Dr. Penny Patterson
President and Director of Research
The Gorilla Foundation / Koko.org
Friday, July 4, 2014
EVERYTHING MATTERS - EARTH, AS I UNDERSTAND IT
Our home, Earth, is an amazing blue ball cloaked in clouds, spinning through cold, dark space. It is a self-contained unit. Nothing gets out. Only radiation and meteors come in.
Whatever is here, stays here. So everything matters. Everything is connected. Everything has an effect. Everything we do, everything that happens has an effect.
When a butterfly flaps its wings in Peking - or even Beijing - hurricanes and tornados and floods may eventually strike anywhere on earth.
Scientists know a lot about these things. I only know a little. But I do believe everything matters and everything we do has an effect.
Proceed with caution.
A SUGGESTION TO THE YOUNG, THE INNOCENT, THE WELL-MEANING AND THE NAIVE
JUST BECAUSE
SOMEONE SENDS YOU AN EMAIL
IN HUGE LETTERS
THAT ENDS BY TELLING YOU TO
SEND IT TO EVERYONE YOU CARE ABOUT -
DON'T DO IT UNTIL YOU CHECK
IF IT IS TRUE.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
AFRICAN LEADERS WASH EACH OTHER'S BLOODY HANDS
Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo talks to his defence team at the international criminal court in The Hague. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP
For years, African governments have accused the international criminal court of unfairly targeting leaders from the continent. Their proposed alternative – the African court of justice and human rights – was intended to give the continent a home-grown solution. But on Monday, in a move that one rights campaigner called an own goal, leaders stripped the court – which has yet to begin work – of power to prosecute them for genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.
At an African Union summit last week in Equatorial Guinea – often spotlighted for its own rights abuses – heads of state and officials voted to grant sitting leaders and senior officials immunity from prosecution. The immunity would be valid only while officials are in power, but critics warned it could further encourage attempts to seize office for life. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is the world's longest-ruling leader, and African heads of state make up roughly half of the globe's top 10.
The decision rolls back half a century of developments in international human rights and criminal justice law, said Kenyan activist Njonjo Mue. Other courts of last resort, such as the international criminal court (ICC), can prosecute sitting or past leaders who typically have immunity in their national courts.
"It's a joke," said Mue, programme director at the Nairobi-based Kenyans for Peace With Truth and Justice. "The [African] court has been cited as an African solution to African problems, but by granting themselves immunity they put themselves out of reach of the institution. Ninety per cent of the crimes [the court investigates] will be by senior officials in power … It's an own goal because it means victims have no choice but to turn to the ICC for justice."
The ICC was set up a decade ago to try those accused of the worst international crimes, but some global powers – including Russia and the US – don't recognise its jurisdiction. However, the Hague-based institution's most strained relationship has long been with African leaders. All eight people it has indicted are African. Its current chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, from Gambia, faced renewed accusations of bias when prosecutors – as opposed to governments or the UN – initiated their first case, against the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his deputy, William Ruto, for fomenting ethnic bloodletting after a disputed 2007 election. About 1,200 people died in the violence. The seven other African cases were all referred to the ICC by governments or the UN.
Survivors of some of the civil conflicts that raged through west Africa in the 1990s – and helped bring about the ICC's creation – also expressed dismay at the African court's draft constitution.
Sorie Sawanah, a former taxi driver, had his arm chopped off by drug-crazed child soldiers rampaging through Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, in 1999.
"He doesn't want to speak on that – it just pains him," said his son Ibrahim, when told about African leaders being granted immunity from prosecution.
Both men said they had felt "at peace" in April 2012, when Charles Taylor became the first African president to be prosecuted at an international court. A UN-backed special court for Sierra Leone found the former Liberian president guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity for supporting rebels who carried out atrocities in Sierra Leone – such as the one in which Sawanah lost his arm – in return for "blood diamonds".
Not everybody is critical of the proposed new court. Assiatou Bamba, a trader, who was forced to flee with two children from her home in Ivory Coast's capital, Abidjan, during the 2011 conflict, said prosecutions went against a traditional spirit of reconciliation.
The former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo is awaiting trial at The Hague. Gbagbo, 69, is accused of plunging his country into civil war instead of relinquishing power after losing elections in 2010.
"Here in Ivory Coast we witnessed terrible things," said Bamba, whose home was shelled during the conflict. "But now, what good does it do to drag up the past? Besides, we have a culture of respecting those in position of authority, and – whatever wrong they have done – our leaders shouldn't be humiliated in a court."
