The Americanization of Mental Illness

Americans, particularly if they are of a certain leftward-leaning, college-educated type, worry about our country’s blunders into other cultures. In some circles, it is easy to make friends with a rousing rant about the McDonald’s near Tiananmen Square, the Nike factory in Malaysia or the latest blowback from our political or military interventions abroad. For all our self-recrimination, however, we may have yet to face one of the most remarkable effects of American-led globalization. We have for many years been busily engaged in a grand project of Americanizing the world’s understanding of mental health and illness. We may indeed be far along in homogenizing the way the world goes mad...

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@'NY Times'

If you can't find the book you want you're probably shopping here...

(Thanx Scurvy!)

As this is going around the interwebbynethingy...

Hmmmm!
Saw this the other day...

The ONLY way to watch #filmsmadescottish

What Bill Clinton allegedly said about Obama

One of the enduring mysteries of the 2008 campaign was what got Ted Kennedy so mad at Bill Clinton. The former president's entreaties, at some point, backfired, and the explanation has never quite emerged.
I've finally gotten my hands on a copy of Game Change, in which John Heliemann and Mark Halperin report:

[A]s Hillary bungled Caroline, Bill’s handling of Ted was even worse. The day after Iowa, he phoned Kennedy and pressed for an endorsement, making the case for his wife. But Bill then went on, belittling Obama in a manner that deeply offended Kennedy. Recounting the conversation later to a friend, Teddy fumed that Clinton had said, A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.

@'Politico'

And yet another perspective...

This video clearly shows what happened the last moments before the Shonan Maru rammed the Ady Gil causing it to sink. Note how at the start of the clip, Pete asks the person at the helm to stop the ship, and how the Shonan Maru is far behind them.

Bloody hell!

A police sub inspector who died after being attacked by a gang in Tirunelveli district on Thursday allegedly failed to get help from Media (cameraman stood, recording the event ) & two ministers who were passing by in their cavalcade.

Police said R Vetrivel, 44, was a victim of mistaken identity and the assailants were after another police officer. The gang threw crude bombs at Vetrivel, severely injuring his right leg. Vetrivel was then attacked with sickles, suffering deep injuries on his neck and head.
Full story
HERE

James Ellroy and David Peace in conversation

Whatever happened to that Asian punk band?

Alien Kulture in 1980, clockwise from top: Azhar Rana (drums), Huw Jones (guitar), Pervez Bilgrami (vocals) and Ausaf Abbas (bass).

It is 1979. In a cafe in Wimbledon, south London, three young Asian men are deep in conversation. The Conservative victory of a few months earlier has left them dejected; the anti-Nazi demonstrations, the involvement with Rock Against Racism, the rallies against the National Front – none of it prevented the Tories from getting in. This is not a good time to be Asian, and things are, the men fear, about to get much worse. Margaret Thatcher, the new prime minister, has already voiced concerns, in a television interview the previous year, that "people are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture".

The men are frustrated and impatient; protest has not worked, so what is left? Punk, that's what. The friends decide to form a band, an Asian punk band that will talk about their lives and fears as second-generation sons of immigrants. The longer they talk the more exciting the prospect seems; the lyrics and music will come later but right now they need a name. It seems obvious: if Thatcher thinks they are an alien culture, then Alien Kulture is what they will be.

An Asian punk band? Even today the idea seems rather absurd, so how much more strange must it have seemed 30 years ago when Ausaf Abbas, Azhar Rana, Pervez Bilgrami and "token white" Huw Jones decided to form Alien Kulture. Abbas and Rana had been friends since they were both six, living in south London, children of middle-class Pakistani immigrants. By the late 70s, they had wound up studying the same course at the London School of Economics. "I was always political," recalls Abbas. "I was going on demonstrations as a teenager and the arrival of Margaret Thatcher just electrified everything – it gave us even more to rant and rave about."

The Pakistani community in Balham was tightly knit so it was perhaps inevitable that Abbas and Rana would run into Bilgrami, another young Asian who shared their twin loves of politics and punk. "I remember the first time I saw the Sex Pistols on So it Goes," Bilgrami says. "It was 'Anarchy in the UK' and I was half-asleep; hearing the song was like an awakening. I didn't have a place in this society and it suddenly hit me that this was music that I could play, something I could be part of."

