Wednesday, August 31, 2005

In the wake of the Gaza disengagement, enforce a ban on settlements

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Palestinians observed Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip with a mix of contradictory emotions. Paramount, perhaps, was relief. Nearly 9,000 Israeli settlers, who had occupied a third of the land there while confining 1. 3 million Palestinians to the rest, were finally gone... Unlike Israeli settlers, Palestinians were evicted from their own homes and homeland, not from lands illegally seized and settled by their government. Nor are Palestinians treated with kid gloves by the Israeli military. Most receive but minutes notice before demolitions, any resistance is met with lethal force; a few have been buried in the rubble of their own homes. Palestinians have not received compensation for their losses, while Jewish settlers are receiving new homes and $200,000 to $500,000 per family. Palestinian suffering has not been as minutely chronicled by the world's media as has that of Jewish settlers. Most important, the long-term trend of Palestinian dispossession has not been reversed by Gaza disengagement. Earlier this year, Israel announced plans to destroy 88 Palestinian homes in Silwan, just outside the walls of Old Jerusalem, to make way for a Jewish archeological park. This week, Israel unveiled plans for a new Jewish residential development in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, and confirmed that it had ordered new seizures of Palestinian private and public lands in the West Bank. The purpose of the land seizures is to extend Israel's separation barrier around a large Jewish settlement, Maaleh Adumim, and link it to Israel. Doing so would virtually bisect the West Bank, and make a viable Palestinian state there impossible. Haim Ramon, Israeli cabinet minister, has acknowledged that the route of the barrier is partially drawn to ensure the "Jewish character" of Jerusalem. Disengagement has been touted as a bold step for peace. Yet it is increasingly apparent that Gaza withdrawal is but one side of a two-faced strategy. The other side is increasing Jewish settlement of the West Bank, including Jerusalem. There, 430,000 Jewish settlers live in colonies built on land seized from Palestinians -- and they are expanding every day. In October 2004, Dov Weisglass, adviser and confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, admitted in an interview published in Ha'aretz that Gaza disengagement was a way to avoid peace negotiations with Palestinians, consolidate control over the West Bank and foil the creation of a Palestinian state.
Rushing after a mirage

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There are striking similarities between Israel's departure from southern Lebanon in May 2000 and the events in Gaza over the past two weeks. This is no surprise, as events in the Arab-Israeli conflict have been seemingly moving in circles for years. The peace process industry of EU, American and UN officials, donor agencies, government-funded think tanks and NGOs, supported by the media, have created euphoria and false optimism following the passing away of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat last November, which has done much to pollute the political climate. Arafat's death supposedly opened a "window of opportunity" because, as Israeli and American propaganda claimed, he was not a "partner" and, alone, constituted the main "obstacle to peace". Propaganda efforts have also built up the Gaza "disengagement", surrounding it with the same kind of euphoria, complete with the claims that there is new "momentum" for restarting the dead peace process. All this lofty talk is proceeding with few people looking back to see what actually happened the previous time we were told that peace was knocking at the door.
Thousands may have died in New Orleans. I would be more sympathetic without the war in Iraq, the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people in there, and the continuing US support for the crimes committed by Israel. And of course, the US government´s efforts to derail all real global efforts to fight against the greenhouse effect and the global warming it causes don´t really help to create much sympathy either for the people of New Orleans. You may claim they are innocent, but US troops kill innocent people every day in Iraq and how many of those now in danger in New Orleans supported the war?
Flooded New Orleans descends into chaos.
Rumour of a suicide bomber among Shia pilgrims causes a panic and a stampede on a bridge in Baghdad that kills 841 people according to some reports, at least 695 and possibly 1000 according to others. About as many people as the war has killed this month. And of course, the atmosphere of fear that the war and the suicide bombings have created, caused the death of these people, and they too are casualties of the war.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Trail of Death, Destruction Grips Iraq Town

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“Death squads” from both sects now operate. They drive around ridding neighborhoods of Sunnis or Shiites. In recent months, the litany has continued: the brother of the man who buys food for the office was killed by a roadside bomb; the cousin of our Arabic service correspondent was tortured and killed after being taken by the police; the father-in-law of one of our translators was shot by US troops and had to have his leg amputated; the brother of our reporter in Fallujah was killed by Iraqi troops...
The vast majority of those who have died are Iraqis, and a huge number are also innocent victims. There is no definitive record but Iraq Body Count, a US-British nonprofit group, estimates 25,000 civilians were killed in just the first two years after the war began.

