A straight shot west out of Boston on I-90 will carry you, in two hours or less, to Western Massachusetts, where the country still looks like it did twenty or even 40 years ago: college towns, I-91 tracing the same lazy ladder from Springfield up through Holyoke and Northampton, Amherst and Deerfield. Out there it's taken for granted that the houses will be drafty, the winters uniformly long, and that, on any given trip to the local supermarket, one might spot Thurston or Lou or Kim or J, on-and-off locals for more than twenty years. {audio}http://www.archive.org/download/DinosaurJrDrawings/07Drawerings_64kb.mp3{/audio} ... Drawerings Read More ...
By way of decrying a society that left its citizens unbearably restrained, Edith Wharton describes how in New York in the 1870s, women would order dresses from their Paris dressmakers and then leave them in tissue paper at least two years before wearing them in public; the thought of showing them "in advance of the fashion" was unforgivably vulgar. Social life has changed, but cultural life seems just as restricted now – even Animal Collective are held back by trends that seem a couple of years old (and that they helped to invent). When I think back on 2009, I’ll first remember how our impoverished aesthetic generation repeatedly scraped the resin from the cultural trash barrel. Every second person is wearing neon leggings, and the ones who aren’t rock a ‘70s aesthetic, with high-waisted jeans and moccasins. Christmas sweaters are getting impossible to find at the thrift store. Ska revival. Garage rock revival. It never ends. Read More ...
For just over 10 years, London's Guapo has been working in the world of avant and progressive rock. The band's past is a bit hard to track with its numerous lineup changes and guest musicians. The most recent change in roster was the resignation of Matthew Thompson, the founding member of Guapo, which occurred just before the release of 2005's Black Oni. The departure of Thompson has left Guapo with percussionist David Smith and multi-instrumentalist Daniel O'Sullivan. Though O'Sullivan is by no means a founding member of the band, but he was essential in honing the sound on Guapo's last two LPs: Five Suns and Black Oni. These two albums have been pivotal in building Guapo's following of fans, so it's hard not to credit O'Sullivan as an asset to the band.... {audio}http://www.neurotrecordings.com/artists/guapo/audio/Guapo-The%20Selenotrope.mp3 {/audio} ... The Selenotrope Read More ...
Basic Atari Teenage Riot iPhone app philosophy by Alec Empire + London gig+ 4CD, 1DVD free download
The free iPhone app features all ATR albums and songs, all videos, a photo archive, bio, news updates and also a ‘Riotsounds Produce Riots’ audioplayer. This audio player includes all the sounds/WAV files that ATR used at the May 1st 1999 demonstration (very low sub basses, square waves, noise sounds which trigger hysteria and panic within the audience) & would make them available to every political activisit out there. The idea being that you can hook up your iPhone to a speaker system if there is a rally: Apple/iTunes is arguing that they still need to investigate further, because it is legally a grey area and ATR has been indexed in Germany before (censored). Read More ...
The Swans - THIS IS NOT A REUNION - Message From Gira + free discography download (20 CDs)
Michael Gira's re-activated Swans will be undertaking their first U.S. performances in 13 years, celebrating the Fall release of the first new Swans album since Soundtracks For The Blind (1997). The album was recorded by Jason LeFarge at Seizure's Palace in Brooklyn and is currently be remixed by Gira with Bryce Goggin (Antony & The Johnsons, Akron/Family) at Trout Recordings. Read More ...
The Ex are one of those rare bands that, despite being around for 25 years, have neither gone soft nor stagnated. The 23 tracks on this album all date from their first decade of existence (1980-1990), and if you compare it with recent milestones like Starter Alternator and Turn, you’ll see that while many of the Ex’s virtues are long standing, much has changed. The Ex grew out of Amsterdam’s once-fertile squatters’ subculture, and have always been politically conscious; Singles. Period. includes screeds that oppose American cultural hegemony, Dutch apathy, and eugenics. Their most recent album Turn likewise includes protests against globalization, consumerism, and cultural erosion, but its lyrics are quite nuanced and in touch with the grey areas of the issues when compared with the black and white prescription of 1981’s “Weapons For El Salvador”: .............. {audio}http://www.theex.nl/mp3/The%20Ex%20-%20Trash.mp3{/audio} ... Trash Read More ...