This was a time when Asians were largely invisible in popular culture. It was the emergence of punk, with its ethos that anyone could be in a band, that inspired the young Asians to believe they could emulate their musical heroes. "The band was formed in response to punk," confirms Abbas. "It meshed so well with the politics of the time and I remember watching as the white kids of punk began jamming with the black guys doing reggae and thinking we brown kids don't have anything."

Rock Against Racism, set up with the explicit aim of countering the electoral threat of the National Front, largely consisted of well-meaning white bands alongside some black musicians; out on the streets, it was Asians who were being stabbed and killed. "Our story of being second-generation Asians was not being heard," says Bilgrami. "There was no one else saying what we wanted to say."...

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@'The Guardian'

Lee Perry - I Am The Upsetter

Scratch updates his '60s rock steady hit "I am the Upsetter" at Joe Gibbs recording studio in 1982. Footage includes shots in the control room with the late great Errol Thompson at the controls, assisting Scratch as he annoints the studio with ganja during playback, 

Lee Perry - Pum Pum

Not the greatest song from not the greatest album that Scratch has made.

What did you expect? The album was produced by Andrew W.K. and even has Dave 'David' Tibet 'Michael' on it!

Saving grace on this track is that there are vocals contributed by Sasha Grey *sigh*!

Game Change

Excerpt from Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.

@'NY Mag'

The Knife - Heartbeats

   

Fever Ray - Seven

RePost: Kowloon Walled City

An amazing walk around and through the 'Walled City of Kowloon'.

More on the walled city here and here.

Looks fugn magnificent!

Togo government tells team to quit Cup of Nations

Togo's footballers are being recalled from the Africa Cup of Nations by their government following a deadly attack on the team's bus in Angola.

An assistant coach, press officer and driver were killed. Two players were shot and injured in Friday's attack.
The Angolan government and tournament officials had been pressing Togo to stay for their group games in Cabinda.
Togo government minister Pascal Bodjona said the team was coming home because the players were in a state of shock.
He added: "We cannot in such a dramatic circumstance continue in the Africa Cup of Nations."
Togo were due to play Ghana in their opening match on Monday. Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso are the other teams in Group B.
Angola's prime minister Paulo Kassoma met with African football officials in Luanda to offer reassurances on the safety of the players on the eve of the tournament.

"The prime minister considers the incident in Cabinda as an isolated act and repeated that the security of Togo's team and the other squads is guaranteed," his office said in a statement.
But his efforts appear to have been in vain, with the Togolese government telling its team to leave Angola.
Earlier, Togo coach Hubert Velud told French radio station RMC that he thought consideration should be given to cancelling the entire tournament.
"We can at least pose that question," he said. "It's an act of barbarism while we are here to celebrate African football."
In an interview with a French radio station, Togo's first-choice goalkeeper, Kossi Agassa, said none of his team wanted to remain in the tournament.
"None of the team is ready to play, we're all devastated, everyone wants to go and see their family," he said.
"We came here to take part in a festival of African football, but it's as if we've gone to war."

Aston Villa's Togolese midfielder Moustapha Salifou was thankful for the presence of the security team after he emerged unscathed from the incident, which happened after the team had entered Angola from neighbouring Congo, but he said he felt lucky to be alive.
He told Villa's website: "Our security people saved us. They were in two cars, about 10 of them in total, and they returned fire.
"The shooting lasted for half an hour and and I could hear the bullets whistling past me. It was like a movie.
"It was only 15 minutes after we crossed the border into Angola that we came under heavy fire. The driver was shot almost immediately and died instantly so we were just stopped on the road with nowhere to go.
"I know I am really lucky. I was in the back of the coach with Emmanuel Adebayor and one of the goalkeepers. A defender sat in front of me took two shots in the back.
"The goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale Dodo, one of my best friends, was shot in the stomach and was flown to South Africa to undergo an operation to save his life.
"It was horrific. Everybody was crying. I don't know how anyone can do this.
"I am back at our camp in Cabinda with my team-mates but we all want to go home to Togo. We have made our decision. We can't play in these circumstances and want to leave for home.
"We don't want to compete in the tournament because our assistant manager and the press officer have been killed. As a team we have made this decision."

