Authorities in the US state of Mississippi have executed a prisoner with a new drug used to euthanize animals, following similar practices in other states.
Benny Joe Stevens, 52, became the first man to be executed with pentobarbital in Mississippi. The new drug replaced sodium thiopental, which is facing a nationwide shortage.
Stevens, who was convicted in 1999 of killing four people, including his ex-wife and her husband, was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. local time on Tuesday (0022 GMT on Wednesday) at the State Penitentiary at Parchman, the Associated Press reported.
“Forgive me … what I did was a terrible thing. There's no forgiveness for what I did,” said Stevens.
The new drug has been used in several states over the past week, including Texas, Ohio and South Carolina.
The animal drug is expected to be used in the execution of Rodney Gray on May 17 and Robert Simon Jr. on May 24.
In 2010, 46 people were executed in the United States, six fewer than the previous year, according to the center data.
AO/AKM
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179335.html
Showing posts with label Human Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Human Rights. Show all posts
Friday, May 13, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Israel admits it used phosphorus weapons
The Israeli government has admitted that it used controversial phosphorus weapons in its attacks against targets during its month long war in Lebanon this summer.
The chemical can be used in shells, missiles and grenades and causes horrific burning when it comes into contact with human flesh.
White phosphorus (WP) weapons are not forbidden by international law but some human rights groups believe they should be re-classified as chemical weapons and banned.
The Israeli admission was made by the cabinet minister, Jacob Edery, who was questioned on the subject by Zahava Gal-On, a member of the Knesset.
Mr Edery told Ms Gal-On: "The IDF [Israel Defence Force] holds phosphorus munitions in different forms. The IDF made use of phosphorus shells during the war against Hizbullah in attacks against military targets in open ground."
Ms Gal-On said that her original question to the government related to suspicions that Israel has been using experimental weapons in Gaza so she was surprised when she was offered a confirmation that Israel had used phosphorus weapons in Lebanon. "My original question was about the use of Dime [dense inert metal explosives] weapons by Israel in Gaza but instead I was given the answer to a different question," she said. "The use of phosphorus weapons in Lebanon is shocking and unacceptable."
Mr Edery said that the Israeli army uses phosphorus weapons according to the rules of international law. However, there have been numerous reports that Israeli phosphorus munitions injured and killed civilians in Lebanon.
The war began on July 12 when Hizbullah abducted two Israeli soldiers from the Israel-Lebanon border. Israeli forces entered Lebanon in pursuit and launched air strikes on Lebanon. Hizbullah then began firing rockets into northern Israel.
Throughout the war, Israel was accused of using controversial weapons, including WP and cluster munitions against civilian targets. Both sides were accused of war crimes in their attacks on civilians by the human rights group, Human Rights Watch.
Unexploded cluster bombs in Lebanon have regularly killed and maimed civilians since the end of the war. Rami Ali Hussein Shibly, 12, was killed and his nine-year-old brother brother, Khodr, injured yesterday by a cluster bomb as they picked olives in Halta. He was 21st person to be killed by the bomblets since the fighting ended.
WP is used by armies for producing smoke screens and as an incendiary. The phosphorus ignites on contact with air and gives off a thick smoke. If the chemical touches skin it will continue to burn until it reaches the bone unless deprived of oxygen.
Many soldiers believe that white phosphorous grenades are more effective in clearing buildings than those that use high explosive because they are more likely to disable the targets.
Amir Peretz, the Israeli defence minister said yesterday that Israel would continue to carry out reconnaissance flights over Lebanon because Hizbullah continues to smuggle arms from Syria. The United Nations has criticised Israel for its continued violations of Lebanese air space
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/23/israel
Army Bombards Gaza, One Resident Wounded
Three consecutive air strikes were carried out against the “tunnels area” along the Gaza-Egypt border, in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
At first, the Air force fired several missiles at a siege-busting tunnel in Yibna refugee camp, in Rafah.
Shortly afterwards, the Air Force carried out two consecutive air strikes targeting areas near Salah ed-Deen Gate and al-Barazil neighborhood in Rafah. One resident was wounded and was moved to Abu Youssef Al Najjar Hospital, in Rafah.
The third attack was carried out when the Air Force fired at least one missile at an open area, east of al-Zeitoun neighborhood, south of Gaza city; damage was reported, no injuries.
