Wonderful article on someone who doesn't care for skeptics, but is confident enough in the "truth" of the world that he lives in, and the world that he can create. That truth is a personal belief. And at the end of the day, it is that personal belief that will be tested, if not in this life, than in the hereafter. That personal belief is the one that has to be forged in fears, tears, blood, hope, vision, failure and success of one's own dogma and value sets. To reiterate, that has to be tested, before tested in your own interactions with others, with yourself. Nice quote in the article about Elon Musk finding peace in himself if the project takes too long, if he becomes infirm before SpaceX achieves success.
For me, making peace with myself is my aim now. It's not about recalibrating any more. It is about what I can live with, and what I cannot live without.
http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/the-elon-musk-interview-on-mars/
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Monday, September 15, 2014
Maser Energy, Smart Grid in Malaysia
Came across this link earlier today - and it was a dated BFM grille interview with Masers Energy CEO / Chairman. Not sure how to rate the session, as Chum(?) the interviewer posed all sorts of questions with all the associated layers of sub-text - i.e. transparent bidding, experience, possible collusion etc - all the sort of questions a cynical mind would raise. To his credit (or to another cynical mind, can probably attribute naivety?), DS Suhaimi straight-batted the questions and answered in his most honest and open way possible.
Link to the interview here: http://www.bfm.my/breakfast-grille-suhaimi-abdul-rahman-masers.html
DS can be forgiven if he probably was preparing for easy, straight and narrow questions on why PLC, and not preexisting wireless LTE, 4G, xG standards, which could rightly be attributed to the cost-efficiency requirements given the potential ubiquity of component and sensor deployment throughout the internet of things. Too many other questions can be raised as to how that aspect, with the attendant issues of still-developing tech and issues related to confluence over the long term, will impact on carbon-free or even carbon-mitigation effects. Putting on my public citizen hat, investors i.e. govt and/or TNB, need to read the PPM Risk section very carefully. TNB may have had a closer look at the issues within the DNMS project that was kicked off way back in 2006(?).
I do wish Masers the best of luck. Nothing better to shut up the doubters and detractors by making sure this works.
Link to the interview here: http://www.bfm.my/breakfast-grille-suhaimi-abdul-rahman-masers.html
DS can be forgiven if he probably was preparing for easy, straight and narrow questions on why PLC, and not preexisting wireless LTE, 4G, xG standards, which could rightly be attributed to the cost-efficiency requirements given the potential ubiquity of component and sensor deployment throughout the internet of things. Too many other questions can be raised as to how that aspect, with the attendant issues of still-developing tech and issues related to confluence over the long term, will impact on carbon-free or even carbon-mitigation effects. Putting on my public citizen hat, investors i.e. govt and/or TNB, need to read the PPM Risk section very carefully. TNB may have had a closer look at the issues within the DNMS project that was kicked off way back in 2006(?).
I do wish Masers the best of luck. Nothing better to shut up the doubters and detractors by making sure this works.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Sick of this market-driven world? You should be - by George Monbiot, The Guardian UK
George has commentated on the market economy, green and sustainable world and makes a lot of sense unhindered from the everyday poison of the world. This one below is an epic read. Difficult to contest his points.
Sick of this market-driven world? You should be
George Monbiot
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/05/neoliberalism-mental-health-rich-poverty-economy
To be at peace with a troubled world: this is not a reasonable aim. It can be achieved only through a disavowal of what surrounds you. To be at peace with yourself within a troubled world: that, by contrast, is an honourable aspiration. This column is for those who feel at odds with life. It calls on you not to be ashamed.
I was prompted to write it by a remarkable book, just published in English, by a Belgian professor of psychoanalysis, Paul Verhaeghe. What About Me? The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society is one of those books that, by making connections between apparently distinct phenomena, permits sudden new insights into what is happening to us and why.
We are social animals, Verhaeghe argues, and our identities are shaped by the norms and values we absorb from other people. Every society defines and shapes its own normality – and its own abnormality – according to dominant narratives, and seeks either to make people comply or to exclude them if they don’t.
Today the dominant narrative is that of market fundamentalism, widely known in Europe as neoliberalism. The story it tells is that the market can resolve almost all social, economic and political problems. The less the state regulates and taxes us, the better off we will be. Public services should be privatised, public spending should be cut, and business should be freed from social control. In countries such as the UK and the US, this story has shaped our norms and values for around 35 years: since Thatcher and Reagan came to power. It is rapidly colonising the rest of the world.
Verhaeghe points out that neoliberalism draws on the ancient Greek idea that our ethics are innate (and governed by a state of nature it calls the market) and on the Christian idea that humankind is inherently selfish and acquisitive. Rather than seeking to suppress these characteristics, neoliberalism celebrates them: it claims that unrestricted competition, driven by self-interest, leads to innovation and economic growth, enhancing the welfare of all.
Advertisement
At the heart of this story is the notion of merit. Untrammelled competition rewards people who have talent, work hard, and innovate. It breaks down hierarchies and creates a world of opportunity and mobility.
