German Luftwaffe participates in Libyan bloodbath

This video about the Libyan war is called NATO kills 10 civilians for every troop targeted, destroys children’s facilities.

By Tom Mellen:

MP attacks covert role in Nato war

Friday 19 August 2011

A German MP warned today that Luftwaffe involvement in the blitz on Libya was “constitutionally very questionable” because the Bundestag had not granted the Merkel administration a mandate to go to war.

Defence Ministry documents released on Thursday revealed that 11 air force personnel had been deployed to Operation Unified Protector headquarters in Italy.

The ministry said the soldiers were helping to identify targets for bombing.

But Green Party MP Hans-Christian Stroebele

A member of the Left wing of the Greens, contrary to the party’s pro-war Right wing, including Joschka Fischer, ex-party leader, now Big Oil businmessman

said the admission meant that “the army is taking an active part in the war in Libya.”

Such active involvement meant that a parliamentary mandate was required, he said.

Mr Stroebele added: “This reminds us of the covert support that German secret service agents rendered to the American-led war against Iraq in 2003.”

Berlin formally opposes the war in Libya and abstained from the UN security council vote that imposed the “no-fly zone” over the developing country in March.

At the time Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Berlin would not participate in the Nato bombing campaign for fear of killing civilians.

Social Democrat MP Gernot Erler said today: “The fact that it has now been revealed that German soldiers are involved in choosing military targets shows that Westerwelle’s boastful statements about not taking part were a farce.”

But German Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere insisted today that the deployment of German soldiers under Nato command was “normal practice.”

Mr de Maiziere said that if every deployment of German soldiers by Nato required parliamentary approval Berlin would be unable to fulfil its obligations to the US-led military alliance – and could be forced to withdraw from it.

Opinion polls have shown that a majority of German citizens are opposed to Nato’s military meddling in Libya.

In fierce fighting between Libyan government forces and Western-backed rebels has seen a “rapid deterioration in the humanitarian situation” in the Libyan towns of Brega, Zawiya, Garyan, and Sabratha, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned.

Sabratha antiquities: here.

“Some of the areas where the fighting is fiercest are unreachable. We hope to be granted access quickly so we can bring people the assistance they need,” the organisation said in a statement released on Thursday night.

See also here.

Western-backed rebel forces encircle Libyan capital: here.

Rare whale find on Ameland beach

This video says about itself:

Sowerby’s beaked whales breaching

Filmed 2013-08-25 (Mesoplodon bidens).

Translated from the Nieuwe Dockumer Courant in the Netherlands today:

This Wednesday, pro environment beachcomber Piet Metz found a special piece of bone on the beach of Ameland. Research by the Nature Centre Ameland on the origin of this bone has now shown that this is a vertebra of a Sowerby’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon bidens).

The discovery of a single vertebra of this whale is remarkable. This is because of this whale species in the Netherlands only 19 strandings have been recorded; in this century only four.

See also here.

Bermuda Triangle to Become Humpback Whale Haven: here.

White whale Humpback calf off Queensland: here.

Fin whale in Dutch Naturalis museum: here.

Fin whale dies after stranding on mud in Humber Estuary: here.

Japan Dolphin Day: Protest The Slaughter In Taiji (TAKE ACTION): here.

Dolphins don’t whistle, but instead “talk” to each other using a process very similar to the way humans communicate: here.

Related articles

• How did a 33ft whale end up in the middle of a field in East Yorkshire?
• Humpback whales removed from endangered list
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• ‘Bungee cord’ nerves let whales take big gulps
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• ‘Humpback whale is back in North Sea’
• Good Irish whale news

Scandals may bring down James Murdoch

This video is called Documents Cast New Doubt on Murdoch’s Denial.

From the Huffington Post in the USA:

News Corp. executives are contemplating a future without James Murdoch, Reuters reports.

Murdoch had long been seen as the natural successor to his father, Rupert. But he has been deeply wounded by the phone hacking scandal and, according to Peter Lauria, senior executives are beginning to think about what might happen if he wants to “step aside.”

Murdoch’s Lawyers Turn on Him: here.

New evidence in UK phone hacking scandal implicates the Murdochs: here.

Kerry Katona claims she was phone-hacking victim: here.

Rare sea slug discovery in the Netherlands

Translated from Natuurbericht in the Netherlands:

August 19, 2011 8:40

The sea slug Cuthona foliata, very rare in the Netherlands, has been found for the first time ever this weekend in Lake Grevelingen. Recreational divers had never before seen this little gem of our marine biodiversity in Dutch coastal waters.

Sea slug

In 1966, the last individual in the Netherlands had been found. washed up on Texel beach. And never before in the Netherlands underwater pictures of this little sea slug had been made​​. That changed last weekend. At least four specimens of Cuthona foliata have recently located in the Grevelingen lake.

