Why did we do that?

Americans invade Okinawa

2010-04-23T02:00:00.001+07:00

Source: On War

In the Ryukyu Islands... On Okinawa, American forces launch Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa. Two corps of the US 10th Army (General Buckner) land in the area of Hagushi, in the southwest of the island. US Task Force 51 (Admiral Turner) provides the 1,200 transports and landing ships with over 450,000 Army and Marine Corps personnel embarked. The troops landed are from US 3rd Amphibious Corps (Geiger) with US 6th and 1st Marine Divisions, on the left or northern flank, and 24th Corps (Hodge) with US 7th and 96th Infantry Divisions, on the right or southern flank. On land, US forces encounter almost no resistance on the first day and establish a beachhead three miles deep and nine miles wide. (Okinawa is 70 miles long and a maximum of 10 miles wide.) Kadena and Yontan airfields are captured. Japanese forces on the island, consisting of the 130,000 troops of the Japanese 32nd Army (General Ushijima), are entrenched in concealed positions and caves, mostly to the south of the American landing area along the Shuri Line. (There are also 450,000 civilians on the island.) At sea, US TF58 and TF54 as well as the British Pacific Fleet conduct air and naval bombardments. Japanese conventional and Kamikaze air strikes hit the battleship USS West Virginia, and the carrier, HMS Indomitable, along with eight other ships.

On the Western Front... The US 1st and 9th Armies link up at Lippstadt, cutting off the German forces in the Ruhr which consist of 325,000 men mostly from German 15th Army and 5th Panzer Army of German Army Group B (Field Marshal Model). Other elements of US 1st Army capture Paderborn while US 9th Army units take Hamm. To the north, forces of British 2nd Army have crossed the Mitteland Canal near Munster and are advancing to Osnabruck.

On the Eastern Front... Soviet forces of 3rd Ukrainian Front capture Sopron in western Hungary, to the south of Vienna, in a continuing advance. The 2nd Ukrainian Front, to the north, also continues to advance. On the Oder River, German resistance at Glogau is eliminated by elements of 1st Ukrainian Front.

In the Philippines... The US 158th Regiment (General MacNider) lands at Legaspi in the southeast of Luzon and takes the town and nearby airfield. Elsewhere on Luzon American forces are beginning to advance toward the southeast of Manila after much hard fighting against the Japanese forces of the Shimbu Group (General Yokoyama). Forces of the Japanese 14th Army (General Yamashita), in the north of the island, have also engaged by American and Filipino forces.

In Italy... British Guards and Commando units attack over the River Reno between Lake Comachio and the sea.

American options on Iran

2010-04-07T12:22:00.001+07:00

Source: Target Iran: American Options | onwar.com (by Ralph Zuljan)

During the course of the last year revelations of a potential Iranian nuclear weapons program combined with increasingly belligerent rhetoric emanating from Iran has caused alarm in the international community and no more so than in the United States. As the Bush administration weighs its response to the possibility of the revolutionary Islamic Republic armed with nuclear weapons, perhaps it might be instructive to consider what options actually exist. There is a range of options available. Published discussions have suggested everything from diplomacy to sanctions to air strikes to a limited ground war to a regime changing war on Iran. Even the use of tactical nuclear weapons has not been discounted.

The most radical choice talked about is the use of earth-penetrating tactical nuclear weapons in an attempt to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. Chances are very good that nothing of the sort is seriously being considered, regardless of official coyness to admit this. While the United States has never formally forsaken the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state, it has become a fairly obvious operating principle for all declared nuclear powers, including the USA. And, it is one of the cornerstones of the non-proliferation principle. If there is a sure way of getting a few dozen countries to go nuclear in the next decade or less it would be to break the principle. I doubt the Bush administration is prepared to risk such consequences.

A regime changing ground war with the Islamic Republic is hardly more appealing as an option. Occupying Iran would not be a trivial military operation, even to the US armed forces. Any serious consideration of large-scale military operation must take into account that a successful occupation of Iran might require as many as a million troops. Iran has a larger population than Iraq and Afghanistan combined; it is one-and-a-half times the size of Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Since neither Afghanistan nor Iraq have been pacified this is hardly the time to expand into yet another country with a potentially hostile people. Furthermore, some Americans have already begun to balk at the paltry casualties generated in Afghanistan and Iraq. An expansion into Iran will result in increasing military casualties. I doubt the United States is willing to engage in a ground war with Iran at this time.

Short of a ground war, surgical strikes -- with conventional weapons -- against Iranian nuclear facilities has been widely discussed as another option, but this may do as much harm as good. Air power is notorious for failing to realize the bold claims its supporters make. It is unlikely that Iranians would then be willing to cooperate at all with any international effort to bring them to heel. Failure to completely destroy the rather well dispersed Iranian nuclear program will guarantee that the Islamic Republic will opt to be a nuclear power as soon as possible. Worse still for American interests is the fact that some countries might well facilitate Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons under these circumstances.

