Adrift in a Sea of Phlegm

18 stabbed to death in London thus far

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:25:16 GMT

Three days in London and already I've been robbed. Apparentlysomeone's walking around with copies of my hotel keys. It could have been worse (I took my valuables with me to this 3-day conference) but the little things taken are a big pain- all those DVDs I brought from China, cycling gloves, all my shirts, sweater, ipod charger (my ipod is now useless), headphones, etc. meanwhile not far away two French students have been tortured to death, one with nearly 200 stab wounds. What the hell is goijng on in this country?~! AND IT IS SO EXPENSIVE|!!

China inspired interrogations at Guantánamo

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:21:22 GMT

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of "coercive management techniques" for possible use on prisoners, including "sleep deprivation," "prolonged constraint," and "exposure."

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base atGuantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The CIA is still authorized by President George W. Bush to use a number of secret "alternative" interrogation methods.

Several Guantánamo documents, including the chart outlining coercive methods, were made public at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing June 17 that examined how such tactics came to be employed.

But committee investigators were not aware of the chart's source in the half-century-old journal article, a connection pointed out to The New York Times by an independent expert on interrogation who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was entitled "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War" and written by Alfred D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003. Biderman had interviewed American prisoners returning from North Korea, some of whom had been filmed by their Chinese interrogators confessing to germ warfare and other atrocities.

Those orchestrated confessions led to allegations that the American prisoners had been "brainwashed," and provoked the military to revamp its training to give some military personnel a taste of the enemies' harsh methods to inoculate them against quick capitulation if captured.

In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the CIA and the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners.

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after reviewing the 1957 article that "every American would be shocked" by the origin of the training document.

"What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions," Levin said. "People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don't need false intelligence."

A Defense Department spokesman, Lieutenant Col Patrick Ryder, said he could not comment on the Guantánamo training chart. "I can't speculate on previous decisions that may have been made prior to current DOD policy on interrogations," Ryder said. "I can tell you that current DOD policy is clear — we treat all detainees humanely."

Biderman's 1957 article described "one form of torture" used by the Chinese as forcing American prisoners to stand "for exceedingly long periods," sometimes in conditions of "extreme cold." Such passive methods, he wrote, were more common than outright physical violence. Prolonged standing and exposure to cold have both been used by American military and CIA interrogators against terrorist suspects.

The chart also listed other techniques used by the Chinese, including "Semi-Starvation," "Exploitation of Wounds," and "Filthy, Infested Surroundings," and with their effects: "Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator," "Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist," and "Reduces Prisoner to 'Animal Level' Concerns."

The only change made in the chart presented at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: "Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance."

The documents released last month include an e-mail message from two SERE trainers reporting on a trip to Guantánamo from Dec. 29, 2002, to Jan. 4, 2003. Their purpose, the message said, was to present to interrogators "the theory and application of the physical pressures utilized during our training."

The sessions included "an in-depth class on Biderman's Principles," the message said, referring to the chart from Biderman's 1957 article. Versions of the same chart, often identified as "Biderman's Chart of Coercion," have circulated on anti-cult sites on the Web, where the methods are used to describe how cults control their members.

Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist who also studied the returning prisoners of war and wrote an accompanying article in the same 1957 issue of The Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, said in an interview that he was disturbed to learn that the Chinese methods had been recycled and taught at Guantánamo.

"It saddens me," said Lifton, who wrote a 1961 book on what the Chinese called "thought reform" and became known in popular American parlance as brainwashing. He called the use of the Chinese techniques by American interrogators at Guantánamo a "180-degree turn."

The harshest known interrogation at Guantánamo was that of Mohammed al-Qahtani, a member of Al Qaeda suspected of being the intended 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks. Qahtani's interrogation involved sleep deprivation, stress positions, exposure to cold and other methods also used by the Chinese.

Happy Dominion Day!

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:09:22 GMT

MAPLE LEAF FOREVER!

[Click here for MP3 audio file]

In Days of yore, from Britain's shore,
Wolfe, the dauntless hero came,
And planted firm Britannia's flag,
On Canada's fair domain.
Here may it wave, our boast, our pride,
And joined in love together,
The thistle, shamrock, rose entwined,
The Maple Leaf forever!

The Maple Leaf, our emblem dear,
The Maple Leaf forever!
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless,
The Maple Leaf forever!

At Queenston Heights and Lundy's Lane,
Our brave fathers, side by side,
For freedom, homes, and loved ones dear,
Firmly stood and nobly died;
And those dear rights which they maintained,
We swear to yield them never!
Our watchword evermore shall be,
The Maple Leaf forever!

The Maple Leaf, our emblem dear,
The Maple Leaf forever!
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless,
The Maple Leaf forever!

Our fair Dominion now extends
From Cape Race to Nootka Sound;
May peace forever be our lot,
And plenteous store abound:
And may those ties of love be ours
Which discord cannot sever,
And flourish green o'er freedom's home
The Maple Leaf forever!

The Maple Leaf, our emblem dear,
The Maple Leaf forever!
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless,
The Maple Leaf forever!

On merry England's far-famed land,
May kind Heaven sweetly smile;
God bless Old Scotland evermore,
And Ireland's Emer'ld Isle!
Then swell the song, both loud and long,
Till rocks and forest quiver,
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless
The Maple Leaf forever!

The Maple Leaf, our emblem dear,
The Maple Leaf forever!
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless,
The Maple Leaf forever!

OFF TO THE MOTHER COUNTRY NOW! ENJOY YOUR FASCIST GAMES, CHINA- I'M RETURNING TO CIVILISATION!

Chinese police covering up rape/murder of little girl

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:54:35 GMT

It is the latest explosive example of how political corruption in China can have a dangerously destabilising impact. Thousands of rioters torched police cars and government office buildings in the south-western province of Guizhou after allegations that local officials covered up a teenage girl's death.

Riots in southwest China over girl's death: report

Rioters in southwestern China torched government buildings and cars after anger over a probe into a schoolgirl's death exploded into violent protests, locals and state press said Sunday.

