Al-Qaeda shadow looms over London

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As London reels from a co-ordinated bomb attack on its transport system, questions are quickly being asked about possible connections to the wave of violence launched by al-Qaeda around the world in recent years. If a connection is established, it would show that the group is alive and well despite being the main target of US-led global "war on terror" and the attentions of police and security forces throughout the world... It has for some time been almost a commonplace to say that Britain was "due" an al-Qaeda strike like that on Madrid. Britain's unflinching support for the Bush administration's foreign policies, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, make it an obvious target for al-Qaeda.

Tony Blair´s dream has come true in London. The bastard went to fight terrorism in Iraq and brought it back home. He has caused this with his own decisions and actions and still continues to repeat the same crap as always. Al-Qaida has claimed responsibility. More.

Deep Impact stories:

XMM-Newton detects water on Tempel 1

Hubble captures Deep Impact collision with comet

Comet collision to shine new light on stars

European Southern Observatory´s page for Deep Impact studies.

Deep Impact impactor to strike comet Tempel today.

"New Iraq" seems to be much like "Old Iraq". The difference is, that the people oppressed under the old regime have just become the new torturers. The old story, once again. More.

Has Cassini found a lake of liquid hydrocarbon on Titan?

Iraq: A bloody mess

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A year ago the supposed handover of power by the US occupation authority to an Iraqi interim government led by Iyad Allawi was billed as a turning point in the violent history of post-Saddam Iraq. It has turned out to be no such thing. Most of Iraq is today a bloody no-man's land beset by ruthless insurgents, savage bandit gangs, trigger-happy US patrols and marauding government forces... On Sunday the American Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, told a US news programme that the ongoing insurgency could last "five, six, eight, ten, twelve years". Yesterday in London, after meeting Tony Blair, the new Iraqi Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, tried to be more upbeat, commenting: "I think two years will be enough and more than enough to establish security"... The news now from Iraq is only depressing. All the roads leading out of the capital are cut. Iraqi security and US troops can only get through in heavily armed convoys. There is a wave of assassinations of senior Iraqi officers based on chillingly accurate intelligence. A deputy police chief of Baghdad was murdered on Sunday. A total of 52 senior Iraqi government or religious figures have been assassinated since the handover. In June 2004 insurgents killed 42 US soldiers; so far this month 75 have been killed. The "handover of power" last June was always a misnomer. Much real power remained in the hands of the US. Its 140,000 troops kept the new government in business. Mr Allawi's new cabinet members became notorious for the amount of time they spent out of the country. Safely abroad they often gave optimistic speeches predicting the imminent demise of the insurgency. Despite this the number of Iraqi military and police being killed every month has risen from 160 at the handover to 219 today.

Snipers with children in their sights

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When reporters pressed the issue, the army promised a full investigation, but a few weeks later it was quietly dropped. This has become the norm in a military that appears to value protecting itself from accountability more than living up to its claim to be the "most moral army in the world". As Tom Hurndall's parents noted yesterday after the conviction of an Israeli sergeant for the manslaughter of their son, the soldier was put on trial only because the British family had the resources to bring pressure to bear. But there has been no justice for the parents of hundreds of Palestinian children killed by Israeli soldiers... B'Tselem argues that a lack of accountability and rules of engagement that "encourage a trigger-happy attitude among soldiers" have created a "culture of impunity" - a view backed by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, which last week described many army investigations of civilian killings as a "sham ... that encourages soldiers to think they can literally get away with murder". In southern Gaza, the killings take place in a climate that amounts to a form of terror against the population. Random fire into Rafah and Khan Yunis has claimed hundreds of lives, including five children shot as they sat at their school desks. Many others have died when the snipers must have known who was in their sights - children playing football, sitting outside home, walking back from school. Almost always "investigations" amount to asking the soldier who pulled the trigger what happened - often they claim there was a gun battle when there was none - and presenting it as fact.

US 'in talks with Iraq with Iraq rebels'
Insurgents reveal secret face-to-face meetings.

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On the rebel side were representatives of insurgent groups including Ansar al-Sunna, which has carried out numerous suicide bombings and killed 22 people in the dining hall of an American base at Mosul last Christmas. Also represented was the so-called Islamic Army in Iraq, which murdered Enzo Baldoni, an Italian journalist, last August; the Iraqi Liberation Army; Jaish Mohammed and other smaller factions. According to an Iraqi commander, one of the Americans introduced himself as “a representative of the Pentagon” and declared himself ready to “find ways of stopping the bloodshed on both sides and to listen to demands and grievances”. The US officer also indicated that the contents of any discussion would be relayed to his superiors in Washington... The Iraqis had agreed beforehand to focus on their main demand, “a guaranteed timetable of American withdrawal from Iraq”, the source said. “We told them it did not matter whether we are talking about one year or a five-year plan but that we insisted on having a timetable nonetheless.” The demand did not meet with a favourable response from the American team, perhaps because a timetable is the one thing that President George W Bush has declared he will not agree to. The original discussion is said to have lasted for an hour and a half and to have broken up with the US team explaining that it would need to consult Washington. But one American official apparently asked whether the insurgents would be interested in disarming in return for a release of all Iraqi prisoners in US military camps. The Iraqi side immediately reverted to its demand for a timetable and the only agreement of the afternoon was to meet again. At the second meeting, the Iraqi sources added, two little known insurgent groups were present. They were introduced as Thawarat al-Ishreen and the Shoura Council of Mujahideen. This meeting did not go well. “The tone of the Americans was different,” the Iraqi insider said. “They were talking with a tone of more superiority, arrogance and provocation.” After a discussion about Al-Qaeda activities, the Americans bluntly advised the Iraqis to “cease all support, logistics and cover for Zarqawi’s group”. Only if links to Al-Qaeda were severed would the Americans be ready to discuss Iraqi demands. “Our response was that we will never abandon any Muslim who has come to our country to help us defend it,” the commander said... The meeting reached another inconclusive end but the two sides agreed to keep talking, the Iraqi source said. The insurgents said they had asked for a United Nations representative to attend the next round.

New - reconstructed from both newly found and old fragments - poem from Sappho!

Eric Hobsbawm:America's neo-conservative world supremacists will fail
Current US megalomania is rooted in the Puritan colonists' certainties

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All the great powers and empires of history knew that they were not the only ones, and none was in a position to aim at genuinely global domination. None believed themselves to be invulnerable. Nevertheless, this does not quite explain the evident megalomania of US policy since a group of Washington insiders decided that September 11 gave them the ideal opportunity for declaring its single-handed domination of the world... Even those who do not share the views of the old generals and proconsuls of the US world empire (which were those of Democratic as well as Republican administrations) will agree that there can be no rational justification of current Washington policy in terms of the interests of America's imperial ambitions or, for that matter, the global interests of US capitalism. It may be that it makes sense only in terms of the calculations, electoral or otherwise, of American domestic policy. It may be a symptom of a more profound crisis within US society. It may be that it represents the - one hopes short-lived - colonisation of Washington power by a group of quasi-revolutionary doctrinaires. (At least one passionate ex-Marxist supporter of Bush has told me, only half in jest: "After all, this is the only chance of supporting world revolution that looks like coming my way.") Such questions cannot yet be answered.

Third and last boom of the MARSIS radar on ESA´s Mars Express probe has been succesfully opened and the radar has functioned well in a test.