Friday, August 26, 2005

A poorly timed provocation

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It is hard not to view the decisions about the fence and the new construction near Ma'aleh Adumim as a poorly timed provocation. They damage the efforts to rebuild trust with the Palestinian Authority and to strengthen its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as a partner for future negotiations. They lend credence to the Palestinian claim that the withdrawal from Gaza was merely an Israeli trick designed to obtain international support and to divert attention from its tightening occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They erode the contribution that the successful disengagement made to reviving the diplomatic process and show that Sharon has returned to his evil ways in the settlements.
More lies from the British police on the de Menezes murder

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More evidence has emerged relating to the July 22 police killing of the young Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes in London, providing further proof that the police systematically lied about the subway shooting and have been conducting a cover-up, with the aid of the Labour government of Prime Minister Tony Blair and a largely compliant media. Claims that there were no closed-circuit television tapes of the underground tube station where de Menezes was shot dead by eight bullets fired at close range have been refuted by the staff working at the station. According to Monday’s London Evening Standard, the staff were “amazed and furious” when told by police that tapes from the cameras were blank. An official with the rail workers’ union said that at least three of the four cameras were working. “It is most unusual to say the least,” he said of the police claims. Normal procedure is that tapes are replaced every 24 hours and kept for 28 days, and it is inconceivable that station staff would not keep to this procedure shortly after the July 7 bombings of the capital’s transport network that killed 56 people and a failed attempt to detonate devices on July 21.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Zionist attack kills 5 Palestinians in the West Bank.

No condemnation from the West. Of course not. But when the Islamic Jihad makes it revenge attack - which is all Israel wants to achieve with this attack - then the Western leaders will be swift in their condemnation and threats aimed at Palestinians. And everybody suffers because of the cowardness of the Western political leaders.

But in the end, Israel will lose. No amount of US money and weaponry can change the geography of the Middle East. If Israel will not be ready for a just peace, then it will be destroyed. Not tomorrow, not next year, but in the coming decades. It still can avoid that fate, but most of it´s population doesn´t seem to be interested. They prefer to live by the sword and die by the sword. And if they really want that, then let it be their fate.
Two fingers to America

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The fingers of mad preachers are usually far from the button, but the untimely words of Pat Robertson, easily discounted in Washington and airily dismissed by the state department as "inappropriate", might yet wake an echo among zealots in Venezuela. A similar call was made last year by a former Venezuelan president. Assassinations may be easy to plan, and not difficult to accomplish. But their legacy is incalculable. The radical leader of neighbouring Colombia, Jorge Gaitán, was assassinated more than 50 years ago, in 1948. In terms of civil war and violence, the Colombians have been paying the price ever since. No one would wish that fate on Venezuela.
More.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

37% of the marshlands in southern Iraq have been restored to their "original state". I doubt that they really are in their "original state", but that this is the extent of the area that is now recovering as dykes and dams in the area have been destroyed.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Exreme rightwing US televangelist Pat Robertson demands the assassination of the democratically elected Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez by US troops. More and more.

I do like it when the bastards score own goals...

Monday, August 22, 2005

The US demands that the Palestinian authority disarms Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other resistance groups. At the same time, it itself can´t do the equivalent in Iraq. Instead, it does far, far worser job. Take Haditha. US troops have given whole town over to Musab al-Zarqawi. And the only way the bumbling Yankees are capable of relieving towns of insurgents is to partially destroy them, like they destroyed a third of Fallulah. Where the insurgents are now returning. But still, the fact that they themselves can´t do the job on far greater resources and not having an occupying power on their back doesn´t stop the Yankees of making demands to the Palestinians. Of course, after all, they are "Americans", the second chosen people of god! Or so they themselves believe - even if one would think based on their success in Iraq that that especially US loving god of theirs doesn´t seem as much in love with them as they are with him.
There hasn´t been many weeks since the last time the US troops "conquered" the town of Haditha in Iraq, but at least now it is once again in the hands of the Sunni insurgents, who do what they want in the town. And that seems to include killing fair numbers of most likely totally innocent people. I did wonder at the time why the US troops blew up a bridge in a town which had supposedly come under their control again.

