Thursday 23 September 2010
Israeli raid on Gaza aid flotilla broke law - UN probe
Israel's military broke international laws during a raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a UN Human Rights Council investigation says.
Its report said the action by commandos, which left nine dead, was "disproportionate" and "betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality".
It said there was clear evidence to support prosecutions against Israel for "wilful killing".
Israel rejected the report as "biased" and "one-sided."
It insists its soldiers acted in self-defence during the 31 May raid.
Nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists were killed and many others injured after Israeli commandoes boarded the six-ship convoy as it tried to breach an Israeli naval blockade of Gaza.
The convoy's passengers were detained and later deported by Israel.
There was widespread international criticism of Israel's actions, which severely strained relations with its long-time Muslim ally, Turkey.
'Biased'
In a 56-page report, the UN panel of three international lawyers said: "There is clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: wilful killing; torture or inhuman treatment; wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health".
The Convention is an international treaty governing the protection of civilians in times of war.
The UN fact-finding mission also said the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory was "unlawful" because of a humanitarian crisis there.
The panel had interviewed more than 100 witnesses in Britain, Jordan, Switzerland Turkey, but not in Israel.
Before the report was released, Israel dismissed the Human Rights Council as being biased, politicised and extremist.
After the findings were published, it said the report was "as biased and as one-sided as the body that has produced it".
"Israel... is of the opinion that the flotilla incident is amply and sufficiently investigated as it is," said the Israeli foreign ministry in a statement.
"All additional dealing with this issue is superfluous and unproductive."
The Israeli government has begun its own independent inquiry into the flotilla raid, the Turkel Commission. It has two foreign observers, but critics say its remit is too narrow.
There is also a separate UN inquiry - ordered by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon - into the raid. Israel has said it will co-operate with the investigation.
MI6 'used bodily fluids as invisible ink'
A diary entry belonging to a senior member of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) has revealed that during the First World War it was discovered that the bodily fluid could act as an effective invisible ink.
In June 1915, Walter Kirke, deputy head of military intelligence at GHQ France, wrote in his diary that Mansfield Cumming, the first chief (or C) of the SIS was "making enquiries for invisible inks at the London University".
In October he noted that he "heard from C that the best invisible ink is semen", which did not react to the main methods of detection. Furthermore it had the advantage of being readily available.
A member of staff close to "C", Frank Stagg, said that he would never forget his bosses' delight when the Deputy Chief Censor said one day that one of his staff had found out that "semen would not react to iodine vapour".
Stagg noted that "we thought we had solved a great problem".
However, the discovery also led to some further problems, with the agent who had identified the novel use having to be moved from his department after becoming the butt of jokes.
In addition, at least one agent had to be reminded to use only fresh supplies of the 'ink' when correspondents began noticing an unusual smell.
The revelations are included in 'MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949' by Professor Keith Jeffery.
Prof Jeffery, of Queen's University, Belfast, was given access to all of MI6's files between those years. The book is published on Tuesday and is being serialised in The Times.
Wednesday 22 September 2010
'Pop Sinner' - From an interview with Paul Kelly on ABC's 7:30 Report 21/09/10
...KERRY O'BRIEN: You're very candid in the book about your period with heroin. You say, "Heroin was the one for me." You single out all the other drugs that were available, but you say, "Heroin was the one for me." It sounds like for a long time you told yourself you could use it, enjoy it, without succumbing to it. Is that right?
PAUL KELLY: Yeah. Well, it was - I had a relationship on and off with heroin for 20 years. Again, as I was saying before, when you - I didn't realise for a while that I was writing a memoir and once I realised I was, I realised certain things had to be spoken about.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Because it was so much a part of your life for that long.
PAUL KELLY: Well a part of my life.
KERRY O'BRIEN: A part of my life.
PAUL KELLY: But my sort of other rough rule of thumb for what stayed in the book and what wasn't was whether it was interesting, whether this particular chapter is an interesting piece of writing. And I thought I had something to say about heroin that was different to the usual narrative. I mean, you hear people - the usual sort of story of heroin is either a tragedy or redemption, you know. You go down with it, you don't get up; or you go down and you come up and you got the redemption story. And I thought there was - I just thought there was another story there.
KERRY O'BRIEN: And what is it?
PAUL KELLY: That, you know, people do use hard drugs recreationally and not all the time, that people can use drugs like heroin without having a habit. I never did. And that, at some point, you weigh up the costs against the benefits and at some point you think, "The costs are getting too much; I'll stop."