On Wednesday at dawn, Israeli soldiers invaded several areas in the occupied West Bank, broke into and searched several homes and kidnapped three residents from the central West Bank city of Ramallah, and from Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank.
Soldiers also installed several roadblocks and searched dozens of vehicles while inspecting the ID card of the drivers and the passengers.
http://www.imemc.org/article/61016?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Instead of Bombing Dictators, Stop Selling Them Bombs
When all you have is bombs, everything starts to look like a target. And so, after years of providing Libya's dictator with the weapons he's been using against his people, all the international community - France, Britain and the United States - has to offer the people of Libya is more bombs, this time dropped from the sky rather than delivered in a box to Muammar Qaddafi's palace.
If the bitter lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan has taught us anything, though, it's that wars of liberation exact a deadly toll on those they purportedly liberate - and that democracy doesn't come on the back of a Tomahawk missile.
President Barack Obama announced his latest peace-through-bombs initiative last week - joining ongoing US conflicts and proxy wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia - by declaring he could not "stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy and ... where innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government."
Within 24 hours of the announcement, more than 110 US Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired into Libya, including the capital Tripoli, reportedly killing dozens of innocent civilians - as missiles, even the "smart" kind, are wont to do. According to The New York Times, allied warplanes with "brutal efficiency" bombed "tanks, missile launches and civilian cars, leaving a smoldering trail of wreckage that stretched for miles."
"[M]any of the tanks seemed to have been retreating," the paper reported. That's the reality of the no-fly zone and the mission creep that started the moment it was enacted: bombing civilians and massacring retreating troops. And like any other war, it's not pretty.
While much of the media presents an unquestioning, sanitized version of the war - cable news hosts more focused on interviewing retired generals about America's fancy killing machines than the actual, bloody facts on the ground - the truth is that wars, even liberal-minded "humanitarian" ones, entail destroying people and places. Though cloaked in altruism that would be more believable were we dealing with monasteries, not nation-states, the war in Libya is no different. And innocents pay the price.
Russia, the Arab League and others have said that coalition airstrikes have caused significant civilian casualties. Though the number of deaths are unconfirmed at this time, Reuters repots that the Arab League will be commissioning an analysis into health ministry claims that 64 civilians died in the initial flurry of missile strikes on Libya. The New York Times also reported that civilian cars were among those hit by coalition airstrikes.
If protecting civilians from evil dictators was the goal, though - as opposed to, say, safeguarding natural resources and the investments of major oil companies - there's an easier, safer way than aerial bombardment for the US and its allies to consider: simply stop arming and propping up evil dictators. After all, Libya's Muammar Qaddafi reaped the benefits from Western nations all too eager to cozy up to and rehabilitate the image of a dictator with oil with those denouncing him today as a murderous tyrant, and just a matter of weeks ago selling him the very arms his regime has been using to suppress the rebellion against it.
Get Truthout in your inbox every day! Click here to sign up for free updates.
In 2009 alone, European governments - including Britain and France - sold Libya more than $470 million worth of weapons, including fighter jets, guns and bombs. And before it started calling for regime change, the Obama administration was working to provide the Libyan dictator another $77 million in weapons, on top of the $17 million it provided in 2009 and the $46 million the Bush administration provided in 2008.
Meanwhile, for dictatorial regimes in Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, US support continues to this day. On Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even gave the US stamp of approval to the brutal crackdown on protesters in Bahrain, saying the country's authoritarian rulers "obviously" had the "sovereign right" to invite troops from Saudi Arabia to occupy their country and carry out human rights abuses, including attacks on injured protesters as they lay in their hospital beds.
In Yemen, which has received more than $300 million in military aid from the US over the last five years, the Obama administration continues to support corrupt thug and president-for-life Ali Abdullah Saleh, who recently ordered a massacre of more than 50 of his own citizens who dared protest his rule. And this support has allowed the US to carry out its own massacres under the auspices of the war on terror, with one American bombing raid last year taking out 41 Yemeni civilians, including 14 women and 21 children, according to Amnesty International.
Rather than engage in cruise-missile liberalism, Obama could save lives by immediately ending support for these brutal regimes. But for US administrations, both Democratic and Republican, arms sales appear to trump liberation. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute documented that Washington accounted for 54 percent of arms sales to Persian Gulf states between 2005 and 2009.
