CHOKE (U.S.A.) Choke 1997
9 minutes ago
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
VLR - Research: Heinrich Mueller
Download @ Soundcloud
Der Zyklus - Optical Fingerprint Correlation
Arpanet - NTT DoCoMo
Sébastien Tellier - Kilometer (Arpanet Remix)
Dopplereffekt - Hyperelliptic Surfaces
Arpanet: Großvater Paradoxon
Der Zyklus - Cherenkov Radiation
AIR - Le Soleil Est Pres De Moi (Dopplereffekt Remix)
Arpanet - Event Horizon
Japanese Telecom - Enter Mrs. Suzuki
Station Rose - Dave (Heinrich Mueller: Stanley Kubricks Vision Mix)
Dopplereffekt - Pornoactress
Japanese Telecom - The Making of Ultraman
Tuxedomoon - What Use (Heinrich Mueller Technik Mix)
Japanese Telecom - Nipponese Robots
Dopplereffekt - Scientist
The Hacker - Fadin' Away (Heinrich Mueller Remix)
Arpanet - Probability Densities
Ar2D - Inside The Rock (Heinrich Mueller Anti De Sitter Space Mix)
Japanese Telecom - Mounting Yoko
Der Zyklus - Der Tonimpulstest
ScanX - Wasteland (Prototype 2 by Dr Finn & Otto Henke)
Glass Domain - Fairy
Intellitronic - Pixel
Arpanet - Software Version
Der Zyklus - Formenverwandler
Kavinsky - Arpanet Nightdrive Rework
Le Car - Cinematic Automatic (Heinrich Mueller Remix)
Dopplereffekt - Myon-Neutrino
That Sounds Good To Me
With this version the UK would have probably done a bit better in the Eurovision Song Contest...
The Enemy in Your Pants
Great gallery "The Enemy in Your Pants - The military’s decades-long war against STDs"
HA!
The English is clear enough to lorry drivers - but the Welsh reads "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."
Twitter says:
That Michael Dawson, Tom Huddlestone and Scott Parker will join Leighton Baines, Adam Johnson, Theo Walcott and Darren Bent as the seven players dropped for the England World Cup squad. Official confirmation will be in half an hour.
UPDATE:
UPDATE:
ENGLAND'S 2010 WORLD CUP SQUAD:
Goalkeepers:
Goalkeepers:
Joe Hart, David James, Robert Green.
Defenders:
Defenders:
Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson, Ledley King, John Terry, Matthew Upson, Stephen Warnock
Midfielders:
Midfielders:
Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Shaun Wright-Phillips.
Forwards:
Forwards:
Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Death toll from Gaza aid attack hits 20
The death toll from the Israeli navy's takeover of a Gaza aid convoy has risen to 20 while Israel carefully censors reports on the casualties from the attack.
Gaza Freedom Flotilla came under fire early on Monday by Israeli navy forces in international waters more than 150km (90 miles) off the coast of Gaza.
The six-ship aid fleet was soon stormed by commandos descending from helicopters.
At least 20 people were killed in the takeover of the Gaza aid convoy, al-Aqsa TV channel reported, saying that more than 50 people, including leader of the Palestinian Islamic Movement Sheikh Raed Salah, were wounded in the attack.
The news trickled through the Israeli military censorship which has sought to block the reporting of any information about the casualties.
A report on the Israeli radio said the censorship was aimed at covering up the number of casualties brought to Israeli hospitals for treatment.
Meanwhile, Israeli Trade and Industry Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer expressed regret for the deaths aboard the Gaza aid ships.
"The images are certainly not pleasant. I can only voice regret at all the fatalities," he told Israel's Army Radio.
The comments come as the first official acknowledgement by Tel Aviv that the attack had turned fatal.
Israel had initially declined to comment on the reports of casualties from the takeover of the aid ships.
Gaza Freedom Flotilla came under fire early on Monday by Israeli navy forces in international waters more than 150km (90 miles) off the coast of Gaza.
The six-ship aid fleet was soon stormed by commandos descending from helicopters.