International support for military action against Iran is virtually non-existent and this too is something the Bush administration must take into consideration. Further alienation of the European allies and antagonizing China and Russia is not really in the national interest of the United States. Unfortunately, even the chances of broad international agreement on sanctions is unlikely. Failure to secure cooperation for implementing sanctions against Iran will likely fail to prevent further Iranian progress towards a nuclear capability.

While the most likely options, sanctions and air strikes, will probably do nothing but encourage Iranian development of nuclear weaponry, diplomacy is likewise unlikely to succeed because Iran is obviously determined to acquire the ability to produce nuclear fuel independently. Since American objections only relate to the possible Iranian acquisition of the capability to produce weapons grade enrichment of nuclear fuel; there is no objection, in principle, to civilian applications of nuclear technology. This is a necessary consequence of the non-proliferation regime. However, the ability to fuel nuclear reactors pretty much implies an ability to build nuclear weapons. Denying specific aspects of the fuel cycle to Iran is probably not a viable long-term possibility so agreements than might be reached with the Islamic Republic are unlikely to achieve US objectives.

Consequently, the harsh reality emerging is that, short of some revolutionary change in Iranian objectives, Iran is going to become a nuclear power sometime in the future. Whether it actually declares that capability in the next few years is unclear. Certainly the dynamics of its relations with its neighbors will change if it does declare itself a nuclear armed state and that change may very well be negative. Regional fear of a nuclear armed Persian state might well lead to its further isolation and actually weaken its position in the long term.

So the real question that must be asked is whether the possibility of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons is really such a serious threat. The likelihood of Iran sharing its nuclear assets with terrorists is probably so low as to be non-existent. Its ability to seriously threaten anyone with nuclear weapons is not that great and doing so would merely invite further proliferation. Ultimately, Iranian nuclear weapons will prove useless to Iran's political masters. They are rather expensive toys for such a relatively small country. Possessing nuclear weapons might cause Iranian leaders to realize the limits of rogue behavior in the international community.

None of the options available to the Bush administration at this time are particularly attractive. Further exercise of American military superpower status is likely to result in eroding its international influence further rather than expanding it. Popular support is not very strong either. Engaging the Islamic Republic could undo the tenuous consensus supporting American engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran is not worth the political and military investment. Let Iran go ahead with its nuclear program and then let it face the reality of being threatened with nuclear destruction in the event of a war. Sometimes doing nothing is the best choice available.

Japanese attack Pearl Harbour

2010-04-06T02:17:00.001+07:00

Sunday, December 7, 1941

In Hawaii... The Japanese attack launched from six carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu,Zuikaku and Shokaku, carrying a total of 423 planes, begins at 0755 local time. Its target: the main base of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. There is complete tactical and strategic surprise. The Japanese task force, under the command of Admiral Nagumo, also contains 2 battleships, 2 heavy cruisers as well as destroyers and support vessels including tankers. Two attacking waves strike the naval base. The first lead by Commander Fuchida is comprised of 40 torpedo bombers carrying special shallow running torpedoes, 51 dive bombers, 50 high level bombers and 43 fighters. The second wave is comprised of similar numbers with more dive bombers replacing the torpedo planes. All eight of the US battleships in port are damaged. The Arizona sinks to the bottom with most hands onboard, the Oklahoma sinks but its later raised and scrapped. The California,Nevada and West Virginia are later rebuilt and rejoin the fleet. Three cruisers and three destroyers are also sunk. The Americans lose 188 aircraft; the Japanese 29. Admiral Nagumo, despite the task forces's capacity and against advice, does not send a third wave against the base. The three American aircraft carriers serving in the Pacific are not in port and escape unharmed as does much of the infrastructure of the port, including the oil storage tanks. However, the attack leaves the Allies with only the three US carriers and two British battleships as active capital ships in the theater. The cruisers destroyers and submarines available from the Dutch and Free French reduce the numerical inferiority against the Japanese navy, however, the Allied craft are widely dispersed and under multiple commands.

In Washington... The last part of the Japanese signal, stating specifically that relations are being broken is intercepted and decoded by the Americans. Delays in decoding of the message and difficulty in securing an appointment with Secretary Hull ensure that the Japanese delegation do not meet their country's deadline for presentation of official note breaking of diplomatic ties until after the attack upon Pearl Harbor is launched.

In Tokyo... The British receive official indication from the Japanese three hours later, when their Ambassador in Tokyo is given a copy of the Japanese note. Both the British and US ambassadors in Tokyo are given declarations of war a further three hours later.

