Another picture from the London protest today:

Protest from London today in behalf of Palestinian Arafat Jaradat(1983-2013), who was tortured to death in an Israeli prison run by the British G4S "security" company:

Possible 22 000 year old human made tools from a rock shelter in Brazil - or the most ingenious capuchin monkey's in the entire world.

#Justice4PalHunger reached 5th place in worldwide Twitter trends this evening:

Finally, we are trending !#Justice4Palhunger twitter.com/dark__back/sta…

— Ali Rjoub (@dark__back) March 14, 2013

After a total of 259 days on hunger strike against his unjust imprisonment without charges by Apartheid Israel, Palestinian political prisoner Ayman Sharawna's(1976-) health is now "very critical".

A Jesuit pope from Latin America is certainly an interesting development. John Paul II would not approve, even when Bergoglio is like he was, a supporter of rightwing violence - even against clergy. But even a Jesuit collaborator from Argentina is still a Jesuit from the "wrong" continent and might harbour some surprises.

Bergoglio, supporter of the Argentine military junta that killed some 30 000 people by dropping them from airplanes above Atlantic ocean for example, probably chose his name Francis I based not on St. Francis of Assisi(1181/1182-1226), but the Basque aristocrat St. Francis Xavier(1506-1552) who led the Jesuit missionary work in the East Asia. Which could be taken as a sign of concentrating on Catholic communities outside Europe, unlike Benedict XVI, who concentrated on vainly fighting against the beneficial spreading of secularism in Europe.

#IAW2013 is currently trending no1 in S. Africa, 3rd day in a row its trending! More info on #IsraeliApartheidWeek--> bdssouthafrica.com/2011/02/israel…

— BDS South Africa (@BDSsouthafrica) March 13, 2013

Resignation of Benedict XVI(2005-13), a Marxist view.

Awkward moment when Justin Beibers dead hamster is trending yet #FreePalestine isn't. Society is messed up😒

— Yusuf. (@mynameisyusuf_) March 13, 2013

Mohammed Asfour - also translated as Muhammed Asfur - was another brave youth who supported the Palestinian political prisoners on hunger strike and was wounded by Israel's brutal occupying forces and died in hospital last week of the wounds he suffered. He would have turned 23 two days after his death.

 

A drawing the now murdered Mahmoud al-Titi made in February of the Palestinian political prisoners on hunger strike:

Activist Mahmoud al-Titi, murdered yesterday by Israel's occupying troops in Hebron:

He was shot by fragmenting bullets. I am pretty sure that use of those are a war crime, but in a world where Israel is worshipped with feverish madness by the "Western" politicians and media - the mirror image of the equally insane religiously based oppression Jews once faced in the "Occident" - Israel can get away with using them, as it has gotten away of using fragmenting missile against civilians in Gaza and artillery shells containing nails in Lebanon.

Israel that commits Ethnic Cleansing has no "right of self-defense", Israel that practices Apartheid has no "right to exist".

Ayman Sharawna has been 251 days total on hunger strike since 1st of July 2012 against his imprisonment without charges by Apartheid Israel's occupation forces:

Rest in peace, comrade Hugo Chavez(1954-2013):

We are fighting for all Palestinians

In jail, my fellow hunger strikers and I are doing battle against the Israeli occupation that humiliates our people

SAMER ISSAWI

My story is no different from that of many other Palestinian young people who were born and have lived their whole lives under Israeli occupation. At 17, I was arrested for the first time, and jailed for two years. I was arrested again in my early 20s, at the height of the second intifada in Ramallah, during an Israeli invasion of numerous cities in the West Bank – what Israel called Operation Defensive Shield. I was sentenced to 30 years in prison on charges relating to my resistance to the occupation.

