Somali refugees demonstrate

This video says about itself:

Poetic Protest by Somali Women

Somali women voice their anger and opposition to the Ethiopian Invasion of their country in Baraanbur, a very stylish, rich and unique poetry. They also raised money for the Mogadishu Massacre victims.

Somalia: decades of destructive war, inspired by United States governments and their allies like Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi and the Ugandan regime. Somalia, as a result of those wars now (along with Iraq and Afghanistan) the poorest and most corrupt country in the world.

Still, some people are resisting. From Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu, Somalia):

Somalia: Hundreds of IDPs Demonstrate Out of Mogadishu, Complain Water Shortage

Hassan Osman Abdi

29 December 2009

Afgoi — Large demonstrations organized by the Somali Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and against the water shortage has been made between Mogadishu and Afgoi town in Lower Shabelle region, witnesses and officials said on Tuesday.

Most of the people were the Somali displaced people and were marching a long Afgoi corridor especially between the Lafole and Hawo Abdi villages, out of the Somali capital.

Hundreds of the of the displaced people, most of them from Mogadishu could be seen in the large demonstrations happened today and they were complaining about a bitter water shortage that faced all the Internally Displaced Peoples in the area.

MSF agency, one of the charity organizations operating between both towns Mogadishu and Afgoi and used to contribute water to the displaced people had formally informed them recently that it totally halted providing water to those people from 1st January 2010.

The agency said in a statement recently that it will not give any water to the IDPs.

Hundreds of the demonstrators had gathered at a square, out of Hawo Abdi village where the demonstrations continued complaining about the lack of water facing the displaced people in the area by reiterating their call about MSF to continue providing water to the feeble people.

The demonstrators lastly requested from the charity agency of MSF to let them giving the water which the people are complaining about pointing out that they are currently encountering serious difficulties of water shortage.

Any how the large demonstrations of the Somali Internally displaced comes as most of the displaced people who left from the Somali capital Mogadishu due to daily clashes did not get any aid support about 3 months in this year 2009.

Ethiopia Commits Genocide,
Eritrea Gets Sanctioned: here. And here. And here.

Why Africa is now in the warmongers’ sights: here.

Cartoonist David Levine dies

From the New York Times in the USA:

David Levine, a painter and illustrator whose macro-headed, somberly expressive, astringently probing and hardly ever flattering caricatures of intellectuals and athletes, politicians and potentates were the visual trademark of The New York Review of Books for nearly half a century, died Tuesday morning in Manhattan. He was 83 and lived in Brooklyn.

Félix Nadar, a famous French photographer and caricaturist, died on March 21, 1910, at the age of 89: here.

Baby seahorses born

Today, not just news of a fish dying in Zeeland, the Netherlands.

From daily bndestem, about the same province:

FLUSHING – In the Arsenal aquarium in Flushing, this Monday thirty seahorses were born.

The creatures are smaller than one centimeter. The last time that seahorses were born in the Arsenal was a few years ago. They also never have been born so late in the year.

In seahorses, the males get pregnant. The babies grow for four weeks in the pouch of their father. Then they are no longer cared for, and they have to find their own food. They eat plankton only. After two months, they are five centimter long, they will start eating solid food and will be allowed back into the aquarium with their parents.

This video says about itself:

There’s something about sea horses

A glimpse of the latest exhibit at Birch Aquarium, La Jolla, California by Steve Perez

Marine Biologists Work To Protect Seahorses By Developing A Breeding Program: here.

Those cute little buggers might help me one day – scientists look to seahorses to find blindness answers: here.

Atlantic pomfret, last 2009 beachings?

Yesterday, an Atlantic pomfret beached in Wissenkerke, Zeeland, the Netherlands. By the time it was discovered, herring gulls had eaten parts of it.

Today, another Atlantic pomfret beached in Katwijk, Zuid-Holland, the Netherlands. About 50cm long; also partially already eaten.

Atlantic pomfret, Texel, November 2010: here.

Terschelling, January 2012: here.

Related articles

• Rare squid and pomfret on Dutch beach (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Protected woodcock eaten illegally on Dutch TV (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• On the other side of the Island: the Wadden (beachterschelling.wordpress.com)

NATO soldiers kill Afghan civilians yet again

This video from the USA is called Rethink Afghanistan War (Part 4): Civilian Casualties.

From the site of Afghan women’s organization RAWA:

PAN, December 29, 2009

“Four Afghan civilians killed in Baghlan air raid”

UNAMA said that 468 deaths were caused by pro-government forces, including NATO and US-led forces, and 166 by “other actors

Habib Rahman Sherzai

Four civilians have reportedly been killed and eight others wounded in a fresh air strike by foreign forces in northern Baghlan province, residents alleged on Tuesday.

The overnight attack took place in Kohna Qala area of Baghlan-i-Markazi district, residents told Pajhwok Afghan News. The fresh air raid came about three days after 10 civilians were killed during military operations in eastern Kunar province.

The Saturday air strike in Kunar drew condemnation from the lawmakers on Monday who walked out of the session and later a parliamentary delegation met President Hamid Karzai to show their resentment. Karzai ordered a serious probe into the attack that killed ten people including eight school children in Badeel area in Narang district.

In the last night air raid, the dead included a father and his three sons, who were killed while running to escape the bombardment, a teacher at the Jamiat Aburjaee High School in the area, Karim Safi, told Pajhwok Afghan News.

A student of the school, Karim Javed, said that the air raid also left many people wounded including a student of his school.

Head of the district hospital, Abdul Qahir Qanit, said they had received eight injured people delivered to the hospital with a woman and a child in a critical condition.

…

The war in Afghanistan is becoming deadlier, killing 10 percent more civilians during the first 10 months of 2009 compared to the previous period last year, according to UN figures.

