All posts by nedhamson
“And you can bare your soul”…
Gaza cease-fire might lead to indirect Egypt involvement
( Kids in Gaza celebrate the ceasefire agreement, via Twitter)
I wrote this piece for Al-Monitor, warning that in the future a failed Gaza can easily end its existence as an autonomous entity, and snooker Egypt into a very tricky corner.
After seven weeks of confrontations in the Gaza Strip, a cease-fire has been reached. The details are still sketchy, and needless to say, it is still too early to judge if this truce will last. However, regardless of the durability of the new deal and its implications for Israel, it’s safe to say that a new reality may unfold in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority (PA) could return to the Gaza Strip, at least to run the Rafah border with Egypt. While this seems a benign move, it is not; it could open the door to a new scenario that was previously considered far-fetched — an indirect…
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Ashraf Rifi’s Priorities: Trying To Make Burning The ISIS Flag Illegal in Lebanon | A Separate State of Mind | A Lebanese Blog
The ISIS flag has holy Muslims symbols, but burning it is not insulting Islam, it’s a protest to what ISIS is doing to the people of Iraq, the people of Syria, the people of Lebanon and to our Lebanese army. It’s a protest against the beheading of James Foley, Ali Al Sayyed, the many, many more Sunni muslims who were killed by ISIS and whose deaths are ignored by many. The real insult to Islam here is the existence of ISIS.
What Ashraf Rifi is asking for today is an insult to those people first and foremost and not an insult to Islam. It’s an insult to the intellect of any Lebanese person who wants their freedom of expression to remain intact in this country. It’s an insult to every single Sunni who’s having their entire reputation tarnished as a sect that doesn’t accept others, is still hung up on shallow appearances and is going more and more in its own bubble.
Sunnis in Lebanon today have many, many problems. Their politicians are one of those problems. In Lebanon today, it’s fine to burn a flag with the star of David. It’s fine to burn a flag with a Cross. But when it comes to burning the flag of a terrorist organization, all bets are off?
We need bold statements like Aliaa Magda Elmahdy’s against ISIS. We need to burn their flag. We need to rise beyond their terrorism. We need to get over the limited view of religion at a time when the people of ISIS are using religion to kill people.
If the prophet Muhammad were alive today, he’d be the first person burning that flag down. Ashraf Rifi should have known better.
THINGS I HAVE SEEN
Born with these eyes that for a lifetime have seen,
Wonderful pictures of a world that seem like a dream.
Things I have seen are those of beauty and life combined,
Things I have seen are of darkness and quite horrible things.
Things I have seen should not have been there to ever see,
Not from eyes of the Innocent child whom hasn’t had time to dream.
Things I have seen are of hope, love, and courageous things,
Things I have seen are of views from so many different ways.
The things I have seen of mystery and unusual scenery,
A lifetime that makes up a movie of all that I am to be.
Keith Garrett
Five co-authors of a new Ebola study died of the virus before their research was published – The Washington Post
On the same day the findings were published, Science wrote a separate piece about the five researchers who died while working on the study.
Mbalu Fonnie, an experienced nurse at the Kenema Government Hospital, was among the five victims. Her specialty? Managing advanced Lassa fever infections — a disease with symptoms similar to Ebola — in pregnant women. Fonnie was caring for one of her co-workers, who was pregnant and infected with Ebola, when she contracted the disease herself. According to study co-author Robert Garry, Fonnie was the “matron of nursing” at the Sierra Leone hospital.
Alex Moigboi, Fonnie’s fellow nurse, who contracted Ebola while treating the same pregnant colleague. He had more than 10 years of experience working with Lassa fever patients.
Alice Kovoma was also infected while helping Fonnie and Moigboi treat their colleague. Garry told Science that Kovoma was “a wonderful person … very dedicated and professional with a devotion to the patients and her teammates.” She was a nurse for six years in the Lassa fever ward.