Dirty HC Punk explosion - Bristol scene Rise up + Disorder 9 free CDs
From The Cortinas to Lunatic Fringe and Disorder, Bristol had a huge Punk scene that has influenced, affected and stimulated a vast range of artists that operate in the city. Many of these artists produce music that wouldn’t necessarily suggest a Punk heritage but scratch beneath the surface of a lot of the major players in the Bristol milieu and you will find a fondness for the times of `spikey barnets’, limited musical ability, a `F*** You’ attitude and disrespect for the music industry and its poseur hierarchy. Read More ...
A live album can be many things: a candid snapshot, a footnote to a scene, or even just a thrifty alternative to studio time. Antlers, a collection of live Bastro recordings from 1991, is the rarest kind of live album: it illuminates a side of the band that, in turn, casts their previous work in a new light as well.“1991 has been called the year that punk broke. Some of it broke into the mainstream, but some broke into more irregular shards.” David Grubbs’s observation, from the liner notes to Antlers, could also describe the varied musical paths that led from his former band Squirrel Bait to the disparate ’90s groups he and his ex-bandmates went on to found: Slint, Palace Brothers, King Kong, Bitch Magnet, the For Carnation, Tortoise, and of course, Bastro. Read More ...
Japan’s Annual Penis Festival – Celebrates Fertility
KOMAKI, Japan — It's springtime in Japan and that means one thing. Actually, two things. Penis festivals and vagina festivals. It may sound like a sophomoric gag. But these are folk rites going back at least 1,500 years, into Japan's agricultural past. They're held to ensure a good harvest and promote baby-making. Maybe they should hold more such festivals. Japan has one of the world's lowest birthrates (1.37 children per woman), which experts blame on stagnant incomes and changing gender relations. Read More ...
Black-lip Rattail ............ These sorts of rattails feed in the muddy seafloor by gliding along head down and tail up, powered by gentle undulations of a long fin under the tail. The triangular head has sensory cells underneath that help detect animals buried in the mud or sand. The common name comes from the black edges around the mouth. Read More ...
"I forgot to remember to forget," Elvis Presley sang in 1955. I know that it was 1955 because I just Googled the title and clicked on the link to the Wikipedia entry for the song. How cool is that? Not long ago, I would have had to actually remember that Elvis recorded the song as part of his monumental Sun Records sessions that year. Then I would have had to flip through a set of histories of blues and country that sit on the shelf behind me. It might have taken five minutes to do what I did in five seconds. I almost don't need my own memory any more. That strikes many of us as a good thing: the costs low, the benefits high. We can be much more efficient and comprehensive now that a teeming collection of documents sits just a few keystrokes away. Read More ...
All world secret underground bases build for space travelers
The following material comes from people who know the Dulce (underground) base exists. They are people who worked in the labs; abductees taken to the base; people who assisted in the construction; intelligence personal (NSA,CIA,FBI ... ect.) and UFO / inner-earth researchers. This information is meant for those who are seriously interested in the dulce base. for your own protection be advised to “use caution” while investigating this complex.Does a strange world exist beneath our feet? Strange legends have persisted for centuries about the mysterious cavern world and the equally strange beings who inhabit it. More UFOlogists have considered the possibility that UFOs may be emanating from subterranean bases, that UFO aliens have constructed these bases to carry out various missions involving Earth or humans. Read More ...
These days, with all the pundits preaching doom and the impending collapse of society into some kind of Mad Max style wasteland, it's easy for us to imagine that the economy is as unhealthy as it's ever been. But any historian would give you a hard backhanded smack for even saying that out loud. History is full of economic idiocy, and here are five economic collapses that make 2010 feel like the Renaissance. Read More ...
