Land Grab at Ile a Vache: Haiti’s Peasants Fight Back | NEWS JUNKIE POST

Before Haiti’s Prime Minister declared all of Haiti’s offshore islands to be Zones of Tourism Development and Public Utility, he did not consult with the residents of the islands whose lands would be appropriated. Instead Mr. Laurent Lamothe went to a favorite online magazine in December 2012, to promote his plans. 

“We have decided to take the tourism development to the island of Ile a Vache, so there we’re going to build an international airport, and then the tourism [infrastructure] to attract investors — we have several investors already…. I think Ile a Vache has great potential, and it doesn’t present the challenges for land title that you might face on the mainland.”


As Ile a Vache, a 20-square mile island off of Haiti’s southern coast was promoted to investors in Qatar, the Dominican Republic, China, the wider Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and United States as being a jewel of the Caribbean and a potential draw for eco-tourists, the residents of the island, mostly small farmers who had cultivated food crops and fished sustainably for centuries and who occupied homes that had been in their families for many generations, were ignored. The islanders’ requests for meetings with government representatives went unanswered, even while Tourism Minister Stephanie Villedrouin found ample time to report the details of the $230 million project in March 2013, once again, to a magazine.

- See more at: http://newsjunkiepost.com/2014/03/01/land-grab-at-ile-a-vache-haitis-peasants-fight-back/#sthash.6oaq7lSU.dpuf

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Land Grab at Ile a Vache: Haiti’s Peasants Fight Back | NEWS JUNKIE POST

▶ Russia Today Anchor Quits on Air over Whitewash Propaganda- YouTube

RT anchor Liz Wahl said she could no longer be "part of a network that whitewashes the actions of Putin."
 
March 5, 2014
www.FreeBeacon.com
LINK: ▶ RT Anchor Quits on Air - YouTube

POWERFUL VIDEO MIRRORING PLIGHT OF SYRIAN CHILDREN▶ Most Shocking Second a Day Video - YouTube

A young girl's life gets turned upside-down in this tragic second a day video. Could this ever happen in the UK? This is what war does to children. Find out more at http://bit.ly/3yearson

LINK: ▶ Most Shocking Second a Day Video - YouTube

Rubio: Russia Is a Government of Liars and an Enemy to World Peace and the US

LINK: Rubio: Russia Is a Government of Liars and an Enemy to World Peace and the US

Hangin' with the Manatees - YouTube

Lynnhaven Dive Center from Virginia Beach went on a dive trip to Crystal River, Florida Feb 14-17 and went snorkeling with the manatees off a pontoon boat, compliments of Birds Underwater. Great time!



LINK: Hangin' with the Manatees - YouTube

Syria: Thousands of Houses Unlawfully Razed | Human Rights Watch

 Mezzeh area, Damascus


Extensive demolition of dozens of high-rise residential and commercial buildings along the main road between Mezzeh Air Base and the neighborhood of Daraya. 

Satellite imagery, witness statements, and video and photographic evidence show that Syrian authorities deliberately and unlawfully demolished thousands of residential buildings in Damascus and Hama in 2012 and 2013, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 38-page report, “Razed to the Ground: Syria’s Unlawful Neighborhood Demolitions in 2012-2013,” documents seven cases of large-scale demolitions with explosives and bulldozers that violated the laws of war. The demolitions either served no necessary military purpose and appeared to intentionally punish the civilian population or caused disproportionate harm to civilians, Human Rights Watch found. 

“Wiping entire neighborhoods off the map is not a legitimate tactic of war,” said Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These unlawful demolitions are the latest additions to a long list of crimes committed by the Syrian government.” ................

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Syria: Thousands of Houses Unlawfully Razed | Human Rights Watch

SPIEGEL Reporting Supports Accounts of Torture and Execution in Syria - SPIEGEL ONLINE

By Christoph Reuter and Christoph Scheuermann

REUTERS

Photos released last week show that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad tortures, starves and murders its prisoners. The images provide grisly evidence to support what witnesses have been telling SPIEGEL for months.

