KARIBU MAISHANI
KARIBU MAISHANI
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Malcolm X: the man behind the myth
Fledgling pimp, militant radical, Islamic convert . . . black activist Malcolm X was no stranger to controversy. Now a new biography explodes the myths that obscure the man
Malcolm X speaking in 1964, the year he broke away from the Nation of Islam.
The shot that killed Malcolm X in February 1965 as he stood on a podium in New York tore through his chest and resounded around the world. The talisman for black America was lifeless as supporters wheeled his body towards the hospital closest to the Audubon Ballroom, where he had just begun the night's oration. An ambulance had been called. None came. But even at that stage, Malcolm X was already thwarting the hopes of those who took his life to curtail his influence; and the authorities whose silent complicity assisted the murder.
None among the conspirators in the Nation of Islam (NoI), who spent months plotting his demise, could have predicted that anyone would be talking about Malcolm X 46 years on. Neither could the FBI, whose operatives listened in on his conversations. Who knew that the man they viewed as the most dangerous in America could enjoy such longevity?
The legend peaks and troughs and every few years enjoys a kick-start. First the classic autobiography in conjunction with Alex Haley, hailed by Time magazine as one of the 10 most influential non-fiction books of the 20th century. Followed by lionisation by the o. Then, decades later, his adoption by the giants of hip-hop as a symbol of black pride and non-conformity.
And now Malcolm X is the subject of a new warts-and-all biography that took 12 years to write and prompts fresh reflection on the man white America feared above all others. It's another kick-start, even if it does take the Malcolm we know from Haley's book into places Malcolm X wouldn't have wanted it to go.
Manning Marable, an academic and respected authority on black America, doesn't use his book Malcolm X: A Life in Reinvention, to destroy the reputation of the man who told the heartlands that the assassination of President Kennedy represented "chickens coming home to roost". But, over 487 pages, Marable does effectively destroy the cultivated brand. There is a wealth of detail, some of it new, some of it old stories confirmed, all aided by documents and new recollections from the US government, the FBI and the Nation of Islam,
whose leader Louis Farrakhan gave the author an unprecedented nine-hour interview. At the end of it all, Malcolm X remains Malcolm X, for good or ill, one of the most fascinating historical figures of the 20th century. But it is difficult to see him in the same way again.
There is a poignancy to the project too, for although Marable wrote more than 20 books – including a 1992 pamphlet about Malcolm X's politics – this attempt to find the man behind the legend was a labour of love. Marable was a college freshman in the early 70s when the character of Malcolm X first intrigued him. His work on the biography was severely hampered by ill health. For 25 years he suffered sarcoidosis, an illness that gradually eroded his pulmonary functions. In the last year of research, he needed oxygen tanks to breathe, and the author had a double lung transplant last year. Marable died last Friday from complications related to pneumonia, three days before the worldwide publication of his book.
It was, in more ways than one, a courageous endeavour. "The great temptation for a biographer of an iconic figure," writes Marable, "is to portray him or her as a virtual saint, without the normal contradictions and blemishes all human beings have. I have devoted so many years in the effort to understand the interior personality and mind of Malcolm that this temptation disappeared long ago." Freed from the restrictions imposed by this "mythic legend" and the constraints of "Malcolmology", Marable opted to shine a light.
So we meet a Malcolm X whose words of piety and purity as the public face of the Nation of Islam, and then as a spokesman for mainstream Islam in his own right, were not always matched by deeds. This Malcolm apparently drank wine on at least one occasion recorded by Marable, and rum and Coke on another. He also appears to have had an extramarital affair with a female follower and probably a tryst with an admirer while traveling abroad.
We meet Malcolm the serial embellisher, who talked up the extent of his criminal background as a young man in Detroit to better shape his public persona – going so far as to appropriate the criminal histories of others. Malcolm also left out of his autobiography parts that might have been damaging once he became a spokesman for urban black America, such as the extent of his addiction to drugs, the crimes he committed against others in the black community, including his robbery of one of his own acquaintances, and the depth of his involvement in the running of prostitutes.
There is virtual confirmation of the claim that in his pre-Nation of Islam hustling days, Malcolm Little, as he was, hired himself out as source of sexual gratification for an older white male benefactor. The story is recounted in the autobiography, but there the hustler is a third party called Rudy. Rudy, according to the autobiography, would "be paid to undress them both, then pick up the old man like a baby, lay him on his bed, then stand over him and sprinkle him all over with talcum powder. Rudy said the old man would actually reach his climax from that." Based on "circumstantial but strong evidence, Malcolm was probably describing his own homosexual encounters," Marable says.
Malcolm X was depicted in his pomp as a strong figure of uncompromising masculinity but, tearing back the layers, Marable finds that Malcolm and his wife Betty had an unsatisfying sex life. This was more than a personal difficulty, for enemies in the Nation of Islam used it to humiliate him in public. Though he had family, Malcolm, unhappy for long periods in that marriage, travelled extensively, giving press conferences and standing-room-only lectures, including one in 1964 to the Oxford Union. Feeling abandoned, says Marable, Betty almost certainly sought comfort and companionship in an affair with one of his associates.
There is a claim that, towards the end, he lapsed into depression. There is much in Marable's new account of Malcolm's life to perturb the modern reader. Misogyny and, indeed, violence against women, prior to Malcolm's embrace of the Nation of Islam. His casual antisemitism as spokesman for the Nation of Islam and its leader Elijah Muhammed, and later as a wooer of Arab leaders such as Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. The harshness of his language: "There will be more violence than ever this year," he told a New York Times reporter in 1964. "The whites had better understand this while there is still time. The negroes at the mass level are ready to act." The glaring errors: such as his decision to go along with Muhammed's tactic of making common nationalist cause with the racist, separatist lynchers of the Ku Klux Klan. His oft-repeated disdain for Martin Luther King and others who sought change through non-violent action.
But a character based solely on the deep flaws outlined in the new book would have expired on the gurney after the assassination at the Audubon. What saves Marable's Malcolm – and the Malcolm of Haley's autobiography – is the struggle towards humanity and the redemption he experiences on his journey; twists and turns recorded by Marable with the intensity of a fly-on-the-wall documentary. Marable's Malcolm, who died aged 39, is steadfast in his beliefs throughout, but those beliefs evolve to the point that he finds himself condemning and regretting stances he had previously taken. Not a life of consistency, by any means. Neither are the inconsistencies resolved by the time of his death.
It is, as Manning's title says, not one reinvention, but several. White America in the mid-60s could not stomach the black nationalist for ever pointing his finger. It didn't like Malcolm Little, the sleazy street hustler who had earlier existed in the underbelly of Detroit and New York. But it could do business with the Malcolm slain at the Audubon, for by then he had shed the skin of Malcolm Little, and the layer that embraced the separatist, racist Nation of Islam. He had undertaken the hajj and, noting how people of different races embraced mainstream Islam, he rejected his earlier racism. He recalled in the days before his death his curt dismissal some years earlier of a white college girl who said she wanted to help and was sent away crying. One of his strengths, says Marable, certainly towards the end, was self-awareness. "I did a lot of things as a Muslim that I am sorry for now," Malcolm X was to say.
He was still a danger, to the government and the NoI, for by then his strategy was to make loud and common cause between the disadvantaged African-American communities of the US and administrations with whom he had forged alliances in Africa. He planned to make black America's fight an international one, pursued through the UN. And he had that voice. The "ability to speak on behalf of those to whom society and state had denied a voice due to racial prejudice. He understood their yearnings and anticipated their actions," as Marable writes.
