Archive

Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Philip Seymour Hoffman dies

February 2, 2014 Leave a comment

By Marivel Guzman

One of my favorite actors and independent film director has died today. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman found dead today in his apartment, only 46 years old. His dead is under investigation. What a tragedy for the independent Film Industry.  RIP

What a terrible day to die, Philip Seymour, The Super Bowl Frenzy Entertainment Media is not going to allow TV time to give him respects and credit for his life in the film industry.

“Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead Sunday afternoon in his New York City apartment, a law-enforcement official said.

The New York Police Department is investigating, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to determine exact cause of death. The official said Mr. Hoffman, 46 years old, was found dead at his apartment at 35 Bethune St. in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan.

Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski, Magnolia,  Almost Famous, The Hunger Games, and The Master are a few more of the movies he’s starred in. ” Wall Street Journal

Mr. Hoffman in a scene from ‘Magnolia.’ New Line Cinema/Everett Collection

Categories: Entertainment, News Tags: , ,

Sharon the Butcher is dead

January 13, 2014 Leave a comment

by Marivel Guzman

On Jan 11, 2014 Sharon the Butcher died at age 86. He does not need many introductions, he was a criminal and one of the master-minder of the biggest genocide in modern history. He planned and consumed many of the massacres to annihilate the Palestinians and to displaced from their land. But probably the better known massacre he is known for is Sabra and Shatilla where 3500  Palestinians were massacred.
For years leaders had entertained themselves with the Palestinian-Israel conflict as if this was a problem for Israel only and not for the real victims. Palestinians have been killed, displaced, incarcerated, tormented both physically and mentally for almost 100 years and everyone only talks about Israel rights to exist, and Israel security. Palestinians are the second actors in the public rhetoric of leaders and media. Now finally people is knowing the truth about the conflict, now with internet spreading news faster than censor can take place and with facebook, and other social media platforms every is knowing the conflict first hand, being thru photos or thru friends in Palestine.

Take history in your hands and be part of history writing, the truth is out is up to us to do something. BDS (boycott and disinvestment sanctions) is the best way to take part in history making and to bring justice to Palestinians.

It’s happening, to all the detractors of BDS, Feeling the heat? You should, Israel is hot right now after the US and UK were forced to boycott South Africa Apartheid entity out of shame and pressure from the world, It took only three years for SA to be dismantled.
BDS all the way. By the way Ariel Sharon the Butcher is dead.


Sharon was not a great leader. A leader does not take his “nation” to its own destruction;Sharon did a very good job to ensure the world was ashame to support a bunch of lunatics, and psychopaths, sending Israel to its own destruction.
We the world United are helping to bring sanity back to the world. BDS non violent movement is bringing those crazies down to its knees, right where it hurt; money and PR, the only thing that have kept apartheid  Israel entity up and running.
Bye Sharon, Cheers Palestine.

Peace activist showing victory for Palestine sign. And wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh

Peace activist showing victory for Palestine sign. And wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh

One peace activist of the millions around the world pushing for BDS against Israel and academic boycott.
The world just rid itself of one the worst criminals that ever walk earth; he was guilty of crimes against humanity. Sharon is the architect of Israel destruction, the crimes committed under his watch and by his hands are all recorded. He did not personally paid for his crimes but thanks to his legacy of criminality Israel soon will see its names only in history books.
Thanks Sharon¡ Bye Sharon!
Viva Free Palestine

Categories: News Tags: , , , , ,

UN named Palestine Occupation as Human Rights Abuse

December 10, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Akashma Online News

Source: UN Press

UN Human Rights Council opens with call to strengthen international justice system

“The promise of respecting all human rights for all people is still a dream for too many,” Ms. Pillay said. “Hundreds of thousands of people have died in genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina; the Palestinian territories are still occupied” Navi Pillay UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

As the main United Nations human rights body began its work today, senior UN officials stressed the importance of strengthening international processes that will monitor and prevent rights violations around the world as well as hold perpetrators accountable for their crimes.

Addressing the opening of the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said that despite significant progress over the past two decades on issues such as the elimination of violence against women and tackling impunity for international crimes, there continue to be systematic human rights violations around the world.

“The promise of respecting all human rights for all people is still a dream for too many,” Ms. Pillay said. “Hundreds of thousands of people have died in genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina; the Palestinian territories are still occupied; massive violations have occurred in Iraq and Sri Lanka; and war crimes continue to be committed in numerous internal conflicts, including those continuing in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Sudan and Syria.

“We must continue to nurture and strengthen the system designed to deal with such crimes and violations, and those who commit them. It is also critical that we in the international community do our utmost to prevent such situations from developing or deteriorating,” she said.

Ms. Pillay underlined that while many instances of human rights violations have been referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) – the world’s first permanent tribunal with the powers to prosecute suspected perpetrators of war crimes – this can only happen if the State concerned is among the 122 States Parties of the Rome Statute, or if a situation is referred to it by the Security Council.

In particular, Ms. Pillay said this had not happened in the case of Syria, where there have been constant allegations of human right violations committed by the Government forces and the opposition since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.

“Two important situations – Darfur in 2008 and Libya in 2011 – have been referred, but the Security Council has so far failed with regard to Syria, despite the repeated reports of widespread or systematic crimes and violations by my office, the International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, civil society organizations and Special Procedures,” she said.

In September, Ms. Pillay urged the Security Council to refer the case of Syria to the ICC. Since then, the High Commissioner has repeated this call, warning that possibly up to 70,000 people have been killed, hundreds of thousands have been displaced, and over 4 million people have been affected by the violence and are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

“Again, despite the truly inspiring advances in combating impunity and ensuring accountability both at the international and national levels, including through transitional justice processes, there are still far too many people with command responsibility who escape justice for serious crimes and gross human rights violations,” Ms. Pillay said.

The President of the General Assembly, Vuk Jeremic, told the Council that, like Ms. Pillay, he was gravely concerned with the situation in Syria, and emphasized the need to act immediately to achieve a political solution.

“For close to two years, the international community has failed to put a stop to the carnage,” he said. “The immediate cessation of hostilities should be our foremost priority.”

Mr. Jeremic appealed to all sides to cease the violence, and warned that without a political solution the consequences would be devastating for the country and the international community as a whole. “There is a manifest danger that the violence will simply be allowed to run its course – a scenario that would continue to disproportionately affect the civilian population.”

In her address to the Council, Ms. Pillay also noted that while the increased involvement of civil society in defending human rights is a welcome development, there have been an alarming number of reports of governments persecuting human rights defenders because of the nature of their work.

“I continue to hear of brave human rights defenders, journalists or bloggers who have been threatened, harassed, arrested or killed because of their work on behalf of the human rights of others,” Ms. Pillay said. “Such intimidation has sometimes even occurred during the proceedings of this Council. We must never tolerate such pressure, or reprisals against those who rightly seek to engage the international human rights system.”

Ms. Pillay also urged Member States to continue to support the work of her office (OHCHR) by providing the necessary resources it requires to fulfill its mandate “to promote and protect the human rights of everyone everywhere.”

 

 

News Tracker: past stories on this issue

Security Council must unite to protect civilians in conflict zones – UN officials

Categories: News

Drug Traffic major problem for Iran

December 10, 2013 1 comment

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Akashma Online News

The US had “Invested” billions of dollars in the war on drugs. The investment had paid high dividends for the war complex industry, which had seen its profit soured in the last 2o years, since Arm traders saw their opportunity promoting regional conflicts around the world.
Congress can not legally approve money to destabilize countries, and the DOF can not legally offer assistance to Rebel groups so shadow operations are run in the back of congress to generate money using drugs.

Afghanistan has been poppy producer

Three Iranian border guards were killed in clashes with armed drug traffickers near the border with Pakistan, Iranian media reported on Thursday, citing a border official.

Two drug traffickers were also killed in the clash near the region of Koshtegan in the southeastern province of Sistan-Balochistan, Colonel Mehdi Mansourzadeh said.

Mansourzadeh said Iran had seized 50 tonnes of various drugs in the frontier regions with Afghanistan and Pakistan during the past six months.

Iran is a major transit route for drugs trafficked from leading narcotics producer Afghanistan, with much of the substances bound for Western countries.

The Islamic republic says it is fighting a deadly war against drug traffickers who make up half its prison population. Drug trafficking is punishable by death.

More than 4,000 police officers and soldiers have been killed during the past three decades in clashes with the traffickers, who often travel in heavily armed convoys, according to officials.

Iran has spent more than $700 million on building a “wall” along lengthy stretches of its 1,700-kilometre (1,050-mile) eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan in a bid to stop the trafficking, officials say.

Tehran’s anti-drugs efforts are regularly praised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which regularly provides the country with financial and other assistance.

However, the United States has accused some Iranian officials, particularly within the elite Revolutionary Guards, of facilitating the transit of drugs produced in Afghanistan in exchange for the services of drug lords in its eastern neighbour.

Iranian officials in return accuse Western and Israeli intelligence services of promoting drug in Iran in an effort to destabilise the country.

Categories: News

Wars of Conquest; Every one seems to be missing the point

December 3, 2013 Leave a comment

To All concerned parties:

Gaza’s electricity problems is the last of the concern for the Palestinian people. If you look around, you will see that 25 percent of the population of the world does not have electricity. According to International Energy Agency 1.5 Billion people have no electricity; majority of people lit themselves with other elements such: candles, charcoal, petrol, crude oil, and raw fire. Electricity is almost a 21 century invention.
Even thought electricity it is a factor in the development of a country; it is not a bare necessity.

“Energy alone is not sufficient for creating the conditions for economic growth, but it is certainly necessary. It is impossible to operate a factory, run a shop, grow crops or deliver goods to consumers without using some form of energy. Access to electricity is particularly crucial to human development as electricity is, in practice, indispensable for certain basic activities, such as lighting, refrigeration and the running of household appliances, and cannot easily be replaced by other forms of energy. Individuals’ access to electricity is one of the most clear and un-distorted indication of a country’s energy poverty status.” IEA-International Energy Agency

To center our attention on Gaza’s electricity “problem” is to give Israel what they want; a diversion. While Israel is experimenting with its new weapons, using Palestinians as a drills targets for its dirty wars. And the world is busy, trying to brake Gaza blockade.
Soon we will see the “Royal Gulf Kings,” coming with their offering-Three Wise Kings Biblical Story- of Petro-dirty-bloody dollars to “alleviate” Gaza’s electricity problem. Soon, we might also see a resolution calling for Egypt, to “Ease,” The Rafah Crossing blockade, but we won’t see the real solution, a real call for an end of the occupation. Every one seems to be missing the point.

It is time to call spades as spades and call Israel an Apartheid Entity, an illegal usurper, an entity legitimized by British Rich friends in the UN.
A slowly genocide is taking place in the Land of Palestine; ethnic cleansing is methodically performed in Palestine; “ethnic cleansing, the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansing sometimes involves the removal of all physical vestiges of the targeted group through the destruction of monuments, cemeteries, and houses of worship.” Encyclopedia Britannica

“ON A COLD WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON,10 March 1948, a group of eleven men, veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches on a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That same evening, military orders were dispatched to units on the ground to prepare for the systematic expulsion of Palestinians from vast areas of the country. The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be used to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centers; setting fire to homes, properties, and goods; expelling residents; demolishing homes; and, finally, planting mines in the rubble to prevent the expelled inhabitants from returning. Each unit was issued its own list of villages and neighborhoods to target in keeping with the master plan.
Code-named Plan D (Daletin Hebrew), this was the fourth and final version of vaguer plans outlining the fate that was in store for the native population
of Palestine.” ILAN PAPṔE- The 1948 Ethinic Cleansing of Palestine

The times has come to call for the dismantling the whole Apartheid Entity of Israel. The Zionist plan have being exposed. People stop being part of the game. The Holocaust was designed. The whole Nazi Party was  part of the plan,  the Vatican, The Rich Jews; all of them took part of the plan, and they have succeed, until the internet came to expose them.

Every one in Palestine fighting for the rights of Palestinians; should be fighting for the returning of the land to its owners and that means, to leave themselves the land taken from Palestinians. Everyone fighting inside of Palestine for the right of refugees, have to start looking for a place to go. All the resident of Palestine that holds an Israel citizenship, that  came after the 1918 and 1948 exodus that resulted in the expulsion of a Palestinian family should be going back to their original countries; them and their children. It is just the right thing to do, for the sake of Justice and truth. There is so much hypocrisy going on in between the Israelis that support Palestine; helping trying to ease the guilt of the occupation. An Israeli fighting shoulder to shoulder with a Palestinian, has only credibility if, he/she is original native of Palestine.  It could be that they are acting out of pure compassion, but they are missing the point as well, they are part of the problem.

Time to End Apartheid Israel. History has no space for wars of conquest. The European Voyages of Exploration, were a salvage past of the human history. It’s time to evolve and modernize our thoughts.
There is no chosen race, there is no chosen people, there is no promise land, There is only Palestine. Viva Free Palestine.

Categories: News Tags: , , , , ,

Whistleblower Edward Snowden granted Asylum in Russia

August 1, 2013 Leave a comment

Published on August 1, 2013 by Akashma Online News

UPDATED

by Marivel Guzman

published in RT

Good News for Freedom, Edward Snowden the American whistleblower  leaves the transit area of Russia.

The words that shook the US on June 9, 2013 when Edward Snowden from a hotel in Hong Kong gave a video interview to Laura Poitras, who made the video public in the interest of society. She published it under the Fair Use Notice Act.

“Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time. That is the power to change people’s fates.”
This was the beginning of NSA nightmare for the US officials.
Now the waters are receding for everyone involved, but not for Edward Snowden, he still face very serious criminals charges if he ever is brought to the US.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and is allowed to enter the country’s territory.

This move would allow him to maneuver and apply for citizenship in another country, so he can hold a passport to take a plane to fly finally to the country that offered him permanent asylum.
Good News for Snowden he is allowed to leave the transit area of the airport and finally breath some freedom, at least for now.

He is not completely free, as long as the US consider him fugitive, Snowden it is in risk of being targeted for assassination, and who knows if Israel’s Mossad will lend a hand to their financial supporters in exchange to stir the mood in the EU after they boycotted Israel economic aid against the illegal settlements. But
Knowing the shady political relations of US/Russia we are in the dark as the secret deals these two countries make in behalf of their banking masters.

For now all the eyes are in Snowden and that gives him a cloud of security. The US could not attempt a drone strike in Russian territory, it is not in its best interest, this could open up an ego wound on the pride of Russia. One thing is to have diplomatic relations on the light of the camera, but another thing is to allow US to openly brake the sovereign of Russia flying in its skies.

The whistleblower has been granted temporary political asylum in Russia, Snowden’s legal representative Anatoly Kucherena said, with his words later confirmed by Russia’s Federal Migration service.

“I have just handed over to him papers from the Russian Immigration Service. They are what he needs to leave the transit zone,” he added.

Kucherena showed a photocopy of the document to the press. According to it, Snowden is free to stay in Russia until at least July 31, 2014. His asylum status may be extended annually upon request.

With his newly-awarded legal status in Russia, Snowden cannot be handed over to the US authorities, even if Washington files an official request. He can now be transported to the United States only if he agrees to go voluntarily.

Snowden departed at around 15.30 Moscow time (11.30 GMT), airport sources said. His departure came some 30 minutes before his new refugee status was officially announced.

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights States:

  • (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
  • (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

His present location has not been made public nor will it be disclosed, Kucherena said.

“He is the most wanted person on earth and his security will be a priority,” the attorney explained. “He will deal with personal security issues and lodging himself. I will just consult him as his lawyer.”

Snowden eventually intends to talk to the press in Russia, but needs at least one day of privacy, Kucherena said.

The whistleblower was unaccompanied when he left the airport in a regular taxi, Kucherena added.

However, WikiLeaks contradicted the lawyer, saying the organization’s activist Sarah Harrison accompanied Snowden.

FLASH: We can now confirm that Edward Snowden’s welfare has been continuously monitored by WikiLeaks staff since his presence in Hong Kong.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 1, 2013

Russia is confident that the latest development in the Snowden case will not affect US President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to Moscow, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said.

“We are aware of the atmosphere being created in the US over Snowden, but we didn’t get any signals [indicating a possible cancellation of the visit] from American authorities,” he told RIA Novosti.

Snowden, a former CIA employee and NSA contractor, came to international prominence after leaking several classified documents detailing massive electronic surveillance by the US government and foreign allies who collaborated with them.

Snowden was hiding out in a Hong Kong hotel when he first went public in May. Amidst mounting US pressure on both Beijing and local authorities in the former-British colony to hand the whistleblower over for prosecution, Snowden flew to Moscow on June 23.

Moscow was initially intended as a temporary stopover on his journey, as Snowden was believed to be headed to Ecuador via Cuba. However, he ended up getting stranded at Sheremetyevo Airport after the US government revoked his passport. Snowden could neither leave Russia nor enter it, forcing him to remain in the airport’s transit zone.

In July, Snowden applied for temporary asylum in Russia, a status that would allow him to live and work in the country for one year. Kucherena earlier said the fugitive whistleblower is considering securing permanent residency in Russia, where he will attempt to build a life.

President Nicolas Maduro said asylum would be “seriously” considered if sought. Snowden deserves a “humanitarian medal,” he added.

“If this young man is punished, nobody in the world will ever dare to tell the truth,” he stressed.

He’s a man of his word. It’s official. Maduro granted Snowden asylum. He did so on Venezuela’s Day of Independence.  Global Research

Related News to Edward Snowden

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, News, US, WikiLeaks Tags: , , , , ,

AP exec editor briefs UN Security Council on protection of journalists

July 27, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Akashma Online News

Kathleen Carroll
Senior Vice President and Executive Editor
The Associated Press
Remarks on the safety of journalists worldwide
United Nations Security Council


July 17, 2013

AP Press Release

 

 

Associated Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll addresses a United Nations Security Council meeting on the protection of civilians in armed conflict and the protection of journalists, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

 
Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you for the opportunity to talk about an important subject — the right of journalists around the world to work without threat or peril.

Everyone who walks into the main newsroom at AP’s global headquarters in New York passes our Wall of Honor, a softly lit display of photographs and biographies of the 31 Associated Press journalists who have died on assignment since the organization was founded 167 years ago.

I pass it every morning, frequently pausing to look at the faces of the five men killed on my watch as editor:

Nazeh Darwazeh, killed on April 19, 2003, while filming a confrontation between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Saleh Ibrahim, shot to death on April 23, 2005, as he arrived to cover an explosion in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Aswam Ahmed Lutfallah, shot to death by insurgents as he filmed their gunfight with police in Mosul on December 12, 2006.

Ahmed Hadi Naji, who left home astride his red-and-white motorbike on the way to the AP Baghdad office and disappeared. His body was found in a morgue six days later, January 5, 2007. He had been shot in the back of the head.

Anthony Mitchell, headed home to Kenya from a West Africa reporting trip when the plane he was on crashed in Cameroon on May 5, 2007, killing all aboard.

Like those five men, most of the 31 people on our wall died covering conflict, beginning with the 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn in the United States.

They fell during the Spanish-American war in Cuba, the Russo-Japanese War, the Korean conflict and World War II – which claimed five AP journalists. Another five died in Vietnam.

Many were shot to death. In an ambush. Or a riot. Shot at a checkpoint. Captured, tortured and shot by the Nazis.

Two were attacked by mobs during civil unrest. Others were mortally wounded by mortars or shells. One went down on a warship, another on a refugee ship.

Others were lost in plane crashes or one of many helicopter crashes, including the 1993 crash in Afghanistan that took the life of the only woman on the Wall of Honor, my friend Sharon Herbaugh.

We bring visitors to the Wall of Honor and it’s important to explain why this is such a special place to us.

These people are part of our professional family. They are in my head and heart each time we send AP journalists off into the world’s many treacherous spots.

But more often, journalists aren’t heading off to an assignment in a treacherous spot. That dangerous assignment is the country they call home and the threat is not from war.

Indeed, most journalists who die today are not caught in some wartime cross-fire, they are murdered just because of what they do. And those murders are rarely ever solved; the killers rarely ever punished.

The Committee to Protect Journalists documents the attacks on journalists each year and their annual accounting is grim indeed. More than 30 journalists are murdered every year and many are abducted and tortured first.

In the overwhelming number of cases — 90 percent — the killers go unpunished. Free to attack and kill again.

CPJ has found that most murdered journalists — 5 in 6 — are killed in their own hometowns covering local stories … usually crime and corruption.

They are attacked by people who know their work, and often know them personally. The journalists are menaced, arrested, beaten again and again; their families or colleagues threatened.

The attacks frequently escalate and some journalists flee their homeland for an exile’s life.
Others are jailed, sometimes for years. Some disappear off the face of the earth.

And many — too many — turn up dead. 12 in Somalia last year alone, 5 in Pakistan, 4 in Brazil, 3 in Syria, others in Russia, Nigeria, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Ecuador, India and the Philippines.

So why should the world’s leaders care about threats against journalists?

Many officials the world over complain that journalists are headstrong and nosy. They ask questions, they write stories and take pictures that don’t always sit well with the powerful people they cover. They aim their cameras at things some people don’t want the world to see.

Yet journalists represent the ordinary citizen … they ask questions on behalf of those people. They go to places the people cannot and bear witness. An attack on a journalist is a proxy for an attack on the people, an attack on their right to information about their communities and their institutions.

It’s true that today, a journalist’s tools are readily available to those average citizens. They have smart phones, cameras, satellite transmissions, and many make important contributions to news coverage.

Indeed, authenticated images and reports from deep inside Syria — some by average citizens, some by partisans — have contributed to the world’s understanding of the fighting in that country in the past two years.

Their work enriches what we learn about the world every day, yet the threat to them can be just as great as the threat to professional journalists.

Who will protect them?

And who will protect the reporters and photographers and editors and radio commentators and television hosts … the men and women who swallow fear every day, who constantly calculate the risks of simply doing their job, wondering if the next breath they draw will be their last.

The safety of journalists is not a political topic or a professional rallying cry for me. It is deeply personal. The journalists we have lost all left families behind, often very young children growing up with only the faintest memories of the parent who never came home.

As much as I want to, I know I cannot personally protect all the AP journalists at work in every corner of the globe. But every day, I try to do it anyway.

Because there are 31 photos on the AP Wall of Honor.

And 31 pictures is enough.

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, News, US Tags: ,

Facebook, Apple, Microsoft Partner With Privacy Groups To Call For NSA Transparency

July 18, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Akashma Online News

By

First Published at The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post is owned by AOL, which also signed the letter and has denied knowledge of the NSA surveillance program.

A coalition of major tech companies and civil liberties groups on Thursday sent a letter to President Barack Obama calling for more transparency around a secret government program that collects private Internet and phone records.

In the letter, the companies argued that Americans “are entitled to have an informed public debate” about surveillance requests. The coalition urged the Obama administration to allow companies to report statistics about the number of national security requests they receive from government agencies for customer data.

The letter said the government should also issue its own regular “transparency report” disclosing that information.

“Basic information about how the government uses its various law enforcement–related investigative authorities has been published for years without any apparent disruption to criminal investigations,” the letter reads. “We seek permission for the same information to be made available regarding the government’s national security–related authorities.”

“This information about how and how often the government is using these legal authorities is important to the American people, who are entitled to have an informed public debate about the appropriateness of those authorities and their use,” the letter continues.

The companies addressed their petition to President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, NSA Director Keith Alexander, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper and several members of Congress. It was signed by more than 20 tech companies and more than 30 trade associations and privacy groups — including Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Silicon Valley and privacy groups do not always agree over privacy matters, making their partnership for the letter noteworthy. Tech companies have faced widespread criticism in recent weeks over reports that they cooperated with the government’s secret Internet spying program. Many tech giants have expressed frustration that they are prohibited by law from discussing the surveillance orders.

The nation’s largest phone companies, including AT&T and Verizon Wireless, were not part of the coalition that signed the letter and have remained quiet about their participation in the NSA surveillance program, as Time.com noted.

The letter comes amid growing calls for greater disclosure about the NSA’s collection of phone and Internet records and a push from members of Congress to scale back the surveillance program, which was disclosed last month in a series of stories in The Guardian and Washington Post.

Disclosure: The Huffington Post is owned by AOL, which also signed the letter and has denied knowledge of the NSA surveillance program.

 

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, National Security News, News, US Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

EU consuls recommend imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements

July 16, 2013 Leave a comment

Nonbinding Heads of Mission report for 2012 focuses on Israeli construction in E-1, policy in East Jerusalem and endangering of two-state solution; call to actively encourage European divestment from settlements is particularly severe.

By | Feb. 27, 2013 | 8:08 AM |
Published on Haaretz

West Bank settlement Modi'in llit

West Bank settlement Modi’in llit Photo by AP
The European Union’s consuls general in East Jerusalem and Ramallah are recommending economic sanctions against settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Among the recommendations made in the nonbinding Heads of Mission report for 2012, which has been obtained by Haaretz, is to “prevent, discourage and raise awareness about problematic implications of financial transactions including foreign direct investments, from within the EU in support of settlement activities, infrastructure and services.”

Seven of the report’s 10 recommendations deal with imposing direct or indirect sanctions by the European Union on bodies and organizations involved in construction in the settlements. The recommendation to actively encourage European divestment from the settlements is particularly severe, compared with previous internal EU reports.

The consuls recommend that the EU ensure strict application of the free trade agreement between the EU and Israel so that products manufactured in settlements do not benefit from preferential treatment. Another clause recommends encouraging efforts to enforce existing legislation requiring products made in the settlements to be labeled as such at sales points.

Efforts must be made to “ensure that imports of settlement products do not benefit from preferential tariffs and guarantee the consumers’ right to an informed choice” with regard to the origin and labeling of products, the report states. The annual mission report, which is written by all the heads of diplomatic missions of EU member states in the Palestinian Authority, does not compel practical steps, but serves as a basis for internal discussions of the Israel-Palestinian situation.

The 2012 report, which was handed in early January to the EU institutions in Brussels and to the foreign ministries of the 27 member states, also advocates closer supervision of cooperative programs between the EU and Israel with regard to technological research and development to ensure that no research grants, scholarships or other technological investments assist settlements, either directly or indirectly.

The diplomats gave the example of Israel’s participation in a cooperative program called Horizon 2020, through which the EU invests hundreds of millions of euros in Israeli high-tech firms. They noted that some of this funding goes to firms like the research laboratories of the cosmetics company Ahava, which are located in the Jordan Valley kibbutz Mitzpeh Shalem, near the Dead Sea. If the EU consuls’ recommendations are accepted, such investments will stop, since the kibbutz is seen as a settlement.

The report takes Israel to task over the decision to move ahead on construction plans in Area E-1, the corridor meant to link Jerusalem to the nearby West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim. The decision was made in late November, after the Palestinians’ statehood bid in the United Nations. The implementation of the E-1 project “threatens 2,300 Bedouin with forcible transfer” and “would effectively divide the West Bank into separate northern and southern parts,” the report states, adding that it would also “prevent Palestinians in East Jerusalem from further urban development and cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.”

The consuls recommend to the EU member states to “coordinate EU monitoring and a strong EU response in order to prevent settlement construction in E1, including opposing forced transfer of the Bedouin communities in E1.”

The consuls state that the continuation of Israel’s policy in East Jerusalem could thwart the possibility of the city serving as the Israeli and Palestinian capital and therefore put the entire two-state solution at risk.

