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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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].”

Rhetoric and Reality of War

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Language has once again deconstructed what visuals originally portrayed. The desperate attempt of Iraqis to assert a level of sovereignty in their own country becomes a mega conspiracy, where the aggressor and the victim swap roles in a twisted sort of way.The Iraqi reality, however, is too grim to bear any resemblance to what the British and Americans are disseminating. The bloody images, the ever rising death toll, the mounting insurgency are all indicative of an occupied country revolting, where the line between occupied and occupier is most clearly manifest.

Remembering Mohammad Al-Durra

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Two men shot Muhammad Al-Durra five years ago this week, on Sept 30, 2000, two days after the outbreak of Intifada II: The occupation soldier who shot the fatal bullet that killed him, and the photo journalist who shot the iconic picture that immortalized him. Muhammad, of course, was the 12-year old boy killed in the arms of his father, who had vainly tried to shield him from harm as both crouched, compressed and trapped, between a low wall and a large metal barrel at the Netzarin Junction. The harrowing image, filmed by Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu Rahma for France 2 television, carries the emblematic power of a battle flag. Its heart-rending intensity, its fevered veracity, puts it beyond all rational understanding. It is a lasting image of the war against the Palestinian people and how Israel has conducted it.

Yesterday ongoing Israeli attacks against Palestinians killed 3 in Jenin, today 2 in Nablus.

Another mass murder in Iraq, this time in the town of Balad, where 3 bombs yesterday killed 99 and wounded 124 people. Today, at the town of Hilla, a car bomb killed 12 people and wounded 47 people. Attacks in both towns seem to have been targeted against Shiites.

Wild gorillas have been first time observed to use tools in nature. More and even more.

I have to say that I´m impressed - especially about that use of branch to test water depth.

The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk now for four consecutive years. More.

At the same time, a German study shows that a rise of 4,1 degrees Celsius in average temperature - a very conservatice estimate nowadays - during this century will lead to an average rise of 30 cm in global sea levels. More.

Long-sought Maya City — Site Q — found in Guatemala

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The proof—an in-situ panel carved with over 140 hieroglyphs that fill in a key 30 year chapter in classic Maya history—was found in a little known ancient royal center called La Corona. Roughly 40 years ago, the antiquities market was flooded with many exquisitely carved monuments of apparent Mayan origin. Many were purchased for private and museum collections despite a lack of provenance. Because of their similar style and shared subject matter, it was suggested that they came from some still unknown site located somewhere in the Peten lowlands. This site called Site Q — an abbreviation of the Spanish “ ¿que? ” or “ which? ” —has been the target of many expeditions. More.

Torture is US Policy, Not Aberration

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Given the extraordinary flow of disclosures, confirming the use of identical U.S. torture practices throughout Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, the "bad apple" defense is coy at best. It is impossible for so many soldiers to dream up identical techniques by coincidence. We are dealing with official policy, not individual excess. Legal responsibility goes all the way to the top... Since these torture techniques constitute obvious policy, and many were specifically authorized, why are our top-level officials not under indictment? The Fourth Geneva Convention protects non-POWs, including saboteurs and insurgents. Such people may be tried and imprisoned, but not tortured. Our criminal laws make it a felony to conspire to torture a detainee abroad.

Famine continues in Niger.

Charles Kennedy, leader of the British Liberal Democratic party, says that Tony Blair´s blind obedience to George W. Bush is costing lives in Iraq.

True, but this has been clear for over two years. So what else is not new, Charles?

Israel plans to steal a slice of northern Gaza by building another illegal wall on Palestinian land.

Echoes of the Northern Ireland conflict in Basra. More.

The Forgotten Horror of Sabra and Shatila

Heatwave makes plants warm planet

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The really surprising finding came with the calculation that during the heatwave, European plants and their ecosystems were putting more carbon dioxide into the air than they were absorbing. "In the past we expected that climate change would benefit European ecosystems because growth tends to be limited by the short growing season," said Andrew Friend, "but this analysis hadn't taken into account the possibility of extreme events. "The conclusion of our study is that this extreme event meant a loss of carbon across Europe - a loss which undoes many years of net uptake." ... During an average year, the net effect is that European plants absorb around 125 million tonnes of carbon (MtC). But in 2003, according to this analysis, they released 500 MtC to the atmosphere. By comparison, global emissions from burning fossil fuels amounts to about 7,000 MtC; by giving rather than taking, European plants were adding about 10% to the global total. "This shows that short-term climatic events such as the 2003 heatwave occurring over regional areas like Europe can have major effects on the climate globally," commented Julia Slingo.