The riots occurred Saturday in Guizhou province when protesters ransacked three government and police buildings after the girl's uncle died from an alleged beating by police trying to stop him from protesting against the handling of the case, locals and Internet postings said.

The official Xinhua news agency said the riots had erupted due to "dissatisfaction" over the investigation into the girl's death, but added no further details.

Pictures posted on Internet blogs showed several thousand people gathered in front of the Wengan county police station, its windows shattered and the building smouldering.

The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said that over 10,000 people took to the streets in the protests, with up to 150 people injured in clashes with police.

Police have arrested nearly 200 rioters and Sunday were seeking to round up others caught on videotape ransacking the government buildings, the centre said.

Over 1,500 paramilitary and riot police have been dispatch to the county, it added.

Locals contacted by AFP by phone said protesters took to the streets after the deceased girl's uncle was pronounced dead in a local hospital on Saturday afternoon.

The uncle had protested against the conclusion of the police investigation that had determined the 15-year-old girl committed suicide.

He had been badly beaten as he sought justice after the death of his niece, locals said.

Internet postings said the girl had been raped and then killed nine days ago and that the police were trying to cover up the alleged murder and protect the suspect, who was identified as the son of the vice head of Wengan county.

Officials at the county government and police station did not answer telephone calls Sunday.

The uncle was a teacher at a high school and his students descended onto the police station after they heard he had died, locals said.

"Her uncle, who was beaten by police or gangsters hired by the police died Saturday," said one local who refused to name herself out of fear of police retribution.

"As he was a teacher at the local high school, students from local schools went to the police to ask for justice, dozens of them I think, then some students were beaten by the police, after they were beaten, they started fires at the police building and torched police cars."

The woman said she had donated money to the grandfather of the dead girl, who was in possession of the body and was refusing to allow police to take it away.

Photos on the Internet posted overnight showed a steady stream of police and military personnel and vehicles rolling into the city.

Internet search engines listed scores of postings on the riots, but access to most of the pages were blocked Sunday, indicating a possible government black-out.

"A group of unidentified people incited the crowd to attack the police bureau, the county government and the county (Communist Party) committee building," Xinhua news agency said.

"After this, a small number of criminals ransacked offices and even torched many public offices and several cars."

China's government and police are seeking to quell any unrest and ensure order across the country is maintained ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.

China's crackdown on unrest in Tibet against Beijing's rule in March drew international condemnation and spurred protests in several countries that disrupted the Olympic torch on its round-the-world journey.

Xinhua said the Guizhou government has taken measures to "appropriately" handle the situation.

Early Sunday, the crowd had dispersed and "the incident did not further escalate," the report said, adding "order has been basically restored at present in Wengan county."

A couple of films I recommend

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:24:23 GMT

This weekend I was fortunate to have chosen a couple of memorable and entertaining films to watch I wouldn't otherwise have considered:

Reading through various reviews before I actually sat down to watch this film, I was struck by how much goodwill there is to this film. One would think that only those with their noses out of joint would bother writing negative comments, but to have the overwhelming reaction positive shows how engaging this film is. To have Colin Farrell as the star would normally stop me from sitting in front of the telly to watch him for 90 minutes but he provides a sympathetic, nuanced performance without going over the top which would have been understandable given the storyline. Gleeson is given ample screen time to show why he's one of Ireland's great thespians. I was first introduced to him in the film 'I Went Down;' although I can't for the life of me remember that film apart from the nonsensical reason given for the title, I do remember Gleeson's performance as a revelation that single-handedly raised an otherwise non-descript film. And Fiennes once again shows no matter the genre, he'll step up and nail it. His accent is spot-on; I thought for a minute they'd hired Michael Caine to phone in a cameo when I first heard his voice. The plot itself is nothing to get worked up over, and the various turns used to stretch out the film are a bit laboured but, with the sublime humour and great dialogue, it doesn't matter. And what a setting! My main issue was the ending where it rather fell apart for me in terms of believability, but it is truly minor compared to everything that makes up this movie. This is definitely worth an evening in to watch.

I first heard of this film more given its release date than for the film itself given the (continuing) Madelaine McCann saga. Then with the DVD in front of me, I wasn't sure if it was worth spending an afternoon to watch. Firstly, it's Hollywood so I assume all the characters will be cardboard cut-outs with a plot line simple enough to be understood in Arkansas drive-ins. Wait a minute- Ben Affleck is the director?!?! Come on! No wait, it gets better- it stars his BROTHER! And Morgan Freeman as yet another cop. Not only does this seem like further evidence of extremely lazy casting, but he looks almost a dead ringer for Nelson Mandela who turned 90 this week. And he's supposed to be retiring EARLY in the film! So perhaps all this led me to be pleasantly surprised. The characters don't seem much more developed from standard British cop shows on the telly, but they aren't tarted up either. The plot is complicated without being too complex which allows the view to be involved without being taxes. I do have an issue with some of the twists that seem too contrived, particularly at the end, but in the end the message leaves one actually thinking about one's own personal position- this is after all what made Million Dollar Baby so controversial and successful. The direction is tight, and performances understated. Since the Pearl Harbour debacle Mr. Affleck has really taken his craft seriously and sought to earn respect for his professional development. I certainly recommend this film, writing as a cynic.

When will someone rid the world of this evil Hitlerite?

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:45:16 GMT

Robert Mugabe’s thugs shout: ‘Let’s kill the baby’

11-month-old Blessing Mabhena

A baby boy had both legs broken by supporters of President Robert Mugabe to punish his father for being an opposition councillor in Zimbabwe.

Blessing Mabhena, aged 11 months, was seized from a bed and flung down with force as his mother, Agnes, hid from the thugs, convinced that they were about to murder her.

She heard one of them say, “Let’s kill the baby”, before Blessing was hurled on to a bare concrete floor.

Blessing, who may never be able to walk properly, was one of the youngest victims of atrocities against the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change in the run-up to last Friday’s sham presidential election.

As Mugabe, 84, the only candidate in the election, prepared to be sworn in as president today, it emerged that his forces of terror plan to pulverise opponents to prevent them from ever threatening his leading Zanu-PF again.