KERRY O'BRIEN: And what were the costs in the end for you?
PAUL KELLY: Um ... oh, there's a lot of costs. There's ...
KERRY O'BRIEN: You talk about the fact that towards the end, the coming down, that the coming down was taking much longer, that it was harder to come off it each time. That's the way I read it.
PAUL KELLY: I think it's like most drugs, including alcohol. You know, when you're young you can drink 20 beers in a night and get up the next day and play football. But, you know, I can't drink that much anymore without feeling the effects of it. So it's the same with any kind of drug. I think as you get older, you get - the toll gets - you can't go at it so hard.
KERRY O'BRIEN: But you - whether it was just that heroin was illicit or whether you felt something else about it, felt uncomfortable about it anyway I'm not sure, but for a long time there you were hiding it from others. You hid it from friends and family and colleagues, but you say that after a certain time you knew that they knew, that the - it was becoming obvious to people when you were using heroin.
PAUL KELLY: Yeah, I think - I mean, it's - I don't know whether it's a particular trait of heroin or just other drugs, but I think it is a kind of brainwasher so you sort of think you're getting away with it. And if you have any sorta clarity about it, you start to realise, well, you're not.
KERRY O'BRIEN: I've talked with James Taylor about his experience with heroin. He said that for him it was self-medication for depression, but that in the end it was too narrow, too stultifying. "I felt as though I lived on a postage stamp," he said. Does that ring any bells for you?
PAUL KELLY: Like I said, I think I had a different experience. I didn't ...
KERRY O'BRIEN: So you didn't come to it as a prop, you didn't come to it as an escape. For you it was - you were introduced to it as a recreational drug and that's how you saw yourself using it.
PAUL KELLY: Yeah. For a long time it worked like that.
KERRY O'BRIEN: So have you ever talked to your own kids about that experience? What would you - have you ever said to them, "I'd be relaxed if you tried it," or, "My advice to you is stay away?"
PAUL KELLY: Ohh, yeah, well, my conversations with my children is probably not something I wanna talk about. I'm sorry, Kerry.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Well then let me put to it you this way: what would you now say to others who might consider using heroin?
PAUL KELLY: Ah, I wouldn't say anything at all. I think the last thing the world needs is pop sinners (sic) giving advice.
KERRY O'BRIEN: You're more than a pop singer.
PAUL KELLY: Well I'm certainly not someone who wants to give advice to people I don't know.
KERRY O'BRIEN: How hard was it to walk away from when you did?
PAUL KELLY: Not that hard.
KERRY O'BRIEN: You don't occasionally still miss it?
PAUL KELLY: Not anymore...
Despite Kerry O'Brien's intentions it was so refreshing to have a well respected Australian talk some sense about drugs (that we are NOT all the same) and as we are in the middle of Grand Final week here in Melbourne, chances are that 'the tabloid' won't pick up on this!
Nuclear power at heart of Russia's Arctic ambition
Could the Arctic become a battleground over control of large reserves of oil and gas thought to lie under the Arctic Sea, or will there be co-operation in the polar region? This will be a question for politicians and experts from around the world as they meet in Moscow.
In a grimy shipyard in St Petersburg, an ugly hulk of red-painted metal sits floating in the dock.
On deck, workmen scurry back and forth, hammering, drilling and welding.
In 2007, Artur Chilingarov planted a Russian flag on the Arctic seabed
This strange construction, part ship, part platform, is unique and lies at the heart of Russia's grand ambitions for the Arctic.
When it is completed in 2012, it will be the first of eight floating nuclear power stations which the government wants to place along Russia's north coast, well within the Arctic Circle.
The idea is the nuclear reactors will provide the power for Russia's planned push to the North Pole.
Moscow is claiming more than a million square kilometres of extra territory in the Arctic, stretching from its current border in the Arctic Sea, all the way to the Pole.
'Complicated and dangerous'
The area includes an underwater mountain range called the Lomonosov ridge, which some Russian scientists claim could hold 75 billion barrels of oil.
This is more than the country's current proven reserves.
"These [floating nuclear power stations] have very good potential, creating the conditions for exploring the Arctic shelf and setting up drilling platforms to extract oil and gas," says Sergey Zavyalov, deputy director of the operating company, Rosenergoatom.
"Work in the Arctic is very complicated and dangerous and we should ensure there's a reliable energy supply."