UNAMA said that 468 deaths were caused by pro-government forces, including NATO and US-led forces, and 166 by “other actors”.

US Military is Meeting Recruitment Goals With Video Games – But at What Cost? Here.

Afghan soldier opens fire at military base in Afghanistan, killing one American and injuring two Italian troops: here.

Scottish Socialist Party national spokesman Colin Fox has condemned “silent” MSPs who have ignored a letter from grieving grandmother Joan Humphreys asking them to support the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan: here.

Rare birds in Britain this year

This is a citril finch video.

From daily The Independent in Britain:

Record year for Britain’s twitchers

Birds from Asia and US among highest number of species spotted in a single year

By Lewis Smith

Tuesday, 29 December 2009

Twitchers look set to break the record for the most species sighted by British birdwatchers in a year.

Figures released today show that in 2008, 407 different species are confirmed. Up to 11 more are likely to be added to the list. The total of 418 bird species recorded in Britain in a year beats the previous high of 412 in 2004. Many of the winged visitors sighted, some for just a few minutes, included exotic visitors from across the globe.

Three had never been seen before in Britain: the Alder flycatcher from North America, the Yelkouan shearwater from the Mediterranean and the citril finch, from the Alps.

Grayson Perry’s Walthamstow Tapestry

By Paul Mitchell in England:

Grayson Perry’s “The Walthamstow Tapestry”: A sensitive depiction of the journey though life

29 December 2009

The huge 3-by-15-metre “The Walthamstow Tapestry,” created by ceramic artist Grayson Perry, is a sensitive depiction of the journey through life. The tapestry was the highlight of a brief exhibition at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London last month, which also saw the display of Perry’s hallmark ceramics for which he won the Turner Prize in 2003.

Because of the biting political, social and sexual criticism he employs, Perry has been likened to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century caricaturists such as William Hogarth, whom he admires because “there’s something about the warm working class element of his work,” and twentieth-century Expressionists Otto Dix and George Grosz.

Though his work is highly autobiographical, Perry is also an observer of social reality. As he explains in his recent autobiography, “there’s branding and class; religion and folklore; sex and gender, war and politics; aesthetics and pottery; the art world and psychotherapy and inner worlds and these are the things that still interest me.” But he is then quick to point out in a telling aside, “I don’t always aspire to great narrative, or to intellectual, social or political heights; sometimes I just make something in pretty colours.”

“The Walthamstow Tapestry” is dominated by a river of blood linking a graphic childbirth scene, through the seven ages of man to eventual death. Small images are strewn across the tapestry, surrounded by phrases sewn into the fabric such as a “ship of fools” and the names of failed firms and banks (Enron, Merrill Lynch, and Northern Rock). In the centre is what Perry calls the “Madonna of the Chanel handbag,” an icon of consumerism. Fashion he adds is “inveigling into our minds” like “a voracious monster that chomps its way through youthful creativity.”

The tapestry was inspired by Perry’s interest in Sumatran batik designs and makes reference to the Bayeux Tapestry, the tale of the eleventh-century Norman Conquest of England, and to Walthamstow where the socialist and artist William Morris was born. Morris, according to Perry, “had this dilemma in that he wanted things to be beautiful and handmade and yet that immediately made them so expensive that only the rich could afford them.” He hopes that this dilemma will be overcome by Internet and digital technology delivery systems that “will free the individual maker craftsman-artist from the need to have a factory or a huge infrastructure.” “The Walthamstow Tapestry” was woven by a huge computerised loom in Belgium to Perry’s design.

Australian internet censorship

This video says about itself:

On the 13th. December 2008 rallies were held in every capital city in Australia protesting the mandatory internet filtering laws being contemplated by the current government.

Australian government pushes ahead with internet censorship: here.

The government of Canada has used strong-arm tactics to shut down two parody websites criticizing Canada’s poor environmental policy, taking down 4500 other websites in the process: here.

In a recent speech on Internet freedom, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled a global policy of Internet-driven regime-change, under the guise of freedom of speech: here.

2004 tsunami survivors neglected

This National Geographic video says about itself:

Locals swim for their lives as the 2004 tsunami sends floods through Sri Lanka.

Five years after the 2004 tsunami, many survivors in Sri Lanka do not have proper housing, jobs and services, and poverty is still rampant: here.

US soldiers kill Afghan civilians again

This video from Britain says about itself:

An opportunity to hear prominent Afghan politician Malalai Joya, who has been called the “the bravest woman in Afghanistan” speaking at the Frontline Club.

By Tom Eley in the USA:

US military kills ten civilians in Afghanistan raid

29 December 2009

On Saturday a US military operation killed at least ten Afghan civilians, among them eight children, in the Narang valley of Kunar province in northeastern Afghanistan near its border with Pakistan.

Press accounts conflicted as to whether the US attack on the remote village of Ghazi Khan was carried out from the air or on the ground by Special Operations. If the latter proves correct, it would be in keeping with reports of heightened activity by Navy Seal and Army Delta Force squads tasked with carrying out assassinations of reputed Taliban members. (see: “US steps up drone attacks, assassinations in AfPak ‘surge’”).

An anonymous “Western military official” told Agence France Press (AFP) that US special operations had been working in the region and “killing a lot of Taliban and capturing a lot of Taliban.”

The governor of Kunar province, Sayed Fazelullah Wahidi, sent a delegation to investigate the attack, which reported that the dead were all civilians and mostly children. This report was confirmed by other local officials and eventually by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Local villagers reported that the dead were members of one family. Wahidi added that the attack was carried out without the knowledge of government officials.

Representatives for the US and NATO forces, following standard operating procedure, publicly denied knowledge of the attack, while anonymously claiming the dead were all insurgents.