United Airlines cancels three flights but headlines shout that it “cancels all flights to Israel” amid coronavirus travel rule chaos.

By: Paul Shindman

United Airlines announced Monday it had canceled three flights to Israel, but in the fog of flip flop announcements of restrictions on air travel to Israel, the message got badly distorted, causing some agencies to report the airline had canceled all of its flights to the country.

With national elections to be held in two weeks, the government had little choice other than to allow tens of thousands of Israelis to return home from abroad in order to vote on March 23.

As of Sunday, the government allowed daily flights from New York, Frankfurt, London and Paris, but starting with only 1,000 passengers a day and expanding to 3,000 per day later in the week.

Those restrictions forced United to cut back three flights, as the airline received permission to operate only 20 flights a month to Israel, including a daily round-trip flight with passengers, Globes reported. To meet the restrictions, United had to cancel three weekly flights planned beyond the approved schedule, despite the large demand from passengers to depart and enter the country.

“United operates in accordance with the outline and guidelines set by the authorities in the State of Israel and in full cooperation with them,” the company said in a statement reported by Globes.

However, the canceled three flights were misread and resulted in one website using the headline “United Airlines cancels all flights to Israel due to country’s travel rules,” which quickly spread on social media.

“No, United Isn’t Cancelling All Of Their Flights To And From Israel Through March 20th, Despite News To The Contrary,” tweeted the discount ticket seller DansDeals.

The cancellations did leave hundreds of Israeli passengers on those three flights temporarily in limbo.

“I thought I was in the clear when Israel opened the skies, turns out United cancelled my flight that I booked in December WITHOUT telling me (I only found out when I called),” tweeted passenger Marissa Posner. “The agent then proceeded to lie to me for 2 hours & is refusing to transfer me to someone else who can help.”

(World Israel News)

Read more at: www.worldisraelnews.com

“If anyone gives the opportunity to annex the Jordan Valley, do not turn a blind eye,” Gold said.

By: Paul Shindman

Israel’s former ambassador to the UN Dore Gold said Tuesday that the rejection by settlement leaders of the Trump peace plan was a mistake that Israelis will one day regret.

Several key leaders of the settlement movement objected strenuously to the Trump peace deal over fears it would both uproot Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria and lead to a Palestinian state that would threaten Israel.

Despite those fears, Gold said the goal of the Israeli negotiators was “to guarantee that all of the settlements would remain under Israeli sovereignty.”

“I think it was forbidden to object to it,” Gold said in an interview at the two-day “Quiet War” conference hosted online by the Makor Rishon newspaper and the Regavim pro-Zionist movement.

Gold said the failure to accept the plan would leave Israelis “crying for generations.”

Under the Trump plan Gold claimed, “We could get a great map for future generations and defend the country. If anyone gives the opportunity to annex the Jordan Valley, do not turn a blind eye.”

“In the history of Israel we knew when to say yes and when to say no, “Gold explained. “Did we love the [1947 United Nations] partition plan? No. We said yes. What happened in the end? [We received] much better lines.”

Gold retired from Israel’s foreign service several years ago and heads the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think tank, but said the Americans approached him for his opinions on the Trump peace deal.

“I told them I would gladly do so, as long as I could update the prime minister, even though I came as a private person,” Gold noted.

One of the outcomes of recent diplomatic developments is the progress from Israel and Saudi Arabia having Iran as a common threat to unite them.

“If Trump had continued, we would have already had diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia,” Gold postulated, adding that two decades ago the Saudis had provided more than half the Hamas terror group’s funding, but that had shrunk to nothing today.

“The one who provides the money for the missiles that Hamas fires is Iran,” Gold said. “In other words, it is our common enemy that has made the difference for the better in terms of the possible relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”

In comparing the Trump and Biden administrations, Gold noted that the two are different, but Biden cares for Israel.

“President Trump was most friendly to issues that are important to us – settlement, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, as well as the scenario of the annexation of the Jordan Valley,” Gold said. “Biden came from a different atmosphere, even though he was a Democratic hawk when he was a senator, and was also a man with a fondness for Israel.”