According to the report, Israel is “systematically undermining the Palestinian presence” in Jerusalem, through policies including “restrictive zoning and planning, demolitions and evacuations, discriminatory access to religious sites, an inequitable education policy, difficult access to health care, the inadequate provision of resources.”

A large portion of the report deals with Israeli restrictions on Muslim and Christian religious practice in Jerusalem and accuses Israel of attempting to change the character of Jerusalem as a city sacred to the three faiths. The Israeli government “selectively enforces legal and policy restrictions on religious freedoms and on access in particular for Christian and Muslim worshippers to their holy sites in Jerusalem/Old City,” the report states.

The consuls direct special attention to the cooperation between the right-wing group Elad and the Israel Antiquities Authority, determining that the purpose of this collaboration is to promote “a partisan historical narrative, placing emphasis on the biblical and Jewish connotations of the area while neglecting the Christian/Muslim claims of historic-archaeological ties to the same place.”

The authors said it seems that an attempt is being made to use archaeology to erase Muslim and Christian connections to the city, and that the “overreaching purpose of such a pre-programmed approach to the presence of archaeological evidence in the area seems to be a concerted effort by pro-settler groups to use archaeology to enhance an exclusively Jewish narrative on Jerusalem.”

The consuls say 2012 saw a rise in the number of violent incidents on the Temple Mount and a sharp increase in “the frequency and visibility of visits by Jewish radical political and religious groups, often in a provocative manner.” According to the report, the Palestinians fear that Israel is trying to change the status quo on the Temple Mount and create “Hebronization” there by arrangements similar to those in force at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

In the report the consuls say that construction of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem is “systematic, deliberate and provocative” and presents as an example Israel’s announcement that 3,000 new housing units were approved by the government, a statement that came shortly after the Palestinians had their UN status upgraded to non-member observer state.

The consuls noted in particular three construction plans they view as problematic: the eastward expansion of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa, the southward and westward expansion of Gilo and housing construction in the Givat Hamatos neighborhood in between.

“The construction of these three settlements is part of a political strategy aiming at making it impossible for Jerusalem to become the capital of two states,” the report states.

Categories: News Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

60,000 Congolese flee to Uganda after rebel attack

July 14, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Akashma Online News

AP News

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — An aid group says about 60,000 Congolese have fled to Uganda after a rebel attack on a town by the border, stretching humanitarian capacities.

Catherine Ntabadde of the Uganda Red Cross said Sunday that her organization had already registered 41,000 refugees and that 20,000 more are yet to be registered.

The refugee influx continues three days after a Ugandan-led rebel group attacked the Kamango town and killed some people on Thursday, according to Ugandan military officials.

That group —the Allied Democratic Forces —had been hibernating in the jungles of eastern Congo for years since a military assault ousted it from Ugandan territory. It was formed in the early 1990s by Ugandan Muslims who want to install Shariah law in Uganda and who staged deadly terrorist attacks in the 1990s.

BBC News

Thousands of people have fled the Democratic Republic of Congo after a group of Ugandan rebels attacked a border town, aid workers say.

The Allied Democratic Forces raided the town of Kamango on Thursday, according to the Ugandan army spokesman.

At least 18,000 people have crossed into Uganda, the Red Cross has said.

The ADF is based in mineral-rich eastern DR Congo, where numerous armed groups have caused havoc over the past two decades.

Uganda army spokesman Lt Col Paddy Ankunda told the AP news agency that some people had been killed in the attack but did not give any further details.

The rebels kidnapped some people, including a local chief, as they withdrew from the town, local media report.

The ADF was formed in 1996 by a puritanical Muslim sect in the Ruwenzori mountains of western Uganda.

In 1998 it increased its activities and a number of bomb blasts in markets and restaurants in Kampala were blamed on the group.

After years of sporadic raids, the Ugandan army almost destroyed the ADF’s capacity in 2004 and it moved into DR Congo.

However, a United Nations report last year said the rebels had expanded their military capacity and established links with Somalia’s al-Shabab militants.

Aljazeera News

More than 30,000 people have fled their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and crossed into neighbouring Uganda after a rebel group that had been hiding out in eastern Congo attacked a town.

Families streamed across a bridge over a river near the border, clutching belongings. Some carried firewood over their heads, many brought livestock and women held small babies.

Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, reporting from the Ugandan side of the border on Friday, said people were so desperate to escape that some ignored the bridge and waded through the river.

Video of Refugees fleeing Congo

Fox News

Congolese fleeing to Uganda top 55,000: Red Cross

Published July 14, 2013

  • photo_1373792583399-1-HD.jpg

    Refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo wait after crossing into western Uganda at the Busunga border post on July 13, 2013. More than 55,000 people have arrived in Uganda after fleeing a rebel attack, Red Cross officials say, a dramatic rise from earlier estimates. (AFP)

  • photo_1373794212912-1-HD.jpg

    Refugees from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo arrive at the Busunga border in western Uganda on July 13, 2013. More than 55,000 people have arrived in Uganda after fleeing a rebel attack, Red Cross officials said, a dramatic rise from earlier estimates. (AFP)

BUNDIBUGYO, Uganda (AFP) –  More than 55,000 refugees from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have arrived in Uganda after fleeing a rebel attack, Red Cross officials said on Sunday, a dramatic rise from earlier estimates.

“Given such numbers there is need for urgent humanitarian assistance, as some of the refugees are sick and have left all their belongings in Congo,” Uganda Red Cross official Catherine Ntabadde told AFP.

Read Congo invasion(s) and Colonization(s) : U.S. Military and Corporate Recolonization of the Congo

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, News, Uganda Tags: , , , , , , ,

Press Release: Members of the Organization of The American States

July 14, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Akashma Online News

by Marivel Guzman

(Adopted at the meeting held on July 9, 2013)

SOLIDARITY OF THE OAS MEMBER STATES WITH THE PRESIDENT,
EVO MORALES AYMA, AND PEOPLE OF THE PLURINATIONAL STATE OF BOLIVIA

THE PERMANENT COUNCIL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES,

CONSIDERING:

That the Charter of the Organization of American States establishes that “international law is the standard of conduct of States in their reciprocal relations;” and that “international order consists essentially of respect for the personality, sovereignty, and independence of States, and the faithful fulfillment of the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law;”

That all states must strictly observe the rules and customs governing immunity of all Heads of State, as well as the rules and regulations of international law relating to the use of airspace for overflight and landing;

That the Government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, through its Permanent Mission to the OAS, reported and publicly alleged that on July 2, 2013, the Presidential Airplane FAB-001 that was taking President Evo Morales Ayma from Moscow to La Paz was forced to make an emergency landing in Vienna, Austria, because of the cancellation, denial, or delaying of previously issued overflight and landing permits for airspaces of France, Portugal, Italy, and Spain, potentially compromising the safety of the Bolivian President and his entourage; and violating international law on the subject matter; and

That the Secretary General of the Organization in a timely manner, through a press release, has expressed deep concern at the decision by the authorities of several European countries that prevented the airplane carrying the President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Evo Morales, from Moscow to La Paz from using their airspace; and at the same time called on the countries involved to explain the reasons for taking this decision, particularly as it put the life of the leader of a member country of the OAS at risk,

RESOLVES:

1. To express the solidarity of the member states of the Organization of American States with the President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Evo Morales Ayma.

2. To condemn actions that violate the basic rules and principles of international law such as the inviolability of Heads of State.

3. To firmly call on the Governments of France, Portugal, Italy, and Spain to provide the necessary explanations of the events that took place with the President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Evo Morales Ayma, as well as apologies as appropriate.

4. To call for a continuation of respectful and constructive dialogue involving the parties, in accordance with the rules of international law and the mechanisms for peaceful settlement of disputes.

5. To reaffirm the full validity of the principles, rules, and international customs governing diplomatic relations among states and guaranteeing peaceful coexistence among all countries comprising the international community.

6. To instruct the Secretary General to follow up on the contents of this resolution.

Video of the Metting

FOOTNOTES

1. Canada cannot join consensus on this resolution. Canada does respect the privileges and immunities granted to heads of State in customary international law. However, in this case, there are conflicting interpretations of the facts surrounding the event. Moreover, the alleged granting or cancellation of overflight authorization is a bilateral matter separate from the question of the privileges and immunities of heads of State. Before bringing the matter to this Organization, those states named in the resolution should seek a resolution through diplomatic channels.

2. The United States cannot join consensus on this resolution. The relevant facts regarding the incident at issue are unclear and subject to conflicting reports. It is therefore inappropriate for this organization to make statements regarding them at this time. In addition, the question of granting or canceling of overflight or landing permits is a bilateral matter between Bolivia and the countries concerned. It is unhelpful and inappropriate for the OAS to attempt to intervene at this moment.
Reference: S-012

Categories: Akashma, National Security News, News Tags: , , , ,

This is Trayvon Martin lifeless body-Not just another black kid

July 14, 2013 2 comments

This, Courtesy of MSNBC, Is Trayvon Martin’s Dead Body. Get Angry.

by Adam Weinstein

Trayvon Martin Lifeless body

Trayvon Martin Lifeless body

A reader of mine sent me this photo last night. As the murder trial of George Zimmerman wheezes to its conclusion, the TV networks dutifully pipe in live pool video from the courtroom, as if it is force-fed to them and they have no choice but to excrete it, soft and undigested, into our living rooms, bedrooms, offices. Sometimes, the pool recorder or the networks’ producers don’t switch to a mundane image of lawyers being lawyerly quite fast enough, and we get to see snippets of the human cruelty, stupidity, and frailty that occasion trials such as this.

This is Trayvon Martin’s body. These are the last skinny jeans he wore, cuffed once at the bottoms. These are his stylish kicks, his sockless ankles. There are Trayvon’s taut neck, his slack jaw, his open eyes.

This is what happens. Not just when we input “black” and “teen” and “hoodie” and “night” into our onboard computers and output “DANGER,” but also when we find the aftermath Newsworthy, and must consume it voraciously from start to finish, but insist that we cannot stomach seeing the bones and gristle on our plates.

This image has made its way to the internet on message boards and the like, but not on any notable sites that I could find. The Huffington Post and others have published some images of Martin’s body—covered by a sheet—but none of his face.

I had a brief conversation by email and phone last night with the reader who wanted to send this to me, who felt compelled to save it, but seemed unsure why he had. Before he’d shared the image, I asked him what it showed. Was it newsworthy? He stammered. “It’s… a dead black kid,” he said, disturbed, hoping five words could convey many more. In email, he’d asked me: “What will you do with pic?”

To Trayvon’s parents, Sabrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, I’m sorry that I feel compelled to share this photograph. Were I a slave to journalistic norms, I would say that it’s somehow in the public interest to see him there. I would point out Florida’s sunshine laws, and the TV network’s incompetence, and argue the inevitability that this image would’ve gained a wider audience than it has already.

But those are rationalizations. They don’t explain my motive: Good old-fashioned rage that this kid is dead because my home state empowered a dullard aficionado of Van Damme and Seagal movie cliches to choose his own adventure. Florida literally gave George Zimmerman license to make up neighborhood threats and invite violent confrontations, confident in the knowledge that he carried more firepower jammed down his sweaty fat waistband than every army on earth beheld before 1415.

I wish I were a better person than that, but I’m not. People come up short all the time, after all. I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t have a gun.

Re-Shared from Gawker.com

Gawker contributor Adam Weinstein is a Florida-based writer and editor. You can reach him via adamweinsteinwriter.com.

Categories: Akashma, News, US Tags: , , ,

Florida jury finds George Zimmerman not guilty

July 14, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on July 13, 2013 by Akashma Online News

Florida Jury set a new precedent for Justice finding George Zimmerman not guilty of second degree murder

11George Zimmerman's parents Robert Zimmerman Sr. and Gladys Zimmerman celebrate following their son's his not guilty verdict in the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin at the Seminole County Criminal Justice Center in Sanford, Florida, July 13, 2013. REUTERS-Gary W. Green-Pool
A Seminole County Sheriff's deputy carries Trayvon Martin's shirt as trial evidence is moved out of the courtroom in Sanford, Florida July 13, 2013 during the trial of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. REUTERS-Joe Burbank-Pool

By Ellen Wulfhorst

SANFORD, Florida | Sat Jul 13, 2013 10:50pm EDT

(Reuters) – A Florida jury on Saturday found George Zimmerman not guilty in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, in a case that sparked a national debate on race and guns.

The panel of six women deliberated more than 16 hours over two days until nearly 10 p.m. on Saturday (0200 GMT Sunday) before delivering the verdict, which drew immediate condemnation from some civil rights groups.

Zimmerman appeared stoned-faced as the verdict was announced, but then showed a slight smile of relief. His parents embraced each other and his wife was tearful.

Zimmerman, 29, said Martin, 17, attacked him on the night of February 26, 2012, in the central Florida town of Sanford. Prosecutors contend the neighborhood watch coordinator in his gated community was a “wannabe cop” who tracked down the teenager and shot him without justification.

The jury could have convicted him of second-degree murder or manslaughter.

“Today, justice failed Trayvon Martin and his family,” Roslyn M. Brock, chairman of the National Association of Colored People, said in a statement.

“We call immediately for the Justice Department to conduct an investigation into the civil rights violations committed against Trayvon Martin. This case has re-energized the movement to end racial profiling in the United States.”

The news also drew angry shouts from some of the dozens of demonstrators who had gathered outside the courtroom during the day in support of Martin’s family. His parents were not in the court during the reading of the verdict.

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson tweeted within minutes of the acquittal: “Avoid violence, it will lead to more tragedies. Find a way for self construction not deconstruction in this time of despair.”

What happened in Sanford that February night may never have gone beyond the back pages of a local newspaper if police had immediately arrested Zimmerman.

But he walked free for more than six weeks after the shooting, because police believed his claim of self-defense, triggering protests and cries of injustice across America.

It also drew comment from President Barack Obama, forced the resignation of Sanford’s police chief, and brought U.S. Justice Department scrutiny to this town of 54,000 residents not far from Disney World in Orlando.

(Additional reporting by Tom Brown in Miami and Barbara Liston in Sanford; Editing by Dina Kyriakidou and Peter Cooney)

 

Categories: Akashma, News, US Tags:

Edward Snowden Statement 11 a:m, according to WikiLeaks Team

July 13, 2013 Leave a comment

Update 11 a.m.: Here’s the transcript of Snowden’s remarks,

Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time. That is the power to change people’s fates.

It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.

I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: “Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”

Accordingly, I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets. I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.

That moral decision to tell the public about spying that affects all of us has been costly, but it was the right thing to do and I have no regrets.

Since that time, the government and intelligence services of the United States of America have attempted to make an example of me, a warning to all others who might speak out as I have. I have been made stateless and hounded for my act of political expression. The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists. It demanded Hong Kong return me outside of the framework of its laws, in direct violation of the principle of non-refoulement – the Law of Nations. It has threatened with sanctions countries who would stand up for my human rights and the UN asylum system. It has even taken the unprecedented step of ordering military allies to ground a Latin American president’s plane in search for a political refugee. These dangerous escalations represent a threat not just to the dignity of Latin America, but to the basic rights shared by every person, every nation, to live free from persecution, and to seek and enjoy asylum.

Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless. By refusing to compromise their principles in the face of intimidation, they have earned the respect of the world. It is my intention to travel to each of these countries to extend my personal thanks to their people and leaders.

I announce today my formal acceptance of all offers of support or asylum I have been extended and all others that may be offered in the future. With, for example, the grant of asylum provided by Venezuela’s President Maduro, my asylee status is now formal, and no state has a basis by which to limit or interfere with my right to enjoy that asylum. As we have seen, however, some governments in Western European and North American states have demonstrated a willingness to act outside the law, and this behavior persists today. This unlawful threat makes it impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there in accordance with our shared rights.

This willingness by powerful states to act extra-legally represents a threat to all of us, and must not be allowed to succeed. Accordingly, I ask for your assistance in requesting guarantees of safe passage from the relevant nations in securing my travel to Latin America, as well as requesting asylum in Russia until such time as these states accede to law and my legal travel is permitted. I will be submitting my request to Russia today, and hope it will be accepted favorably.

If you have any questions, I will answer what I can.

Thank you.

This post has been updated with additional information as it became available.

Categories: Akashma, National Security News, News Tags:

Edward Snowden Has Accepted Russian Asylum Offer

July 13, 2013 Leave a comment

Published on July 13, 2013 by Akashma Online News

Snowden will have to agree not to continue releasing documents harmful to the US.

Photo Credit: Tanya Lokshina / Human Rights Watch

This article was originally published by This Can’t Be Happening.

Edward Snowden, the bete noir of the US national security state, who has leaked information that the National Security Agency is spying on all electronic communications of Americans, and on hundreds of millions of others around the globe, as well as on the leaders and the embassies of even many US allies, is accepting an offer of political asylum that has been extended by Russia, where he has been spending weeks in limbo in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, unable to fly to asylum elsewhere because of heavy-handed US pressure.

According to an RT-TV report [1], Snowden, in accepting the Russian offer, will have to abide by a condition set by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he not continue releasing documents harmful to the US.

This deal leaves a lot of questions unanswered:

First of all, Snowden has already turned over a huge trove of information to reporters at the Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper in the UK, as well as lesser amounts of documents to Der Spiegel magazine in Germany and to other publications in other countries. It would appear that he can no longer control, at this point, whether or not those news organizations continue to publish articles based on the documents in their possession, It is also unclear what the Russian government response would be concerning Snowden’s protected status should any of those organizations, as is likely, continue to publish embarrassing or damaging disclosures about the NSA. Asked by reporters at an airport press conference whether he would continue to release details about the NSA himself while in Russia, Snowden’s answer was simple: “My job is done.” That “job,” though, was providing the leaked information to reporters. Snowden himself has not publicly disclosed the information.

Snowden also correctly pointed out the distinction between “damaging America,” and exposing the NSA. “No actions I take or plan are meant to harm the US… I want the US to succeed,” he said in answer to a question. Would Putin consider further leaks about the US government’s spying on its own citizens “damaging” to America? Open question.

Liveleak.com video of Friday’s Snowden press conference for Right Group Activists in Moscow airport

In any event, Putin has made clear that Russia would never extradite Snowden. As he put it, “Russia has never extradited anyone and is not going to do so. Same as no one has ever been extradited to Russia.” Besides, the cat’s already out of the bag, in terms of the big revelations Snowden made public.

The RT-TV report also suggests that Snowden and Russia may be looking at the asylum situation there as less than a lifetime arrangement. It appears to be a way for Russia to get him out of the airport, into Russia, to further tweak the US, and to put Snowden in an official status where he could be provided with travel documents as a matter of course, as would an asylum grantee in the US

This could enable him to quietly leave Russia later for another location after some time has passed. The RT story significantly quotes Tatyana Lokshina of Human Rights Watch as saying Snowden is seeking to stay in Russia because he “can’t fly to Latin America yet.”

Three Latin American countries so far–Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua– have offered Snowden asylum without conditions, but he has been unable to safely travel to any of them, given the already demonstrated US threat to force his plane to land. (American authorities exerted pressure on French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish governments to refuse their airspace, in violation of international law, to a presidential plane carrying Bolivia’s leader, Evo Morales, to fly home from a state visit to Russia, forcing it to land in Austria, where the government was pressed to illegally inspect the plane, which the US incorrectly suspected was transporting Snowden to asylum in Bolivia.) At the airport conference, Snowden said he had accepted all three of those offers of asylum, as well as Russia’s. “I announce today my formal acceptance of all offers of support or asylum I have been extended and all others that may be offered in the future,” Snowden said, after meeting with human rights lawyers earlier.

 

Second Part of the Original Video made public by The Guardian

Categories: Akashma, News, Social Change Tags: , , ,

Glenn Greenwald: “Snowden has information for more damage”

July 13, 2013 Leave a comment

Published on July 13, 2013 by Akashma Online News

The journalist who received the leaks from the CIA Mole said there are more documents

By Alberto Armendariz | LA NACION

RIO DE JANEIRO. – Smoke and Mirrors. With his striped bathing suit, his white sandals, his jean jacket and a backpack, Glenn Greenwald seems like a tourist walking along the promenade of Sao Conrado, Rio de Janeiro. But it is the journalist, blogger and columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian who surprised the world with revelations about the extensive network of U.S. cyber espionage that was leaked by Edward Snowden, former intelligence analyst for the National Security Agency (NSA ).

“Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the U.S. government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States,” Greenwald, 46, told LA NACION, and since living in these latitudes writes regularly on international security issues which has made him famous, winner of several distinguished awards.

Today, the New Yorker, a former lawyer, is in the eye of the storm. Lawmakers in Washington want to put him on trial, spies of various countries seek Snowden’s secret information shared with him last month in Hong Kong and which he still sends from Moscow through an encrypted email system. He knows he’s being watched and that their conversations are monitored. They even steal the laptop from her boyfriend Rio, from their own home.

Three men wait in the lobby of the hotel Royal Tulip with credentials of a congress of osteoporosis about which the manager has no idea. Are they really doctors or are following Greenwald? Appearances are deceptive.

– Does Snowden’s decision to stay in Russia help him come to Latin America?

– Yes, the most important thing is not to end in U.S. custody, which proved extremely vindictive government to punish those who reveal uncomfortable truths, and in whose judicial system can not be trusted when it comes to people accused of endangering the national security. The judges do everything they can to secure convictions in these cases. He would be immediately put in prison to cover the debate that he helped generate, and end the rest of his days behind bars.

– Does Russia give him security guarantees?

– Not many countries in the world that have the ability and willingness to defy U.S. demands. But Russia is one of those countries and it has been good so far.

– Beyond the revelations about the spying system’s performance in general, what other information does Snowden have?

– Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the U.S. government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States. But that’s not his goal. His objective is to expose software that people around the world use without knowing that they are exposing themselves without consciously agreeing to surrender their privacy rights. He has a huge number of documents that would be very harmful to the U.S. government if they were made public.

– Are you afraid that someone will try to kill him?

– It’s a possibility, although it would not bring many benefits to anyone at this point. Thousands of documents are already distributed and to make sure that several people around the world have the entire file. If something were to happen, those documents would be made public. This is an insurance policy. The U.S. government should be on its knees every day praying that nothing happens to Snowden, because if something happens, all the information will be revealed and that would be their worst nightmare.

– Can Latin America be a good shelter for Snowden?

– Only a few countries, including several in Latin America, China and Russia, have challenged the U.S., and have realized that America is no longer in a position of strength as it did before with the rest of the world, and that the rest of the countries do not have to obey its demands as if it were an imperial order. In Latin America there is a feeling of natural sympathy for the United States, yet there is a great resentment for specific historical policies of Washington toward the region. What happened to the plane of Evo Morales in Europe caused a strong reaction, was treated as if Bolivia was a colony and not a sovereign state.

– From documents Snowden shared with you, is there much more information related to Latin America?

– Yes. For each country that has an advanced communications system, such as from Mexico to Argentina, there are documents that detail how the United States collects traffic information, the programs that are used to capture the transmissions, the number of interceptions that are performed per day, and more. One way to intercept communications is through a telephone corporation in the United States that has contracts with telecommunications companies in most Latin American countries. The important thing will be to see the reaction of the various governments. I do not think that the governments of Mexico and Colombia will do much about it. But maybe those of Argentina and Venezuela will be willing to take action.

Glenn Greenwald / Columnist, The Guardian
Profession: Journalist
Age: 46 years
Origin: United States

Categories: Akashma, Education and Politics, News Tags: , , , , , ,

Revealed: how Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages

July 11, 2013 3 comments

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Akashma Online News

July 11, 2013 By Edward Snowden News

Hours after CNBC reported that ValueAct Capital Management threw nearly $2 billion into Microsoft Corporation, April 22, 2013

ValueAct Capital, LLC is a San Francisco based hedge fund. The firm offers its services to high net worth individuals and institutions while investing in the public equity and hedging markets of the United States.

• Files released show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism
• Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch
• Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
• Company says it is legally compelled to comply

Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users’ communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company’s own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.

The documents show that:

• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;

• The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;

• The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;

• Microsoft also worked with the FBI’s Data Intercept Unit to “understand” potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;

Skype has been acquired by Microsoft for a whopping $8.5 billion. News.com

• Skype, which was bought by Microsoft in October 2011, worked with intelligence agencies last year to allow Prism to collect video of conversations as well as audio;

• Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a “team sport”.

The latest NSA revelations further expose the tensions between Silicon Valley and the Obama administration. All the major tech firms are lobbying the government to allow them to disclose more fully the extent and nature of their co-operation with the NSA to meet their customers’ privacy concerns. Privately, tech executives are at pains to distance themselves from claims of collaboration and teamwork given by the NSA documents, and insist the process is driven by legal compulsion.

In a statement, Microsoft said: “When we upgrade or update products we aren’t absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands.” The company reiterated its argument that it provides customer data “only in response to government demands and we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers”.

In June, the Guardian revealed that the NSA claimed to have “direct access” through the Prism program to the systems of many major internet companies, including Microsoft, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

Blanket orders from the secret surveillance court allow these communications to be collected without an individual warrant if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time. Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans’ communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas.

Since Prism’s existence became public, Microsoft and the other companies listed on the NSA documents as providers have denied all knowledge of the program and insisted that the intelligence agencies do not have back doors into their systems.

Microsoft’s latest marketing campaign, launched in April, emphasizes its commitment to privacy with the slogan: “Your privacy is our priority.”

Similarly, Skype’s privacy policy states: “Skype is committed to respecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal data, traffic data and communications content.”

But internal NSA newsletters, marked top secret, suggest the co-operation between the intelligence community and the companies is deep and ongoing.

The latest documents come from the NSA’s Special Source Operations (SSO) division, described by Snowden as the “crown jewel” of the agency. It is responsible for all programs aimed at US communications systems through corporate partnerships such as Prism.

The files show that the NSA became concerned about the interception of encrypted chats on Microsoft’s Outlook.com portal from the moment the company began testing the service in July last year.

Within five months, the documents explain, Microsoft and the FBI had come up with a solution that allowed the NSA to circumvent encryption on Outlook.com chats

A newsletter entry dated 26 December 2012 states: “MS [Microsoft], working with the FBI, developed a surveillance capability to deal” with the issue. “These solutions were successfully tested and went live 12 Dec 2012.”

Two months later, in February this year, Microsoft officially launched the Outlook.com portal.

Another newsletter entry stated that NSA already had pre-encryption access to Outlook email. “For Prism collection against Hotmail, Live, and Outlook.com emails will be unaffected because Prism collects this data prior to encryption.”

Microsoft’s co-operation was not limited to Outlook.com. An entry dated 8 April 2013 describes how the company worked “for many months” with the FBI – which acts as the liaison between the intelligence agencies and Silicon Valley on Prism – to allow Prism access without separate authorization to its cloud storage service SkyDrive.

The document describes how this access “means that analysts will no longer have to make a special request to SSO for this – a process step that many analysts may not have known about”.

The NSA explained that “this new capability will result in a much more complete and timely collection response”. It continued: “This success is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this tasking and collection solution established.”

A separate entry identified another area for collaboration. “The FBI Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU) team is working with Microsoft to understand an additional feature in Outlook.com which allows users to create email aliases, which may affect our tasking processes.”

The NSA has devoted substantial efforts in the last two years to work with Microsoft to ensure increased access to Skype, which has an estimated 663 million global users.