But the threat was of a different quality, for towards the end of his life Malcolm was in favour of using the system to improve the system rather than standing aside. And by 1999, 34 years after his death, the journey was completed to mainstream America's satisfaction. The US postal service, Marable notes, celebrated Malcolm X and his "universal multiculturalism" with a commemorative stamp.
This wasn't a journey his erstwhile friends in the Nation of Islam wanted him to make, and one of Marable's great tasks over the years of research was to piece together the parts played by the Nation and the FBI in the murder of Malcolm X. Three men, all members of the Nation of Islam, were jailed for the murder but few considered the convictions safe, even at the outset. One assassin was himself shot at the scene and was clearly culpable, but the other two were merely NoI enforcers regarded by the police and the FBI as credible, useful suspects. The system condemned them and barely paused for breath.
Marable concludes that the gunmen and the helpers came from the NoI's Newark Mosque and says, as others have before him, that the fatal shot was fired by a 26-year-old man who escaped capture. "This was the kill shot," he says, "cutting a 7in-wide circle around his heart and left chest."
Were the authorities involved? Not obviously or directly so, according to the evidence here, though there is speculation. But indisputably there was bitterness that the authorities, who were monitoring most of the major players, were unwilling or unable to save Malcolm X from the ambush at the Audubon. These frustrations are voiced by Peter Bailey, a former aide to Malcolm in one of the two groups he established on leaving the Nation of Islam. The New York Police Department and the FBI "knew that Brother Malcolm's destiny was assigned for assassination," he says.
But then, Malcolm knew it himself. He predicted to Haley that he probably wouldn't be around to see the publication of the autobiography, and he was right: it went on sale through a small radical imprint, Grove House, nine months after his death.
His actions and his words set a collision course that he couldn't or wouldn't alter. Former allies in the Nation boiled over at his renunciation of separatism and his personal criticisms of Muhammed, particularly his sharing of the open secret that the Nation's leader, while professing piety, fathered several children with his various secretaries. Malcolm himself, reports Marable, had a deep affection for one of them.
But Malcolm didn't need to attack the Nation directly to seem dangerous to it. His pull was such, it was said, that merely by choosing a new path, he encouraged others to follow him. His willingness to work politically, not for civil rights but internationally for human rights, risked marginalising the Nation's insular appeal to African Americans. There were personal, philosophical and commercial reasons to be rid of him. "In his final days," says Marable, "he seemed of two minds, partly accepting of what he believed to be his fate and partly wishing or hoping that the problems might disappear and allow him to go back to a normal life . . . That he continued to harangue the Nation even when he knew that doing so would leave little choice but to strike at him seems to suggest that on some level he may have been inviting death."
Pop psychology, perhaps. But there are questions. Why, knowing he was a target and having seen his home firebombed (from whence comes the iconic poster of Malcolm standing at the window with an automatic rifle – a message to his former comrades rather than white America), did he refuse to travel with bodyguards? Why did he insist that only one of his followers be armed that night at the Audubon? Why did he refuse to allow a weapons search of the audience prior to admission? Why were inexperienced and easily distracted guards posted on the podium? How to explain his changed demeanour towards the end? "He always seemed to be tired, even exhausted and depressed. His shoes weren't shined, his clothing was frequently wrinkled," writes Marable. One researcher into his mood at that time speaks of a "kind of fatalism".
These unanswered questions, as much as Malcolm's journey itself and what it says about the history of black America, help keep the legend alive. He was America's harshest critic. But he was, in fact, a potent symbol of America: the land of progression, growth, contradictions and, above all, constant reinvention. The black British academic Dr Robert Beckford says the new book will place him at the forefront again: "I would say he was one of the greatest sociologists of 'race' in America. As great as Frantz Fanon i n registering the impact of internalised racism and as brilliant as WEB Du Bois was in 'outing' the systemic nature of white supremacy. He inspired a generation of intellectuals in religion (James Cone, Mike Dyson), philosophy (Cornel West) and feminist theory (bell hooks) to rage against black passivity and complicity with racism."
The writer and broadcaster Henry Bonsu, a founder of the black British digital radio station Colourful, says the impact endures in Britain, not just among the black intelligentsia but at grassroots: "People may not know the details and they may not care about some of the less palatable facts, because even now he presents as a man who said what needed saying when saying it took a lot of personal courage."
The Malcolm that Marable leaves behind is more complex, less sure-footed than before, but, fleshed out, he is more compelling. He is, Marable concludes, "the definitive yardstick by which all other Americans who aspire to the mantle of leadership should be measured".
Songs of War
Award-winning musician Christopher Cerf has composed music for the famous children's television show Sesame Street for 40 years. During this time, he has written more than 200 songs intended to help children learn how to read and write.
But these innocent children's songs were abused for inhumane purposes.
"It is music's capacity to take over your mind and invade your inner experience that makes it so terrifying as a potential weapon."
- Thomas Keenan, the director of the Human Right's Project at Bard College
In 2003, it transpired that US intelligence services had tortured detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib with music from Sesame Street.
Human rights researcher Thomas Keenan explains: "Prisoners were forced to put on headphones. They were attached to chairs, headphones were attached to their heads, and they were left alone just with the music for very long periods of time. Sometimes hours, even days on end, listening to repeated loud music."
"The music was so loud," says Moazzam Begg, a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay and Bagram. "And it was probably some of the worst torture that they faced."
Stunned by this abuse of his work, Cerf was motivated to find out more about how it could happen.
"In Guantanamo they actually used music to break prisoners. So the idea that my music had a role in that is kind of outrageous," he says. "This is fascinating to me both because of the horror of music being perverted to serve evil purposes if you like, but I'm also interested in how that's done. What is it about music that would make it work for that purpose?"
Cerf embarks on a journey to learn just what it is that makes music such a powerful stimulant. In the process, he speaks to soldiers, psychologists and prisoners tortured with his music at Guantanamo Bay and finds out how the military has been employing music as a potent weapon for hundreds of years.
The resulting film, Songs of War, explores the relationship between music and violence.
Is Facebook making people narcissistic?
Generation over share
As people share more and more of their lives via social media, The Stream speaks to Andrew Keen, who says the online social revolution is dividing and diminishing us. He argues that Facebook is making people narcissistic. Keen’s unapologetic support for copyright and intellectual property rights has garnered criticism from those who believe such laws inhibit online sharing.
While fans of social media argue it connects people all over the world, Mr. Keen counters it actually pulls people farther apart and reduces their humanity.
Castro niece champions gay rights in New York
Relative of former Cuban president Fidel Castro takes her long standing fight for gay rights to the US.
The daughter of Raul Castro, Cuba's president, is taking her long standing fight for gay rights to the people of the US.
Mariela Castro, the niece of Fidel Castro, has been speaking in New York about the persecution of gay and lesbian people.
But for her critics say they want the political rights of all Cubans to be championed by the country’s elite.
Al Jazeera's Cath Turner reports from New York.
Quitting smoking 'harder for women'
Study shows male and female brains respond differently to nicotine, prompting treatment rethink.
A new study has shown that, which makes it harder for women to quit smoking.
This has prompted scientists to rethink treatment programmes to help women kick the habit.
Al Jazeera's Scott Heidler finds out just how they plan to do this.
DR Congo rebels seek to close ranks
Fighters in the country's east hope a joint force would put up stiff resistance against government troops.Armed fighters in the Democratic Republic of Congo are considering joining forces to fight the government. They are soldiers who defected from the military.
Already, the army is battling a rebel group called M23.
Nazanine Moshiri has this exclusive report from Lubero district in North Kivu.
World powers expel Syrian diplomats
Japan and Turkey join 11 countries in concerted move over massacre as Annan says country has reached tipping point.
