SHATI REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Gazans seeking food aid walked away empty-handed from locked United Nations distribution centers Saturday after a strict Israeli border closure depleted U.N. food reserves.Israel sealed Gaza's borders nearly two weeks ago as part of a new round of fighting with Gaza's Hamas rulers. Hamas rocket fire on Israeli border towns and Israeli air strikes on Gaza militants have eroded a truce that had largely held for five months.U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to open the crossings to humanitarian aid and condemned the rocket fire on Israel. Measures that increase the suffering of Gaza's civilians "are unacceptable and should cease immediately," he said in a statement.
SHATI REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Gazans seeking food aid walked away empty-handed from locked United Nations distribution centers Saturday after a strict Israeli border closure depleted U.N. food reserves.
Israel sealed Gaza's borders nearly two weeks ago as part of a new round of fighting with Gaza's Hamas rulers. Hamas rocket fire on Israeli border towns and Israeli air strikes on Gaza militants have eroded a truce that had largely held for five months.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to open the crossings to humanitarian aid and condemned the rocket fire on Israel. Measures that increase the suffering of Gaza's civilians "are unacceptable and should cease immediately," he said in a statement.
I wonder if the the scribes detailing the Obama Epoch will find room for attribution of the Israeli War Crimes Trials of 2010. I find it hard to believe that he said, "F**k the lot of those who have sinned using G_d's name." That allegedly happened when he was told that only he could stop the trails the way that Clinton did in '99 when the UN General Assembly's Tenth Emergency Special Session recommended the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva [Civilian] Convention meet in Geneva on July 15 to discuss enforcement of the Convention with regard to Israeli settlement activities.
Will markets do more than marking Israeli grown fruits? how about electronics built or designed in Israeli factories? Who will answer the claims that the Palestinians who work in those factories get hurt the worst?
Just seeing the coma-tossed Sharon on the gurney in the courtroom, with the skinny Clinton and 2 other US Presidents and a handful of Israeli Prime Ministers each standing in line as the charges were read. Jews and Palestinians all over the world cried, some for different reasons. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
Large crowds have flocked to a memorial service in Johannesburg for South African singer Miriam Makeba, who died last weekend after a concert in Italy. Musicians, poets and politicians paid tribute to the 76-year-old performer. Arts minister Pallo Jordan described Makeba as "a woman whose name became synonymous with the worldwide struggle for freedom in South Africa". Her family also attended the service at the Coca Cola Dome concert venue, which followed two days of national mourning. They are expected to hold a smaller service for her cremation on Sunday. The singer, who was known as Mama Africa, spent more than 30 years in exile after lending her support to the campaign against apartheid.
Large crowds have flocked to a memorial service in Johannesburg for South African singer Miriam Makeba, who died last weekend after a concert in Italy.
Musicians, poets and politicians paid tribute to the 76-year-old performer.
Arts minister Pallo Jordan described Makeba as "a woman whose name became synonymous with the worldwide struggle for freedom in South Africa".
Her family also attended the service at the Coca Cola Dome concert venue, which followed two days of national mourning.
They are expected to hold a smaller service for her cremation on Sunday.
The singer, who was known as Mama Africa, spent more than 30 years in exile after lending her support to the campaign against apartheid.
WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (IPS) - Last April, top George W. Bush administration officials, desperate to exploit any possible crack in the close relationship between the Nouri al-Maliki government and Iran, launched a new round of charges that Iran had stepped up covert arms assistance to Shi'a militias.Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates suggested that there was "some sense of an increased level of [Iranian] supply of weapons and support to these groups." And Washington Post reporter Karen DeYoung was told by military officials that the "plentiful, high quality weaponry" the militia was then using in Basra was "recently manufactured in Iran". But a U.S. military task force had been passing on data to the Multi-National Force Iraq (MNFI) command that told a very different story. The data collected by the task force in the previous six weeks showed that relatively few of the weapons found in Shi'a militia caches were manufactured in Iran. According to the data compiled by the task force, and made available to an academic research project last July, only 70 weapons believed to have been manufactured in Iran had been found in post-invasion weapons caches between mid-February and the second week in April. And those weapons represented only 17 percent of the weapons found in caches that had any Iranian weapons in them during that period. The actual proportion of Iranian-made weapons to total weapons found, however, was significantly lower than that, because the task force was finding many more weapons caches in Shi'a areas that did not have any Iranian weapons in them. The task force database identified 98 caches over the five-month period with at least one Iranian weapon, excluding caches believed to have been hidden prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion. But according to an e-mail from the MNFI press desk this week, the task force found and analysed a total of roughly 4,600 weapons caches during that same period. The caches that included Iranian weapons thus represented just 2 percent of all caches found. That means Iranian-made weapons were a fraction of one percent of the total weapons found in Shi'a militia caches during that period. The extremely small proportion of Iranian arms in Shi'a militia weapons caches further suggests that Shi'a militia fighters in Iraq had been getting weapons from local and international arms markets rather than from an official Iranian-sponsored smuggling network.
