This video shows a hooded crow bathing in Hoek van Holland in the Netherlands.
Remco van Daalen made this video.
Hooded crows are now rare in the Netherlands. They used to be more common in winter.
Hooded crow bathing, video
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Daily Archives: March 23, 2016
Child refugees fleeing ISIS say ‘Sorry for Brussels’
From daily The Independent in Britain today:
Refugee children hold signs saying ‘Sorry for Brussels‘ at Idomeni camp
Thousands of families are trapped in Idomeni since the borders have been closed
Jess Staufenberg
3 hours ago
Children in one of Greece’s refugee camps have written messages of sorrow and sympathy to those affected by the Brussels attacks.
Photographs taken at the Idomeni camp on the border with Macedonia showed children with messages of support – including “Sorry for Brussels” – written both on their bodies and on cardboard placards.
It comes after three suicide bombs left at least 31 people dead in the Belgian capital.
Many of the refugees at Idomeni from Syria and Iraq are fleeing Isis, the same Islamist terrorist group which claimed responsibility for the attacks in Brussels.
The Idomeni refugee camp, which sprung up in the village in 2014, is now thought to contain more than 12,000 refugees fleeing the breakdown of their home countries to build a new life in Europe.
Conditions at Idomeni are comparable to “Nazi concentration camps”, according to Greek interior minister Panagiotis Kouroublis, following the closure of all borders to refugees in Macedonia.
What a shame that these children and their parents, refugees from ISIS terror, are vilified by corporate media and racist politicians as ‘terrorists’, ‘rapists‘, etc. because of the colour of their eyes and hair; and because of their supposedly being Muslim (true for many refugees, but certainly not for all).
What a shame that these children and their parents, refugees from ISIS terror, are sent back by European Union politicians to unsafe Turkey, where they may be sent back to war in Syria or Iraq.
What a shame that these children and their parents, refugees from wars started by Bush, Blair and other NATO politicians, wars which caused ISIS and similar outfits, are used by NATO politicians as a pretext for still more bloody war in the Middle East.
Refugees Stand In Solidarity With Victims Of Brussels Attacks. Many refugees are fleeing the same kinds of atrocities: here.
In the wake of the ISIS terrorist attack in Brussels, some U.S. politicians are already calling for a ban of refugees and immigrants from countries in which ISIS controls territory. Rather than justifying a refugee ban, this latest attack should act as a reminder why the United States should take the lead on welcoming those fleeing ISIS terrorism. Accepting refugees is clearly important from a humanitarian standpoint, but it is also good for America’s national security: here.
Related articles
Dutch grassland bird news
This video is about a redshank (and a meadow pipit) on a fence in Zeeland province in the Netherlands.
Redshanks and other grassland bird species live in South Holland province as well.
Translated from the Weidoptie site in South Holland province:
This morning the Overwater [farming] family at the Oudendijk in Strijen started the first Weidoptie solar pump working. This pump makes it possible to convert one hectare of pasture into wetland area. The solar pump is funded by donations from the Weidoptie campaign of Nature and Environment Federation of South Holland. The campaign of the environmental federation wants to give a future to the South Holland grassland birds.
The solar pump in spring pumps water onto the pasture where wet and muddy spots emerge then. Grassland birds need these wet meadows. In the wet, soft soil the birds with their long beaks can look well for food. Also flowery and diverse grassland, which is so important for grassland birds, grows best in moist soil.
Translated from the site of the Dutch Socialist Party in South Holland:
15 March 2016 • The SP wants to take more into account the breeding season of grassland birds in granting hunting licenses. This says caucus chairwoman Lies van Aelst in written questions about the exemption granted for unlimited hunting of gray leg geese and white-fronted geese until early spring. The meadow birds in South Holland are under considerable pressure. This makes an undisturbed breeding season even more important.
On 13 March, the first South Holland northern lapwing egg of 2016 was found, by bird-friendly farmer Arie van Nierop near Maasland.
The Biesbosch national park turns out to be important for migrating black-tailed godwits.
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From Saudi oil to Brussels bombs in Belgium
This graph is from Middle East Eye. It shows where the cruel ‘state’ of ISIS, present in parts of Syria, Iraq, Libya and southern Yemen gets its ideas of fanatically religious criminal ‘justice’ from: from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, staunch allies of the Pentagon and the CIA in the USA, of David Cameron in Britain, etc.
And allies of other NATO governments, including the Belgian government.
From daily The Independent in Britain:
Brussels attacks: How Saudi Arabia’s influence and a deal to get oil contracts sowed seeds of radicalism in Belgium
Radical Salafist teachings came from a very different tradition to the Islam of the city’s North African immigrants
Leo Cendrowicz
5 hours ago
There are many reasons why Belgium has become a hotbed of radical Islamism. Some of the answers may lie in the implanting of Saudi Salafist preachers in the country from the 1960s.
Keen to secure oil contracts, Belgium’s King Baudouin made an offer to Saudi King Faisal, who had visited Brussels in 1967: Belgium would set up a mosque in the capital, and hire Gulf-trained clerics.