Leaked minutes of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), which has orchestrated the violence since Mugabe lost a first round of voting in March, revealed that it is willing to wipe out opposition supporters.

A 10,000-strong youth militia loyal to the Zanu-PF has been created to enforce its wishes in case regular army units refuse, according to Zimbabwean human rights agencies.

“It’s a deliberate nationwide strategy to reoccupy space so all space is occupied by the Zanu of Mugabe,” said Jon Stewart, a director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum.

Minutes of one JOC meeting show that supporters of Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, “will all be internally displaced. The target number is two million supporters”.

The plan is to brutalise people into backing Zanu-PF or fleeing the country. “They’re not going to stop,” said a maid in Marondera. “They’re saying they’ll do more beatings and killings until all the ‘traitors’ are flushed out.”

She and her neighbours were waiting for officials to check their fingers for red ink to make sure they had voted on Friday.

What's wrong with the UN is Russia and China. We need a new organization that is suited to today's challenges. Western and other democracy loving countries should withdraw from this present useless UN and form a new organization. This old UN won't survive without funding from USA & W. Europe.

.

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:34:04 GMT

A-CHOO, COUGH COUGH: OLYMPICS SMOG ALERT; GAMES A MONTH AWAY...

Wanted: gate for gatekeeper

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:04:56 GMT


    Decades ago Mutrah, Muscat's main city, was 
    separated from the port by a huge wall with a
    large gate. Every sundown the gate would be closed
    and sealed till the next morning. When the authorities
    connected the roads and had to drive cars to the 
    port and back the gate wasn't large enough. So they
    knocked two giant gaps either side of the gate and  
    built the road through. 
 
    Of course you don't point out to anyone your job
    is useless, so for years the officer whose job
    it was to be in charge of the gate still arrived 
    at sundown, making sure the gate was sealed, before
    driving back out through the huge gap.

The "John Leslie Rape Quiz" How would you score?

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:03:50 GMT

Berlin airlift 60th anniversary

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:03:18 GMT

Movie of the week

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:59:54 GMT

Just saw Crank a second time last night. Many of the criticisms levelled at this movie come from those who apparently can't accept a movie that never intended to take itself seriously. This film was certainly a pleasant surprise. I had only seen 'The bank Job' the week earlier which I quite enjoyed, and the prospect of another Statham movie was obviously an appealing prospect. My main concern was that leaving for England after an eight-year absence during which time a diet of Stathamesque movies provided an unremittingly dismal view of the country now, but as this is set in the Excited States, my worries were groundless. The action is completely over the top, plot ridiculous (although living in Beijing, this is the ideal location to pick up a lethal disease), stereotypes out in force, lack of any characters to identify with where odd eccentricities tried to cover up what effort on character development lacked, and blatant rip-offs of Pulp Fiction (fathers sticking family heirlooms up arses, etc), True Romance and other genre films could not overcome the adrenalin and enjoyment. Often I found myself literally on the edge of my seat, looking at my mate in incredulity. I cannot remember the last film I saw which made me want to devote a chunk of my salary to drinking all the Red Bull I could in an hour and seeing the results. Apart from completely unbelievable deus ex machinas which demand too much of a suspension of belief, and an idiotic girlfriend thrown in that, while initially succeeding in providing a laugh, soon becomes annoying and slows the pace, this is a film I'd watch again.

“Beijing Welcomes the World!”

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:02:16 GMT

That slogan is everywhere nowadays in the Chinese capital. But as the Games draw near, the eight-tooth smile that Olympic hostesses have been taught is beginning to look a little strained.

Fearful of terrorist attacks and of embarrassing protests, the authorities are draping a security blanket over Beijing so thick that many residents fear it will stifle the Games.

"They are not taking any chances, whatever the impact on ordinary people, either local or foreign," says Gilbert van Kerckhove, a longtime Beijing resident who is advising the city on Olympic issues. "They are totally paranoid; there is no other word for it."

In preparation for the Olympics, long billed as China's coming-out party, the government has tightened visa rules to restrict the number of incoming foreigners, snarled international broadcasters' plans to televise the Games, cleared almost all Beijing's itinerant vendors off the streets, and closed down one of the city's most popular English-language magazines, among other steps apparently designed to ensure control of the event.

The gathering mood here has caught the attention of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which organizes the games.

"We have asked the Chinese to try to find the right balance between security and operations, and I have confidence that they will do so," said the IOC president, Jacques Rogge, earlier this month.

'More serious' visa regulations

Attracting the most attention among Beijing's 250,000 foreign residents are the "more strict and more serious" visa regulations that a foreign ministry spokesman explained recently are aimed at ensuring Olympic security.

They have made it much harder for foreigners to get into China and to stay here once they have arrived.

The effects of rules introduced last month – eliminating multiple-entry visas, requiring applicants for visa renewals to return to their home country, and demanding proof of professional qualifications – have been felt most acutely among the hordes of young people who have been attracted to Beijing as an internationally fashionable place to live and who either study here or make a living as best they can.

Likely participants in the sort of protests the government is anxious to curb, they are not the sort of people the authorities want in Beijing in August. But the rules have also hampered international businessmen, prompting official complaints from foreign chambers of commerce.

"Business opportunities are being missed," the European Chamber of Commerce warned the Chinese government in a letter, since the rules "impose dramatic costs in terms of both time and money."

"Many European companies from multinationals to small- to medium-sized are experiencing issues with obtaining business visas," says the chamber's secretary general, Michael O'Sullivan, "and we have not noted any further changes in the situation" since the letter was sent.

Television broadcasters, meanwhile, are still battling the Chinese security bureaucracy six weeks before the Games' opening ceremony, seeking assurances they will be able to broadcast live from such iconic locations as Tiananmen Square and elsewhere.

It is still unclear, they say, whether Beijing will give way. "Unless the authorities relax and are a little more free with the media, they may well compromise coverage of the games," warns John Barton, director of sports at the Asian Broadcasting Union.