For Sharon, Gaza was just the latest act of a long war
The US backing of the pullout has loaded the dice in Israel's favour

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..in accepting Israel's maximalist demands at the outset, President Bush has loaded the dice in Israel's favour and made the achievement of a just settlement a near impossibility. Faced with the combined pressure of the region's strongest power and the world's strongest power, the prospects for the Palestinians look hopeless. It must be understood that there can be no possibility of real peace without justice... The Palestinians will remain trapped in poverty and despair, and their plight will continue to foster anger and violence. Much of it will be directed against the west. If this is to be avoided, and if a just and workable settlement is to become possible, it will be necessary for others to combine and act self- consciously as a strategic counterbalance to American influence in the region. The most obvious vehicle for this would be the European Union's common foreign policy, but there are many other countries that could form part of a powerful international coalition. Just as the Americans, on behalf of Israel, have laid down certain parameters for a final settlement, it would be the objective of this coalition to set out the conditions that would meet the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations. A good working basis for such an approach would be the Geneva accords negotiated informally by a group of Israeli and Palestinian politicians two years ago. Limited Israeli gains in the West Bank (2% of its territory according to the accords) should be matched by equivalent land ceded to the Palestinians; there should be some refugee returns to Israel, consistent with the preservation of its Jewish character; and East Jerusalem should be the capital of the new Palestinian state. Pursuing such a course would elicit a furious response from Washington, and it must be doubted that this British government has the stomach to deal with it. But its strategy of proximity and persuasion has failed to move American policy in a constructive direction, and the settlement that is emerging is one that will bring lasting shame on everyone associated with it. If we allow our leaders to acquiesce in it, we will never again have to ask: why do they hate us?

The problem is that the Western leaders are so scared of 17 million Jews that they are quite willing to engage in a "clash of civilizations" with 1100 million Muslims to avoid angering Israel and the Jews worldwide. For example, the European Union leaders have stopped even their feeble criticism of Israel´s landgrabs in the West Bank and no longer oppose Israel´s annexation of East Jerusalem. They won´t talk about it with Palestinians, they won´t talk about it with leaders of Muslim countries and they won´t talk about it with reporters. All they do is make threats towards Palestinians. The hapless Jack Straw, Germany´s Green-turned-to-Likudnik foreign minister Joschka Fischer and the useless Spaniard Javier Saviola all have made the same kind of threats of Israeli attacks against Palestinians if Palestinians don´t do as the Israelis order them to do. Everything will be well if Israel is given a free hand, according to their unvoiced but plainly visible daydreaming. The Palestinian question will vanish.

So, the Western leaders believe that by giving Israel free hand to take what it wants, large chunks of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, they will have peace. At least peace from mad, racist Jews who claim that all who don´t do as they want them to do are antisemites. I think that some of the Western leaders may understand what kind of effect their support for the full annexation of the third holiest city in Islam by Israel will have, but they simply don´t care. They will gladly take hate, suicide bombers in their own cities and decades of warfare - just so that they wouldn´t anger Israel, which they have made unto something that the small state isnt:The world´s only real superpower.

Friday, August 19, 2005

The missing masterpieces

Kelly tells good stories, but many of them are just that: just stories. Confucius(traditionally 551-479 BCE) never wrote anything, as far as we know. All that is connected to his name either is written or collected by his followers, usually centuries after his death, or has no connection whatsoever with him. The works of Aeschylus(525-456 BCE) were hardly the sole property of the Ptolemaic dynasty, nor were they destroyed in 640. The whole thing about the burning of the library then is a fable. In reality, it´s existence after the middle part of the 1st century BCE is not certain. It could have been destroyed then, as Caesar(102/100-44 BCE) invaded Egypt, or it could have been destroyed in 272 CE as Romans fought the Palmyran troops in Alexandria, or in 391 CE in the hands of a Christian mob etc etc. And of course, the poet Homer didn´t exist.
Stress, trauma strain Palestinians

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WHILE MANY eyes focus with a mix of cautious optimism and horror on Gaza, the turmoil in Israel and the rage and sorrow of Jewish settlers, the lack of attention to the lives of more than 1 million Palestinians who share the tiny stretch of coastline is striking. As Avraham Burg, former Knesset member, recently wrote: "Take all the settlers' screams about discrimination and laments about suppression, multiply them many-fold, and you will feel what the Palestinians have lived with for many years without our seeing or feeling." ...The international community can play a positive role politically and financially; building a foundation of trust, a mutual cessation of hostilities and future coexistence. It must also develop and fund social and economic infrastructures for this devastated community. The 8,000 Gaza settlers have a commitment. Why not 3.5 million Palestinians?
Israel Clears Main Gaza Strongholds

I personally don´t know which I want more: that the evictions go well and Israeli leadership can´t claim that withdrawal from West Bank would be too "traumatic" and hard based on the Gaza evitions, or that the settlers - many of which have come from the colonialist settlements on the West Bank - would get more violent and kill Israeli soldiers and police, and thus making themselves and the whole settlement enterprise more disliked in Israel. I just don´t know.

What next after the Gaza withdrawal?