At least 20 people were killed in the takeover of the Gaza aid convoy, al-Aqsa TV channel reported, saying that more than 50 people, including leader of the Palestinian Islamic Movement Sheikh Raed Salah, were wounded in the attack.
The news trickled through the Israeli military censorship which has sought to block the reporting of any information about the casualties.
A report on the Israeli radio said the censorship was aimed at covering up the number of casualties brought to Israeli hospitals for treatment.
Meanwhile, Israeli Trade and Industry Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer expressed regret for the deaths aboard the Gaza aid ships.
"The images are certainly not pleasant. I can only voice regret at all the fatalities," he told Israel's Army Radio.
The comments come as the first official acknowledgement by Tel Aviv that the attack had turned fatal.
Israel had initially declined to comment on the reports of casualties from the takeover of the aid ships.
HA!
Speaking as someone who has NEVER driven a car in my life...I really like this one!
Competition @'Greenpeace'
Ends June 28th
More
Review: Arab Strap - Scenes of a Sexual Nature (Boxset)
From Scenes of a Sexual Nature (Chemikal Underground; 2010)
Box sets may be the fallback preserve of the over-investor, but every now and then a band put one out you’d gladly sell off both kidneys for. I’m not talking about the likes of the never-before-heard Courtney Love archive of “You Know You’re Right” masters—I’m talking about Arab Strap, Falkirk’s premier confessors of sleaze, and the time capsule they’ve just dropped to fans. After calling it quits in 2006 to the dismay of feral romantics everywhere, Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton forged respectable solo careers for themselves—Malcolm’s “We’re All Going To Die” was championed by Radio 1 for Christmas No. 1 2007, and Aidan…well, Aidan’s plain amazing. Their 1000-only Scenes of a Sexual Nature box sees them re-teaming to unearth old treasures, and while sixty sheets may seem a little steep, just look at what it gets you in the mail: repressed debut LP, repressed sequel to debut LP, newly-pressed LP of late nineties Peel Sessions, CD compilation of late nineties EPs, double-sided poster of reviews from newspapers, individually replicated “green frog demo” cassette that first got the label’s attention, handwritten liner notes from the band’s own Sharpie, a fat CD of MP3 backups, photos of the girls Aidan bedded between albums, and both singer’s Facebook passwords.
OK, so those last two items were a hoax, but seriously: that’s a pretty big kill for a day’s wages. The salivator though is new track “Daughters of Darkness”, which the band polished off in their original studio to show how seriously they’re taking this arrivederci. Seriousness was something the Strap always liked to get sticky with: festooned in bedroom paranoia, Moffat lays down his signature mutter over crashing guitar and piano, recounting the kind of Saturday night that keeps married people safely indoors. “Someone cracks a joke I’m not supposed to get so I pretend it’s over my head and try not to look too hurt / But the joke’s on them: they don’t know I’ve been reading their diaries,” he grumbles. Like John Wayne in The Shootist, this is the cowboys’ last night in town, though with no young Ron Howard to watch their backs menace bubbles from the outset. “Ecstasy killed the casuals,” muses Moffat at one point; “They used to wait for us outside and chase us home, but now they chat to us like old chums and try to sell us drugs.” One pick-up later, Aidan and pals hit the club, receptors opened up in their brains. “It’s amazing what a mirrorball and the right frame of mind can do,” he ponders from the safety of the girls’ toilet while bouncing his thoughts off the drum machine.
Unfortunately he’s not the only one bouncing, and Middleton’s trusty three-chord explosion signifies the lights-up, ejection, and fight. Some of those casuals weren’t quite so casual after all, and are now back from a night of bombing jellies to get a bit merry with weapons. As the band’s mate gets filled in and sliced on the pavement, you can’t help but recall their Peel Session mainstay “The First Big Weekend”—“Daughters” is essentially that track recycled; tweaked to take on the butterfly knife generation and cresting not with The Simpsons but casualty, where agency nurses piece the stabee back together. Moffat gets saved from a crisis of conscience by the twinkle in a wise girl’s eye, and as he vows to stick around for the end of the night you’re grateful this isn’t the end. Except, of course, that it is. Bon voyage, motherfuckers. You were good.