Gold called the Biden administration’s conduct on backing Israel against criminal investigations by the International Criminal Court issue “excellent. “

(World Israel News)

Read more at: www.worldisraelnews.com

By: TPS Staff

The implementation of the first milestone in the deployment of the EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa) smart payment framework in Israel set out by the Governor of the Bank of Israel has recently been concluded, the Bank of Israel announced Tuesday.

Based on data from Automated Banking Services, as of the end of January 2021, smart terminals make up 54% of all terminals in Israel, and the number of smart transactions is about 23% of all transactions.

About 67% of the smart transactions are contactless transactions, whether by credit card or by smartphone.

The number of smart terminals and the number of smart transactions is expected to continue to increase in the coming months, with the recent end of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown and the renewal of commercial activity, and in accordance with the next stages of the framework for adopting the standard in 2021, the Bank of Israel estimates.

The Bank of Israel is urging merchants who have not yet completed the switch to EMV to contact their merchant acquirer or hardware supplier and to complete the switch and join the payment revolution in Israel, benefiting from secure and more advanced transactions.

By July 2021, many additional businesses will have joined the advanced payment method, ahead of the next significant milestone on July 31, 2021, when the acquiring of transactions at all businesses, other than exceptional cases, will only be possible via the EMV standard.

At businesses that switched to full EMV, the terminal can be turned to face the customers who can carry out the payment on their own, conveniently, rapidly, and with a range of payment opportunities. Among the payment possibilities are contactless payment for transactions up to NIS 300, payment by entering a secret code for transactions that exceed NIS 300, payment via digital wallets, payment via wearable means of payment such as smart-watches, or payment via a payment application from domestic and international entities.

Within the framework of the economic plan to deal with the Coronavirus crisis, a plan was launched by the Small and Medium Business Administration at the Ministry of the Economy and Industry and by the Ministry of Finance, to help in the integration of purchasing via the EMV standard. The plan makes it possible to get back up to 80% of the cost of implementation.

Bank of Israel Payment and Settlement Systems Department Director Oded Salomy said that “the framework that the Bank of Israel is leading to shift payment card activity in Israel to EMV, is in line with advanced economies worldwide and makes new and innovative value proposals in Israel possible.”

Supervisor of Banks Yair Avidan said that “in recent years, the Bank of Israel has been leading many steps to promote innovation and competition in the financial market, including in the payments market. The market’s switch to the EMV standard is an additional infrastructure step, which will enable the various payment service providers in the economy to develop advanced and innovative payment services for the Israeli consumer.”

    (TPS)

“Attempting to abide by the JCPOA would result in more for less: Iran more capable and the U.S. with less leverage,” said Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of JINSA.

By: JNS.org

A new report by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) details how it would nearly impossible both politically and technically for the Biden administration to return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

According to “No going back now: The case against returning to the JCPOA,” Iran has violated the original agreement to such an extent that “simply abiding by the letter of the JCPOA would leave Iran with too advanced a nuclear program for the United States to accept, and too many economic constraints for Tehran to abide.”

“This creates the possibility of an untenable ‘more for less’ interim outcome in which the United States tries to get back to the original nuclear agreement by giving up too many sanctions in exchange for too few nuclear concessions from Tehran,” it said.

The report listed several technical, political and strategic hurdles that would likely make it impossible to return to the deal. Among them is the fact that it would take Iran several months to reverse its violations of the JCPOA, including uninstalling centrifuges, and diluting and cutting its enriched uranium stockpile. Iran has also taken several actions to expand its nuclear infrastructure beyond what was considered in the agreement, such as experimenting with advanced centrifuges and building new underground facilities.

“Since the JCPOA’s implementation in 2015, the world has learned more about the existence and scope of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, primarily due to Israel’s covert seizure of secret Iranian nuclear archives in 2018. Returning to the JCPOA would do nothing to resolve the growing list of inspectors’ concerns about the full extent of Iran’s weaponization work, nor the fact that Iran has been acting in bad faith since 2015 toward the other JCPOA participants,” said the report.