Island of Ghosts: Hashima Island - Japan’s rotting metropolis
Hashima, an island located in Nagasaki Bay, is better known as Warship Island (Gunkanshima). The island was inhabited until the end of the 19th century, when it was discovered that the ground below it held tons of coal. The island soon became a center of a major mining complex owned by Mitsubishi Corporation. As the complex expanded, rock brought out of the shafts was used to artificially expand the island. Seawalls created in this expansion turned Hashima into the monstrous looking Gunkanshima; its artificial appearance makes it looks more like a battleship than an island. Read More ...
Dreamachine - stroboscopic flicker device enter you to a hypnagogic state - try it right here in your browser
The dreamachine (or dream machine) is a stroboscopic flicker device that produces visual stimuli. Artist Brion Gysin and William Burroughs's "systems adviser" Ian Sommerville created the dreamachine after reading William Grey Walter's book, The Living Brain. In its original form, a dreamachine is made from a cylinder with slits cut in the sides. The cylinder is placed on a record turntable and rotated at 78 or 45 revolutions per minute. A light bulb is suspended in the center of the cylinder and the rotation speed allows the light to come out from the holes at a constant frequency of between 8 and 13 pulses per second. This frequency range corresponds to alpha waves, electrical oscillations normally present in the human brain while relaxing. Read More ...
The Peyote Way Church of God - believe that the Holy Sacrament Peyote can lead an individual toward a more spiritual life
The Peyote Way Church of God is a non-sectarian, multicultural, experiential, Peyotist organization located in southeastern Arizona, in the remote Aravaipa wilderness. It is not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Native American Church, or any other religious organizations, though we do accept people from all faiths. Church membership is open to all races. We encourage individuals to create their own rituals as they become acquainted with the great mystery. We believe that the Holy Sacrament Peyote, when taken according to our sacramental procedure and combined with a holistic lifestyle (see Word of Wisdom), can lead an individual toward a more spiritual life. Peyote is currently listed as a controlled substance and its religious use is protected by Federal law only for Native American members of the Native American Church. Read More ...
The World's First Commercial Brain-Computer Interface + history of BCI
A brain–computer interface (BCI), sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brain–machine interface, is a direct communication pathway between a brain and an external device. BCIs are often aimed at assisting, augmenting or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions. Research on BCIs began in the 1970s at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) under a grant from the National Science Foundation, followed by a contract from DARPA. The papers published after this research also mark the first appearance of the expression brain–computer interface in scientific literature. Read More ...
Seven theories of everything that pretend to describe the fundamental nature of the universe
We still don't have a theory that describes the fundamental nature of the universe, but there are plenty of candidates.
The "theory of everything" is one of the most cherished dreams of science. If it is ever discovered, it will describe the workings of the universe at the most fundamental level and thus encompass our entire understanding of nature. It would also answer such enduring puzzles as what dark matter is, the reason time flows in only one direction and how gravity works. Small wonder that Stephen Hawking famously said that such a theory would be "the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God". But theologians needn't lose too much sleep just yet. Despite decades of effort, progress has been slow. Rather than one or two rival theories whose merits can be judged against the evidence, there is a profusion of candidates and precious few clues as to which (if any) might turn out to be correct. Read More ...
The Secrets of Coral Castle and pyramids EXPLAINED by Leedskalnin's Magnetic Current theory
Coral Castle doesn't look much like a castle, but that hasn't discouraged generations of tourists from wanting to see it. That's because it was built by one man, Ed Leedskalnin, a Latvian immigrant who single-handedly and mysteriously excavated, carved, and erected over 2.2 million pounds of coral rock to build this place, even though he stood only five feet tall and weighed a mere 100 pounds. Ed was as secretive as he was misguided. He never told anyone how he carved and set into place the walls, gates, monoliths, and moon crescents that make up much of his Castle. Some of these blocks weigh as much as 30 tons. Ed often worked at night, by lantern light, so that no one could see him. He used only tools that he fashioned himself from wrecks in an auto junkyard. Read More ...
The T2K Experiment - From Tokai To Kamioka - Where is the anti-matter?
From the beginning of 2010, the T2K experiment will fire a beam of muon-neutrinos from Tokai on Japan's east coast, 300km accross the country to a detector at Kamioka. It hopes to investigate the phenomenon of "neutrino oscillations" by looking for "muon neutrinos" oscillating into "electron neutrinos". A million pound detector has been built at the University of Warwick as part of a vital experiment to investigate fundamental particles - neutrinos. Read More ...