The Ivory Coast's team bus had a heavy police guard on Saturday

Togo captain, and Manchester City striker, Adebayor, who was on the coach but also unharmed, has been told by his club that he will be given as much time as needs to recover from the attack.
On Friday he said many of his team-mates wanted to go home.
He told BBC Afrique: "It's a football game, it's one of the biggest tournaments in Africa and a lot of people would love to be in our position but I don't think anybody would be prepared to give their life.
"If I am alive I can still play football tomorrow and in one year maybe even another Cup of Nations but I am not ready to pass away now."
Defender Serge Akakpo, who plays for Romanian club Vaslui, was hit by two bullets and lost a lot of blood in the attack in Angola's oil-rich territory of Cabinda, which is due to host seven matches.
Adebayor said the players were unsure whether Akakpo would survive at the time, but his club reported that his condition was stabilised and he underwent successful surgery.
Reserve keeper Obilale, who plays for French club GSI Pontivy, was also wounded, while several other players required hospital treatment and were later seen with bandages on legs, hands and faces.

"I don't think any of the players will be able to sleep after this," said Adebayor, who admitted they were all still in shock.
"You cannot sleep after what we have seen - one of your team-mates with bullets in his body in front of you, crying and losing consciousness. It is very difficult."
Souleymane Habuba, spokesman for organisers the Confederation of African Football (CAF), said the tournament would proceed despite the attack.
"Our great concern is for the players, but the championship goes ahead," said Habuba, who questioned why Togo had elected to travel by road rather than flying.
"CAF's regulations are clear: teams are required to fly rather than travel by bus," he added.
Football's world governing body Fifa has expressed its concern about the attack.
"Fifa and its president, Sepp Blatter, are deeply moved by today's incidents which affected Togo's national team, to whom they express their utmost sympathy," said a statement.
"Fifa is in touch with the African Football Confederation (CAF) and its president, Issa Hayatou, from which it expects a full report on the situation."

@'BBC'

Starkey - 1xtra Mix

     

The Damned

HA!

Rowland S. Howard

Lots of live recordings of Rowland solo & with These Immortal Souls, Crime & The City Solution, Lydia Lunch and The Boys Next Door.

Remember him this way!

HERE

Never before seen Final Academy footage

Super 8 footage from The Final Academy 1982 , somewhere are the tapes to do a sound montage but in the meantime the music is "Crowtime" by Skintologists,to hear more visit

HERE 

(I love the interwebbynet!

Inspired by my posting of WSB earlier, Fritz from 23 Skidoo

has just put up his footage from that remarkable event!

Thanx man!)

Pacou - liveset 1-2010

    

How true!

 

 davidhepworth

 

Listening to Exile On Main Street on the original vinyl. If you've only heard this on CD you really have no idea. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

Currently reading...

My eldest son recommended this.  An excellent read.

Review here.

Cancer Risks Debated for Type of X-Ray Scan

The plan for broad use of X-ray body scanners to detect bombs or weapons under airline passengers’ clothes has rekindled a debate about the safety of delivering small doses of radiation to millions of people — a process some experts say is certain to result in a few additional cancer deaths.

The scanning machines, called “backscatter scanners,” deliver a dose of ionizing radiation equivalent to 1 percent or less of the radiation in a dental X-ray. The amount is so small that the risk to an individual is negligible, according to radiation experts. But collectively, the radiation doses from the scanners incrementally increase the risk of fatal cancers among the thousands or millions of travelers who will be exposed, some radiation experts believe.

Full-body scanners that are already in place in some airports around the country and abroad use a different type of imaging technology, called millimeter wave, that uses less powerful, non-ionizing radiation that does not pose the same risk.

But those machines also produce images that are less clear. And in the wake of the attempted bombing of an airplane traveling to Detroit from Amsterdam on Dec. 25, the United States is turning to backscatter scanners for routine security checks. Congress has appropriated funds for 450 scanners to be placed in American airports. On Thursday, President Obama called for greater use of “imaging technology” to spot weapons and explosives.

