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Petition of 60K: Send Royal Navy hospital ship to Gaza


RT
Mon, 11 Aug 2014 10:41 UTC
Brit crowd petitioners
© news168.co.uk20K gather for a Hyde Park rally to send hospital ship to Gaza.
Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition demanding the British government send hospital ship RFA Argus to Gaza to help treat the escalating number of causalities. Downing Street has so far committed a small team of NHS medics.

Currently moored in Falmouth, Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Argus is a 100-bed nautical hospital, which has a "four-bay operating theater with a 10-bed Critical Care Unit, a 20-bed High Dependency Unit and a CT Scanner," according to the Ministry of Defence website.

RFA Argus
© navy-matters.beedall.comThe RFA Argus - Joint Casualty Treatment Ship
Campaigners are pushing the UK government to increase its humanitarian aid to the region as the death toll in Gaza broaches 2,000. Their goal is 75,000 signatures. Israel launched operation Protective Edge on July 8. While the international community works toward a ceasefire, protesters have marched worldwide against the Israeli military operation.
A team of NHS medics will soon be deployed to Gaza to help treat the wounded. Downing Street announced it is sending doctors, paramedics, surgeons and anesthetists, who will initially be stationed with Medical Aid for Palestinians at Al Mokassed hospital in East Jerusalem until they are able to enter Gaza itself.
Petitioners, however, argue the prime minister's commitment doesn't go far enough, as they continue to call for the ship's deployment.

Comment: As a UK campaign organizer states: "The scenes coming out of Gaza are truly horrific and we need to act. A health crisis is looming for trapped civilians with dire conditions in the main Gaza City El Shifa hospital. Doctors operate on the floor and in corridors. People die untreated. Only one X-ray machine is working with a lack of doctors, nurses, paramedics and the most basic equipment. We should be at the forefront of the humanitarian response..."

And what from the United States?

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Bell

Gideon Levy to Israelis: Go to Gaza, see for yourself

Gideon Levy
Haaretz
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 06:28 UTC
In the absence of hatred, one can understand the Palestinians. Without it, even some of Hamas' demands might sound reasonable and justified.
gaza hell
Can we possibly conduct a discussion, however brief, that is not saturated with venomous hatred? Can we let go for a moment of the dehumanization and demonization of the Palestinians and speak dispassionately of justice, leaving racism aside? It's crucial that we give it a try.

In the absence of hatred, one can understand the Palestinians. Without it, even some of Hamas' demands might sound reasonable and justified. Such a rational discourse would lead any decent person to clear-cut conclusions. Such a revolutionary dialogue might even advance the cause of peace, if one may still dare say such things. What are we facing? A people without rights that in 1948 was dispossessed of its land and its territory, in part by its own fault. In 1967 it was again stripped of its rights and lands. Ever since it has lived under conditions experienced by few nations. The West Bank is occupied and the Gaza Strip is besieged. This nation tries to resist, with its meager powers and with methods that are sometimes murderous, as every conquered nation throughout history, including Israel, has done. It has a right to resist, it must be said.
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Black Magic

Past is prologue: Diary from victim of Khmer Rouge Survives

Todd Pitman
Japan Times
Mon, 11 Aug 2014 01:11 UTC
Phnom Penh - It was an extraordinary act of defiance, and it was extraordinarily risky. But all he did was take out a pen and write.

Nearly 40 years ago, hunched on the floor of the wood-and-leaf hut he was forced to live in away from his children, Cambodian school inspector Poch Younly kept a secret diary vividly recounting the horrors of life under the Khmer Rouge, the radical communist regime whose extreme experiment in social engineering took the lives of 1.7 million Cambodians from overwork, medical neglect, starvation and execution.

Acutely aware that he could be killed if discovered, Younly hid the diary inside a clay vase. In those dark days, when religion and schools were banned and anyone deemed educated was a threat, he had no right to own so much as a pen and paper.

"Why is it that I have to die here like a cat or a dog . . . without any reason, without any meaning?" he wrote in the spiral-bound notebook's last pages.

Comment: One wonders what will survive our time. You can prevent the reporting of history in two ways. The Khmer Rouge picked the easy way, ban books, ban education. The other way is to ban nothing, but promote ignorance. To proliferate pointless education. Guess which way we chose?