Japan and Turkey have joined 11 Western countries in expelling Syrian diplomats after the UN said most of the victims of the massacre in Houla village were summarily executed without decisively saying who carried out most of the killings.
The government asked Mohamed Ghassan al-Habash, the Syrian ambassador in Tokyo, to depart "as soon as possible", a Japanese foreign ministry official told AFP news agency on Wednesday.
The US, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Australia, Canada, Spain, Belgium, Bulgaria and the Netherlands said on Tuesday they were protesting against Friday's massacre in Houla of at least 108 people.
In reaction to the expulsion of Syrian diplomats, Syria ordered the Dutch charge d'affaires on Wednesday to leave the country, the foreign ministry said.
After meeting President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday, Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League special envoy, said Syria had reached a tipping point as his six-point peace plan was not being properly implemented.
The diplomatic pressure came as France talked of military intervention backed by the United Nations Security Council.
"It is not possible to allow Bashar al-Assad's regime to massacre its own people," French President Francois Hollande told France 2 television. "Military intervention is not excluded provided it is carried out under the auspices of international law, namely via a Security Council resolution."
"It is down to myself and others to convince Russia and China, and also to find a solution which is not necessarily a military one," said Hollande, who is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris on Friday.
Friday's killings in Houla, a collection of farming villages in Homs province that has become a focal point for opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was one of the deadliest single events in the 15-month-old uprising against Assad that has killed thousands.
'Tipping point'
Kofi Annan has called the Houla killing "an appalling moment with profound consequences".
"The Syrian people do not want the future to be one of bloodshed and division. Yet the killings continue and the abuses are still with us today.
"I appealed to him [Assad] for bold steps now - not tomorrow, now - to create momentum for the implementation of the plan."
DIPLOMATIC BACKLASH
Countries that have expelled Syrian diplomats include France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgeria and Gulf states.
European Union has frozen assets or imposed travel bans on more than 120 Syrian officials.
The US froze Syrian assests and banned US businesses from dealings Syria in November 2011
Annan, arrived in Syria a day earlier, and held meetings with UN observers and Walid al-Muallem, the Syrian foreign minister.
The success of Annan's peace plan depended on "the end of terrorism", Assad told him, state television reported.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said that some countries were trying to derail the peace plan offered by Annan and accused the Syrian opposition of trying to incite civil war in the country.
"We are certainly worried by continuing attempts to derail Kofi Annan's plan. Now the pretext being used is the tragic events outside the town of Houla on May 25," he said.
Tuesday's meeting in Damascus came as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that entire families had been shot in their homes and that fewer than 20 of the 108 Houla victims were killed by artillery.
Most of the victims, including children, were shot at close range, the UN human rights agency said.
Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the OHCHR, said the conclusions were based on accounts gathered by UN monitors and corroborated by other sources.
'Summarily executed'
"Most of the ... victims were summarily executed in two separate incidents," Colville said in Geneva, Switzerland.
He said witnesses blamed armed pro-government forces, known as "shabiha", for the attacks. He noted that the shabiha sometimes acted "in concert" with government forces.
The UN has said that government forces fired tank shells and artillery at Houla, but has stopped short of holding the government entirely responsible.
Assad's regime has denied any role in the killings, blaming them on "armed terrorists" who attacked army positions in the area and slaughtered innocent civilians.
"What is very clear is that this was an absolutely abominable event that happened in Houla and at least a substantial part of it was summary executions of civilians including women and children," Colville said.
Activists have posted videos of tanks and armoured vehicles in the middle of cities, a violation of Annan's six-point peace plan, and UN observers said they found spent tank and artillery shells in Houla after the massacre there
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Somali president unscathed in ambush
Al-Shabab gunmen attack convoy north of Mogadishu, while group says it exchanged fire with warships off port of Kismayo.
Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's convoy was attacked during a rare trip outside Mogadishu [AFP]
Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has escaped unscathed from an ambush by al-Shabab fighters during a visit to the al-Qaeda-linked group's former stronghold of Afgoye.
Ahmed was making a rare trip out of Mogadishu on Tuesday when the convoy was attacked by gunmen in the Afgoye corridor, a key road about 30km north of the capital.
Two Somali soldiers were wounded in the attack but Ahmed was able to continue his trip, a Somali security official said.
"Desperate terrorist militants tried to disturb the visit of the president [to] the Afgoye corridor by ambushing his convoy, but security forces repulsed them," said Mohamed Moalim. "The president is well and continued his trip smoothly."
The armoured convoy was guarded by African Union troops and Somali government soldiers, who seized Afgoye last week after a four-day battle.
A pro-Shabab website said its fighters had carried out the attack against "the head of the enemy" and that Sharif had been saved after he was "surrounded by African Union troops and white gunmen for his safety".
The loss of Afgoye, which controls key roads north of the capital, was another major blow for al-Shabab which has been on the back foot for several months despite launching a wave of guerrilla attacks.
Although it controls large parts of southern Somalia, regional armies and government troops have been regaining territory, with AU forces in Mogadishu, Ethiopian soldiers in the south and west, and Kenyan troops with the AU in the south.
Warships 'repulsed'
In the port town of Kismayo, the group's last major bastion, al-Shabab said its fighters had exchanged gunfire with warships.
"The mujahideen fighters opened fire and repulsed two military ships that approached the coast of Kismayo, they were coming close to the coast when they were attacked," said Sheikh Hassan Yaqub, an al-Shabab official in Kismayo.
"They have sped away from the coastal areas after the shooting and they are not there anymore," Yaqub added.
"Those war vessels also returned fire," he said, adding that a boy had been wounded in a neighbourhood close to the shore, but that no other casualties had been reported.
Several foreign navies operate anti-piracy patrols off the coast of the Horn of Africa nation.
Kenyan army spokesman Colonel Cyrus Oguna said there were "naval patrols close to Kismayo", but could not confirm if Kenyan vessels were those involved in the clashes.
Nine warships in a European Union naval force are currently deployed off Somalia by France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands. But the force is deployed to tackle piracy rather than to fight against al-Shabab.
Italy's quake-shaken region struck again
At least 17 people killed and others trapped under rubble as 5.8-magnitude quake and aftershocks rattle northern Italy.
An earthquake has killed at least 17 people and injured about 200 others in northern Italy, damaging buildings and spreading panic among thousands of residents still living in tents after a tremor in the same region destroyed their homes just over a week ago.
Tuesday's 5.8-magnitude quake had rescue workers scrambling to respond to reports of people trapped under the rubble of houses and warehouses in the Emilia-Romagna region, where several building sites and workshops had just reopened after the previous quake on May 20.
Seven people were killed in the May 20 quake that, like Tuesday's, had its epicentre not far from the city of Modena.
Italian television showed buildings shaking and collapsing, ambulances racing across towns and rescue workers battling to remove rubble.
Al Jazeera's Sabina Castelfranco reported from Cavezzo that the centre of the town had been evacuated and cordoned off.
"There is rubble everywhere, homes have collapsed, and the situation is very difficult," she said. "Tent cities have been set up in various towns so that they can be given shelter overnight."
Residents stood in shock looking at the damage.
"I've been in many dangerous situation, but I've never been in such a situation as this, it is something undescribable," Giorgio said. "We are very afraid, because one feels you are in front of something out of your experience."
"There is the sensation that you are going to lose everything, your life, your house, because we won't be able to go home to our houses. We'll have to start again," added Patrizia who had lost her home.
Workshops and factories outside Cavezzo, a village about 30km from Modena, suffered considerable damage, a Reuters reporter said.
Sports car maker Ferrari and motorcycle firm Ducati closed their plants in the region for safety reasons.