The reality is rather different. Even at the beginning of the process, when markets are first deregulated, we do not start with equal opportunities. Some people are a long way down the track before the starting gun is fired. This is how the Russian oligarchs managed to acquire such wealth when the Soviet Union broke up. They weren’t, on the whole, the most talented, hardworking or innovative people, but those with the fewest scruples, the most thugs, and the best contacts – often in the KGB.
Even when outcomes are based on talent and hard work, they don’t stay that way for long. Once the first generation of liberated entrepreneurs has made its money, the initial meritocracy is replaced by a new elite, which insulates its children from competition by inheritance and the best education money can buy. Where market fundamentalism has been most fiercely applied – in countries like the US and UK – social mobility has greatly declined.
If neoliberalism was anything other than a self-serving con, whose gurus and thinktanks were financed from the beginning by some of the world’s richest people (the US multimillionaires Coors, Olin, Scaife, Pew and others), its apostles would have demanded, as a precondition for a society based on merit, that no one should start life with the unfair advantage of inherited wealth or economically determined education. But they never believed in their own doctrine. Enterprise, as a result, quickly gave way to rent.
All this is ignored, and success or failure in the market economy are ascribed solely to the efforts of the individual. The rich are the new righteous; the poor are the new deviants, who have failed both economically and morally and are now classified as social parasites.
The market was meant to emancipate us, offering autonomy and freedom. Instead it has delivered atomisation and loneliness.
The workplace has been overwhelmed by a mad, Kafkaesque infrastructure of assessments, monitoring, measuring, surveillance and audits, centrally directed and rigidly planned, whose purpose is to reward the winners and punish the losers. It destroys autonomy, enterprise, innovation and loyalty, and breeds frustration, envy and fear. Through a magnificent paradox, it has led to the revival of a grand old Soviet tradition known in Russian as tufta. It means falsification of statistics to meet the diktats of unaccountable power.
The same forces afflict those who can’t find work. They must now contend, alongside the other humiliations of unemployment, with a whole new level of snooping and monitoring. All this, Verhaeghe points out, is fundamental to the neoliberal model, which everywhere insists on comparison, evaluation and quantification. We find ourselves technically free but powerless. Whether in work or out of work, we must live by the same rules or perish. All the major political parties promote them, so we have no political power either. In the name of autonomy and freedom we have ended up controlled by a grinding, faceless bureaucracy.
These shifts have been accompanied, Verhaeghe writes, by a spectacular rise in certain psychiatric conditions: self-harm, eating disorders, depression and personality disorders.
Of the personality disorders, the most common are performance anxiety and social phobia: both of which reflect a fear of other people, who are perceived as both evaluators and competitors – the only roles for society that market fundamentalism admits. Depression and loneliness plague us.
The infantilising diktats of the workplace destroy our self-respect. Those who end up at the bottom of the pile are assailed by guilt and shame. The self-attribution fallacy cuts both ways: just as we congratulate ourselves for our success, we blame ourselves for our failure, even if we have little to do with it.
So, if you don’t fit in, if you feel at odds with the world, if your identity is troubled and frayed, if you feel lost and ashamed – it could be because you have retained the human values you were supposed to have discarded. You are a deviant. Be proud.
Twitter: @georgemonbiot.
Sick of this market-driven world? You should be
George Monbiot
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/05/neoliberalism-mental-health-rich-poverty-economy
To be at peace with a troubled world: this is not a reasonable aim. It can be achieved only through a disavowal of what surrounds you. To be at peace with yourself within a troubled world: that, by contrast, is an honourable aspiration. This column is for those who feel at odds with life. It calls on you not to be ashamed.
I was prompted to write it by a remarkable book, just published in English, by a Belgian professor of psychoanalysis, Paul Verhaeghe. What About Me? The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society is one of those books that, by making connections between apparently distinct phenomena, permits sudden new insights into what is happening to us and why.
We are social animals, Verhaeghe argues, and our identities are shaped by the norms and values we absorb from other people. Every society defines and shapes its own normality – and its own abnormality – according to dominant narratives, and seeks either to make people comply or to exclude them if they don’t.
Today the dominant narrative is that of market fundamentalism, widely known in Europe as neoliberalism. The story it tells is that the market can resolve almost all social, economic and political problems. The less the state regulates and taxes us, the better off we will be. Public services should be privatised, public spending should be cut, and business should be freed from social control. In countries such as the UK and the US, this story has shaped our norms and values for around 35 years: since Thatcher and Reagan came to power. It is rapidly colonising the rest of the world.
Verhaeghe points out that neoliberalism draws on the ancient Greek idea that our ethics are innate (and governed by a state of nature it calls the market) and on the Christian idea that humankind is inherently selfish and acquisitive. Rather than seeking to suppress these characteristics, neoliberalism celebrates them: it claims that unrestricted competition, driven by self-interest, leads to innovation and economic growth, enhancing the welfare of all.
Advertisement
At the heart of this story is the notion of merit. Untrammelled competition rewards people who have talent, work hard, and innovate. It breaks down hierarchies and creates a world of opportunity and mobility.
The reality is rather different. Even at the beginning of the process, when markets are first deregulated, we do not start with equal opportunities. Some people are a long way down the track before the starting gun is fired. This is how the Russian oligarchs managed to acquire such wealth when the Soviet Union broke up. They weren’t, on the whole, the most talented, hardworking or innovative people, but those with the fewest scruples, the most thugs, and the best contacts – often in the KGB.