It's saddening that everything comes out too late, people sat on this information. In fact we knew it was obvious when they showed us the pictures saying these were iranian and it was obvious that the writing on them was in the european alphabet and others more expert identified the munitions as american.
It's like NYT lied about Saddams chemical weapons in the run up to the invasion, sat on FISA till after the 2004 election. So many colluded to allow Bush to wreck the country. People who will not hesitate to destroy Obama and claim that treachery makes them honourable again. It's a funny world where people just accept this. keep to the Fen Causeway
It seems to me that things are getting worse. This week I was at the scene of a bombing, reporting a news story about three explosions in Adhamiya. They were horrible explosions, all at the same time in a very crowded Shia neighborhood. I remember the smell of the blood, the flies all around and the injured people, the broken glass and the destruction. ------------------------------ I do not think I am more cautious or worried than most people. In Adhamiya I was the only woman on the street while the police were clearing away the remains of the explosion, the glass, blood, clothes and the pieces of meat left over from restaurants. But it seems to be that things are getting worse, and I am now being more careful to avoid crowded places and bazaars. ---------------------------- In The New York Times's office I am the one who sits next to the whiteboard where we record explosions, shootings and other deaths in Iraq. Since two days before Barack Obama's victory I started to notice the board filling up again. There are many explosions. Many of them are small, but some days we have to start a new column. It was not like this even two weeks ago. But my mother lives in a safe, Shiite neighborhood, and always sticks to her house. The reason she thinks the situation is becoming worse is because of what she hears speaking to friends and neighbors whose relatives were killed or injured. Some people are saying that the Americans are making the bombings to make Iraqis believe that it is very important for them to stay in Iraq, that they are still needed. The Americans say that when they withdraw from Iraq violence will increase. Is that a threat? You can read it as a threat, or you can read it as an expectation. Some Iraqis take it as a threat. Some people are asking: "Are the Americans punishing us with bombings because Iraq has refused to sign the SOFA?" [Status of Forces Agreement] Here that is a reality, people think it. I can see it in people's eyes when they say it to me. Real belief in what they are saying. ------------------------ Anwar J. Ali is an Iraqi journalist who works for The New York Times in Baghdad. It seems like more than some people think all these bombings are from the Americans. At times it seems like everyone thinks so. Just two days ago I went to cover a car bombing in what had been a relatively peaceful part of eastern Baghdad. The bomb exploded in a parking lot surrounded by doctors' offices and pharmacies. My colleague, Mudhafer, and I searched for one of the doctors, walking through bombed-out buildings filled with broken glass and overturned furniture. Finally, in one of the pharmacies we found Dr Daniel Khafaji, a clean-shaven man in a pin striped suit. "It is only the SOFA," he said casually, referring to the contentious security agreement being negotiated between the Americans and Iraqis. "This is all in the interest of the Americans. We are occupied." He said that American troops were seen near the bomb only 10 minutes before it went off, a line that you hear so often it has almost become a formality, and he repeated the usual theory: the Americans said there would be violence if the SOFA, which sets the conditions for the Americans' continued presence in Iraq after the end of the year, didn't pass. It hasn't passed so here's the violence. If it makes sense it must be true. ------------------- These next few months are not going to be easy.
This week I was at the scene of a bombing, reporting a news story about three explosions in Adhamiya. They were horrible explosions, all at the same time in a very crowded Shia neighborhood. I remember the smell of the blood, the flies all around and the injured people, the broken glass and the destruction.
------------------------------
I do not think I am more cautious or worried than most people. In Adhamiya I was the only woman on the street while the police were clearing away the remains of the explosion, the glass, blood, clothes and the pieces of meat left over from restaurants.
But it seems to be that things are getting worse, and I am now being more careful to avoid crowded places and bazaars. ---------------------------- In The New York Times's office I am the one who sits next to the whiteboard where we record explosions, shootings and other deaths in Iraq. Since two days before Barack Obama's victory I started to notice the board filling up again. There are many explosions. Many of them are small, but some days we have to start a new column. It was not like this even two weeks ago.
But my mother lives in a safe, Shiite neighborhood, and always sticks to her house. The reason she thinks the situation is becoming worse is because of what she hears speaking to friends and neighbors whose relatives were killed or injured.