One document boasts that Prism monitoring of Skype video production has roughly tripled since a new capability was added on 14 July 2012. “The audio portions of these sessions have been processed correctly all along, but without the accompanying video. Now, analysts will have the complete ‘picture’,” it says.

Eight months before being bought by Microsoft, Skype joined the Prism program in February 2011.

According to the NSA documents, work had begun on smoothly integrating Skype into Prism in November 2010, but it was not until 4 February 2011 that the company was served with a directive to comply signed by the attorney general.

The NSA was able to start tasking Skype communications the following day, and collection began on 6 February. “Feedback indicated that a collected Skype call was very clear and the metadata looked complete,” the document stated, praising the co-operation between NSA teams and the FBI. “Collaborative teamwork was the key to the successful addition of another provider to the Prism system.”

 

Janus Friis-Niklas Zennstrom founders

ACLU technology expert Chris Soghoian said the revelations would surprise many Skype users. “In the past, Skype made affirmative promises to users about their inability to perform wiretaps,” he said. “It’s hard to square Microsoft’s secret collaboration with the NSA with its high-profile efforts to compete on privacy with Google.”

The information the NSA collects from Prism is routinely shared with both the FBI and CIA. A 3 August 2012 newsletter describes how the NSA has recently expanded sharing with the other two agencies.

The NSA, the entry reveals, has even automated the sharing of aspects of Prism, using software that “enables our partners to see which selectors [search terms] the National Security Agency has tasked to Prism”.

The document continues: “The FBI and CIA then can request a copy of Prism collection of any selector…” As a result, the author notes: “these two activities underscore the point that Prism is a team sport!”

In its statement to the Guardian, Microsoft said:

We have clear principles which guide the response across our entire company to government demands for customer information for both law enforcement and national security issues. First, we take our commitments to our customers and to compliance with applicable law very seriously, so we provide customer data only in response to legal processes.

Second, our compliance team examines all demands very closely, and we reject them if we believe they aren’t valid. Third, we only ever comply with orders about specific accounts or identifiers, and we would not respond to the kind of blanket orders discussed in the press over the past few weeks, as the volumes documented in our most recent disclosure clearly illustrate.

Finally when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a law enforcement or national security request. There are aspects of this debate that we wish we were able to discuss more freely. That’s why we’ve argued for additional transparency that would help everyone understand and debate these important issues.

In a joint statement, Shawn Turner, spokesman for the director of National Intelligence, and Judith Emmel, spokeswoman for the NSA, said:

The articles describe court-ordered surveillance – and a US company’s efforts to comply with these legally mandated requirements. The US operates its programs under a strict oversight regime, with careful monitoring by the courts, Congress and the Director of National Intelligence. Not all countries have equivalent oversight requirements to protect civil liberties and privacy.

They added: “In practice, US companies put energy, focus and commitment into consistently protecting the privacy of their customers around the world, while meeting their obligations under the laws of the US and other countries in which they operate.”

Categories: National Security News, News Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Edward Snowden Der Spiegel Interview

July 11, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Akashma Online News

Interview Translated from the original Der Spiegel Magazine interview  German Version by Anonymous

Just before Edward Snowden became a world famous whistleblower, he answered an extensive catalog of questions. These came from, amongst others, Jacob Appelbaum, 30, a developer of encryption and security software. Appelbaum educates international human rights groups and journalists on how to work with the Internet in safe and anonymous way.
He became more publicly know in 2010, when he represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaking at a hacker conference in New York. Along with Assange and other co-authors he has recently published the interview recording “Cypher Punks: Our Freedom and the future of the Internet.”
In the course of investigations into the WikiLeaks disclosures, Appelbaum came to the attention of American authorities, who demanded companies such as Twitter and Google to divulge his accounts. He himself describes his attitude to WikiLeaks as “ambivalent” – and describes below how it came about that he was able to ask Snowden these questions.

In mid-May I was contacted by the documentary-maker Laura Poitras. She told me, that at this time she was in contact with an anonymous NSA source, which had consented to be interviewed by her.
She put together questions and asked me to contribute questions. This was, among other reasons, to determine whether she was really dealing with a NSA whistleblower. We sent our questions via encrypted e-mails. I did not know that the interlocutor was Edward Snowden until he revealed himself as such in public in Hong Kong. He did not know who I was. I had expected that he was someone in their sixties.
The following is an excerpt from a extensive interview which dealt with further points, many of them technical in nature. Some of the questions now appear in a different order to understand the context.
The discussion focused almost exclusively on the activities of the National Security Agency. It is important to know that these questions were not asked as relating to the events of the past week or the last month. They were entirely asked without any unrest, since, at that point, Snowden was still in Hawaii.
At a later stage I was again in direct contact with Snowden, at which time I also revealed my own my identity. He told me then that he gave consent to publish his statements.

+++++
Question: What is the mission of the National Security Agency (NSA) – and how is their job in accordance with the law?
Snowden: It is the mission of the NSA, to be aware of anything of importance going on outside of the United States. This is a considerable task, and the people there are convinced that not knowing everything about everyone could lead to some existential crisis. So, at some point, you believe it’s all right is to bend the rules a little. Then, if people hate it that you can bend the rules, it suddenly becomes vital even to to break them.

Question: Are German authorities or politicians involved in the monitoring system ?
Snowden: Yes of course. They (the NSA people — ed.) are in cahoots with the Germans, as well as with the most other Western countries. We (in the U.S. intelligence apparatus — ed.) warn the others, when someone we want to catch, uses one of their airports – and they then deliver them to us. The information on this, we can for example pull off of the monitored mobile phone of a suspected hacker’s girlfriend — who used it in an entirely different country which has nothing to do with the case. The other authorities do not ask us where got the leads, and we do not ask them anything either. That way, they can protect their political staff from any backlash if it came out how massive the global violation of people’s privacy is.

Question: But now as details of this system are revealed, who will be put before a court over this?
Snowden: Before U.S. courts? You’re not serious, are you? When the last large wiretapping scandal was investigated – the interception without a court order, which concerned millions of communications – that should really have led to the longest prison sentences in world history. However, then our highest representatives simply stopped the investigation. The question, who is to be accused, is theoretical, if the laws themselves are not respected. Laws are meant for people like you or me – but not for them.

Question: Does the NSA cooperate with other states like Israel?
Snowden: Yes, all the time. The NSA has a large section for that, called the FAD – Foreign Affairs Directorate.

Question: Did the NSA help to write the Stuxnet program? (the malicious program used against the Iranian nuclear facilities — ed.)
Snowden: The NSA and Israel wrote Stuxnet together.

Question: What are the major monitoring programs active today, and how do international partners  help the NSA?
Snowden: The partners in the “Five Eyes” (behind which are hidden the secret services of the Americans, the British, the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians — ed.) sometimes go even further than the NSA people themselves. Take the Tempora program of the British intelligence GCHQ for instance. Tempora is the first “I save everything” approach (“Full take”) in the intelligence world. It sucks in all data, no matter what it is, and which rights are violated by it. This buffered storage allows for subsequent monitoring; not a single bit escapes. Right now, the system is capable of saving three days’ worth of traffic, but that will be optimized. Three days may perhaps not sound like a lot, but it’s not just about connection metadata. “Full take” means that the system saves everything. If you send a data packet and if makes its way through the UK, we will get it. If you download anything, and the server is in the UK, then we get it. And if the data about your sick daughter is processed through a London call center, then … Oh, I think you have understood.

Question: Can anyone escape?
Snowden: Well, if you had the choice, you should never send information over British lines or British servers. Send even the Queen’s selfies with her lifeguards would be recorded, if they existed.

Question: Do the NSA and its partners apply some kind of wide dragnet method to intercept phone calls, texts and data?
Snowden: Yes, but how much they can record, depends on the capabilities of the respective taps. Some data is held to be more worthwhile, and can therefore be recorded more frequently. But all this is rather a problem with foreign tapping nodes, less with those of the U.S. This makes the monitoring in their own territory so terrifying. The NSA’s options are practically limitless – in terms of computing power, space or cooling capacity for the computers.

Question: The NSA is building a new data center in Utah. What is it for?
Snowden: These are the new mass data storage facilities.

Question: For how long will the information there be stored?
Snowden: Right now it is still so, that the full text of collected material ages very quickly, within a few days, especially given its enormous amount. Unless an analyst marked a target or a particular communication. In that case the communication is saved for all eternity, one always get an authorization for that anyway. The metadata ages less quickly. The NSA at least wants all metadata to be stored forever. Often the metadata is more valuable than the contents of the communication, because in most cases, one can retrieve the content, if there is metadata. And if not, you mark all future communications that fits this metadata and is of interest, so that henceforth it will be recorded completely. The metadata tells you what you actually want from the broader stream.

Question: Do private companies help the NSA?
Snowden: Yes. But it’s hard to prove that. The names of the cooperating telecom companies are the crown jewels of the NSA… Generally you can say that multinationals with headquarters in the USA should not be trusted until they prove otherwise. This is unfortunate, because these companies have the ability to deliver the world’s best and most reliable services – if they wanted to. To facilitate this, civil rights movements should now use these revelations as a driving force. The Companies should write enforceable clauses into their terms, guaranteeing their clients that they are not being spied on. And they should include technical guarantees. If you could move even a single company to do such a thing, it would improve the security of global  communications. And when this appears to not be feasible, you should consider starting one such company yourself.

Q: Are there companies that refuse to to cooperate with the NSA?
Snowden: Yes, but I know nothing of a corresponding list that would meet this. However, there would surely be more companies of this type, if the companies working with the NSA would be punished by the customer. That should be the highest priority of all computer users who believe in the freedom of thoughts.

Question: What are the sites you should beware, if you do not want to become targeted by the NSA?
Snowden: Normally one is marked as a target because of a Facebook profile or because of your emails. The only place which I personally know where you can become a target without this specific labeling, are jihadist forums.

Question: What happens if the NSA has a user in its sights?
Snowden: The target person is completely monitored. An analyst will get a daily report about what has changed in the computer system of the targeted person. There will also be… packages with certain data which the automatic analysis systems have not understood, and so on. The analyst can then decide what he wants to do – the computer of the target person does not belong to them anymore, it then more or less belongs to the U.S. government.

Categories: Hacktivism, National Security News, News Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Braking News: Plane from Korea Crashes in San Francisco

July 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Plane Crashes on Landing in San Francisco

Isabella Lacaze

The plane’s tail was snapped off some distance from where the plane finally came to rest in the grass off the runway.

By

A Boeing 777 operated by the Korean airline Asiana crashed while landing Saturday at San Francisco International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

KTVU

The plane was Asiana Flight 214 from Seoul, South Korea, a spokesman for the F.A.A.

Noah Berger/Associated Press

Images and video of the crash showed the plane on fire, with smoke billowing from crumpled fuselage, lying on its belly on scrub grass at the airport.

Images and video of the crash showed the plane on fire, with smoke billowing from the crumpled fuselage, lying on its belly on scrub grass at the airport. It had lost its tail.

The debris field from the crash began at the seawall at the start of the Runway 28, according to aerial video images. Both wings remained attached but one engine was ripped off. The tail was snapped off some distance from where the plane finally came to rest in the grass off the runway.

The plane was Flight 214 from Seoul, South Korea, a spokesman for the F.A.A., Lynn Lunsford, said.

Firefighters were on the scene, but there were no immediate reports of the extent of casualties, although there were reports that the rescue slides had been deployed and a number of passengers had escaped. It was not clear how many people had been on board.

David Eun, who said in a Twitter message that he had been a passenger on the plane, posted a picture of a downed Asiana jetliner from ground level, which showed some passengers walking away from the aircraft.

An aviation official, who did not want to be identified discussing a fluid situation, said that the plane was not making an emergency landing, and that the situation had been entirely normal until the crash. The cause was also unclear.

Stefanie Turner, who posted on Twitter that she had witnessed the crash, said that the “plane came in at a bad angle, flipped, exploded.”

Juan Gonzalez, the supervising manager at Amoura Café in the airport, said that he did not hear any explosions but was told by airport workers that the tail had snapped off when it landed.

“Right now, there is just a lot of smoke and all the fire trucks are trying to get to the plane,” Mr. Gonzalez said

There was no immediate answer at a number listed for Asiana at San Francisco’s airport.

The Asiana plane took off at 5:04 p.m. Korean time, about 34 minutes after its scheduled pushback from the gate, according to FlightAware, a tracking service. It reached the runway in San Francisco at 11:28 a.m., Pacific time. FlightAware said the route was slightly longer than planned, 7,257 miles over 10 hours and 23 minutes.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in Washington that it would dispatch a team of investigators immediately, including the board’s chairwoman, Deborah A.M. Hersman.

The Asiana 777 is the second such plane to be destroyed on the runway. In January 2008, a 777 operated by British Airways crashed short of the runway at Heathrow in London on a flight from Beijing; investigators said ice had accumulated in the fuel lines and recommended a change to assure the problem could not happen again. There was only one serious injury among the 152 passengers and crew on board the British Airways flight, but the plane was destroyed.

Norimitsu Onishi, Mark Santora and Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting. Susan Beachy contributed research.

Categories: News, US Tags: ,

Egyptian ‘Democratic Coup d’état’ A La Carte

July 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Egypt: ‘Democratic Coup d’état’ A La Carte

July 3, 2013 | by Akashma Online News

UPDATED
Egypt witnessed an unprecedented ‘Democratic Coup d’état’ A La Carte. Egypt has broken all the records in history. From its mysterious pyramids, to their millions of protesters on the streets. Now they witness for first time in the history of any country a ‘Democratic Coup d’état’ A La Carte.
The Egyptian military gave two weeks to the government of Mohammed Morsi to come up with a political and economical solutions to the demands of the Egyptian people that had taken to the streets in the millions.
Normally a military coupe it is prepared in the uttermost secret and done under the shadows of the nights, but not Egypt Military, they announced in advance, that the Egyptian Military wing will take over the control of the country,  and they did. Adding to the uniqueness of Egyptian political situation, this is the first time in history that the people welcome the intervention of the Egyptian Military to work out a ‘Democratic Coup d’état’ A La Carte with hysterical joy.
Off course not everyone is happy about it, the US it is fuming, now that they were getting cozy with The brotherhood’s men, dictating policy that was against of the will of the majority in the country, as usually happen with the designs of the US foreign policy.
 “We are not taking sides on this, this is for the Egyptian’s people and all sides to work this together to comes to a pacific political resolution” Jen Psaki, State Department Spoke woman, July 03, 2013
An Egyptian army helicopter flies over protesters calling for the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on July 3. (GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images)

Egyptian military chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced July 3 that the country’s president, Mohammed Morsi, had been removed from office in the wake of popular unrest. In a short media statement, al-Sisi, who was flanked by the three armed services chiefs, opposition leaders, the sheikh of al-Azhar Mosque and the pope of the Coptic Church, announced that Adly Mansour, chief justice of the Constitutional Court, has replaced Morsi as interim president. He also announced that the constitution has been suspended. Mansour’s appointment is notable in that one of the key demands of the Tamarod protest movement was that he become president. The provisional government will be holding fresh parliamentary and presidential elections.

The arrangement was made without the involvement of Morsi, whose whereabouts remain unknown, or of anyone representing the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party. The Muslim Brotherhood, which has effectively been thrown out of power, must now figure out how to respond. The group probably will not respond violently, but it will engage in civil unrest that will lead to violence. Though the Brotherhood is unlikely to abandon the path of democratic politics, Morsi’s ouster will lead elements from more ultraconservative Salafist groups to abandon mainstream politics in favor of armed conflict.

The overthrow of Egypt’s moderate Islamist government undermines the international efforts to bring radical Islamists into the political mainstream in the wider Arab and Muslim world. Ultimately, within the context of Egypt, Morsi’s ouster sets a precedent where future presidents can expect to be removed from office by the military in the event of pressure from the masses. In a way, this was set in motion by the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak, and it does not bode well for the future stability of Egypt.

AP Release Video

The ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is generating significant debate about what Wednesday’s events should actually be called.

Specifically: Was it a coup d’état? or a Democratic Coup d’état

Many supporters of the ouster, including military leaders in Egypt, have denied it is a coup. Many Western diplomats have tiptoed around the issue.

“The definition of a coup is the overturning of a leadership, a legitimate leadership, by other powers, often military,” said Paul Sullivan, an expert in international relations at Georgetown University in Washington. But he said the word “legitimate” is what can generate a significant amount of debate.

“Many people in Egypt do not consider Morsi, or the previous president now I suppose, to have been a legitimate leader. So the use of the word ‘coup’ seems inappropriate to them,” he said. “It depends where you’re looking from.” The Globe and Mail

 

Categories: Akashma, Egypt, News Tags: , , , ,

Mohammad Assaf United Palestine-from Jerusalem, Gaza to the West Bank

June 23, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Akashma Online News

Assaf United Palestine

A beautiful voice from Gaza, Palestine have conquered the heart of the world, Mohammad Assaf, a 23 years old from Khan Younis, had won the 2013 Arab Idol. He had united Palestine from Jerusalem, Gaza to the West Bank. Not Fatah, not Hamas or any Palestinian politician had united every one under the Palestinian Flag. 🙂 .
Mohammad Assad had put the name of Palestine again in the International Stage, we hope that his triumph bring the attention of the world to the Palestine’s struggles.
Palestinians are relishing some good news for a change: Mohammed Assaf, a 23-year-old singer from Palestine, has become a hero after winning the Arab Idol TV talent contest.

Thousands turned out onto the streets to celebrate as Mr Assaf prevailed over contestants from across the Middle East during the show, watched by millions in the region. His win is seen as a triumph for the Palestinian cause because, in addition to his vocals, he also projected nationalist consciousness while competing. His signature songs stressed Palestinian history and the struggles of his people against Israeli occupation.

“People love him because he chooses such wonderful songs related to the Palestinian revolution,” said Riyad Saleh, a local English teacher. The joy in this camp of 13,000 refugees, which was established after Israel’s formation in 1948, was even greater than when the UN General Assembly recognised Palestinian statehood earlier this year, Mr Saleh said.

Mr Assaf is from a refugee family living in Khan Younis in the southern part of Gaza Strip. He made a name for himself performing at weddings there, but his big break came three months ago when he made his way to Cairo for the Arab Idol audition, reportedly arriving late and having to climb over a hotel wall to get his chance.

After his victory, Mr Assaf said: “Spreading the words of young people and watching them achieve their dreams – this is much better than the sounds of gunfire.”

Mr Assaf performed his final song before judges in Beirut on Friday. “Raise Your Keffiyeh” refers to the head scarf that is also a nationalist symbol. The song, which dates back to the 1990s honours prisoners in Israeli jails and those killed in the conflict with Israel.

Firas Iziyah, a barber, said Mr Assaf’s triumph meant so much to Palestinians because it was a bright moment within a bleak situation.

“It shows that a Palestinian can succeed in this world,” he said. “I think this shows we love peace and is a message of peace to the world.”

President Mohamud Abbas gave diplomatic passport to the young Palestinian star Mahommad Assaf. It is not every day that a celebrity from Khan Younis shine in the International arena, this time the young Mohammad had done what Hamas and Fatah have not been able to do in years of reconciliation deals. Mohammad Assaf united the whole Palestine and the Palestinians in the exile in a national celebration.

mohammed-assaf

“Mohammed Assaf didn’t free Palestine,” wrote one blogger on Twitter. “But he brought joy to people who didn’t smile for the past 66 years of occupation.”
Some people said is not a big deal to win a contest, but for someone living in Gaza that have to sneak out to go to the auditions, it is a great and risky deal. Gaza had been besieged by Israel since 2007, the movement of persons and goods between Egypt and Palestine at times it is almost impossible.

Assaf Mohammed Palestinian winner of the 2013 Arab Idol. He has united the world with his triumph. Palestine sings again under one flag. From Jerusalem, Gaza to West Bank, all are Palestine

April 22, 20`3

Arab Idol Audition

Audition for New Star 2010

Categories: Gaza, News, Palestine, Palestine One Nation Tags: , , , , ,

CIA whistleblower Speaks candidly of the right of Information

June 10, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on June 09, 2013 by Akashma Online News

by Marivel Guzman

Edward Snowden Whistle blower Proud citizen

Laura Poitras, an American documentary film director and producer,  made public her video interview with Edward Snowden CIA leaker of the bomb shell Prims spying program taking place in the US since 2007,  and Anonymous made binpasted a series of documents exposing even further 35 countries spying programs including Gig and Prism.

When people speaks of free speech, we speak passionately about a subject matter, or an issue that interest us.  It is not only about yelling in the street of what I like to say or what I love to do, but about what everyone’s right to say what they like and and defending everyone’s audacity to do thing. The audacity to be let to do what they like. Not necessarily speaking hate language that insult others, or walking naked in the street expressing my willingness to take the world with clean face, with  no makeup, no disguises of any kind. Free speech is more than just that.

Free speech encompasses absolutely everything. No matter how outrageous you think it is. No matter how insulting it sounds for some. No matter how immoral looks like to others. Free speech is about freedom, and freedom has no boundaries. The world of the free. The state of feeling free, the domain of freedom.

When whistle-blowers uncover information that needs to be made public because it is in the best interest of the people, then they are exercising their right of free speech. If this contravene their contract with the agency that contracted them, they have the right to quit, or the agency has the right to terminate the subject that had broken the contract. Should be easier as that.

We live in a free society where censorship is against the law, where spying is against the law, where invasion of privacy is against the law. We live in a free society in all the extent of the word.
So, why is the big deal when a person speaks rightfully his mind?
Why it is a big deal? When a person disclosure information he deems important to the others to know. Should be in the free exercise of his domain of freedom of speech. On this terrain our free society is walking in a thin line of interpretations, a shaky ground of definitions, where laws are interpreted to convenience, where laws are enacted to convenience of certain groups.

Our free society, it is not more free than  a dog in a leash. A dog that has the freedom to eat from its bowl when it choses to, to bark at its pleasure, to drink from his water when thirsty, to enter his mini jail shelter anytime it wants to,  and to walk the three meters around his post.

Is this what free society looks like to you?, hypothetically speaking we have the protection of the constitution of the United States of America. Why when it comes to expose dirty secrets of the people ruling our government, free speech become treasonous act?

Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant, said he had been working at the super-secret NSA as an employee of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and decided to break his silence after becoming disenchanted with Obama, whom he said had continued the policies of predecessor George W. Bush.

Snowden speaks in a video interview with Glenn Greenwald  from his Hong Kong’s hotel, saying that he chose Hong Kong for being an autonomous territory that is famous for its protests in the street and free speech, he said.

The Guardian and the Washington Post recently published a ‘leaked’ information from a CIA whistleblower, news that went viral around the globe for their controversial content.

In their initial reporting neither of the two newspapers disclosed the source of their information, but three days later a video has emerged with the Self Proclaim CIA leaker, Edward Snowen, a 29 years old former technical assistant for the Central Intelligence Agency being interviewed by Gleen Greenwald for a film by Laura Poitras an American documentary film director and producer.

Snowden said that he came public with this information because he does not want to live this way, he went on to say that when you are in a position of privileged access like a system administrator, you are exposed to disturbing things, and recognized that this things need to be known by the public. National Security Agency takes information from where ever it can, and spying is one way to do it, he says.

I think that the public its own an explanation of the motivation behind the people who makes this disclosure that are outside of the democratic model, when you are subverting the power of the government, that is a fundamentalist dangerous thing to do democracy, Snowden said.

Responding as why he decided to come public as a whistleblower,  that people working for the government, continuously do this things in secret, he said. When the government wants to benefit from a secret action that it took. It is a kind of given to its officials the mandate to tell the press about this, this thing or that thing just to have the public in our side, he said.

He said that he is just another guy without special skills and he thinks that the public is the ones that needs to decide on important issues not the government. He said that he is willing to go in the record to prove the authenticity of these documents.
“I did not change this, I did not modify the story, this is the truth, this is whats happening, you should decide whether we should be doing this”

Also Anonymous posted in Pastebin on Friday a series of documents exposing Gig and Prism programs, both programs saying that 35 countries are spying on their citizens,

Anonymous had obtained and binpasted some documents that “they” do not want you to see, they said, and much to “their” chagrin, we have found them, and are giving them to you, anonymous said.
“These documents prove that the NSA is spying on you, and not just Americans.  They are spying on the citizens of over 35 different countries.
These documents contain information on the companies involved in GiG, and Prism.
Whats GiG you might ask? well…
 The GIG will enable the secure, agile, robust, dependable, interoperable data sharing environment for the Department where warfighter, business, and intelligence users share knowledge on  a global network that facilitates information superiority, accelerates  decision-making, effective operations, and Net-Centric transformation.
Like we said, this is happening in over 35 countries, and done in cooperation with private businesses, and intelligence partners world wide.
We bring this to you, So that you know just how little rights you have.  Your privacy and freedoms are slowly being taken from you, in closed door meetings, in laws buried in
bills, and by people who are supposed to be protecting you.
Download these documents, share them, mirror them, don’t allow them to make them disappear.  Spread them wide and far.  Let these people know, that we will not be silenced, that we will not be taken advantage of, and that we are not happy about this unwarranted, unnecessary, unethical spying of our private lives, for the monetary gain of the 1%.”  Anonymous
Published on Jun 9, 2013
Laura Poitras made the video public in the interest of society. She published it under the Fair Use Notice Act.

 

Copyright © 2013 Praxis Films / Laura Poitras
FAIR USE NOTICE: This video contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this video is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

To close this article let me remind you of a guy name Pellicano, is serving a 15 years sentence for wiretapping people in behalf of his clients. Does Mr Pellicano did something worse that our US government did with PRISM Spying Program?… I don’t think so. What do you think?.

“to find me guilty “means just about every other private eye in the country is also a criminal enterprise, And maybe even some of these journalists out there.” Anthony Pellicano in his trial for wiretapping and racketing.

Laura Poitras
Director/Producer/Cinematographer

Laura PoitrasLaura Poitras was nominated for an Academy Award®, an Independent Spirit Award and an Emmy for My Country, My Country (POV 2006). She received a Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy and an Independent Spirit Award for Flag Wars (POV 2003), made with Linda Goode Bryant. Poitras is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation/Tribeca Film Institute. She has attended the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Edit and Story Lab as both a fellow and creative advisor. She is currently working on the third part of a trilogy about America post 9/11. Before making documentaries, Poitras worked as a professional chef. She lives in New York City.

Categories: Anonymous, Awareness, Hacktivism, News Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

What We Don’t Know About Spying on Citizens: Scarier Than What We Know

June 6, 2013 Leave a comment

The NSA’s surveillance of cell-phone calls show how badly we need to protect the

whistle-blowers who provide transparency and accountability.

Jun 6 2013, 12:24 PM ET
NSAdishes.banner.reuters.jpg.jpg
Jason Reed/Reuters

Yesterday, we learned that the NSA received all calling records from Verizon customers for a three-month period starting in April. That’s everything except the voice content: who called who, where they were, how long the call lasted — for millions of people, both Americans and foreigners. This “metadata” allows the government to track the movements of everyone during that period, and a build a detailed picture of who talks to whom. It’s exactly the same data the Justice Department collected about AP journalists.

The Guardian delivered this revelation after receiving a copy of a secret memo about this — presumably from a whistle-blower. We don’t know if the other phone companies handed data to the NSA too. We don’t know if this was a one-off demand or a continuously renewed demand; the order started a few days after the Boston bombers were captured by police.