International press attacks German voters, because they vote "wrong" parties. Isn´t democracy just dreadful?

Incredibly stupid Brits pour petrol on the ground in Basra and light a match. This describes pretty well what has happened in Basra. I don´t think that you can smash the illusion of Iraqi sovereignty better than this. Blood will flow.

Nasa´s new manned Moon exploration plans look very familiar.

German elections went surprisingly well, CDU/CSU got their worst ever result and so a bourgeois coalition will not happen. The new Left party(Der Linke), formed by PDS and WASG - the SDP rebels - performed well. I´m not a big fan of Gerhard Schröder and his policies, but better him than Angela Merkel. More.

Another possible shoreline of an evaporated(?) sea found on Titan by Cassini.

The beauty products from the skin of executed Chinese prisoners

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A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe... Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".

Ghastly.

Bloody days in Baghdad and elsewhere in occupied Iraq. More.

I do think like the neocons who miscalculated when they attacked Iraq, the Sunnis who try to put the nascent civil war in Iraq in full gear with these attacks against innocent civilians don´t really know what they are doing. Iraq led by Sunnis will not rise from it´s grave and the fires in Iraq could spread and engulf the whole Middle East.

Suicide bombing in a Shiite neighbourhood of Baghdad kills 82 poor labourers.

The translator of a book collecting Osama bin Laden´s "messages" speaks to New Yorker.

Palestinians in Gaza celebrate the first stage in their national liberation.

Hayabusa probe arrives at asteroid Itokawa.

True democracy still denied in Japan, as the monolithic LDP secures yet another victory.

Back to the border of sanity

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Looking back on the years of the occupation, it is impossible not to come to the conclusion that there had been a march of folly here, which not only did not achieve any national goals, but also inflicted huge damage on the state, society and economy. The occupation regime imprinted a negative seal on society's norms and values; hundreds of dead were sacrificed in order to defend it, and billions were spent in order to build settlements with no expectancy for their continued existence... The damage and price caused by the occupation also exist in the rest of the territories Israel occupied in 1967. The tremendous importance of Israel's exit from Gaza is not only leaving a crowded area that is a center for terror, but also because it is a first step toward the country's convergence into reasonable borders. These must be determined according to demographic and security tests, but also must allow the existence of a sovereign Palestinian state and give expression to Palestinian national aspirations. This means that sooner or later, Israel will have to leave the vast majority of the Judea and Samaria territories in the West Bank, and allow the state of Palestine to establish its capital in East Jerusalem.

Jaxa´s Hayabusa probe is now 220 kilometers from it´s target asteroid Itokawa, whose shape is now being revelead.

In the last 15 years, thanks mainly to space probes, we have learned more about asteroids than in the in the 190 years before since the finding of Ceres in 1801.

Ice belt 'encircled Mars equator'

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Europe's Mars Express probe may have found evidence for a band of ice that once spanned the Martian equator... They found that when Mars' tilt changed to an obliquity of about 35 degrees around five million years ago, moisture trapped at the North and South Poles may have been re-deposited in equatorial regions as snow. It is also possible that water trapped in the Martian tropics since ancient Noachian times was mobilised around five million years ago. Eventually, the poles may have got smaller and a thick belt of ice formed around the tropics... He added it was possible the ice could have got as thick as several hundred metres at high altitudes.

Why America can't cope

But nobody, as far as I can see, has dared to suggest that there are deeper explanations for so disconcerting a shambles, explanations that transcend political parties or individuals. The self-image of America ...is that of a nation of uniquely hardy and resilient people predestined by God to be omnipotent in the world, be it against the forces of nature or of bogeyman dictators. Because, in reality, the reverse is so often true - present-day Americans, after all, are the most pampered human beings in history - the myths, fostered by popular culture and especially Hollywood, have given rise to a complacency that is increasingly dangerous not only for the rest of the world but for Americans, too. Hardship is only momentary and can always be overcome, hard work will always be rewarded, and other such uniquely American traits, will result in a society that is matchlessly efficient and soars to ever greater triumphs... Yet Katrina showed the fragility of the US and this belief that there is little need for strong collective leadership or institutions of the kind that European civilisations have come to value. The feelings date back to victory over the British in the American revolution: a distrust of government and a belief in the righteousness and inevitable prosperity of the little guy, equipped only with his gun, his initiative and his own humble patch of land. This culture of so-called private entrepreneurship blended with a disavowal of collective responsibilities actually gained under Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr and then Bill Clinton... Thus, on top of everything, there is an adamant refusal to learn the lessons of history or those of the forces of nature... The nation is nurtured on tales that America is paradise on earth but the reality is that it is increasingly falling behind western Europe in technology, education and healthcare - not to mention the kind of emergency and evacuation procedures and disaster preparedness needed to respond to Hurricane Katrina. A predictable natural calamity which inconveniently failed to fit in with the preordained scripts of this most cynical of US administrations has brutally exposed America's shortcomings.

