ISIS’ weapons from the USA

Posted on June 3, 2015 by petrel41

This video from the USA says about itself:

ISIS/Daesh terrorists armed by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE

4 October 2014

US Vice President Joe Biden openly admits at a speech in Harvard University that ISIS terrorists were armed and funded by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.

By Bill Van Auken in the USA:

The US arming of ISIS

3 June 2015

Ministers from 20 countries assembled in Paris June 2 in what was billed as a meeting of the coalition to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This alliance, cobbled together by Washington, consists largely of NATO allies together with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf oil monarchies.

Notably absent from the proceedings were three countries that have been heavily involved in the fight against ISIS: Syria, Iran and Russia. This was by US design.

At the outset of the Paris meeting, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi accused the world of having “failed” Iraq, calling attention to the recent advances of ISIS in both Iraq and Syria as well as the uninterrupted flow of Islamist foreign fighters into both countries.

For his part, US Deputy Under Secretary of State Anthony Blinken insisted that Washington and its allies are pursuing a “winning strategy,” and that it would succeed “if we remain united, determined and focused.”

Over the past several weeks, this “winning strategy” has seen ISIS capture Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province, as well as the historic city of Palmyra in Syria. In the past few days, ISIS forces have advanced into Aleppo province in Syria, overrunning rival Islamist militias and Syrian government troops as well. This offensive has proceeded without any interference from US and allied warplanes supposedly waging an air war against ISIS.

“Focused” is scarcely a word that any objective observer would use to describe US policy in the region. While claiming to be committed to a war against ISIS, Washington and its regional allies have time and again proven themselves to be its principal sources of strength.

This movement did not exist until the US launched its criminal war of aggression against Iraq in 2003, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and stoking sectarian tensions as part of a strategy of divide-and-conquer that deliberately pitted Shiites and Sunnis against each other.

It grew stronger based on the US-NATO war for regime change in Libya, which utilized Al Qaeda-linked militias—now affiliated with ISIS—as ground troops in overthrowing and murdering Muammar Gaddafi and plunging the country into a state of chaos that continues to this day. It was further strengthened by the US-backed war for regime change in Syria, in which ISIS emerged as the most powerful faction in the bloody sectarian war to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad.

The latest ISIS offensive has been made possible by a massive infusion of US weapons. Prime Minister Abadi admitted Monday that the Islamists captured some 2,300 armored Humvees—worth over one billion dollars—when it routed Iraqi security forces in Mosul nearly a year ago.

In a Reuters column Tuesday, Peter Van Buren, a former US State Department official in Iraq, reported that, in addition, at least 40 M1A2 main battle tanks as well as vast quantities of “small arms and ammunition, including 74,000 machine guns, and as many as 52 M198 howitzer moil gun systems” fell into the hands of the Islamist militia.

There is an inherent logic in the flow of US arms to ISIS, which, while officially branded as America’s most dangerous terrorist threat, is at the same time the most powerful military opponent of the Assad government in Syria.

It would not be the first time that American weapons were funneled to an ostensible enemy in order to further the counterrevolutionary aims of US imperialism. Thirty years ago, a similar scenario played out in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair, with a secret network in the White House organizing the sale of arms to Iran—then labeled by Washington as a terrorist nation—to fight against Iraq and, most crucially, to obtain money to secretly and illegally finance and arm the so-called contras in a CIA-orchestrated terrorist war against Nicaragua.

Whether or not similar behind-the-scenes machinations underlie the massive rearmament of ISIS, it would appear that different factions within the US government and its gargantuan military and intelligence apparatus are waging different wars in Iraq and Syria.

For a sizable faction within the US ruling establishment, the overthrow of Assad and with it the isolation, weakening and ultimate destruction of the governments of both Iran and Russia remain the overriding strategic aims. In the absence of the so-called moderate rebels that US imperialism and its pseudo-left apologists have tirelessly attempted to conjure up, they are prepared to utilize ISIS, the Al Nusra Front and similar Al Qaeda-linked elements to further these ends.

These strategic aims far outweigh any concern over terrorism, which they believe has its own uses as a means of terrorizing the American people into accepting war and police state measures.

This orientation likewise has a long history, going back to the US backing of Islamist elements in Afghanistan with the aim of giving the Soviet Union what was then described as its “own Vietnam.” That venture produced the Al Qaeda movement, which is officially blamed for the attacks of 9/11.

On the superficial level of media analysis, it becomes increasingly difficult to make any sense of American foreign policy. The apparent pursuit of inherently contradictory policies is bound up with the unavoidable difficulties that arise from attempting to exert control over the entire planet. Inevitably, this quest produces one catastrophe after another, from Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Libya, Syria and beyond.

Behind the apparent incoherence of American policy lie objectives that, at their deepest level, are wholly irrational. That is, the attempt to prop up by military means a position of global political hegemony that is already in advanced and irretrievable decline.