The giant ALICE detector is already underway at CERN, and researchers are scrambling to add an electromagnetic calorimeter to capture jet-quenching, the newest way to look inside the quark-gluon plasma — the hot, dense state of matter that filled the earliest universe, which the Large Hadron Collider will soon recreate by slamming lead nuclei into one another. CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is known mainly as the accelerator that will soon begin searching for the Higgs particle, and other new physics, in proton collisions at unprecedented energies — up to 14 TeV (14 trillion electron volts) at the center of mass — and with unprecedented beam intensities. But the same machine will also collide massive nuclei, specifically lead ions, to energies never achieved before in the laboratory. Read More ...
Vadim Chernobrov & Russian secrets experiments with time machines
A disturbing story in the March, 2005. 1 issue of Pravda suggests that the U. S. Government is working on the discovery of a mysterious point over the South Pole that may be a passageway backward in time. According to the article, some American and British scientists working in Antarctica on January 27, 1995, noticed a spinning gray fog in the sky over the pole. U. S. physicist Mariann McLein said at first they believed it to be some kind of sandstorm. But after a while they noticed that the fog did not change its form and did not move so they decided to investigate. Read More ...
If you're trying to buy happiness, you'd be better off putting your money toward a tropical island get-away than a new computer, a new study suggests. The results show that people's satisfaction with their life-experience purchases — anything from seeing a movie to going on a vacation — tends to start out high and go up over time. On the other hand, although they might be initially happy with that shiny new iPhone or the latest in fashion, their satisfaction with these items wanes with time. The findings, based on eight separate studies, agree with previous research showing that experience-related buys lead to more happiness for the consumer. But the current work provides some insight into why. Read More ...
It's not just a good idea, it's the law: 186,287 miles per second. The fact that sound waves travel at a finite speed--roughly 330 meters per second--has been known since ancient times. It's obvious, really, when you stand back a ways and observe the falling of a tree or the clapping of a pair of hands, and the sound arrives noticeably later than the sight itself. The fact that light waves also travel at finite speed is much harder to notice, because that speed is almost a million times faster. But by the end of the Renaissance, astronomers--viewing events much more distant than a few hundred meters--had begun to suspect the truth. Read More ...
It was nearly the end of WWII. At that same time, scientist Viktor Schauberger worked on a secret project. Johannes Kepler, whose ideas Schauberger followed, had knowledge of the secret teachings of Pythagoras that had been adopted and kept secret. It was the knowledge of Implosion (in this case the utilization of the potential of the inner worlds in the outer world). Hitler knew - as did the Thule and Vril people - that the divine principle was always constructive. A technology however that is based on explosion and therefore is destructive runs against the divine principle. Thus they wanted to create a technology based on Implosion. Read More ...
The Size Of Our World or How Insignificant the Earth Really Is in the Universe
Compared to you and me, the Earth is really big. But compared to Jupiter and the Sun, the Earth is pretty tiny. There are many ways we can measure the size of the Earth. Let's look at how big the Earth is, and then compare it to other objects in the Solar System. The diameter of the Earth is 12,742 km. In other words, if you dug a hole down into the Earth, passed through the center of the Earth, and came out the other side, you would have dug a hole 12,742 km deep (on average). That's about 4 times longer than the diameter of the Moon. Read More ...
Strange Images from Space - Photos&videos of the Bizarre in Our Universe
Some weird and unusual objects are floating around in the cosmos. Space is always serving up something new, unusual, and unexpected. Here are images and explanations of obejcts that have amazed and delighted astronomers. Read More ...
Mysterious Radio Waves from Unknown Object in M82 Galaxy
There is something strange is lurking in the galactic neighborhood. An unknown object in galaxy M82 12 million light-years away has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before except perhaps by Ford Prefect. M82 is starburst galaxy five times as bright as the Milky Way and one hundred times as bright as our galaxy's center. "We don't know what it is," says co-discoverer Tom Muxlow of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics near Macclesfield, UK. But its apparent sideways velocity is four times the speed of light. This "superluminal" motion occurs usually in high-speed jets of material bursting out by black holes. Read More ...
