Obama derangement syndrome

As always, perfect sense from Rachel Maddow on Obama's Nobel - it echoes my feelings about the shock announcement.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Michael Moore has more to say on exactly why Obama deserves the Nobel.

The Eight Stages of Genocide

Crossposted from my new outlet, Cosmodaddy



How can we predict and prevent genocides? Greg Stanton outlines his groundbreaking theory on the eight stages of genocide: classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination and denial.

Genocide in Darfur, he argues, has proceeded through these stages before our eyes. Genocide could have been prevented by means of intervention at any one of a number of critical points in the past, but the international response has amounted to too little, too late.

This has always been the case and I don't see this changing anytime soon, despite the best efforts of fantastic groups like Avaaz though groups like them remain our best hope, as does the work of people like Stanton who help people understand that - yes - things can be done and that genocide is not some 'natural, unstoppable force' like an earthquake or a tornado.

One starting point would be for those responsible for doing nothing to be seen to learn lessons and admit their errors. For 'never again!' to mean anything, it's essential. This is why the campaign around Belgium, for example, to own up to its horrific history in the Congo is so important, as important as for Serbia to own up to its role in the Balkan's genocides in the 90s.

It's also close - very close - to home. This is from a post of mine last year about Hillary Clinton's claim that she tried to stop the Rwandan genocide.

Rewriting history over Rwanda

The Americans weren't alone. The British, the French, the Belgians and much of the rest of Africa all either didn't do anything or actively stopped aid. They all looked for their own interests and none had any interest in stopping genocide.

It was Britain's ambassador to the UN, Sir David Hannay, who proposed that the UN reduce its force. A year after the slaughter, the Foreign Office sent a letter to an international inquiry saying that it still did not accept the term genocide, seeing discussion on whether the massacres constituted genocide as "sterile". Then Ministers John Major, Douglas Hurd, Malcolm Rifkind and Lynda Chalker have never even been asked about their role.

Virtually no-one emerges heroically (Canadian peacekeeper Roméo Dallaire is one and his view on Clinton's claims would be interesting to hear). In fact I would urge anyone to make themselves read the harrowing background as an object lesson in international power politics and its victims - a million of them in Rwanda. There's a blog which covers the 100 days before and during the slaughter in detail. 'A People Betrayed' by Linda Melvern is very good.

For Hillary to now try to adopt that heroic mantle is, as commentators have noted, worse than 'monstrous'.

Almost - almost - as monstrous as this comment from Gordon Brown:

"You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken."

Where is Twitter on the genocides happening right now in the DR of Congo? Or the slaughter of indigenous people in Peru? Where is Brown? Where is Sarah Brown!?

Here is a list of the genocides taking place now in the world.

The media doesn't give a damn and, unfortunate but true, neither do most Twitter users.

HT: Domino

Colalife: using sugary drink distribution for good

My friend Russell Tanner spent an hour on Friday afternoon furiously tweeting away whilst precariously perched on top of a plinth in Trafalgar Square.

Of course he was part of the One and Other project and decided to use his hour to promote the Colalife project.

ColaLife is a campaign to get Coca-Cola to open up its distribution channels in developing countries to save lives, especially children’s lives, by carrying much needed ’social products’ such as oral rehydration salts and high-dose vitamin A tablets.

For the latest on the campaign, please visit the blog. ColaLife is an independent and purely voluntary movement backed by thousands of supporters on its Facebook Group. ColaLife is not an organisation.

It was launched by Simon Berry, who had an idea while working on the British Aid programme in 1988:

What about Coca Cola using their distribution channels (which are amazing in developing countries) to distribute rehydration salts? Maybe by dedicating one compartment in every 10 crates as ‘the life saving’ compartment?

Having made no progress with the idea for 20 years, Simon decided to try once more but this time using the convening power of the internet. Since floating the idea on his blog in May 2008, he has managed to create a huge community around the campaign, through a Facebook group and appearances on Radio 4’s iPM programme. He is now in discussions with Coca-Cola and is looking to engage with an international NGO to move the project forward.

Here's Simon and Russell talking about Colalife.

On July 4, declare independence from corporate rule

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Gay Iranians and the 'Green Revolution'

Photo source

Iranians are struggling for their rights and we, LGBTQs, are within people. We are active in this battle as citizens of Iran but we do not want to make any problem or additional pressure on our oppressed community.

From a letter to the author by Iranian gay students

Since the declaration of the results of the Iranian Presidential election on June 12 the world has been following what's been termed 'the green revolution' on the streets of Iran's cities.

Much has been written about how women are leading the protests and demands for democracy:

For these wives, mothers, sisters and daughters, their march to oust Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has everything to do with their desire for equal rights.

The regime in Iran obviously feels threatened by peaceful female activism. They branded as illegal the One Million Signatures Campaign initiated by women's rights groups in Iran, a campaign to change discriminatory laws against women in that country. Dozens of women involved in the effort have been harassed or jailed by the government.

