It is believed that the dead included troops making their final arrangements for deployment to Iraq.
The largest US military base in the world stayed closed yesterday after an army psychiatrist trained to help personnel deal with post-combat stress shot dead 13 soldiers about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: here.
Right-wingers have been looking for a fresh excuse to scapegoat Muslims, and Fort Hood gave them one: here.
Editor’s Note: The horrific shooting Thursday at Fort Hood that claimed 13 lives and hospitalized another 30 people has set off a great deal of speculation as to why the alleged shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, did what he did. See here.
As Israeli police arrest two settlers charged with assaulting a Palestinian family, Inside Story asks if this is a sign of a more serious investigation into settler violence by the Israeli police.
A resident of the West Bank settlement outpost Shvut Rachel was arrested last month for suspected murder and for his alleged role in a string of attempted murder plots, according to details of an investigation revealed on Sunday after a gag order on the case was lifted.
According to the Shin Bet and Israel Police, Teitel has confessed to most of the allegations against him. …
Teitel, a resident of the northern West Bank outpost, was born in Florida and has moved back and forth between the United States and Israel over the last two decades. In 2000, he returned to Israel to live permanently.
During a search of his home, police discovered rifles, handguns and explosive materials; they were unable, however, to find the gun which he allegedly used to kill the Palestinians.
Teitel was arrested on October 7 in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Har Nof, in Jerusalem, after posting signs around town praising the attack on the Tel Aviv gay club.
His posters were signed with the name ‘Shleisel,’ referring to the ultra-Orthodox man who stabbed and wounded a number of marchers during the Jerusalem pride parade a couple of years ago.
Police also found posters in his neighbourhood offering a one million shekel reward to anyone killing a member of Israel’s Peace Now movement, that opposes West Bank settlement activity. …
Teitel has confessed to murdering a Palestinian shepherd near Mount Hebron in 1997 and to killing an Arab taxi driver in East Jerusalem some two months later. He said that he came to Israel precisely to carry out attacks against Palestinians as revenge for suicide bombings.
Horrifying situation for Georgian political prisoners
October 30, 2009 by georgiamedia
To mark ‘Political Prisoners Day’ which is commemorated on 30th October, two leading human rights NGOs in Georgia will hold a vigil outside Gldani prison, Tbilisi under the banner “Freedom for political prisoners, Truth for society”.
According to the Human Rights Centre, one of the NGOS taking part, families of the detainees, along with their legal representatives and politicians will take part in the protest to call for the release of political prisoners in Georgia.
The conditions in the notorious Gldani prison are said to be horrific. Filthy conditions in cells, poor nutrition, and inadequate medical treatement has resulted in terrible health problems for the prisoners, including the spread of tuberculosis, HIV/AIDs and Hepatitis C.
Today, tuberculosis and pneumonia are some of the most common diseases in Georgian prisons. Despite the fact that both are very treatable they are the primary reason for the high levels of prisoner mortality.
Being imprisoned in Georgia is a virtual death sentence. According to statistics, nearly 4 out of every 10 inmates die but mortality is highest among young prisoners – those from the age from 21 to 31. “Infections spread because of poor hygiene in the cells and poor nutrition,” said medical expert Levan Labauri.
Despite the denials of the Saakashvili regime, the International Federation of Human Rights has confirmed there are political prisoners in Georgia, based on a study of a number of cases.
But Saakashvili’s government did not allow the Federation fact-finding mission to meet with several alleged political prisoners despite their formal request.
Picture: A prison cell in Tbilisi, (source Interpressnews)
Many ordinary Georgians feel their personal economic situarion has got worse, not better, despite the strong economic growth of the early years of Mikheil Saakashvili’s presidency: here.
One consequence of the Georgian state’s direction of the national broadcasters and the political complicity of the judicial system is that day after day they report the guilt of the arrested and suspected before any trial: here.
In the second of his occassional columns for the Georgian International Media Centre, leading Georgian writer, former editor in chief of “Peace Times” magazine and Peace Studies Professor at Cornell University, Irakli Kakabadze examines the real reasons why Mikheil Saakashvili and his allies have fallen out with the Catholicos Patriarch, Ilia II: here.
French TV documentary which was dubbed into English by an Australian TV network. Among things covered is a court case in which documents were stolen from the French courts by Scientologists.
From AFP news agency:
Scientology convicted of organised fraud in France
A French court convicted the Church of Scientology and one of its leaders of defrauding vulnerable members on Tuesday, but stopped short of banning the group’s activities in France.
The Celebrity Centre and a bookshop — the two branches of Scientology’s French operations — were ordered to pay a 600,000-euro (900,000-dollar) fine for preying financially on its followers in the 1990s.