The quake was felt across northern and central Italy, including in the city of Milan.
The area was hit by several large aftershocks, one of 5.6-magnitude. The quake was the deadliest to strike Italy since 2009 when a tremor partially destroyed the central city of L'Aquila, killing about 300 and leaving thousands homeless.
Northern Italy struck by 5.8 magnitude earthquake
As many as 15 people were reported killed when a strong earthquake rocked northeastern Italy on Tuesday, just days after another quake in the same region wrought death and destruction.
uake-Hit Bulgarians Put Their Faith in Saint's Relics
Bulgaria: Quake-Hit Bulgarians Put Their Faith in Saint's Relics
A bishop has suggested that the relics of Saint Ivan Rilski, part of which are housed by the temple at the quake-hardest hit town of Pernik, are working miracles. Photo by 24 Hours daily
The strong quake that struck south-west of Bulgaria's capital Sofia early on Tuesday made no casualties thanks to heavenly protection, a local clergyman claims.
Bishop Joan has suggested that the relics of Saint Ivan Rilski, part of which are housed by the temple at the quake-hardest hit town of Pernik, are working miracles.
"A particle of the relics of St. Ivan Rilski, which was transferred in 2009 from St. Rila monastery to the central temple in Pernik, preserved this town and the lives of its people," said Bishop John Znepolski at a mass that he held in Pernik.
He urged the people not to mourn the material damages the earthquake left in its wake on May 22 because there is nothing more precious than human life.
"St. Ivan Rilski has been protecting Bulgaria more than 1,000 years already," said the bishop.
Tuesday's initial earthquake had a magnitude of about 5.8-5.9 on the Richter scale and struck at 2:58 am. Its epicenter was about 6 km from Pernik and approximately 25 km from the capital Sofia.
Researchers from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences have explained that aftershocks may reach a magnitude of 4 on the Richter scale, which would not damage the infrastructure. However, objects may fall and injuries may occur.
Saint Ivan Rilski, known as the Miracle Worker, is revered as the patron of Bulgaria.
He founded the Rila Monastery some 1,000 years ago. The saint's relics are kept there to this day, and are still believed to have the power to bring miracle cures for illnesses.
Hundreds of pilgrims gather every year on October 19 in Bulgaria's biggest cloister, the Rila Monastery, to mark the holiday. People queue to touch the relics of the saint, hoping he would bring miracles to their lives too.
St. Ivan Rilski died in 946 AD in the seclusion of the monastery, and was canonized right after his death. Remembered for his miracles, he is one of Bulgaria's most influential spiritual leaders.
Shortly after the saint's death, his remains, which were thought to have wonder-working powers, were transferred to Sofia during the reign of Peter I. After Magyar King B?la III conquered Sofia in 1183, Saint Ivan Rilski's remains were sent to the Hungarian capital Esztergom and stayed there for 4 years before being returned to Sofia in 1187.
In 1194, Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Asen I ordered the remains to be moved to his capital, Veliko Tarnovo. Surviving the Turkish conquest of the city in 1393, they were returned to the Rila Monastery in 1469 with the permission of Sultan Murad II
arthquake Damages in Bulgaria's Sofia Estimated at BGN 1.3 M
Bulgaria: Earthquake Damages in Bulgaria's Sofia Estimated at BGN 1.3 M
Bulgaria's Sofia has suffered BGN 1.3 M worth of damages in the May 22 earthquake. Photo by BGNES
The damages caused by the 5.8-6.0-magnitude earthquake in the Bulgarian capital Sofia are estimated at BGN 1,3 M, announced Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova.
Almost a week after the earthquake that jolted Western Bulgaria on May 22, 2012, Fandakova said the Sofia Municipality has completed its report on the damages on its territory.
Thus, the municipality will ask the ad hoc inter-departmental commission formed by the Cabinet for BGN 1.3 M (over EUR 600 000).
"We enjoy great cooperation with our colleagues from the Interior Ministry. We are continuing to analyze the damages in detail. The commission will be allocating money for damages to any buildings that have all the necessary legal papers," Fandakova explained.
The western Bulgarian city of Pernik located some 20 km southwest of Sofia, which was closer to the earthquake epicenter than the capital, has suffered damages worth at least BGN 20 M, its mayor announced over the weekend.
Captured: The Iraq War
An Iraqi child jumps over a line of remains in a school where bodies had been brought from a mass grave discovered in the desert in the outskirts of Al Musayyib, 50 km south of Baghdad, May 27, 2003 in Iraq. People had been searching for days for identity cards or other clues among the skeletons to try to find the remains of family members, including children, from the grave that locals say contained the remains of hundreds of Shi'ite Muslims executed by Saddam Hussein's regime after their uprising following the 1991 Gulf War. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Bulgaria Formally Kicks Out Syrian Ambassador over Houla Massacre
DUBAI — Western nations are pressing for a response to the massacre in the Syrian town of Houla, with the US calling for an end to what it called President Bashar al-Assad’s “rule by murder”.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council this week.
The UN has confirmed the deaths of at least 90 people in Houla, including 32 children under the age of 10.
The Syrian government blamed the deaths on “armed terrorist gangs”.
Houla, in the central province of Homs, came under sustained bombardment by the Syrian army after demonstrations on Friday.
Activists say some of the victims died by shelling, while others were summarily executed by the regime militia known as the “shabiha”.
‘Flagrant violation’
The killings have sparked a chorus of international condemnation.
The EU, Arab League, France, Britain and Germany all expressed shock over the incident and called for an intensification of pressure on the Assad government, while the UN demanded that Syria stop using heavy weapons in populated areas.
Britain was consulting with its allies on a “strong international response” and was calling for an urgent meeting of the Security Council in the coming days, Mr Hague said.
“Our urgent priority is to establish a full account of this appalling crime and to move swiftly to ensure that those responsible are identified and held to account,” he said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan said the attack – one of the bloodiest episodes since the uprising began – was a “flagrant violation of international law”.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it an “appalling” massacre, saying President Bashar al-Assad’s “rule by murder and fear must come to an end”.
In a statement on Saturday, Mrs Clinton called the deaths an “atrocity” and said Washington would increase pressure on “Assad and his cronies”, who she said must give up power.
“Those who perpetrated this atrocity must be identified and held to account,” she added.
France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he was making immediate arrangements for a Paris meeting of the Friends of Syria group, which includes Western and Arab nations, but not Russia or China, who have blocked previous attempts to introduce UN sanctions.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton also condemned the incident.
Mr Ban and Mr Annan said the crime involved “indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force” and violated commitments by Syria’s government.
In April, Damascus pledged to implement a six-point plan brokered by Mr Annan, including a ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from urban areas.
Meanwhile, the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) said it could no longer commit to the ceasefire unless the Security Council could ensure that civilians are protected.
In a statement, the FSA said that if urgent steps were not taken, then Mr Annan’s plan was “going to hell”, AFP reports.
It said killings in Syria were taking place “under the eyes of the UN observers,” and called on states to “announce the failure of the Annan plan.”
‘Deplorable’
Violence in Syria has continued despite the deployment of some 260 UN observers sent to oversee a ceasefire which the BBC’s Jim Muir in neighbouring Lebanon says is now “pretty fictional”.
The head of the observer mission in Syria, Maj-Gen Robert Mood, called the massacre a “brutal tragedy”, but did not say who carried out the murders.
After a UN visit to the town on Saturday, he said they could confirm “the use of small arms, machine gun[s], artillery and tanks”.
“Whoever started, whoever responded and whoever carried out this deplorable act of violence should be held responsible,” Mr Mood said.
The UN has confirmed the deaths of at least 90 people, but the opposition Syrian National Council, as well as rights groups, put the toll higher.