Politically, the Biden administration would also face an uphill battle with Congress, which would have to remove or waive certain sanctions. The Biden administration will also have to weigh contending viewpoints that are highly skeptical of any return to the deal.

Meanwhile, in Iran, hardliners within the regime are also highly wary of the JCPOA and engagement with the United States, according to the report, leaving little flexibility for ostensibly more “moderate” leaders like President Hassan Rouhani to ensure Iran’s return to compliance.

The Biden administration has urged Iran to go back to the parameters of the original deal in order to restart negotiations and lift heavy sanctions imposed under the Trump administration. So far, the Islamic regime has rejected any return to strict compliance with the original deal.

Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of JINSA, said “the Biden administration has demanded that Tehran come back into strict compliance with the JCPOA before the U.S. re-enters the agreement, but it should recognize that it is impossible to go back to the original deal and dangerous to try. Iran’s nuclear program is far more advanced than in 2015, while U.S. sanctions are far more extensive.

“Attempting to abide by the JCPOA would result in more for less: Iran more capable and the U.S. with less leverage,” he continued. “The Biden administration must hold strong to the position that a bad deal is worse than no deal.”

   (www.JNS.org)

By Ilana Siyance

Hershel Shanks had been a real estate lawyer in Washington, with no training as an archaeologist nor as a biblical scholar. Notwithstanding, he ended up founding and editing a popular magazine which uncovered biblical ancient Israel, making it accessible to scores of readers.

Mr. Shanks, the prolific editor, author and attorney, passed away on Feb. 5 at his home in Washington, at the age of 90. He had been born in 1930 in Western Pennsylvania. In his youth, he had been editor of his high school newspaper. He received his law degree from Harvard, and worked for a few years at the Department of Justice, moving onto private practice, specializing in real estate law, and being named partner. In 1972 he took a yearlong break and traveled to Israel with his wife and two daughters, where somehow a strong passion for biblical archeological digs enveloped him.

In 1974, he founded the Biblical Archaeology Society. He researched and wrote a book named “The City of David: A Guide to Biblical Jerusalem” in 1975. Doing so, he made lasting associations with leading archaeologists. That year, even as he returned to Washington, he was determination to continue in this new quest, and to publish a magazine about intriguing discoveries and scholarly controversies which would even end up substantiating the Bible’s authenticity.

As reported by the NY Times, he started Biblical Archaeology Review in his mid-40s, writing all the articles himself for the first issue. The magazine, which Mr. Shanks headed for more than 40 years until his retirement in 2017, successfully transformed technical and obscure information into digestible and interesting material for tens of thousands of readers. “He had a wonderful knack for turning dry academic content into something that was accessible,” said Glenn K. Corbett, the magazine’s current editor. The magazine boasted 230,000 paid subscribers in the early 2000s, with a pass-along readership of 600,000, although those numbers are much lower now, in the digital age.

In 1987, Mr. Shanks gave up his law practice and purchased a second magazine. Moment, a Jewish affairs bimonthly, had been started 12 years earlier by renowned author Elie Wiesel and Leonard Fein. Mr. Shank served as publisher and editor until 2004.

Mr. Shank’s daughter Elizabeth Alexander, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, said the cause of his death was complications from Covid-19. Mr. Shank is survived by his wife, Judith Shanks; his daughters, Elizabeth, Julia and Leah Gordon; and two grandchildren.

By: TPS

A few weeks ago, 11-year-old Zvi Ben-David from Be’er Sheva was on a family trip to Nahal HaBesor in the south when he saw an unusual object. Picking it up, he saw it was a pottery figurine of a woman. His mother, Miriam Ben-David, a professional tour guide, realized it was an important archeological find and contacted the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

The figurine, depicting a bare-breasted woman wearing a scarf, is an amulet that was believed to protect children or increase fertility. Only one similar sample, also from the northern Negev, is preserved in Israel’s National Treasures collection.

Oren Shmueli, district archaeologist for the IAA in the western Negev, and Debbie Ben Ami, curator of the Iron Age and Persian periods in the IAA, said the rare figurine was probably used in the sixth–fifth centuries BCE, at the end of the Iron Age or in the Persian period, the late First Temple period, or the return to Zion, some 2,500 years ago.

