Hundreds of people have died in the new attacks made by the Sudanese military against towns and villages in southern Darfur.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Occupation Army Kills Mother, 4 Children Among 11 Palestinians
Quote:
Continued Israeli extra-judicial killing of Palestinians would have a similar effect. IOF wanton killing has claimed the lives of eleven Palestinians since January 17. Early Wednesday, an IOF mortar shell killed a 3-year-old Palestinian girl in the southern Gaza Strip refugee camp of Deir Al-Balah, and injured four others. On Tuesday, more than 40 IOF military vehicles have stormed into and imposed curfew on the Palestinian village of Saida, near Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, detaining scores of Palestinians. On Monday, IOF soldiers shot dead a Palestinian who allegedly was “in a no-go zone” near the Karni crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel. His body was handed over to Palestinian authorities Tuesday night but his identity was still unknown on Wednesday. The same day Yaser Jabarin, 30, succumbed to wounds he received when IOF troops opened fire on his car in the southern West Bank town of Thahyria on December 26. During the Muslim festivity of Eid Al Adha, IOF shot dead three Palestinian children: Salah Abuleish, 13, Salahudddin Iqab Daraghmah, 12, Mohammad Hosni Abu Errub, 15, and 19-year old Fata Eddin Mohammad Al-Khouri, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Earlier, the IOF killed Nidal Abdul Hakim Sadeq, 19, and Ahmad Mahmoud Ashoor, 20, on a bypass road (Kissufim) leading from Israel to the illegal Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Katif. The latest killings raised the Palestinian death toll to 3,818 since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada (uprising) against the 37-year old Israeli occupation on September 28, 2000.
Quote:
Continued Israeli extra-judicial killing of Palestinians would have a similar effect. IOF wanton killing has claimed the lives of eleven Palestinians since January 17. Early Wednesday, an IOF mortar shell killed a 3-year-old Palestinian girl in the southern Gaza Strip refugee camp of Deir Al-Balah, and injured four others. On Tuesday, more than 40 IOF military vehicles have stormed into and imposed curfew on the Palestinian village of Saida, near Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, detaining scores of Palestinians. On Monday, IOF soldiers shot dead a Palestinian who allegedly was “in a no-go zone” near the Karni crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel. His body was handed over to Palestinian authorities Tuesday night but his identity was still unknown on Wednesday. The same day Yaser Jabarin, 30, succumbed to wounds he received when IOF troops opened fire on his car in the southern West Bank town of Thahyria on December 26. During the Muslim festivity of Eid Al Adha, IOF shot dead three Palestinian children: Salah Abuleish, 13, Salahudddin Iqab Daraghmah, 12, Mohammad Hosni Abu Errub, 15, and 19-year old Fata Eddin Mohammad Al-Khouri, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Earlier, the IOF killed Nidal Abdul Hakim Sadeq, 19, and Ahmad Mahmoud Ashoor, 20, on a bypass road (Kissufim) leading from Israel to the illegal Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Katif. The latest killings raised the Palestinian death toll to 3,818 since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada (uprising) against the 37-year old Israeli occupation on September 28, 2000.
The end of days: a self-fulfilling prophecy
I wonder how a specialist of the Reformation can in the end hope that the United Kingdom could be a bridge between the "real old Europe" of the US Christian fundamentalists and Europe. He of all people should know that there can´t be any bridge building until the religious fervor has been exhausted by wars and spilled blood. In the pre-modern Europe the Reformation unleashed wars that raged 130 years before people confessing different branches of Christianity were weary enough to live side by side. And now the US must be defeated, maybe several times, so that it´s foreign policy goals don´t succeed - and then they maybe weary enough to embrace a more secular worldview.