Some other countries may follow suit. Britain plans to use whole-body scanners and may test the backscatter system. On Friday, the French government said it would begin testing a few scanners of the millimeter wave type at Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, for flights bound for the United States. Italy and the Netherlands also plan to use the millimeter-wave scanners.

Most discussion about full-body scanners has focused on privacy issues surrounding the nude images that would result. The American Civil Liberties Union has denounced the practice as a “virtual strip search.”

Some experts argue that the broad use of the scanners raises the same question that pertains to any other routine exposure to small doses of radiation: Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

“The guiding principle is not whether Mother Nature is going to kill you one day,” said Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist. “It’s whether we can justify doing something to each other based on the benefit you’re going to get.”

Officials at the Transportation Security Administration say they have already tried out a handful of backscatter scanners. They could acquire 450 from the manufacturer, Rapiscan Systems, by the end of September. The agency has a contract under which it could buy 900 of the scanners. The machines have been used for years at prisons and other places where the authorities look for weapons, including at nuclear power plants.

In a 2002 report on the safety of backscatter scanners, the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, which is highly influential in setting regulatory standards, said it “cannot exclude the possibility of a fatal cancer attributable to radiation in a very large population of people exposed to very low doses of radiation.”

One author of that report, David J. Brenner, a professor of radiation biophysics at Columbia and director of the university’s Center for Radiological Research, said that risk might be increased as the transportation agency moves from using the scanning machines as a second-round check after metal detectors and hand searches to using them as a first-line screening system.

“When we were looking at these a few years back, it was always going to be as a secondary screening tool,” he said. “In that scenario, I don’t think there’s too much concern.” But, he said, if millions or tens of millions of passengers a year were scanned with the backscatter X-ray, he said, the risk would be higher.

The health effect of small doses of radiation is not observed, but inferred from the visible effects of higher doses. Dr. Makhijani said that if a billion passengers were screened with the dose assumed by the radiation protection council, that would mean 10 more cancer deaths a year.

Those deaths would represent only a tiny increment over the existing cancer rate, he said, just as the extra dose was a tiny fraction of the natural background dose of radiation people get from everyday exposures, but he added that they should still be considered.

Edward Lyman, a nuclear expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the additional deaths would be indistinguishable from cancers resulting from other causes. But he said, “Just because they can’t be attributed in an epidemiology study to the additional radiation, it doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

Other experts, however, including David A. Schauer, the radiation council’s executive director, disputed the idea that collective doses of radiation increased risks significantly.

Doses divided into tiny portions among millions of people are not the same as those concentrated on a few people, Dr. Schauer said.

“I personally don’t buy it,” he said. “From a public health point of view, it’s a bit of a stretch.”

The radiation council sets standards for doses to radiation workers and to the general public, but does not set a standard for a collective dose.

Robert Barish, a radiation consultant in New York and the author of a 1996 book, “The Invisible Passenger,” said the doses delivered by the scanners were tiny by any standard, and passengers would get the same dose in a few minutes in a high-altitude jet, where most of the earth’s atmosphere is not available to shield people from cosmic rays.

A spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, Kristin Lee, said that even for pregnant women, children and people whose genetic makeup made them more susceptible to X-ray damage, “It would take more than 1,000 screenings per individual per year” to exceed radiation standards.

According to a blog published by the Transportation Security Administration, the radiation dose from the scanner is about the same amount as an average American receives from natural background sources in four minutes on the ground.

But Dr. Lyman, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, noted that at one point the blog had listed a much higher dose for the scanners. When the discrepancy was pointed out, the agency corrected the blog to the lower figure.

Backscatter scanners work by shooting a beam of X-rays at a subject. But rather than making an image from what passes through the body, as a doctor’s diagnostic X-ray machine does, backscatter machines measure what bounces back, producing an image of the passenger without clothing. The X-rays are a form of ionizing radiation, that is, radiation powerful enough to strip molecules in the body of their electrons, creating charged particles that cause cell damage and are thought to be the mechanism through which radiation causes cancer.

