Israeli air strikes flattened bastions of Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip today in the third day of an offensive that has killed more than 325 Palestinians in the deadliest violence in the territory in decades. "We have an all-out war against Hamas and its kind," Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said in parliament, using a term he has employed in the past to describe a long-term struggle against Israel's Islamist enemies. Broadening their targets to include the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes bombed the Interior Ministry, which supervises 13,000 members of the group's security forces. The building had been evacuated and there were no casualties. Israel also targeted the homes of at least two top commanders in Hamas's armed wing. The commanders were not at home at the time but several family members were killed....The United Nations Relief and Works Agency said at least 57 of the dead were civilians. It based the figure, which an UNRWA spokesman called "conservative", on visits by agency officials to hospitals and medical centres.
Israeli air strikes flattened bastions of Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip today in the third day of an offensive that has killed more than 325 Palestinians in the deadliest violence in the territory in decades.
"We have an all-out war against Hamas and its kind," Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said in parliament, using a term he has employed in the past to describe a long-term struggle against Israel's Islamist enemies.
Broadening their targets to include the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes bombed the Interior Ministry, which supervises 13,000 members of the group's security forces. The building had been evacuated and there were no casualties.
Israel also targeted the homes of at least two top commanders in Hamas's armed wing. The commanders were not at home at the time but several family members were killed.
...The United Nations Relief and Works Agency said at least 57 of the dead were civilians. It based the figure, which an UNRWA spokesman called "conservative", on visits by agency officials to hospitals and medical centres.
Israeli warplanes pounded Hamas targetsin the densely populated Gaza Strip for a third day on Monday, and there's no sign that the attacks will end. The raids are in retaliation for rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli towns that intensified after Hamas ended a six-month cease-fire a week ago. Israeli tanks are being deployed on the border with Gaza, and Israel has threatened a ground invasion if the rocket firing doesn't stop....The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes: "In Israel, people at all levels of society (wrongly) believe in the omnipotence of the army. As they see it, the army can straighten out anything that politics can't, namely, establishing calm. In reality, though, Israel's massive retaliatory attacks will only bring about a lack of calm. And they might even unleash a third intifada."...The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes: "Instead of bringing Hamas to its knees, Israel's most recent severe attacks on the Gaza Strip ... will only create new martyrs. For many years, this mechanism has functioned like clockwork."
Israeli warplanes pounded Hamas targetsin the densely populated Gaza Strip for a third day on Monday, and there's no sign that the attacks will end. The raids are in retaliation for rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli towns that intensified after Hamas ended a six-month cease-fire a week ago.
Israeli tanks are being deployed on the border with Gaza, and Israel has threatened a ground invasion if the rocket firing doesn't stop.
...The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
"In Israel, people at all levels of society (wrongly) believe in the omnipotence of the army. As they see it, the army can straighten out anything that politics can't, namely, establishing calm. In reality, though, Israel's massive retaliatory attacks will only bring about a lack of calm. And they might even unleash a third intifada."
...The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"Instead of bringing Hamas to its knees, Israel's most recent severe attacks on the Gaza Strip ... will only create new martyrs. For many years, this mechanism has functioned like clockwork."
(The quoted parts are as good as commentary gets -- the rest is all too standard-issue WoT/recycled Israeli government rhetoric. SPIEGEL's news article is titled The Gaza Conflict: Hamas' Strategy of Escalation.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday said the blame for renewed violence in the Middle East can be pinned on Hamas. Others, though, say Israel's response with mass air strikes has been disproportionate....In a statement released on Monday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said "I am deeply concerned by continuing missile strikes from Gaza on Israel and by Israel's response."French President Nicolas Sarkozy was even more critical of Israel, calling the air raid campaign against the Gaza Strip "disproportionate force." Sarkozy spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by telephone on Sunday and also condemned "the provocations which have led to this situation."Javier Solana, chief of foreign policy for the European Union, said "the EU has repeatedly condemned rocket attacks against Israel," before adding "the current Israeli strikes are inflicting an unacceptable toll on Palestinian civilians."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday said the blame for renewed violence in the Middle East can be pinned on Hamas. Others, though, say Israel's response with mass air strikes has been disproportionate.
...In a statement released on Monday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said "I am deeply concerned by continuing missile strikes from Gaza on Israel and by Israel's response."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was even more critical of Israel, calling the air raid campaign against the Gaza Strip "disproportionate force." Sarkozy spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by telephone on Sunday and also condemned "the provocations which have led to this situation."
Javier Solana, chief of foreign policy for the European Union, said "the EU has repeatedly condemned rocket attacks against Israel," before adding "the current Israeli strikes are inflicting an unacceptable toll on Palestinian civilians."