The small Popular Resistance Committees -group - which has former Fatah members in it´s ranks - claims responsibility for Moussa Arafat´s murder.

ESA´s newest Videotalk feature is about Cryosat.

I like these videotalks. Of course, they are largely superficial and don´t go to specifics etc, but still I like them.

Jasser Arafat´s cousin, former security official Moussa Arafat - one of the founders of Fatah - has been murdered in Gaza by unidentified gunmen.

What Gaza and what all the areas occupied of Israel need, is a total withdrawal of all Israeli troops beyond the 1967 borders and tens of thousands of international peacekeepers.

The city of Qaim near the Syrian border in Iraq has fallen to Musab al-Zarqawi´s al-Qaida in Iraq -organization, also known as Monotheism and Holy War. Government officials have been killed.

Japan´s Hayabusa space probe is only 1000 kilometers from it´s target, the asteroid Itokawa. This mission, which has been given very little attention, will try for the first time to bring back samples from an asteroid back to Earth.

New Orleans crisis shames Americans

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At the end of an unforgettable week, one broadcaster on Friday bitterly encapsulated the sense of burning shame and anger that many American citizens are feeling. The only difference between the chaos of New Orleans and a Third World disaster operation, he said, was that a foreign dictator would have responded better. It has been a profoundly shocking experience for many across this vast country who, for the large part, believe the home-spun myth about the invulnerability of the American Dream... The uneasy paradox which so many live with in this country - of being first-and-foremost rugged individuals, out to plunder what they can and paying as little tax as they can get away with, while at the same time believing that America is a robust, model society - has reached a crisis point this week.

Elegy for my city by Richard Ford.

It´s hard for people to usually understand how entire civilizations can collapse. How urban societies can swiftly be reduced to small groups of backward agriculturalists or wandering nomads? Look no farther than Louisiana and Mississippi. The thing that saves the people in there is that there isn´t a group of barbarian savages or a competing civilization next door ready to attack and finish them. In the modern world the federal government of US will eventually get things under control, how late it may be for many. But in the ancient world a civilization centered on New Orleans would have fallen. A total area of 234 000 square kilometers has been affected. The effects will have consequences that reach to a far larger area, in fact globally. Something like this - a natural disaster - could have destroyed the Mound builders along the northern Mississippi and the Anasazi(in their case, most likely severe and long drought) in the west.

New Orleans rocked by huge blasts

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The New Orleans riverfront has been hit by a series of massive blasts, and fires are raging in the area. The cause and extent of possible damage is not yet clear. The news comes as troops were sent to quell lawlessness in the city, where desperation grows. Anarchy has spread through New Orleans, where thousands of people are stranded with no food or water, four days after Hurricane Katrina hit... "This is a national disgrace," New Orleans emergency chief Terry Ebbert said... There have been outbreaks of shootings and carjackings and reports of rapes... The muddy floodwaters are now toxic with fuel, battery acid, rubbish and raw sewage... Hundreds or even thousands of people are feared to have drowned in the low-lying city, most of which is under water.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: from natural disaster to national humiliation

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The catastrophe that is unfolding in New Orleans and on the Gulf coast of Mississippi has been transformed into a national humiliation without parallel in the history of the United States... The reactionary mythology of America as the “Greatest Country in the World” has suffered a shattering blow... Washington’s response to this human tragedy has been one of gross incompetence and criminal indifference. People have been left to literally die in the streets of a major American city without any assistance for four days. Images of suffering and degradation that resemble the conditions in the most impoverished Third World country are broadcast daily with virtually no visible response from the government of a country that concentrates the greatest share of wealth in the world... The government’s callous disregard for the human suffering, its negligence in failing to prepare for this disaster and above all its utter incompetence has staggered even the compliant American media... In the figure of the president, George W. Bush, the incompetence, stupidity, and sheer inhumanity that characterizes so much of America’s money-mad corporate elite finds its quintessentially repulsive expression... Can anyone seriously believe that the current administration and its Democratic accomplices in Congress are going to launch a mass program of low-cost home construction, rebuild schools and provide jobs for the hundreds of thousands left unemployed by the destruction? More.