@'NY Times'

The Clash - Armagideon Time (Live)

(Concert For Kampuchea 1979)

(US Festival 1983)

دانشگاه شریف 19 دیماه

On Jan 9th, students of Sharif University (Tehran) in protest to the coup government and the illegal detention of their fellow classmates held a peaceful gathering. They were chanting students would rather die than give in to tyranny and imprisoned students must be released.

A Semiotext(e) Reader
PDF
HERE

William Burroughs in London ('Pirate Tape' by Derek Jarman)

WSB in London at the time of the Final Academy.

Meanwhile in LaLa land - "It would be like discovering that Buddha, unbeknownst to anybody, had sat down and wrote down the entirety of his discoveries and it could be verified that he wrote it,"

More than 1,000 unreleased recordings of lectures by L. Ron Hubbard and reams of corresponding writings have been unveiled in the culmination of a 25-year project to locate, restore and transcribe lost pieces of the Scientology founder's work.

The new materials were announced in a New Year's celebration at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles that was broadcast to churches around the world last week and include 1,020 lectures and hundreds of corresponding booklets from courses and other sessions with Scientology ministers from 1953 to 1961. They include discussions of how Hubbard arrived at the principles of Dianetics and his research on everything from decision-making to personal responsibility.

They were recovered through a painstaking hunt that led members to find tapes and papers in a basement in Wichita, Kan., a storage trailer in Phoenix, and a garage in Oakland, Calif., among other places. Some of the materials were believed to have been lost...

@'SanFran Chronicle'

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Thee Psychick Bible

New interview with Richard Metzger.

HAPPILY EVER AFTER IS SO ONCE UPON A TIME!

A Concert for Tuli Kupferberg January 22 - St. Ann's Warehouse, Brooklyn

Lou Reed, Philip Glass, Sonic Youth, John Zorn, Gary Lucas, Richard

Belzer and other notable artists will join THE FUGS for a benefit

concert for Tuli Kupferberg, the Beat poet and original member of The

Fugs, at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn on Jan. 22.

Mr. Kupferberg, 86, has had two strokes over the last year, which have

left him blind. The ticket proceeds from the concert, which is being

produced by Hal Willner, will help pay his medical expenses.

Among the others performers are the singer John Kruth; Ed Sanders, Mr.

Kupferberg’s fellow Fug; and Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders

(who also played on early Fugs albums). Tickets are $75 to $125 and

are available at stannswarehouse.org or (718) 254.8779.

A Concert for Tuli Kupferberg

January 22 - St. Ann's Warehouse

with -

Lou Reed

Philip Glass

Sonic Youth

The Fugs

Gary Lucas

John Zorn Trio

Peter Stampfel

John Kruth

RePost: For a friend...

Sunn O))) live at Corsica Studio London 22/02/09.

Just Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson playing live to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 'Grimmrobe Demos' release.

PLAY LOUD!!!

More live pics (and review) by John Marshall here.

Very handy for friends in Iran/China etc Warning: Update

Founded by a group of successful entrepreneurs, renowned scientists and engineers in Silicon Valley who dedicated to providing technologies and service for people to exchange information on Internet freely and safely, UltraReach is the first company with a mission that offers Internet technology and service immune to the national Internet censorship in China.

Internet anti-censorship technology was thought of as "mission impossible" two years ago. We started thorough R&D on other existing technologies as well as from end users' perspective. While other existing technologies were developed for user's privacy and anonymity on Internet, we solved the connection and reconnection problem, which is the key issue for user to access web site without being blocked. Built on solid theoretical analysis and professional quality, UltraReach has successfully invented the technology platform called the GIFT system, which offers guaranteed connection and reconnection service to users inside these censor countries and capability of serving very large number of users with affordable resource. More than one year live service performance has proved that the GIFT technology has successfully broken through the so-called "Great Firewall" which is built with state-of-art firewall equipments and softwares with virtually unlimited resource from government.

Powered by GIFT technology, UltraReach.Net portal is the first home page for users to visit when they are connected to our service. Through the web portal users inside the censored zones can surf any public web sites in the free world. It naturally becomes a precious window for users inside China to look out for world news and other web contents that are blocked. The UltraReach.Net attracts thousands of users in China with daily news stories, featured articles and links from world media, governmental and non-governmental organizations, different groups and individual sites.