But there are other, minority, groups suffering in Iran who have bravely joined the protests.

Lesbians and gays suffer severe social disapproval in Iran as in much of the Muslim world (or the Christian, see Uganda or Jamaica) but, as in Iraq and Lebanon, have historically been discreetly tolerated - gay nightclubs existed during the Shah's rule as they did under Saddam's.

Following the Islamic revolution in 1979 they have faced a state which threatens them with death (Iran is one of only a handful of countries where death is the penalty in law for what Iran's version of Sharia law calls 'Lavat') and which uses entrapment and 'morality police'. The regime's homophobic violence has also spilled over into Iraq where Shia death squads hunt gays.


Click image to enlarge map

Over the past ten years Human Rights organisations have documented numerous executions however getting hard information has been clouded by the regime's tactic - aware as they had become of their international image - of using other charges than homosexuality, such as rape.

This is what was alleged in the infamous case of teenagers Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni which produced images whose currency internationally against the regime is as strong as those of Neda, the young women shot by a Basiji militia during the protests on the streets of Tehran.

It is not confirmed that they were in fact gay and information about this and other cases is also clouded by their use by competing exile groups as well as right-wing American groups as propaganda. Nevertheless executions are known to have taken place. The boyfriend of the young Iranian gay asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi. who eventually won refuge in the UK, was killed by the regime.

The use of rape charges in particular is part of the hypocrisy and violence at the heart of the regime - rape is a tactic they themselves use to suppress and torture:

"It was on Saturday or Sunday that they raped me for the first time. There were three or four huge guys we had not seen before. They came to me and tore my clothes. I tried to resist but two of them laid me on the floor and the third did it. It was done in front of four other detainees.

"My cell mates, especially the older one, tried to console me. They said nobody loses his dignity through such an act. They did it to two other cell mates in the next days. Then it became a routine. We were so weak and beaten up that could not do anything.

"Then the interrogations started again. They said: 'If you don't come to your senses we will send you to Adel Abad [another prison in Shiraz] to the pederasts' section so that you receive such treatment every day.' I was so weak I did not know what to say. Then they asked for my contacts. I told them I had no contacts and I was informed about the demonstrations through the internet."

With the knowledge of what they face if arrested, the bravery of those not only on the streets but those who defy the regime and get word out via the censored and monitored internet is heroic.

All those (and it is around 32000) who have been following one young student on Twitter, Change_for_Iran, have heard first hand about the violent raid on Tehran University dormitories, his going into hiding in the city, his fears for his friends who could not be contacted and then his disappearance then reappearance on Twitter having got himself out of the city.

Gay students from Iran tell me that:

Iranian government is very sensitive about western media and they are monitoring the internet very carefully.

The students contacted me because of a letter which claimed to come from a gay Iranian student organisation which had been circulated by a Toronto, Canada, organisation. It had been quoted in an article I had distributed which was published by the Boston gay magazine Edge but none of them had signed it and they contacted 286 others throughout Iran and none of them had either.

They warned, in a letter signed by 28 named people:

"You will make a big problem for us by publishing this letter especially in this situation that many of students are subject of arrest by Iranian authorities."

The fear comes from the suggestion of the existence of an organisation of gay students. Hossein Alizadeh, of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission says that these fears are well-grounded:

"The reality is that gay people are always the easiest target for the government to go after. I’m worried that if there is a crackdown, they will be targeting gay people. LGBTs have a lot to lose if the result of this is that the current government is more entrenched."

Part of the government's crackdown on the 'Green Revolution' has been to, quoting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, label them "thieves, homosexuals and scumbags".

Yet the irony of this statement, apart from the fact that Ahmadinejad told an American audience in 2007 that "in Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country", is that, in the case of gays, they do form part of the opposition.



'Morality police' assaulting a young man on a Tehran street

"The Iranian LGBT community is angry, in addition all minorities. These are the people you see in the streets of Iran," says Arsham Parsi, of the IRanian Queer Railroad (IRQR). Like women and young people who face harassment and worse from the regime's morality police they are unhappy with the discrimination and being targeted by the government, he says.

"Enough is enough. They’re going to the street to support the green movement and saying, ’We do exist, we didn’t vote for you and we want our votes back.’"

LGBT activists in the west and their supporters and allies owe it to their incredibly brave brothers and sisters in Iran to do all we can to support the 'Green Revolution'




At a protest outside the London Iranian embassy

'This is a massacre!'

This is an incredibly emotional affecting report from Iran. Today eyewitnesses are reporting a massacre. Live, with Twitter et al - a massacre. I am ashamed to say this is not being relayed prominently via the BBC, who appear to have down-ranked Iran over the past two days.

