Sunday, January 17, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Twitter and Haiti
- aredcraft RT @miamoretti: RT You can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to @RedCross relief efforts in #Haiti half a minute ago from web
- KathrynTully RT @Mediabistro: RT @RedCross: You can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in #Haiti. half a minute ago from web
- lynnlovee help haiti. ppl just dnt knw. damn. poverished & now this. Just hold on. yall got this far. u never knw how it feels until it hit hme. half a minute ago from web
- UniformProject Part Deux | Helping #Haiti through social media http://bit.ly/4RFvU4 via @elephantjournal half a minute ago from TweetDeck
- hughadam RT @globalvoices Our page aggregating coverage of the #Haiti earthquake is now up at http://bit.ly/85TFw4 half a minute ago from Echofon
- LosAngelesToday Picture from #Haiti RT @LisandroSuero: http://twitpic.com/xy636 - half a minute ago from TweetDeck
- pittswiley Sometimes, you buy a $5 coffee and it's great. Sometimes, you buy it and spill it before getting a sip. You don't stop buying coffee. #haiti half a minute ago from HootSuite
- sebhar RT @yokoono: HELP HAITI Text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross or Text "Yele" to 501501 to donate $5 to Yele Haiti half a minute ago from TweetDeck
- conderogers RT @yokoono: HELP HAITI – Here’s how http://bit.ly/6eehGY half a minute ago from web
- screwthemullahs CNN Gupta: Cargo planes with aid arriving in #Haiti half a minute ago from Twittelator
- kulayphoto RT @Alyssa_Milano: Help Haiti Earthquake Relief Donate $5 by texting YELE to 501 501 right now. (via @wyclef) half a minute ago from API
- tattood1 RT @joshuawhite: RT @RedCross: You can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in #haiti. half a minute ago from web
- sweet_epiphany RT @araw: RT @aflcio: Nurses Issue Urgent Call for Help in #Haiti http://ow.ly/W5aW half a minute ago from web
- Dan_Martin RT @PRNewswire: Twitter's human touch amid the horror of #Haiti http://budurl.com/e7qa half a minute ago from TweetDeck
- CDispatch RT @pimes: From Red Cross: Text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to @redcross relief efforts in #haiti. half a minute ago from TweetDeck
- Ath4Hope You can text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief for #Haiti. http://bit.ly/8VOwXB half a minute ago from Facebook
- humboldtparkpak RT @sacca: Six ways you can help Haiti: http://bit.ly/helpinhaiti half a minute ago from web
- DiggsWayne As the first to shake off the shackles of New World slavery #Haiti holds a very important place in the history of struggle for Black people. half a minute ago from web
- mmfa Pat Robertson blames Haiti's "pact to the devil" for catastrophe: http://bit.ly/5L650b #p2 #media #noisemachine #Haiti half a minute ago from web
- alexandergold Text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in #haiti. half a minute ago from Echofon
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Media Summary of UN Report on Gaza
I want to thank one of you for sending this in. I remember posting the link to the report and then warning it was 6 megs of PDF -- I don't think anyone even tried to download it. But here is what appears to be an official unofficial summary of it for "media use only". We can argue with success that we are media, so here it is:
Media Summary: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
- To the Human Rights Council, that it Request the Secretary-General to bring this report to the attention of the Security Council under Art. 99 of the Charter so that the Security Council may consider action; and that it Submit the report to the General Assembly with a request that it should be considered;
- To the United Nations Security Council, with regard to Israel, that it require the Government of Israel, under Article 40 of the Charter of the United Nations: To take all appropriate steps, within a period of three months, to launch appropriate investigations that are independent and in conformity with international standards; Inform the Security Council, within a further period of three months, of actions taken; Establish an independent committee of experts in International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law to monitor and report on any domestic legal or other proceedings undertaken by the Government of Israel; Upon receipt of the committee’s report the Security Council consider the situation and, in the absence of good faith investigations that are independent and in conformity with international standards, again acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, refer the situation in Gaza to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
- To the United Nations Security Council, with regard to the relevant Palestinian authorities, that it: require the independent committee of experts (referred to in previous paragraph) to monitor and report on any domestic legal or other proceedings undertaken by the relevant authorities in the Gaza Strip; Upon receipt of the committee’s report the Security Council consider the situation and, in the absence of good faith investigations that are independent and in conformity with international standards, acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, refer the situation in Gaza to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
- To the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, With reference to the declaration under article 12 (3) received by the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC from the Government of Palestine, the legal determination should be made by the Prosecutor as expeditiously as possible; The Mission further recommends that the United Nations Human Rights Council formally submit this report to the Prosecutor of the ICC.