Mohamed Fullah worked as a lab technician on the study. He taught at Eastern Polytechnic College in Sierra Leone, and also worked in the Lassa fever facility. His colleagues believe that Fullah contracted the disease from a family member — several relatives had died of the virus in the current outbreak, which has killed at least 1,552 people, according to the World Health Organization.
Sheik Umar Khan was the director of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation’s Lassa fever program and was directly involved in Sierra Leone’s national response to the Ebola outbreak. He was a well-respected expert on both Lassa fever and Ebola. At the time of his death, in late July, Khan was hailed as a national hero. He treated more than 100 patients in the outbreak before he contracted the disease himself.
KD Lang & Roy Orbison – Crying – YouTube
The Brits Spin is beating out the Blair spin to get Brits into Iraq last time! Britain Raises Terrorism Threat Level to ‘Severe’ – NYTimes.com
Friday and the spinning is easy – The new designation is the second highest after “critical,” meaning that an attack is expected imminently.
The assessment is made by a panel of security experts and officials, independent of government officials. Several European nations have voiced fears that their citizens who have joined the Sunni militant Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, will return home trained and equipped for terrorist acts. But the British response seemed to be among the most drastic.
“The increase in the threat level is related to developments in Syria and Iraq where terrorist groups are planning attacks against the West,” Ms. May said, without offering direct evidence of those plans.
“Some of these plots are likely to involve foreign fighters who have traveled there from the U.K. and Europe to take part in those conflicts,” she said. “The British public should be in no doubt that we will take the strongest possible action to protect our national security.”
She added: “We face a real and serious threat in the U.K. from international terrorism. I would urge the public to remain vigilant and to report any suspicious activity to the police.”
In what seemed a related development, Mr. Cameron told a news conference that new laws would facilitate the seizure of the passports of suspected British jihadis. He said he would provide more detail in a statement to Parliament on Monday covering what he called legislation to fill “gaps in our armory.”
He drew a distinction between previous assessments that the main threat to British security came from Al Qaeda, which has broken with ISIS because of its extreme tactics.
The group spilled across the border from Syria in June to strike at north and central Iraq, leaving a trail of executions and beheadings and threatening minority groups. “What we are facing in Iraq now with ISIL is a greater threat to our security than we have seen before,” Mr. Cameron told a news conference, using an alternative name for ISIS.
via Britain Raises Terrorism Threat Level to ‘Severe’ – NYTimes.com.
Afropunk fashions: bodies as resistance
One of my favorite things about the AFROPUNK fest – besides the music, obviously – are the fashions. It’s legit the best outfit-watching of the year, and the festival is full of gorgeous people getting really creative with the ways they get dressed.
For those of you wondering how a fashion post fits into a feminist political project, I’m here to tell you how deeply political the way we adorn ourselves can be. Our decisions about the ways we present our genders and our bodies, the choice to love our bodies even when we are told they are too dark, too gender non-conforming, too fat, too queer, can be freeing in a way that is absolutely radical. Dressing in a way that feels good, in which we celebrate our bodies, in ways that represent our truest selves, is an act of resistance for those whose bodies are policed, medicated, targeted, and too often threatened with violence.
Yellow Cake Spin times 10! Bubonic plague data found on Islamic state computer – UPI.com
Neo-Cons in heaven with nasty IS computer to claim planning of a bubonic plague bomb! Oh my!
An Islamic State laptop computer found in Syria allegedly contains plans to build chemical weapons for spreading bubonic plague.
The computer, now in Antakya, Turkey, belonged to a Tunisian militant named Muhammad S., who studied university-level chemistry and physics. It was found at an abandoned IS base in Idlib, Syria, by moderate rebel forces, and contains detailed instructions on explosives construction, the use of disguises while travelling, and chemical weapons plans, according to the magazine Foreign Policy, whose reporters were shown the laptop.
via Bubonic plague data found on Islamic state computer – UPI.com.


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