:: Buy Scenes of a Sexual Nature
George Bass @'cokemachineglow'
Israel flotilla raid - fallout live @ The Guardian
The Palestinian-led International Solidarity Movement is reporting that a US activist injured in protests in the West Bank yesterday has lost her eye.
An American solidarity activist was shot in the face with a tear gas canister during a demonstration in Qalandiya, today. Emily Henochowicz is currently in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem undergoing surgery to remove her left eye, following the demonstration that was held in protest to Israel's murder of at least 10 civilians aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters this morning.This YouTube video, posted by RussiaToday, appears to show Emily being carried to safety following a protest in Qalandiya.
21-year old Emily Henochowicz was hit in the face with a tear gas projectile fired directly at her by an Israeli soldier during the demonstration at Qalandiya checkpoint today. Israeli occupation forces fired volleys of tear gas at unarmed Palestinian and international protesters, causing mass panic amongst the demonstrators and those queuing at the largest checkpoint separating the West Bank and Israel.
Hunter S. Thompson: Self Portrait, After Beating by Hell's Angels circa 1960s
M + B Gallery, West Hollywood
Why the Digital Economy Act simply won't work
With the passage into law of the dread Digital Economy Act comes Ofcom's guidelines for when and how rightsholders will be able to disconnect entire families from the internet because someone on or near their premises is accused of copyright infringement.
Consumer rights groups and privacy groups – such as the Open Rights Group, the Citizens Advice Bureau, Which, and Consumer Focus – participated in the process, making the Ofcom rules as good as possible (an exercise that, unfortunately, is a little like making the guillotine as comfortable as possible).
But this isn't the last word in the copyfight – not even close. Because disconnection for downloaders will only serve to alienate entertainment industry customers (remember that the most avid downloaders are also the most avid buyers – "most avid" being the operative word here – the 20% of customers who account for 80% of sales, downloading, concert tickets, box-office revenue, DVDs, T-shirts, action figures, etc). And because those who download most avidly will simply change tactics.
The entertainment industry's capacity to gather evidence and make accusations against downloaders relies on the fact that, at present, most downloading systems don't bother to encrypt the traffic or disguise the user's identity. Neither of these things are very hard to do, though both are computationally more expensive than the alternative. But, in case you haven't noticed, computation is getting cheaper all the time.
Once non-anonymous, non-encrypted downloading bears a significant risk, downloaders will simple switch to anonymised, encrypted alternatives.
For example, SSL-based proxies like Sweden's IPREDator (use of which is also a tonic against identity thieves and other creeps who may be monitoring your network connection) provide a nigh-impenetrable layer of misdirection that confounds anyone hoping to trace a download session back to a user. And services like Easynews.com provide encrypted access to enormous libraries of material including infringing copies of popular shows, music and movies.
So why worry? If users won't be deterred from downloading – and may even be driven to start taking care to protect their connections from snoops and creeps – then how bad will the Digital Economy Act be?
Bad.
Because the naive user who only downloads occasionally will still be in harm's way, as will his family or housemates if his connection is disconnected by an entertainment bully.
And because once the state decides that it has a duty to police the internet to maximise the profits of a few entertainment companies (no matter what the public expense), it sets itself on a path of ever-more-restrictive measures. Once disconnection drives downloaders to make use of SSL-based proxies, watch for Big Content to inveigle their friends in parliament to enact laws prohibiting the use of virtual private networks – never mind that these are the best practice of anyone trying to safeguard a corporate or organisational network.
Once the Act drives downloaders to use SSL-encrypted services that are harder to monitor, watch for the entertainment lobby to ask for great swaths of the internet to be blocked by the Great Firewall of Britain that the Act also provides for.
Once you swallow a spider to catch a fly, you're on a course to swallow a bird to catch the spider, a cat to catch the bird, and so on until you swallow a horse – and every toddler knows that happens next.
Cory Doctorow @'The Guardian'
Israel: Pirates?
Via Craig Murray
A word on the legal position, which is very plain. To attack a foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is rather an act of illegal warfare.
Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean however that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody’s territorial waters) the applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory.
There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.
Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.
Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law.