He says each power station, costing $400m, can supply electricity and heating for communities of up to 45,000 people and can stay on location for 12 years before needing to be serviced back in St Petersburg.
And while initially they will be positioned next to Arctic bases along the North coast, there are plans for floating nuclear power stations to be taken out to sea near large gas rigs.
"We can guarantee the safety of our units one hundred per cent, all risks are absolutely ruled out," says Mr Zavyalov...
Continue reading
Richard Galpin @'BBC'
Vatican Bank 'investigated over money-laundering'
The inquiry into Ettore Gotti Tedeschi has surprised the Vatican
The head of the Vatican Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, is under investigation as part of a money-laundering inquiry, police sources say.
Prosecutors also seized 23m euros ($30m; £19m) from the bank's accounts with another smaller institution.
The inquiry was launched after two suspicious transactions were reported to tax police in Rome.
The Vatican said it was "perplexed and astonished", and expressed full confidence in Mr Tedeschi.
The Vatican Bank, known officially as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), was created during World War II to administer accounts held by religious orders, cardinals, bishops and priests.
Police intervention
Rome magistrates are looking into claims that Mr Gotti Tedeschi and the bank's chief executive Paolo Cipriani violated laws that require banks to disclose information on financial operations.
The BBC's David Willey in Rome says the Bank of Italy's financial intelligence unit tipped off Italy's tax police last week, after two suspicious transactions were reported between the Vatican Bank and two different Italian banks.
The tax police seized 23m euros that the Vatican Bank had tried to transfer from a small Italian bank called Credito Artigianato.
Some 20m euros was destined for JP Morgan in Frankfurt, with the remainder going to another Italian bank, Banca del Fucino.
Reports say the Vatican Bank had failed to inform the financial authorities where the money had come from.
Past scandal
In a statement, the Vatican strongly defended its record.
"The Holy See is perplexed and astonished by the initiatives of the Rome prosecutors, considering the data necessary is already available at the Bank of Italy," the statement said.
And the Vatican also gave its backing to the two officials under investigation.
"The Holy See wants to express the maximum confidence in the president and in the chief executive of the IOR," it said.
Mr Gotti Tedeschi, who is an expert on financial ethics, has been in charge of the bank for a year. He was formerly head of Spanish bank Santander's Italian operations.
The Vatican Bank was last mired in scandal in 1982 when its governor Archbishop Paul Marcinkus was indicted over his involvement with the collapse of what was then Italy's largest private bank, Banco Ambrosiano.
Although he was never arrested, the fallout from that scandal took a darker turn when two of its top executives, one of them its chairman, Roberto Calvi, were murdered.
Calvi, known as God's Banker because of his close ties to the Vatican, was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London.
US Supreme Court allows execution of Virginia woman
The US Supreme Court has refused to halt the Virginia execution of Teresa Lewis, scheduled for Thursday.
She is the first woman to face the death penalty in the US for five years.
Teresa Lewis, who has learning difficulties, conspired with two men to kill her husband and stepson in 2002, leaving a door unlocked so the gunmen could enter the family home.
Two of three women in the nine-judge court voted to halt the execution.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor voted against. but there was no other comment from the court.
Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell has said he will not commute the death penalty, despite claims Lewis, who pleaded guilty, has learning disabilities.
The two gunmen who carried out the killings received life sentences.
Lewis - due to die by lethal injection on Thursday - will be the first woman executed in Virginia since 1912.
Her lawyers filed a petition for executive clemency on 25 August 2010.
Declining to commute the sentence, Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell said: "Lewis does not deny that she committed these heinous crimes.
"Numerous psychiatrists and psychologists have analysed Lewis, both before and after her sentencing.
"After numerous evaluations, no medical professional has concluded that Teresa Lewis meets the medical or statutory definition of mentally retarded."
Lewis's husband, Julian Lewis, and stepson, Charles Lewis, were killed with shotgun blasts by Matthew Shallenberger and Rodney Fuller at their home in Danville, Virginia.
Fuller reportedly arranged a deal with prosecutors and received a life sentence.
Shallenberger - who was Lewis's lover - was also sentenced to life. Lewis's lawyers argue that he manipulated her.
Lewis was motivated by inheriting her husband's assets and her stepson's life insurance. She paid for the weapons and ammunition used in the murders.
Prosecutors said Lewis's husband was still alive after the shootings and that she waited 45 minutes before ringing police.