- To the General Assembly, The Mission recommends that the General Assembly request the Security Council to report to it on measures taken with regard to ensuring accountability for serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law; The GA may consider whether additional action within its powers is required in the interests of justice, including under resolution 377 (V) Uniting for Peace; Establish an escrow fund to be used to pay adequate compensation to Palestinians who have suffered loss and damage, and that the Government of Israel pay the required amounts into such fund; Ask the Government of Switzerland to convene a conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 on measures to enforce the Convention in the OPT.
- To Israel, The Mission recommends that Israel immediately cease the border closures and restrictions of passage through border crossings with the Gaza Strip, cease the restrictions on access to the sea for fishing purposes review its rules of engagement, standard operating procedures, open fire regulations and other guidance for military and security personnel; Allow freedom of movement for Palestinians within the OPT - within the West Bank including East Jerusalem, between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and between the OPT and the outside world; lifts travel bans currently in place on Palestinians for their human rights or political activities; Release Palestinians who are detained in Israeli prisons in connection with the occupation; Cease the discriminatory treatment of Palestinian detainees. ; Release all members of the Palestinian Legislative Council currently in detention; Cease actions aimed at limiting the expression of criticism by civil society and members of the public Refrain from any action of reprisal against individuals and organizations that have cooperated with the UN Fact Finding Mission; respect the inviolability of UN premises and personnel; Provide reparation to the United Nations fully and without further delay.
- To Palestinian armed groups, The Mission recommends that Palestinian armed groups undertake forthwith to respect international humanitarian law, and that Palestinian armed groups who hold Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in detention release him on humanitarian grounds.
- To responsible Palestinian authorities, Ensure prompt and independent investigation of all allegations of serious human rights violations by security forces under its control; Release without delay all political detainees currently in their power and refrain from further arrests on political grounds.
- To the international community, States Parties to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 start criminal investigations in national courts, using universal jurisdiction, where there is sufficient evidence of the commission of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949; Support the work of Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations in documenting and publicly reporting on violations of human rights and international humanitarian law; States involved in peace negotiations between Israel and representatives of the Palestinian people, especially the Quartet, ensure that respect for the rule of law, international law and human rights assume a central role in internationally sponsored peace initiatives; Initiate a programme of environmental monitoring under the auspices of the United Nations.
- To the international community and responsible Palestinian authorities, Establish appropriate mechanisms to ensure that the funds pledged by international donors for reconstruction activities in the Gaza strip are smoothly and efficiently disbursed.
- To the international community, Israel and Palestinian authorities, Actors involved in the peace process should involve Israeli and Palestinian civil society and women in devising sustainable peace agreements based on respect for international law.
- To the United Nations Secretary General, Develop a policy to integrate human rights in peace initiatives in which the United Nations is involved, especially the Quartet.
- To the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Monitor the situation of persons who have cooperated with the UN Fact Finding Mission and pay attention to follow up to the Mission’s recommendations in its periodic reporting on the OPT to the Human Rights Council.
Friday, January 08, 2010
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Viva Palestina
THE ABSURD TIMES
I am not sure if this means anything or not, but the Middle name of Obama's Chief of Staff is Israel.
I'm not saying it does anymore that the fact that Fitzgerald's being a Republican led him to let Cheney and Rove off completely free and yet go after Blagojevitch. I am wondering, however, why the tapes involving the Chief of staff have not been released, not even to the defendant.
Well, anyway, here is more about the Mid-East, this time Gaza. I remember when Galloway decided to appear before a congressional panel because there was so much nonsense about him. Most of the Senators were sliced to pieces.
Is there anyone out there who can connect the dots? We have lots of dots laying around.
JUAN GONZALEZ: A humanitarian aid convoy carrying food and medical supplies has arrived in Gaza nearly a month after it embarked from Britain. Members of the Viva Palestina convoy began passing through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing into Gaza on Wednesday. They’re expected to spend the next forty-eight hours distributing the aid supplies.
The convoy was delayed by more than a week following a dispute with the Egyptian government. Hours before the convoy’s entry into Gaza yesterday, an Egyptian soldier was shot dead during a clash with Palestinian protesters who had gathered along the border to protest the delay. At least thirty-five Palestinians were wounded. On Tuesday, Egyptian forces clashed with members of the Viva Palestina convoy, wounding more than fifty.
AMY GOODMAN: Egypt and Israel have been maintaining a strict blockade on Gaza since 2007, allowing only the most basic supplies to get through. Viva Palestina’s arrival in Gaza comes a year after the three-week Israeli assault that killed over 1,300 Palestinians.
British parliamentarian George Galloway led the Viva Palestina convoy. He joins us now on the phone right now from Gaza.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
GEORGE GALLOWAY: Thank you. Good morning.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what happened? We hear a number of people in your convoy were beaten up, were hurt, some hospitalized.
GEORGE GALLOWAY: Yes, fifty-five, in fact, were injured, some of them quite severely. Ten of them had to go to hospital. All of them entered Gaza with us, but we have a collection of broken heads and plaster casts and bloodied faces and clothes.