The bid by Washington to overcome by means of armed violence powerful objective tendencies rooted in the historic crisis of US and world capitalism yields a succession of utterly reckless and destructive interventions that together drive inexorably toward a Third World War.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi urged the coalition on Tuesday to allow his country to obtain weapons from Russia and Iran, both subject to Western sanctions, adding that little material aid had arrived from the US and its allies: here.

Gigantic shark from the dinosaur age discovered

Posted on June 3, 2015 by petrel41

This 2011 video says about itself:

Effects of Climate Change on Cretaceous Sharks

From PLOS ONE:

A Gigantic Shark from the Lower Cretaceous Duck Creek Formation of Texas

Joseph A. Frederickson, Scott N. Schaefer, Janessa A. Doucette-Frederickson

Published: June 3, 2015

Abstract

Three large lamniform shark vertebrae are described from the Lower Cretaceous of Texas. We interpret these fossils as belonging to a single individual with a calculated total body length of 6.3 m. This large individual compares favorably to another shark specimen from the roughly contemporaneous Kiowa Shale of Kansas.

Neither specimen was recovered with associated teeth, making confident identification of the species impossible. However, both formations share a similar shark fauna, with Leptostyrax macrorhiza being the largest of the common lamniform sharks. Regardless of its actual identification, this new specimen provides further evidence that large-bodied lamniform sharks had evolved prior to the Late Cretaceous.

Pentagon sending live anthrax all over the world

Posted on June 3, 2015 by petrel41

This video from the USA says about itself:

Questionable anthrax sent to 51 labs

3 June 2015

CNN’s Barbara Starr reports that anthrax that may be alive was sent to dozens of labs across the United States.

From USA TODAY:

Number of live anthrax shipments to labs expands, officials say

Alison Young and Tom Vanden Brook

June 3, 2015

WASHINGTON — Live samples of anthrax were shipped from a military lab to 51 other laboratories in 17 states, the District of Columbia and three foreign countries, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

That’s more than twice as many laboratories as previously believed, according to the preliminary results of an investigation led by Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work.

“We expect this number may rise,” Work said.

The Pentagon will finish by the end of June its study of why an Army lab mistakenly sent out the potentially deadly anthrax samples, said Frank Kendall, the military’s top acquisition chief.

Work has been charged with determining why the tainted vials were sent and preventing it from happening again. Also leading the investigation: Kendall, Navy Cdr. Franca Jones, chief of medical programs for chemical and biological defense, and Stephen Redd, a top official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kendall said Wednesday that his team will examine the root causes for the shipments and other military procedures. …

Potentially bad batches of anthrax date back as long as 10 years, Jones said.

The Pentagon’s probe will look into the reason its irradiation failed to kill the anthrax and why testing failed to discover it, Work said. …

The states, according to a Pentagon statement, are California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Ohio and North Carolina. The three countries are Australia, Canada and South Korea.

Until Wednesday, little information had been released by the military or CDC about what may have gone wrong in the procedure used by the lab at the Dugway Proving Ground, which was supposed to have killed the specimens of anthrax before they were shipped to other facilities.

Several of the labs that received the specimens in late April were working on a project with the Department of Defense to develop a new diagnostic test to identify biological threats.

John Peterson, a microbiology professor who works with anthrax in labs at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, said generally that scientists face challenges when they seek to kill anthrax spores, especially if some remnant of the pathogen is needed for testing detection equipment. Tests and sensors often are looking for certain proteins or nucleic acids associated with the pathogen, he said.

“The process of inactivating them is kind of a delicate one,” he said, noting that the method must be sufficient to kill all of the spores yet still leave something behind that’s reminiscent of the organism so the material can be used to test detection equipment.

“Spores, because of their nature, their very heavy outside coating make them resistant to drying or chemicals,” Peterson said in an interview with USA TODAY.

Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax, forms spores that, if inhaled, can cause serious disease.

There is no single, best method for killing anthrax spores, Peterson said, and methods may vary between labs. Some use chemicals, others use radiation. The Dugway lab was reportedly irradiating its anthrax specimens. …

CDC and military officials would not answer USA TODAY’s questions about Dugway’s anthrax deactivation method, how long it had been in use and why problems with it weren’t identified until May 22. On May 22, an unidentified private biotechnology company in Maryland called the CDC to say they had been able to culture small amounts of live Bacillus anthracis from one of the Dugway samples, even though it supposedly had been deactivated.

The apparent verification test done by the Maryland lab launched a massive military and federal investigation that has since extended to other countries. It’s unclear why Dugway and other labs didn’t detect that the specimens were viable. On Friday USA TODAY reported that a supposedly killed anthrax specimen from 2008 was also recently found to be capable of growing, raising concerns last week that the scope of the problem was far larger than just the labs that got a few recent anthrax specimens. …

The military lab’s anthrax mistakes is the latest in a series of high-profile accidents at major U.S. laboratories that have occurred since last summer. A USA TODAY Network investigation (biolabs.usatoday.com) published last week revealed hundreds of additional accidents have occurred with little public scrutiny.