From Twitter:

"In Baharestan Sq we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat blood everywhere like butcher"

'What can you say to the family of the 13 year-old boy who died from gunshots and whose dead body then disappeared?'

world needs to know of the atrocities and massacre at Baharestan Sq. & lalezar sq., ppl butchered today

they pull away the dead into trucks - like factory - no human can do this - we beg Allah for save us

@persiankiwi we must go dont know when internet they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names now we must move fast

Via @dailydish More then 150 killed on Saturday? #iranelection http://twitzap.com/u/Gjk

A witness describes beatings at a new protest under way in downtown Tehran.

Iran: video from the frontline

I am publishing YouTube clips from Iran on mattwardman.com.

Socially responsible outsourcing

I posted recently about mobile developments in Africa and how they are being used in a number of imaginative ways - many of which which we're yet to see in the 'West'!

As well as being used to organise day labour they're also used by people to do small jobs such as translations. In Kenya, with its many languages, this is how help resources for mobile companies' customer services are being built - word-by-word



Samasource is a fantastic new San Francisco non-profit that partners with small, talented, tech companies and nonprofit training centers in poor and rural communities (currently Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda, rural India, and Nepal) to find them clients.

It derives its name from the word sama, Sanskrit for “equal”.

Their partners must meet stringent social impact criteria - fewer than 20% of applicant firms are selected - and they specialize in services ranging from data entry to advanced software and website development.

It's about giving work, not aid to people in the world's poorest countries.

Socially Responsible Outsourcing 101

View more Microsoft Word documents from Leila Chirayath.

Here's a profile of Ann Wangui, a graduate with honors from Nairobi's Methodist University. She is an example of the sort of person who is struggling to find a job in Nairobi despite her qualifications and who Samasource aims to help.



This is certainly a much better approach than the one being adopted by the world's large tech companies. Erik Hersman recently posted Microsoft vs the Open Source Community in Africa.

If Microsoft developer communities do emerge in Africa, Erik writes, even with the massive hurdle of paying for expensive access to developer tools, "we’re still left with what one person wrote: …they will be formed from programmers who are completely dependent on American software for the livelihood: it’s neo-colonialism, pure and simple."

In Africa organizations have a lot of hurdles to overcome, not least of which is the straight cost of doing business. Where it might be simple for some organizations in the US and Europe to wave off a couple thousand dollars worth of licensing fees, the same is not true in Africa. The margins are lower, so every cent counts.

In a region where cost is so important, it’s amazing then that the most lucrative deals go to the Western organizations that have high costs for ownership and maintenance. These outside organizations use backdoor methods to gain contracts where in-country options are available, usually with less expense and with greater local support.

Hersman also reports that Microsoft are trying to muscle in on the African-developed Ushahidi crisis reporting social software with a new product called Vine. He says "if they really are about creating emergency and disaster software for use by normal people, then I would encourage them to not charge for it and to make it as open as possible for others to work with it."

Fat chance, I suspect.

HT: Owen Barder

IDAHO 2009: One Voice, One Message, Heard Around the World

This is a global video mashup for International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia 2009.

359 people from 48 countries took part in massive global web video project to mark the IDAHO 2009.

IDAHO was founded by a black French scholar and activist, Louis-Georges Tin, as a first truly global initiative, he says:

We are overwhelmed and, at the same time, humbled by this torrent of enthusiastic support that has poured in from all four corners of the world since we kickstarted the video project in April. People have made the effort to go to such places as the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Merlion, the Petronas Twin Towers and the Eiffel Tower to shoot their video, contributing to the spectacular visual feast you see in the mashup.

Gay Morrocco and Koranic anti-gay interpretations

News about 'Outrage sweeping across Morocco' following a gay association's announcement of a planned seminar on sexual problems led me to the video below.

The video tells the story of a gay couple's 'marriage', celebrated traditionally by their families and echoing centuries of actual Muslim tolerance of homosexuality.

It dramatically contradicts the news story which plies the same mythical line that certain churches and politicians in African states like Uganda have that "homosexuals have been attempting to infiltrate Moroccan culture".

It claims that "Moroccan authorities are in a very awkward situation since they are torn between European pressure and Morocco's conservative community".

Well good. The more pressure the better. As the video makes clear, you either support basic human rights or you don't. 'Culture' is no defence.

What's more, as with women's rights, it is not a case of 'change cannot happen because the Koran is clear'. The video explains how it's simply how it's interpreted - much like the bible - and some aspects highlighted and others ignored. Again, 'culture' is no defence' - and culture is not immutable.

This argument reflects those of the small but profoundly significant 'renaissance' movement amongst Muslims opposed to the likes of Saudi's Wahabbi's and Iran's rulers, saying there is another way. A movement which we're hear far too little about, instead we hear about zealots like Anjem Choudary.

