateral exports that can be directly incorporated into the mangrove carbon budget