Our correspondent says local people are angry that UN observers failed to intervene to stop the killing.
Abu Emad, speaking from Houla, said their appeals to the monitors failed to produce action.
“We told them at night, we called seven of them. We told them the massacre is being committed right now at Houla by the mercenaries of this regime and they just refused to come and stop the massacre.”
In the town of Kfarnabel in Idlib province, one protester on Saturday held a sign reading “Annan is singlehandedly responsible for the Houla massacre,” AFP reports.
NATO says al-Qaeda's second-in-command in Afghanistan has been killed in an air raid near the Pakistani border
The US-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, or
, said on Tuesday that Saudi-born Sakhr al-Taifi, also known as Musthaq and Nasim, commanded foreign fighters and directed attacks on NATO and Afghan troops.
It described him as al-Qaeda's "second highest leader in Afghanistan", saying he frequently travelled between Afghanistan and Pakistan, "carrying out commands from senior al-Qaeda leadership".
He also supplied weapons and equipment to insurgents, and managed the transport of anti-government fighters into Afghanistan, the military said.
NATO said he was killed in an air raid on Sunday with "one additional al-Qaeda terrorist in Watahpur district, Kunar province" which borders Pakistan.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Strike at Tripoli airport brings things to a boil
A fact of life in Libya is that things are resting on a fragile balance, and at any moment, the slightest nudge can tip things over into chaos.
The strike by the air traffic controllers pushed things firmly into chaos territory on Saturday night, with shouting matches that stretched from the check-in desks to boarding gates and beyond.
Booked on a flight to Benghazi, my fixer, Asaad, and I were told that our flight would be delayed by two hours. Then four and a half. We got a boarding pass for a 10:30pm flight and waited in the lounge, mostly with men with angry looks cemented on their faces.
“If they’d told us there was a strike, I would have made other arrangements – we have jobs to do,” said a man going only as Taher.
At 11:30 Asaad took a stroll and came back telling me that he’d been walking around on the tarmac.
Russia's difficult stance on Syria
Hague and Lavrov held a joint press conference in Moscow [Reuters]
Britain's Foreign Minister William Hague came to Russia talking tough. It was time, he tweeted, for “Russia to support rapid and unequivocal pressure” on the Syrian government, and “accountability for [its] crimes”. But his hope that the massacre in Houla would be a turning point for Russia's stance on Syria seems to have been dashed. After talks with his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Hague admitted that there are still “unresolved difficulties” between the two countries.
Britain wants President Bashar al-Assad to step down. Russia would rather see a different outcome. Lavrov argues that Russia does put pressure on the Assad government “almost every day”. But the West, Lavrov insists, has to put equal pressure on Syria's rebels. He criticised those who call for peace through regime change. The priority, Lavrov says, is to stop the violence.
Russia is in a difficult and isolated position. Moscow has been a friend of Syria for decades, and has vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions condemning the killing. It needs to look after its strategic and economic interests in Syria, but not appear too much like the protector of a repressive and violent government.
So Russia has long argued that though comprehensive reforms have to be made by Assad, much of the violence is being perpetrated by Syria's armed opposition. The massacre in Houla, Lavrov said, was probably the responsibility of both parties. Only a proper investigation would establish the truth.
What the two men did agree on is that Kofi Annan's six-point plan is still the best and only way to bring peace to Syria. This calls for Syrian-led political reform; a UN-supervised cessation of violence; humanitarian assistance; release of prisoners; free movement for the press; and the right to demonstrate peacefully. But after Houla, many commentators have pronounced the plan effectively dead. There is no official Plan B.
Russia's position has shifted more in line with the West and the Arab League. Its patience with Assad's government isn't limitless. Russia contributed to Sunday's UN Security Council statement condemning the Houla massacre, rather than blocking it. It calls on Syria's government to stop using heavy weapons in towns and cities, and to pull troops back to their barracks.
But to make the statement palatable for the Russians it calls for violence from “all parties” to cease - and recognises the sovereignty, independence, and unity of Syria. Russia doesn't want another Libyan-style foreign military intervention.
There are the murmurings of a different approach, being called the “Yemenskii Variant” in Moscow and Washington. If Assad is to leave, the theory goes, most of his government should stay. It's what happened when President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in Yemen. The approach would hopefully avoid a chaotic power vacuum (and allow Russia to retain its influence and interests in Syria), while the West would get the path to change it seeks.
It's an embryonic idea, at best. But with Annan's plan looking increasingly moribund (despite Hague and Lavrov's commitment to it), divided and impotent global powers are increasingly aware of the need to find something else to try.
Annan: 'Bold steps' needed for Syria peace
UN-Arab League envoy says "everyone with a gun" must lay down weapons after arriving in Damascus for high-level talks.
, has called on the country's government to take bold steps to prove its commitment to restoring peace during a visit to Damascus.
Annan arrived in the Syrian capital on Monday for talks with high-level officials as world leaders said his peace plan was the only way to solve the country's conflict.
The former UN chief called on "every individual with a gun" in Syria to lay down arms, saying he was horrified by a weekend massacre in Houla that killed about 110 people, including 49 children.
"I urge the [Syrian] government to take bold steps to signal that it is serious in its intention to resolve this crisis peacefully, and for everyone involved to help create the right context for a credible political process," Annan said.
"I am personally shocked and horrified by the tragic incident in Houla two days ago, which took so many innocent lives, children, women and men."
He was to meet Walid al-Muallem, Syria's foreign minister, on Monday before holding talks with President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday, a Syrian official source said.
Earlier in the day, William Hague, the UK foreign secretary, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, called at a joint press conference in Moscow for greater efforts to implement the plan, which calls on both government forces and rebels to cease hostilities and for a Syrian-led political process.
Lavrov said that "who is in power" in Syria was less important than that the bloodshed is brought to an end.
"We don't support the Syrian government, we support Kofi Annan's plan," he said.
Civil war warning
For his part, Hague warned of the possibility of a civil war.
"The alternatives are the Annan plan or ever-increasing chaos," he said, calling on all parties to cease violence.
"We are not arguing that all violence in Syria is the responsibility of the Assad regime, although it has the primary responsibility for such violence."
World powers want Russia, a close ally of Syria, to exert pressure on Assad's government.
"Russia is in a difficult and isolated position," according to Al Jazeera's Rory Challands, reporting from the Russian capital. "Moscow has been a friend of Syria for decades, and has vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions condemning the killing. It needs to look after its strategic and economic interests in Syria, but not appear too much like the protector of a repressive and violent government."
Lavrov met Hague a day after the UN Security Council unanimously condemned the use of heavy weapons in the Houla massacre.
The world body said in a press statement issued after an emergency meeting on Sunday that the "outrageous use of force" against civilians violated international law and that "the attacks involved a series of government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighbourhood".
Major-General Robert Mood, head of the UN monitoring mission in Syria, said some of the dead had been killed by shelling and others shot at close range, but did not attribute responsibility for the close-range killing.
Activists said several children had been stabbed to death.
'Entire families executed'
The US-based rights group Human Rights Watch said it interviewed survivors and local activists who said "the Syrian army shelled the area on May 25, and armed men, dressed in military clothes, attacked homes on the outskirts of town and executed entire families.
"All of the witnesses stated the armed men were pro-government, but they did not know whether they were members of the Syrian army or a pro-government militia, locally referred to as shabiha".
Human Rights Watch said "most of those killed belonged to the Abdel Razzak family".
"Local activists provided Human Rights Watch with a list of 62 dead members from the Abdel Razzak family," it said.