In brief, if Israel and Turkey are not at war, then it is Turkish law which is applicable to what happened on the ship. It is for Turkey, not Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation into events and to initiate any prosecutions. Israel is obliged to hand over indicted personnel for prosecution.
Info released on Saturday!
The Israeli army and navy, under direct supervision and orders from the Israeli government, prepared a plan dubbed “Operation Sky Wind” to attack the Freedom Flotilla” heading to Gaza and kidnap and the activists onboard.
Israeli sources reported that the navy had concluded all preparations to takeover the Freedom Flotilla, by force in needed, in an attempt to prevent it from reaching the Gaza coast to break the four-year long ongoing siege.
The planned offensive includes four stages;
1. Warning stage; the navy will try to stop the ships from reaching a “line” dubbed
as a red line, should the ships reach the designated line, they will be warned and informed that they “violate the law”.
2. Boarding and controlling the ships; should the ships fail to adhere to the demands of the navy, the navy will attack and control the eight ships carrying nearly 800 activists. The ships will then be taken to Ashdod Port and the activists will be detained in a huge tent installed for this purpose.
3. Deportation by air; Israeli soldiers and policemen would order the detained activists to sign statements accepting to be deported to their countries, and will be deported by air via the Ben Gurion Airport.
4. Arrest before deportation; those who refuse to sign deportation statements, will be arrested, sent to medical examination, then transferred to the Nahshon Brigade which belongs to the Israeli Prison Administration before being sent to Be’er Sheva Prison and likely other prisons.
They will be prosecuted and deported at a later stage.
Some 600 human rights activists boarding the eight solidarity ships heading to Gaza said that they are determined to reach Gaza regardless of Israel’s threats.
Greta Berlin, spokesperson of the Free Gaza Movement, stated that “nothing is going to stop the ships”, and that the human rights activists are determined to break the illegal Israeli siege on 1.5 million Palestinian in Gaza, and deliver the humanitarian supplies.
The planned offensive includes four stages;
1. Warning stage; the navy will try to stop the ships from reaching a “line” dubbed
as a red line, should the ships reach the designated line, they will be warned and informed that they “violate the law”.
2. Boarding and controlling the ships; should the ships fail to adhere to the demands of the navy, the navy will attack and control the eight ships carrying nearly 800 activists. The ships will then be taken to Ashdod Port and the activists will be detained in a huge tent installed for this purpose.
3. Deportation by air; Israeli soldiers and policemen would order the detained activists to sign statements accepting to be deported to their countries, and will be deported by air via the Ben Gurion Airport.
4. Arrest before deportation; those who refuse to sign deportation statements, will be arrested, sent to medical examination, then transferred to the Nahshon Brigade which belongs to the Israeli Prison Administration before being sent to Be’er Sheva Prison and likely other prisons.
They will be prosecuted and deported at a later stage.
Some 600 human rights activists boarding the eight solidarity ships heading to Gaza said that they are determined to reach Gaza regardless of Israel’s threats.
Greta Berlin, spokesperson of the Free Gaza Movement, stated that “nothing is going to stop the ships”, and that the human rights activists are determined to break the illegal Israeli siege on 1.5 million Palestinian in Gaza, and deliver the humanitarian supplies.
(Thanx Fifi!)
Dialectic Physics
One through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel in space, you can't go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions - what are you going to land on - one-quarter, three-eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That's dialectic physics.
WOW!
Dulux Walls - Global film for the Let's Colour Campaign by Euro RSCG London
Let's Colour is a worldwide initiative to transform grey spaces with colourful paint.
This 2 minute global film was shot by multi-award winning director Adam Berg over four weeks in Brazil, France, London and India. Every location is real and they remain transformed by a palette consisting of 120 different colours. The people in the film are not actors, they are real people who rolled up their sleeves to transform their community with colour.
Read more about the Let's Colour project here:
www.letscolourproject.com/blog
www.letscolourproject.com
Let's Colour is a worldwide initiative to transform grey spaces with colourful paint.
This 2 minute global film was shot by multi-award winning director Adam Berg over four weeks in Brazil, France, London and India. Every location is real and they remain transformed by a palette consisting of 120 different colours. The people in the film are not actors, they are real people who rolled up their sleeves to transform their community with colour.