Scientology’s leader in France Alain Rosenberg was handed a two-year suspended jail sentence and fined 30,000 euros on the same charge. …
The Paris case was launched after a complaint from two women, one of whom says she was manipulated into handing over 20,000 euros for costly products, including an “electrometer” to measure mental energy.
A second plaintiff alleges she was forced by her Scientologist employer to undergo testing and enroll in courses in 1998. When she refused she was fired.
Prosecutors originally asked the court to order the Celebrity Centre and bookshop to be dismantled in addition to a hefty fine.
But last month the French courts were alerted to a little-noticed legal change voted in by parliament in May — the month the trial opened — which bars French courts from dissolving an organisation convicted of fraud.
Although the change has since been dropped, this was not retrospective and thus Scientology was protected from an outright ban in the ongoing case, forcing the court to downgrade the sentence.
“A ban on its activities would have risked taking us outside the framework of the law,” said judge Sophie-Helene Chateau.
Founded in the United States in 1954 by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology is officially recognised as a religion by US authorities and claims a worldwide membership of 12 million.
In 1995 it was officially classified as a cult in France, where it claims 45,000 followers.
Caspar de Rijk, the former founder and director of Scientology Netherlands, was on Dutch TV1 this morning. Asked whether his former organization was a cult, he agreed. He said that scientologists sold so called e-meters etc. for over ten times the prices which they were worth, thus financially ruining recruits. He himself, being a prominent member, had participated in such activities, which he rejects now. Since leaving Scientology in 2003, the organization’s bosses had prevented him from contacting his daughters, who are still members.
In 2004, Caspar de Rijk had already agreed to be interviewed on TV. However, the “church” leaders had said that if he would cancel the TV interview, he might see his daughters again. After he had said no to the broadcasters, Scientology still prevented Mr de Rijk from contacting his daughters.
Prosecutors say the defendant, identified as Alex W, stabbed Marwa al-Sherbini at least 16 times in three minutes on July 1, in the same courthouse where his three-week trial will be held.
Some 200 police officers will guard the proceedings in the eastern city of Dresden on Monday.
German media reported online death threats against the defendant, who will appear in court behind bulletproof glass.
The 28-year-old Russian-born German resident allegedly plunged an 18cm kitchen knife into the chest, back and arm of al-Sherbini, who was three months pregnant at the time with her second child.
German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk defends racist remarks by central banker
26 October 2009
The German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk has waded into the controversy surrounding German Central Bank executive member Thilo Sarrazin with an open defence of racist remarks made by Sarrazin in an interview published in a prominent European cultural magazine.
Thilo Sarrazin is a long-time member of the Social Democratic Party and was for a number of years finance senator in the SPD-Left Party Senate coalition in Berlin. Just a few months after his appointment this past summer to the executive committee of the German Central Bank, Sarrazin unleashed a tirade against the poor, the socially deprived and, in particular, immigrant communities in Germany. His interview appears in the latest edition of the cultural magazine Lettre International. (See: “The racist outburst of German Federal Bank executive member Thilo Sarrazin”).
According to Wikipedia, Sloterdijk is an ex devotee of Indian fraudulent guru Osho aka Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. So, this is not the first time that he does stupid things.
This is a video about Osho aka Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s commune Rajneeshpuram in the USA.
Danny came from West Ham, & he’d been a dad 8 months
Joey came from Birmingham, & he was just 18
Billy came from Bromyard & his Captain told the press he was a “a key part of a closely-knit platoon”
The Corporal came from Kings Lynn he was “the perfect soldier”
The Rifleman from Yorkshire “saw the lighter side of life”
The private from the Welsh Guards had ” a tremendous sense of humour”
The Rifleman from Maidenhead, was “1st in everything”
And we’ll all be home by Christmas in a land that’s fit for heroes
We’ll all have beer & medals, we’ll all get jobs for life
Next time you see your colonel, you can sell him a Big Issue
& he’ll take you home for Christmas & he’ll let you shag his wife
Tommy came from West Ham, or maybe it was Glasgow
Or maybe it was Birmingham, but he was just 18
Tommy came from Bromyard, or maybe some where else
But it’s somewhere else he’ll never see again
Tommy come from West Ham…
Jimmy come from Birmingham…
What business did they have being here?
What business did they have dying here?
What business do we have being here On the Northwest Frontier?
HILARY CLINTON ADMITS USA CREATED ISLAMIC EXTREMISM IN AFGHANISTAN: here.
An introduction in the beginning said that most people know Sudan only because of war in Darfur. While it is a country with a long history and rich culture.