The Syrian government has blamed the killings on "terrorists" and denied that its forces had used any heavy weaponry in Houla. It said security forces had suffered losses in clashes with rebels.
Activists have confirmed that opposition fighters attacked a checkpoint, but said it happened after government forces opened fire on a demonstration.
The Security Council asked Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, and the UN observer mission in Syria, or UNSMIS, to continue investigating the attacks in Houla.
There are now more than 280 unarmed military observers in Syria to monitor a cessation of hostilities that started on April 12 but lurches closer to collapse each day.
Annan is to brief the Security Council on Wednesday on his efforts to end the 15-month old crisis. The UN says more than 10,000 people have been killed in the uprising against Assad, while Syrian activists put the figure at more than 13,000.
Somalis flee as al-Shabab stronghold falls
Thousands head for Mogadishu as government and African Union troops shake al-Qaeda-linked rebels' grip on Afgoye.
Al-Qaeda linked Somali fighters have vowed to intensify their war against the government and African Union troops, despite the fall of a key stronghold.
Thousands have fled the town of Afgoye after government and African Union forces launched an operation several days ago, culminating in the town's capture on Friday.
"God willing we will continue the war and we will win the battle without doubt," said Sheik Abdiaziz Abu Musab, spokesman for the hardline al-Shabab, on Saturday, 24 hours after AU and Somali troops said they had taken the former strategic rebel base.
The bulk of al-Shabab fighters in the town left ahead of the planned assault by government and AU soldiers.
Columns of troops backed by tanks launched the long-awaited attack on Afgoye four days ago, marching northwest 30km from the capital Mogadishu to the town, an area crowded with displaced people.
The loss of Afgoye is another major blow to al-Shabab, which has been on the backfoot for several months. The group says, however, that it "killed many soldiers in the recent fighting" and that the withdrawal from Afgoye was a tactical retreat.
"The mujahedeen fighters tactically withdrew from some positions but that does not represent a defeat," Musab added. "We have already cut their supply routes and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy."
More than 400,000 people were living in the Afgoye region at the beginning of 2012, making it the world's largest concentration of displaced people, according to United Nations figures.
The area is dotted with impoverished settlements made of plastic and rags. Last year, the region was gripped by famine, but aid workers were unable to access it due to restrictions put in place by al-Shabab.
"We don't know what is next but for now, AU and Somali troops are controlling the the town," said Afgoye resident Abdirahman Diriye, who reported the area was calm, but that two civilians were killed by unknown gunmen on Friday night.
"If the situation continues to be calm like it is now, life will continue to be normal," said Ahmed Saney, another resident. "But if attacks start, I think many people will flee Afgoye."
Sporadic gunfire and the occasional sound of artillery shells was reported early on Saturday in the Elasha and Sinka-Dehr districts, between Afgoye town and Mogadishu. Government army commanders said they were battling al-Shabab fighters.
"The troops are in full control of the whole Afgoye corridor, but there are a few desperate militants stranded near Elasha, and soon they will be eliminated if they fail to surrender," said Colonel Muktar Mohamed, a Somali military commander.
Somali army officials rejected claims that heavy casualties had been inflicted on them.
Civilians flee to capital
Civilians, meanwhile, continue to flee in large numbers towards Mogadishu, despite security restrictions on the road, witnesses say.
The UN refugee agency reported that over 9,000 civilians had arrived in the capital.
"There is some gunfire and shelling but not major fighting," said Hassan Mohamed in the Afgoye area. "The remaining families are moving from the area today even though transport movement is limited."
Cat Carter, a communications manager with UK-based aid group Save The Children, said that she had seen refugees arriving in Mogadishu who were "absolutely exhausted".
"I saw for myself the conditions that these new arrivals from the Afgoye corridor are in. Some of them had been running for hours with small children, carrying whatever belongings that they can, and running full pelt for Mogadishu, running away from the bullets and the shells in Afgoye corridor," she told Al Jazeera.
"They're terrified about what the future holds. Mogadishu is already overcrowded. I was in [a refugee camp], and there are families living on top of each other. There are sometimes two families living in one tent, which means that a tent that really should only sleep two people has up to 14 people. Where are these new arrivals going to go?"
New front opens
Officials hope that the capture of Afgoye will deny al-Shebab a base from which to continue its recent spate of guerrilla attacks on the capital.
Afgoye's capture will "neutralise the area of operation and preparation" of guerrilla attacks, Augustine Mahiga, the UN special representative for Somalia, said on Friday, calling its capture "a significant military breakthrough".
On a separate front, Somali troops are reported to be pushing north towards the al-Shabab-held town of Balad, located about 35km north of Mogadishu.
Syria: 'Why is the world not doing anything to help us?'
For more than a year the international community has stood by as Assad's forces torture and murder indiscriminately.
Extrajudicial executions, deliberate and wanton destruction of property, indiscriminate attacks and torture of detainees - which constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes - have become the 'norm' in Syria [EPA]
"Why is the world not doing anything to help us? We demonstrated peacefully and from the first day we were beaten and shot at. Then the army came into our villages and fired at us with tanks and helicopters and burned and destroyed our homes. Is the world just going to keep watching and do nothing until we've all been killed?"
This was the recurring theme during my week in the Jabal al-Zawiyah area (northwest of Hama) investigating human rights abuses.
Everywhere I went people told me about relatives being dragged away and shot dead, and everywhere I saw houses and shops which had been deliberately burned down.
"These grave and large scale abuses - extrajudicial executions, deliberate and wanton destruction of property, indiscriminate attacks and torture of detainees - constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes."
Civilian casualties are rife and detainees are routinely tortured - in some cases to death - by the various Syrian security and military agencies. Indiscriminate shooting and shelling from army positions into villages continues.
These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a much wider pattern across the country, very similar to what I found further north, in Idlib city and surrounding areas, where I carried out field investigations at the end of last month.
These grave and large scale abuses - extrajudicial executions, deliberate and wanton destruction of property, indiscriminate attacks and torture of detainees - constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Syrian activists decry 'massacre' in Houla
It is shocking that to date the international community has spectacularly failed to take any effective steps to ensure protection for the spiralling numbers of ordinary people caught up in the violence or to hold the Syrian authorities accountable.
Abandoned
Such inaction has no doubt emboldened the perpetrators. It also fuels increasing resentment among the population who feel abandoned by the international community.
Even as the ceasefire provided for in UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's plan was being negotiated, Syrian armed forces launched a series of attacks on towns and villages in Jabal al-Zawiyah and elsewhere.
In a small village near al-Bashirya the families of three children, aged 8, 11 and 14, told me that in the morning of April 8 (2012) soldiers grabbed them, made them kneel and shot them dead:
"The children were grazing the sheep on the hill. When we saw the army come towards the village my nephew ran up to get the children and bring them home. The soldiers caught up with them. They made them kneel and shot them dead. Little Jumaa, eight years old, was shot in throat and in the palms of both hands; his hands were raised."
In another village some 20km further south families showed me the place where 16 young men were shot dead in February. A witness told me:
"News came that the army was coming towards our village with dozens of tanks and heavy military vehicles. The young men ran out to go hide in the hills but the army was shooting into the area around the village from far, so most of the youths went back into their houses. When the soldiers arrived they took 16 youths, one of them who was only 16, and dragged them to a field right opposite the houses and shot them dead. Four other youths who were trying to run away were also shot dead. Then the soldiers left but we could not pick up the bodies for one and a half hour because the army kept shooting into the village from up on the bridge."
The army may have removed their tanks from some of the main population centres, but army positions and checkpoints are everywhere around villages and towns.