The figurine, 7 cm high and 6 cm wide, was made in a mold. It shows a woman with a scarf covering her head and neck, schematic facial features and a prominent nose. The woman is bare-breasted and her hands are folded under her chest.

Shmueli and Ben-Ami explained that the “pottery figurines of bare-breasted women are known from various periods in Israel, including the First Temple era. They were common in the home and in everyday life, like the hamsa [palm-shaped amulet] today, and apparently served as amulets to ensure protection, good luck and prosperity.”

“We must bear in mind that in antiquity, medical understanding was rudimentary. Infant mortality was very high and about a third of those born did not survive. There was little understanding of hygiene, and fertility treatment was naturally non-existent. In the absence of advanced medicine, amulets provided hope and an important way of appealing for aid,” they said.

The figurine was delivered to the National Treasures collection and is being studied by Shmueli and Ben-Ami, in collaboration with Raz Kletter from the University of Helsinki in Finland.

The archaeologists said that “the exemplary citizenship of young Zvi Ben-David will enable us to improve our understanding of cultic practices in biblical times, and man’s inherent need for material human personifications.”

Zvi was awarded a certificate of appreciation for good citizenship by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

(TPS)

By: Aryeh Savir

The IDF has launched a Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination campaign for workers coming from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to work in Israel on Monday, the IDF’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced.

Some 120,000 PA Arabs will be vaccinated by Israeli medical teams with Moderna vaccines, which have been allocated by the state, at eight different locations throughout Judea and Samaria.

A pilot conducted on Thursday at the vaccination compound that opened at Shaar Ephraim ended successfully and the first 700 workers were vaccinated.

Hundreds of workers arrived at the eight locations on Monday to receive the first of their two shots.

“As part of the fight against the spread of the Coronavirus” and in accordance with the COGAT’s recommendation and Israel’s Ministry of Health, Israel’s leadership approved last week the vaccination campaign for Palestinian workers with employment licenses in Israel, “in order to maintain public health and the functioning of the economy.”

The operation, led by the IDF’s Central Command, COGAT, the Ministry of Health, and the Crossings Authority, included the establishment of dedicated vaccination complexes at several crossings in Judea and Samaria and in industrial areas throughout Judea and Samaria.

COGAT commander Major General Kamil Abu Rukun stated that the vaccination operation serves a “common health and economic interest as we live in one epidemiological space, and we must all take part in the effort to eradicate the spread of the Coronavirus in the area while maintaining public health and the functioning of the economy. Only in this way can we defeat the corona, and restore the routine of life.”

The pandemic is raging in the PA and the pace of vaccinations by its health ministry is slow.

Kamal Shakhra, head of the Coronavirus section at the Ministry of Health, told the Voice of Palestine Radio on Sunday that the health system is “working at its maximum capacity around the clock” and warned of its collapse due to the overwhelming number of COVID-19 cases.

  (TPS)

By: Aryeh Savir

The Hezbollah terror organization fired at an IDF drone flying over Lebanon on Monday night, the Hezbollah-link Al Manar news reported.

Hezbollah’s War Media Center issued a statement in which it said that an Israeli drone flying over the outskirts of the town of Blida in southern Lebanon was “targeted with the suitable weapons.”

The statement added that Hezbollah had targeted earlier in the day another drone that flew over Lebanon in the same area, allegedly forcing it to fly back to Israel

The Lebanese army also said it fired at an Israeli drone flying over the border town of Mays Al-Jabal on Monday.

The IDF has remained silent on the reports.

Hezbollah recently fired at IDF drones flying missions over Lebanon.

On February 3, The IDF stated that anti-aircraft fire was launched at a remotely manned aircraft during a routine operation over Lebanese territory. The drone was not damaged and continued its mission.

A few days before that incident, Hezbollah announced that it had downed an IDF drone flying over southern Lebanon. The IDF said that it had crashed and that there was no fear of an intelligence leakage.

In October 2019, an SA8 surface-to-air missile was fired at an Israeli drone over Lebanon but missed its mark.