Withdrawal is a prelude to annexation

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American foreign policy has habitually displayed double standards towards the Middle East: one standard towards Israel and one towards the Arabs. To give just one example, the US effected regime change in Baghdad in three weeks but has failed to dismantle a single Jewish settlement in the occupied territories in 38 years. The two main items on America's current agenda for the region are democracy for the Arabs and a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. America, however, insists on democracy only for its Arab opponents, not for its friends. As for the peace process, it is essentially a mechanism by which Israel and America try to impose a solution on the Palestinians. American hypocrisy is nothing new. ...If she is serious about spreading democracy in the Arab world she must accept the outcome of free elections; in most of the Arab world they would produce Islamist, anti-US governments. Israel has contributed more than any other country to this sorry state of affairs. Condi and the American right regard Israel as a strategic asset in the war on terror. In fact Israel is America's biggest liability. For most Arabs and Muslims the real issue in the Middle East is not Iraq, Iran or democracy but Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people and America's blind support for Israel. America's policy towards the Middle East is myopic, muddled and mistaken. Only a negotiated settlement can bring lasting peace and stability to the area. And only America has the power to push Israel into such a settlement. It is high time the US got tough with Israel, the intransigent party and main obstacle to peace. Colluding in Sharon's selfish, uncivilised plan to destroy the Jewish homes in Gaza is not a historic step on the road to peace.

Private solar sail spacecraft Cosmos 1 has been launched.

Iraq's treasures still being looted

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"What's going on here is worse than what happened with the Baghdad museum," says Professor Elizabeth Stone of Stonybrook University in New York. "What happened at the museum shouldn't have happened. But in terms of what was taken, we knew where it came from. We have photographs. What's coming out of here, we haven't the faintest idea what it is." Professor Stone has been studying new satellite images which show hundreds of neatly-arranged holes where sites have been dug up. "We can tell the difference between the areas they're really targeting and the areas they're probing," she says. "We can really make a distinction between different types of looting." ..."Archaeological sites are being destroyed in order to find these objects," says Dr John Curtis, head of the Ancient Near East department at the British Museum in London. "In the process of that looting, very important archaeological evidence gets lost. And it's this evidence that can tell us a great deal about the civilisation."

Archaeologists fight to save Iraqi sites

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The scale of pilfering and destruction at innumerable sites is causing dismay in the profession, though many items stolen from the Baghdad Museum's storage rooms immediately after the American-led invasion have been returned. "The situation has become desperate since the end of the war," said Bill Blake, who is the head of English Heritage's Metric Survey Team and recently returned from running courses in neighbouring Jordan. "State control has effectively collapsed and people are helping themselves to whatever they can get. They are taking material for building or digging for antiquities to be sold abroad. "I have seen pictures of Bronze Age sites, dating back to 3000-4000BC, which march from horizon to horizon. They are uninvestigated as far as we know. There are tell sites [mounds of accumulated detritus from previous settlements] which look like moonscapes of hills. They have Arab cemeteries on the surface, then you dig down to pre-bronze age occupation. All sorts of cultural artefacts are disappearing - decorated pottery, sculptures and cuneiform tablets. Iraq was the cradle of western civilisation."

New findings from the threatened Mayan city of Waka.

Red Herring

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It is an irony of fate (or a triumph of folly) that Hamas was created, in fact, with the help of Israel itself. Much as the Americans created the al-Qaeda of Osama bin-Laden in order to fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan, Israel supported the Islamic movement in the occupied territories as a counterweight to the PLO. The assumption was that pious Muslims would spend their time praying in the mosques and would not support the secular PLO, which was then considered the arch-enemy. But when the first intifada broke out at the end of 1987, the Islamists organized as Hamas (the Arabic initials of "Islamic Resistance Movement") and quickly became the most efficient underground fighting organization. However, the Security Service started to act against them only after a whole year of the intifada had passed. Now the existence of Hamas is an accomplished fact. It has deep roots in the community, also because of its widespread social services which were initially financed by the Saudis and others.

There´s nothing that is extraordinary here - but much that is ironic, as the US is now having show trials of Palestinian Americans that have funded Hamas or Jihad, and so done the same thing that Israel itself did - as the Apartheid-era government of South Africa supported Inkatha to weaken the ANC and Turkey supported it´s own Hezbollah movement to weaken the PKK etc etc.

More secrets from Karnak

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The discovery of a life-sized dyad statue of a Middle Kingdom Pharaoh and the reconstruction of two prestigious monuments are among the latest achievements of the Franco-Egyptian archaeological team working at Karnak Temple in Luxor... At the Karnak Temple, history has a special scent and taste. Within its pylons is amassed an unsurpassed assembly of soaring obelisks, awe- inspiring chapels, and splendid sanctuaries reflecting the spectacular life and great civilisation of Ancient Egypt. Although most of Karnak has been thoroughly excavated, the temple still conceals and occasionally reveals more of the Pharaohs' secrets and mysteries.

Orang-utans killed for illegal trade

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Around 1000 orang-utans are being killed each year so that their babies can be traded as pets, leaving the primate species on the brink of survival, the WWF warns in a new report.The orang-utan - meaning “man of the forest” in Malay - is native to the tropical rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo. They are already under severe threat due to intensive logging of their habitat - over 90% of the species were wiped out during the last century... It has been illegal to hunt or trade in orang-utans since 1931, but the study by WWF and TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, discovered that fewer than 10% of people found in illegal possession of the apes were prosecuted.

The Exception Is the Rule

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The American occupation of Iraq is something new, but the fundamental error of the United States has a long pedigree. It is the imprisonment of the human mind in ideology backed by violence. The classic example is Stalin's Russia, under which decades of misrule were rationalized as a "stage" on the way to the radiant future of true communism. As for the miserable present, it was amusingly called "actually existing communism." The future, when it came, of course was not communism at all but the disintegration of the whole enterprise. All the "stages" turned out to lead nowhere. Once the mind is in the grip of such a system, every "actually existing" horror can be seen as a mere imperfection in a beautiful larger picture, every defeat a stage on the way to the glorious future. The simpler and more coherent an ideology, the better it can withstand the assault of fact. So today in Iraq, every act of torture, every flattened city, every gushing sewer, every car-bombing and beheading, is presented as a bump on the road to "freedom" for Iraq, or for the Middle East, or even for the whole world, in which our President has promised an "end to tyranny." (It's apparently a rule of ideology that the more sordid the reality, the more grandiosely splendid the eventual goal must be.) But a moment comes -- perhaps it is a sudden defeat, or perhaps it is merely reading a story like Shadid and Fainaru's -- when the fantasy dissolves, and then one is left face to face with the factual truth. All the "exceptions" turn out to be the rule. When that happens with respect to Iraq, America's grotesque misadventure there -- born of lies, sustained by lies and productive of more lies every day it continues -- will be brought to a close.

Mars Express has succesfully deployed the second main boom of the MARSIS radar.

History's Greatest Reoccuring Hoax: Colonization "For Security Reasons"

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Why aren't the US and Europe calling, in the strongest terms possible, for an immediate halt to the illegal wall construction and for the dismantling of the miles already up, for a halt to the illegal Kalandia construction, to the continued illegal Israeli settlements? Why are they not withdrawing their ambassadors from Israel? By not protesting, by accepting Israeli actions implicitly or explicitly as "security" policies, they are buying into the biggest hoax in history. They are leaving the Palestinians no option but to fight back - one kind of force (the kind that grabs land, builds walls and barriers and constructs illegal settlements under the protection of the Israeli army) with another kind of force (the kind that throws stones and mortar shells and explodes people in the market place), and then let each individual's conscience sort out which is defense and which is terrorism. It will take some effort to get out from under the biggest Israeli hoax of all time. You have to use imagination: "You have to imagine what it feels like to wake up one morning in your own house, the house your grandfather built long before the state of Israel existed, and to find the official notice on the wall. Your home, where you have lived your life, is soon to be destroyed; you and your children will be refugees."