Soldiers frequently fire indiscriminately, causing civilians casualties. The day before I got to Qoqfeen, on May 12, a five-year-old girl, Maryam Qaddi, was killed when a hail of bullets hit her home. Her 10-year-old cousin and 70-year old aunt were injured.
"Horror stories are illustrated by broken bones, missing teeth, deep scars and open wounds from electric shocks. Savage beatings and lashing with electric cables and other implements are commonplace."
The shooting came from an army position on a hill across the valley.
Living and dying in fear
In Mashamshan, a village near the town of Jisr al-Shughur, seven members of the Yusef family - three women, a child and three men - were killed and several other children were injured when one of several shell fired in a seemingly indiscriminate manner struck near their home on May 1.
Many men don't dare to leave their villages for fear of being detained at army checkpoints or shot at on the roads.
On May 12 a 20-year-old man was shot at as he travelled on his motorcycle from his relatives' house to his home in a nearby village. His passenger, who managed to escape, said his friend was injured, fell and was then seized by soldiers who shot him repeatedly in the head.
Everywhere I met men, young and old, who had been detained and tortured by the various Syrian security agencies - State Security, Military Security and others.
Horror stories are illustrated by broken bones, missing teeth, deep scars and open wounds from electric shocks. Savage beatings and lashing with electric cables and other implements are commonplace.
A 71-year-old man wept as he recalled the torture and humiliation he endured. Some told me they would rather die than go through the torture again. All pleaded for something to be done for those left behind in detention. For some it is already too late, as they have died under torture.
A first year law student told me how his cousin Ahmad, aged 45, arrested with him and five others, died in detention:
"We were taken to the Military Security HQ in Idlib city and were put in a room measuring about five by four metres with about 120 other detainees. It was so crowded we could not move. We were tortured during interrogation sessions, lasting two to four hours. Ahmad was one of the first to be interrogated on the second day. He was in a terrible state and could hardly move when he came back. He was again taken to interrogation on the fourth day. He must have died because he never came back to the cell."
Ahmad's family told me they found his body in the morgue of Jisr al-Shughur 20 days later, having been tipped off by a hospital worker that there was an unclaimed body of a detainee which had been brought in by military security.
Putting a stop to this endless list
For more than a year the major world powers have been doing little more than collectively wringing their hands about the "complex political situation" in Syria. It is imperative that human rights and humanitarian concerns be addressed without further delay and not be held hostage to an as yet elusive political process.
The only initiative which the main international players could agree to, the UN's observer mission recently deployed as part of the Kofi Annan plan, lacks a mandate to monitor and investigate human rights abuses, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Yet the need for such a mechanism is all the more pressing given the Syrian government's persistent denial of access to the country to independent human rights organisations.
The establishment of a robust mechanism for monitoring and investigating crimes against humanity, war crimes and other human rights abuses, which should be equipped with the powers and resources necessary to ensure that those responsible for committing and ordering such crimes will be held accountable, would send a clear message to those responsible for such crimes that they cannot count on perpetual impunity.
The prospect of a possible forced retirement behind bars might just prompt some of those who are part of the system responsible for some of the worst excesses to rethink their options sooner rather than later.
Donatella Rovera is Amnesty International's senior crisis researcher with experience in the field in Syria.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
UN confirms 'massacre' of children in Houla
UN leads calls for urgent world action on Syria after confirming killing of 92 people, including 32 children.UN leader Ban Ki-moon and UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan have condemned a massacre of more than 90 civilians in Syria as an "appalling and brutal" breach of international law.
Ban and Annan "condemn in the strongest possible terms the killing, confirmed by United Nations observers, of dozens of men, women and children" in Houla, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said on Saturday.
"This appalling and brutal crime, involving indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force, is a flagrant violation of international law and of the commitments of the Syrian government to cease the use of heavy weapons in population centres and violence in all its forms," said the statement issued on behalf of the UN secretary-general and the Syria envoy.
"Those responsible for perpetrating this crime must be held to account," the statement said.
The UN mission said 92 bodies, 32 of them children aged less than 10, had been found in Houla after the artillery offensive on Friday.
Major General Robert Mood, the mission chief, earlier condemned the "brutal tragedy" after monitors visited the area while residents buried the victims in mass graves.
"Those using violence for their own agendas will create more instability, more unpredictability and may lead the country to civil war," Mood said to reporters in Damascus.
The statements came as the Free Syrian Army said it could no longer commit to the ceasefire brokered by Annan unless there was an immediate solution to regime violence.
"We announce that unless the UN Security Council takes urgent steps for the protection of civilians, Annan's plan is going to go to hell," a statement by the FSA said on Saturday.
The peace plan drawn up by Annan, which took effect on April 12, stipulated that UN observers be deployed in the country to monitor a ceasefire. But the violence and bloodshed have not stopped.
Continued shelling
Ban and Annan reaffirmed on Saturday that UN observers who went to Houla had "viewed the bodies of the dead and confirmed from an examination of ordnance that artillery and tank shells were fired at a residential neighborhood".
State news agency SANA blamed "armed terrorist groups" for the killings, adding that "clashes led to the killing of several terrorists and the martyrdom of several members of the special forces".
Amateur video posted online showed scores of dead bodies, including children, covered by blankets following the violence.
Activists from the region said government forces hammered Houla with mortars following a large anti-government protest on Friday.
After the bombardment, pro-government thugs, known as shabiha, raided the villages, killing men on the streets and stabbing women and children in their houses, activists said.
Houla has been the scene of frequent anti-government protests since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in March last year. The town has also become a hub for opposition fighters.
Activists told Al Jazeera that the town came under shelling again on Saturday.
Hadi al-Abdallah, speaking from Homs, said Houla was under the control of the FSA, which meant government troops could not enter the town. Instead, they were launching shells from a distance in a bid to defeat the rebels.
International action
Syrians turned out in several locations around the country on Saturday to protest against the killings.
In Kafr Nabel, in the northern province of Idlib, scores took to the streets to honour the dead, chanting: "We sacrifice our soul and life for you, oh people of Houla," according to a video posted on YouTube.
In a Damascus neighbourhood, women filmed hiding their faces were carrying papers that read: "The Syrian regime kills us under supervision of the UN observers" and "Banish the UN tourists".
The latest violence came as the UN's Ban on Friday blamed the government for much of the "unacceptable levels of violence and abuses" occurring every day in the 14-month-long crisis in Syria.
In a report to the UN Security Council, Ban cited the government's continued use of heavy weapons, reports of shelling and "a stepped-up security crackdown by the authorities that has led to massive violations of human rights by government forces and pro-government militias".
Ban said there had only been "small progress" on implementing the six-point joint UN-Arab League plan brokered by Annan.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Somali pirates highjack Greek tanker in Arabian sea
Somali pirates have hijacked a Greek-owned oil tanker with 17 crew members onboard off the coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea, Press TV reports.
MT SMYRNI, carrying a cargo of 135,000 metric tons of crude oil, was en route Turkey on Thursday when pirate gangs stormed the vessel, according to a statement released by the ship’s operator company.
“At approximately 1115 UTC (1150 GMT) on 10 May, 2012, an oil tanker managed by Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd. was reported hijacked while it was transiting the Arabian Sea,” said the statement.
No communications have been received from the Liberian-flagged Suezmax-class tanker since the vessel was stormed by the pirates, the statement added.
Dynacom says its top priorities are the safe return of the ship and crew, nine Indians and eight Filipinos, and the integrity of the cargo.
The piracy-infested waters are one of the world’s busiest shipping routes where more than 20,000 ships transit the waters annually.
Attacks by heavily armed Somali pirates sailing on speedboats have prompted some of the world’s largest shipping firms to switch routes from the Suez Canal and reroute cargo vessels around Southern Africa, which leads to more shipping costs.