Last September, The Financial Times reported that the US had struck deals to provide Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman with $123 billion worth of arms. The repressive monarchy of Saudi Arabia accounts for over half that figure, with it set to receive $67 billion worth of weapons, including 84 F-15 jets, 70 Apache gunships, 72 Black Hawk helicopters, 36 light helicopters and thousands of laser-guided smart bombs - the largest weapons deal in US history.
Instead of forking over $150 million a day to the weapons industry to attack Libya or selling $67 billion in weapons to the Saudis so they can repress not just their own people, but those of Bahrain, we - the ones being asked to forgo Social Security to help pay for empire - should demand those who purport to represent us in Washington stop arming dictators in our name. That might drain some bucks from the merchants of death, but it would give nonviolent protesters throughout the Middle East a fighting chance to liberate themselves.
The US government need not drop a single bomb in the Middle East to help liberate oppressed people. All it need do is stop selling bombs to their oppressors.
instead-bombing-dictators-stop-selling-them-bombs68680
.
If the bitter lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan has taught us anything, though, it's that wars of liberation exact a deadly toll on those they purportedly liberate - and that democracy doesn't come on the back of a Tomahawk missile.
President Barack Obama announced his latest peace-through-bombs initiative last week - joining ongoing US conflicts and proxy wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia - by declaring he could not "stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy and ... where innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government."
Within 24 hours of the announcement, more than 110 US Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired into Libya, including the capital Tripoli, reportedly killing dozens of innocent civilians - as missiles, even the "smart" kind, are wont to do. According to The New York Times, allied warplanes with "brutal efficiency" bombed "tanks, missile launches and civilian cars, leaving a smoldering trail of wreckage that stretched for miles."
"[M]any of the tanks seemed to have been retreating," the paper reported. That's the reality of the no-fly zone and the mission creep that started the moment it was enacted: bombing civilians and massacring retreating troops. And like any other war, it's not pretty.
While much of the media presents an unquestioning, sanitized version of the war - cable news hosts more focused on interviewing retired generals about America's fancy killing machines than the actual, bloody facts on the ground - the truth is that wars, even liberal-minded "humanitarian" ones, entail destroying people and places. Though cloaked in altruism that would be more believable were we dealing with monasteries, not nation-states, the war in Libya is no different. And innocents pay the price.
Russia, the Arab League and others have said that coalition airstrikes have caused significant civilian casualties. Though the number of deaths are unconfirmed at this time, Reuters repots that the Arab League will be commissioning an analysis into health ministry claims that 64 civilians died in the initial flurry of missile strikes on Libya. The New York Times also reported that civilian cars were among those hit by coalition airstrikes.
If protecting civilians from evil dictators was the goal, though - as opposed to, say, safeguarding natural resources and the investments of major oil companies - there's an easier, safer way than aerial bombardment for the US and its allies to consider: simply stop arming and propping up evil dictators. After all, Libya's Muammar Qaddafi reaped the benefits from Western nations all too eager to cozy up to and rehabilitate the image of a dictator with oil with those denouncing him today as a murderous tyrant, and just a matter of weeks ago selling him the very arms his regime has been using to suppress the rebellion against it.
Get Truthout in your inbox every day! Click here to sign up for free updates.
In 2009 alone, European governments - including Britain and France - sold Libya more than $470 million worth of weapons, including fighter jets, guns and bombs. And before it started calling for regime change, the Obama administration was working to provide the Libyan dictator another $77 million in weapons, on top of the $17 million it provided in 2009 and the $46 million the Bush administration provided in 2008.
Meanwhile, for dictatorial regimes in Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, US support continues to this day. On Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even gave the US stamp of approval to the brutal crackdown on protesters in Bahrain, saying the country's authoritarian rulers "obviously" had the "sovereign right" to invite troops from Saudi Arabia to occupy their country and carry out human rights abuses, including attacks on injured protesters as they lay in their hospital beds.
In Yemen, which has received more than $300 million in military aid from the US over the last five years, the Obama administration continues to support corrupt thug and president-for-life Ali Abdullah Saleh, who recently ordered a massacre of more than 50 of his own citizens who dared protest his rule. And this support has allowed the US to carry out its own massacres under the auspices of the war on terror, with one American bombing raid last year taking out 41 Yemeni civilians, including 14 women and 21 children, according to Amnesty International.