We don’t know a lot about how the government spies on us, but we know some things. We know the FBI has issued tens of thousands of ultra-secret National Security Letters to collect all sorts of data on people — we believe on millions of people — and has been abusing them to spy on cloud-computer users. We know it can collect a wide array of personal data from the Internet without a warrant. We also know that the FBI has been intercepting cell-phone data, all but voice content, for the past 20 years without a warrant, and can use the microphone on some powered-off cell phones as a room bug — presumably only with a warrant.

We know that the NSA has many domestic-surveillance and data-mining programs with codenames like Trailblazer, Stellar Wind, and Ragtime — deliberately using different codenames for similar programs to stymie oversight and conceal what’s really going on. We know that the NSA is building an enormous computer facility in Utah to store all this data, as well as faster computer networks to process it all. We know the U.S. Cyber Command employs 4,000 people.

We know that the DHS is also collecting a massive amount of data on people, and that local police departments are running “fusion centers” to collect and analyze this data, and covering up its failures. This is all part of the militarization of the police.

Remember in 2003, when Congress defunded the decidedly creepy Total Information Awareness program? It didn’t die; it just changed names and split into many smaller programs. We know that corporations are doing an enormous amount of spying on behalf of the government: all parts.

We know all of this not because the government is honest and forthcoming, but mostly through three backchannels — inadvertent hints or outright admissions by government officials in hearings and court cases, information gleaned from government documents received under FOIA, and government whistle-blowers.

There’s much more we don’t know, and often what we know is obsolete. We know quite a bit about the NSA’s ECHELON program from a 2000 European investigation, and about the DHS’s plans for Total Information Awareness from 2002, but much less about how these programs have evolved. We can make inferences about the NSA’s Utah facility based on the theoretical amount of data from various sources, the cost of computation, and the power requirements from the facility, but those are rough guesses at best. For a lot of this, we’re completely in the dark.

And that’s wrong.

The U.S. government is on a secrecy binge. It overclassifies more information than ever. And we learn, again and again, that our government regularly classifies things not because they need to be secret, but because their release would be embarrassing.

Knowing how the government spies on us is important. Not only because so much of it is illegal — or, to be as charitable as possible, based on novel interpretations of the law — but because we have a right to know. Democracy requires an informed citizenry in order to function properly, and transparency and accountability are essential parts of that. That means knowing what our government is doing to us, in our name. That means knowing that the government is operating within the constraints of the law. Otherwise, we’re living in a police state.

We need whistle-blowers.

Leaking information without getting caught is difficult. It’s almost impossible to maintain privacy in the Internet Age. The WikiLeaks platform seems to have been secure — Bradley Manning was caught not because of a technological flaw, but because someone he trusted betrayed him — but the U.S. government seems to have successfully destroyed it as a platform. None of the spin-offs have risen to become viable yet. The New Yorker recently unveiled its Strongbox platform for leaking material, which is still new but looks good. This link contains the best advice on how to leak information to the press via phone, email, or the post office. The National Whistleblowers Center has a page on national-security whistle-blowers and their rights.

Leaking information is also very dangerous. The Obama Administration has embarked on a war on whistle-blowers, pursuing them — both legally and through intimidation — further than any previous administration has done. Mark Klein, Thomas Drake, and William Binney have all been persecuted for exposing technical details of our surveillance state. Bradley Manning has been treated cruelly and inhumanly — and possibly tortured — for his more-indiscriminate leaking of State Department secrets.

The Obama Administration’s actions against the Associated Press, its persecution of Julian Assange, and its unprecedented prosecution of Manning on charges of “aiding the enemy” demonstrate how far it’s willing to go to intimidate whistle-blowers — as well as the journalists who talk to them.

But whistle-blowing is vital, even more broadly than in government spying. It’s necessary for good government, and to protect us from abuse of power.

We need details on the full extent of the FBI’s spying capabilities. We don’t know what information it routinely collects on American citizens, what extra information it collects on those on various watch lists, and what legal justifications it invokes for its actions. We don’t know its plans for future data collection. We don’t know what scandals and illegal actions — either past or present — are currently being covered up.

We also need information about what data the NSA gathers, either domestically or internationally. We don’t know how much it collects surreptitiously, and how much it relies on arrangements with various companies. We don’t know how much it uses password cracking to get at encrypted data, and how much it exploits existing system vulnerabilities. We don’t know whether it deliberately inserts backdoors into systems it wants to monitor, either with or without the permission of the communications-system vendors.

And we need details about the sorts of analysis the organizations perform. We don’t know what they quickly cull at the point of collection, and what they store for later analysis — and how long they store it. We don’t know what sort of database profiling they do, how extensive their CCTV and surveillance-drone analysis is, how much they perform behavioral analysis, or how extensively they trace friends of people on their watch lists.

We don’t know how big the U.S. surveillance apparatus is today, either in terms of money and people or in terms of how many people are monitored or how much data is collected. Modern technology makes it possible to monitor vastly more people — yesterday’s NSA revelations demonstrate that they could easily surveil everyone — than could ever be done manually.

Whistle-blowing is the moral response to immoral activity by those in power. What’s important here are government programs and methods, not data about individuals. I understand I am asking for people to engage in illegal and dangerous behavior. Do it carefully and do it safely, but — and I am talking directly to you, person working on one of these secret and probably illegal programs — do it.

If you see something, say something. There are many people in the U.S. that will appreciate and admire you.

For the rest of us, we can help by protesting this war on whistle-blowers. We need to force our politicians not to punish them — to investigate the abuses and not the messengers — and to ensure that those unjustly persecuted can obtain redress.

Our government is putting its own self-interest ahead of the interests of the country. That needs to change.

Categories: News Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Libyan Red Crescent: Update

June 2, 2013 Leave a comment

Tour of hope
By Mohammed Mustafa Masrati

With God’s help and that blessed the efforts of dedicated volunteers, has been the arrival of ambulances and medical equipment to port door fancy border, and entered the Syrian camps inside Syrian territory.
After more than 36 hours, the convoy of humanitarian relief of the Libyan Red Crescent that drove more than 2,000 kilometers inside Turkish territory, categorically distance From port “Abeslh” the Turkish-Greek border passing Abralrev the Turkish down to the Turkish border Syrian port to the door of fancy, a trip although Amishqtha began enjoyable and after the historic deliver of aid to its people, a trip in order do our Humanitarian work, we had been awake in this the whole time, we did not stop to sleep or rest. The weather is summer and there is humidity present in the air, we stopped only to refuel in Awasalah and to eat Maphozatna of snacks prepared for this trip, we raced against time, and we put solutions to every obstacle that disrupted the continuance of our journey.
A sweeping attack, and a different kind of fire.
I remember that on the day that we were waiting for the completion of procedures for a group of ambulances coming to us from Britain, we waited a long time from midday to dawn the next day, despite the difficulty of waiting, but we were surprised after sunset on that day by a barricade of soldiers of different sizes and weapons coming in every direction …Mosquitoes
A different kind of army, that you can not be overcome, therefore, it was “the law” which tire us, tougher abuse with nuisance, and this attack which continues for several hours , but leaves our bodies after sucked our blood, the leave a traces like we had a rash of disease “smallpox” God, we go back to our trip, which for the major part of the trip included 25 Ambulance and medical equipment are important, came across Europe to enter into Syrian territory from several outlets across the organization and supervision of the Libyan Red Crescent, a journey fraught with dangers were threatening stumbled trip, but thanks to Almighty God has things better, and we saw in the port “door fancy” part of the the suffering of the Syrian people beloved, pictures and events I think it needs to stops and days to write it … it’s a humanitarian crisis every Matany word meaning ….. GOD Aadri the how to carry my heart Mashahdh … but the stage will come out of them remain of the Syrian strong Maafah the people … are preparing to return to the “Libya” national … who lived La Paz portion of those suffering and waiting for a big and great benefits to be helpful to his sons and his brothers. Conclusion:
I thank all those who helped in this convoy of humanity, and each of the month and dedication to deliver aid may alleviate the humanitarian suffering of the displaced and internally displaced people within Syrian territory, I also thank the Libyan Red Crescent honoring me to be a member of the trip humanitarian confirm that the charitable work of the limitless him.

This is the original message, if you can help with a better translation, please do so, send the translation to message box in Akashma Web Blogs or send to

Akashmanews@gmail.com any help it is appreciated. Thanks

رحلة عنوانها الامل .
بقلم محمد مصطفى المصراتى
بعون الله ثم الجهود المباركة من المتطوعين المخلصين تم وصول سيارات الاسعاف والمعدات الطبية منفذ باب الهوى الحدودى ،ودخلت الى المخيمات السورية داخل التراب السورى.
فبعد أكثر من36 ساعة قطعت فيها قافلة الاغاثة الانسانية للهلال الاحمر الليبى اكثر من 2000 كيلو متر داخل الاراضى التركية،قاطعة المسافة انطلاقا من منفذ “ابصلة” بالحدود التركية اليونانية مارة عبرالريف التركى وصولا الى الحدود التركية السورية الى منفذ باب الهوى ،رحلة رغم مشقتها بدات ممتعة وتاريخية بعد ايصال المساعدات الى اهلها ،رحلة من اجل العمل الانسانى، رحلة ظللنا فيها مستيقظين فلا نوم ولا راحة والطقس كان صيفى والرطوبة حاضرة ،ولا استراحة الا للتزود بالوقود اوالصلاة وتناول مابحوزتنا من اطعمة خفيفة معدة لهذه الرحلة، كنا نسابق الزمن ،ونضع الحلول لاى عائق يعطل تواصل الرحلة .
هجوم كاسح ،ونيران من نوع مختلف.
اذكر انه فى اليوم الذى كنا ننتظر اتمام اجراءات خروج دفعة من سيارات الاسعاف القادمة لنا من بريطانيا،انتظرنا طويلا من منتصف النهار الى فجر اليوم التالى ،رغم صعوبة الانتظار الا اننا فوجئنا بعد غروب شمس ذلك اليوم بارتال من جنود مختلفى الاحجام والاسلحة تطردنا فى كل اتجاه …جيش من نوع مختلف ،لايمكنك ان تتغلب عليه ،انه “الناموس” الذى نكل بنا اشد التنكيل فمع ازعاجها ،وهجومه المكثف الذى تواصل لعدة ساعات ابى الا ان يترك فى اجسادنا اثر امتصاصه لدمائنا،اثار جعلت وكاننا تعرضنا لطفح من داء “الجدرى” عافاكم الله…نعود الى رحلتنا ،والتى كانت جزء من رحلة كبرى ضمت 25 سيارة اسعاف ومعدات طبية هامة، جائت عبر اوربا لتدخل الى الاراضى السورية من عدة منافذ عبر تنظيم واشراف من الهلال الاحمر الليبى،رحلة محفوفة بمخاطر كانت تهدد تعثر الرحلة ،ولكن بفضل الله تعالى تمت الامور على خير،وشاهدنا فى منفذ”باب الهوى” جزء من معاناة الشعب السورى الحبيب،صور واحداث اعتقد انها تحتاج الى وقفات وايام للكتابة عنها…انها ازمة انسانية بكل ماتعنى الكلمة من معنى…..ياالله لاادرى كيف تحمل قلبى ماشاهده…ولكن تظل مرحلة سيخرج منها الشعب السورى قويا معافة…نستعد للعودة الى “ليبيا” وطنى …الذى عاش جزءا لاباس به من تلك المعاناة وتنتظره استحقاقات كبيرة وعظيمة ليكون عونا لابناءه واشقائه .
خاتمة:
اشكر كل من ساهم فى هذه القافلة الانسانية ،ولكل من سهر وتفانى لايصال مساعدات قد تخفف من المعاناة الانسانية للمهجرين والنازحين داخل الاراضى السورية،كما اشكر للهلال الاحمر الليبى تشريفه لى ان اكون عضوا فى رحلة أنسانية تؤكد ان العمل الخيرى لاحدود له.

Categories: News

Struggles that unite the Nations

June 1, 2013 Leave a comment

Published by Akashma Online News

by Marivel Guzman in collaboration with Omar Karem from Turkish/Syrian border

Omar Red Crescent May 31 2013

Three convoys converged in Turkey to deliver much needed aid to the people of Syria suffering a three years internal violence.

Omar Karem, 30 years old from Gaza with an uncertain future. He it is a refugee himself but regardless of his precarious situation, his humanitarian heart does not allow him to stay idle, he is adding his helping hands around in the Aleppo Halab Syrian Refugee Camp. He is stranded without visa, but this does not stop him from helping others in need.

Syrian Refugee Camp

Refugee Camp set up by UN on the border of Turkey/Syria receiving every day people running from the violence inside Syria.

It is very difficult to be Palestinian, he said. You have no rights in your land, and you have no rights in other people’s land.
The Palestinian Nabka since 1948 had left Palestinian without rights. They are denied visas to work, or to visit other countries on the ground of  being Palestinian. Omar said, that most of the times they refuse to grant them visa just because they are Palestinians.
The word refugee is not new for Palestinians. The refugee status of Palestinians, it is wore as stigma. A painful one, that follows them every where they go.

“All Arab governments  and specially the ones called national government are unchanged. Omar, said. They filled history with revolutionary slogans.  They said that they will liberate Palestine, they set up thousands of festivals. Printed millions of posters and after 65 years of Nakba, nothing changed one meter of Palestine’s land, he said.

Omar, that victoriously broke Gaza siege last year had seen the end of his triumph. Now stranded in the border of Turkey/Syria in Aleppo Syria in a refugee camp for displaced people forgetting his own struggles and his uncertain future, he moves around in Halab refugee camp helping and documenting the atrocities of the war.

He better than anybody knows the horrors of the war, he lived the Israel occupation all his life. He knows the terror in the eyes of a child after a bomb had destroyed half of his home. Israel did not spared the terror of the bombs, the white phosphorous, the sonar bombs, the drones flying every day above their heads. Omar knows the aftermath of war, now he sees himself as a refugee in a foreign land, but still hoping for a better tomorrow, and helping Syrian refugees to cope with the lost.
What to do, when you are Palestinian?  Add your voice to the Palestinian Struggle, he said,  let’s help to end the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.  Now witnessing the horror of the Syrian violence that does not forgive, women, children and elderly, he said, “Syria will be free.”

Omar Karem and Ebrahim Musaji

thousands miles away from their Land, Omar Karem and Ebrahim Musaji Aleppo Syrian Refugee Camp

From all the oddities of life, Ebrahim Musaji, 27 Mavi Marmara survivor and humanitarian peace activist from the UK comes to Syria in a convoy to bring Aid, and find Omar Karem from Gaza, Palestine, stranded yet in another no man’s land. When Ebrahim went to Gaza 2 years ago, Omar still in Gaza was part of those in need, now circumstances had changed. They both meet in another country, with conditions similar to Gaza. Undoubtedly the times changed but the situation is the same.
In a skype interview,  Ebrahim Musaji, speaks of his many humanitarian enterprises. He has been in Gaza in three occasions, With Viva Palestine convoy, Road to Hope, and the attempted Mavi Marmara organized by İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri İnsani Yardım Vakfı – İHH. He had been in Syria as volunteer 2 times, the first time he stayed 3 months inside Syria helping displaced people. This would be his third time in a convoy from UK delivering aid to the people inside Syria.

UK convoy members Libyan Red Crescent Omar Karem and Ebrahim Musaji

Ebrahim Musaji, Omar Karem with members of the Libyan Red Crescent delegation arriving to Istanbul in their way to Syria.

Syria Refugee Camp Border Turkey

Ebrahim spent 3 months in Syria on January, delivering the ambulances and donated aid and cash to school inside Syria and in the refugee camps.

Ambulances arriving to Istanbul ready to depart to Syria

25 ambulances from Libya crossed  Thursday Turkish territory, loaded with tools and medical supplies, to the Syrian territory. The Ambulances were accompanied by 14 people, including three doctors, that crossed the Syrian-Turkish border from the crossing Gelovaguzo the “Gate of fancy”, in Rihaniyya area city Turkish Hataa. The coordinator of the Red Crescent in Libya, “Nasser Mohammed Dou,” said, that Libya provided so far 235 ambulance to Syria since the start of the crisis, and to support the Libyan humanitarian aid will continue on an ongoing basis to the Syrians. He explained, “Dou” that three doctors came with the delegation, in order to provide medical services to the Syrian refugees who were forced to leave their homes and stay in tents and camps inside Syrian territory.

Omar Karem and Ebrahim Musaji meet in Aleppo refugee camp on May 27, and made their way back to Istanbul to welcome the Libyan Red Crescent delegation arriving with 25 ambulances, and the group from IHH, once they all meet they started their journey to Syria.
Circumstances unite people more than they can imagine.

Categories: Gaza, Libya, News, Palestine Tags: , , , , , , ,

Lybian Read Crescent to Help Syrians

June 1, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Akashma Online News
By Marivel Guzman in Collaboration with Omar Karem reporting from Syria/Turkish border
Delegation of Libyan Red Crescent
The humanitarian relief campaign organized by the Libyan Red Crescent to help the affected people in Syria, arrived today in Istanbul, they will be heading to Syrian border to deliver medicine and other aid.
Mohammed Mustafa Masrati, head of media and information for the Libyan Red Crescent Society
said, that the organization had conducted 14 humanitarian relief convoys for the Syrian people, campaign targeted to people living inside Syrian territory affected by the violence that is in its second year, after the Arab Spring fired up a series of uprisings that toppled Egyptian President Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, and Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, that flared up violence in the region that lead to the murder of Libyan President Muammar Gaddafee by NATO and its allies.
This campaign for which it was formed to continue the works of the committee of the Red Crescent Association delegation leading the campaign and  to facilitate the legal and administrative procedures for the arrival of emergency aid to the Syrian people who suffers woes because of the internal situation, and a big shortage of medicines and basic needs.
The team  of the convoy of the Libyan Red Crescent has arrived in Turkish territory this morning, Tuesday, May 28, 2013, in preparation for transfer to Syria, and containing such relief are 25 ambulance that will be driven to the border to be transferred to Syrian territory,  as well as some medical equipment necessary for the treatment and ambulance many cases Alansanbh.
The head of delegation Mr. Nasser Dou Alwani, said that the aid, which will be presented during this convoy will be the best support for humanitarian efforts carried out by the Libyan Red Crescent to the aid of our brothers in Syria, said al-Alwani that this convoy is the fourteenth and thus bringing the total Libyan Red Crescent during those humanitarian campaigns they had delivered 235 ambulances. And number 7 field hospitals made into Syria.  International humanitarian appeal to withstand the Arab humanitarian organizations and international humanitarian  towards the Syrian people, and called for the mobilization of all potential relief to be able to deliver emergency aid to areas of displacement. In order to contribute to pain relief for people in Syria, he said.
Mr Al-Alwani explained, that the Libyan Red Crescent will not fall short in his humanitarian duty, but the needs of the Syrian people at home or refugees in neighboring countries and many come in the forefront of relief health and telemedicine, humanitarian relief, and continues the efforts of institutions relief unable to cover the minimum necessities, stressing that it is important to continue such campaigns relief and diversity of sources and non-stop, especially in light of the continued human tragedy and the continuing influx of refugees and the fall of a large number of civilian casualties and the majority of them women and children.

These convoy, which contributed to a number of branches Libyan Red Crescent Society in addition to the Association Yes Soeriaoahl charity inside Libya and abroad to confirm that the humanitarian need makes it imperative for everyone to extend a helping hand to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people, especially who did not leave Syria and witness the continuing armed conflict in the region.

Categories: News, Syria Tags: , , ,

OPIsrael disable Israel Servers

April 7, 2013 Leave a comment

“I don’t want to go into the specifics of how we combated this attack, but suffice it to say, we were successful in neutralizing the threat. We have been taking all measures to protect the site since last week, in advance of the anticipated attacks by Anonymous.” JPost announced today in its web site.

Today’s attacks is one of many of Anonymous attempts to disrupt Israel governmental and civilians websites. Since the winter of 2011, Israel had received  hundreds of cyber attacks.

Israel had been DDS-denial of service ……..

The people’s liberation front, formed in Cambridge, Mass. in 1985. Founded on the principle that electronic communications networks belong to the people.
PLF in its February 19, 2011 public release, announces the launch of “Operation Freedom Star”. The mission of this Op is simple. The Peoples Liberation Front is entering the Hacker Space Race that was initiated with the announcement by the Chaos Computer Club that they intended to launch three communications satellites of their own to help circumvent internet censorship. The PLF states that we are in this race to win, and that WE firmly intend to be the first hackers in space.” they said.

 

Our plan for this involves the purchase of one of the many used communications satellites that are in orbit already, and are beyond their commercial usefulness. Many of these birds are low on fuel and have other issues related to their age, but are otherwise serviceable and useful for the purpose we intend – which is to provide broadband satellite communications to areas of the world that are in great need. We are currently looking at several possibilities, and whichever bird we chose – it will be called the “Freedom Star”. The purpose of the Freedom Star Satellite will be to provide broadband internet connections using commercially available downlink hardware.
Categories: News Tags:

Pakistani couple plead for their innocence

March 18, 2013 Leave a comment

ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION – URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME

Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-043-2013

18 March 2013

PAKISTAN: A couple was abducted from Nepal, arrested and tortured in India to confess that they were agents of the ISI and were planning to assassinate chief minister of Gujrat

ISSUES: Torture; arbitrary detention; women rights; impunity; rule of law

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a newlywed Pakistani couple was abducted from Nepal by agents of the Indian intelligence agencies while they were leaving for Pakistan. They were quickly shifted to India where they were kept in a private torture cell for 17 days where they suffered severe torture before being transferred to Tihar Jail, New Delhi. They were charged for being spies from Pakistan, sent to assassinate Mr. Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat where the police also claimed they were arrested from. The groom was severely tortured which resulted in the disability of one leg, signs of electrical shocks were still visible on his back and his genitalia had been burned with cigarettes. The bride was beaten for several days by the women police officials. The couple was forced to confess that they were from Pakistan’s notorious intelligence agency, the ISI.

The couple has now been enlarged on bail but cannot leave India before the decision of the case. They have no funds with which to survive and most of the time remains outside different mosques in Ahmadabad, Gujrat following Friday prayers to beg but people refuse to help the couple as they have been accused of being Pakistan agents. The couple is surviving on charity from different philanthropist organizations and shrines but the amount they receive is insufficient for the whole day.

The Pakistan High Commission (PHC) has flatly refused to help the couple as it would be dangerous for the couple in reference to the continual strained relationship between the two countries.

CASE NARRATIVE:

The Delhi police crime branch claims to have foiled an alleged plan of a Pakistan spy agency, the ISI, to settle its spies in India. The police said they recently arrested two fresh recruits of the spy agency, including a woman, from the New Delhi railway station. This announcement came on 12 December 2011 but in the same announcement police said that the couple was arrested on 5 December when they arrived at New Delhi railway station with a plan to kill the chief minister of Gujrat. The Indian media was so biased that it has not enquired from the police as to when were they were arrested and why the police took one week time to produce them before the court? This act of police is against the Indian law according to the section 57 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc). The police is bound to produce an accused person within 24 hours of arrest. The Indian media has still not contacted the couple to get their side of the story but in its so called nationalism scandalized the couple as Pakistani agents.

According to the details received through the victims and legal documents Mr. Imran Yousaf Chippa, son of Mohammad Yousaf and Sofia Kanwal were married in October 2011 in Karachi, Pakistan. They went to Nepal for their honey moon on 17 November 2011 with the return ticket of 24 November. On the departure day as the couple were going to Katmandu air port in a taxi, a Suzuki gypsy jeep cut them off and four persons from the jeep asked their identity. As the police saw the Pakistani passports they were taken to a nearby police station. They were forcefully pushed into the jeep and their hands were chained and their eyes were blindfolded with the dopatta (a piece of cloth which generally women in south Asia use for covering the front portion of the body).

After 30 hours of the drive they were locked in a room and later on after several days of detention they came to know that it was a farm hours near the New Delhi airport. The officers sitting in the jeep were taking the names of each other in numbers like one two, three and whenever they were contacted to their center through the wireless they told that a Pakistani couple has been arrested from Nepal. The couple was kept there up to 12 December 2011 and were severely tortured to confess that they were working for the ISI and had planned to kill Mr. Modi, the chief minister of Gujrat state.

Imran, the victim, was tortured continuously for all the days of his illegal captivity, his legs were tortured to the point where he cannot walk or sit properly. His right leg was injured with a knife and it is almost paralysed. His back still bears visible signs of electric shocks. His genitalia also has signs of cigarette burning. When he was hung upside down alcohol was poured into his anus. The nerves of the legs were damaged during the interrogation which was taken by many intelligence agencies including the notorious Indian agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). During the interrogation, it was told to the couple that they were arrested from Nepal by the agents of RAW. Sofia, the wife, was beaten with fists and kicked to confess. At many times she was threatened with raped if she did not confess.

On 12 December, early in the morning, the couple was told that they are going to release them as the agencies did not find any evidence of them being agents of the ISI. They were taken in a jeep to an unknown place and after a one hour long drive at 4 PM the couple found themselves before the Tis Hazari court at New Delhi. When they were taken out from the jeep a heavy contingent of media people arrived and was estimated to be not less than 200 persons. For further information, please read the report published in the Hindustan Times and an audiovisual report broadcast in News24 TV regarding this case.

The couple was produced before the court of Mr. Vinod Yadev, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) who immediately sent them for judicial remand and couple was lodged in Tihar Jail. After court proceedings the police addressed the media and claimed that the couple was arrested from Delhi railway station and had the plan to assassinate the chief minister of Gujrat. The media have not asked to interview the couple. The media and journalists ran many concocted stories against the couple without listening to their side of the story when they were produced in the court. During the court proceeding through the evidences it was proved that they were arrested from Nepal but the media have never covered this fact and totally ignored it in an effort to spread sensationalism and hatred against the neighbouring country.

In the month of March 2012, Imran took off his clothes before the judge and revealed the torture marks on his body and asked the judge to listen to the actual facts from them. The judge finally agreed to do so. He took his statement in his chamber and for the next six days he continuously asked the couple to come and record statements with all evidence. On 20 March 2012, the judge granted interim bail to the couple for two days and it continued every two days for some time. Finally on April 13 the couple received bail and was released. The couple lives in Gujrat as it was Imran’s place of birth place but his relatives and friends do not want to associate with him as he has been declared by the media as an agent of Pakistan. Please see the attachment of the court decision for their bail.

After release on interim bail, Imran has also written many letters to presidents, prime ministers and concerned ministries including the High Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi for help in the case which was totally false and cooked up by RAW. The couple has also written to international human rights organizations including Amnesty International and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan but is still waiting for action from these organizations. He also approached the National Human Rights Commission of India who has written letters to the ministry for interior in the month of July 2012, but no reply has yet been received by the couple or NHRC.

The couple has also written and contacted the High Commission of Pakistan at New Delhi several times and it was told to them not to contact the commission because it would be said that Pakistan was involved in their case. The authorities have flatly refuse to help them and even asked the couple not make contact by telephone otherwise India would blame Pakistan.

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write the letters to the authorities in Pakistan and India calling for the release and safe repatriation of Mr. Imran and Sofia who were arrested from Nepal, taken to India and tortured and arrested on the false charges of entering India illegally with the plan to kill the chief minister of Gujrat state. Please urge the authorities in India to initiate a judicial enquiry of the case of Imran and Sofia and prosecute all those officials of the intelligence agencies who fabricated charges of espionage and arrested them from Nepal and find out on whose authority they act freely in the jurisdiction of other countries? Please also urge the Pakistani authorities to contact the Indian government for the safe and unconditional release of the couple. Also urge the Nepali authorities to stop the illegal operations of Indian agencies.