The outstanding performance of our service has made UltraReach Internet well known among the users who seek the Internet freedom in the censored country, and at the meantime attracted heavy attacks from Chinese Internet police. The GIFT system has survived various assaults including DNS hijacking, IP blocking, DOS attacking etc. We've taken the threats from the censor as opportunities to continuously improve the performance and reliability of our technology. In fact, the GIFT system has been mature enough for reliable service and it depends on the financial resource to expand its user base.

The next-level solution from UltraReach Internet as well as the real time performance has proved that our system and service is by far superior to other existing technologies. The main differentiators consist of anti-blocking power, connection and re-connection capability and the ability to serve and maintain a very large number of users from inside China. As the clear leader among the Internet anti-jamming technology and service providers, we are currently the only one that can offer reliable service to deliver web contents to the massive number of users in China.

HERE

My son did a bit of research into Ultrareach and warning bells started to ring!

HERE

Indian man attacked and set alight in Melbourne

An Indian man is in a serious condition in a Melbourne hospital after being attacked and set alight by a gang.

The attack comes a week after an Indian graduate student, Nitin Garg, was stabbed to death in the city.

This prompted a travel advisory from the Indian government about the safety of Melbourne.

Last year saw a spate of attacks against Indian students, which has deterred many from studying in Australia.

The 29-year-old Indian was returning home from a dinner party with his wife when he set up by a gang of men, who poured fluid over him and then set him alight.

He is now in a Melbourne hospital, where his condition has been described as serious, suffering from burns to 15% of his body.

Police say they are not sure why the man was targeted and whether it was a racially-motivated attack - but it is bound to increase the sense of outrage in India, where there's been an angry reaction to the murder last weekend of Nitin Garg.

The Indian government has already this week issued an advisory warning about the dangers of travelling to Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, where the local Indian community claims that racist attacks are on the rise.

@'BBC'

OK let's see if the Victorian police say it is not racism now.

A different perspective

You will become mentally ill in 2013

 

Iran opposition leader Karroubi's 'car hit by gunfire'

The armoured car of one of Iran's opposition leaders, Mehdi Karroubi, was hit by gunfire in the northern town of Qazvin, his party's website reported on Friday, but only the windows were damaged.
Karroubi was in the town to attend a mourning ceremony for slain opposition protesters organised by a reformist former member of parliament, Sahamnews.org said.
"Around 500 basiji (members of the Basij Islamic militia) and residents of nearby villages surrounded the place where he was and attacked the building with stones, breaking windows," it said.
After four hours, anti-riot police finally intervened to get Karroubi out of the building.
"As his car was pulling away, it was attacked and hit by gunfire. But, as it is an armoured car, only the windows were damaged."
There was no immediate word from the authorities on the incident.
The website quoted Karroubi as saying there had been no return of fire by his guards.
"My bodyguards did not return fire as, unlike the assailants, they would have been brought before the courts and faced prosecution," Karroubi said.
The attackers chanted slogans in support of the Islamic regime and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the website added.
"Our town is not a place for hypocrites," they reportedly chanted using the regime's standard term of abuse for the outlawed rebel People's Mujahedeen.
A reformist former speaker of parliament, Karroubi stood against hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a June election along with moderate former prime minister Mir Hossein Moussavi.
Both men have charged that the vote was marred by massive fraud and have led a series of mass protests over the months since.

Three Palestinians killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza

Crater left by an Israeli strike on what Palestinian describes as a metal workshop

Three people, including a 14-year-old-boy, have been killed in Israeli air strikes overnight in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics say.

The Israeli military said it was responding to mortar and rocket attacks on Thursday on Israel from Gaza.
It said it attacked two tunnels on the border with Egypt, a tunnel to be used by militants for crossing into Israel and a weapons making site.
The strikes hit targets Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah.
The militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, said an Israeli jet had also bombed a building in Gaza City.
On Thursday, Israeli planes dropped thousands of leaflets over the Gaza Strip warning residents to steer clear of the border after Palestinian militants fired mortar rounds into Israel.
Gaza militants have fired more than 280 rockets or mortars at Israel since the end of a devastating offensive against the territory on January 18, according to the Israeli military.
Palestinian groups and human right organisations say about about 1,400 Palestinians died during the offensive. Thirteen Israelis were also killed in the fighting.