At the time, Belgium was encouraging Moroccan and Turkish workers to come into the country as cheap labour. The deal between the two Kings would make the mosque their main place of worship.
Brussels already had the perfect place. An oriental pavilion designed by Belgian architect Ernest Van Humbeek had been built in the capital’s Cinquantenaire park in 1879, but was falling into disuse. The 1967 deal gave the Saudis a 99-year, rent-free lease. The pavilion was refashioned by the Saudis, opening in 1978 as the Great Mosque of Brussels, as well as the seat of the Islamic and Cultural Centre of Belgium (ICC).
Although the mosque was treated as the official voice of Muslims in Belgium, its radical Salafist teachings came from a very different tradition to the Islam of the new immigrants. Today, there are around 600,000 people of Moroccan and Turkish origin in Belgium, a country of 11 million.
“The Moroccan community comes from mountainous regions and rift valleys, not the desert. They come from the Maliki school of Islam, and are a lot more tolerant and open than the Muslims from other regions like Saudi Arabia,” says George Dallemagne, a Belgian member of parliament for the centre-right CDH, an opposition party. “However, many of them were re-Islamified by the Salafist clerics and teachers from the Great Mosque. Some Moroccans were even given scholarships to study in Medina, in Saudi Arabia.”
Mr Dallemagne says the Salafist clerics have tried to undermine attempts by Moroccan immigrants to integrate into Belgium. “We like to think Saudi Arabia is an ally and friend, but the Saudis are always engaged in double-talk: they want an alliance with the West when it comes to fighting Shias in Iran, but nonetheless have a conquering ideology when it comes to their religion in the rest of the world,” he said.
Mr Dallemagne has sponsored many resolutions in the Belgian parliament aimed at loosening ties with Saudi Arabia, and reducing the Salafist influence in Belgium. “We can’t have a dialogue with countries that want to destabilise us,” he says. “The problem is that it is only recently that authorities are finally opening their eyes to this.”
The mosque has sought to send a strong message opposing the latest attacks, with Mohamed Ndiaye, one of the centre’s imams, releasing a statement in the aftermath: “We would like to express our deep sorrow over the Paris attacks. Our thoughts are with the people of Paris and the victims’ families.” Other officials have also come out to repeat the message that Islam is a religion of peace and has nothing to do with the terrorists of Molenbeek.
But the mosque remains a concern for the Belgian government: in August, a WikiLeaks cable revealed that a staff member of the Saudi embassy in Belgium was expelled years ago over his active role in spreading the extreme so-called Takfiri dogma. The cable – between the Saudi King and his Home Minister – referred to Belgian demands that the ICC’s Saudi director, Khalid Alabri, should leave the country, saying that his messages were far too extreme, and that his status as director meant he should not be preaching anyway.
This article was first published on 23 November 2015
Related articles
Tiengemeten island wildlife, video
This 23 March 2016 video is about Tiengemeten island in the Netherlands, and its birds and other wildlife.
Trump, stop abusing Brussels atrocities for Islamophobia, Sanders says
This 16 October 2018 video from the USA says about itself:
Trump’s Saudi defense leaves Sanders stunned
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reacted to President Trump’s comments suggesting the criticism Saudi Arabia has received over a missing Saudi journalist is premature, comparing these accusations to the sexual assault allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Another video from the USA used to say about itself:
Bernie Sanders Talks Brussels, Trump and Corrupt Campaign Finance on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’
23 March 2016
Tuesday night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! taped before the results of the Arizona, Idaho and Utah primaries were known. Bernie Sanders felt good about his chances. “We had 14,000 people out at a rally in Salt Lake City,” he told Kimmel. “There is a poll that just came out in Utah [that said] for the first time in 50 years—and this is a state that almost never votes for a Democratic candidate for president—we were beating Donald Trump by 10 points, which I thought was pretty good.”
By Igor Bobic in the USA:
Bernie Sanders: Donald Trump Is Using Brussels To Attack All Muslims
“To imply that if somebody is a Muslim they’re a terrorist, that is an outrageous statement.”
03/23/2016 09:30 am ET
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says Republican presidential front-runner and reality television star Donald Trump is using the tragedy in Brussels to incite bigotry against Muslims around the world.
“I think people get afraid, and for good reasons,” Sanders said in a Tuesday evening interview with Jimmy Kimmel. “ISIS is a disgusting, barbaric organization. We’ve seen what they’ve done in Paris, what they’ve done in Brussels. People are afraid of an attack in the United States. But I think what we have to understand is we’re not going to undermine the Constitution of the United States of America in order to effectively destroy ISIS.”
“At the end of the day, we cannot allow the Trumps of the world to use these incidents to attack all of the Muslim people in the world. That is unfair,” he added. “To imply that if somebody is a Muslim they’re a terrorist, that is an outrageous statement.”
Trump called for closing U.S. borders on Tuesday, after a series of deadly terror attacks left dozens killed or wounded in Brussels.