Obamacide Of American Nation Warned to Accelerate
A shocking in depth report written by Acting Minister Tatyana Golikova of the Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development (MHSD) sent to President Putin this past week on the economic and social-political ramifications of the 2-year old United States law titled Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare) warns that this scheme is, in fact, a “codified system of mass genocide” never before seen in all of human history.
According to this report, prior to this law passing in early 2010, the Obama regime made a “secret deal” with all of the United States drug companies with their head lobbyist confirming this to be true in a recently discovered email from Billy Tauzin, the head of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina (who is now Obama’s 2012 campaign manager) clearly stating before this laws passage, “we will deliver a final yes to you by morning.”
The “secret agreement” made between the Obama regime and these American drug companies, this report says, was that in exchange for the US not prosecuting them for the deaths due to their faulty (if not outright fraudulent) drugs foisted upon the American people, they would, in turn, all agree not to campaign against Obamacare nor spend any money advertising against it.
To the number of deaths directly related to these American drug companies fearing US government retribution, this report continues, the facts are beyond shocking and detail how faulty and fraudulent pharmaceuticals have killed at least 2 million Americans over the past decade alone.
Acting Minister Golikova even more grimly notes in her report that the figure of 2 million Americans being killed by US government-drug company collusion may, in fact, be even higher as the estimated death figures she used were those detailed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on their own official webpage that lists these deplorable statistics:
Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR)
Over 2 MILLION serious ADRs yearly
100,000 DEATHS yearly
ADRs 4th leading cause of death ahead of pulmonary disease, diabetes, AIDS, pneumonia, accidents and automobile deaths
Ambulatory patients ADR rate—unknown
Nursing home patients ADR rate— 350,000 yearly
Not included in these statistics, however, this report says, are the estimated 500,000 deaths blamed on the heavily-promoted anti-pain drug Vioxx that was released by Merck & Company (one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world) in 1999 and pulled from the market in 2004.
Adding to this horrific death toll, this report continues, are the estimated 480,000 drug-related accidental deaths over the past decade that in 2009 became the leading cause of accidental deaths in the United States.
Rounding out what can only be described as “legalized genocide” in the United States, Acting Minister Golikova reports, are Americans who overdosed (accidentally or deliberately) on drugs and whose numbers over the past decade alone now equal another 400,000 deaths.
Most important to note in this report are the comparisons made by Acting Minister Golikova between this ongoing American “legal drug genocide” and the nearly 1,000,000 deaths caused by the 26 April 1986 catastrophic failure of the then Soviet Unions Chernobyl Nuclear Plant, where after this disaster the Russian people refused to believe government and media lies and, in turn, overthrow the communist regime that had ruled over them for over 70 years.
Mikhail Gorbachev the last head of state of the Soviet Union in the past has acknowledged this fact by stating, “The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later. Indeed, the Chernobyl catastrophe was an historic turning point: there was the era before the disaster, and there is the very different era that has followed.”
Acting Minister Golikova grimly concludes in her report that the “Obamacide” of the American people shows no sign of abating and that all future signs point to an increase of nearly 10-15 million more of these people will be legally killed by the US government during the next decade, all without one single word being mentioned of this holocaust by their so called main stream media propaganda press establishment.
Ron Unz, the American political activist, and major patron of Wikimedia Foundation who in his seminal article on the aforementioned Vioxx catastrophe titled “When Half a Million Americans Died and Nobody Noticed” wrote: “My late friend Bill Odom, the three-star general who ran the National Security Agency for President Ronald Reagan, had spent his entire career as a Soviet specialist, and prior to his death we both concluded that the American mainstream media of the 2000s had become increasingly indistinguishable from the Soviet Pravda of the 1980s.”
The question remaining to be asked of the American at this point, and as this mass genocide and cover-up grows larger by the day, is simply this…At what point do these people (like the Soviet people showed could be done after Chernobyl) quit believing the lies being told them and start listening to the truth?
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Hundreds of classes cancelled as ACC loses 10,000 students.
Infowars has talked to a whistleblower in a senior position at Austin Community College who has divulged that enrollment numbers are collapsing due to students refusing to comply with vaccinations they are told are mandatory in order to take classes.
The ACC administrator told Alex Jones that some 10,000 students have refused to enroll because of their refusal to take inoculations. Although waivers for religious or personal objections are available, the ACC source said students were being given the impression that the inoculations are compulsory.
Indeed, college authorities are lying to students by telling them they will be refused enrolment if they don’t take the shots, according to the source.
This has led to a staggering 15 per cent decline in students enrolling since January and forced ACC to cancel 500 classes over the next semester alone.
When students are asked why they are dropping out or failing to enroll, huge numbers of them are citing the institution’s aggressive vaccination policy. According to the administrator, a similar pattern of dropouts due to students revolting over vaccines is being witnessed across the country.
Our source did not wish to be named but expressed her desire to alert the general public about the fact that the situation had turned into a major crisis for Austin Community College, which is the second largest institution of higher learning in Central Texas.
This is yet another example of how the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, in its quest to profit from an ever growing number of vaccines forced on children and young people, is actually destroying an entire area of the economy.
The process bears some similarities to how the travel industry has been ravaged by aggressive, invasive and pointless security measures directed against tourists by the TSA and other government agencies, measures that cost some $600 billion in lost revenue.
Concerns about the dangers of vaccines have been growing steadily in recent years. A September 2011 Thomson Reuters-NPR Health poll found that one in four Americans believe vaccines are unsafe.
A 2009 Washington Post report found that college students were shunning the H1N1 vaccine because they viewed the virus’s threat as “a media-concocted sensation.”
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TEPCO’s new estimates suggest that its Fukushima reactor has released more than quadruple the amount of radioactive cesium-137 leaked during the Chernobyl disaster. But the method used to measure the damage may undervalue the hazard even further.
Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s revised report suggests that in total, around 760,000 terabecquerels (TBq) were discharged into the atmosphere since the Fukushima catastrophe. Though the new figure is 1.6 times higher than an estimate published in February by the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, it still seems to be just an effort to downplay the real scale of the event.
The report goes on to compare Fukushima with the Chernobyl accident of 1986, where it says 5,200,000 TBq of “radioactive substances” were leaked into the atmosphere.
The problem is that TEPCO only counts the amount of iodine-131 and cesium-137 leaked from the Fukushima reactor, and compares them to the whole range of isotopes that were discharged at Chernobyl.
And if compared properly, the numbers tell a different story.
The final estimate suggests that 400,000 TBq of iodine-131 leaked from Fukushima, which is indeed lower than during the Chernobyl incident, but only 4.5 times lower.
Regarding the emission of cesium-137, Fukushima is far ahead its rival. Post-Fukushima estimations suggest that Chernobyl put out a total of 85,000 TBq of caesium-137 over the course of the disaster. The Fukushima reactor, however, has so far released 360,000 TBq of cesium-137, according to TEPCO.
Instead of releasing the total emissions of other isotopes from Fukushima, such as Strontium-90, TEPCO dedicated the rest of the report to explaining the calculation methods used. They combined the calculations based on the “degree of damage to the reactor core” and reverse calculations based on the “density of radioactive substances found in the atmosphere and seawater,” which allowed the company to come up with what they believe to be the most accurate figures.
The blasts at the Fukushima reactor, which had been triggered by an earthquake and tsunami last year, caused a massive radiation leak. Tens of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes in and around the Fukushima region in central Japan, while the crippled reactor was shut down and encircled by a twenty-kilometer exclusion zone. Since then the authorities and TEPCO officials have faced accusations of withholding vital information about the radiation levels in the area.
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