He says he was never witness to executions, nor did he see torture taking place. That wasn't his job. His task was that of taking photos of the corpses afterwards. He would snap four or five images per body -- of the face and other parts of the person -- documenting the cause of death, insofar as it was possible to determine. He did so tens of thousands of times between March 2011 and August 2013 -- when he finally fled Syria, taking some 55,000 photos with him on a USB stick. The images are of starved, strangled and tortured men, primarily young and mostly naked. Some have no eyes. The defector, who has been cited under the alias "Caesar," worked for Syrian security, and says that he and his colleagues were called on up to 50 times a day to photograph corpses, each of which was given a number for documentation purposes....... (continued)


FULL ARTICLE HERE: SPIEGEL Reporting Supports Accounts of Torture and Execution in Syria - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Syrian Government, Opposition Meet in Geneva - YouTube

LINK: Syrian Government, Opposition Meet in Geneva - YouTube

▶ Human Rights Watch World Report 2014: Berlin Press Conference - YouTube

LINK: ▶ Human Rights Watch World Report 2014: Berlin Press Conference - YouTube

▶ ‫MIRACLE IN ALEPPO! WATCH! 22 / 1 / 2014‬‎ - YouTube

Syrians do the impossible after another horrific Assad regime Barrel Bomb attack on civilians.

LINK TO A MIRACLE IN ALEPPO:

▶ ‫إخراج طفلة حية من تحت الأنقاض في حي المعصرانية 22 / 1 / 2014‬‎ - YouTube

+18 Starved to death.. Assad's collective punishment in the besieged areas of Syria.. RIP - YouTube

NO THIS ISN'T AUSCHWITZ, THIS IS ASSAD'S SYRIA






LINK: +18 Starved to death.. Assad's collective punishment in the besieged areas of Syria.. RIP - YouTube

Human Rights Watch: SYRIA 2013 - YouTube

LINK: ▶ SYRIA 2013 - YouTube

Syria’s Polio Epidemic: The Suppressed Truth by Annie Sparrow | The New York Review of Books

byAnnie Sparrow

Hosam Katan/Reuters
A health worker talking with a family in Aleppo before administering polio vaccinations, January 2014

One way to measure the horrific suffering of Syria’s increasingly violent war is through the experience of Syrian children. More than one million children are now refugees. At least 11,500 have been killed because of the armed conflict, well over half of these because of the direct bombing of schools, homes, and health centers, and roughly 1,500 have been executed, shot by snipers or tortured to death. At least 128 were killed in the chemical massacre in August.............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Syria’s Polio Epidemic: The Suppressed Truth by Annie Sparrow | The New York Review of Books

BBC News - US and UN express horror at Syria torture report

The US and UN have reacted with "horror" to allegations in a new report that Syria has systematically tortured and executed about 11,000 detainees since the start of the uprising.

The US said the reports underscored the need to remove the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

A Syrian spokesman said the report had no credibility as it was commissioned by Qatar, which funds rebel groups.

The report comes a day before peace talks are due to begin in Switzerland.

Delegations are now arriving for the talks, known as Geneva II, which open in Montreux on Wednesday, and continue in Geneva two days
later.

FULL ARTICLE W/VIDEO HERE: BBC News - US and UN express horror at Syria torture report

UN Live United Nations Web TV - - Voices from Syria - Special event

17 Jan 2014 - For the first time at the United Nations, the international community will have an opportunity to hear survivor accounts of the UN documented massacres that occurred on August 2012 in Darayya and August 2013 in Ghouta.

LINK: UN Live United Nations Web TV - - Voices from Syria - Special event

Starving Palestinians | HonestReporting

How many times have you seen a story in the major media claiming that Israel has turned Gaza into an “open-air prison?” How often does the media discuss seemingly arbitrary restrictions that Israel places on specific goods entering the Gaza Strip? Forget about the fact that convoys of trucks carrying humanitarian aid enter and leave the strip every day. Israel even transferred an emergency supply of gas for home heating during the recent winter storm.

No, the story of Israel blockading Palestinians is part of a narrative that many journalists are obsessed with, despite the lack of accuracy.