Read more about the Let's Colour project here:
www.letscolourproject.com/blog
www.letscolourproject.com
Israeli Raid Complicates U.S. Ties and Push for Peace
Israel’s deadly commando raid on Monday on a flotilla trying to break a blockade of Gaza complicated President Obama’s efforts to move ahead on Middle East peace negotiations and introduced a new strain into an already tense relationship between the United States and Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel canceled plans to come to Washington on Tuesday to meet with Mr. Obama. The two men spoke by phone within hours of the raid, and the White House later released an account of the conversation, saying Mr. Obama had expressed “deep regret” at the loss of life and recognized “the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances” as soon as possible.
While the administration’s public response was restrained, American officials expressed dismay in private over not only the flotilla raid, with its attendant deepening of Israel’s isolation around the world, but also over the timing of the crisis, which comes just as long-delayed American-mediated indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians were getting under way.
Some foreign policy experts said the episode highlighted the difficulty of trying to negotiate peace with the Palestinian Authority without taking into account an element often relegated to the background: how to deal with Hamas-ruled Gaza. Hamas, the Islamist organization that refuses to recognize Israel’s existence, operates independently of the Palestinian Authority and has rejected any peace talks. Gaza has repeatedly complicated Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
“This regrettable incident underscores that the international blockade of Gaza is not sustainable,” Martin S. Indyk, the former United States ambassador to Israel, said Monday. “It helps to stop Hamas attacks on Israelis, but seriously damages Israel’s international reputation. Our responsibility to Israel is to help them find a way out of this situation.”
The Obama administration officially supports the Gaza blockade, as the Bush administration did before it. But Mr. Obama, some aides say, has expressed strong frustration privately with the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
At a time when the United States is increasingly linking its own national security interests in the region to the inability of Israelis and Palestinians to make peace, heightened tensions over Monday’s killings could deepen the divide between the Israeli government and the Obama administration just as Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu were trying to overcome recent differences.
“We’re not sure yet where things go from here,” one administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic delicacy of the issue. The White House statement said that Mr. Obama “understood the prime minister’s decision to return immediately to Israel to deal with today’s events” and that they would reschedule their meeting “at the first opportunity.”
No matter what happens, foreign policy experts who advise the administration agreed that if Mr. Obama wanted to move ahead with the peace talks, preceded by the so-called proximity or indirect talks, the flotilla raid demonstrated that he may have to tackle the thornier issue of the Gaza blockade, which has largely been in effect since the takeover of Gaza by Hamas in 2007.
Since then, Israel, the United States and Europe have plowed ahead with a strategy of dealing with the Palestinian Authority, which has control over the West Bank, while largely ignoring Gaza, home to some 1.5 million Palestinians.
Gaza was left with a deteriorating crisis as Hamas refused to yield to Western demands that it renounce violence and recognize Israel.
“You can talk all you want about proximity talks, expend as much energy as Obama has, but if you ignore the huge thorn of Gaza, it will come back to bite you,” said Robert Malley, program director for the Middle East and North Africa with the International Crisis Group.
For the Obama administration, the first order of business may be figuring out a way to hammer out a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas that will end the blockade of Gaza. Several attempts in the past two years to reach such an agreement have come close, but ultimately failed, the last time when the two sides were unable to reach a consensus on the release of an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas, Gilad Shalit.
Mr. Indyk, the director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, says that after things cool down, the administration needs to work on a package deal in which Hamas commits to preventing attacks from, and all smuggling into, Gaza. In return, Israel would drop the blockade and allow trade in and out. “That deal would have to include a prisoner swap in which Gilad Shalit is finally freed,” he said.
It was unclear whether the indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would suffer an immediate delay. George J. Mitchell, the Obama administration envoy to the Middle East, was still planning to attend the Palestine Investment Conference in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Wednesday and Thursday.
The indirect talks involved American negotiators shuttling between the Israelis and Palestinians, and are widely viewed as a step back from nearly two decades of direct talks.