@'BBC'

Girlz With Gunz # 90

HA!

(Click to enlarge)

Trafigura returns to court in attempt to suppress lawsuit documents

Trafigura is going back before judges to ask for high court records to be sealed. Photograph: Odd Anderson/AFP/Getty Images

Trafigura, the offshore oil trader that became notorious for legal attempts to suppress reporting of parliament, is going back to Britain's judges tomorrow.

The privately owned oil giant wants high court records to be sealed to prevent the public and the media from reading allegations made in a separate lawsuit.

The move marks a new frontier in Trafigura's use of UK media laws to avoid unwelcome publicity. Last year, the firm deployed an array of libel proceedings, confidence injunctions and threats of contempt of court to try to avert criticism over its toxic waste, dumped cheaply in west Africa, where it made thousands ill.

Trafigura's moves led to uproar when it obtained a so-called super-injunction that it claimed banned parliamentary reporting, which was subsequently criticised by the lord chief justice, Lord Judge.

Kieran Looney, an Irish management consultant, is suing Trafigura for £6m in a separate dispute over fees for a consultancy project. Trafigura denies the claim and is defending the case.

Looney's claim, set out in a public document drawn up by Matthew Collings QC and filed at the high court on 17 December, says Trafigura's rapid recent worldwide expansion led to fears the firm was becoming too bureaucratic and inflexible.

The claim says Looney was hired to rectify management problems and mistakes at a fee of £3m a year for three years. It goes on to detail meetings with senior executives in London and Geneva, and internal Trafigura emails.

The Guardian understands that back-office functions studied by Looney included a "special project" to open 200 petrol stations in Angola in a joint deal with the state oil company, Sonangol, and global tax schemes organised from the Netherlands, where Trafigura registers its holding company.

The question of whether it pays its fair share of tax is a particularly sensitive issue for an offshore multinational such as Trafigura. Separate internal Trafigura documents seen by the Guardian say that the company normally succeeds in paying a total of less than 15% tax on its worldwide profits. This is half the official headline rate of corporation tax in the UK and US, and much less than the 25% Dutch rate.

Trafigura's global profits were $478m in its last year of published accounts. The firm runs many worldwide operations from a London headquarters in Oxford Street, but says it generates only a fraction – about 8% – of its profits in the UK, on which it paid UK tax of less than $12m (£7.5m) last year.

Trafigura's parent company Farringford NV is based in the Caribbean tax haven of Curaçao. Many operations are registered in low-tax cantons of Switzerland. Trafigura documents detail the firm's discussions about whether to "migrate" to Switzerland for tax purposes its interests in a Peruvian mine currently held by Iberian, a Canadian company. Internal estimates show this could save $3m tax in a single year.

A high court hearing is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon in the Looney case before a preliminary judge, Master Moncaster. An application is expected to seal the court papers, although they have previously been publicly available. Current UK law allows a judge to order suppression without giving reasons.

Trafigura did not wish to comment today.

@'The Guardian'

Girlz With Gunz # 89

Deeming Sri Lanka execution video authentic, UN expert calls for war crimes probe

Sri Lanka execution video authentic - UN envoy

Iran State TV Suggests Neda's Iconic Death Was 'Faked'

Iranian state television has made a documentary about the death of Neda Agha Soltan, a young Iranian woman who was shot dead during the June postelection protests in Tehran, suggesting she was an agent of the United States and Britain who staged her own death.

Neda's last moments were filmed on a cell phone and watched by millions of people around the world, becoming a symbol of democratic resistance to the regime.

The state-television documentary suggests the video of Neda's dying moments merely depicted her pouring blood on her own face from a special bottle she was carrying. Later, the documentary alleges that 27-year-old Neda was shot dead in the car that was taking her to a hospital.

The conspiracy theory alleged in the documentary is in line with comments by Iranian officials, who have repeatedly described Neda's death as "suspicious" and a "premeditated scenario" to defame Iran.

The state reaction was prompted by the immense impact of a grainy amateur video shot as Neda participated in a June 20 protest in Tehran.