I am not the first member of my family to be jailed on my people's long march towards freedom. My grandfather, a founding member of the PLO, was sentenced to death by the British Mandate authorities, whose laws are used by Israel to this day to oppress my people; he escaped hours before he was due to be executed. My brother, Fadi, was killed in 1994, aged just 16, by Israeli forces during a demonstration in the West Bank following the Ibrahimi mosque massacre in Hebron. Medhat, another brother, has served 19 years in prison.

My other brothers, Firas, Ra'afat and Shadi were each imprisoned for five to 11 years. My sister, Shireen, has been arrested numerous times and has served a year in prison. My brother's home has been destroyed. My mother's water and electricity have been cut off. My family, along with the people of my beloved city Jerusalem, are continuously harassed and attacked, but they continue to defend Palestinian rights and prisoners.

After almost 10 years in prison, I was released in the Egypt-sponsored deal between Israel and Hamas to release the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. However, on 7 July 2012, I was arrested again near Hizma, an area within the municipality of Jerusalem, on charges of violating the terms of my release (that I should not leave Jerusalem). Others who were released as part of that deal were also arrested, some with no declared reason. Accordingly, I began a hunger strike on 1 August to protest against my illegal imprisonment and Israel's violation of the agreement.

My health has deteriorated greatly, but I will continue my hunger strike until victory or martyrdom. This is my last remaining stone to throw at the tyrants and jailers in the face of the racist occupation that humiliates our people.

I draw my strength from all the free people in the world who want an end to the Israeli occupation. My weak heartbeat endures thanks to this solidarity and support; my weak voice gains its strength from voices that are louder, and can penetrate the prison walls.

My battle is not just for my own freedom. My fellow hunger strikers, Ayman, Tarik and Ja'afar, and I are fighting a battle for all Palestinians against the Israeli occupation and its prisons. What I endure is little compared to the sacrifice of Palestinians in Gaza, where thousands have died or been injured as a result of brutal Israeli attacks and an unprecedented and inhuman siege.

However, more support is needed. Israel could not continue its oppression without the support of western governments. These governments, particularly the British, which has a historic responsibility for the tragedy of my people, should impose sanctions on the Israeli regime until it ends the occupation, recognises Palestinian rights, and frees all Palestinian political prisoners.

Do not worry if my heart stops. I am still alive now and even after death, because Jerusalem runs through my veins. If I die, it is a victory; if we are liberated, it is a victory, because either way I have refused to surrender to the Israeli occupation, its tyranny and arrogance.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/03/hunger-strikers-fighting-for-palestinians-israel

Requiescat in Pace Stéphane Hessel(1917-2013):

Archaeological finds (and speculation horse domestication 9000 years ago) from Al-Magar in the Arabian peninsula going back to 50 000 years ago.

Ancient shoes from Ptolemaic Egypt found: Ancient Shoes Turn Up in Egypt Temple.

The widow of Arafat Jaradat(1983-2013) - tortured to death by Israel for throwing one stone - speaks:

Elizabeth Drabkina: The Palestinian Prisoners' Intifada:

Role of maize in the rise of the Norte Chico civilization of Peru. Agricultural theory gains ground against maritime competitor.

Israel has no right to exist.

That it has, has become a sacred article of faith for the "West" - and thus it needs to be denied and this denial repeated, like all acts of sacrilege that break mind free from an official "truth".

Israel has no right to exist.

The idea that there is a "right" for political entities to exist and that this concept somehow has a real, meaningful connection to their existence in the real world is itself pretty naive.

I suspect that some kind of subsconscious, primitive magical thinking is partly behind this article of faith, that in some mysterious way repeating this holy chant of the "West" is felt to be keeping up the Apartheid state's existence.

Israel has no right to exist.

In reality, denying or asserting the Apartheid state's "right" to exist has no direct connexion to it's physical existence on the ground and as an institution that controls certain piece of land and water in the Middle East.

Israel has no right to exist.

Zionists take it as granted that Israel arrests each day Palestinians and keeps thousands imprisoned, but when Palestinians capture single one of them, they themselves are terribly outraged and basically hysterical about this - its like laws of nature would have been broken.