HOMOSEXUALITY in MOROCCO & in ISLAM (part 1 - 5)

• Moroccan gay organisation Kifkif

Brown opposes Prop. 8, refuses to act on homophobic Home Office

Gordon Brown on his return from Washington:

"I was in America yesterday and I know you will be sorry I didn't bring Barack Obama back. He is coming soon. But what I saw in America told me what we have to do. This Proposition 8 [which banned gay marriage in California], this attempt to undo the good that has been done. This attempt to create divorces among 18,000 people who were perfectly legally brought together in partnerships, this is unacceptable and shows me why we always have to be vigilant, why we have always got to fight homophobic behaviour and any form of discrimination."

Speech by Peter Tatchell at Amnesty International headquarters on Friday 16 May 2008:

“Since 1999, the Labour government has repealed most of Britain’s anti-gay laws and introduced new legislation to recognise same-sex partnerships and protect gay people against discrimination.

“These positive gay rights measures are being undermined by Labour’s failure to tackle the homophobic and transphobic bias of the asylum system.

“We need urgent government action to implement five key policy changes to ensure a fair hearing for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) asylum applicants:

“First, all asylum staff and adjudicators should receive sexual orientation and transgender awareness training. They currently receive race and gender training but no training at all on sexual orientation and gender identity issues. As a result, they often make stereotyped assumptions: that a feminine woman can’t be a lesbian or that a masculine man cannot be gay. They sometimes rule that someone who has been married must be faking their homosexuality.

”Second, the government should issue explicit instructions to all immigration and asylum staff, and to all asylum judges, that homophobic and transphobic persecution are legitimate grounds for granting asylum. The government has never done this, which signals to asylum staff and judges that claims by LGBT people are not as worthy as those based on persecution because of a person’s ethnicity, gender, politics or faith.

”Third, the official Home Office country information reports - on which judges often rely when ruling on asylum applications - must be upgraded and expanded to reflect the true scale of anti-LGBT persecution. At the moment, the government’s documentation of anti-gay and anti-transgender persecution in individual countries is often partial, inaccurate and misleading. It consistently downplays the severity of victimisation suffered by LGBT people in violently homophobic countries like Pakistan, Uganda, Egypt, Nigeria, Iran, Cameroon, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Palestine and Saudi Arabia.

”Fourth, legal aid funding for asylum claims needs to be substantially increased. Existing funding levels are woefully inadequate. This means that most asylum applicants - gay and straight - are unable to prepare an adequate submission at their asylum hearing. Their solicitors don’t get paid enough to procure the necessary witness statements, medical reports and other vital corroborative evidence.

“Fifth, the Home Office needs to issue official instructions to asylum detention centre staff that they have a duty to stamp out anti-gay and anti-trans abuse, threats and violence. Many LGBT detainees report suffering homophobic victimisation, and say they fail to receive adequate protection and support from detention centre staff. These shortcomings need to be remedied by LGBT awareness training to ensure that detention centre staff take action against homophobic and transphobic perpetrators, and that they are committed to protect LGBT detainees who are being victimised.

“Labour’s claim to be a LGBT-friendly government rings hollow when it continues to fail genuine LGBT refugees. We must insist on an asylum system that is fair, just and compassionate – for LGBT refugees and for all refugees,” said Mr Tatchell.

Sample case histories of how the asylum system fails genuine LGBT refugees:

* Two years ago, Thando Dube embarked on a 33-day hunger strike in protest at being held in detention for six months. She was not a political dissident held by a brutal regime. She was a regular civilian who was incarcerated in a British asylum detention centre. Her crime? Thando is a lesbian who fled to the UK to escape the well-known persecution of LGBT people in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

* At least two gay Iranian asylum seekers have committed suicide in UK in the last five years, after being ordered by the Home Office to return to Iran. Israfil Shiri, aged 29, burned himself alive. Hussein Nasseri shot himself in the head. Both chose suicide rather than suffer deportation and probable execution by Iran’s ayatollahs.

* The Home Office insists that Jamaica is a “safe” country. Many LGBT Jamaican asylum applications are rejected, despite evidence from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that anti-gay attacks are widespread. In the Home Office’s view, gay Jamaicans can seek police protection. But the reality is, according to Amnesty, that “protection is often denied by the police, who in many cases appear to tacitly or actively support such violence.”

* Isaac K, aged 17, fled to Britain from Uganda after he was caught with his boyfriend. A mob, which included local officials, tried to kill him. According to the Home Office, what happened to Isaac does not constitute persecution and therefore he does not qualify for asylum.

* The Home Office likewise denies the abuse of gay men in Algeria. RK was jailed for homosexuality. In prison, he was raped and beaten by inmates and guards. His teeth were knocked out and he suffers from severe post-traumatic stress disorder. The Home Office insists that it is safe for RK to return to Algeria.

* Many LGBT victims are forcibly - even violently - deported back to their homophobic home countries. This happened to gay Jamaican, EB. He alleges violent beatings by Home Office-contracted security guards who forced him onto the plane. When he arrived in Kingston, his family say that he could barely walk.

