9 February 2012.
After the standard-winged nightjar, we walked to a pool.
Black-winged stilts.
Cattle egrets.
A red-billed hornbill on a tree.
A squacco heron.
Another photo of that squacco heron is here.
A black crake. Spur-winged plovers.
Two yellow-billed shrikes sitting closely together on a branch.
A pied kingfisher.
An African grey hornbill.
Thursday 9 February.
Again, around Janjanbureh.
A long-tailed glossy starling on a wire near Baobolong.
10:25: a dark chanting goshawk on a fence.
10:40 we are back at yesterday’s quarry housing the red-throated bee-eater colony.
There are also holes smaller than the bee-eaters’ nest holes: they house sand martins.
Northern anteater-chats. They are especially active around a termite mound.
An Abyssinian roller.
Then, something really special, a standard-winged nightjar.
Before coming to Gambia, I knew this spectacular species lived there. But I thought I would see those nocturnal birds not at all, or only vaguely in the dark.
Yet here it is, only a few meters away, soundly asleep, trusting its mimicry colours making it look similarly to the earth of the field where it rests. An adult male in breeding plumage, meaning tail-feathers are longer than the body.
This video is called Shocking Report On Mining Company – Massey Energy.
A government prosecutor charged a former Massey Energy mine manager today with conspiring to obstruct federal regulators before a 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners: here. See also here.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found that if the federal mine regulatory agency had enforced basic safety standards, the 2010 disaster at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine could have been prevented: here.
This video is called NATO airstrike kills Afghan children.
From PTI:
February 22, 2012
Nine Afghan girls injured in NATO air raid
Last week, ISAF conceded that several children died during a bombing raid
Jalalabad: Nine schoolgirls were injured in a NATO helicopter attack in Afghanistan‘s eastern Nangarhar province, an Afghan official alleged Wednesday.
NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was looking into the allegation but had no immediate information.
“This morning a school was attacked by a NATO helicopter. Nine children, all girls, and the school’s janitor have been injured,” Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, the Nangarhar provincial government spokesman said.
“Some of the girls were discharged after receiving treatment but about five of them are still in the hospital,” Abdulzai said, accusing the US-led ISAF force of carrying out the attack.
An ISAF spokesman said the force was aware of the claim but “we don’t have operational reporting of it”.
“ISAF officials are looking into these claims,” the spokesman said.
Last week, ISAF conceded that several children died during a bombing raid on February 8 in northeast Kapisa province.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai had condemned the air strikes and ordered an investigation after saying that eight children were killed.
The latest report comes amid intense anti-US riots in Kabul that were unleashed after the burning of copies of the Koran by foreign forces at the US-run Bagram military base north of the capital.
Afghan police shot and killed at least seven people protesting today against the burning of a Koran at the US army’s Bagram base: here.
An Afghan policeman shot dead two US-led soldiers today outside a US military base in Khogyani district, Nangarhar: here.
With Mass Child Freezing Deaths, Proof of Mass Starvation, US in Violation of Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan. Ralph Lopez, War Is A Crime: “In 1949, at the Fourth Geneva Convention, the responsibilities of an ‘occupying power’ were recognized as a part of international law, to remain in effect as long as the occupier was the true and final authority in the client country … What is abundantly clear is that there is no lack of ‘means available to’ the US to meet its responsibilities [in Afghanistan] under Articles 55 through Article 60 of Geneva, especially when the afflicted populations are in the most secure part of the country”: here.
Remembering the Context of War Crimes: The Crime of War Itself. Camillo “Mac” Bica, Truthout: “War cannot be understood, rationally or intellectually, by watching a film or by reading a book. To ‘know’ war, you have to experience it, live it, feel it in your gut – the anxiety, fear, frustration, boredom, hopelessness, despair, anger, rage, etcetera. In truth, warriors exist in a world totally incomprehensible to those who have never had the misfortune of experiencing the horrors of the battlefield”: here.
This video, recorded in Germany, is called ‘Shoe’ protesters urge German president [Wulff] to quit.
By Peter Schwarz in Germany:
All-party coalition supports Gauck as new German president
22 February 2012
The 72-year-old Joachim Gauck will be the next German president. Two days after the resignation of Christian Wulff, five of the six parties represented in parliament have spoken out in favour of Gauck as their candidate for the post.
The chairs of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union, the Free Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and the Greens announced their decision Sunday evening at a joint press conference with Gauck. This means that his election by the Federal Assembly on March 18 is guaranteed. The five parties have a large majority in the election committee, which consists of all members of parliament and an equal number of state representatives. Only the Left Party is not included in the deal and was not asked its opinion on the matter.
By agreeing on a common candidate, the establishment parties are closing ranks. Only on one other occasion—in 1989 for the re-election of Richard von Weizsäcker—did they support a joint candidate.