Tunnels saving toads from traffic, new research

Posted on June 3, 2015 by petrel41

This 3 June 2015 Dutch video, in English, is about tunnels saving common toads from traffic. How effective are they?

New research in Ede town in Gelderland province says that of 800 toads on one side of a dangerous road, 300 animals used the tunnels. So, the tunnels do work; but not enough yet. There should be more tunnels, decreasing the distances the toads have to go before reaching a tunnel.

German workers fight for their rights

Posted on June 3, 2015 by petrel41

This video says about itself:

Germany: Thousands hold May Day rally for refugee rights in Hamburg

1 May 2015

Thousands of demonstrators marched through Hamburg, Friday, in support of refugee rights and to celebrate International Workers’ Day.

By Victor Grossman in Germany:

Militant move: Why German workers are striking out for change

Wednesday 3rd June 2015

Long hours, low pay, anti-union laws and precarious employment have pushed the people of Germany to breaking point. Strikes were inevitable, writes VICTOR GROSSMAN

WAS the German working class suddenly turning super-militant? Some may have been fearful — some hopeful — that on the rail lines and elsewhere the old 1915 IWW song Solidarity Forever was literally coming true: “Without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.”

The strike of locomotive engineers stopped freight cars on May 19 and passenger traffic the next day. Unlike eight previous strikes by the same union, the strike was not for 30 hours, 42 hours or six days — it had no end date. Although the state-owned but largely independently run railroad company tried to maintain a skeleton schedule, two-thirds of the wheels stopped turning. City rail services were cut by between 40 and 85 percent.

In Berlin the crucial S-Bahn elevated system tried hard to achieve at least 20-minute intervals on main routes. Underground, bus and tram lines were unaffected but overfilled.

The long-lasting dispute involved not just wages and hours — a 38-hour work week, no more than 50 hours’ overtime and proper weekends, all considered necessary for rail safety — but also a jurisdictional conflict. The workers are members of Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokomotivfuhrer. This small union, Germany’s second oldest, dating back to 1867 (though interrupted by the Nazi years) insists on its right to organise not only engineers but also other staff working on the trains like conductors and restaurant workers, and not be swallowed up by the general transportation union — seven times larger but usually tamer.

Many Germans are more-or-less pro-union, but of course this strike did hit people going to work or school each day and frightened those planning travels over the long May 23-25 weekend (not just Pentecost Sunday, Whit Monday is also a holiday). The issues were not easy to grasp for non-railway people and the media, aided by the Transportation Minister Peter Ramsauer, did what they could to work up feelings, especially against the union head, who is alternately ridiculed due to his Saxon (east German) dialect, laughed at rather like a brogue or a Brooklyn dialect, or attacked in hard language recalling earlier abuse of Fidel Castro or currently of Vladimir Putin.

Then an agreement was reached to end the strike and turn the matter over to two mediators. They are a curious pair: for the company Matthias Platzeck, 61, a Social Democrat, until 2013 minister-president of a coalition with Die Linke (The Left) in Brandenburg state, and for the engineers Bodo Ramelow, 59, once a West German union official but since December the first Left minister-president in Germany, heading a coalition of Left, SPD and Greens in Thuringia — also in former East Germany.

Ramelow pointed out right away that the new written agreement permitted the union a separate contract, a key issue. But neither man is a fire-eater — both have made past compromises — so it seemed fairly likely that they would work out an agreement.

Then, a day later, the entire picture changed. The engineers had accused railroad managers of purposeful foot-dragging, partly so people would blame and hate the union for the inconvenience, but also because a new law due for passage by the Bundestag (federal parliament) would hinder just such small independent unions from organising and making contracts at companies with larger unions. This would hit not only the engineers and train staff but pilots, air traffic controllers (now also considering a strike) and even doctors working in clinics.

This law was clearly intervention in free union activity and, it was admitted, it would prevent many strikes. Some saw it as a quid-pro-quo move by Social Democrats in the government coalition after Merkel’s Christian Democrats agreed to the new minimum wage law. Others saw it as just one more move against militancy. And now it has been passed, the Left, the Greens and some mavericks were unable to stop a big government majority. It will immediately be challenged in the Supreme Court, with a very uncertain outcome.

This law and the train strike have divided an already edgy labour movement. The West German union federation (DGB), founded in 1949 with 16 industrial unions, is now down to eight after many mergers. More worrisome, the number of organised employees dropped from about 25 per cent in 2005 to a little over 16 per cent now, with only a slight recent upturn.

The demise of East Germany and its entire union movement did not nearly bring a big expected growth since East German industry was also largely disposed of. And the alarming increase in part-time, temporary, low-paid and other precarious jobs, usually with no union membership, has taken its toll.

And yet, more than 6 million people are still organized — if not always united.