It’s quite a testimony to the role that the government of Egypt is playing in this siege that you have just admirably described. It was entirely unprovoked. It was an attack on unarmed civilian people. And it was very frightening and brutal. And, of course, it was of a piece with the way that the Gaza Freedom Marchers were treated in the center of Cairo in the middle of the tourist season just days before.
JUAN GONZALEZ: What kind of coverage did that attack receive in the Egyptian media? And did it have any impact on the government’s decision to then let the convoy pass?
GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well, the good news is that nobody watches the Egyptian media in Egypt. All of them watch the pan-Arabic stations like Al Jazeera, satellite stations, which have broken the censorship walls of the dictatorships in the Arab world. And so, everybody in Egypt knows what happened in that little port of Al-Arish, and the vast majority of them, I’m sure, completely disapprove of it, indeed denounce it.
The Egyptian people are entirely behind the Palestinians under siege. Unfortunately, they are ill-served by a government that is playing a quite despicable role, actually, just few yards from where I am now. The Egyptians are building what we call the wall of shame, which is being done in conjunction with the United States military, to try and choke off the tunnels, which are the only other means of bringing life into Gaza, in which sheep and chickens and petrol and gas and the other means of staying alive, other than medicine—because if I may correct something you did say in the introduction, you said we were bringing food and medicine, but we were only bringing medicine, because food is actually not allowed to come through the Rafah gate from Egypt into Gaza. Food must pass through the Israeli lines, because, of course, they say they are concerned about the safety of the food. They don’t want to cause any food poisoning in Gaza, you understand.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe the condition of Gaza? It’s been a year since the Israeli assault. You were there last year also trying to bring in aid.
GEORGE GALLOWAY: It’s desperate. If I give you a tiny example only to give you an example, I’m here in quite a nice hotel, except there is no food in the hotel. There’s no food for breakfast, there’s no food for lunch. Now I make that point only to illustrate that if there’s no food in the best hotel in Gaza, imagine what the people are suffering. I’ve watched with my own eyes Palestinian women and girls in the early morning mists on top of garbage heaps, combing through the garbage heaps looking for food. In an Arab Muslim country in 2009 and ’10, it’s a absolutely scandalous situation.
And, Amy, remember why and how it came about. It’s been imposed by men. It’s not a natural disaster. It’s been imposed by men to punish the people of Palestine for voting for a party in a free election that the big powers, including yours and mine and Israel, don’t like. Now, I myself would not have voted for them; I’m not a Hamas supporter. But the only people entitled to choose the leadership of the Palestinians are the Palestinians themselves.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you been meeting—as a British member of Parliament, did you meet with any Egyptian leaders? And is there an explanation of why the Gaza Freedom March was kept out—they allowed in about a hundred people, but many refused under those conditions—and why the Egyptian government is stopping these peace activists from entering Gaza?
GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well, I’m glad to say that at every stage we insisted on all of our convoy entering Gaza, and we refused to leave Al-Arish without our prisoners, six people who were being held prisoner by the Egyptian government’s forces. And we refused to accept the exclusion from Egypt of some of our convoy members, all of whom were initially excluded, but all, in the end, were let in and are with me in Gaza. So, in terms of solidarity, I’m proud of what we have achieved.
No, there’s no explanation from the Egyptian regime at all. How could there be, in a way? How do you explain to anyone that Egypt, once the heart of the Arab world, is now playing a part in building an iron wall of shame around a suffering people who are being effectively starved, they hope, into surrender, but if not into surrender, then into death?
JUAN GONZALEZ: And George Galloway, your sense of how the Palestinian leadership is regarding the policies of the United States? Now we’re a year into the Obama administration. He’s, on the one hand, attempted to reach out to the Arab world in a way the Bush administration never did, but in terms of Palestine and the conflict with Israel, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of change.
GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well, I must tell you, Juan, as someone who, myself, on my radio shows and TV shows and so on, campaigned for the election of Barack Obama, tried very hard to persuade people on the left that they were making a kind of utopian mistake in not supporting Obama, there is a tremendous bitter disappointment here in Palestine, and indeed wider than that, at the role that President Obama is currently playing, or rather not playing. His speech in Cairo was a wonderful piece of work. It was mesmerizing. It transfixed the Arab public opinion, that finally, after the Bush years, we had some hope. But in practice, his policy—and one assumes Hillary Clinton is carrying out his policy—is exactly the same as the policy of the Bushites towards the people here. And there’s bitter, bitter disappointment about that.
AMY GOODMAN: George Galloway, we want to thank you very much for being with us, a British MP leading the Viva Palestina aid convoy. Their whole convoy did get into Gaza through Egypt, though through a great deal of conflict, with a number of the delegation beaten up.
Obama -- More of the Same
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/6/obama_has_kept_the_machine_set