Such sentiments of reconciliation were partly behind the creation of Rwanda's controversial Gacaca courts (although they did not try leaders). The word means "grass" in the country's Kinyarwanda language, referring to the place where communities traditionally gathered to resolve disputes. The courts combined modern criminal law with more traditional informal community procedures.
Bamba's husband, Aboubacar, dismissed arguments that reconciliation meant leaving crimes unpunished. "Being in a position of authority does not mean having the right to slaughter those beneath you like chickens," he said.
Amnesty International said the decision by African leaders to grant themselves immunity was "a step backward for justice".
"At a time when the African continent is struggling to ensure that there is accountability for serious human rights violations and abuses, it is impossible to justify this decision, which undermines the integrity of the African court of justice and human rights, even before it becomes operational," said the organisation's Africa director, Netsanet Belay
PALESTINIAN TEEN BRUTALLY MURDERED IN REVENGE - THIS IS NOT "AN EYE FOR AN EYE"
When the scribes wrote, "An eye for an eye" - it meant that the punishment should fit the crime fairly. We are told not to cut off a person's hand if they steal a loaf of bread.
Did the Palestinian boy who was so viciously murdered kill any of the three Jewish boys for whom Israel is seeking revenge?
If so, the killing was justice. If not, it was idiotic, cruel, terrible murder.
It is fair and just to seek revenge against the guilty.
It is not just or excusable to harm the innocent for the crimes of the guilty.
Phyllis Carter
Israeli riot police take position behind a car during clashes with Palestinian stone-throwers in Shuafat, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem July 2, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Ammar Awad
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The body of an abducted Palestinian youth was found in Jerusalem on Wednesday, raising suspicions he had been killed by Israelis avenging the deaths of three abducted Jewish teens.
News of the discovery of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair, who was last seen being bundled into a van earlier in the day, triggered clashes between rock-throwing Palestinians and Israeli police in the city.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Jewish settlers of killing Abu Khudair and demanded that Israel "mete out the strongest punishment against the murderers if it truly wants peace".
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged police "to swiftly investigate who was behind the loathsome murder and its motive". He called on all sides "not to take the law into their own hands".
Police said they had found a body in the wooded outskirts of Jerusalem. Abu Khudair's father told Reuters the force had told him the body was his son.
An Israeli security source said Israel suspected the youth had been kidnapped and murdered, possibly in retribution for the killings of the Israeli teens. Their bodies were discovered on Monday, nearly three weeks after they were abducted in the occupied West Bank.
Israel says Palestinian Hamas militants killed them. The Islamist group has neither confirmed nor denied the allegation.
The White House condemned the killing of Abu Khudair and called on Israel and the Palestinian Authority to "take all necessary steps to prevent an atmosphere of revenge and retribution."
Netanyahu convened his security cabinet later on Wednesday as violence also flared up across the Israel-Gaza border, with Palestinians firing at least a dozen rockets and mortars, and Israel's military carrying out an air strike.
Abu Khudair's cousin said the 16-year-old was grabbed off the street after leaving his home in Jerusalem's Arab neighbourhood of Shuafat to go to morning prayers with friends.
"Somebody ran into the house to say one of the boys had been dragged into a white van, so (Mohammed's) mother called the police," the cousin, Naima, said.
The abduction came a day after the three Jewish seminary students - Gil-Ad Shaer and U.S.-Israeli national Naftali Fraenkel, both 16, and Eyal Yifrah, 19 - were buried in a funeral attended by tens of thousands of mourners.
While the teenagers were laid to rest in the city of Modi'in, several hundreds Israeli demonstrators, some chanting "Death to Arabs", blocked the main entrance to Jerusalem.
Cries for revenge have echoed throughout the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
They can be heard at the emotionally charged funerals of Palestinians killed by Israel, and the phrase "May God avenge his death" is often invoked at the burials of Israelis slain by Palestinians.
But deadly Israeli vigilante attacks, in declared retribution for Palestinian assaults, have been rare in recent years.
More common are the so-called "price tag" incidents in which mosques and Palestinian property are torched or damaged - originally a reference by ultra-nationalist Jews to making the government "pay" for any curbs on Jewish settlement on land Palestinians seek for a state.
Hebrew graffiti found on a building in the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday read: "Price tag, Jewish revenge."
Tensions were high in the West Bank, where around 40 Palestinians were arrested in raids on Tuesday, the latest in a campaign by Israel to cripple Hamas there.
Four people were wounded by live bullets early on Wednesday in an Israeli raid in the Palestinian city of Jenin.
Near Hebron, Israeli forces destroyed the home of a Palestinian arrested on charges of shooting dead an off-duty police officer in the West Bank in April.
