March 5, 2012

Eyewitness: 'Slaughtered like sheep' in Homs

Source: BBC News

5 March 2012


Eyewitness: 'Slaughtered like sheep' in HomsBy Paul Wood

BBC News, outside Homs, Syria



On a road out of Homs I saw the exodus from Baba Amr.

These people endured weeks under bombardment then fled, panicked, before troops arrived.

One woman screamed: "We are homeless. Why? Because we asked for freedom."

People are terrified of what government forces will do now that they have entered Baba Amr, the district of Homs controlled until last Thursday by the rebels of the Free Syrian Army.

One group had walked for three days to avoid the soldiers.
<snip>

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17259471

March 5, 2012

World seed vault in Norway

http://www.gpb.org/news/2012/03/04/the-ultimate-in-heirloom-wheat-arrives-at-seed-vault

The Ultimate In Heirloom Wheat Arrives At Seed Vault

A few days ago, amid darkness and freezing winds, thousands of small packages of seeds were carried into an underground storage vault on a remote Arctic island. That vault holds a growing collection of seeds from all the different kinds of crops around the world that humans grow for food.

The seeds 740,000 samples and counting are stored inside a mountain on a group of islands called Svalbard, which is legally part of Norway, but is located far out in the Arctic Ocean, just 600 miles from the North Pole.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault along with dozens of other, less-secure collections around the world is supposed to preserve a vital part of the world's botanical gene pool; in this case, all the varieties of corn or peas or tomatoes that have disappeared from farmers' fields.
<more>

March 4, 2012

Bearing Witness in Syria: A War Reporter’s Last Days

(fascinating account of photographer Tyler Hicks and Anthony Shadid)

Bearing Witness in Syria: A War Reporter’s Last Days

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/world/middleeast/bearing-witness-in-syria-a-war-reporters-last-days.html?_r=1&hp

by Tyler Hicks

It was damp and cold as Anthony Shadid and I crossed in darkness over the barbed-wire fence that separated Turkey from Syria last month. We were also crossing from peace into war, into the bloodiest conflict of the Arab Spring, exploding just up the rocky and sparsely wooded mountain we had to climb once inside.

The smugglers waiting for us had horses, though we learned they were not for us. They were to carry ammunition and supplies to the Free Syrian Army. That is the armed opposition group, made up largely of defectors from President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal army, we had come to interview, photograph and try to understand.
The ammunition seemed evidence of the risk we were taking — a risk we did not shoulder lightly. Anthony, who passionately documented the eruptions in the Arab world from Iraq to Libya for The New York Times, felt it was essential that journalists get into Syria, where about 7,000 people have been killed, largely out of the world’s view. We had spent months planning to stay safe. <more>

March 3, 2012

Javier Espinosa reounts his escape

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9119164/Javier-Espinosa-How-terrified-cries-of-Homs-children-nearly-cost-Spanish-journalist-his-life.html

'Mummy, mummy': How terrified cries of Homs children nearly cost Spanish journalist his life

The cries of terrified children calling for their mothers nearly cost Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa his life during his escape under cover of darkness from the besieged city of Homs, he has revealed.
“The kids were very afraid. They were crying, and saying, ‘Mummy, mummy, mummy,’ and I think that noise was the one that alerted the army.

“They started shooting – they started shooting all around, so we had to run for our lives.”
<more>

February 29, 2012

Avaaz: from Moveon.org to Homs Syria

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/28/avaaz-activist-group-conroy-rescue

Tuesday 28 February 2012
Avaaz: the activist organisation behind Paul Conroy's rescue in Syria

The 'clicktivist' group has campaigned on issues from Burma to Murdoch, but is taking on a riskier role in the Arab spring
Its founding president is Ricken Patel, a Canadian-British veteran of the International Crisis Group, a global thinktank, and MoveOn.org, a progressive American group. He runs a team of campaigners around the world, with offices in New York, Rio, Delhi, Madrid and Sydney. <snip>


Wednesday, February 29,2012
Avaaz: Syrian Activists Help Second journalist Escape From Homs

Avaaz can confirm that a second journalist, Javier Espinosa, has at last reached Lebanon from the shell-blasted Syrian city of Homs this afternoon. During his three day journey he was assisted by a team of brave and committed Syrian activists who were supported by Avaaz. In the last seven days they have managed to rescue 47 injured Syrians from Baba Amr. <snip>
http://www.ayyam.org/english/?p=265

February 29, 2012

Co-founder of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) report from Syria

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17212781

Syria unrest: Surgeon tells of Homs makeshift hospital

Jacques Beres is a 71-year-old surgeon and co-founder of the Medecins Sans Frontieres group. He has just returned from the besieged Syrian city of Homs where, in a makeshift clinic, he managed to treat dozens of people wounded during weeks of bombardment. He told the BBC News website what he saw.