How much more useful these journalists would be if they reported on how Syria is starving Palestinians to death with a complete blockade on a refugee camp. But that is exactly what is happening. From The Media Line:  

More than 40 Palestinians have now died of starvation in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, say activists who are calling on the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) to intervene............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: 
Starving Palestinians | HonestReporting

Exclusive: With Muslim Brotherhood crushed, Egypt sets sights on Hamas | Reuters

Exclusive: With Muslim Brotherhood crushed, Egypt sets sights on Hamas

By Yasmine Saleh

 
CAIRO Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:51am EST

Palestinian members of the al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, stand guard as they wait for the arrival of Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip in this December 7, 2012 file photograph/Credit: Reuters/Mohammed Salem/Files 

(Reuters) - After crushing the Muslim Brotherhood at home, Egypt's military rulers plan to undermine the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which runs the neighboring Gaza Strip, senior Egyptian security officials told Reuters.

The aim, which the officials say could take years to pull off, includes working with Hamas's political rivals Fatah and supporting popular anti-Hamas activities in Gaza, four security and diplomatic officials said.......

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Exclusive: With Muslim Brotherhood crushed, Egypt sets sights on Hamas | Reuters

Emma Thompson and Colin Firth call on Cameron to offer safe haven to Syrian refugees | Mail Online

Emma Thompson and Colin Firth among British stars calling on Cameron to offer safe haven to refugees fleeing Syria

• Stars have signed Refugee Council letter pleading for refugees' entry
• Actors say they are 'ashamed' the UK has not offered resettlement places
• The United Nations has urged Western nations to take in 30,000 refugees

By Mail Foreign Service

British Hollywood stars Emma Thompson and Colin Firth have called on the Prime Minister to offer a safe haven to refugees fleeing the bloodshed in Syria.

Monty Python star Michael Palin and fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood have also signed a letter backing the Refugee Council’s plea for the UK to open its doors in response to an international effort to provide shelter for 30,000 of the most vulnerable Syrians fleeing the civil war.

The celebrities, including Firth’s wife Livia, artist Grayson Perry and actress Juliet Stevenson, say they are 'ashamed' that the UK has not pledged any resettlement places.

Actors Colin Firth and Emma Thompson are among the British stars calling on David Cameron to provide safe havens to Syrian refugees

FULL ARTICLE HERE:
Emma Thompson and Colin Firth call on Cameron to offer safe haven to Syrian refugees | Mail Online

‘Lone Survivor’ Review | Washington Free Beacon

AP

BY: Sonny Bunch
January 10, 2014 5:00 am

Director Peter Berg opens his latest film with a montage of real footage of Navy SEALs pushing their bodies to the limit. We see them go to the point of exhaustion and push through, limbs shaking, eyes glazing over, lungs screaming for air. The trainees aid each other, buoying the spirits of their brotherly band. Not everyone will make the final cut—the training is hellish and the body can only take so much—but no one wants anyone else to wash out.

These scenes are crucial to understanding what follows and a handy reminder that the quartet of heroes we follow for most of the film—Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg), Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch), and Matt Axelson (Ben Foster)—are real people. Without those sequences we might have trouble believing these soldiers would have the fortitude to literally throw themselves down a mountain, bouncing off of boulders and crashing into trees, in order to keep fighting a horde of Taliban sadists......
FULL ARTICLE HERE: ‘Lone Survivor’ Review | Washington Free Beacon

JANUARY 11: Day of Solidarity with Syria - YouTube

LINK: ▶ Day of Solidarity with Syria - YouTube

Aaron Rodgers finds worthy cause in Raise Hope For Congo - ESPN

LINK: Aaron Rodgers finds worthy cause in Raise Hope For Congo - ESPN

VICE TV: Ukraine Rising (Part 2) - YouTube

LINK: Ukraine Rising (Part 2) - YouTube

CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO PART 1

Syria and the banality of evil

Violence and human loss in Syria became completely normalized in 2013

To borrow a cliché, in 2013 the violence and suffering in Syria came to embody the banality of evil. The tragedy has grown to such proportions that it has become repetitious – without variation, respite, or hope.

In much the same way, the mass of humanity that has fled Syria has also become banal. So omnipresent are the beggars and peddlers in neighboring countries, that one looks not at their misery but at the inconveniences they have created. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the center of hell is distinguished not by fire but ice. So, too, the inferno faced by Syrians – one of absolute, frigid, unalterable immobility.