The new law is officially welcomed by four big unions: metal workers, mine and chemical workers, construction workers and transportation workers. These four, even when they demand wage increases, generally get along with employers. Their initial post-war opposition to the so-called “social market economy” grew more docile over the years, with broad acceptance and support for the status quo, just like their main Social Democratic ally. For these four unions, the days of big, militant strikes are generally forgotten.

But three other unions, mostly with more women, are not so glued to the SPD and sometimes lean more leftward, though rarely daring, even on a local scale, to show too much sympathy for the Left, which is labour’s most consistent ally in state and federal parliaments but still largely taboo in west Germany thanks to old feelings against the GDR.

They are the teachers’ union, the union of food and restaurant workers (both headed by a woman), and Verdi, the service workers union. Verdi unites all kinds of people: retail clerks, public employees from hospital workers to refuse collectors, bank, insurance and other white-collar workers, postal employees, workers in the paper and printing field, with special branches for photographers, writers, musicians and artists, and even one for sex workers.

Its charismatic president Frank Bsirske, 63, belongs to the Greens, but Verdi has taken part in annual left-wing Rosa Luxemburg conferences, worked with the anti-globalism Attac movement and joined in the Blockupy demonstration against the European Central Bank in Frankfurt in March. It is over 2 million strong, topped only by the metal workers union with its 2.3 million members, and with which it has occasional jurisdictional disputes.

There is often “bad blood” between their leaders. Verdi, certainly the fightingest of them all, leads more strikes than all the others combined, in part because its more numerous female membership faces more discrimination than most blue-collar men.

Right now Verdi’s postal employees are conducting a series of short warning strikes on wage and hours issues, first in one state, then in another.

In Brandenburg state bus and tram drivers are demanding more pay, and also switching stoppages from one county to another until authorities make an acceptable offer. Nurses and other personnel at Charité, Berlin’s famous university hospital, are after years of warning strikes now voting on a possible unlimited strike (with full attention to patients in need of care). Their demands are for an urgently needed improvement in the nurse-patient ratio. They demand no more than a 1:2 staff-patient ratio in intensive care wards and 1:5 at normal wards, instead of the present average of 1:12.

For two years Amazon workers have been fighting hard for decent wages against bosses who have done everything to use strikebreakers and set shops against each other.

In the most dramatic of Verdi strikes, since early May the staff of most nurseries and kindergartens and some care homes have gone on strike to demand a 10 per cent increase in wages, now far too low in view of their long training. This includes a wish for more respect for their demanding and important job. Thanks to the example of the GDR (though it is rarely mentioned), the offer of childcare, private or public, is now at least officially required, with a wide variety of usually low prices, which means that the strikes cause problems for a large percentage of working parents.

But the women (and a few men) saw no alternative and hope the growing pressure will help them win.

Does this strike wave reflect a change in an otherwise more placid economic and political scene? Crystal balls are rare and untrustworthy. Golf balls, or giant structures resembling them, now take more headlines but are far, far less transparent than the crystal kind. Round and white, these radar domes, located in Bad Aibling in Bavaria, are tools in the all-encompassing spying activity which has joined the US NSA with the German BND in a long-lasting series of scandals.

The German side, the media cries, lets cloak-and-dagger men from Washington not only in on government doings all over Europe and beyond, but on a host of business matters too, with a list of maybe 5,000 selectors: words, names and places to be sorted out from the billions of messages. And this is in clear violation of basic German law.

The differing reactions of those caught up in the limelight are more than interesting. Washington kept largely mum. Chancellor Angela Merkel is now busy pressuring southern Europeans, especially in Greece, to keep up austerity measures no matter what, or pressuring eastern Europeans to step up pressure against Russia.

Sigmar Gabriel, head of the Social Democrats and vice-chancellor in the coalition, sounded off loudly against the responsible officials. His party somehow can’t break out of a 25 per cent trough in the polls (against the 40 per cent average of Merkel’s side of the coalition) and he sniffed a chance to win points. But when a few journalists recalled that his party had been in charge when the NSA-BND agreements were made, Gabriel’s voice lost its angry tones and almost got lost entirely — only briefly, of course.

And the head of the BND, the Federal Intelligence Service? Hailed in front of a Bundestag committee, he asserted that he had known nothing about the whole spy deal until just last month. It was all done by his underlings.

And no-one seemed to recall that the whole BND organisation was founded in 1956 by nazi ex-general Reinhard Gehlen, after building it up as an annex of the CIA right after the war. Some of its ties, not only to Washington but to Gehlen’s earlier buddies, never completely lost their influence, as a growing pile of evidence indicates.

Human rights activist Angela Davis, visiting Berlin among other places, went to the former school building where 40 asylum-seekers are living, part of a larger group of African and Middle Eastern refugees still fighting for the right to gain asylum since 2012, when they walked to Berlin in a long caravan. Davis was barred by police from entering the building but met asylum-seekers and their supporters at an outdoor meeting, where she compared their fight with that in the US against anti-immigrant policies and the incarceration of great numbers of its citizens.

