All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

First Light #poetry #photography #sundaydevotion

penned in moon dust

Beneath the first light

I raise my heart in supplication

lift me up Oh Lord

off my trembling knees

life’s burdens can keep me down

*

Beneath the first light

I raise my eyes to meet the sun

reflections of grace dance on the hillside

I am beckoned to dance

nature comes alive

*

Beneath the first light

I raise my voice to sing your glory

notes flutter on the breeze like butterflies

I am reminded I am free

not shackled to this world

Racing Dawn

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Profile: Hamas’s Mohammed Deif

Nervana

Hamas's Deif

A rare video image of Deif in 2005 via Ma’an News

The war in Gaza has brought the focus back on Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, and its mysterious leader Mohammed Al-Deif. Here is a collection of old and new profile analyses about him from various sources. 

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Serena Williams blows away Ana Ivanovic to win in Cincinnati | Sport | The Guardian

Serena Williams is back. She did not so much cruise in the final of the Western & Southern Open here on Sunday as hobble distractedly but rediscovered her zest to blow Ana Ivanovic off the court in little over an hour. The American will be desperately hard to stop in the US Open next week if she can sustain this level of concentration and power.

via Serena Williams blows away Ana Ivanovic to win in Cincinnati | Sport | The Guardian.

Transplant Brokers in Israel Lure Desperate Kidney Patients to Costa Rica – NYTimes.com

A broker who trades in human organs might seem a difficult thing to find. But Ms. Dorin’s mother began making inquiries around the hospital where she worked, and in short order the family came up with three names: Avigad Sandler, a former insurance agent long suspected of trafficking; Boris Volfman, a young Ukrainian émigré and Sandler protégé; and Yaacov Dayan, a wily businessman with interests in real estate and marketing.

The men were, The New York Times learned during an investigation of the global organ trade, among the central operators in Israel’s irrepressible underground kidney market. For years, they have pocketed enormous sums for arranging overseas transplants for patients who are paired with foreign donors, court filings and government documents show.

via Transplant Brokers in Israel Lure Desperate Kidney Patients to Costa Rica – NYTimes.com.

Resisting Nazis, He Saw Need for Israel. Now He Is Its Critic. – NYTimes.com

THE HAGUE — In 1943, Henk Zanoli took a dangerous train trip, slipping past Nazi guards and checkpoints to smuggle a Jewish boy from Amsterdam to the Dutch village of Eemnes. There, the Zanoli family, already under suspicion for resisting the Nazi occupation, hid the boy in their home for two years. The boy would be the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust.

Seventy-one years later, on July 20, an Israeli airstrike flattened a house in the Gaza Strip, killing six of Mr. Zanoli’s relatives by marriage. His grandniece, a Dutch diplomat, is married to a Palestinian economist, Ismail Ziadah, who lost three brothers, a sister-in-law, a nephew and his father’s first wife in the attack.

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RELATED COVERAGE

In Fatal Flash, Gaza Psychologist Switches Roles, Turning Into a Trauma VictimAUG. 4, 2014

On Thursday, Mr. Zanoli, 91, whose father died in a Nazi camp, went to the Israeli Embassy in The Hague and returned a medal he received honoring him as one of the Righteous Among the Nations — non-Jews honored by Israel for saving Jews during the Holocaust. In an anguished letter to the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, he described the terrible price his family had paid for opposing Nazi tyranny.

Photo

Hassan al-Zeyada, a Palestinian psychologist in Gaza, whose brother Ismail Ziadah is married to Mr. Zanoli’s grandniece. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

“My sister lost her husband, who was executed in the dunes of The Hague for his involvement in the resistance,” he wrote. “My brother lost his Jewish fiancée who was deported, never to return.”

Mr. Zanoli continued, “Against this background, it is particularly shocking and tragic that today, four generations on, our family is faced with the murder of our kin in Gaza. Murder carried out by the State of Israel.”

via Resisting Nazis, He Saw Need for Israel. Now He Is Its Critic. – NYTimes.com.

Man Dies After Bloody, 10-Minute Beating From LAPD Officers: LAist

“They were beating him real bad, and he died of the wounds,” said Yair Abrego, the victim’s brother.

Abrego suffered from a severe concussion and bruises to his face and body. He later died at the hospital. One of the sergeants had a broken hand, and another had a knee injury.

Los Angeles County coroner’s Chief Craig Harvey told the L.A. Times that they are still determining the cause of death and are looking into more tests. However, the initial coroner’s report said that Abrego was “combative and confused with acute cocaine intoxication.”

LAPD’s Force Investigation Division is investigating the incident further. Abrego’s funeral will take place on Saturday.

This incident happened just days before LAPD officers from the same Newton Division fatally shot 24-year-old Ezell Ford, whose family said was “mentally challenged” and complying with officers on Monday night.

via Man Dies After Bloody, 10-Minute Beating From LAPD Officers: LAist.

Where China and Kazakhstan Meet : Image of the Day

While people often say that borders aren’t visible from space, the line between Kazakhstan and China could not be more clear in this satellite image. Acquired by the Landsat 8 satellite on September 9, 2013, the image shows northwestern China around the city of Qoqek and far eastern Kazakhstan near Lake Balqash.

via Where China and Kazakhstan Meet : Image of the Day.

And which area will produce food longer? Maybe Kazakhstan because the Chinese are using up their water. If the Kazaks go for green house production, they may end up feed large parts of China.