Ethnic Cleansing in Jerusalem, Israeli Style

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Israeli authorities are carrying out a process in East Jerusalem that accurately be described as ethnic cleansing. It is plainly geared to uproot Palestinians from an area that historically has been known as Arab East Jerusalem and convert it into an integral, permanent part of the capital of the Jewish state. The scandalous process is recognized and deplored by the major news media in Britain and elsewhere and even by some newspapers in Israel, but it is predictably ignored in the United States. Still worse, Washington provides the financial, political and military support without which the cleansing could not go forward. B'Tselem, a private organization of Israelis concerned about human rights, calls it "a policy of quiet deportation." In its report, subtitled Revocation of Residency of East Jerusalem Palestinians, the group notes that "perhaps thousands of people have been forced to leave" and warns that the worst is still to come.

World's dry regions set to expand

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Drylands cover 41% of the planet's land surface, and are growing. They are home to over two billion people, including the world's most impoverished, in areas such as central Asia and northern Africa. One of the biggest problems is that as land dries up, it becomes unsuitable for farming. This exacerbates poverty and creates environmental refugees. The authors estimate that hundreds of thousands of people will be in need of new homes and lifestyles over the next 30 years as the Earth dries up. The effects are also felt far beyond the desert areas themselves. Dust storms from the Gobi Desert in Asia and the African Sahara are responsible for respiratory problems as far away as North America, says the report.

How Earth-like is the newly found planet that orbits Gliese 876?

Smallest extrasolar planet found

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The new planet whips around the star in a mere two days, and is so close to the star's surface that its temperature probably tops 200 - 400 Celsius (400 - 750 degrees Fahrenheit) - oven-like temperatures far too hot for life as we know it... The researchers have measured a minimum mass for the planet of 5.9 Earth masses. It orbits Gliese 876 with a period of 1.94 days at a distance of 0.021 astronomical units (AU), or 3.2 million km (2 million miles). Though the team has no direct proof the planet is rocky, its low mass precludes it from retaining gas like Jupiter. More.

Web of Cold-Blooded Lies

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In July 2002, the head of MI-6, Britain's secret intelligence service, briefed Prime Minister Tony Blair and his cabinet on U.S. plans to attack Iraq. Sir Richard Dearlove ("M" to James Bond fans) reported that U.S. President George Bush had decided to invade oil-rich Iraq in March 2003, in a war "to be justified by the conjunction of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy." Translation: The U.S. and British governments would concoct charges against Iraq to justify war. After Britain's attorney general warned that unprovoked invasion of Iraq would violate international law, Dearlove opined with oily cynicism, "If the political context were right, people would support regime change." Translation: Use propaganda and scare tactics to whip up war fever. British and U.S. intelligence agencies were ordered to produce "evidence" to justify a war. In the U.S., faked "evidence" and grotesque lies were fed to the frightened public by pro-war neo-conservatives and frenzied national media. The U.S. Congress clapped for war like trained seals.

Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’

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The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier. The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal. This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.

Logging threatens Borneo species

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A report from the WWF says illegal logging and clearance for oil palm plantations is destroying the habitats of several animals. Orang-utan and pygmy elephants could become unviable in just 15 years. According to the WWF, 1.3m hectares of Borneo's lowland forest is being destroyed each year. At that rate, it claims, by 2020 the remaining pockets of jungle may be too small and broken up for some species to be genetically viable.In other words, each tiny area of woodland that remains will not support a healthy breeding population of large animals like pygmy elephants or orang-utan.

Found: Europe's oldest civilisation

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Archaeologists have discovered Europe's oldest civilisation, a network of dozens of temples, 2,000 years older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids. More than 150 gigantic monuments have been located beneath the fields and cities of modern-day Germany, Austria and Slovakia. They were built 7,000 years ago, between 4800BC and 4600BC. Their discovery, revealed today by The Independent, will revolutionise the study of prehistoric Europe, where an appetite for monumental architecture was thought to have developed later than in Mesopotamia and Egypt. In all, more than 150 temples have been identified. Constructed of earth and wood, they had ramparts and palisades that stretched for up to half a mile. They were built by a religious people who lived in communal longhouses up to 50 metres long, grouped around substantial villages. Evidence suggests their economy was based on cattle, sheep, goat and pig farming. More.

Searching for the truth about Srebrenica

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Professor Mient Jan Faber, former director of the Dutch Interchurch Council for Peace (IKV), said: "The Dutch have constructed a fantasy narrative about Srebrenica - the idea that, at the expense of some men, we saved thousands of women and children." After the fall of Srebrenica to the Serbs under Gen Mladic on July 11 1995, the terrified population of the enclave split into two. Some 15,000 made off over the mountains towards Bosnian-held territory. Another 25,000 streamed to the Dutch UN base at Potocari, seeking protection from troops charged by the UN security council with providing it. Some 5,000 got inside the base, which the Dutch then closed, leaving 20,000 outside. On July 12, the Serbs began sporadic killing of people outside. The following day, the Dutch ordered those cowering inside the base to leave. Their commander, Colonel Tom Karemans, left his deputy, Col Franken, to oversee the expulsion, or "evacuation" as it is known. Under the eyes of Dutch soldiers, the Serbs then separated women, children and the elderly from men and boys - the latter taken away for summary execution.

Uzbek crackdown was a 'massacre'

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Uzbekistan's crackdown on protesters in Andijan last month was a "massacre", according to Human Rights Watch, in the fullest report yet on the bloodshed. The US-based rights group called for Washington and the EU to suspend links with the Uzbek government until it allows an independent investigation. "The scale of this killing was so extensive, and its nature was so indiscriminate and disproportionate, that it can best be described as a massacre," Human Rights Watch [HRW] said in its report, presented at a press conference in Moscow on Tuesday.

One Day in Iraq: At-a-glance

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The BBC News website is reporting in detail on events in Iraq throughout the day, to try to convey the fullest and most accurate picture we can of the reality of life in the troubled country. From dawn to dusk Baghdad time, we will be reporting the news in greater detail than usual and talking to Iraqis from all walks of life about their everyday experiences and the impact of the violence that surrounds them in their daily lives. We'll be looking at what the Iraqi media and bloggers are saying and at what our readers in Iraq and elsewhere make of the situation there, and we'll be responding to your e-mails, comments and questions.

Dilemma for Washington as ICC begins Darfur probe

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The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday launched an investigation into suspected war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region, a development likely to present problems for the Bush administration as it opposes the court's existence and maintains close intelligence links with the Khartoum government. Up to 300,000 people are thought to have been killed during the two-year-old conflict in western Sudan, and more than 2m people have fled their homes. Independent aid and rights organisations accuse rebel groups, the government and allied Arab militia the Janjaweed of atrocities. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor, called for international co-operation with his investigation, which would focus on “the individuals who bear the greatest criminal responsibility for crimes committed in Darfur”. The UN has given the ICC a list of 51 names of war crime suspects... At the same time, according to officials, the US maintains a close relationship with Sudanese officials and intelligence officers believed to be responsible for the ethnic cleansing and village burning in Darfur. US officials say Sudan is a valuable partner in the “global war on terror”. Washington also fears Khartoum's isolation would jeopardise the peace deal ending the decades-old north-south conflict.