Unsettled Mechanism of Supernova Detonation Gets a New Twist
Type Ia supernovae, often used to calibrate cosmological measurements, may arise from merging white dwarfs, after all
When stellar cataclysms known as type Ia supernovae flare up far across the universe, their brightness and consistency allow astronomers to use them as so-called standard candles to measure cosmological distances. Just over a decade ago, two teams used the supernovae to show that the universe is accelerating in its expansion due to the influence of dark energy, a shocking discovery that thrust type Ia supernovae into the astrophysical limelight. But how exactly did these cosmic mileposts come to be? Read More ...
Black Prince, alien space probe, orbits Earth watching humans
Alexander Kazantsev, a Soviet author of sci-fi books, once said that a mysterious “unaccounted” satellite called Black Prince was spinning around Earth. The writer believed the object might be an alien probe, a messenger from extraterrestrial civilizations. Some people including scientists paid attention to the writer’s hypothesis.U.S. astrophysicist Ronald Bracewell was the first to take the hypothesis seriously. In 1960, he published a study to back his conclusions with data of practical radio engineering. Read More ...
Secret Robotic Space Plane Launched By US Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) has launched a secret space plane into orbit, carried in the nose of an Atlas 5 rocket. The USAF is not calling the X-37B a weapon or anything else, and the classified mission was broadcast live, but only for several minutes into the flight. The plane, built by Boeing, was originally part of a NASA programme but was later abandoned and turned over to a secretive USAF unit. There are no details on how much it costs or when it is coming back to earth, but when it does return the unmanned craft will land itself, using the onboard autopilot. Read More ...
Hubble telescope captures image of mysterious x-shaped object in space
Is that a smashed comet or an X-Wing fighter? Scientists are offering up their own theories as to what created the striking star-inspired image, which was captured by NASA's Hubble telescope in January. "Two small and previously unknown asteroids recently collided, creating a shower of debris that is being swept back into a tail from the collision site by the pressure of sunlight," said principal investigator David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles. Read More ...
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Homerecent news Libyan Resistance leaders created a temporary Libyan Jamahirya Government
Libyan Resistance leaders created a temporary Libyan Jamahirya Government
Libyan Resistance and western hypocrisy
by Konstantyn Scheglikov ----------- An important and expected event has occurred in Libya. Resistance leaders spoke about the creation of a temporary government in Libya. People all over the world, who comprise the world community, expected this moment. Now our task is to demand that our countries' governments withdraw recognition of the NTC occupational regime because they are not the legal representatives of the Libyan nation, and to begin diplomatic relations with the real Libyan government. This government is being launched on a temporary basis until full Libyan liberation from the NATO invaders. This is because after that, People's Committees of different levels will be reinstated, and they will continue to govern Libya as it used to be prior to the invasion in February 2011. Certainly all encountered mistakes will be taken into serious consideration to prevent further causes for a new intervention.
Global media (Reuters in particular), through their agents (rats), try to spread lies through web resources, stating that the USA, France and Russian presidents are arranging a summit to discuss the situation in Libya, which they are concerned about, and to grant Saif Al-Islam to be Libya's Prime Minister with an essential continuing presence of Western companies in Libya.
It is clear that their goal is to create an informational mess and hide news about the Libyan Jamahirya Government launching; to offend Saif, Libyan Resistance and all Libyan people who will choose their leaders themselves as well. Barak Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy are criminals. The military forces of their countries are taking part in the robbery of Libya and the elimination of civilians, an ongoing crime for almost 11 months now.
Global propaganda continues to try to create an image of peacemakers as though they were ignoring their personal interests in destroying countries rich in mineral resources.
One additional purpose of this disinformation is to tru to minimize the Libyan struggle against the occupants. Global media attempts to conceal this struggle, but it has already spread all over Libya. In the East of Libya, the Obeydi Tribe, which at first participated in the war on occupants' side, liberated and held the rats-free City of Tobroock. The tribe supports the anti NTC, anti occupants revolt as well.