Older East Germans know her name well. During her imprisonment and trial in California in 1970-72 she received tons of supportive letters and cards from GDR young people, often adorned with a hand-drawn “rose for Angela.” The vans with big sacks of mail even impressed the presiding judge.

In the same Kreuzberg district she visited, the weekend saw the annual Carnival of Cultures, one of Berlin’s nicest events, with a parade on Sunday of some 60 costumed dancing groups from the many nationalities living in Berlin. Over a million spectators were expected along the parade route.

Working conditions in Germany have worsened substantially in the past few years. Stress and pressure on the job are on the increase, according to a report of the Federal Employment Ministry headed by Andrea Nahles (Social Democratic Party, SPD) published in response to a petition from the Left Party: here.

New book, app, about birds in Qatar

Posted on June 3, 2015 by petrel41

This 2014 video is about birds (and a lizard) in Qatar.

Fortunately, the news from Qatar is not just poets jailed for poetry, construction workers exploited and dying, etc. …

From BirdLife:

New book and mobile app to guide people’s interest in nature of Qatar

By Ade Long, Thu, 28/05/2015 – 11:34

The Friends of the Environment Center in Qatar (BirdLife Partner for Qatar) have used both traditional and digital routes to create two guides to the nature of Qatar.

The first ever field guide book to the birds of Qatar and a mobile application – ‘Qatar e-Nature’ – which allows users to explore the rich and varied species of flora, birds and insects of Qatar on their smart phones.

“The field guide is dedicated to all bird lovers and watchers living in Qatar who are committed to bird conservation and wildlife protection,” said Dr Elsadig Awad Bashir, Head of the Qatar Bird Project, who compiled and edited both the Arabic and English-language editions of the guide.

The Field Guide to the Birds of Qatar has species accounts including illustrations for all 323 species found in Qatar. Additional information on the birds includes local names as well as their status in Qatar and regionally.

Qatar e-Nature is designed for environmental awareness and education by incorporating interactive and engaging features. …

Qatar e-Nature is available for IPhones from ITunes and for Android devices from Google Play.

Sexual abuse among Buddhists in the Netherlands, update

Posted on June 3, 2015 by petrel41

This video from the Netherlands is called The Memorial Ceremony 2555 (2012) for Luang Poh Mettavihari – Amsterdam.

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands:

Alarms about abuse among Buddhists ignored

Today, 15:55

Followers of the Thai monk Mettavihari are shocked at the extent of the sexual abuse of which their teacher was guilty. They say they are overwhelmed by the news and the extent of the abuse.

But how surprising can the news actually be for them? A reconstruction by the NOS shows that leaders of Buddhism in the early 1980s were informed about the abuse. Also in a major abuse case in Middelburg prominent Dutch Buddhists were warned at an early stage, in 2004.

Main outline in these two cases: the warned executive officials and others downplayed the abuse, looked away and neglected to take adequate measures, which meant that the responsible monks could continue to make victims.

1. Mettavihari (abuse from 1974 to at least 1992)

In late 1980 or early 1981, the police called the Buddharama temple in Waalwijk. Board member Patrick Franssen answered the phone. The police told him that a message had been received of sexual abuse of a minor by head monk Mettavihari.

For Franssen this was the straw that broke the camel´s back. He also had particularly bad experiences with Mettavihari in this. In 1974, as a 19-year-old “labile” boy, he had already been forced to have sex with the monk. In the at least two years that followed from there, that happened again, according to Franssen, still some forty to fifty times. As a 19-year-old one was at that time legally underage.

Franssen decided: this guy has to go. He flew to Chicago to talk about Mettavihari’s conduct with a high priest, who in his words represented the Thai “Ministry of Religious Affairs.” The high priest, according to Franssen, decided to replace Mettavihari by another head monk without further discussion. In June 1981 Mettavihari was deposed as president of the temple administration, to be replaced by Henk Barendregt. This eminent mathematician who later would win the most important scientific award in the Netherlands, the Spinoza Prize, had been a board member since its inception in 1975.

Second chance

To Franssen’s amazement, Barendregt returned his teacher a few months later to the temple administration, supported by another loyal follower of Mettavihari: Aad Verboom, president of the Foundation of Young Buddhists in the Netherlands. Franssen knew that the new head monk wanted to grant Mettavihari a second opportunity. That he accepted, but having Mettavihari back in the temple administration? That would really be too much of a rehabilitation.

There arose a fierce debate. How bad is it in modern times if a monk has sex? Franssen thought that the Thai Dutch, for whom the temple was intended primarily, would be cheated if their monk secretly would break his vow of celibacy. Barendregt, according to Franssen, argued that this was an old-fashioned view: most Dutch still even now think that a parish priest should not be judged if he falls in love with his housekeeper?