While the economic situation in Gaza is a critical issue, the future of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be determined mainly by the next steps in the peace process. Permanent-status issues concerning borders, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and refugees must be dealt with bilaterally. Any serious observer of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will no doubt acknowledge that there can be no unilateral solution to these issues. As for the peace process's multilateral guarantors, the United States and its quartet partners - the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia - have failed to provide even the most basic facts regarding Israel's withdrawal or how it relates to the “roadmap” agreed in 2003. They cannot continue to sit on the sidelines. Washington's quixotic decision to call Israel's unilateral move part of the roadmap has failed to convince many Palestinians. The prevailing opinion among Palestinians is that the roadmap will be put into deep freeze once the Israelis complete their Gaza withdrawal. But the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, their leaders, and the international community must all respond to the challenges that will follow. Most importantly, the future of the conflict and the chances for genuine peace in the region will depend on understanding the limits of offensive military power, defensive resistance, and unilateralism. Serious face-to-face talks, in accordance to international law and with the help of the international community, are the only way forward.

Theatrics in Gaza:The Disengagement That Isn't

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When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced his plans to 'disengage' from Gaza and a tiny West Bank enclave, he maintained that his unilateral move was principally compelled by the fact that Palestinians were no partners in peace. They never were, his right wing officials parroted, a reality, they contested, and that most likely will not change in the near future. Thus 'disengagement', for the sake of Israel's security, boils down to demographic supremacy, not Palestinian rights. The Israeli narrative was always clear, albeit iniquitous. "Israel was leaving Gaza in order to retain large chunks of the West Bank," the Jerusalem Post summarized the declared positions of Israel's top officials. This concept was originally initiated by the ever-blunt Chief of Staff Dov Weisglass last year, then Israel's top military strategist, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, and, according to the Post, Sharon himself.
The settlers' retreat was the theatre of the cynical
There was no 'sensitivity training' when bulldozers went into Rafah

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Contrast the world's overwhelming coverage, especially on television, of the departure of Israeli settlers from Gaza with the minimal reporting of larger and more brutal evictions in previous months. There was no "sensitivity training" for Israeli troops, no buses to drive the expellees away, no generous deadlines to get ready, no compensation packages for their homes, and no promise of government-subsidised alternative housing when the bulldozers went into Rafah. Within sight of the Gush Katif settlements that have been handled with such kid gloves this week, families in Rafah were usually given a maximum of five minutes' warning before their houses, and life savings, were crushed. Many people did not even have time to go upstairs to collect belongings when the barking of loudspeakers ordered them out, sometimes before dawn. Fleeing with their children in the night, they risked being shot if they turned round or delayed. As many as 13,350 Palestinians were made homeless in the Gaza Strip in the first 10 months of last year by Israel's giant armour-plated Caterpillar bulldozers - a total that easily exceeds the 8,500 leaving Israeli settlements this week. In Rafah alone, according to figures from the UN relief agency Unrwa, the rate of house demolitions rose from 15 per month in 2002 to 77 per month between January and October 2004. Parts of Rafah now resemble areas of Kabul or Grozny. Facing Israeli army watchtowers and the concrete wall that runs close to the Gaza Strip's boundary, rows of rubble and ruined homes stretch for hundreds of yards.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Police shooting - the discrepancies

What the police claimed to have happened when Jean Charles de Menezes was shot and what happened according to the evidence and witness accounts.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

`Black August´ for US troops in Iraq. 58 US soldiers have died as 16.08. when in all of July 54 US soldiers died. Of course, all the individuals themselves almost certainly didn´t deserve to die - but then that is usual the case in all wars, in all sides. The fact is that their country deserves to loose and the only way to that end is for the US soldiers to die in significant enough numbers for the US to cut and run.
Fears over Menezes death 'leak'

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BBC home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford said the leaked documents appeared to be witness and police statements given to the IPCC. He said the statements suggest Mr de Menezes had walked into Stockwell Tube station, picked up a free newspaper, walked through ticket barriers and had started to run when he saw a train arriving. In the immediate aftermath of the incident, police said Mr de Menezes had been acting suspiciously and suggested he had vaulted the ticket barriers. Police also said the Brazilian electrician had worn a large winter-style coat - but the leaked version suggested he had in fact worn a denim jacket.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