Robert Fisk: Leaders lie, civilians die, and lessons of history are ignored - Robert Fisk, Commentators - The Independent
We've got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don't care any more - providing we don't offend the Israelis. It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration, not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side. As usual, the bloodbath was the fault of the Arabs - who, as we all know, only understand force. Ever since 1948, we've been hearing this balderdash from the Israelis - just as Arab nationalists and then Arab Islamists have been peddling their own lies: that the Zionist "death wagon" will be overthrown, that all Jerusalem will be "liberated". And always Mr Bush Snr or Mr Clinton or Mr Bush Jnr or Mr Blair or Mr Brown have called upon both sides to exercise "restraint" - as if the Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s and Merkava tanks and field artillery. Hamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost 300 Palestinians is just par for the course.
We've got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don't care any more - providing we don't offend the Israelis. It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration, not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side. As usual, the bloodbath was the fault of the Arabs - who, as we all know, only understand force.
Ever since 1948, we've been hearing this balderdash from the Israelis - just as Arab nationalists and then Arab Islamists have been peddling their own lies: that the Zionist "death wagon" will be overthrown, that all Jerusalem will be "liberated". And always Mr Bush Snr or Mr Clinton or Mr Bush Jnr or Mr Blair or Mr Brown have called upon both sides to exercise "restraint" - as if the Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s and Merkava tanks and field artillery. Hamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost 300 Palestinians is just par for the course.
And does the docile compliance of Fatah in the West Bank stop the violence against the plestinians, stop the land grabs, stop the IDF shooting children dead ? No. We have the perverse situation where the colonisers make the law that resistance is illegal whilst also making all acts of oppression just. And the world nods its head and agrees.
Lie after lie after lie. There is nothing the palestinians can do to appease the israelis. Their very existence is provocation enough. Let none believe there is a behaviour from the palestinians that would allow justice to breath, it is not in their gift.
When the israelis say "hamas and their like" you can hear the same murderous contempt that fuelled the word "untermenschen". When israelis talk of war to the "bitter end", I hope they are not convinced there is a final solution to the palestinian problem.
Israel is certainly damaging itself, but this is self-harm by proxy.
But finally I am less disgusted by Israel's behaviour than I am by the gleeful collusion of our own political elites. How can they see this and call it anything other than an atrocity ? keep to the Fen Causeway
Even knowing that retaliation was certain, Hamas seemed to end the cease-fire in part because of its longstanding discipline and consistency. For years it has preached to Palestinians the rejectionist credo that Fatah negotiated with Israel and got nowhere; Hamas's way of armed force, it argued year in and year out, was the only way. And so it appears that Hamas turned its logic against its own cease-fire: Hamas's supreme leader, Khaled Meshal, said on Saturday that the truce had yielded few results. If there were no specific benefits -- like freed prisoners or an end to Israeli blockages on Gaza -- then the option, again, was a return to violence.
Even knowing that retaliation was certain, Hamas seemed to end the cease-fire in part because of its longstanding discipline and consistency. For years it has preached to Palestinians the rejectionist credo that Fatah negotiated with Israel and got nowhere; Hamas's way of armed force, it argued year in and year out, was the only way.
And so it appears that Hamas turned its logic against its own cease-fire: Hamas's supreme leader, Khaled Meshal, said on Saturday that the truce had yielded few results. If there were no specific benefits -- like freed prisoners or an end to Israeli blockages on Gaza -- then the option, again, was a return to violence.
Interesting to see this point being made in the NYT. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
Liu Jianjun is wearing a brightly coloured African tunic, the tall hat of a tribal leader, a string of red beads round his neck and carrying a stick with a secret knife in the handle. Beside him sits a portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong. It is a slightly incongruous scene but one that mirrors the ever-closer relationship between Asia's economic giant China and the world's poorest continent. "The African people yell, 'Mao Zedong is all right' and they are very warm-hearted when I'm there," says one of China's most prominent private sector ambassadors. "The minute Chinese people get off the plane, the Africans are friendly. Chinese do not bring rifles and weapons; they bring seeds and technology."China's Ministry of Commerce triumphantly announced this month that its bilateral trade with the continent is set to hit $100bn (£67.8bn) by the end of 2008, two years ahead of schedule. Africa's plentiful oilfields and rich mineral deposits are top of China's imports, and in return the world's most populous nation is exporting tens of thousands of its countrymen.
Liu Jianjun is wearing a brightly coloured African tunic, the tall hat of a tribal leader, a string of red beads round his neck and carrying a stick with a secret knife in the handle. Beside him sits a portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong. It is a slightly incongruous scene but one that mirrors the ever-closer relationship between Asia's economic giant China and the world's poorest continent.