Involuntary sex

That in this case it was involuntary sex with minors who are not on an equal footing with the teacher played for Franssen in that discussion no decisive role. It’s the early 1980s, the era of ‘anything goes’ in the progressive Netherlands. Aad Verboom admits in 2015 that he also had not believed Patrick Franssen’s story about the abuse he had suffered. For that, he has meanwhile apologized to Franssen via the Boeddhistisch Dagblad.

Eventually Barendregt got what he wanted, after which Franssen drew his conclusions. He left the temple administration in December 1981 disconcertedly, to emigrate to Thailand four years later, dismayed by in his eyes “amateurish” Dutch Buddhism. He was replaced on the board by Mettavihari, the man against whom he had tried to take action.

New incidents

There may then have been further incidents, because in 1983 the monk had to disappear definitively from the temple in Waalwijk. Anyway Barendregt and Verboom neglected to find out how often Mettavihari had misbehaved and how bad his misdemeanors were. According to the Thai monastic rules, a monk should take off his habit when he has had sex, but Mettavihari’s prominent students do not think that is necessary. They cover up why their teacher had to leave the temple in Waalwijk. In an introduction to a book he published later that year, Aad Verboom explained the break with the temple as because of “significant differences in views on Buddhism and the practice thereof.” This Verboom was from 1990 to 1998 board member and president of the Buddhist Union in the Netherlands (BUN).

With the help of Barendregt and Verboom Mettavihari got the chance to leave the Thai tradition in which he had got in a jam, to continue as the revered spiritual leader of a group of Dutch Buddhists. The boards of other Buddhist centers meanwhile exchanged only rumors about what happened in Waalwijk. A concrete consequence of this was that for nine years Mettavihari unhinderedly could abuse young adult men in other places, including in Groningen.

Overstep the mark

In 1995, according to some of his students, he was at last confronted because of his behaviour. Mettavihari admitted that he had crossed the line, but also said that he had since stopped the abuse. This apparently was enough for those followers; in 2006, fourteen of them accepted consecrations as teachers by him. A year later Mettavihari died.

Only in May 2015 there is a rupture between “the fourteen”. The immediate causes are the alarming findings of their own investigation into the extent of the abuse that two people in the group have conducted at last. Some of the teachers feel that the scandal must become known, name included, while Barendregt, Verboom and five other teachers think that this is not necessary. Their reasoning is that Mettavihari can no longer defend himself. The mention of his name would supposedly be offensive to the Thai community.

Ignorance

Barendregt claims also to have contacted the Thai spiritual authorities in the early 1980s. But Barendregt now also admits: “With the knowledge we have now, more should have been done to avoid repetition. In my ignorance I thought that the actions at administrative and spiritual levels were adequate.”

Verboom also notes that he had “been asleep at the wheel. I have accepted being lied to. And I have always given Mettavihari the benefit of the doubt. I must note now that there is much more pain and suffering for the victims than I thought possible.”

2. Gerhard Mattioli (2001-2007)

Frans de Reeper had visited for over a year a Buddhist center in Middelburg when he heard something disturbing in the summer of 2004. One of the women in the group told him, crying on the phone, that the monk who led the group had expelled her from the center. According to her, it happened because this Gerhard Mattioli, who told his students to call him ‘Lama Kelsang Chöpel’, for years had a relationship with her. During their vacation that broke up and then he also expelled her from the group.

De Reeper is stunned. To be sure, he immersed himself once more in the rules for monks: surely, this is absolutely unacceptable? He consults literature and hears evidence from an experienced monk and a Buddhist institute. He also asks in a letter to Mattioli what is going on. Mattioli refuses to answer the questions. “I am not subordinate or dependent on other Buddhist organizations or lamas or rinpoche, not even to His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” he writes.

Action

De Reeper subsequently decided to take action. He writes a long letter to the other members of the group, in which he says what he has found out. And he also informs among others Jean Charles Hylkema, at that time director of the Buddhist Broadcasting Foundation (BOS) and also treasurer of the Buddhist Union (BUN). The BUN also receives a separate letter, like the editors of the magazine Kwartaalblad Boeddhisme (later renamed Vorm en Leegte).

The message of the letters is clear: “We believe that we have sufficient evidence that the people who visit the center get in touch with Buddhism in a way which is ultimately harmful for them.” The broadcaster and the magazine according to the letter’s authors should at least stop having commercials and ads for Mattioli’s center.

Not responsible

It does not have many consequences. The often very vulnerable followers of Mattioli are so spellbound that they ignore the warnings by De Reeper. An employee of the Kwartaalblad Boeddhisme / Vorm en Leegte calls De Reeper, but says that they are not responsible for what happens in the centers that are advertised in the magazine. The editors refuse to stop the ads.

A new letter to Vorm en Leegte in the spring of 2005 also did not yield anything, just like a personal request to the aforementioned employee of Kwartaalblad Boeddhisme / Vorm en Leegte during a lecture. BOS director Hylkema writes back that the broadcaster will stop paying attention to Mattioli’s center. The BUN announces there is nothing they can do because the center is not a member.