These abuses are happening under a Labour government - a government that claims to support LGBT human rights.

I will add to Peter's proposals that LGBT asylum and immigration groups should be used, as the Canadian immigration minister has proposed, to help filter out false claims.

"The unemployed builders of Europe should be insulating all the houses of Europe"

Climate change is real, as anyone who has been to the Arctic knows. But we live in a world which is a little distracted at the moment by, er, global economic meltdown.

In this situation, the coming disaster of climate change has disappeared as ordinary people worry about now (rather than, say, their children's future). Short-tern profit, which is a big part of the banking disaster, also applies to the way the oil corporations operate, and they are the ones fueling climate change denial.

So it's a little difficult, given the usual politics, which we're still in, to get any buy-in to the sort of real meltdown which we face.

Waiting for a trip to Antarctica, to view the pools of melted water accumulating on the glaciers, Baron Nicolas Stern could have been speaking to the four winds in saying that if we don't deal with climate change decisively, "what we're talking about then is extended world war."

Later, at dinner, the heavyweights heard from smaller or poorer nations about the trials they face as warming disrupts climate, turns some regions drier, threatens food production in poor African nations.

Jose Endundo, environment minister of Congo, said he recently visited huge Lake Victoria in nearby Uganda, at 80,000 square kilometers (31,000 square miles) a vital source for the Nile River, and learned the lake level had dropped 3 meters (10 feet) in the past six years _ a loss blamed in part on warmer temperatures and diminishing rains.

In the face of such threats, "the rich countries have to give us a helping hand," the African minister said.

It's not happening. And western electorates just aren't interested (except in drought-ridden Australia), therefore their politicians aren't either.

Stern, drawing on the accumulated evidence, says:

"People would move on a massive scale. Hundreds of millions, probably billions of people would have to move if you talk about 4-, 5-, 6-degree increases" _ 7 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. And that would mean extended global conflict, "because there's no way the world can handle that kind of population move in the time period in which it would take place."

And this won't affect the UK? Our elderly future and the future of our kids?

So why aren't the various economic 'bailouts' focused on, as Stern puts it, getting "The unemployed builders of Europe insulating all the houses of Europe"?

Women are from Venus

Quite astonishing, and in lots of ways refreshing, report from Davos by Arianna Huffington:

My night started with a really special all-women's dinner on top of the Davos mountain, hosted by Wendi Murdoch and Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi, to raise awareness, pledges, and support for improving maternal health and infant mortality around the world.

I walked to take the funicular up to the mountain with Baroness Shriti Vadera, the Business Minister in Gordon Brown's government. I noticed that one of her fingers was bandaged, and asked her what had happened. "I cut it," she said, "and then did nothing about it for ten days, until it got really bad."

"Wasn't it hurting?"

"In what I'm doing," she replied, "I'm dealing with so much pain every day that I didn't notice mine." Maybe because we were going to an all-women's dinner, I wondered if that was a comment that would only be made by a woman business minister! In fact, the whole evening had a confessional air, mixing the personal and the political -- including the CEO of Pepsi tossing her prepared remarks and talking about how haunted she has been by the image she had seen of a hungry child rummaging for food. And that came after she had confessed that after years of always wearing the same suit in different fabrics and colors, she got out of her comfort zone for the first time as she was dressing for the dinner and wore something completely different that she had bought years ago and had left languishing in her closet. To much appreciative applause, she did a turn to show us her sleek black-and-white dress and coat. Then she went on to tell us what Pepsi is doing to alleviate hunger.

Sarah Brown, Britain's first lady, who spoke, called it the "new face of feminism," while Melinda Gates spoke passionately about the fact that "at the end of the day, what matters is not how much money I gave, or how much I cared but what kind of impact I had... how many lives did I lift up?"

The evening, which began on a personal note from Wendi Murdoch, recounting how her grandmother had died while giving birth to her mother, ended on another personal note when Sarah Brown turned to Cheri Blair and, from the podium, lauded the work and example set by the woman she succeeded at Downing Street. There was a hush in the room, as many of those present were aware of how the two women had barely been on speaking terms. So altogether a great evening, demonstrating both the need to take action to help women around the world and the value of setting aside grudges closer to home.

"Institutional sexism"? Whassat?

As Zim ditches Z$, millions face starvation

From Freakonomics

This currency has now been completely abandoned by even Zanu-PF.

Here in zimbabwe we are rapidly reversing the march of time and heading right back into the worst history has to offer.