Israel is to destroy the Palestinian village of Nuaman on West Bank.

A collection of Hebrew poems on poetry from medieval Spain and Provence from the pages of Fascicle.

Lords of Creation, very nice "virtual exhibition" of Maya kingship from Mesoweb.

First chimpanzee fossils - age 545 000 years - have been found at the same as the genetic code of the chimpanzee have been sequenzed and analyzed. With other great apes, the chimpanzee is heading to extinction in the nature in a few decades, thanks to us.

4 former Lebanese security officials have been charged with the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister and billionaire Rafik Hariri.

Media seems to forget that Rafik Hariri wasn´t the only person who died in the blast.

In Iraq, a Man-Made Disaster

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Martyrdom has always been a foundation of the Shia Muslim faith. But yesterday's tragedy gave it new meaning: possibly as many as 1,000 men, women and children were killed when they fell from a bridge over the Tigris river in Baghdad, apparently fearful that a suicide bomber had been let loose among them. There was no bomber. But there was death on a massive scale as hundreds of Shia Muslims fell over the railings of the narrow bridge. Hundreds of children were among the dead. Bodies drifted for hours down river from the Qadimiya district of Baghdad. Soldiers who fired their rifles into the air compounded the carnage. Several mortar rounds had earlier exploded on the road, leading many of the marchers - commemorating the death in 799 of Imam Moussa ibn Jaafar al-Qadim, one of Shiism's 12 principal saints - to believe they were under attack. At least a million Shia pilgrims were walking to the Qadimiya mosque when the crowd, trampled upon, crushed against barricades and hurled into the river, fell from the Aima bridge. Children could be seen drowning in the Tigris in what was the greatest loss of life in Iraq since the invasion of the country in 2003.

The futility of fighting nature

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It will cost tens of billions of tax dollars, maybe much more, to create the New New Orleans. The natural inclination is to declare defiance in the face of adversity and vow to restore the city to its past glory... Many experts think simply putting New Orleans back together would be shortsighted and eventually lead to a repeat of this week's disaster. They think serious consideration should be given to concentrating homes and commerce only on strips of higher ground near the banks of the Mississippi or--even more radical--abandoning the site altogether and starting fresh somewhere less vulnerable to flood... "New Orleans has been fighting against nature for an awful long time," explained geologist Nicholas Pinter, a flood expert at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale... New Orleans is sinking, and one of the main culprits is the same levee system designed to keep the water out. Levees both intensify the flow of a river and choke off the supply of sediment that maintains an equilibrium between land and water. "When it comes to blocking off a flood plain with levees," said Pinter, "the history is failure again and again and again. One-third of all flood disasters are the result of levee failure."

The more than 960 dead from the stampede in Baghdad are being buried.

When the Moral Levee Breaks

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... where, for the first time, I saw the video of the looting that was taking place, in broad daylight, throughout The Big Easy, unencumbered by anything so prosaic as law and order. To me, the looting came as no surprise: it was a completely natural phenomenon. It was exactly what my own theory of the social order would have predicted. What else should you expect when a civilized order collapses? ...Yet Smith's failure to take humankind's primordial instinct for theft was not unique; on the contrary, all political theorists of the modern era... have implicitly assumed that we are living in a world in which acts of theft are simply unthinkable -- an unspeakable No No that protects our civilization in the same way that the levees around New Orleans were once considered to have protected its population from inundation. Alas, none of these modern political theorists ever thought to ask themselves the question, "How did it come about that the societies of the West were provided with a moral levee against the flood of self-interested and non-altruistic individualists?" ...had been so well brought up that he was no longer able to sympathize with the motives of human beings who were behaving in precisely the same way that all human beings always behave when they are struggling for survival in the state of nature. He was indignant at the thief who inhabits the id inside of every one of us. He was livid at evidence of other people's humanity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

`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.

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.

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?

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.

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.