Burma rebuilding risks Pagan jewel

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The sunsets are still spectacular - a golden glow brushing the curves of 2,000 ancient temples and pagodas clustered on the edge of the Irrawaddy River in central Burma. But today some of the world's leading experts have accused Burma's military regime of waging "archaeological blitzkrieg" against the legendary Buddhist treasures of Pagan. "They're ruining it," said Richard Engelhardt, regional advisor for the UN's cultural arm, Unesco. ...almost everywhere I saw signs of the "false" and "misguided" restoration work which Unesco and other experts have so bitterly condemned.

Khartoum facing war crimes probe

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The International Criminal Court at The Hague is to launch an inquiry into alleged war crimes in the Darfur region of western Sudan. The court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, is expected to announce on Monday the details of what will be the ICC's biggest ever investigation. A special United Nations inquiry has given the ICC the names of 51 potential suspects, a BBC correspondent says. The UN says about 180,000 people have died in the two-year Darfur conflict. It says more than two million people have been forced to leave their homes in the region.

The breakthrough that wasn't

Claims of a breaktrough in deciphering the Oxyrhynchus Papyri were "somewhat" exaggerated.

Seymour M Hersh - from My Lai to Abu Ghraib

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My Lai told us that the we don’t fight wars any better than the “nips” and the “krauts”. Nobody fights wars well — it’s always brutal and it always involves a lot of abuses. These things happen in war, and to think otherwise is madness. So we in the US are always naive. We thought we could do it better. And what’s pernicious about Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan is that, as bad as we think it is, the whole story isn’t out yet. It’s even worse. The American people are gradually getting into this. But John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, refused or wasn’t willing to deal with the war. When people ask me what I think of Kerry not bringing up Abu Ghraib, I always have a pat answer, “You’ve got to admire his brilliance in not dealing with the war, because now he’s president, which shows he was right!” The only shot Kerry had was to make the war an issue — and he didn’t do it.

The failed siege of Fallujah

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After two devastating sieges of Fallujah in April and November of 2004, which left thousands of Iraqis dead and hundreds of thousands without homes, the aftermath of the US attempt to rid the city of resistance fighters in an effort to improve security in the country continues to plague the residents of Fallujah, and Iraq as a whole. Simmering anger grows with time among Fallujans who, after having most of their city destroyed by the US military onslaught, have seen promises of rebuilding by both the US military and Iraqi government remain mostly unfulfilled... Thus, rather than improving security and stability in Fallujah and Iraq, the siege of Fallujah has accomplished nothing more than devastating the city and spreading the Iraqi resistance into other cities, such as Qaim, Beji, Baquba, Mosul, Ramadi, Latifiya and many areas of Baghdad. It could easily be argued now that the siege of Fallujah accomplished the exact opposite of its stated goals - rather than bringing increased security and stability, it has inflamed tempers, deepened sectarian rifts and spurred the Iraqi resistance into levels of attack rarely seen prior to the siege.

4032 Palestinians have been killed and 44666 injured by Israeli troops and settlers in the occupied areas of Gaza and West Bank since 29.09.2000.

Jerusalem orders Palestinian homes to be razed

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Jerusalem's city council has ordered one of the largest mass demolitions in the city's recent history, with plans to raze the homes of about 1,000 Palestinians in a neighbourhood claimed by Jewish settlers. The council says about 90 buildings served with demolition orders were built illegally over the last three decades on a site of religious and archaeological value just outside the Old City walls, and that they are being destroyed to restore the area as a national park. But Israeli human rights campaigners say the real intent is to forcibly remove Palestinians from an area, Silwan, that is an important link in the government's plan to encircle Arab East Jerusalem with Jewish settlements... Among those served with a demolition order is Mo hammed Badran, who says he was born in 1961 in the house the council now wants to raze. Mr Badran has papers from the British mandate era in the 20s that appear to show his grandfather owned the land where the house now stands."I have been taxed on this house since the day they introduced it to East Jerusalem in 1973," he said. "If the house was illegal, why did they take the tax?"

Changing planet revealed in atlas

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An atlas of environmental change compiled by the United Nations reveals some of the dramatic transformations that are occurring to our planet. It compares and contrasts satellite images taken over the past few decades with contemporary ones. These highlight in vivid detail the striking make-over wrought in some corners of the Earth by deforestation, urbanisation and climate change.

The Jewish leadership of Jerusalem plans to raze down 88 Arab homes to create a "Jewish archaeological park" - and ethnically cleansing a part of the city, to unleash a new circle of violence in the process.

China hails legacy of great adventurer

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Almost a century before Columbus, at a time when China was the richest and most advanced country in the world, Zheng He [also known as Cheng Ho] sailed further than anyone before him, at the head of an armada bigger than the combined fleets of all Europe.

Zheng He died on his last voyage in 1433.

The reason for the abandonment of the fleet was not just solely suspicion of the outside world - it was only part of it. After the last Mongol troops were driven out of China proper in 1380, the land borders of China were peaceful for several decades. In about 1420 this more peaceful era became to an end and more money and more troops were needed to defend the northern and western borders. Partly because of the defence of the northern borders the capital had been transferred from Nanjing to Beijing in 1403, and the rural areas around the new capital couldn´t support it´s populace and the court. The new capital needed a constant flow of food through the Grand Canal. Less and less money were available to the great sea expeditions as the new capital and the military stationed on the borders engulfed an ever increasing part of the state´s income.

It’s Israel’s Racist Apartheid Wall, Stupid

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I wonder if Abbas had Joshua’s trumpet tucked inside the maps he carried to Washington, the maps of Israel’s ever expanding “facts on the ground.” The maps demonstrate Israel’s continued expansion of Jewish military outposts and settlements in the West Bank. They illustrate the path of the Israeli Racist Apartheid Wall which divides Palestinians from their land and from one another and signals the proposed disappearance of an Arab controlled East Jerusalem. It is only through a careful examination of the maps that issues of the viability of a Palestinian state come into focus. The maps Abbas warily carries on behalf of the Palestinian people at home, in refugee camps and scattered in a Diaspora throughout the world do not contain the Roadmap to Peace but to Palestinian extinction. The maps clearly show that even if direct aid by the millions of dollars is given to the Palestinian Authority, unless something is done to stop Israeli expansion and force Israel’s retreat, it is a matter of time before the Zionist attempt at genocide – the complete erasure of Palestine – is complete. As wishful thinking Zionist often state, “There is no Palestine.” Make no mistake, it is a battle cry for total eradication.

Annan upset by Darfur devastation

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UN chief Kofi Annan has called for rapid action to end violence in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, during a visit he described as "heart-wrenching". Thousands greeted the secretary general as he toured a refugee camp and a burnt-out town that survivors said was bombed by the government... Mr Annan visited the Kalma refugee camp, near the town of Nyala, which is home to 120,000 people. Tribal leaders told him that in recent months 56 people had been killed in the camp and 580 women had been sexually assaulted. They blamed the attacks on Arab pro-government militias and Sudanese police.