But their structure may actually serve the purpose of keeping them going. Mr. Mitchell and his staff have been shuttling between the two sides for more than a year, meaning that the preparation for indirect talks and the talks themselves do not look different from the outside. As a result, the American brokers could continue their shuttles despite the flotilla attack.
While the blockade of Gaza has been widely criticized around the world, Israeli officials say it has imposed political pressure on Hamas. The group has stopped firing rockets at southern Israel and is fighting discontent among the people in Gaza.
Damn right it does!
BabyBarista blogger resigns from The Times over their decision to charge
Barrister and writer Tim Kevan has withdrawn the BabyBarista Blog from The Times in reaction to their plans to hide it away behind a subscription-based paywall. He commented: “I didn’t start this blog for it to be the exclusive preserve of a limited few subscribers. I wrote it to entertain whosoever wishes to read it.” The re-launched site is at www.babybarista.com and includes numerous cartoons of the blog’s characters by Times cartoonist Alex Williams.
By way of background, BabyBarista is a fictional account of a junior barrister at the English Bar. The stories he tells appeared on The Times for over three years and they also led to him getting two book deals with Harry Potter's publisher Bloomsbury . BabyBarista and the Art of War was published as a trade paperback last year and was described by broadcaster Jeremy Vine as “a wonderful racing read - well-drawn, smartly plotted and laugh out loud” and by The Times as “a cross between the talented Mr Ripley, Rumpole and Bridget Jones's Diary”. A mass market edition with the new title Law and Disorder is due out in August. Book Two of the BabyBarista Files will also be published by Bloomsbury . The provisional title is Law and Peace and although a date hasn't been finalised it is likely to be published in 2011.
Hippos'n'crocs
Hippos have an odd habit of licking crocodiles — tempting as it may be to want to find out what makes them so yummy, it's not recommended unless you weigh a few tons and have the ability to bite them in half if they protest.
PZ Myers @'Pharyngula'
In raw video, reporters claim Israelis fired on activists before boarding ship
In what could be a serious blow to Israel's cover story on the murder of at least nine humanitarian activists making their way to Gaza through international waters, raw video by an Al Jazeera producer, who was filming during the raid, appears to provide evidence that the IDF opened fire on the flotilla even before boarding it.
Israeli forces assert they came under attack by the pro-Palestine civilian group, and video released by the IDF appears to show one soldier being tossed overboard amid a scuffle with unidentified individuals wielding melee weapons, like clubs and chairs.
However, in raw video captured by an Al Jazeera producer and published to YouTube late Monday, two journalists provide a play-by-play of the harrowing event as pops and cracks echo in the background. Even before the Israeli forces were aboard, one says, they were pelting the boat with tear gas and stun grenades, injuring numerous people.
Then he confirms the first death, saying the individual was killed by "munitions," but not specifying whether it was a bullet or something else. Moments later he confirms that Israeli forces were boarding the ship.
Another of the reporters featured in the video works for the Iranian network Press TV. "We are being hit by tear gas, stun grenades, we have navy ships on either side, helicopters overhead," he said. "We are being attacked from every single side. This is in international waters, not Israeli waters, not in the 68-mile exclusion zone. We are being attacked in international waters completely illegally."
"The organizers are telling me now, they are raising a white flag -- they are raising a white flag to the Israeli army," the Al Jazeera reporter said. "This is after one person has been killed; a civilian has been killed by munition. That number could be more ... Despite the white flag being raised, despite the white flag being raised, the Israeli army is still shooting, still firing live munitions."
Early reports put the number of victims between nine and 19, with dozens injured. The actual number has not yet been confirmed, as the IDF took all the Gaza aid flotilla participants into custody. Numerous victims were reported to be from Turkey.
"Our soldiers had to defend themselves, to defend their lives," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said. Other Israeli officials have called the charity organization responsible a group of "extremist supporters of terror." The IDF also alleged that weapons were found onboard, calling the act and the resulting violence a "provocation."
However, if these reporters' immediate accounting of the events proves accurate, the truth of Israel's claim that they opened fire in self defense would seem to be in doubt.