Even when outcomes are based on talent and hard work, they don’t stay that way for long. Once the first generation of liberated entrepreneurs has made its money, the initial meritocracy is replaced by a new elite, which insulates its children from competition by inheritance and the best education money can buy. Where market fundamentalism has been most fiercely applied – in countries like the US and UK – social mobility has greatly declined.
If neoliberalism was anything other than a self-serving con, whose gurus and thinktanks were financed from the beginning by some of the world’s richest people (the US multimillionaires Coors, Olin, Scaife, Pew and others), its apostles would have demanded, as a precondition for a society based on merit, that no one should start life with the unfair advantage of inherited wealth or economically determined education. But they never believed in their own doctrine. Enterprise, as a result, quickly gave way to rent.
All this is ignored, and success or failure in the market economy are ascribed solely to the efforts of the individual. The rich are the new righteous; the poor are the new deviants, who have failed both economically and morally and are now classified as social parasites.
The market was meant to emancipate us, offering autonomy and freedom. Instead it has delivered atomisation and loneliness.
The workplace has been overwhelmed by a mad, Kafkaesque infrastructure of assessments, monitoring, measuring, surveillance and audits, centrally directed and rigidly planned, whose purpose is to reward the winners and punish the losers. It destroys autonomy, enterprise, innovation and loyalty, and breeds frustration, envy and fear. Through a magnificent paradox, it has led to the revival of a grand old Soviet tradition known in Russian as tufta. It means falsification of statistics to meet the diktats of unaccountable power.
The same forces afflict those who can’t find work. They must now contend, alongside the other humiliations of unemployment, with a whole new level of snooping and monitoring. All this, Verhaeghe points out, is fundamental to the neoliberal model, which everywhere insists on comparison, evaluation and quantification. We find ourselves technically free but powerless. Whether in work or out of work, we must live by the same rules or perish. All the major political parties promote them, so we have no political power either. In the name of autonomy and freedom we have ended up controlled by a grinding, faceless bureaucracy.
These shifts have been accompanied, Verhaeghe writes, by a spectacular rise in certain psychiatric conditions: self-harm, eating disorders, depression and personality disorders.
Of the personality disorders, the most common are performance anxiety and social phobia: both of which reflect a fear of other people, who are perceived as both evaluators and competitors – the only roles for society that market fundamentalism admits. Depression and loneliness plague us.
The infantilising diktats of the workplace destroy our self-respect. Those who end up at the bottom of the pile are assailed by guilt and shame. The self-attribution fallacy cuts both ways: just as we congratulate ourselves for our success, we blame ourselves for our failure, even if we have little to do with it.
So, if you don’t fit in, if you feel at odds with the world, if your identity is troubled and frayed, if you feel lost and ashamed – it could be because you have retained the human values you were supposed to have discarded. You are a deviant. Be proud.
Twitter: @georgemonbiot.
Friday, July 25, 2014
Operation Badr- Gaza Under Attack!
The tragedy in Gaza lingers. The sub-human animals in the ranks of the Zionist-Israelis scent blood, while the world is distracted by Ukraine-Russian separatists, opportunity to undermine Putin, downing of 3 (THREE!) passenger planes in a week and the repercussions, Commonwealth Games (Games! at a time of sorrow..). They want to send out a message that their capacity to do as they wish is unfettered, no more chest-beating statements from Obama urging them to stop settlements, John Kerry is giving ceasefire conditions in which the IDG will be allowed to search for tunnels and destroy them, presumably while doing so arresting Hamas "militants" and deferring their killings, as the IDF is "moral-bound" and "adheres to international laws on warfare".. Tony Blair is walking around gathering support for Israel.. and how totally consistent for the sub-humans to step up their violence on the night of 27th Ramadhan. Can just anticipate the sub-humans step down their violence on Eid because of humanitarian reasons as their job is done.
Such depressing developments. May Allah destroy the arrogance of this species and deal with them in the Hereafter, and He is the All-Seeing, the One providing the Recompense that the Zionint-Israelis are fearful of, but are walking towards at their own accord. Amin.
From: the Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/gaza-hamas-fighters-military-bases-guerrilla-war-civilians-israel-idf
In Gaza, Hamas fighters are among civilians. There is nowhere else for them to go
Lines are blurred when a guerrilla war is fought in as dense a place as Gaza but the IDF's HQ is also surrounded by civilians
A Palestinian medic holds two children hurt in an Israeli strike on a UN school in Beit Hanoun, Gaza
A Palestinian medic holds two children wounded in an Israeli strike on a UN school in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. The attack killed at least 15 people. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
Thursday 24 July 2014 20.55 BST
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Israel's accusation that Hamas is using civilians as human shields has grown increasingly strident as the war in Gaza worsens.
The charge is laid relentlessly by political and military leaders and media commentators, repeated in conversations by members of the public and echoed in the comments of foreign politicians and diplomats. On the other side of the conflict, the accusation is vigorously denied by Hamas and others in Gaza.
The truth is lost amid the propaganda battle being waged alongside the shells, bombs, guns and rockets. What is certain is that the picture is more complicated than either side claims.