Focus on reconstruction in Fallujah

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Reconstruction of Fallujah, the city which was the scene of fierce battles between US forces and insurgents between November 2004 and January 2005, has been slow according to local officials. Little progress has been made despite Washington allocating US $200 million for rehabilitation efforts and compensation for families. Nearly 80 percent of the population fled Fallujah, which is 60km west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad and so far only half of them have returned, aid officials have said. Local people complain that there are still no basic facilities such as sewage systems, adequate electricity and water supplies and there are disputes over how much compensation has been distributed so far. About 70 percent of buildings, many of them houses, were destroyed during the conflict. The Ministry of Health (MoH) said there were 650 civilian deaths in a report issued in April. However, it has been suggested that the number could be as high as 1,300.

Christian Science Monitor has a new article about the Maya writing system. Curious thing is that the writer always uses the past tense of the Maya and a small map included in the article is titled "Where the Maya lived". Nobody seem to have told the writer that the Maya number in the millions today.

Scandal of 'phantom' aid money

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Well-heeled consultants and companies in the west are the beneficiaries of a global aid system which results in less than 40p in every pound helping to eradicate poverty in the developing world, according to a report out today... The G7 countries - Britain, the US, Germany, Italy, France, Canada and Japan - spent only 0.07% of national income on real aid and would need a tenfold increase to hit the UN target, ActionAid said... Just 11% of French aid is genuine, says Action Aid. France spends nearly $2bn on technical assistance and $0.5bn on refugee costs in France. Debt relief, an accounting exercise, is 40%. Of US aid, 86 cents in the dollar is phantom, largely because it is tied to the purchase of American goods and services. George Bush's Aids drugs plan excludes cheaper, generic drugs, so giving lucrative contracts to US pharmaceutical companies but treating fewer patients.

Guantanamo Bay

Guantanamo Bay is a basically a place where the Americans can play out their fantasies of revenge for the 11.09.2001 attacks. By humiliating a few hundred men they think they are humiliating all the muslims. That is the essence of what is going on.

There has not come out any important information from Guantanamo, as almost all of the prisoners are either footsoldiers ignorant of any plans their superiors have, or they are innocent. In the few cases where there has been in what could be called as local militant operatives impronised in Guantanamo, the Americans seem not to have found them out.

Torture and humiliation don´t work. The reason why torture was abandoned in judicial procedures had far more to do with the fact that it didn´t work than any humane reason. Already in the 16th century surviving judicial records from Europe torture is losing ground. Not because officials of the time would have been more humane than their predecessors, but because it didn´t work in something like 90% of the cases where it was used and where the result is known. The movement to abolish the use of torture in judicial procedures came only later, in most countries during the 18th century.

Of course, eventually you can torture most people to confess anything you want them to confess. But getting useful information out of them is totally another matter. And this the modern propagandists of torture don´t seem to understand. Somehow, they believe that torturing people will force them to tell the truth. In reality, it makes them to tell stories they think the torturer will believe and which will then bring an end to the torture they are enduring.
The innocents have no hidden truths to tell.

US terror laws 'creating a new generation of the disappeared'

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The United States is condoning torture and abuse in the name of the war on terror, setting up a latter-day Gulag and creating a new generation of the "disappeared", according to Amnesty International. A report from the human rights group accuses governments from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe of systematic and often brutal erosion of civil rights.

As a preparation for the new movie, I read several Star Wars novels. One of them stood above the rest in it´s sheer awfulness. R. A. Salvatore´s "Vector Prime" was this waste of forest. Not only does Chewbacca get killed, it has an alien invasion ship that "scientists" believe to be an asteroid. Asteroid that travels faster than light. Star Wars has had often problems with astronomy - Empire Strikes Back has this monster inside an asteroid, which doesn´t make any sense (but SW asteroid belts seldom do when compared to their real life equivalents, in density etc) and in the Attack of the Clones Dooku´s ship looks like it has a solar sail, but it seems to have absolutely no use for it, etc - but this book beats all that has come before. The "asteroid" is only a top of an iceberg. Big iceberg,

Steven Barnes´The Cestus Deception started well, but then lost steam as the book progressed. And it didn´t really feel like Star Wars. Of course, Barnes is an apprentice of the evil Dark Lords Niven&Pournelle, which might have had something to do with my opinion of the book. But still, this book lacks in atmosphere and was was written by an author who didn´t seem to be comfortable with the Star Wars universe.

On the other hand, "Survivor´s Quest" by my favorite Star Wars novelist, Timothy Zahn, and "Tatooine Ghost" by Troy Denning felt both like "true" Star Wars. They had the right atmosphere, the feel. "Survivor´s Quest" had Saint Mara of Jade, but she was less irritating than usually, and Zahn gave more room for Luke and less time for his own creations. Of which I hope the smugglers all get cruel and senseless ends in future books. "Tatooine Ghost" binds the prequel trilogy with the original trilogy and it is in it´s own right a little gem of a book. The rodents are irritable, but a little nuisance in the end. Both books also have the adventage that they don´t have any loose Imperial superweapons.

Lastly I read Steve Perry´s "Shadows of the Empire", whose comic version I read some ten years ago. It is a book whose action happens just before the Return of the Jedi. The heroes are searching for Solo and Vader is searching for his son. Solid work, has the right feeling, the author knows SW universe, but Luke comes out a little bit weak. He´s more the rather backward farm boy from a backward planet that we see in A New Hope than the experienced Jedi knight in ROTJ. Still, it´s no "Vector Prime".

Voyager 1 has reached the edge of Sun´s realm. More.

Last Friday I went to watch the new Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith. Twice. And it was worth it. There were couple of moments that didn´t really work, like Anakin´s turn to the dark side - he succumbed too easily - but as a whole I liked it. In fact I liked it much and intend to go see it again soon. In many ways this movie is superior to Return of the Jedi and in this Lucas has achieved what the didn´t in the first two movies of the prequel trilogy: Anakin´s fate really touched me, imaginary character that he is. Of course he did bad things after his fall to the Dark side, but totally good guys don´t make good tragic heroes. They make good martyrs.

As I watched the movie first time, I didn´t want to see him change to the suited Darth Vader, which surprised me somewhat as in the past I have viewed the suited Vader as a "cool villain" - as he is most often described. But as I have now watched the original movies again after seeing Revenge of the Sith, his character has immensely more depth, feels far less threatening and in fact quite a sad man. Not a cool villain, but a victim. OK, victim of his own actions, his own ambition, his own fears, but still a victim. And as I left the movie theater the first time, I really didn´t want to see the movie again, even when I had the ticket already bought. Because the movie was that good - I felt sad for Anakin, and in lesser extent, Padme - and the end was so sad. Of course I went to see it again, and it felt as good and sad as the first time I saw it. And also it felt quite short. Some of the cuts made to the movie, like the beginning of the Rebellion, would have fit well in the movie. And would have tied couple of open threads.

A surprisingly good end to the prequel trilogy - and a good starting point for the original trilogy.

Indonesia is truly a "democracy" nowadays. Not democracy, but "democracy"... But that doesn´t seem to bother the Western leaders who think that "democracy" is all that Indonesia needs.

In courtesy of Village Voice, few pictures of the civilian cost of war in Iraq.

Amazon destruction accelerating

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The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed at near record levels, according to new figures released by the Brazilian government. The environment ministry said 26,000 sq km of forest were chopped down in the 12 months prior to August 2004. The figure is the second highest on record, 6% higher than the previous 12 months... The loss of 26,000 sq km means almost a fifth of the entire Amazon has now been chopped down.