Rather than engage in cruise-missile liberalism, Obama could save lives by immediately ending support for these brutal regimes. But for US administrations, both Democratic and Republican, arms sales appear to trump liberation. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute documented that Washington accounted for 54 percent of arms sales to Persian Gulf states between 2005 and 2009.
Last September, The Financial Times reported that the US had struck deals to provide Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman with $123 billion worth of arms. The repressive monarchy of Saudi Arabia accounts for over half that figure, with it set to receive $67 billion worth of weapons, including 84 F-15 jets, 70 Apache gunships, 72 Black Hawk helicopters, 36 light helicopters and thousands of laser-guided smart bombs - the largest weapons deal in US history.
Instead of forking over $150 million a day to the weapons industry to attack Libya or selling $67 billion in weapons to the Saudis so they can repress not just their own people, but those of Bahrain, we - the ones being asked to forgo Social Security to help pay for empire - should demand those who purport to represent us in Washington stop arming dictators in our name. That might drain some bucks from the merchants of death, but it would give nonviolent protesters throughout the Middle East a fighting chance to liberate themselves.
The US government need not drop a single bomb in the Middle East to help liberate oppressed people. All it need do is stop selling bombs to their oppressors.
instead-bombing-dictators-stop-selling-them-bombs68680
.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
'The bloody Israeli sojourn in Gaza'
Controversial American Jewish scholar and specialist on the Middle East, Norman Finkelstein, says Israel committed massive atrocities in Gaza during the three-week war against Hamas militants.
Israel's shame as Holocaust victims die in poverty
About 80,000 Holocaust survivors emigrated to Israel after WW2. Instead of finding ease and opportunity, many discovered only loneliness and grinding poverty. They accuse Israel of failing to give them the compensation paid by Germany. They say millions of dollars that was meant for them has been used to build the country instead.
Gazans still struggle to cross Rafah border even after the whole world supported Egypt's freedom
Crowds gather outside the office of Gaza's Borders and crossings Authority, in the southern city of Rafah. The people who have come here hope to register their names with border officials in order to gain permission to leave Gaza.
Government officials announced that the registration office would open its doors Sunday morning for the first time since anti government protests broke out in Egypt on January 25th. Since then the Rafah border, the only entrance into the Gaza that bypasses Israel, has been fully closed.
But the Egyptian authorities only authorize travel through the Rafah terminal for people who fall into 4 categories: patients with medical referrals, foreign passport holders, people with visas to other countries, who go straight to the airport, and students with proof of enrollment in their universities. For all others hoping to cross the border remains unrealized.
Approximately 1400 Gazans who were stranded in Egypt during the popular revolution were finally allowed to return home. But not all were fortunate enough to make it. Finally after obtaining travel permission this man accompanied his son, sick with Cancer, to Egypt. When they got there the country fell into turmoil and they returned home without seeing the doctor. The young man died only minutes after they crossed the border back into Gaza.
His illness progressed as we were waiting for travel permission. Even if we had seen the doctors in Egypt we knew it was too late by the time we got there because he fell into a coma. He is at peace now.
As Gaza is cut off form the outside world following years of Israeli siege, government officials have announced that negotiations with Egypt to fully open the border crossing are ongoing, and observers view the gradual easing of the closure as a good sign.
The former Egyptian regime enabled the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip by closing its borders with the territory, and with both Palestinian and Egyptian figures calling for the full opening of the border, Gazans can only wait and hope that with a new Egyptian leadership the 4 year long isolation of the territory will finally come to an end.
Safa Joudeh, Press TV, Gaza
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/166204.html
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Syria massacres Kurds aided by Turkey's Israel-made drones
Syrian troops and Kurdish tribesman are locked in fierce battle since the Syrian army blasted four northeastern Kurdish towns and neighborhoods at the end of June, debkafile's military and intelligence sources report. Hundreds of Kurds are reported dead.
The Syrian campaign is backed by Heron (Eitan) spy drones Israel sold Turkey, made accessible on the personal say-so of Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan. Turkey therefore becomes the first NATO member to make advanced Western military technology available for the use of a strong ally of radical Iran and an active sponsor of terrorists. Following intense exchanges between Jerusalem and Washington, the NATO command was urged to put Ankara on the carpet - with no response as yet.