Deliberately placing non-combatants in and around targets to deter enemy attack – the definition of human shields – is illegal under international law.
The Geneva conventions state: "The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations."
International law also bans the use of medical units or prisoners of war to deter enemy attack.
However, even if Hamas were violating the law on this matter, it would not legally justify Israel's bombing of areas where civilians are known to be.
"Any violation of these prohibitions shall not release the parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians, including the obligation to take the precautionary measures," the conventions say.
Advertisement
Israel claims Hamas routinely uses hospitals, mosques, schools and private homes to launch rockets at Israel, store weapons, hide command and control centres, shelter military personnel, and conceal tunnel shafts. This is their justification for targeting such places, despite the legal requirement to ensure its attacks are proportional, distinguish between military and civilian objects, and avoid civilian casualties.
Israel says it gives due notice of attack – by phone, text messages, leaflet drops and "warning missiles" – to give civilians the chance to leave.
A typical statement from the Israel Defence Forces, issued in the past few days, says: "While the IDF does everything that it can to avoid civilian casualties, Hamas deliberately puts Palestinian civilian lives in danger. Hamas hides weapons and missile launchers in densely populated areas. Instead of keeping its citizens out of harm's way, Hamas encourages and even forces Gazans to join its violent resistance against Israel. It sends men, women and children directly into the line of fire to be used as human shields for terrorists."
On Wednesday, the IDF released a series of maps purporting to show Hamas military sites close to – but not in – schools, hospitals, mosques and residential buildings. It also released video, which it said showed militants using an ambulance to flee after coming under attack by IDF troops, and said the grounds and vicinity of al-Wafa hospital in Gaza City had been "repeatedly utilised by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a command centre, rocket-launching site, and a post enabling terrorists to open fire at soldiers".
Israel has repeatedly targeted the rehabilitation hospital during the course of the conflict, finally destroying the heavily damaged and, by then, empty building on Wednesday.
But the hospital's director rejected the Israeli assertion that the hospital had been used for military purposes by Hamas or other militant groups. In a statement, Basman Alashi said: "Israel has targeted our hospital based on false and misleading claims. They are targeting medical facilities, the wounded, the sick and our children, all over the Gaza Strip. They want us to know that nowhere is safe."
He added: "I hope things calm down as soon as possible. It's painful to see what's happening and that the hospital has become a target for military attacks."
The UN's discovery of arms caches in two of its schools in the past week has given Israel's assertions credence. "UNRWA [the UN agency for Palestinian refugees] immediately informed all relevant parties and issued a statement strongly condemning the abuse of its premises," said a spokesman, Chris Gunness. The UN agency UNRWA's shelters have been shelled on four occasions in recent days, despite officials giving precise coordinates to the IDF.
Israel also claimed that Hamas had forced civilians to remain in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Shujai'iya after the IDF warned them to evacuate ahead of its assault on Sunday. Civilians were being "held as hostages", said Peter Lerner, an IDF military spokesman.
These claims have not been backed up by independent reporting from international journalists covering the war from Gaza. Instead, dispatches from the ground have presented complex reasons why some residents did not evacuate from Shujai'iya and other areas targeted by the IDF. Many said nowhere in Gaza was safe, so they saw little point in abandoning their homes.
Others cited worries about not knowing the identities of people who would be their new neighbours; they could be evacuating a familiar neighbourhood for one that was a militant stronghold and others were simply too terrified to go out on the streets. Many media reports said there was no evidence of coercion by Hamas.
In fact, tens of thousands of people have fled their homes for what they hope is a safer place. UNRWA reports that more than 140,000 people have sought shelter in its properties; churches and mosques have been overwhelmed by displaced civilians; the grounds of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City have begun to resemble a makeshift refugee camp. These families are in fear of their lives, but they overwhelmingly cite Israeli bombing and shelling as the cause, rather than threats from Hamas.
Gaza is one of the most overcrowded places on earth. Almost two million people are crammed into a strip of land just 25 miles long and between three and a half and seven miles wide – roughly the same size as the Isle of Wight. In general there are few opportunities to leave; and in the midst of a conflict such as this, there is no exit.
The current war is not being fought on a conventional battlefield. Israel is pounding Gaza from the air, and its troops are increasingly fighting battles against a guerrilla army in densely populated urban areas – which constitute much of the Gaza Strip. As Israeli tanks and troops push further into the towns and cities, it is increasingly likely that Hamas will launch attacks from positions close to civilian buildings.
The separation between "civilian" and "military" in Gaza is much more blurred than with a conventional army – both physically and in the Gazan psyche. Hamas and other militants are embedded in the population. Their fighters are not quartered in military barracks, but sleep at night in their family homes. While it is not difficult to find antipathy to Hamas on the streets of Gaza in quiet times, most people defend their "right to resist" – and under such sustained military attack, support for Hamas rises.
Israel, meanwhile, does not have an unblemished record in the use of human shields. In 2010, two soldiers were convicted in an IDF military court of using an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield in its 2008-09 operation in Gaza. The pair ordered the child to search bags they suspected of being booby-trapped.