The drones are primarily used for reconnaissance, data collection, and target marking.

The IDF Intelligence Division’s annual forecast for 2021 estimates that the Lebanon-based Hezbollah is deterred from a war with Israel and is not interested in a full-scale war with it.

However, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is ready to carry out an attack on the border fence, even at the cost of an unusual Israeli response that will lead to a day or days of fighting, and is also ready to down an Air Force drone to reach a balance in the kill equation, it estimates.

             (TPS)

The attempt at reassurance comes at a time of growing concern among U.S. partners and allies in the region over President Biden’s reversal of many Trump administration policies.

By: Josh Plank

Israeli F-15 fighter jets escorted two American B-52H Stratofortress bombers through Israeli airspace on Sunday as the bombers flew across the Middle East in an effort to “reassure partners and allies of the U.S. military’s commitment to security in the region.”

“This flight is part of the joint strategic cooperation with U.S. forces, which is pivotal in maintaining the security of Israeli and Middle Eastern skies,” tweeted the Israel Defense Forces along with photographs, one of which appeared to show the aircraft over the city of Shiloh in Samaria.

In a press release on Sunday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said that the purpose of the multinational patrol mission, the fourth bomber deployment into the Middle East this year, was to “deter aggression and reassure partners and allies of the U.S. military’s commitment to security in the region.”

While the statement did not specify which nation’s “aggression” the U.S. meant to deter, the move is widely seen as a signal to Iran.

The U.S. was less cryptic about which nations it meant to “reassure,” saying, “Multiple partner nations and U.S. Air Force fighter aircraft accompanied the U.S. bombers at different points during the flight, including Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”

“The U.S. Air Force routinely moves aircraft and personnel into, out of, and around the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility to meet mission requirements, and to train with regional partners, underscoring the importance of strategic partnerships,” the statement said.

The attempt to calm allies’ fears comes at a time of growing concern among U.S. partners in the region over President Biden’s reversal of many Trump administration policies.

Chief among these is the Biden administration’s intention to reenter the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, which Prime Minister Netanyahu called “disastrous.”

Biden has also aimed to “recalibrate” relations with Saudi Arabia and has ended U.S. support for the Saudi military offensive against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki last month struggled to answer whether Saudi Arabia and Israel were even still “important allies,” finally backtracking to admit several days later that at least in Israel’s case, the alliance still stood.

(World Israel News)

Read more at: www.worldisraelnews.com

By: Aryeh Savir

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Health Yuli Edelstein arrived at a Tel Aviv clinic on Monday to meet Janet Lavi-Azulai, the five millionth Israeli to receive the Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine.

Janet Lavi-Azulai, 34, is pregnant and requested to be vaccinated.

During the event, Netanyahu estimated that by the end of April the entire adult population in Israel will be vaccinated.

“We are working to bring in tens of millions more vaccines that will prevent further closures. By the end of April, the entire adult population will be vaccinated – a global achievement,” Netanyahu stated.

“We are ahead of the entire world population. Later, the children will also be vaccinated. Pfizer estimates that children under the age of 16 will soon also [be vaccinated]. [Vaccine] factories are also being built here. Factories that will stay here forever,” he added.

Netanyahu said last month that he has been in contact with the heads of Pfizer and Moderna “with the aim of establishing a vaccine plant in Israel.”

“A blue-and-white vaccine plant will provide a livelihood for thousands of families and make Israel a global center for the production, development and distribution of vaccines to the countries of the region,” he said.

Edelstein shared at the event that “it’s very pleasant sometimes to make a mistake. A few weeks ago, when someone said in the office: ‘We will do this when we reach five million vaccinated,’ I said: I’m not sure we’ll get five million vaccinated. And here, this is an opportunity to say well-done to the citizens of Israel who came to get vaccinated.”

“Thanks to these vaccines we can open almost anything: the economy, culture, sports, leisure, tourism,” he said while calling on all citizens to continue adhering to the social distancing guidelines.

The University of Oxford’s Our World in Data tracker, a global, aggregated database on COVID-19, showed Israel was the fastest country in vaccinating its population.