Zimbabwe should revert to the ancient Yap system where gigantic one hundred pound, ten foot chunks of shiny stone were exchanged for goods (Yapese discs were commonly made of quartz, can’t [Central Bank head] Gono just hit the Matopos [hills] for a bit of this instead of the endless printing of waste paper and slashing of zeros?). Rolling stones would be a damn sight better than the wads of useless Z$ that are often seen littering the overgrown verges of our potholed and treacherous roads. Nobody bothers to even pick up discarded Gonillions, unless they need a dash to the nearest fetid public loo to deal with the common bouts of diarrhoea brought on by mucky tap water (pray not cholera).

From Sokwanele.

World Food Programme to cut core maize ration from 10kg to 5kg a month – or just 600 calories a day – for 70% of the population.

What to do? Sign the petition to move the World Cup from South Africa. Here I explain why.

It's about more than white phosphorus in Gaza

Seems like it's finally over in Gaza. After bombing a hospital, several schools and a food warehouse. Over 300 children are dead and for what? Certainly not 'victory'.

Trying to hide a smile and a sense of self-satisfaction Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced the cameras at the Defense Ministry and declared to the Israeli public, "We won."

But Hamas' gains cannot be ignored: It has won international legitimacy and sympathy, and its forces still control the Gaza Strip.

T'was weapons testing according to a Human Rights Watch investigator quoted in Haaretz (an Israeli newspaper).

Since the first day of the Israeli aerial attack, people have been giving exact descriptions of the side effects of the bombing, and claiming that Israel is using weapons and ammunition that they have not seen during the past eight years.

[Marc Garlasco, the HRW investigator] can only guess or make assumptions in some cases. But even from afar, he has no doubt: Israel is using white phosphorus bombs [the sort which hit the UN food and fuel warehouses]. That was immediately clear to him while he stood last week on a hill facing the Gaza Strip and observed the Israel Defense Forces' bombings for several hours.

The moment the bomb blows up and the phosphorus comes in contact with oxygen - it ignites. This is what creates the "fireworks" and billows of jellyfish-shaped smoke. The fallout covers a wide area and the danger of fires and harm to civilians is enormous. The phosphorus burns glass, and immediately ignites paper, trees, wood - anything that is dry. The burning wafers causes terrible injury to anyone who comes in contact with them. The irony is that tear gas is included in the Chemical Weapons Convention and is subject to all kinds of restrictions, whereas phosphorus is not.

Another new weapon that has forced itself upon Gazans is the GPS-guided mortar - a system equipped with satellite navigation, developed in Israel in late 2006-early 2007, in the wake of the Second Lebanon War. According to local military sources, it was this kind of mortar that missed its target by 30 meters and erroneously hit a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school last week; according to the UN report, 30 people were killed immediately and others died later of their injuries. "It really boggles my mind," Garlasco comments. "According to the literature, it has 3 meters' error - not 30." It is a mortar that is launched in an arc toward an unseen target, he explains, with the intention of being precise and to some extent minimize civilian casualties.

Garlasco says this is the first time the weapon has been used in any military conflict: "The Palestinians say, 'Oh, they use it on us, experiment with it for the Americans.' Experimenting has a different meaning for Americans. We think animal experimenting, but it is indeed a field test."

Only last September did the United States grant Israel's request to supply it with 1,000 bombs of a new type, the GBU-39 [aka DIME]. They arrived at the beginning of December, and inhabitants of Rafah have witnessed their use - without knowing what they were - since the first day of the aerial attacks on the tunnels there.

'Shake 'n' Bake'

Boeing makes them. It :

"Strikes a very small area, 10 to 20 meters, and the fire it ignites burns out very quickly; if it hits us now, we will die, but no one around us will be hurt. The problem is that when you are killed - you are ripped to shreds and there is nothing left."

In Al-Awda Hospital in the Jabalya refugee camp about 90 percent of the wounded were brought in with at least one limb missing. Is it the DIME that is causing the severe injuries being reported by the medical staff?

Another new weapon that he believes is now in use is the Spike:

"It is very new, [from] 2005-2006, a special missile that is made to make very high-speed turns, so if you have a target that is moving and running away from you, you can chase him with the weapon. It was developed by the U.S. Navy jointly with Rafael [the Israel Armament Development Authority]. Rafael is the manufacturer."

Also, the much quoted drones are an Israeli, world-leading 'product':

And America is learning a lot from it

Garlasco is not prepared to accept without question the Israeli claim that Hamas hides behind civilians and makes use of civilians.

Israelis are very quick to say they are doing it, but very short on proof. By keeping the independent people out, they leave doubt in people's minds.

It's worth noting the following: the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled against the use of Human Shields by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in 2005. This ruling was appealed.

And it's still happening: Israel Uses Gazans as Human Shields.

Postscript: Hamas hits the web

I said yesterday that

You cannot look at endless (18 minutes) pictures of dead children and not be affected - and not be politically affected. I'm sure - I know - there are some diehards out there but I sincerely doubt they're actually seeing these pictures.

And here are those diehards:



January 11 rally in front of the Israeli consulate in midtown New York.