Of course while you're in it, you are so busy surviving that you don't have time to think about the judgement of history.

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Attention

Kiev shells fall near Donetsk largest chemical plant, risking chemical disaster over a large region


RT
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 23:24 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Valery BelokrylStirol chemical plant in the town of Gorlovka in the Donetsk region
Ukraine is at risk of an environmental disaster as Kiev's army continues to bomb the Donestk region, nearly hitting its largest chemical plant that stores lethal agents, the plant's spokesperson warned. The minimum impact zone would be at least 300 km.

For the past three weeks, the Ukrainian army has been intensely shelling Gorlovka, located in Ukraine's Donetsk region - home to the nation's largest chemical plant, Stirol.

"Due to the irresponsible actions of the Ukrainian army, citizens of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus are exposed to a deadly threat from an ecological disaster on a daily basis, the size of which cannot be predicted," Pavel Brykov, a spokesman for the plant, said in a YouTube message on Sunday.

According to Brykov, an accident at the plant could cause a toxic leak of nitrochlorobenzene - a lethal substance which, if it enters the human body, affects the liver, heart, and bone marrow, causing death.
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Cult

A 300-year-old Mexican Jesus statue has real human teeth, X-rays show

Andrea Noel
Vice
Fri, 08 Aug 2014 22:02 UTC
Jesus Statue
© INAH
The restoration of a venerated 18th century statue of Christ in Mexico has revealed a somewhat creepy detail - the figure contains real human teeth, and the chompers appear to be in pristine condition.

Researchers at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said this week they made the discovery after performing X-rays on the Lord of Patience, as the figure is known, during a restoration operation.

The fangs are only slightly visible through Christ's open lips, but anthropologists said X-rays showed the eight teeth are complete and intact, all the way to the root.

The 3'8" tall icon - depicting a patient, pained Christ resting momentarily during the Passion - is usually seated in a church in San Bartolo Cuautlalpan, a town of 10,000 in the municipality of Zumpango, about 30 miles north of Mexico City.
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Star of David

British pro-Israel lackeys show their hypocrisy on cue


Press TV
Thu, 07 Aug 2014 11:38 UTC
palestinian flag parliament
An image of the Palestinian flag has been projected onto the Houses of Parliament in London, on August 2, 2014.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has projected an image of the Palestinian flag onto the Houses of Parliament in London. The image includes calls for sanctions against Israel and an end to the massacre in Gaza.

Hugh Lanning, Chair of PSC, criticized the British government for standing by while Israel slaughters Palestinians.

"The prime minister, David Cameron, has failed to listen to the voices of hundreds and thousands of British people who have taken to the streets. He has failed to stand up for an occupied people being ruthlessly murdered by an occupying power. The prime minister has weakly accepted the US's political position, which is totally out-of-step with the mood of this country. It is time for firm action consistent with international law."

He said Cameron must demand an end to the massacre in Gaza, implement an immediate and total arms embargo on Israel and impose sanctions until Israel ends its illegal occupation."
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Star of David

Silencing truth-tellers: British MP under police investigation for daring to suggest boycott of Israel


Press TV
Fri, 08 Aug 2014 01:47 UTC
george galloway
Britain's MP George Galloway is put under police investigation for making anti-Israeli comments and declaring his area of Bradford an "Israel-free zone."

Speaking at a meeting of Respect Party activists in Leeds on August 2, Galloway slammed Israel for the massacre of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and urged party members to issue a boycott of Israeli goods, services, academics and tourists.
"We have declared Bradford an Israel-free zone...We don't want any Israeli goods. We don't want any Israeli services. We don't want any Israeli academics coming to the university or the college," Galloway told activists.
"We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that calls itself Israel. And you have to do the same," he added. The Respect MP had distinguished between Israel and the world's Jewish population earlier in the speech.
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War Whore

Sanitizing the horrors of war: The Gulf War photo no media outlet would publish

Torie Rose DeGhett
The Atlantic
Fri, 08 Aug 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
“He was fighting to save his life to the very end, till he was completely burned up,” Jarecke says of the man he photographed. “He was trying to get out of that truck.”