Ordinary Beijingers are more affected by minor irritants: new restrictions on what they can send in the mail (no electronics, no powder, no soap), a ban on the sale of fireworks, plans for airport-style security on the subway during the Games, and the disappearance of street vendors selling snacks and other items, most of whom come from out of town.

"The city police drove them all out," says one fruit-seller who has so far evaded arrest of his erstwhile competitors on a street near the Foreign Studies University. "It's because of the Olympics. They've all gone home ... and they can't come back until after the Oct. 1 holiday."

Such moves appear designed to reduce the workload for the 100,000 security agents – policemen, militarized police, security guards, and volunteers – that the city says it will mobilize for the Games. At the same time, 300 specialists in nuclear, biological, and chemical attacks will be on alert starting July 1, officials say, along with 100,000 commandos and ordinary soldiers in reserve.

A terrorist attack tops the authorities' list of security concerns, according to the police. They are especially concerned by the threat they see from militants demanding independence for the western province of Xinjiang, largely populated by the Muslim Uighur people. Earlier this year, the police announced they had foiled a plot by Uighur separatists to blow up a plane flying from the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi to Beijing.

Large gatherings cancelled

But the government also appears nervous about large gatherings of foreigners. Last month the government banned a pop-music festival that traditionally attracts foreign bands and large numbers of foreign residents. It also cancelled a conference of the Holland-based Institute of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences for which 6,500 international academics had registered.

"What has happened around the torch has resulted in a stepping-up of the whole security issue, and security weighs heavily on all the decision-making now," said Hein Verbruggen, the IOC official in charge of overseeing preparations for the Olympics, recently.

The result, fears Mr. van Kerckhove, will be that Beijing "will be a police city. There will be no mood ... because everything will be controlled."

The controls extend to even the smallest detail. Chinese sports fans have been provided an official cheer, designed by the ruling Communist Party's Office of Spiritual Civilization Development and Guidance, involving raised thumbs, clapping, fist punching, and the chant "Go Olympics, go China."

Foreign visitors will be permitted to choose their own cheers, but they will have to abide by the rules published recently on the website of the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games. These include a warning that "any illegal gatherings, parades, and protests and refusal to comply are subject to administrative punishment or criminal prosecution."

The guide also lists materials that may not be brought into China, such as items "that are harmful to China's politics, economics, culture, and morals."

It is still not clear just how many foreigners will attend the Games. Officials have said they expect half a million visitors from abroad, but difficulty in obtaining visas and tickets to Olympic events could reduce that number.

Only 25 percent of tickets to this year's games were allocated to international sales – half the proportion that organizers of the Athens Olympics sold abroad in 2004. Organizers point out that China is the most populous nation to host the Games, but their decision has made it harder for foreigners to buy tickets.

That may explain disappointingly slow bookings for hotels at a time when Beijing was meant to be bursting with visitors. Although the city's five-star hotels, where Olympic and national officials will stay, are registering a 77 percent occupancy during the Games, four-star hotels have so far filled only 44 percent of their rooms, according to Zhang Huiguang, director of the Beijing Tourism Bureau.

The figure "is even lower for three- and two-star hotels," she told reporters recently.

Reporter Peter Ford discusses China's heightened security measures ahead of the Olympic Games.

Why don't we kill Magabe already?

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:20:19 GMT

The biggest tragedy of all is that the Rhodesian security forces did not eliminate this maggot when they had the chance, and indeed, we hang our heads in shame, as should the then and present British government, who set the stage of his stoop into power. Mugabe is the epitomy of menacing evil, and to eliminate him would be an immense favour to the Zimbabwean people, (and indeed the whole of Southern Africa), who have continued to suffer horrific brutality and decimation under his 28 years of iron-fist rule. Don’t ever forget, this man is the orchestrator of endless suffering, brutality and murder of those who dared to even question his totalitarian control since independance. He needs to be eliminated, whether by the hand of his own people, or by International intervention and brought to book. But I would prefer the former, because, it’s what he deserves, what he has sown. Such is the hatred for Mugabe that without doubt, if the average axe-bearing Zimbabwean could get their hands on him, one-on-one, Mugabe would not survive, and it would be an agonising slow death, chopped up into small pieces. And in that light, it makes perfect sense why this despot is desperately clinging to power, he now lives in real fear, the time has come. The Zimbabwean people have voted, and despite every trick in the book encompassing mass and open intimidation of the people and vote-rigging, Mugabe has lost, that is clear. Whether he can continue to hold on will be seen in the next few days or weeks. But when Zimbabweans do get their true liberation, for one thing, it will be high-time and riddance to the rat that ruined everything. Democratic freedom at last for Zimbabwe. Mugabe came to power with the barrel of the gun, with a lot of help from the fascist-supporting Chinese who supplied the weapons, ideologies and funding may I add.

I don’t want to put the fear of God in South Africans, but present-day South Afrca is ominously reminiscent of the way Zimbabwe went down the toilet. Furthermore, Thabo Mbeki spent much of his exile during the Apartheid years in Harare with Bob, brothers-in-arms so to speak. So, indeed, we should be very wary of Mbeki, granted he is a completely lame duck and lacks much of the fiery rhetoric of his very dangerous and menacing comrade.

In conclusion, I hate Mugabe more for what he has achieved since his ascension to power, the complete and utter destruction of a once prosperous and beautiful country and it’s people. As a president, it goes without saying, as custodian to the nation, the duty bestowed upon that person is the wellbeing of the country and its people. There is no excuse for Mugabe and his madness, and he deserves what is in a long time-coming, and when that day comes, I will celebrate, the maggot has been removed and the shackles on Zimbabwe will at last be off. My only wish is that this really is it, the end of the road for Bob. Pamperi ne Hondo!

Mainland Barbarians Invade Taiwan

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:18:40 GMT

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200806c.brief.htm:

During his unsuccessful presidential campaign, Democratic Progressive Party candidate Frank Hsieh had this memorable campaign ad about the consequences of a One-China market -- the hordes of mainland Chinese barbarians will invade Taiwan and urinate and spit in public everywhere. Frank Hsieh lost that election and his predicted day is about to arrive.

In response to a question, Tainan city Department of Health director Hu Shu-chen said: "Every place that the mainland guests passes by will be disinfected." A member of the delegation of mainland Chinese travel representatives reacted to that statement by saying that they had already gone through the disease control station at the airport and this is highly unnecessary. He said that he has visited more than twenty countries already and nobody does that. Neither Japan nor the United States does that to any of the many mainland Chinese tourists, and there has never been any outbreak of epidemics in those countries.
Later, Hu Shu-chen explained that the mainland tourists coming to Taiwan have high socio-ecnoomic status and their health should be relatively better. The Department of Health plans to disinfect the tourist sites which mainland and other overseas tourists visit, and that would be good for the tourists as well as the local people.
The pro-green media are questioning why the government is letting the mainland tourists come without monitoring the infectious diseases. This will place the people of Taiwan at risk from all sorts of deadly viruses. They emphasized repeatedly that "there are 550 million people with infectious tuberculosis in mainland China" and 130,000 people die from it each year. Since "the mainland people spit everywhere they go," tuberculosis will be all over the place.
According to a village mayor in Tainan county, "citizens should report immediately if they see a mainlander coughing."
According to a mainland woman who married to Taiwan, her husband's family used to be very nice to her. But yesterday, her mother-in-law asked her whether she had any infectious diseases before her marriage. "I heard on the radio that the Taiwanese people have no resistnace against certain types of diseases, so that they will die if they get infected." The mainland woman said that she came to Taiwan several years ago and took care of her father-in-law who had tuberculosis. She wasn't afraid of being infected. But all of a sudden, the radio talk show has turned suspicions on her.

US Embassy To Yanks: Be Wary of Soccer-Crazed Germans

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:43:22 GMT

It's not easy to be an American abroad these days. Not only is your government hated and despised -- the US embassy is also worried you'll be hurt by rowdy enthusiasts of a strange, no-hands-allowed sport.

The Euro 2008 has been a great tournament, but if one believes a warning issued on Tuesday, June 24 by the American embassy in Germany, the upcoming match between the Germans and the Turks could also be hazardous to your health.

American diplomats are apparently worried that innocent Yanks could be injured if they blunder into public viewing areas with their guard down.

"Because of the high fan interest in this prestigious semi-final elimination game between Germany and Turkey, there exists the possibility that disturbances, including violent disturbances may occur before, during or after the match, which begins at 20:45," wrote the embassy.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: They may look harmless and/or portly -- but they're not

Diplomats particularly cautioned against public viewing areas in Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich.

"At a minimum, post-game celebrations will likely result in traffic congestion in larger cities," read the embassy statement. "Crowds celebrating previous German and/or Turkish victories have blocked streets and rocked vehicles attempting to pass through them."

In other words, stay on your toes, or you could get rocked.

Danger, danger everywhere

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: "Beer: the cause of and the solution to all of life's problems" -- H. Simpson

The embassy's statement makes downtown Berlin sound a bit like Falluja or the Gaza Strip, but DW-WORLD has learned the potential threats run far deeper.

Many of the viewers at the so-called fan miles, it turns out, are hopped up on a liquid intoxicant known as "beer."

This substance has been known to lead to outbreaks of mirth, loss of equilibrium and unintended and later regretted coupling among users.

In addition, soccer fiends have been reported to consume things called "bratwurst," which, depending on quality, can emit streams of hot fluid, known in street lingo as "grease," when improperly chomped upon.

In the face of such manifold soccer perils, all American tourists can do is follow their embassy's advice and "exercise caution…and be aware of their surroundings at all times."

And those planning vacations for the future might well consider staying home.

After all, there's nothing like the absolute safety of places like Detroit, South Central L.A. or the Nevada Nuclear Test Site -- where any unruly European sports fans can be dealt with quickly, before they threaten American lives.

1936=2008

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:58:18 GMT

RSF Media rights activists (Reporters without Borders) display a giant banner with the five Olympic rings turned into handcuffs on the Champs Elyses during the Beijing Olympic flame's tour of Paris.

The Olympic Games were first held in Greece, the birthplace of democracy, and from the beginning have carried the message that nations should gather in peace and compete in sports. There is an inherent kinship between the peaceful Olympic Games and the peaceful ways of democratic and free nations, and the Olympics have had their finest moments when hosted by democratic countries.

The years 1936 and 2008 have in common the hosting of the Olympic Games by totalitarian regimes: Nazi Germany and Communist China.

Nazi Germany was a one-party regime, as is China today. Both the Nazi and Chinese Communist parties struggled to gain power and the Nazis endeavored, just as the Chinese regime is endeavoring today, to establish a good reputation by hosting the Olympic Games.

Nazi Germany invented the tradition of having a torch relay, which served to connect and bind as many countries as possible to the event in Berlin. It was a propaganda campaign, one that continues to have an impact.

China has taken the torch relay to the extreme by planning the longest torch relay ever in history, including going high up atop Mount Everest. At every step the Beijing torch is protected by "torch guards," whose presence is already a break with the Olympic spirit.

These totalitarian Olympics may put a parenthesis around the torch relay: After the protest-plagued 2008 Olympic torch relay, the IOC is considering ending the tradition that started in Berlin.

Before holding the Olympic Games Nazi Germany had started to persecute the Jewish community, although it did not begin the "final solution" until several years later. The Nazis didn't even dare to officially exclude Jews from participating in the Games (although Jews were prohibited from representing Germany in the Games).

The Chinese regime has not only started to persecute a group of people for their religious beliefs, but is even very frank about its policy of persecution. At the end of 2007 a spokesperson for the Beijing Olympic Committee stated that practitioners of the Falun Gong are excluded from all Olympic activities.

All human rights organizations and governments know that Falun Gong is one of the main victims of state-sanctioned persecution in China. Several thousand adherents have been tortured to death because of their beliefs.

In Nazi Germany, Dr. Josef Mengele started human experiments on Jews after the Berlin Olympics, during the Holocaust.

In today's Communist China medical doctors have for several years been extracting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners for profit. The live organ harvesting is believed to have started in 2001, the same year that China won the bid for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Nazi Germany needed all countries to come to the Olympic Games in Berlin as a sign of the legitimacy of the Nazi regime. Nothing less is the case in China: The attendance of government officials from around the world at the opening ceremony is considered a measure of approval for the Chinese regime.

The fascist German regime and the communist Chinese regime would appear to be opposites, although similar in betraying the Olympic spirit. However, the communist regime in China has adopted so many capitalistic measures that it cannot be considered communist anymore. Since 1989 it has transformed itself into a fascist regime that uses the Communist Party to dominate society and ruthless capitalistic measures to provide sustaining fuel for the Party's rule.

Of course, the Chinese regime doesn't have a Führer like Adolf Hitler, who was the leader of a movement that sought to vindicate Germany's greatness. However, in China, the Communist Party plays a role similar to that of the Führer, demanding all serve it as the embodiment of China's national destiny.

In the debate about whether the Berlin Olympics should have been boycotted, some claim that Jesse Owens competing in the Olympics refuted Adolf Hitler's racist theories. However, Owens' four gold medals were not able to stop the Holocaust in which an estimated 8 million were killed. In looking back, we might ask if a boycott of the 1936 Berlin Games would not have been more successful in helping avoid World War II and the Holocaust.

In 1936, there were no precedents for how to deal with an Olympic Games held in a totalitarian country. In 2008, we once again face the question how to deal with a totalitarian host of the Olympic Games.

The Chinese regime argues that sports and politics should be separated.

The Olympic Charter speaks of placing "sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."

The Charter also speaks of "respect for universal fundamental ethical principles."

By describing as "politics" any objections to systematic violations of human rights that retard the harmonious development of man, deprive society of peace, destroy human dignity, and violate "universal fundamental ethical principles," the Chinese regime is not separating "politics" from sports. It is separating the Olympic Games from their hallowed purpose. And it is doing so even while increasing the persecution against groups like the Tibetans and the Falun Gong.

It is fitting that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up under communism in East Germany, should be one of the first national leaders in her actions to show an understanding of the significance of the Beijing Olympics. She knows that basic human rights cannot be considered independent from other issues, much less the Olympics, and she has lead the way for other European leaders by announcing she will not attend the Opening Ceremony in Beijing.

In 1936 the world, when confronted with a betrayal of the Olympics by a totalitarian regime, failed to uphold the fundamental principles central to the Olympic movement. This year the world gets a second chance. The nations of the world may choose to participate in the self-promotion of a brutal regime and in doing so to betray the Olympic spirit or they may insist that the Olympics must be kept true to itself.

Looking at images of the 1936 Nazi olympics we can't help but ask ourselves what they were thinking. Today we have a similar situation brewing with the 2008 communist Olympics in Beijing. A land where christians are persecuted, democracy protesters are crushed with tanks and tibetans are ethnically cleansed. They have been awarded the olympics what can we do about it? Do you want your kids and grandkids to see pictures like this and ask what you did to oppose it?

The Times and some U.S. Congressmen have equated the Beijing Olympics with the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Not surprisingly, the comparison triggered an immediate protest from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But what of the comparison? Let's go back and look at what occurred around the Berlin Olympics.

In May 1931, Berlin defeated Barcelona to win the right to hold the Eleventh Olympics. The Nazis were not yet in power and Germany was a democratic country. Germany had earlier won the right to hold the 1916 Olympic Games, but the first World War got in the way, and the Games were cancelled. Giving Germany the right to hold the 1936 Olympic Games was seen as a kind of compensation. In 2001, the CCP won the right to hold the Beijing Olympics only after it had promised to improve human rights in China, as the international community debated China's failures in human rights, recalling the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, and among other things, the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong.

In 1933, the Nazis came into power. Hitler became the leader of Germany. Hitler quickly turned Germany from a democratic country into a totalitarian state. The police arrested numerous dissidents and sent them to concentration camps without trial. In the meantime, Hitler carried out a racial cleansing, proclaiming Aryan superiority, and started a systematic plot to wipe out the Jewish race. Gypsies and homosexuals were also rooted out, and sent to the notorious death camps.

Hitler himself was not very interested in sports. In the meantime, he was afraid that the international attention from the Olympic Games would expose the Nazi's racial discrimination policy. So Hitler still held a grudge toward the former government of Germany for applying to hold the Olympic Games. However, Paul Goebbels, his infamous Minister of Propaganda, convinced Hitler to use the Olympic Games as a propaganda tool.

Hitler then became enthusiastic about the Olympics. His government invested 20 millions Marks (a huge sum) to aid the Berlin Olympic Games. He ordered a stadium built in Berlin that would hold one hundred thousand people. He wanted the Berlin Olympics to be a political extravaganza and exceed all previous Olympic Games in scale. Goebbels said, "The sole task of German sports is to strengthen the German people's character." What he referred here was, of course, the pure German race. In the Nazis' sports posters, the artists were asked to show the masculinity and heroic strengths of the Aryan race.

The Nazis enthusiasm in promoting the Olympics even brought a technological breakthrough in broadcasting. The Nazis broadcast the Olympic Games live (television had just appeared in Germany), so the Olympic Games became a political stage for Hitler and the Nazis to promote their political agenda. Their motto was, "Publicity helps us seize power, publicity helps us consolidate power, and publicity will help us get the whole world." The Nazis and the CCP are much the same in this regard, both consummate masters of the evil art of deception through propaganda.

The Nazis anti-Jewish movement began to catch the attention of the world's people. After Hitler came to power in 1933, people started to discuss whether the Olympics should be held elsewhere, and calls to boycott the Berlin Games became increasingly louder. Many Jewish organizations held demonstrations. In 1935, Avery Brundage, Chairman of U.S. International Olympic Committee, personally went to Berlin, and made a short visit under the Nazis close watch. The Nazis had repetitively told him that the Olympic Games were purely a sports event and would not be used to promote its political views. Brundage went so far as even to believe that what he had seen was the real Germany, and had thus changed his original thought of boycotting the Olympic Games.

However, in the U.S., there was still quite a huge disagreement. Jeremiah Mahoney, President of the Amateur Athletics Union of the United States, insisted that Nazi racial discrimination violated the Olympic spirit. Brundage believed that "Politics must not be brought into sports." This echos the current cries from Beijing party mandarins, almost word for word, who to the outside world, accuse protesters of making the games political. Inside China, however, the CCP has made the Olympic Games its "political task number one".

Mahoney didn't want U.S. athletes to get involved in "the argument between Jews and Nazis." Ernest Lee Jahncke, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member from the U.S., was fired from the IOC for his objections to the Berlin Olympic Games. He thus became the only IOC member who was ever fired in the history of over one hundred years. The vacancy he created was filled by Brundage. In the end, the U.S. participated in the Berlin Olympic Games and President Roosevelt attended the ceremonies. The U.S.'s attitude about the Berlin Olympics had a great influence on other countries. Following U.S. announcements that they would participate, other countries also participated in the games. There were a total of forty nine countries that had participated in this Olympic Games. Its scale had exceeded those of all previous ones; it was unprecedented.

On August 1, Hitler hosted the opening ceremonies. The Berlin Olympic Games began the tradition of the Olympic Torch Relay (before then, the Olympic flame was taken to the site of the games from Greece, but there was no relay). Over three thousand people relayed the torch for twenty-one days. On the day of the ceremony, when the torch was taken to Hitler, it was as if the world had forgotten the ethnic cleansing that continued, even under their noses. Nazi propaganda had promoted the torch relay crazily. Hitler's official propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl produced the full length documentary film Olympia, bringing further unearned prestige to Hitler and his Games. Hitler's deceptive propaganda was very successful. Germany went on to win the most gold medals. Hitler and the Nazis had stolen the limelight.

In August 1936, Berlin was decorated festively and there were Olympic banners and Nazi symbols everywhere. What most tourists did not know was that the anti-Jewish slogans had just been taken down, and would soon go back up after the games. The tourists could not know that Gypsies had been driven out of the downtown area during a city "cleaning" movement organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They were detained in a temporary concentration camp in the suburbs. The tourists could also not know that Geobbels' Ministry of Propaganda had issued a large number of orders to strictly evaluate the media that would report the games, so as to not let the world's people see any signs about the Nazis crimes against humanity.

Hitler created an "economic miracle" in Germany, much as the CCP has created what appears to be an "economic miracle" in China.

From 1929 to 1933, the world grappled with the Great Depression, and Germany was no exception. After Hitler came to power, however, Nazi economic policy resulted in a decline in unemployment from thirty percent to almost zero. Germany greatly reduced its reliance on the world economy, and wages and prices became stable. The well-known Volkswagen automobile was developed for the working classes at Hitler's request. Despite of all this, Hitler's racist policies eventually ruined Germany.

Hitler wanted to rule the world. He wanted Berlin to stage the Olympics. With Nazi Germany's tremendous economic strength and Hitler's unprecedented propaganda campaign, the 1936 Berlin Olympics were seen as a success at the time. U.S. correspondent Shirer wrote in his Berlin Diary, "First, the Nazis have run the Games on a lavish scale never before experienced, and this has appealed to the athletes. Second, the Nazis have put up a very good front for the general visitors, especially the big businessmen." (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/olympics.html) Indeed, the whole world had become numb, and the Holocaust was allowed to play out. By the time Hitler had spread the fires of war all over Europe, the genocide was well underway.

The political motives that underlie the CCP's desire to host the Olympics, the brutal repression of certain classes of people in the name of "preparing" for the Olympics, and the CCP's relentless propaganda surrounding the Games, are indeed very similar to what happened in Nazi Germany.

Using Olympic Games to promote ones' own country is, in itself, very reasonable. The problem lies in the underlying political motives. Nazi and CCP political motives are completely unrelated to sports and the true "Olympic Spirit". The CCP wants people both inside and outside China to believe that CCP rule is good for China and its people; that China wouldn't be in the forefront without the CCP. The CCP wants to use the Olympics to eulogize itself and legitimize its rule.

Like Hitler, the CCP wants to make the Beijing Olympics the biggest ever, and is willing to achieve this at any cost. It wants world government leaders to come and cheer for the Olympics.

The CCP says that the Chinese people need to "take the Olympics as a political task that is above all." This despite the many difficulties Chinese people face with housing, getting medical treatment, schooling their children and many other problems; despite the social crises hidden everywhere; despite the fact that the CCP persecutes people from all walks of society, including religious believers, human rights lawyers, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, farmers whose lands have been taken away, homeowners whose houses have been torn down.

The regime has issued orders listing eleven categories and forty-three types of people forbidden from attending Olympics-related activities. They enacted laws and policies requiring millions of peasant workers who came to Beijing to help build Olympic facilities to be "persuaded to return home," that beggars are to be "helped" (arrested and relocated), that waste-collection stations and low-tier businesses are to be driven out of Beijing, that those who need to travel to Beijing show approval letters from their counties or higher governments, and so on. The Beijing Olympics are not the people's Olympics; they are the Communist Party's Olympics, just like the Berlin Olympics were the Nazi's Olympics.

The Nazis had to scale down their evildoings during the Olympics. However, the CCP continues its crimes even when it is under the limelight. The CCP uses "the Olympics" as an excuse to relentlessly arrest and sentence human right activists and Falun Gong practitioners.

Many Western countries cannot stand up strong because of their economic interests. China is just like a cow. The CCP lets all the Western countries go to China to milk the cow as much as they can. Knowing full well the thinking of the Western countries, the CCP can continue to persecute the Chinese people behind closed doors. This is the big difference between the "Beijing Olympics" and the "Berlin Olympics," despite the many similarities between the two.

Yet there are increasing calls for justice; increasing calls for the CCP to clean up its act, and this is encouraging.

But the CCP does not have the capability to do good. It has spared no energy in persecuting the Chinese people. As cheers arise from the Olympic stadium, prisoners of conscience will still groan painfully. If the Games are a great success, they will be used to "justify" the CCP's continued despotic rule, and make it even harder to stop its relentless persecution of the very people it claims to rule.

The mistakes the world's people made in condoning the Berlin Olympics of 1936 taught the world a valuable lesson. The similarities to the situation today in China are alarming. How can the human rights atrocities that occur in China today be celebrated as part of the "Olympic Spirit?"

China’s Olympic Torch Was Made By Nazi Money

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:57:19 GMT

China’s Olympic Torch belongs to Lenovo.

Lenovo is the successor of IBM.

IBM was instrumental in the Holocaust, and Auschwitz.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. IBM, in China, is now “Lenovo”, and as IBM participated in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, now today, IBM’s successor in China, “Lenovo”, the corporation to whom the Olympic Torch belongs, is, well, a continuation of the same corporation which made the Holocaust happen…..

http://underthejacaranda.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/chinas-olympic-torch-belongs-to-a-nazi-corporation/

Hypocritical Chinese using fascist torch relay to spout political propaganda

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:54:46 GMT

IOC Investigates Anti - Dalai Lama Torch Relay Speech

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is investigating a speech made by Tibet's Communist Party boss at the end of last weekend's Beijing torch relay leg in Lhasa in which he denounced the Dalai Lama.

But it was not immediately clear what the IOC, which is largely powerless and has vigorously defended its policy of non-involvement in politics, could do. It has said before it has "no political mandate" to instruct countries how to behave.

IOC communications director Giselle Davies said Beijing organizers (BOCOG) had been asked to provide the contents of Zhang Qingli's speech and said it "would regret very much" if media reports were accurate.

Hardliner Zhang made the comments at a ceremony marking the end of Saturday's two-hour parade of the Olympic flame through the streets of Lhasa, the scene of anti-Chinese riots in March.

"Tibet's sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it ... we will certainly be able to totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique," he said in front of the Potala, the traditional seat of the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

China often rants and raves against the Dalai Lama, but not at Olympic-related events. It has often hypocritically denounced critics for politicizing the Games and the Olympic charter states that no kind of demonstration or political propaganda is permitted "in any Olympic sites or other areas."

The Dalai Lama denied being behind the riots, said he just wanted autonomy and religious freedom in Tibetan areas of the country and has called on his followers to support the Beijing Olympics as well as the torch relay.

The transcript of Zhang's speech on the website of the Tibet Information Office website (info.tibet.cn) omitted the line about the Dalai Lama.

Lhasa's Communist Party boss, Qin Yizhi, also denounced the Dalai Lama at the opening ceremony of the Lhasa leg of the relay on Saturday, saying it would "smash the scheming of the Dalai clique."

Tibet has cast a long shadow over the torch relay, which China hoped would project the image of a modern and vibrant country ahead of the Games.

But the March riots became a focus of anti-Chinese protests and counter-demonstrations on relay legs in London, Paris and San Francisco, prompting ugly scenes which alarmed the IOC.

The Vancouver Sun reported on Wednesday that the international leg of the Beijing Paralympic torch relay, scheduled to take in London, Vancouver and Sochi, had been cancelled.

Olympic venue security bolstered by missile launchers

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:52:59 GMT

Olympic venue security bolstered by missile launchers...

China has bolstered its Olympic security effort by deploying a battery of surface-to-air missile launchers a kilometre south of the showpiece venues for the Beijing Games.

At least two camouflaged Hongqi 7 missile launchers were visible from a public road close to the stadium built for the 1990 Asian Games, which is just across the city's fourth ring road from the Bird's Nest arena and Water Cube aquatics centre.

Radar dishes and other military vehicles along with uniformed air force personnel were also visible through a fence on which was posted a notice reading "Military Administrative District, No Admittance".

Aircraft are almost never seen in the skies above central Beijing, which is restricted airspace. Olympic broadcasters, however, will be allowed to use helicopters to cover the August 8-24 Games.

Greece installed dozens of Patriot anti-aircraft missiles around Athens six weeks before the 2004 Olympics, the first Summer Games after the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

The U.S.-made missiles were part of a huge security operation with a significant NATO contribution that cost an unprecedented $1.8 billion.

China has said it hopes to secure the Games for less than a third of the Athens bill by using its own armed forces.

It regards terrorism as the biggest threat and claims to have foiled bomb plots and plans to kidnap athletes by militants from the far-Western region of Xinjiang.

Beijing said last week that a special 100,000-strong security force, including the elite Snow Wolf Commando Unit, was already on alert for terrorists. Rights groups accuse China of using the potential terrorist threat as an excuse to suppress internal dissent.

The Most Embarrassing Signs At The City People's Congress Office

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:58:21 GMT

Conference Room, Reception Room

Special Investigative Projects Office

Elections Liaison Working Committee

City Youth League Secretary

Petition Office

Office, Rights Protection Department

Vice-chairman's Office, Women and Children Working Committee Office

Offices of the Disciplinary Committee Secretary and Deputy Secretary

Photo Album: Northern Ireland Murals

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:04:55 GMT

Northern Ireland Murals

Newtownards Road, in front of Harland and Wolff

Untitled Photo

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Photo Album: Ireland July 2005

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:04:55 GMT

Ireland July 2005

Bray

Dublin Castle

Christchurch

Untitled Photo

Molly Malone

Enniskerry

Powerscourt

Untitled Photo

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Photo Album: Travelling Light with my Raleigh Royal

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:04:51 GMT

Travelling Light with my Raleigh Royal

Paris

Athens

Switzerland

Gibraltar

Rome

Vatican

Belfast

Mont St. Michel

Brisbane

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Photo Album: Commonwealth War Graves

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 02:32:26 GMT

Commonwealth War Graves

Vis-en-Artois

At the Canadian Memorial at Bourlon Wood

Untitled Photo

American Memorial, Bellicourt

German WWI memorial

Untitled Photo

Newfoundland Memorial, Masnieres

Trenches 1

Trenches 2

Canadian Graves

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