Some people are saying that the Americans are making the bombings to make Iraqis believe that it is very important for them to stay in Iraq, that they are still needed. The Americans say that when they withdraw from Iraq violence will increase. Is that a threat? You can read it as a threat, or you can read it as an expectation. Some Iraqis take it as a threat.
Some people are asking: "Are the Americans punishing us with bombings because Iraq has refused to sign the SOFA?" [Status of Forces Agreement]
Here that is a reality, people think it. I can see it in people's eyes when they say it to me. Real belief in what they are saying. ------------------------ Anwar J. Ali is an Iraqi journalist who works for The New York Times in Baghdad.
It seems like more than some people think all these bombings are from the Americans. At times it seems like everyone thinks so.
Just two days ago I went to cover a car bombing in what had been a relatively peaceful part of eastern Baghdad. The bomb exploded in a parking lot surrounded by doctors' offices and pharmacies. My colleague, Mudhafer, and I searched for one of the doctors, walking through bombed-out buildings filled with broken glass and overturned furniture. Finally, in one of the pharmacies we found Dr Daniel Khafaji, a clean-shaven man in a pin striped suit.
"It is only the SOFA," he said casually, referring to the contentious security agreement being negotiated between the Americans and Iraqis. "This is all in the interest of the Americans. We are occupied."
He said that American troops were seen near the bomb only 10 minutes before it went off, a line that you hear so often it has almost become a formality, and he repeated the usual theory: the Americans said there would be violence if the SOFA, which sets the conditions for the Americans' continued presence in Iraq after the end of the year, didn't pass. It hasn't passed so here's the violence. If it makes sense it must be true. ------------------- These next few months are not going to be easy.
"Are the Americans punishing us with bombings because Iraq has refused to sign the SOFA?"
Well, we'll know soon enough: Since both al-Maliki and al-Sistani are now both in favor of the agreement, those Americans who are supposedly behind the bombings will at least stop them until and unless the Iraqi parliament rejects it. If the bombings continue regardless of the current Iraqi momentum towards supporting SOFA, that would seem to weaken this speculation.
But quite frankly, I find this theory hard to believe to begin with. Mr. Ali, the blogger, is correct:
Don't they realize it's in the interest of the Americans for everything to be quiet right now? That all of this violence actually makes the Americans look bad?
And his colleague Mudhafer's explanation, in that blog post, seems much more plausible:
Mudhafer astutely suggested that the insurgents are savvy enough to understand how this thinking works and could be taking advantage of it to cause chaos.
In other words, the insurgents know that Iraqis are susceptible to anti-American conspiracy theories, and the rationality and credibility of such theories is beside the point when the aim is simply to make people hate and distrust Americans ever more intensely. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
How can iraqis not feel they are suffering colonial abuse when their very own govt is being held to ransom in a way that is indistinguishable from gangsterism. Lovely country you've got here, shame if something happened to it - smash - . keep to the Fen Causeway
The incoming National government will completely review the emissions trading scheme (ETS) - possibly including the science that says humans are to blame for climate change - as part of its support deal with Act. But Prime Minister-elect John Key is still confident an amended ETS will be passed into law before the end of next year. [...] Under Act's support agreement a "special select committee" will be set up to review the current ETS and any proposed amendments "in light of the current economic circumstances". A draft terms of reference for the review attached to the agreement, includes hearing "competing views on the scientific aspects of climate change" and looking at the merits of a "mitigation or adaptation approach". It also includes looking at the merits of an ETS, as opposed to a carbon tax, and the timing of any future climate change interventions. The deal requires the National government to pass immediate legislation delaying the implementation of the ETS until the review is complete.
But Prime Minister-elect John Key is still confident an amended ETS will be passed into law before the end of next year.
[...]
Under Act's support agreement a "special select committee" will be set up to review the current ETS and any proposed amendments "in light of the current economic circumstances".
A draft terms of reference for the review attached to the agreement, includes hearing "competing views on the scientific aspects of climate change" and looking at the merits of a "mitigation or adaptation approach".
It also includes looking at the merits of an ETS, as opposed to a carbon tax, and the timing of any future climate change interventions.
The deal requires the National government to pass immediate legislation delaying the implementation of the ETS until the review is complete.
In short, they've shitcanned it. Fourth time wasn't so lucky after all.
My country is clearly not going to get serious climate change policy unless we are strongarmed into it by European trading partners. So, any suggestions on how to make that happen? Any way of getting EU green groups to run a hate campaign against NZ's backsliding?