The drones are being used to track Kurds in flight across Syria's borders, mainly into Lebanon, where Hizballah is helping Syria hunt the refugees down. The accessibility to Damascus of the unmanned aerial vehicles is in direct breach of the Israel-Turkish sales contracts which barred their use - and the use of other Israeli high-tech items sold to Turkey during years of close military collaboration - in the service of hostile states or entities.
Extending their sphere to Syrian and Lebanese skies gives the Syrian army and Hizballah (Iran's external arm) a unique opportunity to study the Heron (Eitan)'s sophisticated attributes in real combat conditions at close hand and adjust their own tactics accordingly to outwit them.
debkafile's intelligence sources have no doubt that Iranian intelligence officers stationed in Damascus and Beirut jumped at the opportunity to learn more about the Israeli wonder-drones.
Regarding the crackdown on the Kurds, our military sources report that three large-scale Syrian military operations against the Kurdish people are in progress under the guidance of Turkish generals based at Syrian staff headquarters in Damascus:
1. Syrian elite forces are battling suspected Kurdish members of the Turkish PKK in at least four northeastern Syrian towns near the Syrian-Turkish-Iraqi border triangle: the big Kurdish town of Qamishli, the mixed Kurdish-Assyrian town of Al Asakah and two others, Qaratshuk and Diwar. All four and their outlying villages are under massive Syrian army siege after complete residential blocks were blasted - acting as the trigger for the current fighting.
Not all the victims are PKK fighters by any means. Most were civilians. Turkish intelligence sources tried to justify the Syrian massacre and their government's complicity by claiming that 2,000 of the 6,000 PKK fighters conducting terrorist attacks in Turkey from North Iraqi havens are Syrian Kurds or providers of alternative bases for their Turkish comrades to strike Turkish military positions from a second direction.
While until Saturday, July 17, Damascus was tight-lipped about its grim campaign against its Kurdish community, Turkish military sources were more vocal. They placed the number of Kurdish dead in battle at 185 and another 400 taken captive, many of whom will be turned over to Ankara. Our sources estimate the number of dead as much higher - more than 300, with at least 1,000 injured.
2. Large Syrian contingents are sealing the Iraqi border against the flight of Syrian Kurds - but also to block the entry of PKK reinforcements for aiding their beleaguered brethren.
3. The Syrian-Lebanese frontier is similarly sealed to keep Kurdish fighters from fleeing the country. debkafile's military sources report that on this border, Syrian and Hizballah units are working together, with the latter forcibly blocking the roads to Lebanese cities.
Source - http://www.debka.com/article/8916/
The Syrian campaign is backed by Heron (Eitan) spy drones Israel sold Turkey, made accessible on the personal say-so of Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan. Turkey therefore becomes the first NATO member to make advanced Western military technology available for the use of a strong ally of radical Iran and an active sponsor of terrorists. Following intense exchanges between Jerusalem and Washington, the NATO command was urged to put Ankara on the carpet - with no response as yet.
The drones are being used to track Kurds in flight across Syria's borders, mainly into Lebanon, where Hizballah is helping Syria hunt the refugees down. The accessibility to Damascus of the unmanned aerial vehicles is in direct breach of the Israel-Turkish sales contracts which barred their use - and the use of other Israeli high-tech items sold to Turkey during years of close military collaboration - in the service of hostile states or entities.
Extending their sphere to Syrian and Lebanese skies gives the Syrian army and Hizballah (Iran's external arm) a unique opportunity to study the Heron (Eitan)'s sophisticated attributes in real combat conditions at close hand and adjust their own tactics accordingly to outwit them.
debkafile's intelligence sources have no doubt that Iranian intelligence officers stationed in Damascus and Beirut jumped at the opportunity to learn more about the Israeli wonder-drones.
Regarding the crackdown on the Kurds, our military sources report that three large-scale Syrian military operations against the Kurdish people are in progress under the guidance of Turkish generals based at Syrian staff headquarters in Damascus:
1. Syrian elite forces are battling suspected Kurdish members of the Turkish PKK in at least four northeastern Syrian towns near the Syrian-Turkish-Iraqi border triangle: the big Kurdish town of Qamishli, the mixed Kurdish-Assyrian town of Al Asakah and two others, Qaratshuk and Diwar. All four and their outlying villages are under massive Syrian army siege after complete residential blocks were blasted - acting as the trigger for the current fighting.