On a scale of the number of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people within a given population, Israel came in first with 1.04, ahead of Chile with 0.94, and the US with 0.65.

Over 53% of Israelis have received the first dose of the Pfizer-developed COVID-19 vaccine, and over 3.8 million Israelis – about 40% – have received the second dose.

   (TPS)

By: TPS Staff

The bomb that went off outside the Israeli embassy in Delhi in late January was plotted and guided by Iran, Indian media outlets reported Monday.

The blast on January 29 caused no casualties and no harm was caused to the embassy’s building. The explosive charge caused damage to several cars on the street.

India’s central counterterrorism agencies’ investigations have led them to the conclusion that the Quds force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) foreign operations unit, was behind the terror attack.

Investigators have found that the Improvised Explosive Device (IED), initially thought to be a crude device, was planted by a local Shia terror cell using a remote and using the Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) or ammonium nitrate (AFNO) explosive materials.

India’s security agencies exposed what they described as deliberate false-flag cyber markers left by the bombers pointing to the Islamic State’s (ISIS) alleged involvement, but the counterterror agencies are certain that the blast was part of “the asymmetric warfare campaign” being carried out by the IRGC against Israel.

The bomb was not powerful and was not intended to cause human losses, “perhaps because the Iranians did not want to run afoul of a friendly nation like India. But the message was clear and the threat is real,” a counterterror expert is quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times.

The Mossad is in the loop.

A security camera near the embassy recorded two people getting out of a taxi near the place where the explosive was planted. The taxi driver was located and testified and was able to provide the police with a sketch of the two suspects.

An Israeli intelligence source is quoted as saying that the attack “was intended for us for sure, there is probably a connection and direction from Iran.”

Israel Foreign Minister Gazbi Ashkenazi stated Sunday that “in recent days, we have witnessed an increase in Iranian efforts to undermine regional security and stability. Iran’s fingerprints are clearly identifiable in recent attempts on Israeli targets around the world.”

Iran has previously targeted Israel’s diplomatic mission in India. On February 13, 2012, three members of the Qods forces targeted Tal Yehoshua Koren, the wife of the Israeli Defense Attaché, with a magnetic bomb attached to her car while she was on her way to pick up her children from school.

Yehoshua Koren sustained moderate injuries that required surgery to remove shrapnel while her Indian driver and two bystanders suffered minor injuries.

  (TPS)

By: Aryeh Savir

Israeli Minister of Energy Dr. Yuval Steinitz, Minister Natasa Pilides of Cyprus, and Minister Kostas Skrekas of Greece gathered in Nicosia on Monday and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the laying of the EuroAsia Interconnector that will connect Israel’s power grid to the European one.

The underwater cable will be laid in the Mediterranean Sea at the length of about 1,500 km and at a maximum depth of about 2,700 meters and will connect the electricity networks of the three countries to Europe.

The EuroAsia Interconnector will enable Israel to receive electricity from the European power grids in times of emergency, and more importantly, will also support Israel’s endeavor to significantly increase its reliance on solar power.

This electric line is the longest and deepest cable in the world and will be able to carry a capacity of 1,000-2,000 megawatts.

The Euro-Asian underwater power cable will be laid over three sections in the Mediterranean. The first segment is about 310 km long between Israel and Cyprus, the second is about 900 km between Cyprus and Crete, and another 310 km will run between Crete and Attica in Greece.

The cable is expected to be completed by 2024. The cost of the project is estimated at NIS 3 billion and the European Union, which has recognized the project as a Project of Common Interest (PCI) as an energy highway bridging Asia and Europe, will fund parts of it.

In the MOU, the three countries agreed to cooperate in advancing the project while cooperating in coordinating, developing, and implementing it in the field.

The ministers also agreed to cooperate on environmental protection and the promotion of renewable energies in accordance with the Paris Agreement, to promote cooperation and the transfer of professional information in the field of energy.

The project will also end Cyprus and Crete’s energy isolation and connect them to the European network.

Steinitz lauded the MOU as “great news for the citizens of Israel” that will support the government’s plan to generate a third of Israel’s electricity from solar power by 2030.

(TPS)