"I'm a little nervous... I'm also scared. But I am peaceful because I've got Jesus with me," Lewis said in an interview with CNN hours before her appeal for clemency was denied.
vaughanbell Drug testing circulated euro banknotes. Heroin traces found on 90%; Cocaine on every single one. http://is.gd/flOuI
NaomiAKlein < Isn't Bono's RED all about buying lots of corporate crap to show how much we care about poverty? What's the difference? http://is.gd/flly7
Tuesday 21 September 2010
If I can handle this, I can handle the fugn Fall!
The Spaceboy and I had a BIG day out...
to say the least...now I need two days to recover!
Monday 20 September 2010
REpost: Could you torture somebody? Would you?
Stanley Milgram’s 1961 obedience to authority experiment countered the participant’s moral beliefs against the demands of authority. For this study, Milgram took out a newspaper ad that offered $4.50 for one hour of work, at Yale University, for a psychology experiment that sought to investigate memory and learning. Participants were told that the study would look at the relationship of punishment in learning, and that one person would be the teacher, and the other would be the learner (a confederate), and that these roles would be determined by a random drawing. The learner was then strapped into a chair, and electrodes are attached to their arm. It was explained to both the teacher and the learner that the electrodes were attached to an electric shock generator, and that shocks would serve as punishment for incorrect answers. The experimenter then states that the shocks will be painful, but that they will not cause any permanent tissue damage, while in reality no shocks would actually be received. The teacher and learner are then divided into separate rooms.
The experimenter shows the teacher the shock generator, which has 30 switches, with a voltage ranging from 15-450 volts, and are labeled from “slight shock” to “danger: severe shock,” and the last switch labeled “XXX.” The teacher is told that it is their job to teach the learner a simple paired associate task, and that they must punish the learner for incorrect answers, by increasing the shock 15 volts each time. The teacher was then given a 15 volt shock to show that the generator was actually working. When the experiment begins, the learner found the task to be difficult and made various mistakes, which resulted in increasing intensity of the shocks. When the machine reached 75, 90, and 105 volts, the teacher could hear the learner grunting through the wall, and at 120 volts the learner claimed that the shocks were getting painful, and at 150 volts he screamed, “get me out of here! I refuse to go on.” When the teacher questioned progressing, the experimenter said things such as, “you can’t stop now,” or “the experiment depends on your continuing compliance.” As the shock voltage increased the learner cried out, “I can’t stand the pain,” at 300 volts the learner began to pound on the wall and demanded to be let out. When the machine reached 330 volts there was no longer any noise coming from the learner. The experimenter then told the teacher that his lack of response was to be considered as an incorrect answer, and that shocks were to still be administered. The experiment concludes when the highest shock level is reached.
Milgram found that 65% of participants would render shock levels of 450 volts, and that these were everyday normal people. In the post-experiment interview, Milgram asked the participants to rate how painful they thought the shocks were, the typical answer was extremely painful. Most of the subjects obeyed the experimenter, however the subjects did show obvious signs of an internal struggle, and demonstrated reactions such as nervous laughter, trembling, and groaning. These interviews confirmed that everyday normal people can cause pain and suffering to another person, under the right set of circumstances. Milgram also found the tendency of the teacher to devalue the learner, by saying such phrases as, “he is so dumb he deserves to get shocked,” which helped to interally justify the teachers behavior of continuing to administer the shocks. This experiment by Milgram has given a tremendous amount of insight into human behavior and obedience.
Milgram summarized the experiment in his 1974 article, "The Perils of Obedience", writing:
'The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.
Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.'
Melbourne psychologist and writer Gina Perry has now tracked down and interviewed four participants in the 1961 experiment and the resulting hour long programme, 'BEYOND THE SHOCK MACHINE' broadcast on Radio National here in Australia in October 2008.
Sunday 19 September 2010
Israeli Beauty Products Company Ahava Complicit in the Sins of Occupation
Walk into any Ricky's store, a beauty shop chain in New York, and you will find a shelf filled with Ahava products. For $28, you can buy mineral toning cleanser; for $22, Dead Sea liquid salt; and for $9, purifying mud soap. The products made by Ahava (which means "love" in Hebrew) seem innocent enough, perfectly enticing for anyone fond of beauty products.
But looks can be deceiving. As activists from the peace group CodePink's Stolen Beauty campaign are fond of chanting at protests, Ahava can't hide its "dirty side."