It was the first conviction of what is known within the IDF as the "neighbour procedure" – forcing civilians to assist troops in military operations. Investigations by news organisations and human rights groups have suggested the IDF has used Palestinians as human shields in operations in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Meanwhile, in response to Israel's assertions that Hamas situates its military centres in civilian areas, some have pointed out that the IDF's headquarters, the Kiriya, is in central Tel Aviv, surrounded by a hospital, blocks of flats, shopping centres and offices.
Such depressing developments. May Allah destroy the arrogance of this species and deal with them in the Hereafter, and He is the All-Seeing, the One providing the Recompense that the Zionint-Israelis are fearful of, but are walking towards at their own accord. Amin.
From: the Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/gaza-hamas-fighters-military-bases-guerrilla-war-civilians-israel-idf
In Gaza, Hamas fighters are among civilians. There is nowhere else for them to go
Lines are blurred when a guerrilla war is fought in as dense a place as Gaza but the IDF's HQ is also surrounded by civilians
A Palestinian medic holds two children hurt in an Israeli strike on a UN school in Beit Hanoun, Gaza
A Palestinian medic holds two children wounded in an Israeli strike on a UN school in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. The attack killed at least 15 people. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
Thursday 24 July 2014 20.55 BST
Share this article
Share via Email
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Google+
Israel's accusation that Hamas is using civilians as human shields has grown increasingly strident as the war in Gaza worsens.
The charge is laid relentlessly by political and military leaders and media commentators, repeated in conversations by members of the public and echoed in the comments of foreign politicians and diplomats. On the other side of the conflict, the accusation is vigorously denied by Hamas and others in Gaza.
The truth is lost amid the propaganda battle being waged alongside the shells, bombs, guns and rockets. What is certain is that the picture is more complicated than either side claims.
Deliberately placing non-combatants in and around targets to deter enemy attack – the definition of human shields – is illegal under international law.
The Geneva conventions state: "The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations."
International law also bans the use of medical units or prisoners of war to deter enemy attack.
However, even if Hamas were violating the law on this matter, it would not legally justify Israel's bombing of areas where civilians are known to be.
"Any violation of these prohibitions shall not release the parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians, including the obligation to take the precautionary measures," the conventions say.
Advertisement
Israel claims Hamas routinely uses hospitals, mosques, schools and private homes to launch rockets at Israel, store weapons, hide command and control centres, shelter military personnel, and conceal tunnel shafts. This is their justification for targeting such places, despite the legal requirement to ensure its attacks are proportional, distinguish between military and civilian objects, and avoid civilian casualties.
Israel says it gives due notice of attack – by phone, text messages, leaflet drops and "warning missiles" – to give civilians the chance to leave.
A typical statement from the Israel Defence Forces, issued in the past few days, says: "While the IDF does everything that it can to avoid civilian casualties, Hamas deliberately puts Palestinian civilian lives in danger. Hamas hides weapons and missile launchers in densely populated areas. Instead of keeping its citizens out of harm's way, Hamas encourages and even forces Gazans to join its violent resistance against Israel. It sends men, women and children directly into the line of fire to be used as human shields for terrorists."
On Wednesday, the IDF released a series of maps purporting to show Hamas military sites close to – but not in – schools, hospitals, mosques and residential buildings. It also released video, which it said showed militants using an ambulance to flee after coming under attack by IDF troops, and said the grounds and vicinity of al-Wafa hospital in Gaza City had been "repeatedly utilised by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a command centre, rocket-launching site, and a post enabling terrorists to open fire at soldiers".
Israel has repeatedly targeted the rehabilitation hospital during the course of the conflict, finally destroying the heavily damaged and, by then, empty building on Wednesday.
But the hospital's director rejected the Israeli assertion that the hospital had been used for military purposes by Hamas or other militant groups. In a statement, Basman Alashi said: "Israel has targeted our hospital based on false and misleading claims. They are targeting medical facilities, the wounded, the sick and our children, all over the Gaza Strip. They want us to know that nowhere is safe."
He added: "I hope things calm down as soon as possible. It's painful to see what's happening and that the hospital has become a target for military attacks."
The UN's discovery of arms caches in two of its schools in the past week has given Israel's assertions credence. "UNRWA [the UN agency for Palestinian refugees] immediately informed all relevant parties and issued a statement strongly condemning the abuse of its premises," said a spokesman, Chris Gunness. The UN agency UNRWA's shelters have been shelled on four occasions in recent days, despite officials giving precise coordinates to the IDF.
Israel also claimed that Hamas had forced civilians to remain in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Shujai'iya after the IDF warned them to evacuate ahead of its assault on Sunday. Civilians were being "held as hostages", said Peter Lerner, an IDF military spokesman.
These claims have not been backed up by independent reporting from international journalists covering the war from Gaza. Instead, dispatches from the ground have presented complex reasons why some residents did not evacuate from Shujai'iya and other areas targeted by the IDF. Many said nowhere in Gaza was safe, so they saw little point in abandoning their homes.
Others cited worries about not knowing the identities of people who would be their new neighbours; they could be evacuating a familiar neighbourhood for one that was a militant stronghold and others were simply too terrified to go out on the streets. Many media reports said there was no evidence of coercion by Hamas.