Not all the victims are PKK fighters by any means. Most were civilians. Turkish intelligence sources tried to justify the Syrian massacre and their government's complicity by claiming that 2,000 of the 6,000 PKK fighters conducting terrorist attacks in Turkey from North Iraqi havens are Syrian Kurds or providers of alternative bases for their Turkish comrades to strike Turkish military positions from a second direction.
While until Saturday, July 17, Damascus was tight-lipped about its grim campaign against its Kurdish community, Turkish military sources were more vocal. They placed the number of Kurdish dead in battle at 185 and another 400 taken captive, many of whom will be turned over to Ankara. Our sources estimate the number of dead as much higher - more than 300, with at least 1,000 injured.
2. Large Syrian contingents are sealing the Iraqi border against the flight of Syrian Kurds - but also to block the entry of PKK reinforcements for aiding their beleaguered brethren.
3. The Syrian-Lebanese frontier is similarly sealed to keep Kurdish fighters from fleeing the country. debkafile's military sources report that on this border, Syrian and Hizballah units are working together, with the latter forcibly blocking the roads to Lebanese cities.
Source - http://www.debka.com/article/8916/
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Why the settlements under pressure
Why are we asking this now?
Because the US administration appears to be serious about getting Israel to freeze Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank. Previous US administrations said they wanted a freeze but in practice allowed Israel to continue with at least some building.
How did the settlements come about?
Related articles
•Israel rejects US plea to halt settlement building
Search the news archive for more stories
In the aftermath of Israel's victory in the 1967 Six Day War, which left it in control of Gaza and the West Bank (as well as the Golan Heights) successive governments gradually allowed, and eventually effectively managed, the creation of more and more civilian Israeli communities in occupied territory.
Several forces converged to encourage this growth: religious Zionists and others on the ideological right who believed in a greater Israel stretching from the Jordan to the Mediterranean and that the West Bank – or Judaea and Samaria, as they invariably call it – had been "liberated" by the Six Day War; elements in the military establishment who believed it would enhance Israeli security; and politicians who believed that it made sense to grab as much territory as possible for Jewish residents, to improve Israel's bargaining position in any future peace talks.
Source
Because the US administration appears to be serious about getting Israel to freeze Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank. Previous US administrations said they wanted a freeze but in practice allowed Israel to continue with at least some building.
How did the settlements come about?
Related articles
•Israel rejects US plea to halt settlement building
Search the news archive for more stories
In the aftermath of Israel's victory in the 1967 Six Day War, which left it in control of Gaza and the West Bank (as well as the Golan Heights) successive governments gradually allowed, and eventually effectively managed, the creation of more and more civilian Israeli communities in occupied territory.
Several forces converged to encourage this growth: religious Zionists and others on the ideological right who believed in a greater Israel stretching from the Jordan to the Mediterranean and that the West Bank – or Judaea and Samaria, as they invariably call it – had been "liberated" by the Six Day War; elements in the military establishment who believed it would enhance Israeli security; and politicians who believed that it made sense to grab as much territory as possible for Jewish residents, to improve Israel's bargaining position in any future peace talks.
Source
Israeli army embarrassed by video - Watch, see Why
JERUSALEM - The Israeli army has expressed a note of contrition after a television station aired a videotape showing an army assault on a Palestinian home in which a mother of five children died.
When CBC News spoke with Ismail Hawarjeh at Bethlehem's hospital earlier this month, there was no way to verify the story he told about how his wife had died, until Israel's Channel 2 broacast the tape last weekend"
Friday, March 19, 2010
Game Called Muslim Massacre
Computer games in which players aim to kill as many people as possible are, sadly, pretty common. But what sets "Muslim Massacre - the game of modern religious genocide" - apart from the others is that an American soldier sets out to "wipe out" the entire Muslim race. Worse still, the game is available free on the internet, with no restrictions to prevent children and the vulnerable from accessing it.
The world wide web is one area that the law still struggles to regulate.
Some may see the game as a parody of American foreign policy and point out that it is aimed at adults, rather than children. After all, the average US video game player is a 35-year-old man.