The AHRC has written a separate letter to the UN Special Rapporteurs on the Question of Torture and arbitrary arrest calling for his intervention into this matter.

To support this appeal, please click here:

SAMPLE LETTER:

Dear ___________,

PAKISTAN: A couple was abducted from Nepal, arrested and tortured in India to confess that they were agents of the ISI and were planning to assassinate chief minister of Gujrat

Name of victim:
1. Mr. Imran Yousaf Chippa, son of Mohammad Yousaf
2. Ms. Sofia, wife of Imran Yousaf Chippa
Both are residents of house number A-59, Block C, North Nazimabad, Karachi, Sindh province, Pakistan
Alleged perpetrators:
1. India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)
2. Other intelligence agencies of India
Date of incident: 24 November 2011
Place of incident: Kathmandu, Nepal

I am writing to voice my deep concern regarding the abduction of a Pakistani couple from Nepal allegedly by the Indian intelligence agencies Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). They were then taken to India where the couple was kept in illegal detention for more than 17 days and bitterly tortured. The couple after four months of their arrest was released on bail and they cannot go back to Pakistan till the final decision of the case. As the couple does not have any they are surviving by begging before the mosques and shrines.

This is very shocking for me and I would like to know under which authority Indian intelligence agencies operate freely outside of their own jurisdiction and in a sovereign country? The action of the Indian intelligence agency is in violation of all norms and the respect of others sovereignty. It has been reported that the RAW maintain several agents in Nepal and harass people from different parts of South Asia. They first find out if their victims have any money with which to buy their freedom and if they do not they are charged as being agents of enemy countries.

I received the information that Mr. Imran Yousaf Chippa, son of Mohammad Yousaf and Sofia Kanwal were married in October 2011 in Karachi-Pakistan. They went to Nepal for their honey moon on 17 November 2011 with the return ticket of 24 November. On the departure day as the couple was going to Katmandu air port in a taxi, a Suzuki gypsy jeep cut them off and four persons from the jeep asked their identity. As the police saw the Pakistani passports they were taken to a nearby police station. They were forcefully pushed in to jeep and their hands were chained and their eyes were folded with the dopatta (a piece of cloth which generally women in south Asia use for covering the front portion of the body).

After 30 hours of the drive they were locked in a room and later on after several days of detention they came to know that it was a farm hours near the New Delhi airport. The officers sitting in the jeep were taking the names of each other in numbers like one two, three and whenever they were contacted to their center through the wireless they told that a Pakistani couple has been arrested from Nepal. The couple was kept there up to 12 December 2011 and were severely tortured to confess that they were working for the Pakistan spy agency and had planned to kill Mr. Moodi, the chief minister of Gujrat state.

I am appalled that Imran, the victim, was tortured continuously for all the days of his illegal captivity, his legs were tortured to the point where he cannot walk or sit properly. His right leg was injured with a knife and it is almost paralysed. His back still bears visible signs of electric shocks. His genitalia also have signs of cigarette burning. When he hung upside down alcohol was poured into his anus. The nerves of the legs are ruptured during the interrogation which was taken by many intelligence agencies including notorious Indian agency, RAW. During the interrogation, it was told to the couple that they were arrested from Nepal by the agents of RAW. Sofia, the wife, was beaten with fists and kicked to confess. At many times she was threatened with raped if she did not confess.

On 12 December, early in the morning, the couple was told that they are going to release them as the agencies did not find any evidence of being agent of ISI. They were taken in a jeep to an unknown place and after one hour long drive at 4 PM the couple found themselves before the Tees Hazari court at New Delhi. When they were taken out from the jeep a heavy contingent of media persons arrived and was estimated to be not less than 200 persons. For further information, please read the report published in the Hindustan Times and an audiovisual report broadcast in News24 TV regarding this case.

The couple was produced before the court of Mr. Vinod Yadev, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) who immediately sent them for judicial remand and couple was lodged in Tihar Jail. After court proceedings the police addressed the media and claimed that the couple was arrested from Delhi railway station and had the plan to assassinate chief minister of Gujrat. The media have not asked to interview the couple. The media and journalists ran many concocted stories against the couple without taking the views from the couple as they were produced in the court. During the court proceeding through the evidences it was proved that they were arrested from the Nepal but the media have never covered this fact and totally ignored it in an effort to spread sensationalism and hatred against the neighbouring country.

In the month of March 2012, Imran took off his clothes before the judge and revealed the torture marks on his body and asked the judge to listen to the actual facts from the couple. The judge finally agreed to do so. He took his statement in his chamber and for the next six days he continuously asked the couple to come and record statements with all evidences. On 20 March 2012, the judge granted interim bail to the couple for two days and it continued every two days for some more days. Finally on April 13 the couple received bail and was released. The couple lives in Gujrat as Imran’s birth place was Gujrat but his relatives and friends do not want to associate with him as he has been declared by the media as an agent of Pakistan.

I cannot understand as to why, when the judge in this matter was shown actual evidence that torture had been committed in custody, he did not immediately take action to assist the victims and take legal action against the intelligence officials and police officers concerned. The court also did not ask where the victims had been for the seven days of their detention as the law of India clearly state that an arrested person must be produced in court within 24 hours.

The action, or rather lack of action on the part of the Pakistan High Commission is shameful if not actually criminal. To ignore a citizen of their country that has been falsely charged on the one hand and is forced to beg in the streets in order to survive on the other is unconscionable. Can it be that the High Commission was reluctant to take action because it was afraid that if they revealed the illegal actions of the India intelligence agency then the India side might also reveal the illegal actions of the Pakistani ISI?

It is regretful that the government of Nepal is ignoring the fact that it has allowed its sovereign soil to be used as a battle ground by the intelligence agencies of two foreign governments. There have also been reports that the ISI is also carrying out similar acts.

I, therefore, urge the India authorities to initiate a judicial enquiry of the case of Imran and Sofia and prosecute all those officials of the Indian intelligence agencies who fabricated charges of espionage and arrested them from Nepal and on whose authority they act freely in the jurisdiction of other countries? I also urge the Pakistani authorities to contact the Indian government for the safe and unconditional release of the couple. I urge the Nepali authorities to stop the illegal operations of all foreign intelligence agencies in their country. Furthermore, the authorities in Pakistan must conduct an immediate inquiry into the appalling behaviour of the officers of the High Commission of Pakistan for their lack of action to assist their own nationals in distress. The victims must be compensated for the ordeal they have suffered by both countries.

Yours sincerely,

PLEASE SEND LETTERS TO:

1. Mr. Asif Ali Zardari
President of Pakistan
President’s Secretariat
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Tel +92 51 9204801+51 9214171
Fax: +92 51 9207458
Email: publicmail@president.gov.pk

2. Dr. Manmohan Singh
Prime Minster
Government of India
Room No. 148 B, South Block
New Delhi
INDIA
Fax: + 91 11 230116857; 23015603
Email: manmohan@sansad.nic.in

3. Chairperson
National Human Rights Commission
Faridkot House, Copernicus Marg
New Delhi 110001
INDIA
Fax: + 91 11 2338 4863
E-mail: chairnhrc@nic.in

4. Mr. Raja Pervez Ashraf
Prime Minister of Pakistan
Prime Minister House
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Fax: + 92 51 9221596
E-mail: secretary@cabinet.gov.pk, pspm@pmsectt.gov.pk

5. Prime Minister of Nepal
Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Minister of Nepal
Singh Darbar, Kathmandu
P.O. Box: 23312
NEPAL
Tel: +977 1 4211000
Fax: +977 1 4211086
Email: info@opmcm.gov.np

6. Home Minister of Nepal
Home Ministry
Singh Darbar, Kathmandu
NEPAL
Fax: +977 1 42 11 232

7. Federal Minister for Human Rights
Ministry of Human Rights
Old US Aid building
Ata Turk Avenue
G-5, Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 51 9204108
Email: sarfaraz_yousuf@yahoo.com

Thank you.

Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ua@ahrc.asia)

Categories: News, Pakistan Tags: , , , ,

“5 Broken Cameras’” Strange Trip to the Oscars

March 14, 2013 Leave a comment

Published on March 13, 2013 by Akashma Online News

First published in CounterPunch March 8

by URI AVNERY

I’m a Bil’in!

This does not happen every day: a Minister of Culture publicly rejoices because a film from her country has not been awarded an Oscar. And not just one film, but two.

It happened this week. Limor Livnat, still Minister of Culture in the outgoing government, told Israeli TV she was happy that Israel’s two entries for Oscars in the category of documentary films, which made it to the final four, did lose in the end.

Livnat, one of the most extreme Likud members, has little chance of being included in the diminishing number of Likud ministers in the next government. Perhaps her outburst was meant to improve her prospects.

Not only did she attack the two films, but she advised the semi-official foundations which finance Israeli films to exercise “voluntary self-censorship and deprive such unpatriotic films of support, thus making sure that they will not be produced at all.

The documentaries in question are very different in character.

One, The Gatekeepers, is a collection of testimonies by six successive chiefs of the General Security Service, Israel’s internal intelligence agency, variously known by its Hebrew initials Shin Bet or Shabak. In the US its functions are performed by the FBI. (The Mossad is the equivalent of the CIA.)

All six service chiefs are harshly critical of the Israeli prime ministers and cabinet ministers of the last decades. They accuse them of incompetence, stupidity and worse.

The other film, 5 Broken Cameras, tells the story of the weekly protest demonstrations against the “separation” fence in the village of Bil’in, as viewed through the cameras of one of the villagers.

One may wonder how two films like these made it to the top of the Academy awards in the first place. My own (completely unproven) conjecture is that the Jewish academy members voted for their selection without actually seeing them, assuming that an Israeli film could not be un-kosher. But when the pro-Israeli lobby started a ruckus, the members actually viewed the films, shuddered, and gave the top award to Searching for Sugar Man.

I have not yet had a chance to see The Gatekeepers. Because of that, I am not going to write about it.

However, I have seen 5 Broken Cameras several times – both in the cinema and on the 5BrokenCameras_Poster3.inddground.

Limor Livnat treated it as an “Israeli” film. But that designation is rather problematical.

First of all, unlike other categories, documentaries are not listed according to nationality. So it was not, officially, “Israeli”.

Second, one of its two co-producers protested vehemently against this designation. For him, this is a Palestinian film.

As a matter of fact, any national designation is problematical. All the material was filmed by a Palestinian, Emad Burnat. But the co-editor, Guy Davidi, who put the filmed material into its final shape, is Israeli. Much of the financing came from Israeli foundations. So it would be fair to say that it is a Palestinian-Israeli co-production.

This is also true for the “actors”: the demonstrators are both Palestinians and Israelis. The soldiers are, of course, Israelis. Some of members of the Border Police are Druze (Arabs belonging to a marginal Islamic sect.)

When the last of Emad Burnat’s sons was born, he decided to buy a simple camera in order to document the stages of the boy’s growing up. He did not yet dream of documenting history. But he took his camera with him when he joined the weekly demonstrations in his village. And from then on, every week.

Bil’in is a small village west of Ramallah, near the Green Line. Few people had ever heard of it before the battle.

I heard of it for the first time some eight years ago, when Gush Shalom, the peace organization to which I belong, was asked to participate in a demonstration against the expropriation of some of its lands for a new settlement, Kiryat Sefer (“Town of the Book”).

When we arrived there, only a few new houses were already standing. Most of the land was still covered with olive trees. In following protests, we saw the settlement grow into a large town, totally reserved for ultra-orthodox Jews, called Haredim, “those who fear (God)”. I passed through it several times, when there was no other way to reach Bil’in, and never saw a single man there who was not wearing the black attire and black hat of this community.

The Haredim are not settlers per se. They do not go there for ideological reasons, but just because they need space for their huge number of offspring. The government pushes them there.

What made this first demonstration memorable for me was that the village elders emphasized, in their summing-up, the importance of non-violence. At the time, non-violence was not often heard about in Palestinian parlance.

Non-violence was and remains one of the outstanding qualities of the Bil’in struggle. From the first demonstration on, week after week, year after year, non-violence has been the hallmark of the protests.

Another mark was the incredible inventiveness. The elders have long ago given way to the younger generation. For years, these youngsters strived to fill every single demonstration with a specific symbolic content. On one occasion, protesters were carried along in iron cages. On another, we all wore masks of Mahatma Gandhi. Once we brought with us a well-known Dutch pianist, who played Schubert on a truck in the midst of the melee. On yet another protest, the demonstrators chained themselves to the fence. At another time, a football match was played in view of the settlement. Once a year, guests are invited from all over the world for a symposium about the Palestinian struggle.

The fight is mainly directed at the “Separation” Fence, which is supposed to separate between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. In built-up areas it is a wall, in open spaces it is a fence, protected on both sides by a broad stretch of land for patrol roads and barbed wire. The official purpose is to prevent terrorists from infiltrating into Israel and blowing themselves up here.

If this were the real purpose, and were the wall built on the border, nobody could fairly object. Every state has the right to protect itself. But that is only part of the truth. In many regions, the wall/fence cuts deeply into Palestinian territory, ostensibly to protect settlements, in reality to annex land. This is the case in Bil’in.

The original fence cut the village off from most of its lands, which were earmarked for the enlargement of the settlement now called Modi’in Illit (“Upper Modi’in”). The real Modi’in is an adjacent township within the Green Line.

In the course of the struggle, the villagers appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court, which finally accepted part of their claim. The government was ordered to move the fence some distance nearer to the Green Line. This still leaves a lot of land for the settlement.

In practice, the complete wall/fence annexes almost 10% of the West Bank to Israel. (Altogether, the West Bank constitutes a mere 22% of the country of Palestine is [is as] it was before 1948.)

Once Emad Burnat started to take pictures, he could not stop. Week after week he “shot” the protests, while the soldiers shot (without quotation marks) at the protesters.

Tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets were used by the military every week. Sometimes, live ammunition was deployed. Yet in all the demonstrations I witnessed, there was not a single act of violence by the protesters themselves – Palestinians, Israelis or international activists. The demonstrations usually start in the center of the village, near the mosque. When the Friday prayers end (Friday is the Muslim holy day), some of the devout join the young people waiting outside, and a march to the fence, a few kilometers away, commences.

At the fence, the clash happens. The protesters push forward and shout, the soldiers launch tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets. The gas canisters hit people (Rachel, my wife, had a big bruise on her thigh for months, where a canister had hit her. Rachel was already carrying a fatal liver disease and was strictly warned by her doctor not to come near tear gas. But she could not resist taking photos close up.)

Once the melee starts, boys and youngsters – not the demonstrators themselves – on the fringes usually start to throw stones at the soldiers. It is a kind of ritual, a test of courage and manhood. For the soldiers this is a pretext for increasing the violence, hitting people and gassing them.

Emad shows it all. The film shows his son grow up, from baby to schoolboy, in between the protests. It also shows Emad’s wife begging him to stop. Emad was arrested and seriously injured. One of his relatives was killed. All the organizers in the village were imprisoned again and again. So were their Israeli comrades. I testified at several of the trials in the military court, located in a large military prison camp.

The Israeli protesters are barely seen in the film. But right from the beginning, Jews played an important part in the protests. The main Israeli participants are the “Anarchists against the Wall”, a very courageous and creative group. (Gush Shalom activist Adam Keller is shown in a close-up, trying out a passive resistance technique he had learned in Germany. Somehow it did not work. Perhaps you need German police for it.)

If the film does not do full justice to the Israeli and international protesters, that is quite understandable. The aim was to showcase the Palestinian non-violent resistance.

In the course of the struggle, one of Emad’s cameras after another was broken. He is now wielding camera No. 6.

This is a story of heroism, the heroic struggle of simple villagers for their lands and their country.

Long after Limor Livnat will be forgotten, people will remember the Battle of Bil’in.

President Barack Obama would be well advised to see this film before his forthcoming visit to Israel and Palestine.

Some years ago, I was asked to make the laudatory speech at a Berlin ceremony, in which the village of Bil’in and the “Anarchists against the Wall” were decorated for their courage.

Slightly paraphrasing President John Kennedy’s famous speech in Berlin, I proposed that every decent person in the world should proudly proclaim: “Ich bin ein Bil’iner!”

URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

 

Categories: News Tags: , , ,

Report links China’s army to cyber attacks

February 19, 2013 Leave a comment

Published on February 19, 2013 by Akashma Online News

By David E. Sanger
The New York Times

On the outskirts of Shanghai, in a run-down neighborhood dominated by a 12-story white office tower, sits a People’s Liberation Army base for China’s growing corps of cyber warriors.=

The building off Datong Road is the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398. A growing body of digital forensic evidence -confirmed by U.S. intelligence officials who say they have tapped into the activity of the unit for years – leaves little doubt that an overwhelming percentage of attacks on U.S. corporations, organizations and government agencies originate in and around the white tower.

A 60-page study to be released by the U.S. security firm Mandiant tracks for the first time individual members of the most sophisticated of the hacking groups-known to many of its victims as “Comment Crew” or “Shanghai Group” – to the doorsteps of the military unit’s headquarters.-

Exposing Issue

The computer security firm Mandiant provided an advance copy of its report, saying hoped to “bring visibility to the issues addressed.” New York Times reporters then tested the conclusion with others experts inside and outside government. (Mandiant was hired by The New York Times Co. to investigate a Chinese-origin attack on its news operations, but concluded it was not the work of Comment Crew, but another group. The firm is not currently working for The Times.)

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398,” said Kevin Mandia, the founder and chief executive of Mandiant, in an interview last week, “or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about of thousands of people generating attacks from this neighborhood.”

Other firms that have tracked “Comment Crew” say they also believe the group is state-sponsored, and a recent classified National Intelligence Estimate, issue as a consensus document for all 16 U.S. Intelligence agencies, makes a strong case that many of these groups are either run by army officers or are contractors working for commands like Unite 61398.

While Comment Crew has drained terabytes of data from companies like Coca-Cola, increasingly its focus is on companies involved in physical and virtual infrastructure electrical power grids, gas lines, waterworks and government and corporate databases. According to the security researchers, one target was a company with remote access to more than 60 percent of oil and gas pipelines in North America.

Contacted Monday, Chinese officials in Washington said their government does not engage in computer hacking, and that such activity is illegal. They described China itself as victim of hacking, and note that other are many hacking groups in the United States. But in recent years the Chinese attacks have grown significantly, security researchers say. Mandiant has detected more than 140 Comment Crew intrusions since 2006.

“Right now there is no incentive for the Chinese to stop doing this,” Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview. “If we don’t create a high price, it’s only going to keep accelerating.”

The White House said it was “aware” of the report, and Tommy Vietor, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said, “We have repeatedly raised our concerns..with senior Chinese officials, including in the military, and we will continue to do so.”

Under a directive signed by President Barack Obama last week, the government plans to share with American Internet providers-starting today-information it has gathered about the unique digital signature of the largest of the hacking groups, including Comment Crew and other emanating from near where Unit 61398

is based.

While the warnings will not explicitly link those groups or their giant computer servers to the Chinese army, U.S. officials say they are planning to tel China’s new leaders in coming weeks that the volume and sophistication of the attacks have become so intense that they threaten the relation between Washington and Beijing.

The U.S. government also has cyber warriors. But officials insist they operate under strict, if classified, rules that bar using offensive weapons for nonmilitary purposes or stealing corporate data.

–

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, Cyberwarfare, News Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Excuse to attack Syria exposed by amateur hacker

February 2, 2013 3 comments

Published on IndyRadio (http://www.indyradio.nu)

 

Home > Excuse to attack Syria exposed by amateur hacker

Excuse to attack Syria exposed by amateur hacker

published by radio on Fri, 2013-02-01 15:56

CW - Chemical weapons would be delivered to Syria to provide an excuse to attack them

The quantity of documents suggests this is not a spoof

http://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/the-quantity-of-documents-here-su… [2]

The source of this trove is pastebin:

Hello,
I’m JAsIrX and I will share with you some documents downloaded after hacking Britam Defence server.
Its website is located on the Malaysian server. I found bugs in the website with same ip and uploaded web-shell through this site.
Then I hacked plesk parallels control panel and gained access to Britam Defence mail accounts and website directory.
Leaked documents:
–       Contracts copies with signatures
–       Private email correspondence
–       Personnel data, etc.
Britam Defence is British private military company, operates mainly in the Middle East. It killed Arabs in Iraq and plans to invade in Iran and Syria.
Look through leaked documents carefully. CW means chemical weapon, g-shell is short for a gas shell I guess.
Help to distribute this info and let other people know about the threats.
Thank all
This is what I found:
Archive no.1 (This is for obligatory download) more – http://pastebin.com/Whyvnnd6 [3]

According to an Iranain source, who combed through the leaked documents: “An email exchange between two senior officials at Britam suggested that the scheme was approved by Washington, explaining that Qatar would fund the militants in Syria to use chemical weapons.”

How the site was hacked indicates the company had used bargain-basement hosting. Their domain shared the same numerical address as many other domains. A young hacker simply saw this as a target of opportunity, and exploited an obvious weakness.

It’s hard to find good people when dirty deeds need to be done, thus we have the culture of fear cultivated by our leaders in Washington to prevent us from viewing and discussing the obvious truths.

INDYRADIO brings the ruckus to Facebook: http://facebook.com/IndyRadio [4]

Powered by Drupal

Links:
[1] http://www.indyradio.nu/sites/default/files/syria00.png
[2] http://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/the-quantity-of-documents-here-suggests-to-me-that-this-is-not-a-spoof/
[3] http://pastebin.com/Whyvnnd6
[4] http://facebook.com/IndyRadio

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, News Tags: , ,

Burma Student Uprising

January 22, 2013 1 comment

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Akashma Online News

Source Burma VD Documentary

8.8.88 marked a moment of nationwide unity in the Burmese democracy movement. The demonstrations were held in a “spirit of unity, sacrifice and setting aside differences

Twenty-two years ago on 8 August, Burma’s army brutally massacred as many as 3,000 peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators marching against increasing poverty and oppression, and calling for an end to the military dictatorship. The serious human rights violations and economic mismanagement that led to the national uprising in 1988 have continued to worsen under the current regime.

Twenty-two years ago on 8 August, Burma’s army brutally massacred as many as 3,000 peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators marching against increasing poverty and oppression, and calling for an end to the military dictatorship. The serious human rights violations and economic mismanagement that led to the national uprising in 1988 have continued to worsen under the current regime.

“This is my country and this is the way it has been for more than 40 years.
I only remember a few weeks when things were any different.

In 1988 I was only a little boy. But that’s when every one in Burma was in the streets went out,  they were tired of Military rulers. they wanted a change. It was the students who led the demonstrations.
They become more and more outspoken and demanded that the generals give up power. We have even Aung San Suu Kyi when came back from Europe to lead up the people, but the generals wanted it differently.
At the end of the day, 3000 lay dead in the streets and it was all over. I feel as I wanted to fight for democracy ..but I think it better make a long plan We can not go out into the streets again.

Another student massacre still fresh in the minds of Rangoon Residents was like a spear punching their fears, On 7th July 1962, Burmese university students were massacred and Rangoon University Students’ Union building was dynamited down where students were still inside.

 General Ne Win notoriously justified his action by saying “Dar Dar Chin and Hlan Hlan Chin shin mae” which is laterally meaning aggressive challenging words in Burmese saying “I will fight Sword with Sword and Spear with Spear (to wipe out the opposition)” but in reality he killed un-armed non-violent students protesters with guns and dynamites. Burma Democratic Concern

The first uprising since the Military Junta took power in Burma was in 1988, the students took to the streets and 3000 of them were massacre and the soldiers killed them with their dreams and their hopes to ask for something different. The Military Junta killed the revolution’s seed.

“From the 8.8.88 uprising, we were able to bring down a 26 year old military dictatorship because we were united as a country. It was so pure, that spirit of unity. We were able to transcend our differences for our common unified vision of justice and democracy for all. My greatest wish is for us to retain that same spirit of unity that captured the nation’s imagination over twenty-two years ago, as that cohesiveness is our only chance for genuine national reconciliation and democracy in our country.” Burma Parnership

The fear was stronger than the dreams of liberty and with the students bodies, was buried the unborn revolution.

For years the secret service was every were, they had eyes in every corner, no cameras were allowed to film the misery that the people was living. Well so they thought, but an underground network of young reporters were risking their life and filming every aspect of the misery. They were filming every act of repression. The broken buildings of the society tired of living. For 19 years was silence, no dissent was heard off. But one day the spirit of the revolution, that seeds that was buried with the students in 1988 start its first sprouts aiming to the sun. And one day, the seed cracked open and the people felt the hope again. The hope to fight again for a dream stolen more than 60 years ago, and in 2007 the hope came dressed as a women his name is Aung San Suu Kyi  was daughter of Aung San, who founded the modern Burmese army and negotiated Burma’s independence from the British Empire in 1947; he was assassinated by his rivals in the same year. Aung San Suu Kyi was raised in England and came to her country to pick up the pieces scattered all along the delta river.

Aung San Suu Kyi was no new to the Military Junta, she was loved and cherished by the people, when in 1990 she run as an opponent of the Military Junta, almost the whole country vote for her and she was placed in house arrest. Her crime was been loved by the people. That could have been the only reason why she has not been disappeared. For years the Junta was hoping for the people to forget about her, but her memory is fresh in the heart of the people. They know Aung San Yi is their only hope.

Some students have asked me which politicians are standing behind me. They are apprehensive that such politicians might manipulate me and then take over the students. I am happy that the students have been so open and honest with me. Young people are frank and free from deviousness. I answered them truthfully. There are no politicians behind me. What I am trying to do is to help achieve the democratic system of government which the people want. For the achievement of this system, there are some veteran politicians who wish to help me in various ways. I have told such politicians that if their object is to obtain positions of political power for themselves, I would not support them in any way. Should these politicians try to obtain positions of political power I promise in front of this assembly of people that I myself will not hesitate to denounce them. Speech Given in 1988 by Aung San Suu Kyi

The network of young reporters from DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma), it is a network of dissidents in exile, with headquarters in Oslo, they smuggle the footage with trusted carriers, and using satellite when it is possible, this way they have been able to export the repression out of Burma for the world to see. They have one of the most risky jobs, not for money but for the dream of freedom, to see Burma free of the Military boot rule” Burma Journalist.

I sadly announce that the Burmese military junta has cut off the internet connection… I therefore will not be able to feed in pictures of the brutality by the Burmese military junta. I will try my best to feed in their demonic appetite of fear and paranoia by posting any pictures that I receive though other means (Journos!! please don’t ask me what other means would be). Please lobby the Chinese government or UN to get junta to switch on the Internet. Please! Sept 27, 2007 Burma Voice Democratic

Burma documentary assembled entirely with video clips recorded with hidden cameras.
The camcorders bring you the students uprising, their massacre. They bring you the fear in an oppressed and hungry population. They bring you the Monks uprising, their massacre. They bring you the people uprising, their massacre. And they bring you the lies and the repression of the Military Junta.

Thousands of Buddhist monks have been on the streets of the big cities of Burma (Myanmar) for the past few days, and the numbers are only growing. They are now calling explicitly for the overthrow of the military regime which has ruled the country for almost two decades, and they say they will not stop marching until the government is gone. Burma's democratic leader and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Aung San Suu Kyi has been in prison or under house arrest for many years.