This takes place amid growing social tensions and deep divisions in society. As a result of the policies introduced by the governments led by the SPD’s Gerhard Schröder and by the CDU’s Angela Merkel, the gap between rich and poor has grown explosively and the number of poor and those in precarious low wage jobs has increased significantly. Support for the governing parties has declined accordingly.
Under these circumstances it was stressed over and over again that the future president must stand above the parties and restore confidence in the state. With Gauck, a candidate has been selected who, while not being a member of any political party, stands firmly behind the continuation of austerity policies and defends right-wing positions on all social and political issues.
In this respect the support of the government and opposition parties for Gauck reminds of the situation in Greece and Italy, where a grand coalition of almost all parties backs the technocrats Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti. There, as in Germany, a supposedly non-partisan figure is being used to justify the cooperation of all the bourgeois parties—from the right to the bourgeois “left”—against the interests of the people. As was the case in the selection of Papademos and Monti, the choice of Gauck as new German president represents a political swing to the right and a turn away from democracy.
Gauck was born in 1940 in Rostock, the son of a captain of the German Navy, who spent several years in a Siberian prison camp after the war, accused of espionage.
I do not claim to be an expert on the biography of Joachim Gauck, or of his father.
However, I should say something on the Kriegsmarine, Adolf Hitler’s World War II navy, in which Gauck’s father was a high ranking officer. The navy was the part of the armed forces which Hitler trusted most. By the last year of the war, some officers of the army, like Colonel von Stauffenberg who made an attempt on Hitler’s life, had become opponents of the regime. Hitler also did not trust the boss of the nazi air force Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering, any more. When Hitler committed suicide on 30 April 1945, he named navy commander Karl Dönitz as his successor.
This was the foundation of the negative attitude he adopted towards the regime in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Gauck went on to study theology in the GDR and served as a pastor until the GDR collapsed in the autumn of 1989.
Shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gauck joined the New Forum—one of the allegedly “democratic” forces that negotiated the transition to capitalism with the GDR regime. After the reunification of Germany, Gauck headed the office in charge of the files of the Stasi, the GDR secret police. This made him a well-known national figure.
The media and the political establishment have gone to great lengths to portray Gauck as a steadfast, incorruptible democrat. His conception of democracy, however, is marked by anti-communism and has an extremely right-wing bias, both on political and social issues.
In October 2010 he gave an extensive interview to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which reads like a propaganda speech to justify the current austerity measures and social decline. Under the heading “People have to get up from their cosy beds”, Gauck combines an appeal to patriotism with attacks on every form of public welfare.
At the outset of the interview, he expresses the hope that youth will seek to make something better come out of “negative nationalism, i.e. not identifying as a German at any price”, and that youth will say Yes to the “region and the place where they live”.
“People need to get out of their cosy bed of expectations of happiness based on pleasure and prosperity. They should not expect others to do it for them”, he continued. “The hope that we can only be happy through consumption and neglect our civic duties is deceptive.”
He expressed his enthusiasm for “times of crisis or dictatorship”, in which life has to be tackled on a day-to-day basis. In affluent societies, however, “the challenge of having to define oneself is not so great. Life takes place. It is pleasant, often easy-going, entertaining. One notices only at certain turning points that something is lacking. There is hunger for a purpose.”
He praises statesmen who have the courage to follow a policy that “does not reflect the will of the majority of the people.” He endorses the labour market reforms introduced by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) and the decision to allow NATO to rearm on German territory made by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (SPD) in the early 1980s, in the face of massive popular opposition. Both men lost their posts as a result.
He prefers politicians “who were prepared to take the risk of not being re-elected”, Gauck explains.
In the interview, Gauck also expresses his support for the right-wing SPD politicians Heinz Buschkowsky and Thilo Sarrazin. Both made a name for themselves with vicious campaigns against Muslim immigrants. Gauck distances himself from Sarrazin’s “biological” arguments that Muslims lack intelligence, but praises Sarrazin’s courage.
While Gauck praises the courage of racist agitator Thilo Sarrazin, he is scathing in his criticism of those who protest against the power of financial markets. In October 2011 he described the Occupy-movement as “unspeakably stupid”. The idea of a world where one can free oneself from the grip of the bond markets is a romantic notion, he said. He was equally disparaging about the Stuttgart-21 protests, which he described as an expression of the “heinous” German inclination to hysteria and fear.
Gauck has explicitly campaigned for international military operations by the German armed forces. In a speech at the Deutsches Theater in the summer of 2010, he declared that he hoped to see more public support for the Afghanistan war, which in his view is “correct and necessary”.
Despite his right-wing positions, Gauck is supported primarily by the SPD and the Greens. They already nominated him as their candidate for the presidential office two years ago. In the event, he was defeated in a third round of voting by the CDU’s Christian Wulff.
Now, representatives of the Greens and the SPD are singing the praises of Gauck. Green Party chairperson Claudia Roth declared him to be a man who could reunite society, lend new splendour to democracy, and modernise it. SPD Chairman Sigmar Gabriel called Gauck’s candidacy a good and important signal to the people.