I wonder how a specialist of the Reformation can in the end hope that the United Kingdom could be a bridge between the "real old Europe" of the US Christian fundamentalists and Europe. He of all people should know that there can´t be any bridge building until the religious fervor has been exhausted by wars and spilled blood. In the pre-modern Europe the Reformation unleashed wars that raged 130 years before people confessing different branches of Christianity were weary enough to live side by side. And now the US must be defeated, maybe several times, so that it´s foreign policy goals don´t succeed - and then they maybe weary enough to embrace a more secular worldview.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Greenhouse effect may raise the Earth´s average temperature as much as 11,5 degrees Celsius. More and more. Inaction endangeres the future of whole humanity.
60 years from the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Lots of stuff about this in the web, but I am bothered by the ease by how world leaders, who themselves many have started bloody conflicts and have done little to stop other conflicts, can come to Auschwitz and start preaching how awful the Holocaust was and how we must never again allow such things to happen and how sorry they are and how they and their countries are ready to accept their guilt etc. Inaction for today´s victims, praise for those that have lain dead for 60 years. As they say, words are cheap.
They should start by ending the many conflicts that are raging around the world today. I couldn´t imagine a better way to commemorate the memory of the people killed in Auschwitz than saving the lives of people that can still be saved. In Aceh, in Chechnya, in the DR of Congo, in Darfur, in Iraq, in Palestine etc. These world leaders could bring justice and peace to places like Western Sahara and Palestine tomorrow if they would want to, and could do much to promote peace in such messy places like DR of Congo, where maybe over 6 million people have died in the last 7 years of fighting. Imagine that - 6 million people. And the world is obsessed with terrorists, that have killed thousands of people... But no.
It´s easier to be apolegetic and speak poetically about crimes that happened 60 years ago than to do something to help the victims of today. Certainly the victims of Auschwitz deserve to be remembered, but the thing is, there is nothing we can do to help those that are dead. We can only help those that are still alive and can be saved. In a world where there is an ongoing genocide - not an industrial genocide which the Holocaust is usually seen to be, somewhat wrongly when it comes to parts of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union - that claims more and more lives, it´s something of a travesty to speak those noble words in Oswieczim and then to do nothing in Darfur.
They should start by ending the many conflicts that are raging around the world today. I couldn´t imagine a better way to commemorate the memory of the people killed in Auschwitz than saving the lives of people that can still be saved. In Aceh, in Chechnya, in the DR of Congo, in Darfur, in Iraq, in Palestine etc. These world leaders could bring justice and peace to places like Western Sahara and Palestine tomorrow if they would want to, and could do much to promote peace in such messy places like DR of Congo, where maybe over 6 million people have died in the last 7 years of fighting. Imagine that - 6 million people. And the world is obsessed with terrorists, that have killed thousands of people... But no.
It´s easier to be apolegetic and speak poetically about crimes that happened 60 years ago than to do something to help the victims of today. Certainly the victims of Auschwitz deserve to be remembered, but the thing is, there is nothing we can do to help those that are dead. We can only help those that are still alive and can be saved. In a world where there is an ongoing genocide - not an industrial genocide which the Holocaust is usually seen to be, somewhat wrongly when it comes to parts of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union - that claims more and more lives, it´s something of a travesty to speak those noble words in Oswieczim and then to do nothing in Darfur.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Bloodiest day yet for US troops in Iraq, as 35 US marines and one army soldier die. This is the way to go. More.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Monday I went after a lecture and a visit to the library to a cinema to see the BBC´s nature movie "Deep Blue", which is based on the material of BBC´s "Blue Planet" -series, which was made for the TV. I had watched some of the episodes in the serie, and the movie had the same good and bad points as those episodes.
First, it´s a beautiful movie and the views of marine animals are beautiful on the big screen. Especially the animals of the deep ocean are just amazing. Secondly, there are disturbing scenes of violence. Well, nature is cruel and violence is of course part of the life in the seas, but some of the scenes felt a little bit sensational and especially the drowning of the baby whale seemed to be made as cruel as possible by the script. And I felt that the makers were putting human emotions to animals, describing the killer whales just as "killers" and trying to make the scene as weepy as possible. Anyway, in the series it was made clear what kind of role dead whales have in the ecosystem of the seas and here it lacked. I first was thinking the actions of animals in the movie too much in human terms, but then I thought the awful things that humans do to other humans all the time and even if that didn´t make the suffering of the unfortunate sea lions less sad, it certainly made me feel better. Even if the killer whales were playing with the dying sea lion, it was necessary practice for their future. One can´t say the same when one reads from the day´s newspaper about the recent violent crimes.
