Daily Archives: May 5, 2008

Dutch Princess Mabel pro peace?

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This is a video from a Dutch 2003 TV program, about Princess Mabel’s relationship to gangster Klaas Bruimsma. She also vandalized her Wikipedia entry.

From GPD news agency in the Netherlands:

Princess Mabel [of the Netherlands] will serve as the first Chief Executive of The Elders, Desmond Tutu, Chair of the Elders, announced on Wednesday. She will oversee the day-to-day operations for the Elders, a group of eminent individuals convened by Nelson Mandela to use their wisdom, independent leadership and experience to tackle some of the world’s toughest problems.

According to daily The Scotsman, the originator of the idea of the Global Elders is not Nelson Mandela, but British millionaire Richard Branson.

In itself, the idea of ex-politicians like in the Global Elders, commenting on the policies of their successors, is not a totally bad idea. Arguably, ex politicians often have better ideas than when they still were in office: Jimmy Carter (one of the Elders), Colin Powell …

However, having the day-to-day operations for the Elders in the hands of Princess Mabel is a bad idea.

The GPD article continues on Mabel:

She founded and was the executive director from 1993 through 1997 of the European Action Council for Peace in the Balkans, a West-European non-governmental organization dedicated to establishing peace, democracy and stability in the Balkans.

Mabel Wisse Smit, as she was known then, worked ‘for peace and democracy’ in the Balkans jointly with well-known militarist, anti democrat, and supporter of apartheid in South Africa, Margaret Thatcher. The “Action” which that “Council” lobbied for, was Western military aggression in Yugoslavia. Mabel’s boyfriend then, before she became a princess by marriage and after Dutch gangster Klaas Bruinsma, was Bosnian politician Sacirbey, jailed for shady financial and arms deals.

Nelson Mandela is well known as an opponent of the Yugoslavia and Iraq wars. It will not work well for him to have Princess Mabel as a filter on his views.

Where millionaires, whether Richard Branson, Mabel’s employer George Soros, or the sponsors of the American Enterprise Institute are involved, critical distance is necessary.

Princes Mabel, ex Dutch secret policewoman: here.

George Soros’ Ex, Brazilian Actress Adriana Ferreyr, Sues for $50 M; Claims Billionaire Hit Her, Didn’t Give Manhattan Apartment: here.

Karadzic and Bosnia: here.

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Nightingales and red-crested pochards

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This is a video of a male red-crested pochard.

Today, to Meijendel nature reserve.

Before I got there, from the train: many grey lag geese at the Naardermeer. Near Hoofddorp tufted ducks, and later a buzzard.

A coot transporting a green leaf of its own size across the water to its nest near the river Rhine.

Walking from the bus stop to Meijendel, a long-tailed tit. And brimstone butterflies. Later, in Meijendel itself, many speckled wood butterflies.

In Meijendel, I walk at first along the path with red markers; then, the blue path; finally, the yellow path which leads to the sea.

A jay. Sounds of willow warbler, chiffchaff, and great spotted woodpecker.

I arrive at the hide near one of the dune lakes. On the water: coots, mallards, tufted ducks, great crested grebes.

Just as I am starting to think: ‘nice birds, but common species’, I see two red-crested pochards, a male and a female, gliding over the water surface.

Then, a nightingale singing. The first one of many which I will hear here today.

Between ground ivy along the path, also a few Viola curtisii flowering.

I pass more dune lakes. I hear a little grebe calling. Four great cormorants pass overhead.

Tufted ducks and common pochards in a lake. Common gulls at the water’s edge.

Great tits in bushes not far from the sea.

Oystercatchers, carrion crows, and herring gulls on the beach.

As I walk back, a meadow pipit and a barn swallow above the dunes closest to the sea.

Nightingale and chiffchaff sounds.

At the lake which I passed before on my way to the sea, the same birds, now joined by a northern lapwing. The common gulls are in an amorous mood.

At the hide, I didn’t see the red-crested pochards any more. However, there were two gadwall now.

Sounds of a green woodpecker and a pheasant.

Nightingales are disappearing from Britain because deer are eating the woodland undergrowth the birds need for nesting, a new study has shown. It is a significant breakthrough in understanding why numbers of the renowned songbird are rapidly falling; here.

Cameraman, released from Guantánamo, about torture

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This video is called Sami al-Hajj Speaks of his Guantanamo Ordeal.

By Naomi Spencer:

Journalist released from Guantánamo details abuse

5 May 2008

After six years of imprisonment without charge, a well-known cameraman for Al Jazeera news was released May 1 by the US military. The reporter, Sami al-Hajj, was captured in 2001 while covering the US invasion of Afghanistan and subjected to the torture and abuse that is routine at US military-run prison camps.

Without prior announcement, the military returned al-Hajj to his home country of Sudan with two other prisoners who had also been held for years at the US-run Guantánamo Bay prison. Al-Hajj was gaunt and too weak to stand or speak as soldiers carried him off the C-17 cargo plane and placed him, still shackled, on a stretcher. He was transported immediately to a hospital in Khartoum. His brother told reporters he did not immediately recognize al-Hajj, who had been seized as a healthy 32-year-old and now resembled a man in his eighties.

Former prosecutor testifies that Guantánamo military commissions are show trials: here.

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