The Al Zintan tribe, since November 2011, that is to say since the Saif al Gaddafi arrival at the City of Zintan, fights in the Libyan Resistance ranks. All this means is that the Libyan tribes are united in their struggle against the invaders.
Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site Hello, this is anonymous. We all know of the revolution in libya, and how the libyan media reacted with its denial of reality and outright lies. In the wake of OP Occupy Wall Street and the mainstream media blackout, we can no longer pretend that our news media is any better than that of a dictator run media organization. Who is pulling the strings? What are they trying to achieve? We are not here to tell you this, as when you wake up you will look for yourself. No. We simply wish to ask you a question. Do you still think you are free? ---- We are Anonymous --- We are legion ---- We do not forgive ------ We do not forget ------ Expect us
The global media conceals information regarding successful Libyan Resistance operations. They depict it as terrorist attacks. For instance, they mentioned the French attaché with NTC whose assassination was committed by Libyan resistance patriots and the attack on French mercenaries such as the ex-French soldier killing. The whole operation was called a terrorist attack and it was pointed out that NTC has arrested a suspect.
Global media exactly follows Nazi propaganda, that called Russian partisans bandits. SS squads captured civilians randomly and demanded locals to surrender partisans otherwise they threatened to execute hostages. Exactly the same occurs now in Libya. NATO and PMC death squads have created a number of death camps for the torturing of Resistance members and terrorizing the Libyan population, closely cooperating with inner traitors.
Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site Trailer for the General People's Committee of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 2011, part of the Specialized Agencies at Harvard Model United Nations 2012.
Videos of tortures are spread through YouTube exactly as in the February-March videos of black skinned Libyans being lynched were posted. Website administrators delete only videos of NATO and Al-Quaeda crimes.
When the global media start to spread disinformation to make it seem the Resistance compromises, that should mean that each Libyan must continue to struggle, because when the leaders of the terrorist supporting countries are claiming through media that they want peace, it is clear that they want to have some rest and regroup their forces. It is essential to continue guerrilla war against the invaders with the same pace and exactly according to general strategy.
Now as the Libyan temporary government is created, it is essential for all good minded people and organizations to grant support to it and request from their countries' governments to recognize this government as the only legitimate representative of the Libyan people and the Libyan Jamahiriya.
Prepared for publication by: -- Lisa Karpova ------------------------ Pravda.Ru
Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site SABHA city in southern Libya is GREEN! This video was filmed on December 30th 2011! ----- NTC and NATO are not in full control of Libya! The Western Media Blackout is just to confuse you about the reality in Libya! There are DAILY heavy clashes all over Libya! --------------- There are fighting at and within the El Jadida prison, Tripoli (January 1, 2012) !!! --------- ALGERIA ISP / according to Libya No. (Pro NTC), Attempt to free GREEN detainees from"El Jadida" prison. There is an intense exchange of fire and thick black smoke covers a part of the prison followed by a power cut. ------------ The first advanced balance is the death of a member of the security forces of the NTC in El Jadida prison. The prisoners managed to retrieve the weapons which were within the prison and clashes are now within the prison. The area of the prison is completely surrounded by the rebels. The rebels of the Souk Jomoa battalion have just arrived to support the prison guards..
Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site Sabha is 100% under control of the people .. Dr Yusuf Shakir - Tripoli Now Full Of Intel Agents --------------- Dr Yusuf Shakir is a long time Television presenter for Libyan television. He gives us an update; Sabha now has green flags. He says NATO has stopped bombing, but there are a couple of Apache helicopters there for support. No order at all in Tripoli. And there is a lot of violence escalating between militias. Misrata Brigades are trying to control the country, they have many prisoners and weapons. ------------ Qatar has overstretched itself and will not last, it does not represent an Arab agenda. ------- He corrects the meaning "Greens" because the majority of Libyans are for the Jamahiriya. The Liberals have been thrown out. Prisoners (including Journalists) are tortured, and radicals have taken over, but they are fighting amongst themselves. ------------- The Zintan Brigades are treating Saif Al Islam well and are on the right path, they control the Airport. There is some uncertainty about whether Gaddafi was indeed assassinated? -------------- Libyan rebels are helping the Syrian militants. --------------- All the organisations, UN, Amnesty etc are controlled by the superpower (US). .