Portions of the raw video were featured by Al Jazeera and AFP, although the beginning segment and the most clear allegations that Israel opened fire before boarding were not included in their entirety.
The action sparked protests around the world within hours.
In Turkey crowds took to the streets in several cities to vent fury after the storming of a Turkish passenger boat in the flotilla that left at least nine dead, most of them believed to be Turkish nationals.
"Damn Israel!", "A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, revenge, revenge!" yelled protesters in Istanbul where about 10,000 people converged on the central Taksim square after marching from the Israeli consulate.
"Turkish soldiers to Gaza," shouted some, as others torched Israeli flags.
"I call on the government to expel the Israeli consul... And if necessary, we are ready for war," Seref Mangal, 40, told AFP. A banner carried by the crowd read: "Close down the Zionist embassy."
In the capital Ankara about 1,000 people gathered outside the residence of Israeli ambassador Gabby Levy and shouted "Damn the Zionist murderers!" and "Israel will drown in the blood of the martyrs!".
They threw eggs and plastic bottles into the garden of the residency. Reports said demonstrations were held in dozens of cities across the country.
In London more than 1,000 people -- some of whom had friends on the ships carrying aid to blockaded Gaza -- protested outside the residence of British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Israeli embassy.
Chanting "Free Palestine" and brandishing the Palestinian flag and banners condemning Israeli "war crimes", activists blocked a major route through the capital. Hundreds of police stood guard outside the embassy.
"We have close friends on the boat on which people were killed and we are here waiting for news," said Kate Hudson, the chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
In Paris about 500 people joined a noisy protest near the Israeli embassy, waving Palestinian flags and shouting "Palestine will survive, Palestine will conquer".
Scuffles broke out when a dozen rival protestors waving Israeli flags approached, prompting police to fire tear gas, but calm was soon restored. Another 1,300 people rallied in the city of Lille.
Greek police used tear gas to force back around 1,500 protesters outside the Israeli embassy in Athens, while another 2,000 people rallied in the northern city of Thessaloniki.
In Lebanon thousands of Palestinian refugees and activists waving Palestinian flags and banners marched in the country's 12 refugee camps.
"Where is the international community? Where are human rights?" they chanted in the Al-Bass camp in the southern coastal city of Tyre.
In Beirut hundreds gathered in the city centre called on Israeli embassies in the Arab world to be shut down and for Israeli ambassadors to be expelled.
At a demonstration of about 3,000 people at the Beddawi camp in the northern city of Tripoli, anger also turned on Israel's traditional ally, the United States.
"God is great and America is the greatest evil," they chanted. "Give us weapons, give us weapons and send us on to Gaza."
There were even demonstrations inside Israel, where hundreds of protestors flooded the streets of the northern Arab city of Nazareth as Israeli police raised the level of alert across the country and deployed reinforcements.
More than 2,000 people in Amman protested what Jordan's Information Minister Nabil Sharif dubbed a "heinous crime".
Demonstrators included Islamist opposition leaders and carried banners that read "We Will not Surrender" and "Break Gaza Blockade." They also demanded that Jordan shut down the Jewish state's embassy and expel the Israeli ambassador.
In Iran's capital Tehran, dozens of people pelted stones at the UN office chanting: "This savage regime of Israel must be wiped out."
They burnt the Israeli flag and tore up pictures of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In Pakistan politicians, lawmakers and journalists staged a peaceful protest in Islamabad, denouncing the killings and calling on the United Nations and the United States to intervene.
Hundreds of Bosnians marched through Sarajevo, brandishing Palestinian flags. "We wanted to raise our voice to denounce a new attempt at genocide in modern times," one of the organisers, Edvin Cudic, told Srna news agency.
Around 200 people demonstrated outside the UN's European headquarters in Geneva demanding an inquiry into the raid, while in the Netherlands 400 rallied outside the Israeli embassy in The Hague.
There were also protests in Egypt while in Kuwait activists were planning rallies.
After Israeli PM Netanyahu canceled a planned meeting with President Obama, the White House stressed the importance of "learning all the facts" before jumping to conclusions.
With AFP.