“We have to look at the mosques and study what’s going on. There is a sick problem going on,” Trump said in an interview with CBS News.
DEMOCRATIC Party US presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders called for an end to the occupation of Palestine on Monday night — as his rival Hillary Clinton wooed the Israel lobby. Addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) policy conference yesterday, Ms Clinton said she would “vigorously oppose” attempts to “impose” a peaceful solution to Israel’s occupation of Palestine: here.
NATE SILVER: TRUMP IS A ‘BLACK SWAN’ EVENT How the Donald managed to throw the stats master off his prediction game. [Vanity Fair]
Related articles
Cornwall forest birds, slow motion video
Chancellor Osborne, resign, British disabled people demand
This video from Britain says about itself:
Budget 2016: Cuts to disability benefits are ‘breaking human rights laws’
17 March 2016
Amputee Kate Walsh says George Osborne is violating her human rights with latest cuts to PIP.
RUTH HUNT talks to disabled teenager, Lydia, about the cruel and dishonest narrative the Tories are constructing about disabled people: here.
Arrogant Osborne refuses to apologise – McDonnell calls for him to go: here.
Parliamentary authorities forced the BBC to stop filming a live broadcast because the report showed disability benefit cuts protest in the background. BBC assistant political editor Norman Smith told viewers there had been “a protest by a number of disability protesters inside Central Lobby because of their anger…” before he was interrupted by a parliamentary official: here.
By Luke James and Peter Lazenby in Britain:
Disabled people fight back with call for U-turn on cuts
Wednesday 23rd March 2016
DISABLED people will gather at Parliament today to demand George Osborne’s resignation and a full reversal of benefit cuts that have “driven people to death.”
Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) has called a snap protest in the wake of a Budget in which the Chancellor cut personal independence payments for people who need help getting dressed and using the toilet.
Mr Osborne was forced to scrap the cruel cut this week in the face of a Tory rebellion which risked bringing down his whole Budget.
But DPAC will highlight today how disabled people are still suffering from cuts to employment and support allowance (ESA), cuts to local councils’ care services and the closure of the independent living fund.
Spokeswoman Paula Peters said: “Many disabled people have died due to the constant fear and mental distress caused by ‘welfare reforms’.”
More than 10,000 people have signed a petition demanding that new Tory Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb … resign as patron of a mental health charity.
The MP for Preseli Pembrokeshire is a patron of Pembrokeshire Mencap, which represents people with mental-health issues. Yet he voted for the cut to ESA which will deprive many of the charity’s clients of £30 a week.
The petition, launched by Jim Scott of the People’s Assembly, accuses Mr Crabb of having “absolutely no compassion or understanding for the needs of our most vulnerable and disabled.
“You should hang your head in shame,” it states.
A protest demonstration will be staged outside Mr Crabb’s constituency office in Haverfordwest from 11am to 1pm on Saturday April 2.
Britain: Work is the government’s snake oil cure for disabilities, says LINDA BURNIP.
Tory disregard for the United Nations Disability Committee’s damning report on governmental violations of disabled people’s human rights is despicable but not unexpected, writes LINDA BURNIP.
Related articles
Birds along a Dutch river, video
This video shows birds in the Cloppenwaard nature reserve along a river near Werkendam in North Brabant province in the Netherlands.
Including mute swans, grey lag geese, barnacle geese, teal and gadwall ducks.
At the end of the video, you hear a skylark singing.
Related articles
Bahraini human rights violations continuing
This video says about itself:
Zainab Al-Khawaja: On the Front Line in Bahrain
12 December 2011
Interview with Bahrain human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja, daughter of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja who was the former Front Line Defenders Protection Coordinator for the Middle East & North Africa. Zainab, known on Twitter as AngryArabiya, talks about family, human rights, Abdulhadi and the difficulties of struggling for human rights in Bahrain.
From The Intercept:
Imprisoned With Her Baby, Bahraini Activist Is Victim of U.S. Silence, Sister Says
Murtaza Hussain
March 22 2016, 4:03 p.m.
LAST MONDAY, Bahraini security forces arrested prominent human rights activist Zainab al-Khawaja and her 15-month-old son.
The arrest came on the fifth anniversary of a Saudi military intervention that crushed an uprising by Bahrain’s Shiite majority and marked a grim milestone in the country’s crackdown on dissidents.
Al-Khawaja was taken into custody to serve a prison term that could run between one and three years after being found guilty in 2014 of charges related to the uprising.
Bahraini Activist Urges U.S. To Pay Attention To Country’s Rights Abuses. NPR’s Robert Siegel talks to Maryam al-Khawaja, a human rights activist from Bahrain. Last week, al-Khawaja’s sister was arrested for what Maryam calls “exercising her right to free expression”: here.
Bahraini authorities should immediately release the human rights activist Zainab al-Khawaja. Police detained al-Khawaja on March 14, 2016, to serve five sentences totalling three years and one month, four of which violate her right to free expression and one of which resulted from an unfair trial: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 