In fact, tens of thousands of people have fled their homes for what they hope is a safer place. UNRWA reports that more than 140,000 people have sought shelter in its properties; churches and mosques have been overwhelmed by displaced civilians; the grounds of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City have begun to resemble a makeshift refugee camp. These families are in fear of their lives, but they overwhelmingly cite Israeli bombing and shelling as the cause, rather than threats from Hamas.
Gaza is one of the most overcrowded places on earth. Almost two million people are crammed into a strip of land just 25 miles long and between three and a half and seven miles wide – roughly the same size as the Isle of Wight. In general there are few opportunities to leave; and in the midst of a conflict such as this, there is no exit.
The current war is not being fought on a conventional battlefield. Israel is pounding Gaza from the air, and its troops are increasingly fighting battles against a guerrilla army in densely populated urban areas – which constitute much of the Gaza Strip. As Israeli tanks and troops push further into the towns and cities, it is increasingly likely that Hamas will launch attacks from positions close to civilian buildings.
The separation between "civilian" and "military" in Gaza is much more blurred than with a conventional army – both physically and in the Gazan psyche. Hamas and other militants are embedded in the population. Their fighters are not quartered in military barracks, but sleep at night in their family homes. While it is not difficult to find antipathy to Hamas on the streets of Gaza in quiet times, most people defend their "right to resist" – and under such sustained military attack, support for Hamas rises.
Israel, meanwhile, does not have an unblemished record in the use of human shields. In 2010, two soldiers were convicted in an IDF military court of using an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield in its 2008-09 operation in Gaza. The pair ordered the child to search bags they suspected of being booby-trapped.
It was the first conviction of what is known within the IDF as the "neighbour procedure" – forcing civilians to assist troops in military operations. Investigations by news organisations and human rights groups have suggested the IDF has used Palestinians as human shields in operations in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Meanwhile, in response to Israel's assertions that Hamas situates its military centres in civilian areas, some have pointed out that the IDF's headquarters, the Kiriya, is in central Tel Aviv, surrounded by a hospital, blocks of flats, shopping centres and offices.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
From the Guardian: Inside the Gaza tunnels
Flinflan thought you might be interested in this link from the Guardian: Inside the Gaza tunnels
They were one of Israel's key targets during its three-week assault on Gaza. But the relentless air strikes failed to destroy the hundreds of tunnels running under the border to Egypt. Rory McCarthy goes underground to watch the everyday smuggling of boxes of women's underwear, car parts and even goats
In pictures: Gaza's labyrinth lifeline
Rory McCarthy Tuesday 10 February 2009
The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/feb/10/gaza-tunnels-israel
----
Barely a few paces from the Egyptian border stands a large white tent, fashioned from plastic sheeting and pockmarked with jagged shrapnel holes. Inside, as in the hundreds of identical tents dotted to the left and right, is a scene of energy and illicit industriousness: a dozen Palestinian smugglers sweating to overcome the punitive economic blockade on Gaza. A stone's throw away on the opposite side of the border is an Egyptian police post, with relaxed uniformed officers standing on the roof. They gaze down without a hint of concern.
One unanswered question of Israel's three-week war in Gaza is why the air strikes, artillery shells, tank fire, bulldozing and detonations that caused such devastation and loss of life across the territory did so little damage to the hundreds of smuggling tunnels under Gaza's southern border with Egypt. Those tunnels, which bring in food, clothes, machinery as well as weapons and ammunition, were supposed to be one of Israel's key targets. On the final day of the conflict alone, the Israeli military said it had hit 100 tunnels. Gazans in the border town of Rafah spoke of night after night of enormous air strikes that shook cracks into the walls of their houses and shattered their windows.
But while the sandy border is marked with many large craters, the damage caused to the tunnels was, in many cases, repaired within days. Already some are operating again and new tunnels are being dug under the close eye of Hamas officials, who walk from one tent to the next clutching their walkie-talkies.
The smugglers believe their tunnels were simply too deep to be badly damaged, even by the heavy 500lb or one-tonne bombs dropped by Israeli F-16s. In most cases, the serious damage was only to the entrances to the tunnels, which were soon uncovered again by the Palestinians using bulldozers and then rebuilt. It may be that the focus of the Israeli attacks was on the weapons tunnels, which are closely guarded by Hamas and other armed groups and not open to public view.
Inside the large white tent is a wooden coat rack from which hang the jackets and spare clothes of a dozen men or more. To the right is an electrical circuit board with five sockets. From the back, the wires run out of the tent, across the sand dunes and directly into the public electricity supply of the municipality of Rafah. From the front, a cord runs out to power a winch. Outside, a large black plastic water butt with a tap provides the thirsty workers with fresh drinking water - again, courtesy of the municipality. All of this is registered and paid for. Smuggling in Gaza is a semi-official business.
The focus of activity is the tunnel's well: a 15m deep shaft lined on its four sides by planks of wood. Three metal beams are positioned pyramid-shape over the well and support the electric winch, whose cable runs down the shaft to the sandy floor below. There, two men crouch low and operate two more winches that run horizontally 300m to the south along the tunnel, stretching out of Gaza and into Egypt. One of the winches draws in the goods from the Egyptian side, a train of boxes and sacks sliding over the sand on plastic containers. The second winch sends back the empty containers for reloading.