Israeli PM 'regrets' deaths as troops storm aid ships
Israeli army footage claiming to show the violence on board the flotilla - the captions and circled points on this video were inserted by the Israeli army
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed regret after at least nine people died when troops stormed ships trying to break the Gaza blockade.
But he said soldiers had been defending themselves after they were "clubbed, beaten and stabbed".
Pro-Palestinian campaigners say the soldiers opened fire unprovoked when they landed on the aid-carrying ships.
There has been international condemnation of the loss of life, and the UN is holding an emergency session.
As the meeting of the UN Security Council got under way in New York, diplomats said the draft text of a resolution called for condemnation of the operation, the immediate release of the impounded ships and for an international inquiry.
But Israeli UN representative Daniel Carmon told the Security Council that some on board the ships had motives other than providing humanitarian assistance, and had tried to lynch Israeli soldiers.
Mr Netanyahu cut short a visit to Canada to deal with the growing crisis and cancelled a scheduled meeting in Washington with US President Barack Obama on Tuesday.
Israel imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip after the Islamist movement Hamas took power there in 2007.
The six-ship convoy had set out to carry 10,000 tonnes of aid from Cyprus to Gaza, despite repeated Israeli warnings that it would not be allowed to reach the territory.
In a statement, Mr Netanyahu defended the Israeli operation, saying troops were attacked when they landed on the largest of the six ships in the flotilla.
"They were mobbed. They were clubbed, they were beaten, stabbed," he said.
"There was even a report of gunfire and our soldiers had to defend themselves, defend their lives or they would have been killed.
"Regrettably, in this exchange... people died. We regret this loss of life. We regret any of the violence."
View challenged Organisers of the convoy have strongly denied the Israeli account.
Contact with activists on the ships was lost after the raids and no first-hand accounts from them have yet emerged.
Arafat Shoukri, of the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) which helped organise the convoy, said those on board one ship had told them by telephone that Israeli helicopters had arrived.
"Then we started to hear screams, shouting, shooting everywhere," he said. "We heard some of them shouting 'We are raising the white flag, stop shooting at us'."
He said Israeli claims that activists had pistols and other weapons were "cheap propaganda".
Audrey Bomse, also of the FGM, told the BBC that the activists were "not going to pose any violent resistance".
The flotilla left the coast of Cyprus on Sunday and had been due to arrive in Gaza on Monday.
Reports say troops boarded the ship about 40 miles (64 km) out to sea in international waters.
Organisers of the flotilla said at least 30 people were wounded in the incident. Israel says 10 of its soldiers were injured, one seriously.
There has been widespread condemnation of the violence, with several countries summoning their Israeli ambassadors.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he was "shocked" and called for a "full investigation" into what happened.
The White House said the US "deeply regrets the loss of life" and was "currently working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy".
There was a particularly strong response from Turkey, where many of the activists on the ships are from.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of state terrorism and violation of international law.
In Istanbul, thousands of protesters took part in an angry demonstration against Israel.
Turkey was Israel's closest Muslim ally but relations have deteriorated in recent years.
Greece has withdrawn from joint military exercises with Israel in protest at the raid on the flotilla.
The office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he condemned "the disproportionate use of force", while UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said there was "a clear need for Israel to act with restraint and in line with international obligations".
The BBC's Jon Donnison in Gaza says there has been widespread anger there with protests organised by Hamas.
Israel has escorted the ships to the port of Ashdod and says it will deport the passengers from there.
Israel says it allows about 15,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid into Gaza every week.
But the UN says this is less than a quarter of what is needed.
@'BBC'
@'BBC'
It's not really good enough to say 'sorry' after the event.
Listen to the explanation from the Israelis: Soldiers confronted by 'rioters'? No - they were passengers on their ship in international waters.
Two soldiers lost their guns?...this is supposed to be the elite soldiers of the IDF and remember also that we have 30 elite soldiers confronted by the same amount of passengers.
If Israel's 'moral army' shoots people after they have raised a white flag then I really would hate to see how an 'inmmoral' army would behave under these circumstances.
If Israel's 'moral army' shoots people after they have raised a white flag then I really would hate to see how an 'inmmoral' army would behave under these circumstances.
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