The FDP also signalled its support. FDP General Secretary Patrick Döring declared that the party had backed Gauck “out of inner conviction”. And Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (FDP) said Gauck would “add to the international reputation of our country based on his career and his lifelong commitment to freedom and responsibility.”
Resistance against Gauck came mainly from inside the conservative Union camp. Chancellor Angela Merkel had considerable difficulty in advocating a Protestant from the former GDR (like herself), in the face of opposition from forces rooted in the Catholic milieu of southern Germany. It was only when the FDP decided unilaterally in favour of Gauck on Sunday afternoon—risking a breakup of the governing coalition—that Merkel finally relented and gave Gauck her support.
The fact that five parties have now put their support behind this right-wing candidate should be taken as a warning. The enthusiastic support for Gauck from the ranks of the SPD and the Greens once again demonstrates that there is nothing to distinguish these parties from the traditional right-wing bourgeois parties.
See also here.
This morning in the village, greenfinch sound.
The food in the house shaped bird feeder is gone.
There is still some in nets, attracting jackdaws, and a male blackbird under the tree looking for falling food.
After the jackdaws, a great tit on the net, and a female blackbird on the ground.
Two great tits and a blue tit in the tree near the food.
A wood pigeon on the lawn.
Two jackdaws on the lawn.
A great tit on the net, a male blackbird below it on the ground.
Six mallards on the lawn.
A robin. It tries to find food at the house shaped feeder, but fails. Then, it tries the hanging net, but it is not as agile as a tit. It does manage to find food on the ground.
Finally, a blue tit hanging on the net, and a female blackbird below it on the ground.
The absolute monarchical regime in Bahrain does not just poison its subjects’ babies with tear gas.
It does not just torture and kill its subjects.
The Bahrain royal family are also among the richest people in the world; while many Bahrainis are poor.
This video says about itself:
Documentary about poverty in Bahrain, produced by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, 2004. In Arabic with English subtitles.
The regime propaganda claims that the Bahraini economy as a whole is growing.
Still, the regime wants to make poor Bahrainis even poorer.
From TradeArabia today:
Bahrain plans to reduce ‘lavish spending’
Manama: 2 hours and 15 minutes ago
Bahrain must tighten its belt to reduce lavishness, rationalise spending and protect public money, His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa said.
Welfare spending will be trimmed substantially among a string of other measures, he said as he chaired a work meeting of the Cabinet.
A Turkish newspaper column (in English), about Turkish, United States, Sudanese, Saudi etc. governmental hypocrisy on Syria and Bahrain, is here.
United States Police Chief Timoney should donate his salary to Bahraini victims of noxious tear gas: here.
The Bahrain regime’s exploitation of South Asian workers: here.
From BirdLife:
Videos provide new information on Mao
Tue, Feb 21, 2012
Mao Gymnomyza samoensis is an endemic honeyeater found in Samoa which is classified as Endangered by BirdLife on behalf of the IUCN Red List because it has a small, fragmented range that is declining as the quality of its forest habitat diminishes. Unless urgent action is taken, these unique birds have a very high risk of going extinct in the near future.
A new research project is seeking to gather ecological information on the factors that have led to the Moa’s current decline. Leading this research, Rebecca Stirnemann tells BirdLife of some recent video footage that provides new information on species.
“The Mao is a curious species and by imitating their calls they come down to investigate us. They are wondering if we are another pair which is invading their territory. In this valley in Samoa in the early morning we can hear a number of Mao making their musical duets. We are here to study the Mao an endangered Honey eater now found only in Samoa.
The Male calls to the female and she trills in response. Then she disappears. We follow her through the forest to a tall tree there in the tall branches is an oval shaped nest. We check it and inside is the single chick monitored constantly by a special nest camera. Footage shows the mother bird is constantly feeding the chick a mix of insects and small geckos.
At another nest a video has captured the sad moment an egg is lost. The black and white footage has been filmed at night while the female sleeps on the nest keeping the egg warm. While she sleeps a rat leaps on to her back and as the mother bird escapes the rat picks up the egg in its mouth and carries it off to eat later. This pair does not manage to raise any chicks this year. This video is the first footage which proves that the adult birds cannot defend the nests from invasive rats and may begin to explain their decline.
We go and monitor a third pair they have been lucky and their single chick has left the nest. This chick will continue to be monitored to recognize her the research team have places two coloured rings on her leg. She follows the mother bird closely making a constant begging call. Unlike most birds which only feed chicks a few days after leaving the nest the mother Mao will continue to feed her chick for 2 more months. During this time the young chick may still be vulnerable to other invasive species such as cats. We can only hope she will make it.
As we stand here it is strange to [realize] these beautiful calls will stop forever if we don’t do something to stop the current decline.”