"The African people yell, 'Mao Zedong is all right' and they are very warm-hearted when I'm there," says one of China's most prominent private sector ambassadors. "The minute Chinese people get off the plane, the Africans are friendly. Chinese do not bring rifles and weapons; they bring seeds and technology."
China's Ministry of Commerce triumphantly announced this month that its bilateral trade with the continent is set to hit $100bn (£67.8bn) by the end of 2008, two years ahead of schedule. Africa's plentiful oilfields and rich mineral deposits are top of China's imports, and in return the world's most populous nation is exporting tens of thousands of its countrymen.
By A.C. ThompsonDecember 17, 2008 This article appeared in the January 5, 2009 edition of The Nation. The way Donnell Herrington tells it, there was no warning. One second he was trudging through the heat. The next he was lying prostrate on the pavement, his life spilling out of a hole in his throat, his body racked with pain, his vision blurred and distorted. It was September 1, 2005, some three days after Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans, and somebody had just blasted Herrington, who is African-American, with a shotgun. "I just hit the ground. I didn't even know what happened," recalls Herrington, a burly 32-year-old with a soft drawl. The sudden eruption of gunfire horrified Herrington's companions--his cousin Marcel Alexander, then 17, and friend Chris Collins, then 18, who are also black. "I looked at Donnell and he had this big old hole in his neck," Alexander recalls. "I tried to help him up, and they started shooting again." Herrington says he was staggering to his feet when a second shotgun blast struck him from behind; the spray of lead pellets also caught Collins and Alexander. The buckshot peppered Alexander's back, arm and buttocks. Herrington shouted at the other men to run and turned to face his attackers: three armed white males. Herrington says he hadn't even seen the men or their weapons before the shooting began. As Alexander and Collins fled, Herrington ran in the opposite direction, his hand pressed to the bleeding wound on his throat. Behind him, he says, the gunmen yelled, "Get him! Get that nigger!"
By A.C. Thompson
December 17, 2008 This article appeared in the January 5, 2009 edition of The Nation. The way Donnell Herrington tells it, there was no warning. One second he was trudging through the heat. The next he was lying prostrate on the pavement, his life spilling out of a hole in his throat, his body racked with pain, his vision blurred and distorted.
It was September 1, 2005, some three days after Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans, and somebody had just blasted Herrington, who is African-American, with a shotgun. "I just hit the ground. I didn't even know what happened," recalls Herrington, a burly 32-year-old with a soft drawl.
The sudden eruption of gunfire horrified Herrington's companions--his cousin Marcel Alexander, then 17, and friend Chris Collins, then 18, who are also black. "I looked at Donnell and he had this big old hole in his neck," Alexander recalls. "I tried to help him up, and they started shooting again." Herrington says he was staggering to his feet when a second shotgun blast struck him from behind; the spray of lead pellets also caught Collins and Alexander. The buckshot peppered Alexander's back, arm and buttocks.
Herrington shouted at the other men to run and turned to face his attackers: three armed white males. Herrington says he hadn't even seen the men or their weapons before the shooting began. As Alexander and Collins fled, Herrington ran in the opposite direction, his hand pressed to the bleeding wound on his throat. Behind him, he says, the gunmen yelled, "Get him! Get that nigger!"
NEW DELHI -- After two years of army-backed emergency rule, democracy returned to Bangladesh as the secular Awami League party scored an apparent landslide victory in election results announced on Tuesday. Voting on Monday had proceeded in a largely peaceful atmosphere, and in many locations it was even quite festive. According to the Associated Press, the election official Humayun Kabir said the Awami League, in alliance with a smaller party called Jatiya, won a more than two-thirds majority in Parliament after votes in most districts had been counted. "This has been a very free and fair election," Mr. Kabir told reporters at his office in Dhaka. The league's leader, Sheikh Hasina, urged her supporters to remain calm and off the streets, fearing that any victory rallies would result in clashes with rivals.Ms. Hasina, a former prime minister, has promised to quash Islamist extremist groups in the largely Muslim country.She has been a target of the extremists' ire already, having been wounded by a grenade at a 2004 rally in an attack linked to Islamist radicals that killed 23 people.
NEW DELHI -- After two years of army-backed emergency rule, democracy returned to Bangladesh as the secular Awami League party scored an apparent landslide victory in election results announced on Tuesday.
Voting on Monday had proceeded in a largely peaceful atmosphere, and in many locations it was even quite festive.
According to the Associated Press, the election official Humayun Kabir said the Awami League, in alliance with a smaller party called Jatiya, won a more than two-thirds majority in Parliament after votes in most districts had been counted. "This has been a very free and fair election," Mr. Kabir told reporters at his office in Dhaka. The league's leader, Sheikh Hasina, urged her supporters to remain calm and off the streets, fearing that any victory rallies would result in clashes with rivals.