For nearly two years, an international campaign spearheaded by Palestine solidarity activists has targeted Ahava and the various stores that carry its products, including Ricky's, calling for a boycott. The boycott campaign has heated up recently, eliciting push-back from Jewish organizations around the country and a response from the CEO of Ahava.
While Ahava labels its products "made in Israel," they are actually manufactured in a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in Palestine. According to the Web site Who Profits?, a project of the Israeli anti-occupation group Coalition of Women for Peace, the company exploits Palestinian resources from the Dead Sea.
Under the Geneva Conventions, and various United Nations resolutions, all of Israel's settlements--which house about 500,000 settlers--are illegal, as is excavating natural resources in an occupied area. Israel has occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since the 1967 Six-Day War. The settlements are widely seen as an obstacle to the creation of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.
"[The boycott] is about a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians," said Nancy Kricorian, CodePink's coordinator for the Stolen Beauty campaign. "The situation on the ground there is dehumanizing and demoralizing and terrible."
Ahava, which rakes in profits of nearly $150 million a year, according to a Dec. 2009 CNN report, is owned by entities deeply involved in Israel's settlement project in the occupied West Bank. According to Who Profits? 37 percent of the company is owned by Mitzpe Shalem, an illegal settlement located in the eastern West Bank; another 37 percent by the private investment fund Hamashibr Holdings, which also is a major shareholder in two companies that export produce made in settlements; 18.5 perent by the U.S.-based Shamrock Holding, owned by the Roy E. Disney family of Walt Disney fame, and which is a shareholder in a company that manufactures electronic detection systems that are used on the West Bank separation barrier; and 7.5 percent by the West Bank settlement of Kalia.
In an interview, Kricorian acknowledged that Ahava is a huge target, and likened the Stolen Beauty campaign to a "game of whack-a-mole," as new places where Ahava products are sold pop up frequently. But Kricorian says it isn't just about hurting the company's sales.
"A boycott campaign is strategic, and it's a long-term thing," she said. "It's not just about hurting the company's sales. It's also about educating the public about, in this particular case, the company's illegal practices and sullying the company's name and reputation."...
Continuue reading
But looks can be deceiving. As activists from the peace group CodePink's Stolen Beauty campaign are fond of chanting at protests, Ahava can't hide its "dirty side."
For nearly two years, an international campaign spearheaded by Palestine solidarity activists has targeted Ahava and the various stores that carry its products, including Ricky's, calling for a boycott. The boycott campaign has heated up recently, eliciting push-back from Jewish organizations around the country and a response from the CEO of Ahava.
While Ahava labels its products "made in Israel," they are actually manufactured in a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in Palestine. According to the Web site Who Profits?, a project of the Israeli anti-occupation group Coalition of Women for Peace, the company exploits Palestinian resources from the Dead Sea.
Under the Geneva Conventions, and various United Nations resolutions, all of Israel's settlements--which house about 500,000 settlers--are illegal, as is excavating natural resources in an occupied area. Israel has occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since the 1967 Six-Day War. The settlements are widely seen as an obstacle to the creation of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.
"[The boycott] is about a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians," said Nancy Kricorian, CodePink's coordinator for the Stolen Beauty campaign. "The situation on the ground there is dehumanizing and demoralizing and terrible."
Ahava, which rakes in profits of nearly $150 million a year, according to a Dec. 2009 CNN report, is owned by entities deeply involved in Israel's settlement project in the occupied West Bank. According to Who Profits? 37 percent of the company is owned by Mitzpe Shalem, an illegal settlement located in the eastern West Bank; another 37 percent by the private investment fund Hamashibr Holdings, which also is a major shareholder in two companies that export produce made in settlements; 18.5 perent by the U.S.-based Shamrock Holding, owned by the Roy E. Disney family of Walt Disney fame, and which is a shareholder in a company that manufactures electronic detection systems that are used on the West Bank separation barrier; and 7.5 percent by the West Bank settlement of Kalia.
In an interview, Kricorian acknowledged that Ahava is a huge target, and likened the Stolen Beauty campaign to a "game of whack-a-mole," as new places where Ahava products are sold pop up frequently. But Kricorian says it isn't just about hurting the company's sales.
"A boycott campaign is strategic, and it's a long-term thing," she said. "It's not just about hurting the company's sales. It's also about educating the public about, in this particular case, the company's illegal practices and sullying the company's name and reputation."...
Continuue reading
AlexKane @'AlterNet'
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