Thousands of Buddhist monks have been on the streets of the big cities of Burma (Myanmar) for the past few days, and the numbers are only growing. They are now calling explicitly for the overthrow of the military regime which has ruled the country for almost two decades, and they say they will not stop marching until the government is gone. Burma’s democratic leader and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Aung San Suu Kyi has been in prison or under house arrest for many years.

20 years later another protest shocked the Nation, this time were not the students but the beloved Buddhist Monks of Burma that came to the streets with their bowls upside down refusing to receive alms from the Military Junta and their families. The scene took by surprise the Military Junta and gave hope to the people that came to the streets to add their protests in hope that the rude-less government will respect the Monks. The Monks protest  was allowed for several days, and even when the Monks marched to greet Aung San Yi the Military Junta removed the barricades leading to Aung San Yi home. This unexpected event gave strength to the people to dream for a change, but as 20 years before the protests were beat and killed. The Monks Monastery was raided twice and the 247 Monks were taken away and the bodies started to show up in the river. Once again the people’s hopes was killed and buried with the Monks.

Burmese monks have taken part in protests in the past, against British colonial rule and against a half-century of rule by military dictatorship. The most notable recent occasion was in 1990.

Their militant resistance to the British produced the most prominent political martyr of Burmese Buddhism, U Wisara, who died in prison in 1929 after a 166-day hunger strike.

The silence of the United Nations, EU, US and the elite keep a complete silence for more than 50 years.
The question is why?.
Now, US parade Aung San Suu Yi. Why?.
The world ignores the sacrifice of the Buddhist Monks. Now, is no different than 50 years ago. What’s had changed?. Why the Elite insists on dividing Burma in slices of religious blocks. They always had fought together as an oppressed nation, during the 1962, 1988, 2005, 2007 uprising was never a sectarian divide.
Ask yourself Burma, ask yourself peace activists, ask yourself political activist in Burma, in whose interest is served when the Media feeds a war between Muslims and Buddhists. Why Aung San Suu Yi sided with the dividers? These questions need to be ask before we make any judgements.
In 1988 Aung San Suu Yi asked for unity of the Nation against the Military Boot, because of her standing against the Junta she become an instant hero, remember her words:
“Reverend monks and people! This public rally is aimed at informing the whole world of the will of the people. Therefore at this mass rally the people should be disciplined and united to demonstrate the very fact that they are a people who can be disciplined and united. Our purpose is to show that the entire people entertain the keenest desire for a multi-party democratic system of government.”

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, Education and History, News, Social Change Tags: , , , , , ,

PAKISTAN OF 1948

January 18, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Akashma Online News

RESTORE TO US THE PAKISTAN OF 1948

Source Pakistan Ideology

ONCE UPON A TIME, WE HAD HONEST LEADERS. NEVER AGAIN.

This should be shown in our schools, to show what we had and now what we have.

The Cabinet Meeting was to be held – the ADC inquires, “Sir what will be served in the meeting…Tea or Coffee?”

Sir looked up and replied sternly…the ADC was taken aback! “Whichever of the Ministers wish to have tea or coffee should drink it before leaving his home or when he returns home. The Nation’s money is for the Nation and not for the Ministers!”

After this instruction – as long as he was the Head of the nation …nothing except water was ever served in the Cabinet meetings.

Some items amounting to Rs.38.50 paisa had been purchased for the Governor General’s House. He asked for the bill; a few items were purchased on Mohtarima Fatima Jinnah’s request; he gave instructions that the amount was to be deducted from her account. A couple of items were for his own personal use…their amount to be deducted from his personal account. The remaining items for the Governor House, he said, may be charged to the Government. Instructions were issued to check and make sure what may be charged to the government in the future.

When the brother of the British Emperor – Duke of Gloucester was going to visit Pakistan – the British envoy requested that he receive him at the Airport. He replied, “if I do so then the British head of state (King) would have to reciprocate when my brother would visit London”.

Once the ADC placed a Visiting Card before him…he took it and tearing it said, “Tell him not to come here before me, in future!” the card was his brother’s and his fault..? Printed under the brother’s name was…Brother of Mohammed Ali Jinnah Governor General Pakistan.

During the severe winter of Ziarat, Col. Ilahi Bukhsh offered him a pair of socks. He liked them but inquired about the price. On learning that the price was Rs.2/-, he said the price was high. Col Ilahi Bukhsh replied that “the socks had been purchased from your account” to which the answer was that “even my account is a National trust…the Head of a poor country should not be so extravagant!” With that he rewrapped the socks and returned them to the Colonel.

He was impressed with the work of a particular Nurse in Ziarat and asked if he could do something for her. She said that she was from Punjab and all her family were there, she was alone in Quetta if he could have her transferred to Punjab.

He answered rather regretfully, “I am sorry…this is in the hands of the Health Ministry and not the Governor General’s jurisdiction.”

He ordered a writing table to be installed in his plane…when the File reached the Finance Ministry; the finance minister sanctioned it but sent a written note stating, “The Governor General must ask the Finance Ministry before issuing any such Order”. He gave a written apology and withdrew his previous order.

There is the incident of the Railway track barrier/gates which is well known. When Gul Hasan (his ADC, later C-in-C Pakistan Army) requested the railway track gates to be opened so that his car may pass over unhindered, his face turned red in anger and he ordered the gates to be shut saying, “If I do not obey rules – who else will!”

This was the Pakistan of 60 years ago when Mohammed Ali Jinnah was Head of State…We have evolved and arrived at this Pakistan of today. Today, railway track barriers/gates (Phatak) aside – all traffic signals of the city are switched off- both sides of the main roads are closed to traffic for an hour before the royal entourage goes by and the Head of State may announce a 5 crore donation or funding without a sanction of the Finance Ministry and even after a refusal for a sanction from the finance ministry, aeroplanes purchased and on orders from the President and Prime Minister, scores of people are transferred – as many people’s jobs are terminated and without merit…by bending of rules and regulations as many personnel given promotion..

What to mention socks…even the kids pampers are charged to the National treasury which has brought the expenditure of the President House to 18 and ½ and the Prime ministers budget to 20 Crores. Here nephews, sisters, brother in laws hold sway over the portals of power…where Secretaries receive phone calls from, “I am the brother in law of the Sahib.”

It is a Pakistan in which the full government is present at the airport to receive the vice-president of the United States of America. In the Cabinet meetings, besides tea, coffee full lunches and dinners are served. The kitchens of the President and prime Minister turn crores of rupees into smoke annually! This is the advanced Pakistan where 16 crore poor people are trying to survive!

When the Quaid e Azam left the Governor House on duty there was one police car with a single Inspector of police who also happened to be a non-muslim – at the time when Gandhi had been killed and Quaid e Azam’s life was in danger too – in spite of that the Quaid e Azam went for his evening walk, enjoyed the fresh air without security…but today the Heads of State do not travel even ten kilometres without modern bullet proof cars, expert security guards and well trained Commandos –

We have failed to instil equality in our country, we have been unable to establish a dynamic morally upright nation…have not even made it a peaceful secure modern State!

We the 16 crore poor of Pakistan desire the moral integrity of the Pakistan of 60 years back…Relieve us of this kind of progress, prosperity and prestige and restore to us the venerable Pakistan of the Quaid e Azam…the Pakistan of 1948.

More stories on Pakistan….

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Thursday said it has started investigations against the Sahrif brothers in a $32 million money laundering scandal.

“The reference against Sharif brothers was sent by Interior Minister Rehman Malik and it will be decided on merit,” NAB spokesman Zafar Iqbal said while addressing a media briefing at the NAB headquarters. Replying to a question about the reports that President Asif Ali Zardari has directed the NAB chairman to initiate an inquiry against the Sharifs and reopen pending cases against them, the spokesman said the president had only directed the NAB chairman to ensure that there was no political victimisation. Malik had earlier claimed he had evidence to prove that the PML-N leaders were involved in laundering $32 million.  Nawaz Sharif Scandal

Following documents have been placed before the Supreme Court and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) alleging Nawaz Sharif involvement in $32 millions corruption scandal.

 

 

 

Categories: News Tags: , , ,

Germany: Release of ex-Red Army Faction terrorists sparks hysterical debate

January 18, 2013 2 comments

Source World Socialist Web Site

By Justus Leicht and Wolfgang Weber
8 March 2007

UPDATED By Marivel Guzman

How a legitimate student movement is forced to become violent

Follow the links provided in the article, watch the original version of the events of the student protest in 1968 recorded by journalist Ulrike Meinhof. Make your own opinion of what happened on Germany. What was before the “terrorist organization RAF”. How the government responded to the demands for dialogue?. The Film released in 2008 give us a light on the other side of the story. Every story has its victims and perpetrators, but specially every story has a precedent and has an end. But there is something that insist to be in every human story, it seems never to end,  injustice and inequality . Now it is you the readers who has to make your opinion. At the end it is what count.

Brigitte Mohnhaupt Paroled in GermanyThe state court in Stuttgart recently ruled that the former Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorist Brigitte Mohnhaupt should be released on probation in March, after serving 24 years in detention. Federal President Horst Köhler is also expected to announce his decision soon as to whether another former RAF terrorist, Christian Klar, will be pardoned. The only remaining RAF members still in prison are Eva Haule and Birgit Hogefeld, with Haule qualifying for parole in August.

A court paroled a one-time leader of Germany’s notorious Red Army Faction Monday after 24 years in prison, amid bitter memories of the left-wing terrorist group’s attacks on law enforcement and business leaders, which plunged the country into fear three decades ago.

Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, is to leave prison March 27, the first day she becomes eligible for release, the Stuttgart state court ruled.  Sketchy Thoughts. Mohnhaupt walked free from Aichach prison on March 25, 2007.

The impending release of these former terrorists has met with a vicious response from the German political establishment and media. The main question at issue has been whether their release should be made conditional on an expression of remorse. While conservative politicians, victims’ family members and representatives of the security services are demanding such a statement be made prior to release, some media outlets, and a handful of Green and Social Democratic Party (SPD) politicians, say the government should show its strength through clemency.

Burial of the RAFMembers Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe in a common grave at the Stuttgart Dornhaldestrasse cemetery., Masked at the grave; Motiv: 6 von 12; Foto: Abishag Tüllmann, Stuttgart, 27.10.1977; Publication must show the following: Picture Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage - Abisag Tüllmann Archives

Burial of the RAFMembers Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe in a common grave at the Stuttgart Dornhaldestrasse cemetery., Masked at the grave; Motiv: 6 von 12; Foto: Abishag Tüllmann, Stuttgart, 27.10.1977; Publication must show the following: Picture Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage – Abisag Tüllmann Archives

The head of the Christian Democratic (CDU) parliamentary faction Volker Kauder told the press, “There should be no mercy for those who mercilessly murdered wives’ husbands and children’s fathers with the aim of destroying our democracy.” The former head of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) Horst Herold was no less vehemently opposed to the early release of Mohnhaupt. Another former BKA chief, Hans Ludwig Zachert, also opposed a pardon and denounced Klar as a “mass murderer” and “ice block.” He was supported by former Stuttgart prosecutor general Klaus Pflieger, who co-authored the indictments against Klar and Mohnhaupt.

The Bavarian Prime Minister and chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU), Edmund Stoiber, even demanded the prisoners expressly renounce violence and make a positive commitment to the state. He told the press a condition of their release should be an “open” expression of “genuine” regret. “It is not the state that should signal its reconciliation to the RAF terrorists, but the terrorists must first honestly express regret for all their crimes and profess their allegiance to the constitutional state.”

Such “confessions” are typical not for a democracy based on the rule of law, but for dictatorial and totalitarian regimes.

According to German law, a convict’s request for the suspension of the remainder of his or her sentence on probation, after the completion of a minimum term, must be approved by the courts. A condition for a positive decision is the prognosis that the person will not commit any more criminal offences. The law does not stipulate that a convict must first make an expression of remorse, much less issue a political statement supporting the state.

At present, those given life sentences must serve at least 15 years. On average, they are released after 17 to 19 years. In cases of “especially serious guilt,” as was found in the case of the RAF terrorists, the minimum sentence is extended. In these cases, the average detention amounts to 23 to 25 years.

In the cases of Mohnhaupt and Haule, it is not a matter of “clemency” or a “signal of reconciliation,” but the granting of legally enshrined rights, guaranteed through a 1977 judgement of the Federal Constitutional Court, and the principles of rule of law and human dignity, which are due to any offender who has served an appropriate sentence, even in cases of the most serious crimes.

The Badeer Meinhof Gang Trial

The Badeer Meinhof Gang Trial

One of the most repulsive examples of the hysteria with which politicians and the media have reacted to the impending release of the RAF terrorists was the Sunday television talk show hosted by Sabine Christiansen. Christiansen had invited three “victims of terrorism” onto her show: Michael Buback, the son of the German attorney general murdered by the RAF in 1977; Michael Esper, a victim of the Al Qaeda bombing of the synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia; and Bettina Röhl, the daughter of RAF founder Ulrike Meinhof. The highly emotional contributions of these individuals were then supported and deepened by the Brandenburg interior minister and retired lieutenant general, Jörg Schönbohm (CDU).

To refresh the memory to the German society The Badeer Meinhof Complex Documentary brings  the story of the main players of the student movement of 1970 in Germany .

 Nominated for the Golden Awards for the best foreign film, The Badeer Meinhof Complex 2008 German Film brings you the factors behind the upraising. The first part of the Film show us the injustice, the inequality of world wide political game of oppression, repression and silencing the dissenting voices of the youth. The common denominator for a revolution has always has been Injustice and inequality.

You can have all the sociologists of the world studying the patterns of revolutions and every time they will miss the point. Purposely they will miss the point. Usually studies of any subject are conducted by prestigious Universities. Universities “Paid” to “Find” something.
You can have hundreds terrorism strategist and spies agencies around the world trying to stop “Terrorism”, you can have hundreds Benjamin Netahagus’s books written giving lessons to how to combat terrorism. Every time the strategist will miss the point. There is no terrorism, it is a wake up call to show the governments that something it is wrong.  Something wrong that it is answered with State terrorism.

The Badeer Meinhof Complex Film give you the aspects of German’s wrongs of the 70’s. The US’s wrongs of Vietnam, The Israel’s wrongs of the Occupation of Palestine, the wrongs of injustice and inequality.

The Badeer Meinhof Complex Film was nominated for the best foreign language Film and it could have been very well  nominated  for the Best Documentary, doing it so would have given a truth to the German  student movement of the 70’s.
There is an immense archive of the Badeer-Meinhof gang that could had been used, but the producers of the film decided for a more socially accepted category of film. Not too Radical, not to political, not to human. The characters of the film are all real, the events are truth story, even the government response it is very real.  Akashma News
Intricately researched and impressively authentic slice of modern German History, with a terrific cast, assured direction, and a cracking script. Rotten Tomatoes

In this heated atmosphere, Christiansen carried out a viewers’ poll and announced at the end of the programme that 91 percent of those questioned had expressed opposition to the early release of Mohnhaupt and Klar. The daily Süddeutsche Zeitung called the programme “a declaration of journalistic bankruptcy,” and added, “If Christiansen had asked whether terrorists should face the death penalty, 91 percent would probably have supported this.”

Andrees Badeer left 05

Andrees Badeer left 05

Anyone who believes in a humane society can only welcome the initiative to release the last of the RAF prisoners. In 1992, one and a half decades ago, the RAF announced the end of its armed struggle. In 1998, nearly 10 years ago, the organisation dissolved itself, and most of its members were then released. Most had served their sentences; others were pardoned by the German president and released early. All four predecessors of the present federal President Horst Köhler have pardoned RAF members, none of whom has since returned to the armed struggle.

This March, Brigitte Mohnhaupt will have served the minimum sentence for her offences. The federal prosecutor’s office has supported her request that the balance of her sentence be suspended, and the state court in Stuttgart has sustained this view. Politicians and the media—some more reluctantly than others—have accepted that the letter of the law is being followed.

Unlike Mohnhaupt, Christian Klar received a minimum sentence of 26 years, which only expires in 2 years’ time. In 2003, in his application for a pardon, he expressed his regret for the consequences of his actions: “Naturally, I must recognise my guilt. I understand the feelings of the victims and regret the suffering of these people.”

In 2001, Klar had been interviewed on television by the now-deceased journalist Günter Gaus, who also advised Klar on his application for a pardon. According to Gaus’s daughter Bettina, the impression made by Klar—seriously scarred physically and psychologically by decades of imprisonment—left Gaus “deeply unsettled.” This assessment is shared by the author of these lines, who also witnessed the interview. The 54-year-old Klar, who had studied philosophy and history, although probably healthy in a purely medical sense, was absent, unsure of himself and evidently had trouble following the journalist’s questions and articulating his own thoughts.

Several RAF prisoners have spent many years of their detention in total isolation, and their prison conditions were consciously designed to destroy their personalities.

The political dead-end of individual terror

Meinhof

Meinhof

Marxists have always rejected and opposed the politics and methods of individual terrorism and the RAF. Revolutionary politics aims at the emancipation of broad layers of working people, seeking to raise their political consciousness and cultural level so that they might abolish capitalism and organize society on a humane and truly democratic basis. Socialist politics are therefore always linked to the struggle for democracy and humanity.

Terrorism, on the other hand, feeds on contempt for the general population, acts independently of it and, in the long run, always ends up seeking to influence one section or other of the ruling class through violent attacks and opportunist manoeuvres. At the same time, it provides the representatives of the state with a pretext to weaken fundamental democratic rights and makes the struggle for socialist politics more difficult. A glance at the history of the RAF makes this very clear.

Mohnhaupt and Klar are generally regarded as prominent leaders of the RAF “second generation.” The initial public appearance of the Red Army Faction “first generation,” around Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, occurred in 1970. Its members came from the student protest movement that was directed against the colonial war of the US in Vietnam, and the preponderance of former Nazis in the post-war German Federal Republic (West Germany).

Human relations are political, because they show if the people are opressed or free, if they can act throughful or not, if they can act in any way or not. 1969 Ulrike Meinhof

Interview of Ulrike Meinhof considered by German Police one of the founder of the Red Army Faction, she was a journalist

In the period that shaped this generation and drove them to rebellion, the Nazi lawyer Hans Globke was chief of staff to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer; a Nazi naval judge, Hans Filbinger, who had condemned a sailor to death in March 1945 for desertion, was prime minister of the state of Baden-Württemberg; and many Nazi professors still delivered their lectures at the universities as if nothing had happened. Only a few of the judges who had served on the Nazis’ so-called “people’s courts”—which had imposed thousands of death sentences—faced trial after the war, and they were then acquitted.

The Social Democratic Party, which had long since abandoned a socialist perspective, still had significant support in the factories and trade unions. In East Germany, the Stalinist bureaucracy, along with its followers in the West, were also hostile to any revolutionary movement of the working class. At the same time, the student movement was strongly influenced by the anti-Marxist theories of the Frankfurt School, which wrote off the working class as a revolutionary factor, regarding it as a bourgeoisified mass “intoxicated by consumerism,” instead glorifying the guerrilla movements in the Third World and other petty bourgeois forces.

The RAF was from the outset marked by this contempt for the working class and broad sections of the population. In April 1968, Baader, Ensslin and others started fires at two Frankfurt department stores. In October of the same year, the trial of the arsonists ended with three-year sentences being handed out. Ensslin took sole responsibility for the arson, arguing she had done it out of “protest against the indifference with which people were watching the genocide in Vietnam.”

In 1972, 11 Israeli athletes attending the Olympic Games in Munich were kidnapped and subsequently killed by Palestinian terrorists. The RAF glorified this as an “anti-imperialist, internationalist and anti-fascist act.” The RAF attacked US army facilities in Germany without any regard for the lives of the young soldiers who often came from the most oppressed layers of the American working class.

For its part, the German state acted with extreme aggression not only against the RAF, but also against left-wingers and socialists. The media and politicians used the attacks to slander all critics of capitalism as terrorists.

In 1972, shortly after the beginning of the so-called “May offensive,” practically the entire “first generation” of the RAF was arrested. In the same year, the so-called “Anti-radical decrees” were introduced, which threatened to prohibit any member of a left-wing organization from working in the public service.

The politics of the RAF “second generation” consisted essentially of attempts to induce the state to release the RAF prisoners through a campaign of assassinations and hostage-takings. It was characterised by a mixture of violence and opportunism.

From the mid-1970s, the government under Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt launched a counter-offensive against the strike wave and student radicalisation that had persisted since 1968. It ruthlessly suppressed all attempts to free the RAF prisoners by means of hostage-taking. The rights of the prisoners, who were being kept in high-security facilities, were further limited, including imposing total isolation, which is a form of torture.

Original Film Presented by Journalist Ulrike Meinhof in 1967 to Parliamnet to explain her siding with the student protest

In the following video you see excerpts of Ulrike own accounts of the events of June 2, 1967

When she is asked why you side with the students? she honestly answered: “The right wing-press blame the student for the catastrophe of June 2th, 1967, The Springer Publishing uses its newspaper to demonize the critical voices of students as hooligans. “For these Juvenals is no longer enough to raise hell, they have to see blood” Meinhof continues; “The truth is that the protest of these students had exposed our state as a police state, Police and press terror reached a peak on the 2th of June in Berlin, and we know that freedom in this country means freedom for police brutality.Then she goes on to say that The Battle for Jerusalem is demagogy, and while the US discusses or, whether or not to use Nuclear weapons in Vietnam, Israel, with American support, initiates a war of aggression and shamelessly labels it a preventive war.”

The RAF leadership were surprised by this harsh response and the unwillingness of the state to compromise. During the occupation of the German embassy in Stockholm by RAF members in April 1975, for example, the government did not yield, even after the murder of two embassy workers, and instead ordered the storming of the embassy.

Two years later, as the RAF prisoners were conducting a hunger strike for improved prison conditions, the German attorney general and two colleagues were assassinated. Later, a rocket attack failed on the building of the federal prosecutor’s office. The banker Jürgen Ponto was killed in a botched kidnapping attempt. The seizure of a German civilian airliner by a Palestinian commando group associated with the RAF led to the pilot being murdered. Instead of the RAF prisoners being released as demanded, the German government again ordered the ending of the hostage crisis by force.

The most prominent episode of the RAF’s “1977 offensive” remains the abduction of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the president of the employers’ federation. His three companions and his driver were shot during the kidnapping. As the RAF admitted later, its goal was to use “his connections and influence” for an exchange of prisoners. However, the SPD-led government was determined not to make any compromise and even to accept Schleyer’s death as a result. This view prevailed, even against the wishes of Schleyer’s family, who had already assembled the ransom being demanded.

The callousness and brutality with which the RAF acted made it easy for the ruling elite and the media to encourage a climate of hysteria and trample on democratic rights. It was not only political opponents who were destroyed psychologically, physically and morally, but also many completely innocent people were shot during house searches, traffic controls and such like—”in self-defence” or “by mistake.”

At the same time, the terrorist attacks served the ruling class as a pretext for new and ever harsher attacks on democratic rights.

Two years after the Anti-radical decrees were introduced, a law was passed in 1974 making possible the exclusion of lawyers during a criminal trial and precluding several defendants being represented by a single attorney. This was aimed at preventing a lawyer acting as a conduit for communication between the prisoners. The number of appointed defence counsels was limited to three.

The law also made it possible for a trial to take place in the absence of the accused if he or she was mounting any protest actions such as a hunger strike for improved prison conditions.

The monitoring of communications between attorneys and their clients was legalized. In 1976, wide-ranging expressions of political opinion were criminalized, such as the “anti-constitutional endorsement of violence” and “supporting” terrorist organizations. The prosecuting authorities were given the right to order detention on remand in cases involving state security, even when there was no suspicion that an accused might collude with others or seek to flee the trial.

In 1977, the so-called “law banning contact” followed, legalizing the total isolation of the RAF prisoners, a situation that had had already been practiced without any legal basis. One year later, further possibilities for excluding for attorneys and extending the authority of the police to conduct searches followed.

At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, it became increasingly difficult to determine which actions were being carried out by the RAF and which could be attributed directly to the state. There are suspicions that the final attacks were not committed by the RAF and that the letters claiming responsibility on the part of the RAF only served to divert attention from the real culprits.

For example, at the time of his murder in 1989, the spokesman for the executive board of the Deutsche Bank, Alfred Herrhausen, was under sharp attack by other members of the bank and was due to be replaced on the day he died. After Herrhausen had argued in favour of debt cancellation for several Third World countries, which had accumulated massive debts mainly with American banks, he received death threats. He took the threats so seriously that he wore a bulletproof vest at international finance meetings. Whether the RAF was at all responsible for his murder remains disputed to this day.

The present campaign against the release of the former RAF members takes place at a time when democratic rights are once again being sharply attacked. In the name of the so-called “fight against terrorism,” the government is pressing to legalize the deployment of the army inside Germany, together with the use of confessions obtained under torture as well as preventative detention merely on the basis of suspicion.

The hysteria surrounding the issue of whether Mohnhaupt and Klar should be released sooner or later after serving a quarter-century in prison is in fact part of a campaign to create the climate for a massive increase in the powers of the state apparatus—a development that seriously threatens basic democratic rights and is directed against growing popular opposition.

This link provided take you to the Film German Version caption translated to Portuguese The Baader-Meinhof Complex

Red Army Faction: Baader-Meinhof Gang

Red Army Faction: the Second Generation

Verena Becker, the former German Red Army Faction (RAF) member arrested last week over her links to a spectacular political murder committed 32 years ago, worked for years as a secret service informant, it emerged yesterday.

Becker, 57, was paid to help capture leaders of the left-wing terrorist group, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, according to senior former intelligence figures who spoke in a television documentary screened in Germany yesterday. The revelations came after she was arrested at her home in Berlin last Saturday when police found new evidence implicating her in the killing of Siegfried Buback. September 04, 2009 NZ Herald News

The June 2nd Movement

Revolutionary Cells

Other Terrorists

Proto-Terrorists: Socialist Patients Collective

Proto-Terrorists: West Berlin Tupamaros

Read More…. on Japanese Red Army Student Struggles

The similar political positions of the “Terrorists” of the 70’s , the Vietnam War, Israel Occupation of Palestine, US imperialist goals and fascism they all play a role in the student uprising of the 70’s. The state of constant alert from part of the governments against the students, sent the movement to a higher grounds of protest.
Injustice and inequality are the two main forces that drove the students movement rise. The repressive tactics of the governments sent the movement from vocal to violent. The events caught on cameras, and the accounts from witness of those movement let us know that the students were forced to become violent to protect themselves, and to be heard by a dormant populace.

40 years later the governments of the world are in the same state of alert against a movements that started to grow. Injustice and inequality the two factors of the past still the same factors affecting the modern political movements.

All the material utilized in this article are taken from public sources for education purposes.

