Isra Almodallal, the first woman to be nominated as spokeswoman for Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas, is seen in her office in
Gaza City, on November 4, 2013. Almodallal, a 23-year-old journalist, told AFP last week her goal was “to change the image of Palestinians and that of the government in Gaza,”. AFP PHOTO/MOHAMMED ABED -Courtesy Veterans today
When President Barack Obama apologized on April 23 to the families of Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, an American and an Italian, both hostages killed in a drone attack in Pakistan in January, he blamed their tragic deaths on the “fog of war.”
There are three characters in Yemen. Each has a separate tale to tell.
The first lives in Aden. His house is bombed, his family slain.
The second is a Saudi fighter pilot who delights in bombing civilians’ houses.
The third is Barack Obama who puzzles over what to do next in Yemen.
The story explores the helplessness of civilians in the current conflict in Yemen. It demonstrates the mindless brutal violence of Saudi Arabia. And it exposes the fact that the whole event is set up to benefit US financial interests.
Yemen
A play that re-tells one of the most shameful episodes in the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestine had its premiere this week at The Lowry in Salford, Manchester. It is called The Siege.
The Freedom Theatre company, which produced the play, had traced exiled Palestinian resisters scattered across Europe and collected their accounts of that infamous event.
The shocking decision by the government-owned New Zealand Super Fund (NZSF) to not divest from Israel Chemicals Ltd (ICL), manufacturer of white phosphorus, blatantly violates the NZSF Responsibilities:
ethical investment including policies, standards and procedures for avoiding prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation as a responsible member of the world community
and Standards for Human Rights:
Vincent Nichols, Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, is spiritual leader of the four million Catholics of England and Wales. He was also elevated to Cardinal on February 22nd, 2014, receiving the Cardinal’s red hat from Pope Francis in Rome’s St Peter’s Basilica. He has been cited as a man: “not afraid to speak out when he feels compelled to do so.”
Forty years ago on April 30, 1975, the Vietnamese people, led by their Communist Party, were finally victorious in the long just struggle for national independence and unification against the United States and its puppet regime in Saigon.
America experienced an earthshaking lesson in Vietnam — “Stop your unjust wars of aggression!” —but Washington learned nothing from its humiliating defeat except to shift its battlefields of choice from Southeast Asia to Southwest Asia (i.e., the Middle East).
… and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
— Isaiah 2:3-4