No one knows full cost of Israel's settlement ambitions

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Israel's effort since the 1967 Mideast war to fill the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Jews has grown from the scattered actions of zealous squatters into a network of 142 towns and villages that house nearly 240,000 people. Now that Israel plans to spend some $2 billion to dismantle just 25 of the settlements — for which U.S. aid has been requested — it raises the question of how much money has been poured into populating these biblical lands with Jews, and exactly where it came from... Vice Premier Shimon Peres estimates Israel has spent about $50 billion since 1977, when the hard-line Likud government took over from his Labor party. Other former finance ministers and government officials don't discount a price tag — commonly floated but never documented — of $60 billion... Among the methods used, the interviews show, were government subsidies, shadowy land deals, loopholes in military spending, and an auditing bait-and-switch in which U.S. aid was used to free up billions of dollars for spending on the settlements formally opposed by the United States. Even today, with preparations under way for demolishing 21 settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank, housing and roads continue to be built in West Bank settlement blocs Israel wants to keep in a final peace deal with the Palestinians. This contradicts the internationally backed "road map" peace plan to halt settlement expansion. And a government-commissioned inquiry in March revealed similar methods were used to build and expand dozens of unauthorized West Bank "outposts" — set up as flag-showing exercises and usually consisting of a handful of people in mobile homes. It found widespread government complicity in establishing more than 100 such outposts, and the inquiry's chief, former prosecutor Talia Sasson, called the government's actions "a blatant violation of the law." Last year, the funding of the outposts came in for sharp criticism from the State Comptroller, the government's main watchdog. It found at least two cases where the Housing Ministry funded outposts that the military had ordered demolished.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Ruins of the ancient town of Hatra are still standing, but the unnecessary war has taken it´s toll on it´s buildings.
Germany attacks US on Iran threat

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German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has warned the US to back away from the possibility of military action against Iran over its nuclear programme. His comments come a day after President Bush reiterated that force remained an option but only as a last resort... Mr Schroeder directly challenged Mr Bush's comment that "all options are on the table" over the Iran crisis. "Let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work," Mr Schroeder told Social Democrats at the rally in Hanover, to rapturous applause from the crowd.
So we're going to bolt from Iraq. Where are the cries of complaint?

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You may also have noticed that, according to The New York Times: “If the political process in Iraq remains on track and security improves, perhaps up to 30,000 troops could pull out by next spring.” You may have asked what was meant in that sentence by the words “remains on track”. The “track” looks a curious railway with some unconventional destinations. But where it leads is ever-clearer: to a resolve by politicians to stand everyday observation on its head, and conclude that we have “won” in Iraq — and sprint back home during the incredulous pause before everyone begins to laugh... Does anyone seriously suggest that a free and democratic Iraq is now heading into the home straight? Of course not. The place is going to hell in a handcart. So where are those who urged our forces in, now that the political will to keep them there is faltering?

Friday, August 12, 2005

Computer analysis provides Incan string theory

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The pair built a searchable database containing key information about Khipu strings, such as the number and position of subsidiary strings and the number and position of knots tied in them. The pair then used this database to search for similarities between 21 Khipus discovered in 1956 at the key Incan administrative base of Puruchuco, near modern day Lima in Peru. Superficial similarities suggested that the Khipu could be connected but the database revealed a crucial mathematical bond - the data represented by subsidiary strands on some of Khipu could be combined to create the strands found on more complex ones.This suggests the Khipu were used to collate information from different parts of the empire, which stretched for more than 5500 kilometres.... "Local accountants would forward information on accomplished tasks upward through the hierarchy, with information at each successive level representing the summation of accounts from the levels below," Urton says. "This communication was used to record the information deemed most important to the state, which often included accounting and other data related to censuses, finances and the military." And Urton and Brezine go a step further. Given that the Puruchuco strings may represent collations of data different regions, they suggest that a characteristic figure-of-eight knot found on all of the 21 Puruchuco strings may represent the place itself. If so, it would be the first word to ever be extracted from an Incan Khipu.
Give Iranian Nukes a Chance
In a mad world, the logic of MAD still works

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As to Iran and nukes, the surprising fact is that the MAD logic still operates today: Why hasn’t the tension between India and Pakistan exploded into an all-out war? Because both sides are nuclear powers. Why have the Arab states not risked another attack on Israel? Because Israel is a nuclear power. So why should this MAD logic not work in the case of Iran? The standard counter-argument is that in Iran, Muslim fundamentalists are in power who may be tempted to nuke Israel. (Iran is the only large Arab state which not only does not diplomatically recognize Israel, but resolutely denies its right to exist as a state). Is, however, the Iranian regime really so “irrational”? Isn’t Pakistan, with its nuclear arms and its secret services’ ties to al-Qaeda, a much greater threat? Furthermore, two decades ago, Iran was brutally attacked by Iraq (with active U.S. support), so it has every right to feel threatened.