Nato accused of war crimes in Libya
19.1.2012. --- New report criticises Western forces for bombing civilian targets in Sirte during conflict An independent report published by Middle Eastern human rights groups says there is evidence that war crimes and human rights violations were committed by all the participants – Nato, rebel forces and those loyal to Colonel Gaddafi – in last year’s Libyan uprising.
The report, published today by the Arab Organisation for Human Rights together and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights with the International Legal Assistance Consortium, follows extensive fact-finding work carried out by law and war crimes experts. While the document stresses that findings are not conclusive, it adds weight to growing concerns about violations committed by all sides in the conflict.
Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site Jamahiriya Libre, Bella Ciao ----------------------- la résistance continue .
After interviews with eye-witnesses and victims of attacks, and after visiting areas targeted by Nato, the Independent Civil Society Mission to Libya report highlights the issue of Nato classifying some civilian sites as military targets during its operations.
Nato was authorised by the UN Security Council to protect civilians in Libya from attacks by the Gaddafi regime during the uprising of last year, but drew criticism for what many described as going further than the terms of the mandate.
Raji Sourani, the head of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights who took part in the Libya mission, said: “We are not making judgements – that is not the mission mandate. But we have reason to think that there were some war crimes perpetrated.
“We are asking questions, especially about what happened in Sirte,” referring to Nato strikes in that city last September, when 47 civilians were killed. Eye-witnesses in the city told report investigators that civilians converged at the site of Nato strikes on two trucks, and were subsequently killed by a third missile.
Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site Uploaded by jumairahd on Jan 2, 2012.
Whether or not this amounts to a war crime, the revelation, if proved, will serve as an embarrassment to the Alliance, which stressed its efforts to avoid civilian deaths. Separately, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said last November that Nato forces would be investigated along with the two Libyan sides of the conflict for breaches of the laws of war.
Late last year, Nato’s Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said: “We have carried out this operation very carefully, without confirmed civilian casualties.”
A Nato official said yesterday that, despite the Alliance’s best efforts – including the cancellation of two-thirds of intended strikes because of the risk of casualties – its “goal of zero civilian casualties is highly unlikely”. Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site Moussa Ibrahim Pleads With The Western Media To Portray The Libyan Conflict Truthfully - 04/08/2011.
The official added: “Nato is working closely with the UN and with Libyan counterparts – they are the best place to have these concerns looked at and we have already started to provide information to help with that. If anyone else presents these concerns to us, we will do the same. We would like the opportunity to work with them and go through our data, to see if that can help allay concerns and determine what actually did happen.”
Today’s report observes that establishing what happened in Nato strikes in Libya was potentially hindered by the “apparent desire” among those interviewed on the ground “to protect Nato, or avoid any direct or indirect criticism”.
The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, last year rejected claims that Nato had exceeded its mandate in Libya: “Security Council resolution 1973, I believe, was strictly enforced within the limit, within the mandate,” he said.
The investigation also set out to probe alleged violations committed by former opposition forces allied to the National Transitional Council. As well as evidence of killing, torturing, detention and ill-treatment of individuals who may have been loyal to the former regime, the mission examines the forced displacement of suspected “enemies of the revolution” – especially in Tawergha.
Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site Libya National Anthem .
Reports described Tawergha, near Misrata, as a “ghost town” – 30,000 residents had been driven out of their homes in what looked like an act of revenge and collective punishment carried out by anti-Gaddafi fighters.
Addressing such violations, the report quotes a senior military commander in Tripoli, who says: “What I fear most now are the revolutionaries themselves.” The group’s plan to follow up today’s report with similar investigations in Syria and Yemen.
Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site Switzerland's direct democracy ---------------- Together with neutrality and federalism, direct democracy is a part of the Swiss national identity and helps unite the various languages, religions and cultures in the country. This video gives you a short introduction to this unique political system. (Produced by swissinfo.ch on behalf of the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad). .