"Wipe them all out".

The people of Gaza are a "cancer".

Etc.

Israel Uses Gazans as Human Shields

Hamas hits the web

Of course Hamas is already on the web, but, as with B'tselem's videos of the reality of occupation, this communication - a parade of dead children- is on another level to mere online words on their own version of YouTube.



Point being that you cannot look at endless (18 minutes) pictures of dead children and not be affected - and not be politically affected. I'm sure - I know - there are some diehards out there but I sincerely doubt they're actually seeing these pictures.

See the actual dead children then formulate a reason for killing them.

I have zero time for Hamas. As a gay man how can I? But more than that they are a dead end as a resistance. I'm Ghandiist on that score.

But I also have zero time for a hypocrisy which carries on extending its occupation of another's land.

Dead children does not = 'victory over evil terrorists'. Never. Watch the video and - I hope - weep.

Protect the human

Join a global demonstration in support of human rights and Amnesty International on 10 December: Celebrate Human Rights Day and the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Stand up with people all over the world who want to make human rights a reality for everyone.

Every human has rights. That is the essence of our humanity. It places on each of us the duty to stand up, not just for our own rights but also for those of others - and to help turn the vision of the UDHR into a reality. That is the spirit of international solidarity. That is the true meaning of universal, indivisible human rights.

On this significant anniversary, people will be gathering together in hundreds of places all over the globe, to light a candle, fire or flame as part of a mass demonstration. On Human Rights Day, stand up for human rights and show your solidarity with people all over the world who are committed to making human rights a reality for everyone.

Call a spade a spade

Some very interesting comments by Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party (South Africa) about Zimbabwe.

There is either a solution or there is not! There is, in my book, no such thing as a “made in Africa” solution. Zimbabwe either holds ‘free and fair elections’ like those recently held in America, or it does not.

Zimbabwe either adheres to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (to which it is a signatory) or it does not. It happens to do neither and no amount of pontificating about “African solutions” can disguise that fact. Her people are starving, the hyperinflation is running sky high, there is a humanitarian disaster of biblical proportions emerging with the cholera outbreak and the country is, for all intents and purposes, not being governed.

It is time to call a spade a spade.

Why, for instance, when Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990s, did we not hear any voices calling for “Balkan solutions for Balkan problems”? No one said “ah let the people of Kosovo sort it out” or it is “an internal matter for the people of Bosnia”. Yes, it sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? In the end, Bill Clinton reluctantly intervened with his European NATO allies.

I believe we have fallen prey to the notion of relative standards: we are expected to hold ‘free and fair elections’ like everyone else, but there is an unspoken bargain that we will be given a bit of leeway. A “bit” of voter fraud or a “few” acts of intimidation – even murder – will be overlooked as long as the election is held and the result expresses the will of the majority.

As an African, who shares the joy of millions of people across the globe at the election of an African American as the leader of the free world, I believe it is time to say that we – as Africans – should be expected to adhere to the same standards as everyone else.

Zanu-PF = Khmer Rouge

"We would be better off with only six million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people."

Didymus Mutasa – Zimbabwe’s Minister of State for National Security, Lands, Lands Reform, and Resettlement – August 2002 (source)

Another week in Zimbabwe and more cracks emerge and the regime becomes even more isolated in its own country - though its neighbours largely stand by and watch.

Botswana's Foreign Minister, Phando Skelemani, told the BBC last week that regional leaders will only criticise Mugabe behind his back.

Low ranking soldiers riot after having their salaries stolen from them by senior officers, the ones being payed first to ensure their loyalty, the ones who got farms when Mugabe 'liberated' the land in 2000. The economic (beyond) crisis means there's lietrally not enough money to keep the lower ranks happy.

So now they are resorting to this (report from Robb Ellis, 'The bearded man'):

Obviously, I cannot vouch for this story personally, but having served in the Zimbabwe Republic Police during the time of the Gukurahundi [the early 80s mass killings in Matabeleland] - a time which I was obliged, by virtue of being a policeman in uniform, to clean up the mess of the Fifth Brigade - I can easily believe it.

Such cruelty, such hatred, such venom... belongs behind bars...

"The embattled Zimbabwean strongman, Robert Mugabe ordered the chilling execution of 16 rioting soldiers in a cold blood murder carried out by members of the Presidential Guard death squads at its PG HQ Base in Dzivarasekwa, North West of the Capital. Three others died during torture, our confirmed source can reveal.

The callous act has been communicated to all members of the armed forces as a chilling warning by the paranoid regime.

Last night, a fast track military court Marshal at Army Head Quarters’ KG6 Barracks was presided over by the retired High court judge Major General George Chiweshe, sitting with three other assessors, two Majors and a Captain. They passed death sentences to the 16 soldiers and it was signed by Robert Mugabe just before midnight and executions were carried out around 4 am in the presents of a military Doctor and the victim's bodies were taken to unknown destination."