It took about eight weeks to dig this tunnel; a team of men worked long days underground using a pneumatic drill to dig out the soil, which they then carried out in large, plastic containers and dumped nearby. By the time it was finished, the tunnel was tall enough for a man to stand with his head bowed, and nearly a metre wide along its full length. The tunnel walls are bare soil with regular wooden supports to prevent collapse - although it still remains a dangerous business. Around 40 Palestinian tunnellers were killed last year in cave-ins.
It is midday and the work is constant. Every 30 seconds one of the men below shouts "Raise" and a man sitting over the mouth of the well switches on the winch and pulls up another sack. So far this morning, they have contained: dry, yellow chickenfeed; spare parts for cars; a box of coat hooks; microwaves; kerosene cookers; packets of rather dowdy women's underwear; and now several large, 5.5kW generators.
Notably absent are drugs and alcohol, which are forbidden by Hamas; cigarettes, which are heavily taxed by Hamas; and anything even resembling weaponry or military material, which come in through more discreet tunnels far from the public eye that may or may not have been more seriously damaged by the war.
"Without these tunnels, everything would stop in Gaza," says one of the workers, who gave his name only as Abu Zeid, 22. "And they say we are terrorists. Where are the terrorists here? The world knows very well what's going on, but they don't want us to live. If they opened the crossings, why would we need to do this business?"
Since Israel pulled its soldiers and settlers out of Gaza in mid-2005, it has imposed an ever-tighter economic blockade on what it calls the "hostile entity". For the past year and a half, that has meant closures of the crossings: banning all exports and prohibiting all imports, save for a limited list of humanitarian goods. Even the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon called it "collective punishment" - illegal under international law. It has left more than 80% of Gazans reliant on aid.
The policy was designed to weaken Hamas and convince the Palestinians they had made a mistake when, in 2006 - in what was widely acknowledged as one of the most free and fair elections in the Arab world - they voted in strength for the Islamists. Egypt has also kept its border crossing at Rafah largely closed. "It's politics, dirty politics," says Abu Zeid.
Most of the workers in this tunnel were once employed as daily labourers within Israel, but Palestinians have long been refused such jobs. Now in Gaza there is barely any work available. Some at this tunnel are former policemen once employed by Hamas's bitter rival, Fatah; others are farmers whose livelihoods collapsed with the ban on exports. "There is nothing for us except the tunnels," says another worker.
"I have a house, and land and money but I want to go abroad," says Abu Eyash, 28, a tunneller who once spent four years in an Israeli jail for his connections with Fatah. "I'm not satisfied here. There's always war and never any security."
These men may not earn much from the tunnels, but others do. The tunnel cost around £100,000 to build and the owners say they earned that back within the first two months. The original owners of the land are given a 10% commission and Egyptian security officials on the other side earn healthy bribes. As his staff worked, one of the owners took out a thick fold of dollar bills, from which he was to send the equivalent of £13,000 to the Egyptians, enough to provide protection for the tunnel for around 10 days until the next payment was due.
In the last two weeks since the end of its war in Gaza, Israel has launched several more air strikes against the tunnels after militants from small, non-Hamas groups fired rockets and mortars into southern Israel. This tunnel was one of those hit, although the workers said the damage would take only a few days to repair.
Not everyone celebrates the tunnel industry. A short walk back from this tent is the home of Mohammad Abu Saud, 40, who is spending the day covering his broken windows with plastic sheeting and wondering how he is ever going to repair the massive cracks in his walls caused by the bombing of the tunnels. "I don't earn any benefit from the tunnels and I'm suffering because of them - you can see the cracks here and the windows gone, as well as the fact that the prices in the market have risen a lot," he says.
"I think the tunnels are delaying a solution," says his brother Ala'a, 35. "If there were no tunnels, there would be such a heavy price that it would force Hamas to sit and find a solution and the only solution is to reopen the crossings. I'm not even asking them to liberate Palestine, just open the crossings."
Around half an hour's drive north from the border are the recently destroyed remains of what, a month ago, was one of the largest food-processing factory compounds in the Gaza strip, owned by the wealthy al-Wadeya brothers. Yaser al-Wadeya has a PhD in industrial engineering from Cleveland State University and little sympathy for Hamas. He estimates the damage caused by the Israeli military to his biscuit, ice-cream, snacks and dessert factories is worth around £15m. Even if he had the money for repairs, Israel's restrictions mean he would not be able to import new machinery.
Even before the war, Al-Wadeya directed some of his Israeli suppliers to give up waiting for the Israeli crossings to open and ship their products to Egypt, then for them to be smuggled under the border into Gaza. "The main reason for all of this is to destroy the economic infrastructure of the weak Palestinian economy," he says. "They want to make sure that we will never have a state in Palestine."
Israel's military said it was conducting "post-operation investigations" into accounts of civilian casualties and property damage, but added that it "does not target civilians or civilian infrastructure, including factories, unless it is being used by the Hamas for terrorist purposes".
However, Palestinians, including al-Wadeya, disagree and argue that much of the bombing during this war was aimed directly at civilian infrastructure. Among the other targets hit were the largest cement factory in Gaza, the largest flour mill, the only parliament building, a major sewage project and the leading private school, not to mention the 21,000 homes and more than 200 factories completely or partially destroyed.