Israel, which suspended the demolition policy in 2005 as a Palestinian uprising waned, says destroying the homes of Palestinians involved in attacks on Israelis has a deterrent effect. Rights groups have condemned the practice as collective punishment.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/02/us-israel-palestinians-idUSKBN0F70AD20140702
"PEACH PIE" BY LOBLAW - PRESIDENT'S CHOICE - A STRANGE SURPRISE
I received a gift the other day. A friend brought me a clear plastic container marked "Peach Pie." The contents were four small, smooth, light brown donuts.
So I thought.
Late last night, I turned the lights back on and went to the fridge to indulge my craving.
I placed one of the donuts on a plate and sat down to watch late night TV.
Was I surprised when I bit into that donut !
It wasn't a donut. It was a peach. A delicious, juicy peach!
Now, folks, I don't know what to think or what to tell you. These phony "donuts" are scrumptious - but are they being misrepresented? And - more importantly - are they genetically engineered? No peach I ever saw looked like these "donuts".
What are we really eating? And are these delicious mutants safe to consume?
I think the public needs a straight, complete answer from Loblaw - President's Choice
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
I CAN'T KEEP THIS SECRET ANY LONGER - HOW I LEARNED ABOUT CRIME
I was 14 and working at my family's international newspaper store, Metropolitan News Agency at 1248 Peel Street, Montreal. I sold newspapers and magazines and fine English bone china and Irish linens, and I worked in the small office, keeping the books - the ledgers - with pen and ink, and I took care of the daily earnings and did the banking. Almost every member of our family worked at Metro at times.
One day at the end of October, my father and my Uncle H. took me aside and told me that the take was coming up short and they suspected Uncle M. who was to be on shift at the cash that night was pilfering. They needed proof. They told me to mark the ten and twenty dollar bills that were to be kept in the safe overnight. They told me how to do it.
I marked the bills in two different ways to be absolutely sure - marking the bills and recording the serial numbers.
The next evening was Halloween. When I came to work in the late afternoon, I went to the back of the store and up the old wooden staircase to the office to hang up my coat.
I never got to the office. As I came to the top of the stairs, my cousin M. who also worked at the store, grabbed me from behind and held my arms tight and his father, Uncle M., started punching his fists on the top of my head while my cousin restrained me.
I never knew what hit me. Uncle M. was yelling at me - about framing him, stolen money...
My father and Uncle H. did not know M. and his son had sneaked into the store when they were busy and were waiting upstairs for me.
Later I learned that Uncle M. was caught with the marked money.
Apparently my father and Uncle H. told Uncle M. that I had marked the money and that was how they caught him.
Uncle M. was fired and his son followed. Uncle M. was barred from Metropolitan News thereafter.
But I had been attacked and beaten. I was the victim of a crime. Why weren't the police called?
They never were. It was enough that Uncle M. was fired. That was enough punishment.
But I had been attacked and beaten. What had been done to me was just passed over. I don't remember anyone talking about it.
That was how I learned that you can get away with crime if the witnesses want to avoid the difficulties, challenges, embarrassment or scandal of doing justice.
Or was the family just being kind? Not to me.
I was just 14 years old. The attack and the betrayal broke my heart and scarred my life. I was deeply damaged.
As a child, I depended on the good guys to protect me. I believed in the heroes in white hats, knights in shining armour riding white horses. I trusted my Pop with my life. And Uncle H. was an idealist, an intelligent man who had wanted to be a doctor.
The slap in the face: I was asked to do something adult, responsible and honourable, but when I was attacked and beaten, my injuries - more psychological and spiritual than physical - were brushed aside and swept under the carpet. To keep the peace.
Decades later, I ran into Uncle M's younger son, A., by chance in a supermarket. He brought me over to meet his father, then a sick old man. I arranged for my mother to speak to her long estranged brother M. on the phone. There was some forgiving.
Later, Uncle M. contacted me and asked me to come to his apartment to see him. He knew I was sick and unemployed and he offered me money. I refused.
I didn't hate him then. I felt sorry for him. He himself was very ill. His wrinkled arms were purple from medical procedures.
He offered me his late wife's vacuum cleaner. I refused.
He offered me a set of two large serving dishes. So, to be kind, I accepted them. He was trying very hard to atone.
Many years later, both Uncle M. and his son M. - the handsome boy I had grown up with and had a crush on in our youth - had both died.
I contacted Uncle M's granddaughter, cousin M.'s daughter, a married woman with children of her own, and I returned the china serving dishes to her. I never used them.
Phyllis Carter
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