Neda and tens of thousands of fellow opposition supporters had gathered in downtown Tehran in defiance of an official ban on the mass protests that followed the country's June 12 presidential election, which was handed to incumbent Mahmud Ahmadinejad by a landslide.

At least 10 people were reported killed and more than 100 were wounded that day after security forces cracked down on the protesters, but it was the unforgettable image of Neda's death that struck a chord both at home and abroad.

The video, which was posted on youTube, was watched by millions of people around the world. Within hours, Neda became an icon of a protest movement that has plunged the Islamic republic into its worse-ever crisis.

The name "Neda" has become universally recognized, as have the pictures of her that are now displayed proudly during rallies of the opposition Green Movement, whose members have vowed to keep her memory alive.

Neda's death has also proven to be a very sensitive issue for the Islamic establishment.

The state television documentary was featured in a January 5 report broadcast by PressTV, Iran television's international English-language news network.

Neda is portrayed in the documentary as a foreign agent who became the victim of a plot orchestrated by foreigners and opposition supporters.

Doctor Accused Of Conspiracy

The documentary alleges that Arash Hejazi, the writer and physician who treated Neda as she lay bleeding on a Tehran street, as well as her music teacher who was with her at the protest, were members of a team that carried out the plot.

"While Neda is [pretending] she is injured and is lying on the back seat of the car on their lap, they bring out a handgun from their pockets," the documentary's narrator says.

"A handgun that they obtained from their Western and Iranian friends to water the tree of reforms and kill people and create divisions within society. Neda, for a moment, realizes their wicked plan and struggles to escape, but they quickly shoot her from behind."

The narrator adds that this is how "deceived and deceitful" Neda was killed.

Hejazi, who has been accused by Iranian hardliners of being Neda's murderer, has denied being in the car that took her body to a Tehran hospital.

In a telephone interview with RFE/RL from Britain, where he lives, Hejazi describes the documentary as a shameful and worthless attempt to cover up the truth and place the blame for Neda's death on others.

"A young innocent woman was shot dead while protesting. Since her killing, until today, the Iranian government has been doing all it can to distance itself from it and throw the responsibility on others, instead of acting responsibly and dealing with those who are guilty," Hejazi says.

Basiji Link

Hejazi has said he believes that Neda was shot in the chest by a member of the Basiji militia who was among the crowd of protesters.

Hejazi has claimed that the Basiji member was detained by the crowd, who took away his ID card. The identification card of the alleged shooter, with his name and picture, was posted on opposition websites.

Although Hejazi has publically identified the man as the one who was caught by the crowd and disarmed, Iranian judiciary officials have reportedly failed to launch legal action against him.

Since Neda's death some six months ago, authorities have come up with different theories about the circumstances of her death.

On January 6, Iran's ambassador to Bahrain, Hossein Amir Abdullahyan, told "The Nation" that groups from Britain and the United States infiltrated the opposition movement and carried out assassinations among its ranks.

Abdullahyan went on to allege that the groups were behind the killing of Neda -- and he didn't stop there. He also said they were responsible for the death of Ali Musavi -- the 35-year-old nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Musavi who was killed during rallies on December 27 in which eight protesters died.

Hejazi says Tehran's stories about the circumstances of Neda's death keep changing.

"Their first reaction was that she was alive. Then they said the footage was fake. One day they said a BBC reporter killed her. Then they said it was the CIA. Then they said the [Mujahedin] Khalq Organization [MKO] was behind it. The latest is this documentary," Hejazi says.

Iranian state media have said the documentary presents "another side" of Neda's death, and challenges claims made by "Western media."

It says its findings are based on "forensic evidence and statements by security officials" that shows that Neda was not killed, as "shown by Western media."

Hejazi says Neda's death has become a thorn in the side of Iranian authorities due to the international attention it received, helping to mobilize global public opinion against the crackdown in Iran.

Neda's fiance, Caspian Makan, who was detained for a while before leaving Iran, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda this week that her image carved into her tombstone had been vandalized.

Makan accused those who arrest, torture, and kill innocent protesters of damaging her grave, concluding: "What the regime of the Islamic republic did to Neda's tombstone is like shooting her again."

@'Radio Free Europe'

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