Give the bullies a chance to repent

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For that reason, the disengagement should take place before the Ninth of Av, since there are no sins that Israel society has grown more used to than the sins of the occupation and repression that are committed on a daily, indeed hourly, basis toward the people of the Palestinian nation. The IDF and the settlers continue to dispossess them from their lands, jail them behind ghetto walls and harm their most basic civil rights. All the talk about "a return to the peace process" is hollow and empty. Since the disengagement plan was made public in December 2003, nothing has changed in the lives of the Palestinians. Day in and day out, the occupation only deepens its grip. More.

One reason why Israel´s government has moved the evacuation of Gaza settlements to mid-August could be that the western countries have basically given Israel a free hand in the West Bank as a reward for the Gaza plan. After the settlers have left Gaza things will most likely change, so Israel will try to grab up as much land and put up as many new houses for settlers in the West Bank as it can prior to the "disengament" from Gaza. If so, the time for the "disengagement" will likely be moved again to a later date.

Army 'kills 200' in second Uzbek city as thousands head for border

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Authorities in Uzbekistan have lost control of a key border town in the eastern Ferghana valley, despite a brutal clampdown that has so far claimed the lives of an estimated 700 people. If reports of further killings can be confirmed the violence would be the most brutal of its kind in Asia since China gunned down hundreds of democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The hardline government of Islam Karimov, an ally of London and Washington in the "war on terror", has dispatched an armoured force into the restive area in the east of the country after mass arrests of alleged radical Islamists sparked what appeared to be a popular uprising. Saidjahon Zaynabitdinov, head of Appeal, a local human rights advocacy group, said troops had killed about 200 demonstrators on Saturday in Pakhtabad, just outside the city of Andijan, where witnesses saw security forces kill up to 500 civilians the previous night.

Australia brushes aside East Timorese sovereignty in oil and gas deal

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Under the agreement, Dili has reportedly agreed to put off the final settlement of the maritime boundary between the two nations for a period of 50 to 60 years. In exchange, East Timor will receive an undisclosed percentage, instead of a fixed dollar amount, of revenue from the yet-to-be developed Greater Sunrise oil and gas field... Its main consequence, however, is that Canberra has succeeded in having Dili drop its claim of sovereignty over key resource-rich areas of the Timor Sea for two generations; by which time the oil and gas fields in the area will be commercially exhausted. If current international law—the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)—were applied, the international boundary would be along a line equidistant from the land territories and the only fully operating field, the Laminaria-Corallina, would fall entirely under East Timorese control. Since the field began operating in November 1999, the Australian government has pocketed nearly $US2 billion in royalties while East Timor has received nothing. In 2003 alone, Australia received $US172 million in royalties from Laminaria-Corallina—twice as much as the entire budget of the East Timorese government.

US 'backed illegal Iraqi oil deals'
Report claims blind eye was turned to sanctions busting by American firms

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The United States administration turned a blind eye to extensive sanctions-busting in the prewar sale of Iraqi oil, according to a new Senate investigation. A report released last night by Democratic staff on a Senate investigations committee presents documentary evidence that the Bush administration was made aware of illegal oil sales and kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime but did nothing to stop them. ...the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together. "The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales.

Massacre in Uzbekistan

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One human rights observer in the eastern city of Andizhan said that up to 500 people may have perished in the shootings and the gun battles that followed. A doctor spoke of "many, many dead", witnesses said 200 to 300 people were shot dead, and an AP reporter saw at least 30 bodies in Andijan. As night fell, tension was high, with armoured vehicles positioned at crossroads and trucks blocking main thoroughfares. Terrified demonstrators tried to flee the country, seen as a key ally by Britain and the US in the war on terror. As blood-spattered bodies were lifted from the streets of Andizhan, survivors and thousands of others packed their bags and headed for neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. Some made it across the border and were in refugee camps.

Yesterday´s uprising in Uzbekistan´s Andizhan seemed to have ended in a massacre of unarmed protestors by the troops of the dictator Ismail Karimov, whose regime is supported by both the US and Russia.

First full mosaics of Titan’s surface

New primitive rodent found in Laos forces the creation of a new mammal family - the first for 31 years. (Extinct mammals, found from fossil records, not included, of course.)

The Planetary Society is collecting money for the study of old Pioneer data tapes in an effort to solve the Pioneer anomaly, and has couple of articles about it on their website:

The Unfinished Quest to Solve the Pioneer Anomaly

What is a "New Physics"?

Out of Africa and straight to the beach

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Modern humans emerged just once out of Africa - and headed straight for the beach - new genetic research suggests. Most scientists agree that modern humans left Africa relatively recently, and it was traditionally thought that the route taken was northwards, overland into the Middle East and beyond. But by measuring genetic variation in an isolated population in southeast Asia, Vincent Macaulay at the University of Glasgow, UK, and a team of international colleagues, conclude that the dispersal actually took a southern coastal route. “It looks likely that a founder population crossed the Red Sea, and spread to Australia via India and southeast Asia, taking a southern route along the coast,” says Macaulay. More.

Yet again, new moon for Saturn - one that orbits the planet in the gap in the A ring.

Mofaz: Gaza plan 'to save W Bank'

Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has said the withdrawal of Jewish settlers from Gaza will allow Israel to extend its borders into the West Bank. He also said the pullout would enable Israel to maintain Jerusalem as the unified capital of a Jewish state... Mr Mofaz said the pullout would allow Israel to keep hold of its large West Bank settlements - which are viewed as illegal under international law - extending its future borders deep into Palestinian territory."In fact, the settlers of [the West Bank] and Gaza will be able to say in years to come that they helped establish the eastern frontiers of the state of Israel," he told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot.

The Western countries are praising Israel for the so-called withdrawal from Gaza and either not taking any account of claims like these coming from the Israeli leadership or else claiming, like the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, that he is "concerned", but that the UK and the EU are both uncapable of doing anything at all. Israel being the military and economic powerhouse that is compared to the EU and the feeble UK. It is curious, though, that the same Mr Straw, whose own country with is actions in Iraq and its inaction in Palestine - especially compared to it´s rhetoric - has scored so many goals for FC Osama then cries about islamist terrorism. It´s like he wouldn´t have been sowing the seeds himself.

I have high hopes that Saul Mofaz and men like him will be the doom of Israel, if it continues it´s current polict. They make the mistake so often made when people think themselves victorious: There´s always some new peace of land to annex, and then another, and then another. But the fact is this:Jerusalem could be the shared capital of Israel and Palestine. It can´t be the sole capital of Israel for long. And no Christian Zionist theocracy in the US can change that. Everyone who disagrees should only take a long and a hard look at the map of Middle East.

Just another day in 'stable' Iraq

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FOUR suicide bombs killed at least 71 people in Iraq yesterday, the latest attacks in an escalating campaign of guerrilla violence that has killed nearly 400 Iraqis since a new government was unveiled two weeks ago. The bombs, which exploded within hours of each other in Tikrit, Hawija and Baghdad, shattered any notion that a degree of stability was returning to Iraq in the wake of elections earlier this year. Just last week, following the death of a British Guardsman, Anthony Wakefield, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, spoke of the role UK forces were playing in making Iraq a "stable and democratic country". But stability was nowhere to be seen yesterday morning as suicide bombers cut a swathe of death across the country.