But the game reaches a new low in bad taste and contains a blatantly destructive message. The game's premise is that the US has declared war on Islam and invites players to take control of the American "hero" who will wipe out the Muslim race with "an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons".
The "hero" uses machine guns and rocket launchers to kill as many Muslims as possible - ranging from terrorists and what appear to be civilians to Osama bin Laden, Muhammad and Allah.
The game's creator, a freelance programmer called Sigvatr, describes the game as "fun and funny" and says to his critics: "Don't whinge about how offensive and 'edgy' this is."
He says: "Ultimately it's just a game where you blow the gently caress (slang for a common swear word) out of Arabs…I don't even know how to interpret it myself anymore. The bottom line is that I enjoyed making it and it's fun to play."
Later he adds: "The Muslims represented in the game aren't meant to be based on actual Muslims.
"If I was to try and come up with a meaning for the game at this moment, it would probably be something along the lines of metaphorically destroying the stereotypical depiction of a Muslim."
That's not the way some Muslim groups see it. The Ramadhan Foundation says the game is "unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2008/sep/11/technologygames
The Ramadhan responce
The Ramadhan Foundation expresses its deep condemnation and anger at the computer game released called Muslim massacre. This game is glorifying the killing of Muslims in the Middle East and we urge ISP providers to take action to remove this site from their services as it incites violence towards Muslims and is trying to justify the killing of innocent Muslims.
We have written to the British Government today to urge an inquiry into this game and take action to shut down the site; this is not satire but a deliberate attempt to demonise Muslims.
Mr. Mohammed Shafiq, Chief Executive of the Foundation comments:
“Encouraging children and young people in a game to kill Muslims is unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive.
'There is an increase in violence in this country and some of it comes from video games.
'When kids spend six hours a day on violent games they are more likely to go outside and commit violence.
'If it was the other way around, with a game featuring Muslims killing Israelis or Americans, there would be uproar and rightly so.
I would urge ISPs to take action against sites like this and there can be no justification for this sort of video game, I hope the person who made this game thinks again.
http://www.ramadhanfoundation.com/muslimmassacre.htm
The world wide web is one area that the law still struggles to regulate.
Some may see the game as a parody of American foreign policy and point out that it is aimed at adults, rather than children. After all, the average US video game player is a 35-year-old man.
But the game reaches a new low in bad taste and contains a blatantly destructive message. The game's premise is that the US has declared war on Islam and invites players to take control of the American "hero" who will wipe out the Muslim race with "an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons".
The "hero" uses machine guns and rocket launchers to kill as many Muslims as possible - ranging from terrorists and what appear to be civilians to Osama bin Laden, Muhammad and Allah.
The game's creator, a freelance programmer called Sigvatr, describes the game as "fun and funny" and says to his critics: "Don't whinge about how offensive and 'edgy' this is."
He says: "Ultimately it's just a game where you blow the gently caress (slang for a common swear word) out of Arabs…I don't even know how to interpret it myself anymore. The bottom line is that I enjoyed making it and it's fun to play."
Later he adds: "The Muslims represented in the game aren't meant to be based on actual Muslims.
"If I was to try and come up with a meaning for the game at this moment, it would probably be something along the lines of metaphorically destroying the stereotypical depiction of a Muslim."
That's not the way some Muslim groups see it. The Ramadhan Foundation says the game is "unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2008/sep/11/technologygames
The Ramadhan responce
The Ramadhan Foundation expresses its deep condemnation and anger at the computer game released called Muslim massacre. This game is glorifying the killing of Muslims in the Middle East and we urge ISP providers to take action to remove this site from their services as it incites violence towards Muslims and is trying to justify the killing of innocent Muslims.
We have written to the British Government today to urge an inquiry into this game and take action to shut down the site; this is not satire but a deliberate attempt to demonise Muslims.
Mr. Mohammed Shafiq, Chief Executive of the Foundation comments:
“Encouraging children and young people in a game to kill Muslims is unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive.
'There is an increase in violence in this country and some of it comes from video games.
'When kids spend six hours a day on violent games they are more likely to go outside and commit violence.
'If it was the other way around, with a game featuring Muslims killing Israelis or Americans, there would be uproar and rightly so.
I would urge ISPs to take action against sites like this and there can be no justification for this sort of video game, I hope the person who made this game thinks again.
http://www.ramadhanfoundation.com/muslimmassacre.htm
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