I have run this page since the end of February 2005 and it may become my life's work - together with my book "Without Honour" - and it may not be anything I am ever remembered for - but I have stood on the side of what is good and right.,and I have taken some serious shots by detractors who accuse me of racism and call me all manner of names.

All of which I have been called before by instructors on the grounds of Morris Deport in Harare many years ago.

But when I read that Mugabe has ordered - callously - the cold blooded murder of serving soldiers, then I believe that everything I have written over the last three years is the truth - all the words I have typed whilst I have looked at Mugabe's disastrous rule and the damaged he has wrought - I find the strength to carry on.

I now believe that the MDC activists 'arrested' (together with a 2-year-old) have been executed as well.

How sick a man is Mugabe?

"The 16 soldiers executed on Tuesday morning are believed to have been arrested during the skirmish with police in the last few days.

It is also reported that three other soldiers died during torture.

The line of the Zimbabwe regime’s propaganda says the soldiers beat up and arrested illegal foreign currency traders in the streets of Harare on Monday, accusing them of causing severe cash shortages, but our source can revealed that this is all part on the power struggles within ZANU PF.

"They are all fighting for resources to take control, and how would they (soldiers) feel when they see commanders driving Q7s, yet they can’t access their salaries in the banks," said one source. Foreign currency dealers at Road Port are believed to be ZANU PF militia working for the country’s Central Bank to finance party activities against internal ZANU PF factions.

At the Reserve Bank, former police Commissioner Henry Mukurazhizha is in charge of the clandestine foreign currency operations with the assistance of CIO officers stationed at Atlas House, along Samora Machel House and some members of the police force."

And to think that I gave four years of my life to work as a loyal Zimbabwe Republic Policeman. I am sick to the stomach. Without reward, without any ideas of grandeur - I just did what any person would do if they wanted to be a good and successful policeman.

I don't care who says what about me, and I no longer care about the threats of reprisals here in the UK.

Whilst the so-called 'unity' government talks stall due to Mugabe's intransigence (or plan all along), the abductions and murders of the opposition which reach a peak before and after the July elections still continue. Sokwanele is calling for help with the series of cases, one of which involves a two-year old boy.



And Mbeki has dropped all pretence of being impartial, in responding to Tsvangirai's criticism of the latest SADC concession to Mugabe.

He said that Tsvangari did not have to wait for approval from its “external supporters” (i.e. the 'west') before signing away all real power in a so-called 'unity' government, using words which could have come directly from the regime's mouthpiece the Herald newspaper and repeating Mugabe's line on the MDC.

Zimbabwe's opposition MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai's prominent media headlines do neither help the country, nor will these help himself.

As you secure applause because of the insult against us that we are 'cowards', you will have to consider the reality that our people have accepted into their countries very large numbers of Zimbabwean brothers and sisters in a spirit of human solidarity, prepared to sustain the resultant obligations.

None of our countries displayed characteristics of cowardice when they did this.

All of us will find it strange and insulting that because we do not agree with you on a small matter, you choose to describe us in a manner that is most offensive in terms of African culture, and therefore offend our sense of dignity as Africans, across our borders.

You know this, too, that the rest of southern Africa, your neighboring countries, has also had the unavoidable obligation to carry much of the weight of the burden of the Zimbabwe crisis, in many ways."

I say this humbly to advise that it does not help Zimbabwe, nor will it help you as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, that the MDC-T contemptuously repudiates very serious decisions of our region, and therefore our continent, describing them as 'a nullity'.

Ironically, the report is that Mbeki was riled up after MDC secretary general Tendai Biti questioned his impartiality. Ironic because Biti is still facing 'treason' charges from the regime.

And the South African government appears to be following Mbeki's line, saying:

[We] would be extremely surprised if the outbreak of cholera, the death of innocent Zimbabweans as a result of a failure of politicians to reach an agreement, does not spur them to more urgent action.

Huh? Cholera has nothing to do with the 'agreement'. It has to do with the deliberate neglect of Zimbabwe's water, health and sewerage - all of which have completely collapsed - and the starvation of the people, in geat part because of the farm seizures (echoes of the Ukraine in the 1930s).

Didymus Mutasa, who I quote at the top, was also the man who led Operation Murambatsvina [Operation Drive Out the Filth], in 2005. Soldiers, police and government militias used extreme violence to destroy the homes of hundreds of thousands of poor people on the outer edges of the country's towns and cities.

Mutasa presented Murambatsvina as a regeneration and renewal scheme to "clean up" urban areas. But most of the 700,000 to a million people who watched their houses being bulldozed, sledgehammered and set ablaze were opposition supporters.

Like Pol Pot's Kmer Rouge, the Zimbabwean leadership simply doesn't care how many of its people die.

All they care about is power.

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Here and here are some actions you can take to support Zimbabweans.