The Iraqi soldier died attempting to pull himself up over the dashboard of his truck. The flames engulfed his vehicle and incinerated his body, turning him to dusty ash and blackened bone. In a photograph taken soon afterward, the soldier's hand reaches out of the shattered windshield, which frames his face and chest. The colors and textures of his hand and shoulders look like those of the scorched and rusted metal around him. Fire has destroyed most of his features, leaving behind a skeletal face, fixed in a final rictus. He stares without eyes.

On February 28, 1991, Kenneth Jarecke stood in front of the charred man, parked amid the carbonized bodies of his fellow soldiers, and photographed him. At one point, before he died this dramatic mid-retreat death, the soldier had had a name. He'd fought in Saddam Hussein's army and had a rank and an assignment and a unit. He might have been devoted to the dictator who sent him to occupy Kuwait and fight the Americans. Or he might have been an unlucky young man with no prospects, recruited off the streets of Baghdad.

Jarecke took the picture just before a ceasefire officially ended Operation Desert Storm - the U.S.-led military action that drove Saddam Hussein and his troops out of Kuwait, which they had annexed and occupied the previous August. The image and its anonymous subject might have come to symbolize the Gulf War. Instead, it went unpublished in the United States, not because of military obstruction but because of editorial choices.
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Stormtrooper

Police stage realistic hostage drill on nursing home, terrorize unsuspecting staff in Carbondale, Colorado


Police State USA
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 19:48 UTC
Handgun closeup
© Unknown
In a desperate plea for her life, she begged the man not to hurt her, telling him she had a young child.

A nurse says she begged for her life after being taken hostage by an unidentified gunman during a shift at a Colorado nursing home. Unbeknownst to her, the armed intruder was actually a cop in disguise, masquerading as a bad guy in a "routine" safety drill.

The incident occurred on October 16th, 2013, at the Heritage Park Care Center in Carbondale, Colorado. Nurse Michelle Meeker was working a day shift and attending to her patients. Around 1:00 p.m., she was diverted from her work and asked to check out a "suspicious" man sitting in a waiting room.

When Ms. Meeker approached the man, she asked him if he was there to see someone at the facility or if he needed help. According to her account, after asking twice, "the man gruffly responded with words to the effect of, 'follow me, I'll show you.'"

The stranger then took her down the hall to an empty room and exposed a handgun tucked in his waistband. He ordered Ms. Meeker to get in the empty room.

"Terrified, Ms. Meeker shook her head and said 'No,' afraid that if she went through that doorway she would not make it out alive," her lawsuit states.

The armed man demanded she comply three times, and finally placed his hand on his gun and physically ushered her into the room.

Ms. Meeker began to cry and shake with terror. "In a desperate plea for her life, she begged the man not to hurt her, telling him she had a young child," her lawsuit alleged.

Her captor then told her "in a hushed tone" that he was a Carbondale Police Officer and that "this is a drill."

Ms. Meeker had no way of knowing if his explanation was true, and continued to fear for her life, she claimed. She proceeded to comply quietly under duress.
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Light Saber

Gaza protest in Tel-Aviv: Hundreds defy police ban and take to the streets


RT
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 16:36 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Suhaib SalemSmoke rises following what witnesses said was an Israeli air strike in Gaza City August 9, 2014.
Despite the police ban on public gatherings, several hundred anti-war activists took to the streets in Tel-Aviv on Saturday to say 'no' to the continuation of Israel's bloody military operation in Gaza.

There are conflicting reports on the demonstration's turnout, with Reuters reporting 150 people attending.

However, Israeli +972 web magazine said that "roughly 500 non-aligned activists flooded Tel Aviv's Rabin Square."

Protesters chanted slogans such as "Stop the massacre," "Free Gaza," "Funds to welfare not to war," "Build more classrooms not more bombs" as well as "Gaza children want to live."
"The occupation is a crime that harms us all" Sign at the anti-war protest in Tel Aviv tonight pic.twitter.com/jVq1hnpjHl
- Elizabeth Tsurkov (@Elizrael) August 9, 2014
Two dozen right-wing demonstrators staged a counter-protest nearby, but there were no reports of any clashes between the two groups.

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