Bomb explodes

In late 2007, the issue exploded in Middelburg, as Mattioli’s group learns that their teacher had started sexual relationships with four women simultaneously. One of them has become even pregnant. Several people involved go to the police (according to Mattioli himself “under threat of violence from their partners’), but they eventually do not complain officially. In a letter Mattioli threatened his students inter alia with ‘reincarnation in hell‘ if they would break up with him.

President Varamitra (Theo Alkemade) of the Buddhist Union announced in April 2008 during a meeting that “a self-styled lama” in Middelburg “in a terrible way has wreaked havoc.” He also revealed that women in Middelburg now have been helped by the BUN: Varamitra and a Buddhist nun went to Zeeland to talk to the women and to offer them perspectives again. “A good example of tradition-borders crossing cooperation”, is said satisfiedly during the BUN meeting of April 2008.

The issue is not brought into the open. Buddhist and researcher Rob Hogendoorn finds out in 2013 and publishes about it in the web magazine Open Boeddhisme, which he runs together with his colleague Theo Dik. Hogendoorn and Dik also report the matter to the police. Because of that action, they are fiercely attacked by an editor of another Buddhist site, Joop Hoek. He points out in a column that Mattioli denies the allegations and has never been convicted by a court. He calls them inter alia “fake prosecutors, the fake Thomson and Thompson of our society.” Hoek was in 2004 an employee of Kwartaalblad Boeddhisme, so the magazine which was warned about the practices of Mattioli.

Hylkema also thinks that he did not have to do more to prevent worse things, after he had been warned about the activities of ‘monk’ Mattioli. To Open Boeddhisme he downplayed the seriousness of the situation, “Lamas impregnating women, that undoubtedly happens sometimes. There are women who wish to be more than just students, and who want a sexual relationship. Some lamas go along with that, and sometimes that leads to pregnancy.”

Buddhist monk in Purmerend accused of abuse: here.

European Red List of Birds published

Posted on June 3, 2015 by petrel41

This video is called Bird Calls | Songs | Cries | Sounds of Britain & Europe.

From BirdLife:

The European Red List of Birds is here

By Lisa Benedetti, Wed, 03/06/2015 – 09:19

We have a few theories why the famous Dodo went extinct by 1700 on the island of Mauritius. Predation, habitat loss and invasive species were just too much for this friendly flightless creature.

The truth is, unless we act now, many other species of bird could follow the Dodo’s sad journey to the museum shelf. But we can help stop this from happening with the knowledge of how specific bird populations are doing and what threats they face. For birds in Europe, BirdLife International has just given us a tool that does all this, the European Red List of Birds.

Out of some 10,000 known bird species in the world, about 530 species nest, winter, and call Europe their home. Some have been able to adapt, or even benefit, from human activities (either directly or indirectly) but many others are really struggling to survive in this ever-changing world. The European Red List of Birds uses IUCN criteria to measure a species extinction risk and applies it at regional level, fine-tuning a global standard and digging deeper into the needs of individual European species.

What we present today is the fruit of years of labour from scientists, conservationists, policy makers, and people who simply care about birds. It’s the tool we can go to first to be sure that the birds we have in Europe today are here tomorrow as well. This list gives us the latest and best available information on the size and trends of populations and distributions of every regularly occurring wild bird species in Europe. It identifies the conservation status of species occurring not only across the entire European continent, but also the European Union (at the time of the assessment, 27 Member States [EU27]) where key nature legislation applies, the Birds and Habitats Directives. These are the laws that have been protecting European nature and wildlife the last decades.

So what does the European Red List of Birds say?

It tells us that 13% of 533 species are threatened at a European level (of the 67 species, 10 are Critically Endangered (the highest threat level) including the Balearic Shearwater, Slender-billed Curlew, and Yellow-breasted Bunting; 18 are Endangered and 39 are Vulnerable). When looking at the EU27 level, 18% of 451 species are threatened (of the 82 species: 11 are Critically Endangered, including the Lesser White-fronted Goose and the Greater Spotted Eagle, 16 are Endangered and 55 are Vulnerable). We also discovered what the main culprits are for this situation, and that two stand out above the rest: illegal killing and land-use changes, especially on farmland. Other serious threats are climate change, pollution and invasive non-native species.

On the upside, since we last did a regional assessment in 2004, the status of some species has really improved. Charismatic birds like the Dalmatian Pelican, Lesser Kestrel, Arctic Loon and Great Bustard have made a comeback largely because of conservation efforts and legal protection. We even have news that the extinction risk for another 25 species is lower than a decade ago so we’ve been able to downlist these species, meaning their conservation status has improved. Zino’s Petrel and Azores Bullfinch may still be in trouble, but it’s a good sign that they have gone from Critically Endangered to Endangered.

On the down side, we’ve had to uplist 29 species since 2004. Species now in trouble include the once common European Turtle-dove, Eurasian Oystercatcher, Atlantic Puffin, and Willow Grouse. And sadly, some species like the Egyptian Vulture, Northern Lapwing and Little Bustard, have not improved at all. This situation clearly highlights the need for the strong legislation and strict protection that the Birds and Habitats Directives offers to give these birds a fighting chance.