They just can't accept that others can "play the game" with the same rules as they do.

The privilege of power they enjoy in this terribly unbalanced conflict has cultivated this mindset in them that they can do things which Palestinians can't and when Palestinians do things that they considered to be their privilege - like imprisoning one of them - it shakes the basis of their view of their conflict, one could even claim that it shakes their entire worldview.

Good that the US government thinks that all people are at least theoretically equal when it comes to them being blown up in illegal drone attacks.

Hilary Mantel ruffles royal feathers.

My comment from last night to a small article about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong(c.1330-c.1400):

The irony is that nobody really won the long and bloody contest to rule China that had began with the rebellion of the secret Taoist  revolutionary societies in 184.

By 281, all the original three dynasties - Wei(221-264), Wu(222-280) and Shu Han(223-263) - were gone. In 263 Wei conquered Shu Han, but in 264 the Wei dynasty itself was overthrown in a place coup and replaced by the Western Jin(265-316) which conquered Wu in 280 and briefly united China.

In 291 a new civil war began - The War of the Eight Princes - which lasted until 306 and weakened the Western Jin, which experienced then attacks by partly sinicized semi-nomadic tribes which captured and killed two teenage emperors in 311 and 316.

Jin dynasty withdrew to the south, becoming the Eastern Jin(317-419) and the north of China was fragmented to numerous competing dynasties for over a hundred years until the Tuoba-led Northern Wei(386-534) united northern China by the 440s.

The unification of northern and southern China would come only with the brief Sui dynasty(581-618) from the north, which conquered the southern Chen(557-589) dynasty in 589. After a natural disaster and failed attempts to conquer Korea Sui itself started to fall in 616 and from among its ruins rose the Tang dynasty(618-907), which had asserted control by the mid-620s, defeating its competitors.

The silence around Samer Issawi, Ayman Sharawna & their comrades on hunger strike is slowly breaking, but they are close to death. Media is starting to publish small news items, often distorted by the Zionist propaganda in the "West" and politicians have become "concerned".

Of human rights organisations, Amnesty finally had collected enough courage to make an appeal on 12th day of this month.

This night the Zionists kidnapped Samer's brother from the family home, one more attempt to pressure him through his family. They have destroyed the home of one brother, cut water to family home, arrested one brother and sister, who is now under house arrest.

A solidarity tent for Samer has been destroyed 24 times by the Zionists.

New discovery from Teotihuacan's Pyramid of the Sun.

Nature on the Russian mini-Tunguska event.

A good day for meteor (and hopefully meteorite) studies.

Conserving the Diamond Sutra, world's oldest printed book, which was made in 868 and found in the Mogao grottoes at Dunhuang:

Text for the song Hungry by Doctor Jazz, which tells of the record breaking hunger striker Samer Issawi's desperate struggle for freedom against the Apartheid regime, which has imprisoned him without charges:

You'd think you'd read about me in the New York Times
Almost two hundred days without any bite
While I'm withering away in my prison cell
All you read about is the game of buy and sell

in Wall Street - they don't know the way I resist
If they knew, they'd be shocked at the way I insist
Freedom and human rights are on my list
I want to live, breath, move - hell, I wanna exist

If I had an army I'd set it up to defend
Our villages our towns till the very end
But I'm cut off from the world, so there's no supplies
They call resistance terrorism but u know these are lies

If my eyes are blindfolded, my body in chains
Tucked away behind bars the only thing that remains
Is to refuse to be fed from a racist thief's den
To refuse to be treated like a sheep in their pen

I am hungry
For freedom and rights
I am hungry
That's the way that I fight

I am hungry
A prisoner on a hunger strike
Never charged
Never tried
By that damned Fourth Reich

-

Let them say what they say bout my people
If there's one thing we ain't it is sheeple
Why would we give up on our land and allow its theft
Because greed is their creed, there'll be nothing left