US Verizon workers strike on

This video from the USA is called Verizon Strike Rap at rally New York City.

An examination of the injunctions leveled against the Verizon strikers show that they undermine core democratic rights of the workers. They go far beyond addressing the unsubstantiated charges of “sabotage” that the company, abetted by the media, has leveled in order to justify its strike-breaking operations: here.

A rally of up to two thousand Verizon workers and supporters protested the approval of a contract between the New York City Department of Education and Verizon for phone and Internet service at city schools: here.

Chilean students keep fighting

Striking university and high school students in Chile are calling for a popular referendum to modify the Chilean Constitution and education laws to insure quality education that is free for all: here. And here.

English riots´ aftermath

Bristol, the sixth largest city in England with a metropolitan population of one million people, witnessed two nights of rioting on Monday and Tuesday last week. According to the Bristol Evening Post, hundreds of young people were involved in the areas of St Paul’s, Montpelier, St Werburgh’s, Kingswood, Stokes Croft and Cabot Circus shopping centre. Eyewitness accounts indicate the incidents erupted separately and were not the result of one group moving from one place to another: here.

Workers speak out on British riots: “The system is not viable”: here.

Government considers curfew powers following UK riots: here.

Jails were said to be on the brink of becoming “human warehouses” today as prisoner numbers hit a record high for the second week running in the wake of the riots: here.

Judge Andrew Gilbart’s release of Ursula Nevin from her five-month jail sentence for receiving a stolen pair of shorts stands out as an island of reason in an ocean of legal insanity: here.

UK riots: nearly 2,000 arrested so far, say police: here.

Prison reform campaigners said today the rush to remand suspected rioters in prison has “compounded a long-standing problem of excessive use of custody”: here.

Campaigners warned against police being allowed to act with impunity today after an alarming escalation in deaths in custody in recent weeks: here.

CRISPIN Blunt, the justice minister, announced yesterday that instructions were being issued to the courts to the effect that unemployed offenders sentenced to the new community payback scheme would be forced to work for eight hours a day in ‘community service’ and on the fifth day they should be forced to look for work: here.

An innocent man who spent nine days locked up after being wrongly accused of setting fire to a Miss Selfridge store in Manchester spoke of his prison “hell” today: here.

Three weeks after the outbreak of widespread rioting in London, the Metropolitan Police continue to hunt down anyone suspected of involvement: here.

One month after major disturbances were provoked by the August 4 police killing of Mark Duggan in north London, the Metropolitan Police are intensifying raids on working class neighbourhoods: here.

Last month’s riots were again linked to poverty today by new research that showed that more a third of those taken to court in London lived in the city’s poorest boroughs: here.

The riots triggered by the police killing of Mark Duggan on August 4 have unleashed a wave of legal repression, including numerous raids by armed response units seeking to arrest alleged rioters: here.

TUC: inequality and cuts lie behind riots: here.

The news that yet another person has died after a confrontation with the police brings the total of deaths arising out of such incidents to a staggering three in eight days that have involved the use of Taser stun guns and pepper spray: here.

UK television broadcasters—the BBC, ITN and Sky News—are in the process of handing over hundreds of hours of untransmitted video footage from the riots in London in August to the Metropolitan Police: here.

Saturday saw the 13th annual United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) march in protest at deaths in police custody and in secure psychiatric hospitals. The list of deaths in custody gets longer, and now stands at more than 3,100. The police killing of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four in Tottenham, which triggered August’s riots, brought many to the demonstration: here.

The wave of riots in numerous English cities this August did not lead to widespread disruption anywhere in Wales. Despite this, several people in Wales have been arrested for riot related offences, some of whom have been denied bail and handed highly disproportionate sentences: here.

Welsh Assembly Member Keith Davies demanded an apology at the weekend from the government and military for killings that took place in Llanelli during the 1911 railway strike: here.

USA: New York police anti-riot units were brought together last weekend at a training facility to prepare for an outbreak of civil unrest similar to those that have occurred recently in Britain: here.

Economic crisis, workers fight back

Global stock markets plunged once again Thursday after bad US economic figures compounded new fears of a banking crisis in Europe: here.

Last week, the Eon energy group confirmed its intention to eliminate up to 11,000 jobs worldwide and implement a drastic austerity program: here.

President Obama will give a “jobs” speech next month, which will consist of a few paltry measures, while expanding cuts in social programs that will only worsen the unemployment crisis: here.

A new report shows that one in five US children—about 14.7 million—live in poverty, a 17 percent rise over 2000 figures: here.

USA: More than 500 teachers and support staff demonstrated Tuesday at the Detroit Public Schools headquarters to protest the draconian wage and benefits cuts recently imposed by Emergency Financial Manager Roy Roberts: here.

General strike threatened in Italy in response to austerity package: here.

Far from being shielded from the global crisis, Australian capitalism is particularly vulnerable to the worsening economic turmoil: here.