It was a good movie, but it ended abruptly. I would give it four stars.
First, it´s a beautiful movie and the views of marine animals are beautiful on the big screen. Especially the animals of the deep ocean are just amazing. Secondly, there are disturbing scenes of violence. Well, nature is cruel and violence is of course part of the life in the seas, but some of the scenes felt a little bit sensational and especially the drowning of the baby whale seemed to be made as cruel as possible by the script. And I felt that the makers were putting human emotions to animals, describing the killer whales just as "killers" and trying to make the scene as weepy as possible. Anyway, in the series it was made clear what kind of role dead whales have in the ecosystem of the seas and here it lacked. I first was thinking the actions of animals in the movie too much in human terms, but then I thought the awful things that humans do to other humans all the time and even if that didn´t make the suffering of the unfortunate sea lions less sad, it certainly made me feel better. Even if the killer whales were playing with the dying sea lion, it was necessary practice for their future. One can´t say the same when one reads from the day´s newspaper about the recent violent crimes.
It was a good movie, but it ended abruptly. I would give it four stars.
Friday, January 21, 2005
New bombings against Shiites in Baghdad area. Thanks to the aggression and incompetence of the US government, Iraq seems to be settling as the new Lebanon of Middle East.
Injustice and stupidity in Jerusalem.
Quote:
In July 2004, Israel's cabinet adopted a decision that was neither made public nor even published in the official government gazette, Reshumot: to apply the Absentee Property Law to East Jerusalem, and thereby to confiscate thousands of dunams of land from owners who live in the West Bank. The reason for the decision was security-related: Since in practice, West Bank residents are barred from entering East Jerusalem because of the intifada, the cabinet decided to enact an official measure that would prevent any use of these lands by their owners in the future as well, and would explicitly state that henceforth their property belongs to the State of Israel... The decision to once again apply this law has caused thousands of Palestinians, including many who live right next to their confiscated lands, to lose property overnight worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and for which no one intends to compensate them... It is impossible not to deem the cabinet's decision theft, as well as an act of state stupidity of the highest order.
Quote:
In July 2004, Israel's cabinet adopted a decision that was neither made public nor even published in the official government gazette, Reshumot: to apply the Absentee Property Law to East Jerusalem, and thereby to confiscate thousands of dunams of land from owners who live in the West Bank. The reason for the decision was security-related: Since in practice, West Bank residents are barred from entering East Jerusalem because of the intifada, the cabinet decided to enact an official measure that would prevent any use of these lands by their owners in the future as well, and would explicitly state that henceforth their property belongs to the State of Israel... The decision to once again apply this law has caused thousands of Palestinians, including many who live right next to their confiscated lands, to lose property overnight worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and for which no one intends to compensate them... It is impossible not to deem the cabinet's decision theft, as well as an act of state stupidity of the highest order.
Methane rain feeds Titan's rivers. More.
Latest images released by ESA. More (of the same) from ESA.
Latest images released by ESA. More (of the same) from ESA.
Mummy scan furore.
The CT scan carried out last week on Tutankhamun's mummy has triggered a fierce debate among archaeologists.
The CT scan carried out last week on Tutankhamun's mummy has triggered a fierce debate among archaeologists.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Indonesia has been claiming that GAM is going to attack relief workers in Aceh, whereas it will honour the truce. And today Indonesian army claims that it has killed 120 GAM fighters during the last two weeks. Of course, according to neutral sources, large part of those that Indonesian army kills claiming them to be members of GAM are just civilians that are killed to fill the quota.
Israeli army - according to it´s commander, "The most moral army in the world" - kills 2 13-year old boys in Gaza.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)