Ms. Hasina, a former prime minister, has promised to quash Islamist extremist groups in the largely Muslim country.
She has been a target of the extremists' ire already, having been wounded by a grenade at a 2004 rally in an attack linked to Islamist radicals that killed 23 people.
Call it CSI: Thermal Police -- energy experts armed with mostly low-tech tools but strong sleuthing skills, finding flaws that let the air inside a house go through a full exchange with the outdoors twice an hour, instead of once every two or three hours.Correct those flaws, and heating and cooling costs are typically cut by 20 percent to 30 percent, a saving of more than $1,000 annually in some households. In addition, carbon dioxide emissions and the strain on the national electric and gas systems are reduced. About 140,000 houses will be weatherized with public help this year, a total that President-elect Barack Obama has promised to raise to one million, to reduce energy consumption and cut energy costs for households and taxpayers, who often absorb those costs for the poor. This would represent a historic shift in emphasis for the federal and state governments, reducing poor people's energy bills instead of helping to pay them. Weatherizing a million homes annually would also create about 78,000 jobs for a year, according to the federal Energy Department's weatherization project director, Gil Sperling.
Call it CSI: Thermal Police -- energy experts armed with mostly low-tech tools but strong sleuthing skills, finding flaws that let the air inside a house go through a full exchange with the outdoors twice an hour, instead of once every two or three hours.
Correct those flaws, and heating and cooling costs are typically cut by 20 percent to 30 percent, a saving of more than $1,000 annually in some households. In addition, carbon dioxide emissions and the strain on the national electric and gas systems are reduced.
About 140,000 houses will be weatherized with public help this year, a total that President-elect Barack Obama has promised to raise to one million, to reduce energy consumption and cut energy costs for households and taxpayers, who often absorb those costs for the poor. This would represent a historic shift in emphasis for the federal and state governments, reducing poor people's energy bills instead of helping to pay them.
Weatherizing a million homes annually would also create about 78,000 jobs for a year, according to the federal Energy Department's weatherization project director, Gil Sperling.
In a single year, a coal-fired electric plant deposited more than 2.2 million pounds of toxic materials in a holding pond that failed last week, flooding 300 acres in East Tennessee, according to a 2007 inventory filed with the Environmental Protection Agency. The inventory, disclosed by the Tennessee Valley Authority on Monday at the request of The New York Times, showed that in just one year, the plant's byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems. And the holding pond, at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a T.V.A. plant 40 miles west of Knoxville, contained many decades' worth of these deposits. For days, authority officials have maintained that the sludge released in the spill is not toxic, though coal ash has long been known to contain dangerous concentrations of heavy metals. On Monday, a week after the spill, the authority issued a joint statement with the E.P.A. and other agencies recommending that direct contact with the ash be avoided and that pets and children should be kept away from affected areas. [...] "They think that the public is stupid, that they can't put two and two together," said Sandy Gupton, a registered nurse who hired an independent firm to test the spring water on her family's 300-acre farm, now sullied by sludge from the spill. "It took five days for the T.V.A. to respond to us."
In a single year, a coal-fired electric plant deposited more than 2.2 million pounds of toxic materials in a holding pond that failed last week, flooding 300 acres in East Tennessee, according to a 2007 inventory filed with the Environmental Protection Agency.
The inventory, disclosed by the Tennessee Valley Authority on Monday at the request of The New York Times, showed that in just one year, the plant's byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems.
And the holding pond, at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a T.V.A. plant 40 miles west of Knoxville, contained many decades' worth of these deposits.
For days, authority officials have maintained that the sludge released in the spill is not toxic, though coal ash has long been known to contain dangerous concentrations of heavy metals. On Monday, a week after the spill, the authority issued a joint statement with the E.P.A. and other agencies recommending that direct contact with the ash be avoided and that pets and children should be kept away from affected areas.
[...]
"They think that the public is stupid, that they can't put two and two together," said Sandy Gupton, a registered nurse who hired an independent firm to test the spring water on her family's 300-acre farm, now sullied by sludge from the spill. "It took five days for the T.V.A. to respond to us."
The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
The spill has reignited a debate over whether coal ash should be regulated as a hazardous waste. In 2000, the E.P.A. backed away from its recommendation to do so in the face of industry opposition, promising instead to issue national guidelines for proper ash disposal, though it never did.
I can't identify exactly who is responsible for structural oversight of the retention ponds - the EPA, another federal authority of the state.
Here's a from-the-water view of the disaster:
