Anti-austerity march draws 80,000 protesters to Belgium′s streets | News | DW.COM | 07.10.2015

More than 80,000 people on Wednesday took to the streets of Brussels to protest austerity measures implemented during the first year of the center-right coalition government’s tenure.The protest marks the second of its size within a year, with the last one occurring in November 2014.Three of Belgium’s main unions joined the protests on a common platform that renounced policies implemented by the center-right government under the leadership of Prime Minister Charles Michel.

Source: Anti-austerity march draws 80,000 protesters to Belgium′s streets | News | DW.COM | 07.10.2015

Roseburg, Reeling From Massacre, Finds Security in Gun Ownership – The New York Times

{Self-delusion is most addicting, as is doing “something” whether is will do any good or not or whether there is any necessity to “do” anything to be safer.}

 

A week has passed since J.J. Vicari huddled underneath a desk while gunshots exploded in the classroom next door. Now, he is thinking about guns. Not about tightening gun laws, as President Obama urged after nine people were killed at the community college here. But about buying one for himself.“It’s opened my eyes,” said Mr. Vicari, 19. “I want to have a gun in the house to protect myself, to protect the people I’m with. I’m sure I’ll have a normal life and never have to go through anything like this, but I want to be sure.”

Source: Roseburg, Reeling From Massacre, Finds Security in Gun Ownership – The New York Times

India – Three-day Internet ban prevents journalists from working in Kashmir

Reporters Without Borders condemns the Indian government’s indiscriminate disconnection of the Internet throughout the entire far-north state of Jammu and Kashmir from 25 to 28 September on the grounds of preventing any exacerbation of tension between the state’s Muslim and Hindu communities.

The suspension of 2G, 3G, GPRS and broadband Internet services in Jammu and Kashmir, which borders China and Pakistan, lasted 82 hours, paralyzing the work of journalists and media outlets, especially online media, and depriving the population of access to online information and communication.

The ban was imposed at the start of Eid al-Adha, a festival during which Muslims traditionally sacrifice cows, an animal revered by Hindus. A recent court order enforcing a ban on the slaughtering of cows and the sale of beef has revived communal tension in the state.

It is unacceptable that a government is able to take arbitrary decisions affecting access to information and the sharing of information throughout an entire region,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Asia-Pacific desk.

By gagging journalists and Internet users, who relay information about developments in the region and comment on them, the authorities are just increasing frustration and fuelling street violence.

No information for three days

The local newspaper Rising Kashmir was unable to keep updating its website as it normally does during Eid al-Adha. Op-ed editor Daanish Bin Nabi said readers were angered by the site’s unavailability during the three-day ban, which had a big impact on traffic to the newspaper’s Twitter and Facebook pages as well as the main website.

Kashmir Monitor online editor Mubashir Bukhari said the Internet ban had undermined the English-language daily’s attractiveness, especially to readers based abroad. “Caging” the Internet in today’s digital world was completely inappropriate, he said.

I hope that in future the government will understand the nuisance of banning the Internet and will think twice before sending us back to the Stone Age,” Bukhari told Reporters Without Borders.

Press TV correspondent and producer Syed Ali Safvi said this was not the first time the authorities had suspended Internet services in Kashmir. Describing the ban as “both irrational and unconstitutional,” he said the authorities saw it as a solution when in fact it just aggravated tension.

The Internet ban overlapped with an official visit to the United States by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi from 26 to 30 September, when he toured Silicon Valley and presented his “Digital India” project to some of the world’s biggest technology companies.

A social network fan, he kept tweeting throughout the trip and reaffirmed his support for new technologies after meeting the leaders of Facebook, Google and Microsoft.

On the one hand, Prime Minister Modi talks about digital India and on the other hand the Indian government virtually sends Kashmir back into Stone Age by imposing a ban on Internet services,” Safvi said.

India has continued to see a significant number of violations of freedom of information in 2015, especially in Kashmir. In April, the Indian government banned Al-Jazeera TV from broadcasting for five days for displaying a map in which India’s border with Pakistan in Kashmir did not correspond to its territorial claims.

Journalists are also exposed to the possibility of often deadly violence from all quarters, especially when they cover corruption, local politics or crime.

India is ranked 136th out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

Syrian Refugees? Get Your Facts Straight Before You Share Their stories

Refugees are Human Beings. Photo from Commons Wikimedia

Refugees are Human Beings. Photograph from Commons Wikimedia CC-BY-SA-3.0

Nowadays, most sad stories come from the Middle East. Although every story counts among the thousands discussing the region every day, we need to look at some of those stories with a pinch of salt. Sadly, this year is shaping up to be the year of Syrian refugees. Unfortunately, in some cases, the world continues to be misinformed by recurring photographs from the tragedy on the Internet where social media is being used to spread rumors and circulate fake stories.

The reasons vary from clicktivism to politics. For instance, some European political right-wing parties are using the recent refugees crisis to further push their agenda and close the doors on Syrian refugees taking refuge in Europe. In fact, a photograph claiming to show Syrian refugees waving the ISIS flag in Germany, which is widely being shared on Facebook, is three years old and is not related to the current crisis.

Following are four stories of Syrian refugees stories, you may have come across on your social media accounts, which are far from what they appear to be.

Story 1: The Italian fashion model and the Syrian Immigrants boat

Shared on the Syrians in Belgium group on Facebook, this video above is shared with the following caption:

عارضة ازياء ايطالية تصور فيديو على الشاطئ وفجأة بطريقة عفوية وقع المحظور تصل دفعة لاجئين غير متوقعة الى شاطئ الامان في ايطاليا سوف تشتهر هده العارضة لهدا الموقف الظريف والعفوي الدي لايتكرر
معظمهم سوريين وفلسطينيين الحمد الله على السلامة

An Italian model is filming a video on the beach and suddenly the unexpected happened and a group of unexpected refugees arrives on the beach safely in Italy. This model will become famous for this funny and spontaneous incident which will not repeat itself. Most of them are Syrians and Palestinians. Thank God for their safety.

However, the model is the video being shared far and wide is not Italian and the video itself is not even shot in Italy. And the refugees are neither Syrian nor Palestinian. The original video published on July 10, 2015, by the same model Ekaterina Juskowski reads:

Ms. Juskowski, a Miami-based artist and a founder of the Miami Girls Foundation (www.miamigirls.org) “who migrated from Russia at age 18 as a university student – had a more compassionate take. She said, “Witnessing people starting their life anew by jumping off the boat and running into the city made my personal struggle seem rather small. As controversial as the problem of illegal immigration can be for many of us, it is important to remember that people come here in search of the better life, and it comes at a very high price of great courage, hard work, and loneliness. I got to know America as a country with a big heart. While I trust it to the U.S. government to work out the policies on improving the immigration laws, it feels natural to stay compassionate and understanding on a personal level.”

Story 2: A Syrian Boy Sleeping between his Parents’ Graves

There’s a big chance you have seen this dramatic picture of a Syrian boy covered by a blanket sleeping between the two graves of his dead parents. It went viral after some big accounts published it [in January 2014] on Twitter.

There is only one problem: The picture is not from Syria, but from Saudi Arabia. Photo credit haralddoornbos on wordpress

There is only one problem: The picture is not from Syria, but from Saudi Arabia. Photo credit haralddoornbos blog

The Harld Doornbos Blog maybe was the first who investigate the case by contacting the photographer, Abdul Aziz al Otaibi, a Saudi national, from Yanbu al Bahr city, who is behind this story.

“Look, it’s not true at all that my picture has anything to do with Syria,” Al-Otaibi says, “I am really shocked how people have twisted my picture.”

“I love photography,” he continues over the phone, “Every artist has ideas in his head. So I had the idea to make a project whereby I show in pictures how the love of a child for his parents is irreplaceable. This love cannot be substituted by anything or anybody else, even if the parents are dead.”

On Twitter, Abdulaziz shares another photograph of his nephew, hoping to clear the misconception the photograph, along with the wrong information shared with it, had caused:

هذي بعد صورة من خلف الكواليس لبراهيم ولد اخوي #ابومتعب_الامريكي_يسرق_صورتي http://pic.twitter.com/twjFO2BwS3

— عبدالعزيز العتيبي (@abdulaziz_Photo) January 17, 2014

This is also photograph from behind the scenes for my nephew Ibrahim

Story 3: Immigrants Refuse non-Halal Food

YouTube user komehtap K stated that Muslim refugees, on the border between Macedonia and Greece, refused the food parcels distributed on them because they carried the Red Cross symbol, which is, according to the author, not halal. While the video is true, this information is totally false.

According to Red Cross spokesman John Aangendal Nielsen to French newspaper Liberation, the refusal of refugees was not related to the content of which was Halal but was a kind of protest against the police who blocked their way and kept them stranded throughout the night under the rain.

On YouTube, komehtap K explains:

Muslim migrants in Macedonia refuse Red Cross parcels because of… the red cross
The headless chicken reaction by the leaders of the European Union regarding mass migration by hundreds of thousands of people has resulted in these so called refugees not only demanding to be allowed to go where they want to go, but insisting on subscribing to the religious bigotry they claim they are running away from.

Here on the Macedonian/Greek border Red Cross aid parcels are being refused due to them having a red cross on the box. And the left call me a bigot for questioning the veracity of these so called refugees

And on Twitter, many reacted with anger at the “ingratitude” of the refugees:

I saw a video of a load of Syrian men throwing food offered to them away because it ain’t halal. They should be sent back IMO

— Niall (@SpiritBlade_) September 10, 2015

Unbelievable and ungrateful! #Syrian #refugees in #Hungary are complaining because the food they are being given is not guaranteed as Halal.

— Mike (@1961mike) September 11, 2015

Story 4: The Photoshopped Photograph of a Syrian Mother at Sea

A photograph of reportedly a Syrian mother trying to swim to safety carrying her toddler child. Photo gone viral (source unknown)

A Syrian mother trying to swim to safety carrying her toddler child. Photo gone viral (source unknown), but it isn’t what it seems to be

This photograph of a Syrian mother struggling at sea has been making the rounds online. But something is amiss. Netizens were quick to notice that the photograph was Photoshopped, covering the woman’s hair. Omneya Talaat tweets:

عندما لا يهتم مجتمع سوى بتغطية شعر المرأة لا بتوفير حياة كريمة لها فهو مجتمع منتهي بلا جدال #SyrianRefugees #سوريا http://pic.twitter.com/Az8PcSbSqR

— Omneya Talaat (@OmneyaTalaat) August 29, 2015

When society is only concerned with covering a woman’s hair and not providing her with a dignified life, then it is a society on its way to oblivion. There is nothing to argue about here

Phogotraphy asks why a doctored photograph is being used to highlight the plight of Syrian refugees:

This terrifying photograph shows Syrian refugee Rukhsan Muhammed who was rescued off the coast of Turkey in 2013 after the boat she and her son were on capsized. Without the need for an expert’s inspection it is clear that a white headscarf has been crudely applied to the photograph using digital tools.

The moment captured is one of utter despair, indeed since the photograph was taken we learned that Rukhsan had been in the water with her one year old son who was washed away and drowned by the strong currents. So why trivialise this awful situation by drawing on a headscarf to protect this poor woman’s modesty?

Does her dress matter? Phogotraphy explains:

Of course underneath any clothing is a human being, a mother who has lost her child and nearly her own life. We want to care about this person and if she lived to tell of her ordeal. Within the series of images from the Anadolu Agency we can see that Rukhsan was thankfully rescued and what is striking to us now is not a story of survival, but further insight to her clothing. We can see now, clearly that she dresses like us, The West. During rising xenophobia in Europe being prevalent surely a more effective way of realising our compassion is by showing the world we are all the same.

Refugees arriving in Europe are escaping the fate of 320,000 Syrians who have been killed back home in Syria since the start of the war in their country four years ago. They have risked all, to ensure their future and that of their children. Should they be judged for aspiring to live?

Written by Rami Alhames · comments (0)
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The war that forces a doomsday seed vault withdrawal

Entrance_to_Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault_in_2008

The Svalbard Global seed bank was established in February 2008. It was designed to store seeds for hundreds or even thousands of years in the event of a global disaster. But now, only seven years later, the Syrian civil war made it necessary to withdraw seeds from this doomsday vault.Svalbard Norway: It would have been easy to imagine the end of the world here surrounded by glaciers, polar bears and the long dark winters of the high arctic. But like Noah’s ark, the global seed bank was designed to preserve life.

Specifically it was designed to preserve the seeds necessary for our food crops and our survival. The doomsday vault is located deep within an ice-covered mountain on Spitzbergen Island, far above the expected sea level rise in centuries of climate change and only 800 miles from the North Pole.

Even if the vault’s electrical power supply is interrupted,the vault won’t thaw for hundreds of years. The vault is designed to survive a missile attack or even a nuclear war. The preserved seeds will also protect us against the possibility that GMO crops damage the gene pool of the global food supply, or create an unsustainable plant monoculture.

The doomsday vault designers thought of nearly everything, With each year the seed bank grew more and more deposits from around the world until it reached nearly 865,000 varieties of seeds. Some of these seeds were from the International Center for Agricultural research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) which was located in Aleppo, Syria.

The Syrian war forced ICARDA to move to Beirut, Lebanon. Some of the seeds were lost or destroyed before or during the move, so now, only seven years after the seeds were deposited, the first withdrawal is being made to replace the seeds destroyed in Syria’s civil war.

A spokesperson for the seedbank said that while withdrawing seeds from a doomsday vault appears to be very bad news, it actually shows that the vault works and is a valuable resource for our violent and troubled world.

Image of seed vault via Wikipedia