Al-Wadeya argues that Israel has allowed the commercial tunnel economy to function as part of a broader campaign to break Gaza's economic and political links with Israel and to force it towards a dependent relationship with Egypt. "During the occupation, from the beginning until now, our whole relationship is with Israel. You can't just break it and move towards Egypt," he says.
Some senior Israelis have spoken publicly in recent years of their desire to hand over responsibility for Gaza to Egypt, and to keep most of the Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank while handing the remaining Palestinian cantons over to Jordanian control. Ironically, Hamas, with its insistence on opening the Rafah crossing with Egypt to give access to the rest of the Islamic world, appears at times to be pushing for the same future for Gaza.
The Islamists appear not to have grasped the full extent of the devastation suffered in Gaza, or the people's frustration. Shortly after the war, a Hamas official arrived at the rubble of the factory and offered £3,500 towards its repair. "I told him to get the hell out of here," says Al-Wadeya. "What would that buy? Not even new locks for the doors.
"I really believe that if we stay where we are with Hamas and Fatah and this political issue, we will never do anything in Gaza. It will become like Somalia or Sudan," he says. "We need two peaceful states, Palestine and Israel, living together. Without this we will be at war for the next century."
Going underground: a history of wartime tunnel systems
Afghanistan Tora Bora
Financed by the CIA and created by the mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Tora Bora complex contains miles of tunnels, bunkers and fortified caves. Close to the White Mountain range near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, the complex is where Osama bin Laden is believed to have hidden with 1,000 Taliban fighters. The caves and passages apparently have ventilation and power systems running on electric generators.
Gibraltar The galleries
Inside the Rock of Gibraltar is a honeycomb of tunnels known as the galleries. The first passages were built during the great siege in 1779-1783, when Spanish troops attacked the Rock. Soldiers from the garrison dug through the stone to a promontory on the north face, which allowed them to fire on the Spanish below. In total, 304m of halls, passages and openings were created. More tunnels were added during the second world war when the British feared Gibraltar would be attacked. The tunnel system was expanded and the rock became a keystone in the defence of shipping routes to the Mediterranean.
Bosnia Sarajevo tunnel
In 1993, citizens in Sarajevo began constructing a 1.5m high, 800m long underground passage. Their city was under siege from Serbian forces and the tunnel led to the UN-designated neutral area of Sarajevo airport. Bosnian volunteers worked in eight-hour shifts using picks and shovels to create a way for food, aid and weapons to come into the city, and people to escape. The tunnel was most famously used to transport the former Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic in his wheelchair out of the city.
Vietnam Cu Chi and Vinh Moc tunnels
During the Vietnam war American soldiers came up against the Viet Cong's Cu Chi tunnels. This huge system of underground passages stretched from the Cambodian border in the west to the outskirts of Saigon, running below the jungles of Vietnam. Used to mount surprise attacks against US troops, the tiny tunnels led to subterranean rooms, some of which were big enough to be used as hospitals, arms stores and even theatres. The first passages were built during the 1948 war of independence with France to link villages. Later, the Viet Cong painstakingly expanded them by hand until they covered 250km. To attack the tunnels, the US created a volunteer force made up of soldiers small enough to fit down the passages. After negotiating hidden traps of sharpened bamboo spikes, they had to fight their enemy in the tunnels. The complex has now become a war memorial park.
Under the former demilitarised zone that ran between the communist north and capitalist south, lie the Vinh Moc tunnels. They were built to shelter people from the intense bombing of the area and included wells, kitchens, rooms for each family and spaces for healthcare. Around 60 families lived in them - and as many as 17 children were born inside.
Jersey War tunnels
Created during the German occupation of the island in the second world war, these tunnels were built by more than 5,000 slave labourers brought to Jersey. Many of the Russians, Poles, Frenchmen and Spaniards died of malnutrition or disease. Originally constructed as an ammunition store and artillery barracks, the tunnels were later converted to a casualty clearing station as D-Day drew nearer.
Poland Stalag Luft III
Immortalised in the film the Great Escape, Tom, Dick and Harry were the tunnels created by the prisoners of the Stalag Luft III camp in Poland. Work on the tunnels began in 1942 and during the night of March 24, 1944, 76 inmates managed to escape down a 101m tunnel. All but three of the men were recaptured; the Gestapo shot 50 and returned the remainder to captivity.
France Catacombs
Organised in a section of Paris's vast network of subterranean tunnels, the catacombs were a tourist attraction in the early 19th century. This cemetery covers a portion of Paris' former mines near the Left Bank's Place Denfert-Rochereau. During the second world war, both Parisian members of the French resistance and German soldiers used the tunnels.
Homa Khaleeli
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Tuesday, July 1, 2014
One of the best sporting gifs collection on The Guardian so far..
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/jun/28/gifs-world-cup-cristiano-ronaldo-mexico-luis-suarez
Monday, June 2, 2014
ESPN.com:FC: Luis Suarez is soccer's most beautiful player
"FC: Luis Suarez is soccer's most beautiful player" is located at http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/10984370/portrait-serial-winner-luis-suarez-soccer-most-beautiful-player
Enjoy!
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