One month's toll in Iraq: 67 suicide bombers

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The number of suicide attacks in Iraq has reached a record high, with more than 67 insurgents blowing themselves up in the month of April alone. New figures revealed by diplomatic and Iraqi security sources yesterday show that of the 135 car bombings that month, which took hundreds of lives and inflicted thousands of injuries, more than half were suicide missions. The number of car bombings has doubled since March... Kim Howells, the new Foreign Office minister of state responsible for the Middle East, yesterday described the attacks as "horrendous". He said: "These and other recent tragic incidents are the desperate acts of those seeking to destabilise the successful democratic political process reflected in the recently elected transitional government. They will not win."

Attacks against civilians are of course horrific, but when they are claimed to be `horrendous´ by a representative of a side that has killed tens of thousands of civilians in this war, one can do little else than to say that claims like that are hypocritical. If you want to stop the insurgents of killing innocent civilians, your side will have to do so too, Mr Howells. And will you? Of course not. And yet military leadership on your own side thinks that the fight against the insurgency is unwinnable.

So what about a declaration of truce and an open invitation for negotiations for all insurgents?

Return flights

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The news that the ivory-billed woodpecker — a bird thought to be as dead as the proverbial dodo — has been rediscovered, came as a welcome surprise to birdwatchers the world over. But many also wondered how a bird the size of a crow, with a call like a pack of hyenas, could have avoided detection for so long — even in the backwoods of Arkansas... Spix's macaw was the latest in a long line of exotic tropical birds to go extinct in the wild, as a result of habitat loss and the illegal cagebird trade. And it does not stop there. According to BirdLife International, almost 1,200 species of bird (more than 12% of the world's total) are currently at risk of extinction in the coming century, a huge increase on the 80 or so species that have died out since 1600.

Extinction is nowadays the norm, the "miracles" of founding species thought to be extinct the all too rare exception, that musn´t cloud view our of the big picture. And the big picture is that we are living during a time of great mass extinction which will leave damning evidence in the fossil record that will may be humanity´s most lasting impact on this planet.

A humiliating US gift

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The demand by the US Congress to divert $50 million of President George W. Bush's $200-million pledge of aid to the Palestinian Authority for Israeli checkpoints is something like requiring the Vatican to contribute air-conditioners to abortion clinics or divorce lawyers' fees as part of its policy of easing the plight of Catholic women. The new motto of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is very simple and direct: "From the American People." Recent conditions tacked onto a planned US grant from the American people is adding insult to Palestinian injury. Diverting to Israel millions from monies promised to the Palestinian Authority in order to reinforce Israeli checkposts deep inside Palestinian territories is a multiple insult to Palestinians. Not only is it a reduction from the meager (in comparison to the billions given to Israel) grant to Palestinians; but to divert money earmarked for Palestinians to strengthen the Israeli army's occupation is a moral and political scandal.

Face of Tutankhamun reconstructed. More.

It's in our hands, and in our power

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If the entire intent in the departure from Gaza is to temporarily calm things down, neutralize international pressure and buy time, while looking for new subterfuges with which to grab more land with the help of the flexible route of the separation fence; if every outpost in the West Bank turns into "the rock of our existence;" if every further evacuation is perceived as a trauma and not as a building block for peace - an historic opportunity, nearly the last opportunity to be a truly free nation, will have once again slipped out of our hands.

Yesterday I saw the Ridley Scott epic The Kingdom of Heaven.

And it wasn´t epic. It was a rather mediocre movie. Not a bad movie, but a mediocre movie. I think that those extra 45 minutes that Scott has saved for the DVD release should have been included in the theater release, as now the movie is shallow. It looks vast in scope, but has little depth. The main hero especially is a character that has about as much depth as Orlando Bloom´s most famous character, Legolas, has in the Lord of The Rings movies.

Of course, the history was butchered on the movie. The real Balian of Ibelin was replaced with an imaginary one, which I can understand as an artistic license, but I can´t understand why there was this moment straight from the Gladiator, where Baldwin IV offers Balian the hand of Sibylla - in real life, Isabella - and the kingship, and the fool says no, causing all the bad that will happen, just like Maximus in the Gladiator. A better thing would have been letting the movie follow real history. After all, Isabella was not the heir of Baldwin IV. The heir was Isabella´s son, the child king Baldwin V, who "ruled" a year before his own death and the disastrous rise to power of Guy of Lusignan. Who was more incompetent fool than a warmonger. And a man that the real Sibylla(Isabella) kept up with.

There were other problems. Like the one that the Christians were shown as a one monolithic entity. Of course, the Christians who ruled the Crusader states were Catholics and the native Orthodox Christians were crushed unter their feet, not as badly as the native Muslims and Jews, but who still were an oppressed people under the rule of the Crusaders. In the real siege of Jerusalem in 1187, they had little eagerness to fight for the Crusaders - in fact, according to a chronicle of the time, they wanted them to die, and were angry that Saladin didn´t kill the Latin Christians of Jerusalem. And what comes to the Latin clergy, in real life the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem left the city after the surrender with a huge load of material goods, not empty handed as in the movie. Latin Christians had to pay for their release after the surrender, but could take with them as much as they could of their goods. The poorest couldn´t pay the price demanded for release and the wealthier ones didn´t want to pay for the release of their poorer fellows, who then ended as slaves.

Other problems were the portrayal of Templars as the bad guys and the Hospitalers as good. At least in the eyes of Saladin there was no difference between them. Those Templars and Hospitalers that surrendered in the battle of the Horns of Hattin were all executed. I could continue for a long time, but couple of thing more and then I will end this. First, at the text in the beginning of the movie, it is claimed that the time of the Crusades was an era of depression and poverty to Europe. This is wrong. Of course, most people were poor, but it was also a time of great economic revival, the change from barter economy to monetary, the great flourishing of cities, of rapidly expansing population, the revival of learning etc. People in Western Europe in 1184 were better-off than their ancestors in 1084 and and far better-off than their ancestors in 984. The time of the Crusades were a good time for Europe. The time from about 1050 to 1315 was a time of constant growth and growing prosperity in Europe. Secondly, those speeches that Balian gives in Jerusalem during the siege - no Christian commander at the time would have said them. And if he would have, he would have been killed at the spot by his own troops.

FOOTNOTES

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One conclusion to draw from the unlovely spectacle of democratic governance in Iraq is that the two dominant American views of the war were both wrong. Iraq is a far less modern, less united, and less friendly place than the fondest hopes of the war’s architects would have had the American public believe. At the same time, the ability of those architects to control the outcome for their own purposes is close to zero. Some war boosters, in and out of the Administration, have nonetheless been quietly declaring mission accomplished redux, with a shrug: they never thought Iraq would be perfect, and everything from here on out is just footnotes. In public, they seem to want Americans to forget all about Iraq.

A No-Confidence Vote for Mr. Abbas

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A few months ago, President Bush announced that he would ask Congress for $350 million to support Palestinian political, economic and security reforms. Following on his word, he did just that, in his budget proposal to Congress. But last week when the House approved $200 million of the aid, it attached enough strings to strangle those good intentions. President Bush had requested that the first $200 million go directly to the Palestinian Authority, whose new president, Mahmoud Abbas, has been struggling to rein in extremist factions. But in what one Palestinian advocate correctly called a "vote of no confidence" in Mr. Abbas, the House stipulated that no money could go to the Palestinian Authority. It approved $150 million, to be channeled instead through American aid agencies, nongovernmental organizations and philanthropic groups. Adding insult to injury, the House then gave $50 million to Israel to build terminals for people at checkpoints surrounding Palestinian areas. House lawmakers directed an additional $2 million to Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. So a quarter of Congress's Palestinian aid disbursement so far is actually going to Israel.