29 February 2012

"I spent 12 days in Homs, arriving via Lebanon. We planned the trip for several weeks. It was very dangerous to enter illegally so I made the journey with the help of a chain of intermediaries.

"One met me at the airport in Beirut. I landed in the evening and by 09:00 the next morning I was already in Syria. I had a rest at a farm and then progressed to Qusayr [three miles (4.8km) south-west of Homs], where I worked for a few days before making the journey into Homs.

"I was scared. It is only reasonable to have some fear. Bombs are never normal. I can't really compare Homs to any other war zone I have worked in though - apart, perhaps, from Chechnya. <more at link>

February 28, 2012

Come and see

People use phrases like "rivers of blood" or "the streets were filled with blood" for impact. Usually, it's not meant literally.

Photo by Spanish correspondent Javier Espinosa. From Homs, Syria today.

gutters of bab al amar blood-stained
JAVIER ESPINOSA ? @javierespinosa2





Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!

~Pablo Neruda

February 28, 2012

Paul Conroy, Edith Bouvier, injured journalists, smuggled out of Syria into Lebanon

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/120228/injured-journalists-smuggled-from-syria-paul-conroy-edith-bouvier
Paul Conroy and Edith Bouvier were injured in the artillery attack that killed Sunday Times foreign correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

Tim FitzsimonsFebruary 28, 2012

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Paul Conroy, a British photojournalist, and Edith Bouvier, a French journalist, were rescued from Homs, Syria today. The two were injured in the artillery attack that killed Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik. Conroy is "safe" in Beirut, according to a diplomat quoted by Reuters. The Sunday Times confirmed his rescue, and Le Monde reported that Bouvier also arrived safely in Beirut today.

Several activist volunteers were reportedly killed when the evacuation team came under artillery fire while trying to leave Homs, according to the Guardian.

"The [Conroy] evacuation party came under fire twice. Three activists were killed on the first occasion while more were reportedly killed when they came under fire again," the Guardian wrote." <more>

February 28, 2012

Anti-racism group plans alternative event to counter white pride rally (Duluth)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/224163/

Anti-racism group plans alternative event to counter white pride rally

A group that has urged people to stay away from a planned white pride rally Saturday morning at Duluth’s Civic Center is offering an alternative.

The group plans to hold a unity rally at the Aerial Lift Bridge at 10 a.m. Saturday.

“We are looking at this as an opportunity for people to recommit, as a community, to work on racial justice and to grow together as a stronger community,” said Joel Kilgour of the Loaves and Fishes Community, which provides shelter for homeless people. “There will be hundreds of people there. We are going to take a big group picture in front of the Lift Bridge.”
<more>

February 27, 2012

Stratfor & Goldman Sachs started hedge fund called Stratcap to trade on illegal inside gov't info

http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html

"Stratfor’s use of insiders for intelligence soon turned into a money-making scheme of questionable legality. The emails show that in 2009 then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and Stratfor CEO George Friedman hatched an idea to "utilise the intelligence" it was pulling in from its insider network to start up a captive strategic investment fund. CEO George Friedman explained in a confidential August 2011 document, marked DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS : "What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor’s intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like". The emails show that in 2011 Goldman Sach’s Morenz invested "substantially" more than $4million and joined Stratfor’s board of directors. Throughout 2011, a complex offshore share structure extending as far as South Africa was erected, designed to make StratCap appear to be legally independent. But, confidentially, Friedman told StratFor staff : "Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral... It will be useful to you if, for the sake of convenience, you think of it as another aspect of Stratfor and Shea as another executive in Stratfor... we are already working on mock portfolios and trades". StratCap is due to launch in 2012. "