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, Education and History, Germany, News Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Bil’in protesters oppose a ‘horrible, horrible wrong’ — Michael Moore

January 12, 2013 2 comments

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Akashma Online News
by
UPDATED By Marivel Guzman

I have been activist for a few years now. I consider myself part of the Palestinian Solidarity Movement, and like Bil’in resistance fighter, I m an advocate for non-violence movement. It is difficult to witness the struggle of Palestinians fighting their battle with a Palestinian flag and a camera.
Bil’in residents decided to wage a non-violent resistance war against the stronger army of the Middle East.
They started this war 7 years ago, protesting the Land 6 for Settlements and the construction of the Apartheid Wall. They are not deterred by the gas, arrests, bullets, bullying, and death. Every Friday after prayer, they gather by the wall, pacifically protesting the stealing of the land.
I have been sharing photos and videos taken from the villages in West Bank, Gaza and West Jerusalem, images that could be rated R by the MPAA(Motion Picture Association of America) by its violent content. The violence is recorded in every one of the videos shoot by the residents and by the International Community of activists volunteering to be live witness of the Israel Occupation, internationals that take their own doses of beating, gas, bullets, arrests, and sometimes death. 5 Broken Cameras Exposes Israel True Colors

Phil was known as The Elephant, and his name was Bassem Abu Rahman. RIP Killed April 07, 2009

Michael Moore tweeted his followers to watch the film about Palestine that launched earlier in the departed year called 5 Broken Cameras. Twice. The chieftain of cinematic guerrilla activism sings it up as “one of the best films of the year” and “that rare documentary that has the power to move many. Pls watch!”
“Watch one of the best films of the year, “5 Broken Cameras,” the story of a Palestinian farmer who picks up a camera” MMFlint
Moore reveals a deeper connection to the film than suggested by those lonesome tweets. It took home the best picture award at the Traverse City Film Festival founded by Moore in his native Michigan. And he’s spoken at a number of screenings in the US. A video of one such pre-screening talk shows the extent of his directorial admiration for Emad Burnat’s film and the significant Israeli obstacles he has had to climb to showcase the debut Palestinian talent.
I was able to get Emad to Traverse City, Michigan. He’d gone to the airport in Tel Aviv, and they wouldn’t let him leave. And so we had to get him to Amman to get on a plane there. But because I run a large international network of terrorists we were able to make this happen (laughs). I have been a huge advocate for this film for the better part of the last year. I was just telling Tom (the event’s co-organizer) downstairs that if I were the third Koch brother and had their resources … I would send a copy of this film to every home in America. And I believe that within 24 hours, if people would watch it, public opinion on this issue would change dramatically. This film is so powerful in its humanity, in its heart, its belief in non-violence as the way to succeed.
When Emad and his family were in Traverse City, Terry George, who made Hotel Rwanda, and I were introducing the film and then we did a Q&A afterwards and Terry said something I thought was really very true: every now and again a documentary comes along that after you see it you won’t discuss it as a documentary, you will discuss it as a work of art, a work of cinema, a movie. And we feel very strongly that this is one of those movies. This is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year, of all movies, not just documentaries. And their struggle goes on as you will see. This man is not a documentary filmmaker – he’s a farmer. And the film that you are about to watch is a film made by a farmer. With no training whatsoever. And I don’t even think that they have a theater in their town, so I don’t even know what he’s seen.
So that makes it even more amazing as you watch this film, and you’re realizing that sometimes if you have that, whatever that is in you, whatever you have to say, you want your voice heard, and he found the medium to do that, quite accidentally: because his son, Jibreel, was born in 2005 and he picked up a used home video camera; and started you know wanting to film his son growing up but things started happening, they (Israel) started building the wall to bleed their town, so he started filming that, and the title of the film, as is probably self-evident, in terms of what happens to his cameras. One thing we did in Traverse City town is that when he left, we sent him a brand new camera (laughs) so he could keep filming. It was a small price to pay for trying to “right” a horrible, horrible wrong.
So I’m really happy that he came here tonight to watch this; and I encourage you in terms of not only your appreciation of the art of this film, but also when you leave here, when you think about this tomorrow, to do what you can to help other people who don’t have five broken cameras, don’t have a voice. We (Americans) are the funders of what you are about to see.

“As Israeli settlers begin building homes and erecting a barrier wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in, a Palestinian farm worker documents the town’s resistance to the new settlement. Over the course of several years, the townspeople clash with the Israeli Defense Force, and tensions mount as the wall remains and the building continues.” 5 Broken Cameras
Discover Bil’in
Bil’in is a Palestinian village that is struggling to exist. It is fighting to safeguard its land, its olive trees, its resources… its liberty.
By annexing close to 60% of Bil’in land for Israeli settlements and the construction of Israel’s separation wall, the state of Israel is strangling the village. Every day it destroys a bit more, creating an open air prison for Bil’in’s inhabitants.
Supported by Israeli and international activists, Bil’in residents peacefully demonstrate every Friday in front of the “work-site of shame”. And every Friday the Israeli army responds with violence, both physically and psychologically.
Bil’in residents have continued to withstand these injustices despite the frequent night raids of Israeli soldiers in the town followed by an increasing number of arrests of inhabitants and of activists. But now, the army has toughened the oppression by systematically arresting members of the Bil’in committee in charge of organizing the non-violent resistance actions. The aim of the arrests is to discourage Bil’in residents and reduce their resistance to the occupation.
By supporting Bil’in, you will help its inhabitants to continue their struggle and maintain hope in their fight for liberty. This site is dedicated to all people of good will – Palestinian, Israeli and the internationals who fight side by side against the injustices endured by the people of Bil’in.
Since I watched the trailer of 5 Broken Cameras I got inspired to shared as a great film without knowing, that this reality film was being nominated for the best documentary in our Oscar 2013. 5 Broken Cameras it is simple, real, painful as Palestinian reality is. If you have the chance “watch it”, go to Alive Mind Cinema and download it, Group Screen it, show it in your College Campus. Reality sting, but this is the only way to educate the public regarding Occupied Palestine.
“Alive Mind Cinema shares a large chunk of the proceeds with the filmmakers, who are often the best spokespeople for their cause, as in the case of 5 Broken Cameras. We also support many organizations through partnerships, free screenings, education, etc.” Elizabeth Sheldon from Alive Mind Cinema.
Emat Burnat Palestinian Filmaker take you on a road of desperation, occupation, outrage and tears. In 5 years IDF (Israel Soldiers) destroyed 5 cameras, but he continue filming Palestinian Struggles.
Now for first time in history, Palestine Occupation has come out to the light of an audience silenced by Israel Propaganda Machine. 5 Broken Cameras in the hands of a Palestinian farmer bring you the painful Palestinian truth.

An extraordinary work of both cinematic and political activism, 5 BROKEN CAMERAS is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil’in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the footage was later given to Israeli co-director Guy Davidi to edit. Structured around the violent destruction of each one of Burnat’s cameras, the filmmakers’ collaboration follows one family’s evolution over five years of village turmoil. Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost. “I feel like the camera protects me,” he says, “but it’s an illusion.”
Democracy Now interview with Palestinian Filmmaker/Farmer/Activist Emat Burnat and Israel Filmmakers/Activist David Davidi, they walk us to the making of 5 broken cameras, which it is an everyday reality in Bil’in Palestine.

Repression and Arrest on Videos Everyday Bil’in Struggles

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, Culture, Israel, Middle East, Movies, News, Palestine State Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Israel Global Insecurity

January 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on January 06, 2012 by Akashma Online News

To present this article, I had to borrow Benjamin Netanyahu’s lessons. He was a young boy. He was already nurtured in the path to terrorism. He was already presenting his case to the West on terrorism. In 1986, “Terrorism – How the West Can Win”
Any nation that defends the rights of the Palestinians is the enemy of Israel.
The PLO has been the nightmare of Israel for many years. Not because the PLO is a strong force against Israel aggressions but because the PLO represents the Palestinian people.
In its 1986 TERRORISM book, Benjamin Netanyahu gives us examples of terrorist tactics and ideas.
“The TERRORIST embraces the totalitarian’s substitution of unmorality for morality. Like the totalitarian, the terrorist believes his particular cause justifies any atrocity and endows it with moral goodness. He politicizes all society and recognizes no restrains. ” Benjamin Netanyahu, 1986 on TERRORISM AND TOTALITARIANISM
As you can see, Israel had followed its own lessons on terrorism. It has acted alone justifying its existence as the only valid reason to attack other nations that sympathize with the Palestinian cause. To justify its existence, Israel had killed thousands of people around the world.
It had committed the most atrocious acts of terrorism. It has cheated other Nations, spied on them. It has ignored the directives of the International Court of Justice on human rights issues on the construction of the Illegal Apartheid Wall and refused to abide by the UN resolutions.
This book is phenomenally instructive to learn the terrorist tactics that Israel had followed for a few decades. In its ranting of defining TERRORISM, Benjamin goes on to say that
“terrorism is not a sporadic phenomenon born of social misery and frustration. It is rooted in the political ambitions and designs of EXPANSIONIST STATES and the group that serve them
“They(States) neatly echo the terrorist’ own assertions, which are meant to legitimize their criminal actions and divert public attention from the real forces behind terrorism” pg 8 Defining Terrorism” Benjamin Netanyahu
WikiLeaks: Israel destroyed nuclear facilities in Iran
Israel destroyed Iran Nuclear Plant February 27, 2012
Israeli commando forces destroyed, with the help of Kurdish rebels, all of Iran‘s nuclear infrastructure on ground, an email by a US-based global security analysis company released by WikiLeaks on Monday claims
Israel bombs Baghdad nuclear reactor
Israel destroys Iraqi Nuclear Reactor Plant on June 07, 1981
On June 7, 1981, Israeli warplanes struck the Osirak nuclear facility near Baghdad. This “unprovoked” action by Israel was a pre-emptive strike to deny Iraq the capability of producing nuclear weapons, weapons Israeli intelligence believed were in the works. Iraqi defenses were taken by surprise and opened fire too late. In one minute and twenty seconds, the reactor lay in ruins. The IAF planes returned to base without losses.
The Israelis have bombed a French-built nuclear plant near Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, saying they believed it was designed to make nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.
It is the world’s first air strike against a nuclear plant.
An undisclosed number of F-15 interceptors and F-16 fighter bombers destroyed the Osirak reactor 18 miles south of Baghdad on the orders of Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
The army command said all the Israeli planes returned safely.
The 70-megawatt uranium-powered reactor was near completion but had not been stocked with nuclear fuel, so there was no danger of a leak, according to sources in the French atomic industry.
Sudan accuses Israel of bombing military factories, talks of “inside job”
Israel Destroyed Sudan Arms Manufacturer on October 24, 2012
The Sudanese government has blamed an Israeli airstrike for the explosion of a military factory in the capital Khartoum on Tuesday, warning that it reserves the right to respond, while Tel Aviv maintained the usual silence in response to the charge.
Sudan’s Minister of Media, Ahmad Bilal Osman, made the charge during a press conference held in Khartoum on Wednesday, saying Khartoum has evidence of Tel Aviv’s involvement in the destruction of Al-Yarmook factory in the southern suburbs of Khartoum at midnight.
Dan Patir: ‘U.S. Apparently Disregarded Israel’s Intelligence Interests By Publication Of Secret Israeli Photos Of Syrian Nuclear Reactor Destroyed By Israeli Air Strike’
Israel destroyed the Syrian Nuclear Reactor Plant on September 06, 2008
The latest Olmert-Assad peace overtures coincided with the U.S. congressional hearings on an alleged clandestine Syrian nuclear facility destroyed by an Israeli airstrike last September. Some analysts suggested that the timing of the hearings might have been geared deliberately to torpedo peace efforts. Photographs shown at the hearings of the Syrian site bombed by Israel and a North Korean nuclear facility displayed an uncanny resemblance. U.S. intelligence suggested that the Syrian reactor was close to becoming operational and would have been able to produce enough plutonium over a year or two for several nuclear bombs.
‘Olmert and Syrian President Assad Should Learn From Menachem Begin & Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat’
‘A Dramatic Event Similar To Sadat’s Historic Visit To Jerusalem Could Also Alter Public Opinion Today’
Has the U.S. jeopardized Israeli intelligence interests by publication of secret Israeli photos proving that the Syrian target destroyed by Israeli aircraft on September 6th was a nuclear reactor being built by North Korea? Dan Patir, an advisor to Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzak Rabin, told IsraCast that Washington apparently ignored the Israeli-Syrian situation and preferred to take North Korea to task. In an in-depth interview, Patir assesses prospects for Prime Minister Olmert and Syrian President Assad to follow in the footsteps of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat in forging a peace treaty.
I think that after all the atrocities committed on behalf of Israel Apartheid State, it is time that puts responsibility on individuals and not on an idea. “Zionism” it is only an idealist term worshiped and converted to a movement equipped with its own wheels.
The leaders of the nations that had made possible this pariah state to stay strong need to be brought to justice. The Sionist elite that with their money has made possible the existence of this terrorist Apartheid System that it is Israel need also to be brought to justice. The people behind the UN Club of 5 that for 6 decades had made impossible the impartiality of Justice when it come to Palestine they also need to be prosecuted.
I think the times have come to start the Jerusalem Trials against the criminals that had supported Israel.
Justice is due now.

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, Iran, Israel, Sudan, Syria Tags: , , , , , ,

Five Questions Netanyahu needs to Answer

January 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Posted on January 05, 2013 by Akashma Online News
Source PLO – Negotiations Affairs Department
There is also a security Non-paper issued in 2010 with singular statements like :
“Based on reciprocity, Palestine will not enter into alliances with parties hostile to Israel. ”
The only reason most of the Arab countries are hostile to Israel is because of the Palestinian issue, so why, the PLO goes to promise such things. Or maybe they are talking about new alliances? Because the wording is talking into future, not past or present alliances. “Palestine will not enter into alliances” Security Non-Paper 2010
1. Why does Netanyahu refuse to define which “compromises” will he make?
Mr. Netanyahu said in his speech to the U.S. Congress in 2011 that ‘painful compromises’ will be necessary to ensure a lasting peace. Neither in that speech nor in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last year did Prime Minister Netanyahu give any indication of which positive initiatives or agreed to any concessions during meetings arranged by the U.S., Jordan and the Quartet over the last two years.
2. Why does Netanyahu never acknowledge that the PLO has long recognized Israel’s right to exist?
The Declaration of Principles of 1993 was based on a historic compromise in the exchange of letters by which ‘the PLO’ recognizes the right to the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.’
The Palestinians have genuine and legitimate interest in establishing a Palestinian state that will be recognized, that acts as an independent state and is able to exercise its full rights and responsibilities as a sovereign nation.The Palestinian state needs also to be able to govern and exercise authority effectively, and maintain a responsible self-defense capability with no interest in establishing an offensive military threat to its neighbors. The main aim, after all, is to establish a national homeland for the Palestinians living in peace and security with all of its neighbors.
3. How could Palestine be a sovereign country without East Jerusalem as its capital and with Israeli occupying forces controlling every one of its borders?
The Israeli Prime Minister told the U.S. Congress that he is in favor of a Palestinian State, while saying that ‘Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel’ and that ‘it is vital that Israel maintain a long term military presence along the Jordan River.’
“Tonight, another Palestinian family from Sheikh Jarrah in Occupied East Jerusalem will be expecting to be evicted from the home they have inhabited for decades. The Shamasneh family – made up of 10 members, including two elderly and three children – are victims of the cruel behavior of the Israeli occupation aimed at ethnically cleansing the city of its Palestinian inhabitants.” Occupied East Jerusalem

“The Palestinian negotiators are not willing to sign an agreement that does not include Jerusalem or one which does not preserve our rights in the city as they were in June 1967. Israel’s proposal on Jerusalem, if we had accepted, would have cut the city in many forms and placed on it many different legal characterizations, some thing we rejected.” Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen): No Peace Agreement without Jerusalem, 2003

4. Is it not the truth that – judged by his unrelenting annexation of Palestinian land – Netanyahu is committed to making a viable Palestinian state impossible?
In last year’s speech to the U.S. Congress, Netanyahu also claimed that “Palestinians should have a national life of dignity as a free, viable and independent people in their own state.” Yet he refuses to stop the expansion of Israeli settlements, continues to construct a massive and illegal wall that denies Palestinians freedom of movement, and refrains from committing to 1967 borders. In other words, he insists on building on the land that is supposed to make up the future state of Palestine.
Settlements: Since 1967, Israel has colonized the Occupied Palestinian Territories by systematically transferring parts of its Jewish civilian population into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in violation of international law. Today, more than half a million Israeli settlers, including over 190,000 in and around East Jerusalem, live in settlements established on land illegally seized from us in the OPT. These settlements range in size from nascent settlements or “outposts,” consisting of a few trailers, to entire towns of tens of thousands of settlers. Colonizing the Occupied Territories
5. When will he admit that by setting non‐negotiable pre‐conditions on all issues and unilaterally acquiring Palestinian land, his support for a negotiated solution is a cynical pretense?
The Israeli Prime Minister repeatedly calls for negotiations without pre‐conditions, while setting pre‐conditions and extra demands of his own and undertaking aggressive and illegal actions to predetermine the outcome of negotiations. These include rejecting any compromise on Jerusalem, pre-emptively denying Palestinian refugees their right to return, demanding that Israel control the Jordan Valley area, and accelerating the theft of Palestinian land for the construction of Jewish-only settlements.
Paris Protocol, Oslo and David Accords need to be scrapped out of the Palestinian Compromises, and a new set of rules have to be put in place according to Palestine State sovereign new status, and according to International Law. Anything that benefits Israel and put Palestine at a disadvantage should not be honored for being Legally Unjust.

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, Israel, Middle East, News, Palestine State Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Japanese Red Army’s Black Widow — Fusako Shigenobu

January 2, 2013 5 comments

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Akashma Online News

Principal story by John S. Craig, Yahoo! Contributor Network

Japanese Red Army (JRA)

UPDATED with materials from the internet from different sources by Marivel Guzman.
All the information provided in this article is done with the purpose of informing the public of events that occurred more than 30 years ago.  Events that had shaped our present reality.

All the material presented here needs to be revised. The official story had been the only story known to the public at the time of publication from the original sources.

The JRA was considered a terrorist organization by the government of Japan. But there is always the other side of the story. The story behind the curtain that covers the life of ordinary citizens.

As you read this compendium, research the works of Prof. Rachael M. Rudolph, who has done studies on resistance movements and had published books on the matter. Also, consider the role of mainstream media and the dissemination of information, which could have not been verified.

“I regard myself as a political prisoner, in as much as I fought with all my strength to improve Japanese and international society, and to help the Palestinian people,” Fusako Shigenobu.

The JRA was an international group formed in Japan around 1970 after breaking away from the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. Shigenobu was one of the known leaders of JRA up until her arrest in Japan in November, 2000.

The movement was officially disbanded by Shigenobu on 2001 from her prison cell and proclaimed the armed struggle over. “If I am released I will continue the fight, but through peaceful means. The armed struggle was closely related to historical circumstances, and what is right in one time and place may not be right in another,” she said during her interview to the Guardian..

Fusako Shigenobu

Fusako Shigenobu

The JRA’s historical goal has been to overthrow the Japanese government and monarchy and to help foment world revolution. After her arrest, Shigenobu announced she intended to pursue her goals using a legitimate political party rather than revolutionary violence, and the group announced it would disband in April, 2001. JRA may control or at least have ties to the Anti-Imperialist International Brigade (AIIB) and also may have links to the Antiwar Democratic Front—an overt leftist political organization—inside Japan. Details released following Shigenobu’s arrest indicate that the JRA was organizing cells in Asian cities, such as Manila and Singapore. The group had a history of close relations with Palestinian resistance groups—based and operating outside Japan—since its inception, primarily through Shigenobu.

Shigenobu could be very well known  as  on of the survivors of the first Nuclear blast in history; Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a devastating terrorist attack on the unarmed civilian population of Japan.

She was one of the principal leaders of the group known as the Japanese Red Army, Shigenobu, nicknamed “Mata Hari” by her revolutionary colleagues and also known as the “Red Queen of Terror.”

Fusako Shigenobu-The Children of the Revolution, The story told by the daughters of two revolutionary Japanese leaders of a movement that started on the 60's-May and Bettina.

Fusako Shigenobu-The Children of the Revolution, The story told by the daughters of two revolutionary Japanese leaders of a movement that started on the 60’s-May and Bettina.

Shigenobu was born in 1945 only a few weeks after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Her father was a member of right-wing organization, the Blood Oath League, dedicated to ridding Japan of corrupt politicians. Due to her family’s poverty, she was unable to afford college. A remarkably beautiful young woman, she eventually married and supported herself as a topless dancer writing, “I hated the men who pawed me . . . I had murder in my heart . . . I saw every kiss turn into a rice ball for the Red Army.” Her social misery led her to the promise of communism’s elimination of hunger and social status. Determined to place the JRA on the terror map, she allied her group with terrorists that already had made their mark in the world: the Palestinian terror groups, claiming that the “revolution is my lover.”

At a 1972 meeting the Japanese Red Army was asked by Dr. Wadi Haddad,  a founder of the PFLP, to help avenge the failure of a hijacking of an El Al plane. On May 30, 1972 three Japanese Red Army terrorists, in a suicidal fervor akin to the ancient Japanese spirit of kamikaze, fired indiscriminately in the Tel Aviv airport with VZT-58 Czech automatic rifles killing 24 , and injuring 78. Many of the victims were Puerto Ricans on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

One of the shooters was Takeshi Okudaira, the husband of Fusako Shigenobu. Due to a previous arrest, Shigenobu was unable to leave Japan and travel to the Middle East to expand the Japanese Red Army’s revolution. She married Okudaira and the marriage of convenience allowed her to leave the country with a new name. She then conveniently ordered her husband to be part of a suicide squad that would attack bystanders at the Tel Aviv airport. All three were trained for seven weeks by PFLP. Two of the three attackers were killed, Yasuda Yasuyuki and Okudaira. The surviving Japanese Red Army , Kozo Okamoto, used a fake passport with the name Daisuke Namba, the name of the man who had attempted an assassination of Crown Prince Hirohito in 1923.

The connection with the PFLP had started in 1970 when an Iraqi revolutionary, Bassim, traveled to Tokyo and established contact with the Japanese Red Army. The two groups made a film called Revolutionary War Declared. Okamoto was involved in the showing of the film at a university and eventually became involved in the Japanese Red Army. Before being convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in an Israeli court, Okamoto described the link between his Japanese Red Army and the PFLP as a means to propel the Japanese Red Army on the world stage, claiming the Arab world lacked “spiritual fervor, so we felt that through this attempt we could stir up the Arab world. The present world order has given Israel power, which has been denied the Arab refugees.” The PFLP praised the attack. The PFLP’s Abu Sherif rationalized the atrocity as an attack against Zionism and imperialism. Shigenobu declared the massacre was to “consolidate the international revolutionary alliance against the imperialists of the world.”

Okamoto was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released in 1985 during a prisoner exchange between Israel and the Palestinians. During his prison time he converted to Islam, then wished to be converted to Judaism and tried to circumcise himself with a pair of nail clippers. In 1975 he called himself a Christian. When he was released in Libya in 1985 he was greeted as a hero and met by Fusako Shigenobu. He was later arrested in 1997 with five Japanese Red Army companions in Lebanon for carrying false identity papers and again did some jail time.

Black September was encouraged by the success of the Japanese Red Army. In August of 1972, the group successfully destroyed a Trans-Alpine oil terminal at the Adriatic port of Trieste, Italy but failed in another mission when they tried to blow up an Israeli El Al Boeing 707 in mid-air. However, their next and most infamous attack would occur in the RAF’s backyard: the Munich Olympics. Abu Iyad and Abu Daoud were the main masterminds. Iyad would eventually be murdered in 1991 by direct orders of Sadam Hussein through one of Abu Nidal’s hitmen, possibly because Iyad condemned Hussein’s attack on Kuwait.

Shigenobu secretly returned to Japan and was arrested in Osaka in November 2000 and remains imprisoned in Japan. In February of 2006, she was sentenced to 20 years for involvement in kidnapping of embassy workers of a French Embassy in The Hague during a 1974 Japanese Red Army operation. She is also believed to have played key roles in a 1975 seizure of the U.S. consulate in Kuala Lumpu, a 1977 hijacking of a Japan Airlines jet over India, and a bomb attack on a club for U.S. servicemen in Naples in 1988 that resulted in the death of five Americans.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Shigenobu, 63, said: “It is time that Japanese people like me, who fought for a political cause in an attempt to create a better society, are offered a political way out of the deadlock.”

 

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, Education and History, Japan, Palestine Tags: , , , , , , ,

Israel Target Assassinations of Palestinian Leaders

December 31, 2012 3 comments

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Akashma Online News

by Marivel Guzman

Various Sources

Benjamin Netayahu best known by Bibi in 1986 co-authored a book called TERRORISM How The West Can Win. In the Chapter “Defining Terrorism”, you find the following statement.