We want Justice, how is that too much to ask
You wont touch this, cuz ur not up to the task
Go ahead and lie, and call our enemy 'civilized'
it won't matter no more when Victory strikes

I am hungry
For freedom and rights
I am hungry
That's the way that I fight

I am hungry
A prisoner on a hunger strike
Never charged
Never tried
By that damned Fourth Reich

-

While you're out there in your homes counting dollars and pennies
I've got a question to you when ur done stacking ur twenties
Can u spare a few minutes for a man like yours truly
Whose only crime is that he won't bow to a bully

I'm not asking u to break me out, cuz I'm alright
Can spend a hundred more years putting up this fight
All I want you to do, is speak out for the truth
Don't support a racist state that is vile and uncouth

A song for political prisoner and hunger striker Samer Issawi, who has been 198 days on hunger strike in the Apartheid regime's prison:

© 2013 Doc Jazz Author: Doc Jazz

2000 year old ruins of 35 small pyramids found in Sudan.

Have you heard of record breaking hunger striker and political prisoner Samer Issawi?

6 % of red dwarf stars could have an Earth-sized planet in their habitable zone based on a statistical analysis of data from the Kepler space telescope. This would mean 4.5 billion possibly habitable planets around red dwarf stars alone.

One of my web comments about Richard III from today:

One argument which can be made against claims that the later portrayal of Richard III was just Tudor propaganda is that there never was any attempt by Yorkist pretenders and relatives living abroad to create and cultivate a cult of a martyred good king around Richard III.

In fact, there appears to have been basically no attempts at all to counter the Tudor portrayal of him, which should make us question whether the Tudor portrayal really was so far away from how he was seen by people neutral or even supportive to the Yorkist cause.

When his own designated heir and nephew, the earl of Lincoln, made his move to regain the throne for York in 1487, the earl used Lambert Simnel in an effort to use the memory of Edward IV against Henry VII, instead of trying to appear as an avenger of Richard III.

Richard III's sister, the dowager duchess of Burgundy, safe on the continent and living in a declining but still celebrated centre of artistic patronage, would have had ample resources to draw in an effort to shape his brother's memory after 1485, but no effort was made.

More examples could be easily given, but the fact is that when a lot of people could have stood up for Richard III after 1485, many out of the reach of Henry VII, none did beyond some recorded laments about his fate by the burghers of York.

This, I think, shows that Richard III was viewed at best with indifference by people hostile to the Lancaster and Tudor dynasties and that although propagandistic in nature, the Tudor portrayal of him had a core which was more or less in accordance with the public view of him.

King Richard III(1452-1483-1485) of England is missing no longer. The remains of the third and last king of the York dynasty(1461-1470, 1471-1485) are now confirmed to have been found, with new details revealed of his death on the battlefield of Bosworth.

Last of my grandparents' siblings was buried two days ago. He, a paternal uncle of my dearly beloved, late mother, would have turned 90 during the summer. His father, my great-grandfather, was born in the 1870s (nobody seems to know exactly when anymore) and he was - of which I am very proud - a Red Guard during our civil war in 1918. Several of my great-uncle's half-siblings and one of his siblings, my grandfather's twin brother, died over ninety years ago, in a very different world.

Anselm Hollo(1934-2013) died 29th of January. I have to say I didn't rank him very highly as a poet, I saw him as a rather average talent. Naturally his success, as limited as it was if you think higher visibility, made him if not honestly admired in Finland, then at least it was felt that he should be admired because he had "made it" abroad.

At least 36 dead and 105 wounded in a suicide attack against a police station in Kirkuk, Iraq.

October´s death toll from the Baghdad morgue: 972.

Truth from the mouth of a leading zionist: Israeli attacks against Islamic Jihad have nothing to do with Jihad´s actions against Israel.