The past year has also reaffirmed what we knew about Hezbollah, but which the party’s devotees always sought to play down: that it is an obedient branch of Iran’s security and intelligence apparatus, one that will willingly offer up its children to secure the interests of its sponsors in Tehran. Though the party’s leaders are competent and its intelligence services efficient, ultimately, like others in Lebanon, their role is that of employees advancing the political agenda of their paymasters...............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Syria and the banality of evil

▶ Al-Bayda: anatomy of a war crime by the Assad Regime- YouTube

LINK: ▶ Al-Bayda: anatomy of a war crime - YouTube

▶ "A Hallelujah Christmas" by Cloverton (OFFICIAL VIDEO) - YouTube

Celebrate Christmas!


LINK: ▶ "A Hallelujah Christmas" by Cloverton (OFFICIAL VIDEO) - YouTube

▶ President Ronald Reagan Christmas address (12/23/81) - YouTube

LINK: ▶ President Ronald Reagan Christmas address (12/23/81) - YouTube

Syrians Caught in the Crossfire: First-Hand Accounts | Video - ABC News

LINK: Syrians Caught in the Crossfire: Their First-Hand Accounts | Video - ABC News

RAGIN' CAJUN REDNECK XMAS: Duck Dynasty outselling Britney, Gaga - PopModal Video

Duck Dynasty outselling Britney, Gaga - PopModal Video

▶ National Geographic FOCUS ON CONGO - The Power of Photography to Witness - YouTube

LINK: ▶ National Geographic Live! - The Power of Photography to Witness - YouTube

▶ Ukraine Rising (Part 1) - VICE TV on the Protests in Ukraine

VICE TV COMMENTARY ON VIDEO:

Published on Dec 16, 2013
 

For three weeks, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian protesters have been flooding the streets of Kiev, occupying government buildings and taking over the city's Independence Square. Initially, the demonstrators were expressing discontent at President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to pull out of a deal that would bring Ukraine closer to joining the European Union.

After an initial brutal police crackdown, the protests have grown in size and are now more about toppling the government and putting an end to corruption than joining the EU. The police have tried and failed to clear the tent city that has sprung up in the Independence Square—also known as the Maidan—and the occupied city hall that has been dubbed the "Revolution HQ." Protesters remain in the streets, despite the below zero temperatures.

LINK: ▶ Ukraine Rising (Part 1) - YouTube

Senators McCain, Murphy join massive Ukraine anti-government protest, threaten sanctions | Fox News

• 
  

  Dec. 15, 2013: U.S. Senator John McCain, center, speaks as Democratic senator from the state of Connecticut, Chris Murphy, second left, and Opposition leader Oleh Tyahnybok, right, stand around him during a Pro-European Union rally in Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine.AP

U.S. Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy joined around 200,000 anti-government protesters in the central square of Ukraine's capital Sunday, threatening sanctions against the government of President Viktor Yanukovych if authorities use more violence to disperse demonstrators.

Anti-government protesters have set up an extensive tent camp in Kiev and erected barricades of snow hardened with freezing water and studded with scrap wood and other junk.

McCain, R-Ariz., and Murphy, D-Conn., joined the anti-government demonstration to express support for them and their European ambitions. The protests began Nov. 21 after Yanukovych announced he was backing away from signing a long-awaited agreement to deepen trade and political ties with the EU and instead focus on Russia, and have grown in size and intensity after two violent police dispersals.

"We are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently. And the destiny you seek lies in Europe," McCain said during a speech, according to Reuters........

FULL ARTICLE: Senators McCain, Murphy join massive Ukraine anti-government protest, threaten sanctions | Fox News

Remembering Peter O'Toole▶ Lawrence al Arabia Clip - YouTube

Peter O'Toole with Anthony Quinn and Omar Sharif



LINK: ▶ Lawrence al Arabia part 12 - YouTube

BBC News - Peter O'Toole, Lawrence of Arabia star, dies aged 81

 

O'Toole announced he was retiring from the stage and screen in 2012

Actor Peter O'Toole, who starred in Sir David Lean's 1962 film classic Lawrence of Arabia, has died aged 81, his agent has said.

He died on Saturday at London's Wellington hospital in London after a long illness, his agent added, saying he was "one of a kind in the very best sense and a giant in his field".

The Irish-born star got his big break when Sir David cast him as British adventurer T E Lawrence.
He received an honorary Oscar in 2003.............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: BBC News - Peter O'Toole, Lawrence of Arabia star, dies aged 81