According to other articles, the White House spokesman told that the "White House applauds the decision."

Entrenched loyalties
While Europeans share memories of the second world war, histories of 1914-18 are strictly divided along national lines. Adam Thorpe visits the battlefields and challenges the myths

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As the American historian Jay Winter comments: "Paradoxically, the more unified Europe becomes, the more the war's historiography is compartmentalised. Living in different intellectual universes ... we historians are further than ever from a European vision of the very conflict that created present-day Europe."

Fatah wins local elections in the illegally occupied Gaza and West Bank, but Hamas continues to get more and more support. It´s no wonder that they won in places like Qalqiliya, whose people have suffered so much because of the Zionists. If the peace process continues to falter - once again - the US indifferent towards it and Israel screaming that no outside power expect the aforementioned United States of Apathy can take part in them, then in the summer Hamas will probably be a serious threat for Fatah in the parliamentary elections.

Blair's departure should be speedy

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The Blair era is drawing to a close. The personal rejection of the Prime Minister took many forms. The Labour vote splintered, with both the other parties being the beneficiaries. Even those candidates who opposed the war were punished... The transition is already under way. The Chancellor's dominance is unarguable. The only question that remains unanswered is when Blair will accept the inevitable and go. If he helps the process and does not stand in the way, he will be carrying out one final service to a party for which he was such an asset for so long.

Muted victory for Blair

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Tony Blair has won his longed-for third election victory and secured his place in history. But the prime minister must know that, for the first time, it was despite, rather than because of him.

So, Labour won, Tony Blair made history by being the first Labour leader to win a third consecutive election even when his party did get whacked by voters disillusioned by the Iraq adventure. Luckily for the former socialists, the Conservatives are still a party that time forgot and most folk that probably would have otherwise voted the Liberal democrats were too scared of giving the Conservatives victory and so voted Labour. Still the libdems got the best result for liberals in the UK since the days of Lloyd George(1863-1945), the last liberal prime minister.

Nuclear Fundamentalism and the Iran Story

Variant on the "another man´s terrorist is another man´s freedom fighter":

The person who has done more than anyone else to inform the world about that nuclear weapons program, Mordechai Vanunu, left his job as a technician at Israel's Dimona nuclear facility before spilling the beans to the Sunday Times of London in 1986. The Israeli government promptly sent agents to kidnap Vanunu from Rome and take him back to Israel. As a result, Vanunu spent 18 years behind bars, mostly in solitary confinement. Since his release in April 2004, the Israeli authorities have imposed a travel ban along with other restrictions on Vanunu -- and they're threatening to put him back in prison if he keeps talking to journalists. If Vanunu were Iranian instead of Israeli, the U.S. press would be hailing him as a hero instead of giving him short shrift. Like almost every other mainstream U.S. media outlet, the New York Times has provided little coverage of Vanunu, so the American public has scant knowledge of his real-life experience with truth and consequences. Likewise, the Times has little to say about Washington's extreme hypocrisies while the newspaper and the government denounce certain other countries for their nuclear programs.

If Vanunu indeed would be Iranian, his name would be often heard in the US Congress and Senate and he would be praised as a great hero. Now he´s something of a secret.

Understanding the emotional issues surrounding al-Awda

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The right of the refugees to return is a law. It is founded on a legal premise of human rights that is so great that no individual can erase and yet so hopeless fragile that it is the only thing from which Palestinian refugees have managed to preserve their very existence. In the context of achieving two-states and resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict peacefully, how do we resolve the issue of al-Awda? Regardless of the answer, the fact is that the Palestinian right to return is undeniable and solid. It doesn’t mean it will happen. It doesn’t mean that in a two-state solution, refugees can expect to return to their lands.

First results from the British parlamentary elections(based on exit polls):Labour 37% and 356 seats, Conservatives(the party formerly known as Tories) 33% and 209 seats, Liberal Democrats 22 % and 53 seats, others 8% and 27 seats. Labour majority of 66 places, down from 161 after the 2001 elections.

The Obsession with Syria

The other reason for United States´ aggression towards Syria - the first one being of course defending the poor, helpless Israel - is that Syria is weak and that the United States itself is a bully of a nation, who likes to pick fights which smaller nations that can´t properly defend themselves against it. OK, Syria is not ruled by a model government, but then there are many countries like it in the world, third world countries governed by more or less autocratic rulers that share the United States´ disrespect towards human rights. And why then chose Syria from among these? The first reason for United States dislike for Syria, it´s undying love for Israel and especially it´s nastier deeds, of course.

It seems that the so-called Pioneer anomaly could also affect asteroids, which would mean that it it isn´t caused by anything on the spaceships themselves.

I have to admit, it´s rather a fascinating problem: A mysterious force that forces spaceships out of course. Cool stuff.

When will we see some science fiction based on this anomaly?

And the bloodbath in Iraq continues.

The last week has been among the deadliest during the war in Iraq. After yesterday´s bombings and fighting, of which the Irbil suicide bombing was the deadliest, some 250 people have died since last Friday. More.

12 small and distant moons join the ranks of Saturnian moons, bringing the total to 46.

International Law Not Fit to Print: The New York Times and Israel/Palestine

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These shortcomings came to a head in an April 19 piece by Steven Erlanger, The New York Times' correspondent to the region, titled 'Israel, on Its Own, Is Shaping the Borders of the West Bank'. The article's thesis that, 'the likely impact of the provisional new border on Palestinian life is, perhaps surprisingly, smaller than generally assumed,' was essentially based on the flawed analysis of the Wall's impact by David Makovsky. Mr. Makovsky, a former Editor of the right-wing Jerusalem Post, is now a Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a spinoff from the right-wing American Israeli Public Affairs Committee(AIPAC). On top of paraphrasing Mr. Makovsky's arguments, Mr. Erlanger quotes 144 words from Mr. Makovsky, versus only 23 words from Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. 'The land between the green line and the barrier is 8 percent of the West Bank,' Mr. Erlanger reported. He happily added that, 'Eight percent is half of what the figure was last summer,' ignoring the reality that Palestinians don't accept Israeli annexation of any of their land, Mr. Erlanger wrote that the revised Wall 'route has sharply reduced the number of Palestinians caught inside the barrier: fewer than 10,000 of the two million Palestinians in the West Bank.' He then added caveats - 10,000 does not include Wall impacts on 195,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, the Wall has cut off most of the Palestinians' best agricultural land, and the Israeli army can completely seal off Palestinian towns like Qalqilya that the Wall nearly surrounds. Though Mr. Erlanger never admits this, these caveats add hundreds of thousands of Palestinians negatively impacted by the Wall, making Mr. Makovsky's figure of 10,000 Palestinians totally misleading. Worse, Mr. Erlanger notes three times that Israeli annexation of 8% of the West Bank is close to the 5% that President Bill Clinton supposedly proposed in 2000. The emphasis on annexing 5% - 8% of the West Bank serves Mr. Makovsky's partisan political agenda - lowering the bar for expectations of what constitutes a just resolution. However, there is no justification for 'lowering the bar' when international law requires that Israel withdraw from the entire West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, analysts like Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolition have explained repeatedly that Israeli annexation of a strategic 5% of the West Bank will leave Israel in control of the West Bank, and prevent the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.