Nice article, but Iran isn´t an Arab country. Arabs are only a very small minority, few percent or so of the population. The majority population are the Persians, who form 51% of the population, and they are Indo-europeans, whereas Arabs are Semitic.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Meanwhile, Israel Grabs the Rest of Jerusalem

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As the world's attention is diverted by scenes of the removal of settlers who had no right to be in Gaza in the first place, the real strategy behind disengagement is revealed by Israel's aggressive moves to consolidate its occupation of Jerusalem's eastern Palestinian sector. At stake is the very basis of peace between Palestinians and Israelis - a negotiated two-state solution. Israel's plan is to use "concessions" in Gaza to remove Jerusalem from the negotiation table. But without Jerusalem as a shared capital for Palestinians and Israelis, there is no two-state solution...
The wall, which Israel is using to redefine Jerusalem's borders, is being routed through occupied territory in such a way as to maximize the number of Palestinian Jerusalemites behind the wall, while maximizing the amount of Palestinian land on the "Israeli" side. About 55,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem will be effectively cut off from the their city, forced to access their schools, hospitals and even families through Israeli military gates which, as Palestinians know from experience, can be closed at a soldier's whim. These Palestinian Christians and Muslims will be denied free access to the holy sites in their own city. Already, Palestinian Christians and Muslims in the West Bank can no longer freely pray at the Old City's Church of the Holy Sepulcher or the Noble Sanctuary (Haram al Sharif). Difficulty in accessing their own city will cause Palestinian Jerusalemites to go deeper into the West Bank for educational, medical and religious services. Israel will then have a pretext - "insufficient links" to the city - for revoking their Jerusalem residency rights. To date, more than 6,500 Palestinians have lost their residency rights in the Jewish state's unstated but measurable efforts to rid the Holy City of as many Christians and Muslims as possible. Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in and around occupied East Jerusalem are increasingly common, with more than 50 homes destroyed so far this year. Sixty-four homes in a Palestinian neighborhood near Jerusalem's Old City have demolition orders pending against them, even though the homes were built on privately owned Palestinian land. According to the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, there are more than 10,000 outstanding demolition orders against Palestinian buildings in East Jerusalem. Such orders are usually enforced without warning and in the middle of the night... The Palestinian Authority remains committed to a two-state solution based on international law. However, negotiations require an Israeli partner and Israel, as the more powerful party, realizes it can impose its own agenda rather than negotiate a solution.
Iraq Shias call for more autonomy

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Iraq's Shia majority should be granted an autonomous federal state in the south of the country, a senior Shia leader has said. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim made his call at a rally in the Shia holy city of Najaf, as Iraqi politicians debate the wording and balance of a new constitution... Shia religious leaders have long backed calls for the creation of a federalised Shia south, but secular Shias have been cautious, fearing that it might grant excessive power to religious parties.

The proposed name for the autonomous state is said to be Sumer. Sumerian civilization - long believed to have been created by invaders moving to then sparsely populated Mesopotamia, but according to new excavations, a continuity of earlier cultures - started to emerge circa 4000 BCE and started to use writing first in the world around 3500 BCE. The Sumerians were divided to city states until the so-called Third Dynasty of Ur - these "dynasties" were invented by the excavators of the city in the 1920-30´s and of the three "dynasties" the Third Dynasty is the only one which can be truly said to have been a dynasty; the others consist of possible rulers from two different eras that have been put together to form groups - united the Sumerian culture under it´s rule in about 2100 BC. At this time the Sumerian culture itself was most likely already dying, after a century and a half of domination under the Semitic Akkadian empire between circa 2350-2200 BCE. The decline of the Sumerian language - which has no certain relatives - could have started even earlier. After the Third Dynasty of Ur fell when attacked by the Elamites of southern Iran after a few decades of decline - it has been believed that this happened between 2008-1986 BCE, but newer evidence indicates that the Elamites conquered Ur after 1954 BCE - the Sumerian civilization ended. Ur had a special place in the following Mesopotamian culture and the Sumerian language was used as a kind of equivalent of the Medieval latin of it´s time for almost 2000 years afterwards.
Damn it, Let Go!

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Yesterday the Israel Cabinet decided to blackmail the Palestinian Authority. After months of trying to negotiate a deal so that the common customs envelope between Palestine and Israel, which has been in force since the signing of the Paris Protocol in 1995, can remain in force after the disengagement, the Israeli Cabinet pulled a rabbit out the its hat in the form of a “deal”. If the Palestinians agree to move the border to the Kerem Shalom triangle between Israel, Gaza and Egypt, then Israel will agree to retain the common customs envelope. Sounds a bit complicated – not so – here’s what it’s really about... Israel’s insistence to move the border has only one real explanation – continued control. Israel cannot imagine having a relationship with the Palestinians without it being based on Israeli control over Palestinians. Israel is leaving Gaza but Gaza is not leaving Israel. The Palestinians have had many reservations over the years regarding the common customs envelope. The leading Palestinian economists, businessmen and politicians have many times advocated ending the Paris Protocol and moving into another form of trade regime. They said that there is no reason to keep adhering to system which has not provided them with the trade benefits and at best has only supplied an efficient system of revenue collection and transfer. This is not a small matter, but when faced with all of the non-tariff barriers that Israel has established since Paris and the reality that the Palestinians are not really partners in determining common trade policies, as is the norm in custom unions, why not try something new?
Israel to keep control of Gaza access

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Israel has said it will probably retain control of Gaza skies and territorial waters after the implementation of its withdrawal plan from the area. "I think it is very likely that we will continue to control the skies and territorial waters of Gaza," Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said on Tuesday.
UN to Adopt Pathbreaking New Global Standard which Demands Return of Confiscated Refugee Land and Housing

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GENEVA -- The United Nations is expected to adopt a sweeping series of principles today that urge governments everywhere to ensure all refugees and persons displaced due to conflict and natural disasters are entitled to return to, recover and reside in their original homes, lands and properties. Prepared by the UN's Special Rapporteur on Housing and Property Restitution, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro of Brazil, the 'Pinheiro Principles' will provide the first consolidated global standard on the housing, land and property rights of the displaced. "The best solution to the plight of millions of refugees and displaced persons around the world is to ensure they attain the right to return freely to their countries and to have restored to them housing and property of which they were deprived during the course of displacement, or to be compensated for any property that cannot be restored to them. It is the most desired, sustainable, and dignified solution to displacement", said Pinheiro.
Siperian beat bogs are thawing because of the global warming and will release large amount of methane - which is a greenhouse gas - in the atmosphere, which will then accelerate the warming. This of course causes more melting etc. In the end, the average temperature will rise more than the estimated 1.4-5.8 degrees Celsius during this century.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Blair lays down framework for police state in Britain

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The measures announced August 5 by Prime Minister Tony Blair under the pretext of combating terrorism show how fully his government views democratic rights to be incompatible with its warmongering internationally and its pro-business agenda at home. Blair used his monthly press conference to announce measures openly directed against immigrants and Muslims, but which set the stage for attacks on the right to free speech and for the criminalisation of all forms of political dissent... Any non-British citizen or naturalised British citizen living anywhere in the world, using any means whatsoever—including writing, producing, publishing or distributing material, public speaking including preaching, running a website, or using a position of responsibility such as teacher, community or youth leader—to express views which the government considers illegitimate can be targeted. The list of unacceptable behaviours includes: Fomenting terrorism or encouraging others to carry out terrorist acts; justifying or glorifying terrorism, fomenting other serious criminal activity or provoking others to serious criminal acts; fostering hatred that may lead to intra-community violence in the UK; and advocating violence in furtherance of particular beliefs. Anyone not covered by these sweeping criteria could still face deportation or exclusion from the country if he is considered by the government to express “extreme views” that are “in conflict with the UK’s culture of tolerance.”

US military intelligence identified four 9/11 hijackers in 2000

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Jehl’s report confirms what has been widely reported overseas but long covered up by the Bush administration and the American media: Mohammed Atta, believed to be the operational leader of the 9/11 attacks, was under US intelligence surveillance even before he came to the United States in 2000. How Atta was able to enter and re-enter the country on multiple occasions over the next year, enroll in flight school, and use credit cards and bank accounts in his real name, despite being a known Al Qaeda operative, has never been explained... The Times interviewed the former military intelligence agent at Weldon’s congressional office. By his account, Able Danger was set up in 1999 to conduct data mining from publicly accessible databases, cross-referencing with information from US agencies like the Immigration and Naturalization Service and with classified intelligence information. This technique pinpointed the names of Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, the pilots who flew hijacked jets into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center, as well as Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhdar, two of the five men who hijacked an American Airlines jet and crashed it into the Pentagon... This demonstrates that the 9/11 commission was a fraud and a whitewash. Rather than uncover the real story of the terrorist attacks, the commission conducted a sophisticated cover-up of the real relations between US government agencies and the terrorists who killed 3,000 people.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Nuclear rights and responsibilities

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The developed world has no right to dictate unilaterally to developing nations how they choose to use nuclear technology. But the latter must build their own capacity to handle the technology responsibly, both individually and collectively... Each country, whether developed or developing, must be allowed to determine for itself how the nuclear option fits into its strategies for achieving such objectives. That does not mean that it should act unilaterally, or ignore international norms of behaviour (as incorporated into national legislation). But it does mean that it has both the right and the responsibility to use its own internal political mechanisms to determine its actions on nuclear issues... The West has legitimate cause to be concerned. Whatever the purely political arguments about a country's right to determine its own energy mix, any nation with such a wealth of oil and gas reserves will have a difficult task persuading the international community that its desire to develop a nuclear capacity is based primarily on its projected energy needs. But this is not in itself an excuse for justifying the strong-arm tactics that some Western countries, particularly those on record as being opposed to the current regime in Iran, are now advocating. Reporting the country to the United Nations Security Council, for example, is unlikely to be particularly effective (and would probably be vetoed by at least one member of the council). While the consequences of another US invasion in the Middle East, as reported to be under consideration in some parts of Washington, are too distressing to contemplate. Furthermore, the Iranian authorities have a powerful political argument when they point to the contradictions between the attitude of the United States administration towards themselves and towards India. In the Indian case, the administration has recently indicated it would drop a previous ban on the export of nuclear technology for civilian purposes — despite the fact that India has still not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Iran itself has.
Shuttle Discovery lands safely in California.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Iraq's murky future

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Keeping the Iraqi house in order is essential in the immediate future. But a divided Iraq, coupled with possible new alliances — as was demonstrated following the eyebrow-raising visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Jaafari to neighboring Iran where he was received warmly — could still turn the tables upside down, regionally and internationally. The future remains murky.
West turns blind eye as police put Saddam's torturers back to work

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In their haste to put police on the streets to counter the brutal insurgency, Iraqi and US authorities have enlisted men trained under Saddam Hussein’s regime and versed in torture and abuse, the officials told The Times. They said that recruits were also being drawn from the ranks of outlawed Shia militias. IRAQI security forces, set up by American and British troops, torture detainees by pulling out their fingernails, burning them with hot irons or giving them electric shocks, Iraqi officials say. Cases have also been recorded of bound prisoners being beaten to death by police. Counter-insurgencies are rarely clean fights, but Iraq’s dirty war is being waged under the noses of US and British troops whose mission is to end the abuses of the former dictatorship. Instead, they appear to have turned a blind eye to the constant reports of torture from Iraq’s prisons.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Discovery may need more repairs

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Nasa scientists are trying to determine whether the US space shuttle Discovery will need more repairs before being given the all clear to return to Earth. On Wednesday an astronaut carried out a pioneering spacewalk to the orbiter's underside to remove protruding material threatening the heatshield's integrity. But engineers now fear the thermal blanket near the cockpit is damaged and needs repairs to stop it tearing off... Initial photographs appeared to indicate that the thermal blanket below the cockpit window had been punctured at one end. The thermal blanket is made up of a quilt-like, padded fabric and serves as insulation from the intense heat generated during re-entry to Earth's atmosphere. Although not heavy, there is concern that a section measuring about 30cm (one foot) could tear off as the shuttle tries to re-enter Earth's atmosphere and hit the main body of the orbiter at such high speed that it could cause a grave injury.
Life in Gaza's danger zone

I really can´t understand the people that worship Israel. It´s evil. A festering wound. And past sufferings are no excuse for colonial enterprises. If you accept the evil of Israel, then you have to accept all other evils of it´s kind. There can´t be different rules for different peoples. Genocide can´t be accepted to be an acceptable excuse for ethnic cleansing and apartheid, especially when most of the colonialists in Palestine have themselves never been victims and they or their families come from areas untouched by the Holocaust. And still Israel hides behind the Holocaust. It´s a shield which it´s leaders use to protect themselves from justice. They use victims of past to deny justice from victims of today.
Methane on Mars: the plot thickens

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Methane on Mars may be produced at rates 3000 times higher than previously thought and partially destroyed by dust storms, controversial new research suggests. The work is sure to reignite the debate over a possible biological origin for the gas, but another team reports that subsurface volcanism alone - and not life - can account for the gas. ...reports further evidence of the phenomenon. Using an infrared telescope in Hawaii and the Gemini South telescope in Chile, the group found concentrations of methane ranging from zero to more than 250 parts per billion across Mars. Such a drastic difference suggests something must be destroying the methane before it can be mixed uniformly through the atmosphere, says Mumma. And if it is destroyed in one month, he says, that implies it must be replenished 3000 times faster than current estimates suggest... They say dust particles that collide during Martian dust storms can become charged, with smaller particles gaining electrons and rising on air currents. This creates a large electric field that can accelerate electrons until they break apart water molecules in the atmosphere. The detritus from this smash-up can then oxidise, or destroy, methane molecules.