But Jihad´s actions against Israel, on the other hand, have everything to do with what Israel does. They revenge Israeli attacks against Palestinians by attacking Israelis, so Israeli leaders certainly know that they will cause attacks against Israelis when they murder members of Jihad. And their calculation that they can win by committing more murders than Jihad is not only criminal, it most likely doesn´t work.

US crimes in Iraq revealed.

Over 2000 US soldiers - and 199 other soldiers from it´s vassal states - have now died in Iraq. Also almost 300 non-Iraqi "contractors" working for the occupiers have died in the war - many of them former US, British etc soldiers turned mercenaries who have died doing duties normally reserved for army soldiers.

Some articles on the subject:

Death toll an awkward yardstick on Iraq
US media react to Iraq toll
2000 Too Many
US death toll hits 2,000—grim milestone in a criminal war
Casualties of a war a world away

But these are people who chose to go to war. They could have - at worst scenario - chosen prison instead. These people, on the other hand, had no choice.

The cost of war that most people don´t want to see in US.

The possibility of future attack by the combined forces of fundamentalist US, Israel - a mice on steroids - and the feeble UK against Iran is higher than usually believed.

Salman Rushdie writes about Orhan Pamuk´s problems with the Turkish authorities: How can a country that victimises its greatest living writer also join the EU?

A revolution betrayed.

Another white, European male wins the Nobel prize for literature.

75-year old Harold Pinter became the 11th playwright to win the prize. The greatest living British playwright, aknowledged, but there has been eras when that kind of praise meant more than it does today. Seriously, how many modern, living British playwrights you can name? More, more and more.

Guatemala's Maya Indians hit hard in new tragedy

Swedish language interview with the Syrian poet Adonis, who almost certainly will not win a Nobel prize today when the winner will be announced.

Most likely the winner will be somebody that most of us haven´t even remotely considered as a winner, but hopefully at least the winner will be someone who is relatively well known. I´m all for the rescuing of good, but little known authors from obscurity, but not every year. There have been some bad choices recently - like Naipaul - and the Swedish Academy probably should play it safe for a couple of years and give prizes to well known and deserving writers. More.

China has launched it´s second manned spacecraft with two taikonauts aboard.

Bush 'confident' as Iraq violence kills 46
Government issues arrest warrants for 23 defense Ministry officials

Quote:

At least 46 people were killed in attacks in Iraq, including a suicide car bombing in a crowded market, but U.S. President George W. Bush maintained an optimistic tone saying he was confident Iraqis would vote despite the bloodshed. In the bloodiest strike, 30 people were killed and 45 others wounded in the car bombing in the market of Tal Afar in restive northwestern Iraq, claimed by the Al-Qaeda group headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Another 16 people were killed in a rash of bombings and shootings, starkly underlining the battle facing Iraqi forces in their efforts to secure the country for Saturday's referendum on the constitution.

Gaza Last? The British Government's U-turn on Palestine

Quote:

As calls to hold the Israeli government to account grow louder, the British government whispers ever more softly in Sharon's ear. Responding to a legal letter from War on Want and The Dove and The Dolphin Charity this month, the Foreign Office, in a highly censored set of documents, revealed just how little they have really done over the last year to uphold their obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention, spelt our in the International Court of Justice's decision on the Separation Wall. The Foreign Office admits quite openly that their strategy of close engagement with Israel has failed; hardly surprising given that the 'strategy' seemed to consist of mentioning the issue at a handful of meetings. Despite this, they have no other strategy apart from even closer engagement through 'European Neighbourhood Policy' (ENP) Action Plans. These plans provide for closer ties with Europe's neighbours, including Israel, to go "beyond co-operation, to involve a significant measure of economic integration and a deepening of political co-operation" in which Israel and the EU will "intensify political, security, economic, scientific and cultural relations". In other words, the opposite of suspending currently existing economic preferences for Israel, which the Palestinians have called for, and which the EU is actually legally bound, but unwilling, to do. So between encouraging Israel to flout international law in the Jerusalem Post; tripling arms sales to Israel in the first three months of 2005; and encouraging the EU to make even closer ties with Israel, British Foreign policy appears to be taking a turn for the even worse. Howells even suggests in the Jerusalem Post that Palestinian aid is on the line, if they refuse to play the game our way - Britain needs "a signal that it [the PA] is capable of good governance. This is not a bottomless pit that this money is coming from."