“For in addition to random killing, terrorist often engage in assassinations of society’s leaders. Assassinations, in fact is important to the genesis of modern terrorism, emerging from an older tradition that maintains that a society can be reshaped, or a creed cleansed, by eliminating its leaders or ruling class. For the TERRORIST, assassination is the precursor of mass murder, and both constitute the principal weapons in his arsenal.” Benjamin Netayahu, 1986 in his book TERRORISM

After reading the book few times to get acquainted with the mind of a TERRORIST I will present to you excerpts of the book followed by past and present actions from Israel TERRORIST activities and State Policy of Terror Against Palestinian population and its supporters. This list does not include the previous assassinations of Palestinians before the creation of Israel Pre-1948, which by all mean could be considered a genocide. Most of the massacres were done started at beginning of the 19 century and subsequently by the Irgu militias and other groups that Planed the Terror that created Israel.
“It is the horrific story of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, a crime against humanity that Israel has wanted to deny and cause the world to forget. Retrieving it from oblivion is incumbent upon us; it is the very first step we must take if we ever want reconciliation to take a chance, and peace to take root, in the torn land of Palestine and Israel.” lan Pappé – the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

The next it is a comprehensive list of Israel Target Assassinations of Palestinian Leaders and supporters
July 13, 1956 Gaza Strip Mustafa Hafez Egyptian Army Lieutenant-Colonel
July 14, 1956 Amman Salah Mustafa Egyptian Military attache Parcel bomb

September 11, 1962 Munich, Germany Heinz Krug West German rocket scientist working for Egypt’s missile program Abducted from his company offices on Munich’s Schillerstrasse, his body was never found. Swiss police later arrested two Mossad agents for threatening the daughter of another scientist and found that they were responsible for the killing. Part of Operation Damocles.
November 28, 1962 Heluan, Egypt 5 Egyptian factory workers, Workers employed at Factory 333, an Egyptian rocket factory. Letter bomb sent bearing Hamburg post mark. Another such bomb disfigured and blinded a secretary. Part of Operation Damocles. Mossad
February 23, 1965 Montevideo, Uruguay Herberts Cukurs Aviator who according to Israel had been involved in the death of Latvian Jews during the the WWII, he was Lured to and killed in Montevideo by agents under the false pretense of starting an aviation business. Mossad

July 25, 1972 Beirut Attempted killing of Bassam Abu Sharif member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who held a press conference with Ghassan Kanafani during the Dawson’s Field hijackings justifying the PFLP’s actions. He lost four fingers, and was left deaf in one ear and blind in one eye, after a book sent to him that was implanted with a bomb exploded in his hands. Mossad
October 16, 1972 Rome Abdel Wael Zwaiter Libyan embassy employee and PLO representative, considered by Israel to be a terrorist for his alleged role in the Black September group and Munich 72. Shot by two gunmen in his apartment. Mossad
July 8, 1972 Beirut Ghassan Kanafani Palestinian writer and a leading member of the PFLP, and claimed to be one of the planners behind the Lod Airport massacre. Killed by car bomb. Mossad-12 surviving families of the deceased on the attack placed a civil law suit against the Democratic Republic of Korea for the massacre attached find the court papers.
December 8, 1972 Paris Mahmoud Hamshari PLO representative in France and coordinator of the Munich Olympic Games massacre. Killed by bomb concealed in his telephone.
January 24, 1973 Nicosia Hussein Al Bashir Fatah representative in Nicosia, Cyprus Killed by bomb in his hotel room bed.
April 6, 1973 Paris Basil Al-Kubaissi PFLP member and American University of Beirut law professor Killed by two gunmen.
April 9, 1973 Beirut Muhammad Youssef Al-Najjar Black September Operations officer and PLO official Killed during Operation Spring of Youth. Sayeret Matkal
April 9, 1973 Beirut Kamal Adwan Black September commander and member of the Fatah central committee. Killed during Operation Spring of Youth. Sayeret Matkal
April 9, 1973 Beirut Kamal Nasser PLO spokesman Killed during Operation Spring of Youth. Sayeret Matkal
April 11, 1973 Athens Zaiad Muchasi Fatah representative to Cyprus Killed in hotel room.
June 28, 1973 Paris Mohammad Boudia. Black September operations officer Killed by pressure-activated mine under his car seat.
July 21, 1973 Lillehammer, Norway Attempted killing of Ali Hassan Salameh High-ranked leader in the PLO and Black September who was behind the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre Ahmed Bouchiki, an innocent waiter believed to be Ali Hassan Salameh, killed by gunmen. Known as the Lillehammer affair. Mossad
March 28, 1978 German Democratic Republic Wadie Haddad PFLP commander, who masterminded several plane hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s. Killed by a poisoned chocolate, sent to him, which caused his death several months later. Claimed to be Mossad (Israel never claimed responsibility)
July 26, 1979 Cannes Zuheir Mohsen Leader of the pro-Syria as-Sa’iqa faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization Shot in the front of casino. Mossad
January 22, 1979 Beirut Ali Hassan Salameh High-ranked leader in the PLO and Black September who was behind the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre Killed by car bomb, along with four bodyguards and four innocent bystanders. Mossad
1980s
Date Place Target Description Action Executor
June 13, 1980 Paris Yehia El-Mashad Egyptian nuclear scientist, lecturer at Alexandria University Killed in his room at the Méridien Hotel in Operation Sphinx. Marie-Claude Magal, prostitute, client of El-Meshad, pushed under a car and killed in the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Mossad
August 21, 1983 Athens Mamoun Meraish Senior PLO official Shot in his car from motorcycle. Mossad
June 9, 1986 Athens Khalid Nazzal Secretary of the DFLP (Democratic Front for Liberation of Palestine) Assassinated in Athens by Mossad agents who enter Greece with fake passports, shot Nazzal while leaving his hotel, and fled the country. Mossad
April 16, 1988 Tunis Abu Jihad Second-in-command to Yassir Arafat Killed in Tunis Raid.[10] Israeli commandos
1990s

March 20, 1990 Brussels Gerald Bull Canadian engineer and designer of the Project Babylon “supergun” for the Iraqi government Shot at door to his apartment Mossad (speculation and denied by Israel)
February 16, 1992 Leader of the Lebanese resistance Abbas al-Musawi Secretary-General of Hezbollah Killed in his car convoy by missiles launched from two Israeli helicopters, with his wife and their son. Mossad
June 8, 1992 Paris Atef Bseiso Palestinian official involved in Munich Massacre Shot several times in the head at point-blank range by 2 gunmen, in his hotel (Aaron Klein’s “Striking Back”) Mossad
October 26, 1995 Sliema, Malta Fathi Shaqaqi Head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad Shot and killed in front of Diplomat Hotel.
January 6, 1996 Gaza Strip Yahya Ayyash “The Engineer”, Hamas bombmaker Killed by bomb in cell phone. Shabak
September 25, 1997 Amman Khaled Mashaal (failed attempt) Hamas political leader Attempted poisoning. Israel provided antidote, after pressure by Clinton. Canada withdrew Ambassador. Two Mossad agents with Canadian passports arrested

According to an Israeli research centers, Israel carried out 135 assassinations until May 2003, killing 249 members of various Palestinian resistance factions

November 22, 2000 Gaza Strip Jamal Abdel Raziq Senior official of the Fatah faction Tanzim Killed with driver, Awni Dhuheir, when their car was fired upon by IDF troops. Two bystanders in car in front of them also killed (Sami Abu Laban, 29, baker, and Na’el Al Leddawi, 22, student). IDF
December 17, 2000 Qalandiyya Samih Malabi Senior Fatah member using Mobile phone bomb. It is unclear whether he had been killed by his own explosive device or by Israeli security forces.
February 3, 2001 Gaza Strip Massoud Ayyad Lieutenant-colonel in Force 17, who allegedly led a Hezbollah cell involved in firing on Jewish settlements, plotting to kidnap Israeli soldiers and smuggling arms. Killed while driving in Jabaliya refugee camp by three helicopter-launched rockets.
June 24, 2001 Nablus Osama Jawabiri Member of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade Bomb planted in public phone
July 17, 2001 Bethlehem Omar Saada Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades regional commander Two wire-guided missiles fired into his home. One other Hamas member killed.
July 31, 2001 Nablus Jamal Mansour High-ranking official of Hamas’ West Bank political wing Killed when office struck by helicopter-launched missiles.
August 5, 2001 Tulkarim Amr Hadiri Hamas student activist Missiles fired at car.
August 20, 2001 Hebron, West Bank Imad Abu Sneneh Leader of Tanzim Shot and killed. Israeli undercover team
August 27, 2001 Ramallah, West Bank Abu Ali Mustafa Secretary General of the PFLP Killed in his office by two missiles fired from an Apache helicopter. IAF
January 14, 2002 Tulkarem, West Bank Raed Karmi Head of al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades Killed by blast.
January 22, 2002 Nablus, West Bank Yusif Suragji West Bank head of Izzaddinal_Qassam Brigades. Three other Hamas members also killed. Palestinian Authority claims it was an assassination. Killed in a raid on an alleged explosives factory. Israeli army
January 24, 2002 Khan Yunis, Gaza strip Adli Hamadan (Bakr Hamdan) Senior Hamas member missile attack on car. Israeli Air Force
February 4, 2002 Rafah Ayman Bihdari DFLP member wanted for 25 August 2001 raid in which three Israeli soldiers were killed. missile attack on car. Four other DFLP members killed. Israeli Air Force
March 5, 2002 Ramallah Mohammad Abu Halawa and Fawzi Murrar Wanted AMB members Missile fired at car from helicopter.
June 24, 2002 Rafah Yasir Raziq, ‘Amr Kufa. Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades leaders. Missiles fired at two cars. Four other Palestinians killed.
July 22, 2002 Gaza City Salah Shahade Leader of Hamas Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Killed by 2,205-pound explosive dropped by F-16. The attack also killed fourteen other Palestinians including his wife and 9 children.
August 6, 2002 Jenin Ali Ajuri, Murad Marshud al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades members. Killed by air to surface missile.
August 14, 2002 Tubas Nassa Jarrar Senior Hamas member. Rockets fired into house from helicopters. The victim was wheelchair bound.
March 8, 2003 Gaza City Ibrahim al-Makadmeh He and three of his aides killed by helicopter-fired missiles
August 21, 2003 Gaza Strip Ismail Abu Shanab High-ranking Hamas official, Missile strike
December 25, 2003 Gaza Strip Mekled Hameid PIJ commander. Helicopter gunship attack on car. Two PIJ members and two bystanders also killed. IAF
February 28, 2004 Jabaliya refugee camp Muhammad Judah PIJ military commander Missiles at his car. Two passengers are also killed and eleven bystanders wounded.
March 3, 2004 Gaza City Tarad Jamal, Ibrahim Dayri and Ammar Hassan Senior Hamas members Missiles from helicopter fired at car.
March 22, 2004 Gaza Strip Ahmed Yassin Co-founder and leader of Hamas He, 2 bodyguards, and 9 bystanders killed by Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache-fired Hellfire missiles. IAF
April 17, 2004 Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi Co-founder and leader of Hamas, and successor of Ahmed Yassin as leader of Hamas after his death Killed by helicopter-fired missiles, along with his son.
October 21, 2004 Gaza Adnan al-Ghoul Hamas weapons expert He and Imad Abbas killed when Apache helicopter fired missiles at their car.
May 25, 2006 Sidon, Lebanon Mahmoud al-Majzoub Commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Injured in car bombing, and died the next day. Islamic Jihad blamed Israel, though Israel denied it.
June 8, 2006 Jamal Abu Samhadana Founder of the Popular Resistance Committees militant group, a former Fatah and Tanzim member, and number two on Israel’s list of wanted terrorists. Killed by Israeli airstrike, along with at least three other PRC members.
February 12, 2008 Damascus Imad Mughniyah Top Hezbollah commander Killed by car bomb. Some news reports indicated the Mossad was responsible, though Israel denied carrying it out.
August 1, 2008 Muhammad Suleiman Syrian General, and top liaison between Syria and Hezbollah Killed by sniper fire. Israel never takes credit for the killing, but is widely suspected.
January 1, 2009 Nizar Rayan Top Hamas military commander and decision maker, Killed in Israeli airstrike, along with his 4 wives and 11 of their children. He is the most senior Hamas member to be killed since 2004. According to Israel, Rayan was not the target, rather, the strike aimed to destroy Hamas’ central compound which included several buildings that served as storage sites for weapons. Israel further stated that phone warnings were delivered to the residents.
January 3, 2009 Abu Zakaria al-Jamal Senior Hamas military wing commander, and leader of Gaza City’s rocket-launching squads Killed in Israeli airstrike.
January 15, 2009 Jabalia Said Seyam Hamas Interior Minister Killed in Israeli airstrike with his brother, his son, and Hamas general security services commander Salah Abu Shrakh.
March 4, 2009 Gaza Strip Khaled Shalan Senior member of Islamic Jihad Killed in Israeli airstrike, in retaliation for[dubious – discuss] Palestinian rocket attacks on the Israeli city of Ashkelon. IAF

2010s

January 12, 2010 Iran Masoud Alimohammadi Iranian nuclear scientist Killed in a car bomb. Mossad (Alleged)
January 19, 2010 Dubai Mahmoud al-Mabhouh Hamas senior military commander, believed to have been involved in smuggling weapons and explosives into Gaza. Widely reported to have been killed by Israeli intelligence members. Israel stated that there is no proof of its involvement, and refused to confirm or deny the allegations. Dubai police report that Israeli agents used Australian, French, British, Irish, and Dutch passports. Mossad
July 31, 2010 Gaza Strip Issa al-Batran Hamas military commander in central Gaza, thought to have been involved in manufacturing rockets Killed in retaliation for earlier rocket attack on city of Ashkelon IAF
November 3, 2010 Gaza Strip Mohammed Nimnim al-Qaeda affiliated, Army of Islam commander Car explosion, due to either a bomb planted by Israel or an Israeli airstrike. IAF, with Egyptian intelligence
November 17, 2010 Gaza Strip Islam Yassin al-Qaeda affiliated, Army of Islam commander Israeli airstrike on his car, killing him, his brother, and injuring four others. IAF
November 29, 2010 Iran Majid Shahriari Iranian nuclear scientist Killed in a car bomb. According to the German newspaper Der Spiegel Israel was behind the killing. Mossad
November 29, 2010 Attempted killing of Fereydoon Abbasi in Iran. Iranian nuclear scientist Wounded in a car bomb.Mossad
January 11, 2011 Gaza Strip Mohammed A-Najar Islamic Jihad operative, suspected of planning attacks against civilians and launching rockets at Israel Attacked by the Israel Airforce while driving his motorcycle in the Gaza Strip. IAF
April 9, 2011 Gaza Strip Tayseer Abu Snima Senior Hamas commander Killed along with 2 of his bodyguards by the Israeli air force during a period of escalated rocket fire from Gaza. He was the most senior Hamas commander killed since 2009.[60] IAF
July 23, 2011 Iran Darioush Rezaeinejad Iranian nuclear scientist Killed by unknown gunmen on motorcycle. The German Newspaper Der Spiegel claimed Mossad was behind the operation. He is the third Iranian nuclear scientist killed since 2010. Mossad
August 18, 2011 Gaza Strip Abu Oud al-Nirab and Khaled Shaath Popular Resistance Committees Commanders Killed hours after a terrorist attack killed 7 Israelis in southern Israel. 4 additional members of the group were killed in the strike.IAF, Shin Bet
January 11, 2012 Iran Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan Iranian nuclear scientist The bomb that killed Ahmadi-Roshan at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, and another unidentified person was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and the work of the Zionists [Israelis],” deputy Tehran governor Safarali Baratloo said. Mossad
March 9, 2012 Gaza Strip Zuhir al-Qaisi Secretary-General of the Popular Resistance Committees According to Israeli intelligence, he was planning an imminent attack. IAF Preempty strike
November 14, 2012 Gaza Strip Ahmed Jaabari Commander of Hamas’ military wing Killed in an airstrike at the start of Operation Pillar of Cloud.

References-Use your common sense, some of the references and information are taken from some Israeli sites, use caution. Taking in consideration the modus operandi of Israel, which is, lying, distorting the truth always to serve their agenda. The ultimate truth in this article is to give you the toll on the number of Israel Target Assassination. Being the point of the opening statement. Statement taken from Benjamin Netayahu book -TERRORRISM 1986.

^ Abraham D. Sofaer (March 26, 2004). “Responses to Terrorism / Targeted killing is a necessary option”. The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
^ name=USA: ‘Targeted killing’ policies violate the right to life|url=http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/usa-%E2%80%98targeted-killing-policies-violate-the-right-to-life%7Cdate=16 November 2012
^ name=Targeted Killings|url=http://www.aclu.org/national-security/targeted-killings%7Cdate=16 November 2012
^ a b Burns, Lieutenant-General E.L.M. (1962) Between Arab and Israeli. George G. Harrap. Page 164
^ Sirrs, Owen L. (January 2006). Nasser and the missile age in the Middle East. Routledge. p. 61.
^ a b Lavy, George (October 1996). Germany and Israel: moral debt and national interest. Routledge. p. 63.
^ Josifs S̆teimanis (2002). History of Latvian Jews (Illustrated, revised ed.). East European Monographs. ISBN 0-88033-493-2, 9780880334938.
^ Guerin, Orla (June 29, 2002). “BBC Article”. BBC News. Retrieved October 21, 2010.
^ a b Palestinians’ Way Forward Al Jazeera English, June 19, 2009
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Israeli “Hits” On Terrorists, Jewish Virtual Library, last updated December 18, 2007. Retrieved December 24, 2007.
^ Bar-Zohar, Michael & Eitan Haber. Massacre in Munich. The Lyons Press, 2005, p. 146
^ Stich, Rodney. “FBI, CIA, the Mob, and Treachery”. 2007. p.188
^ Strategic intelligence, Volume 1 By Loch K. Johnson, p. 67
^ The terrorist list: A-K, By Edward Mickolus. p.28
^ a b “Death of a Terrorist”. Time Magazine. 1979-02-05. Retrieved 2007-03-27.
^ a b Poisoned Mossad chocolate killed PFLP leader in 1977, says book. Middle East Times. May 6, 2006
^ http://www.science.co.il/ilan-ramon/Osiraq.pdf Ford, Peter S., Major, USAF, “Israel’s Attack on Osiraq: A Model for Future Preventive Strikes?”, INSS Occasional Paper 59, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, USAF Academy, Colorado, July 2005, p. 15
^ a b Ostrovsky, Victor, “By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer”, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1990, p. 23f.
^ “Agent Livni Makes British Headlines”. YNet News. June 1, 2008. Retrieved October 23, 2008.
^ Toolis, Kevin (26 August 1990). “The Man Behind Iraq’s Supergun”. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
^ Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the US State Department, February 23, 2001. Retrieved October 14, 2006.
^ Israel’s death squads: A soldier’s story, Donald Macintyre, The Independent, March 1, 2009.
^ Mid-East peace hopes shift to US, BBC, 17 December 2000
^ The Independent, 14 February 2001
^ Philips, Alan. “Arafat aide killed in helicopter ambush”, Telegraph, February 14, 2001. Retrieved October 14, 2006.
^ Profile: Hamas activist Jamal Mansour, BBC News, July 31, 2001. Retrieved October 14, 2006.
^ “Palestinian activist shot, killed”, CNN, August 20, 2001. Retrieved October 14, 2006.
^ “Killing sparks fresh Mid-East violence”. BBC News. January 14, 2002. Retrieved November 11, 2009.
^ a b c d Journal of Palestine Studies. XXXI, no. 3 (Spring 2002), University of California Press, pp. 172-194.
^ Journal of Palestine Studies. XXXI, no. 4 (Summer 2002), University of California Press, p 203.
^ “Hamas terrorist Ismail Abu Shanab – 21-Aug-2003”. Mfa.gov.il. Retrieved October 21, 2010.
^ Journal of Palestine Studies, Summer 2004, Volume XXX111, no 4 (132). Page 189, Chronology compiles by Michele K. Esposito. citing Agence France-Presse, New York Times, Washington Post and Washington Times.
^ JoPS. Page 190. cites Ha’Aretz, Palestine Report.
^ “Al Jazeera English – The Life And Death Of Shaikh Yasin”. Web.archive.org. Archived from the original on August 16, 2007. Retrieved October 20, 2010.
^ PIWP database: Assassination of Majzoub brothers in Sidon
^ Hamas defies ‘security force’ ban, BBC News Online, 21 April 2006.
^ [1], Haaretz, June 8, 2006.
^ [2], Yediot Acharonot, June 8
^ Mahnaimi, Uzi; Jaber, Hala; Swain, Jon (February 17, 2008). “Israel kills terror chief with headrest bomb”. London: The Sunday Times. Retrieved March 28, 2008.
^ Powell, Robyn (February 26, 2008). “Israel denies assassinating Hizbollah chief”. London: The Telegraph. Retrieved March 28, 2008.
^ Yoav Stern (August 3, 2008). “Sniper kills Syrian Pres. Assad’s Hezbollah liaison”. Haaretz. Archived from the original on 2009-05-08.
^ Harel, Amos (September 28, 2010). “ANALYSIS / In bombing Sudan, Israel sends message to Iran”. Haaretz. Retrieved October 20, 2010.
^ a b Kalman, Matthew; Kennedy, Helen (2009-01-01). “Israel fells key Hamas strongman, escalating conflict; says it’s ready for ground invasion”. New York Daily News. Retrieved 2009-01-01.
^ Factual and Legal Aspects, IMFA, July 2009
^ Israeli ground troops enter Gaza
^ Katz, Yaakov (January 3, 2009). “Tens of thousands of IDF combat reservists called up”. The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved November 11, 2009.
^ Yaakov Katz (Jan 15, 2009). “IAF kills Hamas strongman Siam”. The Jerusalem Post.
^ al-Mughrabi, Nidal (March 4, 2009). “Israel kills Gaza rocket commander in airstrike”. Reuters. Retrieved November 11, 2009.
^ Issacharoff, Avi; Harel, Amos (2010-01-31). “Mystery explosion kills senior Hamas militant in Dubai”. Haaretz. Retrieved 2010-01-31.
^ “Israeli politician Livni hails Dubai Hamas killing”, BBC News, February 23, 2010.
^ Ravid, Barak (July 30, 2010). “Hamas vows revenge after Israel kills commander in Gaza strike”. Haaretz. Retrieved October 20, 2010.
^ Yitzhak Behorin (November 11, 2010). “Egypt ‘tipped’ Israel on terrorist”. ynetnews.
^ Anshel Pfeffer, Avi Issacharoff and News Agencies (November 3, 2010). “Israel claims assassination of top Islamist militant in Gaza”. Haaretz.
^ Avi Issacharoff (November 17, 2010). “IDF kills senior Gaza militant planning to abduct Israelis in Sinai”. Haaretz.
^ Yaakov Lappin (November 17, 2010). “IAF kills Army of Islam leader in Gaza”. The Jerusalem Post.
^ Robert Zeliger (August 2, 2011). “Report: Mossad behind string of assassinations in Iran”. Foreign Policy.
^ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/bomb-blast-blamed-on-israel-and-us-kills-iran-nuclear-scientist-2146996.html
^ http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/sabotaging-iran-s-nuclear-program-mossad-behind-tehran-assassinations-says-source-a-777899.html
^ a b “Israeli air strike kills one Palestinian in Gaza”. Thaindian News. Jan 12 2011.
^ Kevin Flower (April 9, 2011). “Arab League meeting urged over Gaza”. CNN.
^ “‘Der Spiegel’: Mossad behind Iran scientist assassination”. The Jerusalem Post. August 2, 2011.
^ Elior Levy (August 18, 2011). “Revenge: 2 Top terrorists killed”. ynetnews.
^ The Express Herald Tribune’s reporter Web Desk (February 10, 2012). “Mossad training hit-squads in Iran to kill nuclear scientists: Report.”. Tribune.
^ MSNBC’s reporter Brian Williams (February 9, 2012). “Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News.”. MSNBC.
^ BBC’s reporter Mohsen Asgari (January 11, 2012). “A university lecturer and nuclear scientist has been killed in a car explosion in north Tehran.”. BBC.
^ http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4201508,00.html
^ Kershner, Isabel; Fares Akram (14 November 2012). “Ferocious Israeli Assault on Gaza Kills a Leader of Hamas”. The New York Times. Retrieved 15 November 2012.

Categories: Awareness, Education and History, Investigative Research, Palestine Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The ‘Usual Suspects’: Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau

December 28, 2012 1 comment

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Akashma Online News

Source Daily Kos
by James Risser
If you give it some thoughts to the UN Vote for Palestine only 5 countries VOTE NO,  US, Israel, Australia, Panama and Czech Republic, the other 4 countries couldn’t even be considered independent countries. Even thought they are declared independent Nations, they wholly depend on US.

So Israel should really be concerned about its standing against the world.

The only time I personally ever hear or read about the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau is after a vote at the United Nations.

There has never been a diary written about this grouping of four countries, so why are they considered ‘the usual suspects’?  In fact, I have no idea why anyone would even click on this diary, and if there is an award for the least significant diary of the day, this may be it.

But, if you did click here, you may now be curious and are asking: ‘why oh why are they ‘the usual suspects”? Well, these countries form the supporting block of countries that the United States can depend on, along with Israel and Australia, to customarily vote as a block of six.

In fact, the only time I personally ever hear or read about the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau is after a vote at the United Nations.

This brief diary offers an explanation of why this unbreakable pact exists.

For the geographically-challenged, such as myself, who have no idea where these four countries are, here is a map, courtesy of wikipedia.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

NAURU-Population 14,000

The first secretary in the Australian Embassy, Jonathan Chew, gently but firmly set me straight. Nauru is an independent nation, he explained to me. He could assure me that Australia does not dictate to independent nations how to vote in the UN. Australia opposed the draft resolution this time, too, as it has before, because it felt that it was not sufficiently balanced and therefore would do nothing to promote peace, and Australia, of course, supports efforts to promote peace. Evidently, this is also the view of the United States, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau and Nauru. At least half the people of Israel support the main points of the UN resolution, as does the vast majority of the people on the planet, but it’s nice to know, that we have friends and that we’re not alone.

The Australian writer of this piece goes on to explain that:

Nauru is very much dependent on Australian financial support. It is hardly a tourist resort and its main service for Australia is running an offshore detention centre.

Parenthetically, the writer adds:

(While the conditions there are atrocious it is no Guantanamo Bay. The people kept there are asylum seekers who fell foul of the Howard government’s “pacific solution” policy.)

I had never heard of this ‘pacific solution‘ before today; maybe everyone else knew about it.  Sounds rather sick though:

The Pacific Solution was the name given to the Australian government policy of diverting asylum seekers to detention camps on small island nations in the Pacific Ocean, rather than allowing them to land on the Australian mainland.

Regardless, it does have a vote at the United Nations.  I leave it to the reader to ponder on how many votes it has cast inconsistent with Australia.

REPUBLIC OF THE MARSHALL ISLANDS-Population 54,816

Between 1946 and 1958 the United States tested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, including the largest nuclear test the United States ever conducted, Castle Bravo.

The results of these ‘nuclear tests’ are still to be found in its residents.  Here is young child:

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The United States also maintains the U.S. Army’s Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll. It is an important aspect of the Marshallese economy, as the Marshallese land owners receive rent for the base, and a large number of Marshallese work at the base.

The combination of the litigation over the nuclear remains of America’s experiments, and the fact that the

United States Government assistance is the mainstay of the economy.

may be the reason why we can count on their vote, no?

PALAU-Population 20,609

Palau’s government web-site

Palau has a constitutional government in free association with the United States. The Compact of Free Association was entered into with the United States on October 1, 1994, also marking Palau’s independence.

Following the defeat of Japan in WWII, the Carolines, Marianas and Marshall Islands became United Nation’s Trust Territories under US administration. Palau was named one of six island districts. As part of this arrangement, the US was to improve Palau’s infrastructure and educational system in order for it to become a self-sufficient nation. This finally came about on October 1, 1994, when Palau gained its independence upon signing of the Compact of Free Association with the United States.

The Compact of Free Association with the United States provides Palau with $500 million in US aid over 15 years in return for furnishing military facilities

Those freely associated states are where we tested some dozens of atomic bombs even as the locals went about their daily routines. As a Nation we did great harm to the indigenous peoples of these islands and we owe them some restitution.  In 1986 we entered into a Compact of Free Association (Compact) with the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). Each year between 1986 and 2003 the US sent $1.5 billion to FSM and $1 billion to RMI.  It may be these large sums of money that helped to attract Abramoff and the GOP to the Pacific. It certainly helped to attract the Tan Family to the islands.

Now, in November 2003, Congress passed and Bush signed the Compact of Free Association Amendments Act of 2003. This increased the funding to $2.1 billion for FSM and $1.5 billion for RMI for every year until 2023.

Under the terms of the Compact of Free Association with the United States, Palau will receive more than $450 million in assistance over 15 years and is eligible to participate in more than 40 federal programs. The first grant of $142 million was made in 1994. Further annual payments in lesser amounts will be made through 2009. Total U.S. grant income in 2005 was $25.9 million.

Having once boasted the second highest per capita GDP in the world thanks to its fabled phosphate mines, Nauru is today destitute. With the seeming depletion of readily accessible phosphate reserves in 2000, mining on a large-scale commercial basis ended  [snip]

Although Nauru had a nominal per capita GDP in excess of $2,700, its economy is in deep crisis, and the resumption of mining promises only a limited respite as the country seeks to find a sustainable economic future. [snip]

Trade between the United States and Nauru is limited by the latter’s small size and economic problems. The value of two-way trade in 2005 was $1.6 million

MICRONESIA-Population 111,542

Micronesia Population

They too, are part of the Compact of Free Association, and receive millions of dollars of support for furnishing the United States military facilities.

Hmmm, that may explain it.

It is rather sad that the only way America can get people in the world to vote in accordance with its extremist ideology is to simply buy them from states whose people, if they want to eat and live, have to sell their vote to the United States.

So there you have it; ‘the usual suspects’ explained.  Four countries, spread over hundreds of the world’s tiniest islands, most uninhabited, each of the four with a vote in the United Nations.  Each beholding to either the United States or Australia for their very existence.  It is downright shameful that this country stoops so low…

But, 150-something to 6 or 7 sounds a lot better than 150-something to 2 or 3, doesn’t it?

Categories: Akashma, Awareness, Education and History, News Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,