The Cultural Nubian Club in the Netherlands is an organisation in The Hague of migrants from Sudan. They did songs and dancing from traditional weddings in Nubian villages in Sudan.
Nubia, the border region in southern Egypt and northern Sudan, has a long history. Sometimes, it was conquered by ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Somertimes, it conquered Egypt, and its kings became pharaohs of Egypt as well.
Its culture had some similarities with ancient Egypt: pyramids were built; gods worshiped in Egypt were worshiped in Nubia as well. However, we still cannot read ancient Nubian inscriptions.
In late antiquity, Christianity came to Nubia. A few centuries later, Islam. However, some more ancient traditions still survive today in wedding ceremonies. The river Nile and its water play a big role in those ceremonies. Also, according to an article by Shawgie Elhay, distributed in the museum, newlyweds have to pass burning incense seven times from the east to the west. As, according to Nubian tradition, eternal life, the hereafter, is in the west. As was the case in ancient Egypt, where the pyramids and royal tombs were built in the desert to the west of the Nile.
That the performance today was in the entrance hall of the museum, before the Taffeh temple, was interesting, as the Taffeh temple is originally from Egyptian Nubia.
Today, the male Nubian dancers, singers, and musicians (on two tambourines) were in white. Their female counterparts wore black, with bright pink headscarves; except for the woman playing the bridegroom’s mother, who wore a black headscarf and golden jewelry.
After the Nubian group there came two sets by Faiza ‘Issa’s wedding singers from Khartoum. Faiza ‘Issa herself did lead vocals and daluka drum. She wore a long dress and long hair, with no headscarf. Her two backup singers both wore headscarves, one of them with a long dress, the other one with jeans. While a young woman danced to the music, sometimes reaching for a cowboy hat, sometimes for castanets from the dance floor.
In Sudan it is tradition to honour young brides with a special ceremony only for women. The new bride is required to dance a couple of wedding dances in various, often rather provocative, outfits. A professional wedding singer is usually hired for the occasion. Faiza ‘Issa is one of the most popular wedding singers in Khartoum today. She teaches young brides the special marriage dances and accompanies them during their performance with songs and percussion (daluka). Faiza and her colleagues are also widely known for their tantalising aghani al-banat: ‘girl songs’ sung from a female perspective about such subjects as sexuality and male-female relationships. Utilising various musical styles and influences, the wedding singers’ performances are both traditional, ceremonial and popular in character.
Two Sudanese women arrested in July were sentenced to 20 lashes and a $100 fine by a court Oct. 22 for wearing ‘indecent’ clothing, AFP reported: here.
Thousands of Youngsters Denounced by Renegade Churches as Practicing Witchcraft Have Suffered, Died From Exorcisms
(AP) The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall.
His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him - Mount Zion Lighthouse.
A month later, he died.
Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of “witch children” reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.
Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
“It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity,” said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria.
For their part, the families are often extremely poor, and sometimes even relieved to have one less mouth to feed. Poverty, conflict and poor education lay the foundation for accusations, which are then triggered by the death of a relative, the loss of a job or the denunciation of a pastor on the make, said Martin Dawes, a spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund.
“When communities come under pressure, they look for scapegoats,” he said. “It plays into traditional beliefs that someone is responsible for a negative change … and children are defenseless.”
The idea of witchcraft is hardly new, but it has taken on new life recently, partly because of a rapid growth in evangelical Christianity. Campaigners against the practice say around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria’s 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered. In the past month alone, three Nigerian children accused of witchcraft were killed and another three were set on fire.
Nigeria is one of the heartlands of abuse, but hardly the only one: the United Nations Children’s Fund says tens of thousands of children have been targeted throughout Africa.
Church signs sprout around every twist of the road snaking through the jungle between Uyo, the capital of the southern Akwa Ibom state where Nwanaokwo lay, and Eket, home to many more rejected “witch children.” Churches outnumber schools, clinics and banks put together. Many promise to solve parishioner’s material worries as well as spiritual ones - eight out of ten Nigerians struggle by on less than $2 a day.
“Poverty must catch fire,” insists the Born 2 Rule Crusade on one of Uyo’s main streets.
“Where little shots become big shots in a short time,” promises the Winner’s Chapel down the road.
“Pray your way to riches,” advises Embassy of Christ a few blocks away.
It’s hard for churches to carve out a congregation with so much competition. So some pastors establish their credentials by accusing children of witchcraft.
According to Wikipedia, Akwa Ibom is the “highest oil and gas producing state in the country”. But the riches of the oil and gas go to foreign fat cats and some Nigerian generals. Left for the people of Akwa Ibom is just poverty, despair, religious fanaticism, and murder of children.