Setting up Abbas

Quote:

Today almost a half million Israelis live across the 1967 border. With financial backing of the Clinton Administration, a system of twenty-nine highways was constructed in the Occupied Territories to incorporate the settlements into Israel proper. In the meantime 96% of the Palestinians were locked into what Sharon calls ”cantons,” dozens of tiny enclaves, deprived of the right to move freely and now being literally imprisoned behind concrete walls twice as high as the Berlin Wall and electrified fences. Although comprising half the population of the country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, the Palestinians - including those with Israeli citizenship - are confined to just 15% of the country... Still, Israel needs a Palestinian state. Although the annexation of the settlement blocs gives Israel complete control over the entire country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, it needs to “get rid of” the almost four million Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories to which it can neither give citizenship nor keep in a state of permanent bondage. What Sharon seeks, and what Bush has agreed to, is a truncated Palestinian mini-state, a Bantustan, a prison-state on 10-15% of the country that relieves Israel of the Palestinian population while leaving it firmly in control of the country and its resources. Whether or not we like the term, this amounts to full-blown apartheid, the permanent and institutionalized domination of one people over another... Sharon, in short, is priming Abbas for a set up, another “generous offer.” It worked well for Barak, why not try it again, this time for the whole pot? What would Abbas say if Sharon offered Gaza, 70-80% of the West Bank and a symbolic presence in East Jerusalem? True, it is not a just or viable solution. The Palestinians would be confined to five or six cantons on 15% of the entire country or less, with no control of their borders, their water, even their airspace. Jerusalem, now encased in a massive Israeli “Greater Jerusalem,” would be denied them, thereby removing the political, cultural, religious and economic heart of any Palestinian state. Israel would retain its settlement blocs and 80% of its settlers. But Sharon's “generous offer” would look good on the map and, he believes, viability is simply too complicated a concept for most people, including decision-makers, to grasp. But for Abbas it sets up a no-win situation. Say “yes” and you will be the quisling leader Israel has been looking for all these years, the one who agreed to a non-viable mini-state, to apartheid. Say “no” and Sharon will pounce: “See?! The Palestinians have refused yet another Generous Offer! They obviously do not want peace!” And Israel, off the hook, will be free to expand its control of the Occupied Territories for years to come, protected from criticism by American-backed annexation of the settlement blocs. Israeli unilateralism means only one thing: it has nothing to offer the Palestinians, nothing worth negotiating over. The Road Map asserts that only a true end of the Occupation and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state will finally see the end of this conflict with its global implications. A genuine two-state solution may already be dead, the victim of Israeli expansionism. A two-state “solution” based on apartheid cannot be an alternative accepted by any of us. Yet apartheid is upon us once again. Sharon must act fast to complete his life's work before his term of office expires within the next year. This is the crunch. We cannot afford to have our attention deflected by any other issue, important as it may be. It is either a just and viable solution now or apartheid now. We may well be facing the prospect of another full-fledged anti-apartheid struggle just a decade and a half after the fall of apartheid in South Africa.

This article is also to be found in here.

New Homo floresiensis remains have been found, making the claim of microcephaly even more unlikely than before. But the new species may not be part of the genus Homo; it´s more likely a remnant of the Australopithecines. More.

The Australopithecine hominid lineage rose at least 4,2 million years ago, most likely from the Ardipithecus lineage. About 3 million years ago it split into two branches, the first leading most likely to the genus Homo around 2,3 million years ago, the second leading to the genus Paranthropus, which is though to have become extinct 1,1-1,2 million years ago. The new hominid species from the island of Flores is then a descendant of either the Paranthropus lineage or some earlier Australopithecine species.