Europeans have proven time and time again they can tackle some of the most urgent, challenging and complex conservation priorities they face. Now, with the European Red List of Birds in hand, we are ready to focus and deliver effective conservation action. But we still need your help. The European Commission is planning to dismantle the Bird and Habitats Directives, the very laws that protect our birds and nature in Europe. It would be an environmental catastrophe to lose such a vital conservation tool, so please sign our petition and tell the Commission to keep our nature laws intact.

The European Red List of Birds project was coordinated by BirdLife, with help from IUCN, Wetlands International, European Bird Census Council, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB; BirdLife partner), the Czech Society for Ornithology (BirdLife Partner), the British Trust for Ornithology and Sovon Vogelonderzoek Nederland.

One of Eurasia’s most abundant bird species has declined by 90% and retracted its range by 5000 km since 1980 a new study shows. Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberiza aureola was once distributed over vast areas of Europe and Asia, its range stretching from Finland to Japan. New research published in the journal Conservation Biology suggest that unsustainable rates of hunting, principally in China, have contributed to not only a catastrophic loss of numbers but also in the areas in which it can now be found: here.

Honduran corrupt president, resign, people say

Posted on June 3, 2015 by petrel41

This video says about itself:

Honduras: Opposition Calls Protest over Government Corruption

13 May 2015

Local media in Honduras report direct government links to a corruption scandal in the country’s Social Security Institute. The political opposition headed by former President Manuel Zelaya has called for a demonstration in front of the National Congress to demand an immediate investigation of the robbery of the funds from the workers’ health system. The government, on the other hand, charges that the demands are part of an international plot to destabilize the government of Juan Hernandez and take him out of power. Gerardo Torres reports from Tegucigalpa for teleSUR.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Honduras: Protesters demand president resigns for embezzlement

3 June 2015

PROTESTERS will march to the United Nations office in Honduras on Friday to demand the president’s resignation for embezzling welfare funds.

President Juan Orlando Hernandez is implicated in an £80 million corruption scandal, with money from the social security fund being siphoned off to finance his right-wing National Party.

The scheme allegedly relied on mark-ups of more than 100 per cent on goods and services such as medicines and pensions, with kickbacks then being paid by businesses that benefited.

The National Party vociferously supported the 2009 coup against then president Manuel Zelaya, whose government had been forging links with the left-wing Alba bloc of Latin American countries, including Cuba and Venezuela.

The protests have grown in recent weeks from a few dozen people at a torchlit vigil to a march of thousands through the capital Tegucigalpa last Friday and similarly large protests in San Pedro Sula, Siguatepeque, Choluteca and Comayagua over the weekend.

Libre party former presidential candidate Xiomara Castro, who is married to Mr Zelaya, prominently attended the weekend demonstrations.

Speaking on Monday, activist Gabriela Blen said: “The social security case is the situation that has exasperated the Honduran people and that funds from social security would be used to finance political campaigns has been the catalyst for this movement.”

She said there was no direct link between the protests in Honduras and similar demonstrations in Guatemala but added: “Yes, of course, (they were) an inspiration.”

GUATEMALAN PRESIDENT STEPS DOWN AMID SCANDAL Being accused of bribery, fraud and illicit association can do that to you. [Alana Horowitz, HuffPost]

European birdwatching game

Posted on June 3, 2015 by petrel41

This video says about itself:

A birdwatching game: do you recognize all birds?

2 June 2015

Attention European birdwatchers: how expierenced are you? In this video 88 birds are shown. How many do you recognize? Are you brave enough to play this birdwatching game, alone or even better: with your birdwatching friends?

From the site visdief.nl in the Netherlands about this:

A birdwatching game: do you recognize all birds?

Are you brave enough to play this birdwatching game, alone or even better: with your birdwatching friends?

Watch the video [above]. The coming ten minutes you will see 88 birds! Do you know their names? Fill out this free empty form. In case you need more time, simply stop the video. After watching the whole video, continue reading under the video. You can also play this game in Dutch.

Your score

Once you have finished the game, you download the free form with all the answers. Your maximum score is 850 points. Check your answers and calculate your score.

0-50
O dear! I am crying. Do not think you are a bird watcher, you rookie! Suggestion: buy a bird guide and read at least one page a day.

50-250
Well well, you have recognized several rare birds! Do not be satisfied and try to improve yourself. Try to find an experienced birdwatcher as a friend and ask him anything!

250-500
I would like to watch birds with you. You seem to be a serious type. But you should perform better!

500-750
Congratulations! I wish everybody had the knowledge you have. Maybe you are able to educate other people? Make them excited about birdwatching.

750-845
You really are a topnotch! Nearly a perfect game.

850
Perfect! You are the best. Career advice: become a professional birdwatcher in a way that suits you.