At least 23 000, but possibly up to 40 000 dead in Pakistan alone in the South Asia earthquake. The town of Balakot has been completely destroyed. More.

Yesterday´s earthquake in South Asia killed in Pakistan alone 18 000 people and injured 40 000. Hundreds, probably thousands more have perished in Afghanistan and India.

The US military can say whatever it wants about the situation in Iraq, but destroying 8 bridges that cross the river Euphrates is a clear sign of desperation. This not the action of a side that thinks it´s winning.

Israel bans use of human shields

Quote:

Israel's supreme court has banned the use of Palestinian human shields in arrest raids, saying the practice violates international law. The court issued a temporary injunction against the practice in 2002 after a teenager was killed when troops made him negotiate with a wanted militant. Human rights groups who brought the case say the Israeli army has repeatedly violated the temporary ban. The army cannot use civilians for its purposes, Israel's chief justice said. "You cannot exploit the civilian population for the army's military needs, and you cannot force them to collaborate with the army," Aharon Barak said.

More Israeli Jews favor transfer of Palestinians, Israeli Arabs - poll finds

Some 46 percent of Israel's Jewish citizens favor transferring Palestinians out of the territories, while 31 percent favor transferring Israeli Arabs out of the country, according to the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies' annual national security public opinion poll... sraeli-Arabs pose a threat to Israel's security, according to 61 percent of the Jewish population, while around 80 percent are opposed to Israeli-Arabs being involved in important decisions, such as delineating the country's borders, up from 75 percent last year and 67 percent in 2000. Some 72 percent of Jewish Israelis are opposed to Arab parties being part of a coalition government, compared to 67 percent last year and 50 percent in 1999. This overall shift to the right has been coupled by a significant fall in support for the Oslo process; down from 58 percent last year, to 35 percent this year. Support for the establishment of a Palestinian state has also dropped from 57 percent last year to 49 percent this year... Only 40 percent of Jewish Israelis support transfering control of Arab areas of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians as part of a peace agreement, compared with 51 percent last year. There has also been a fall in the number of people willing to leave the settlements as part of an agreement with the Palestinians: 49 percent are in favor of Israel leaving the settlements, apart from large blocs, under a permanent status agreement, compared to 55 percent last year.

So more peaceful time has brought out the worst in Israeli Jews, making them more rasistic and increasing the support for crimes like ethnic cleansing. "The Righteous Among the Nations" indeed! They should accept the facts and change it to "The Rasistic Among the Nations".

And "transfer"! What a nice Orwellian way of saying "ethnic cleansing"!

As a part of laying ground for UK´s participation in the coming attack against Iran, the British adopt an idiotic US theory of Iranian involvement in Iraq. These Anglo-Saxons are really geographically - and politically - challenged if they believe their own nonsense. More.

Once again, the "real" writer of Shakespeare´s plays is "revealed".

Israeli offensive in Gaza targets Hamas

Quote:

A massive military offensive, coupled with political assassinations and arrests of more than 400 Hamas candidates and activists, has been mounted barely two weeks after the withdrawal of the last Israeli soldier from Gaza. These events have exposed the fraud of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s so-called “disengagement” from Gaza. Far from being a first step towards alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people—normalising relations between Israel and Palestine, and creating an independent Palestinian state, as the Western powers have claimed—the pullout has been a preliminary to a sustained military and political offensive against the Palestinians. The largest offensive since the assault on Jenin in April 2002, its purpose is to terrorise and intimidate the Palestinian people and cripple Hamas, the largest Islamist party, as a political force.

Progress means withdrawal

Quote:

While before August 2005 the settlers and their supporters could dream that the facts on the ground were too solid to change, after the disengagement it became clear that everything is reversible. Even if they find a way to continue building the illegal outposts, even if the local authorities pay for this construction, everyone already knows that this is no guarantee of continued territorial possession. After all, the synagogue in Kfar Darom was dedicated only four months before it was abandoned.

The evacuation of the illegal outposts is a done deal between Israel and the United States, and only the timing is still undecided. Thus the "enormous progress" that Sharon promises for this year must also include isolated settlements and not only illegal outposts. There is no point in continuing to spend money and mental energy on these places, there is no point in deceiving those who live there, and there is certainly no reason to endanger soldiers by sending them to guard Yitzhar and Itamar. Evacuating the settlements does not need to be a reward for good behavior on the part of the Palestinians, but rather a clear Israeli interest.

Newly found "planet" 2003 UB313 has a moon. More.

I hope that the IAU doesn´t accept the ridiculous names Michael Brown and his team are proposing. Somebody should give them a dictionary of classical mythology or something.

Cassini has taken a wonderful picture of Saturn´s small moon Hyperion.

Poetry, memory and the smell of coffee in Madrid
Spanish play debates dramatic and idealistic image of Palestinian and Israeli life

Quote:

MADRID: For many years the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish has repeatedly claimed to be "absent, but present" in Palestine. During two performances of the play "El Olor del CafŽ" ("The Smell of Coffee") at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid at the end of last month, the "poet laureate of Palestine" and contender of the Nobel Prize for Literature was "present, but absent."

One thing why Darwish won´t win the Nobel Prize is that awarding him would instantly be claimed to be a political act - the same would be claimed by reactionary forces, but not as aloud, if Amos Oz would win. In fact, giving (or not giving) the Prize has been used as a political act in the past, like during II World War. F.E. Sillanpää won it because of the war and Herman Hesse was denied it until 1946 because even as he was a Swiss citizen, he was born German. And of course, Winston Churchill would have never won it for literary reasons alone.

Another reason why Darwish or Adonis won´t win the Nobel Prize for Literature is the language they write their works. I doubt that there are many members of the Swedish Academy who can read Arabic and it´s a hard thing to go giving prizes for people when you don´t know how good their works are on in the original language. There are exceptions, even when it comes to Nobel Prizes, but the fact is that for an author like Darwish or Adonis, they have to be translated in large numbers to several major western languages - and Swedish - to have a chance to win the prize. This is one of the reasons why so few past winners wrote their works in other languages than in English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or Swedish.

More about the Mayan town of La Coruna - the long sought for "Site Q".

Pentagon dismisses new report on US military torture in Iraq

Quote:

A report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) provides chilling new details of the torture of Iraqi detainees by US forces. The report, issued September 24—“Leadership Failure: Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division”—is based on interviews with a US Army captain and two sergeants. It details abuse carried out at Forward Operating Base Mercury (FOB Mercury), near Fallajuh in Central Iraq, from 2003 through 2004. The Pentagon has denounced the report as a politically motivated smear. Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. John Skinner criticized it as an effort “to advance an agenda through the use of distortions and efforts in fact.” He made the remarkable claim that the military has “looked at all aspects of detention operations under a microscope.” ... According to the HRW report, in the case of the 82nd Airborne abuse of detainees, Captain Fishback and the two sergeants came forward “because of what they described as deep frustration with the military chain of command’s failure to view the abuses as symptomatic of broader failures of leadership.” Fishback said he tried for 17 months to bring it to the attention of his commanding officers, to clarify what was and was not acceptable behavior in the treatment of detainees. He told HRW, “My company commander said... ‘remember the honor of the unit is at stake’ or something to that effect and ‘Don’t expect me to go to bat for you on this issue if you take this up.’” When Fishback approached the Judge Advocate General’s office (JAG) he was told by one of his superiors, “Well, the Geneva Conventions are a gray area.” When he raised the issue of the abusive practices at the army’s Inspector General’s office, an official told him, “You obviously feel very upset about this, but—I don’t think you’re going to accomplish anything because things don’t stick to people inside the Beltway [Washington DC].”