In the Pacific... Japanese forces bomb Guam and Wake and Midway is bombarded by Japanese destroyers.

On the Eastern Front... Field Marshal Brauchitsch, citing illness, offers his resignation to Hitler after the successful counterattack. It is not formally accepted but Brauchitsch is removed from important command decisions.

In Ottawa... The Canadian government declares war on Japan.

Gulf war – Little known facts

2010-03-25T06:39:00.001+07:00

source: cryan.com

On the final night of the war--within hours of the cease-fire--two U.S. Air force bombers dropped specially designed 5,000-pound bombs on a command bunker fifteen miles northwest of Baghdad in a deliberate attempt to kill Saddam Hussein.

The decision to seek United Nations involvement was part of a larger, more cynical strategy of the Bush administration to circumvent Congress, to bypass the constitutional authority of Congress--and only Congress--to declare war.

During the very week King Fahd was persuaded to invite U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia in order to defend his monarchy from the alleged threat of an Iraqi invasion, a U.S. intelligence officer who was secretly sent to Kuwait by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf reported that Iraq had began withdrawing its Republican Guard divisions from Kuwait entirely.

Several weeks before the Baghdad was bombed on January 17th, 1991, U.S. intelligence agents successfully inserted a computer virus into Iraq's military computers. It was designed to disable much of Baghdad's air-defense system.

The largest tank battle of the war, which has previously has gone unreported in any detail, conclusively demonstrated the superiority of American tanks and fighting doctrine over that of the Soviets. As a whole, the battles of the ground war showed that American military maneuverability clearly outclassed the plodding tactics of the Iraqis, who emphasized pitched engagements and linear movements as they had been taught by their Soviet advisers.

The size of the Iraqi army in the Kuwait Theater of Operations was probably much smaller than claimed by the Pentagon. On the eve of the war, Iraq may have had as few as 300,000 solders, compaired to 540,000 estimated by the Pentagon.

In official reports, the Pentagon has admitted that of the 148 American servicemen and women who perished on the battlefield, 24 percent of the total killed in action were victims of 'friendly fire'. Eleven more Americans were killed when un exploded Allied munitions blew up, raising the 'friendly fire' percent to 31 percent. Most solders said that the thousands of unexploded mines and bomblets they encountered, were more dangerous than enemy fire.

On January 29 1991, an Iraqi force, apparently comprising two infantry and one tank battalions, crossed the Kuwait border in the south-eastern front and headed in the direction of Khafji, a deserted Saudi town, some 12 miles from the frontier. Taking the small Saudi garrison by surprise, the Iraqis occupied the town and resisted allied attempts to dislodge them for nearly two days. In the ensuing fighting the Americans suffered their first casualties in ground fighting when 11 marines were killed (7 of them from friendly fire). The Iraqi losses in men and equipment were far higher, amounting to dozens of dead and hundreds of prisoners.

Falloujah Le Massacre Caché VO ST francais

2010-03-16T09:35:00.001+07:00

Tibet massacre – 2008

2010-03-11T17:41:00.001+07:00

Although denied by Beijing, the violent repression of the demonstrators and Tibetan monks is illustrated by a series of particularly violent photos, sent to the West by Tibetan dissidents. These are particularly harsh images, sent from the monastery of Kirti to the Free Tibet Campaign.

The photos were taken last March 16, in the autonomous Tibetan province of Amdo, which currently is part of the northern Chinese province of Sichuan. According to the Free Tibet Campaign, the massacre began after the religious of the monastery of Kirti chanted slogans in favour of "free Tibet" and the Dalai Lama. The monks were joined by 400 Buddhist nuns and the students of the local Tibetan middle school.

The Chinese police, which had been watching the monastery since the beginning of the protests (last March 10), opened fire on the crowd. According to information from the Tibetan government in exile, about 20,000 Tibetans of Sichuan have protested in solidarity with the Tibetan monks. Of the 20 certified victims of the repression, 9 have been identified: among these are young men of 15 and 17 years old.

Hamidian massacres

2010-03-05T21:46:00.001+07:00

Source: Hamidian Massacres

In 1876, the Ottoman government was led by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. From the beginning of the reform period after the signing of the Berlin treaty, Hamid II attempted to stall their implementation and asserted that Armenians did not make up a majority in the provinces and that Armenian reports of abuses were largely exaggerated or false. In 1890, Hamid II created a paramilitary outfit known as the Hamidiye which was made up of Kurdish irregulars who were tasked to "deal with the Armenians as they wished."As Ottoman officials intentionally provoked rebellions (often as a result of over-taxation) in Armenian populated towns, such as the Sasun Resistance of 1894 and the resistance at Zeitun in 1895-1896, these regiments were increasingly used to deal with the Armenians by way of oppression and massacre. Armenians successfully fought off the regiments and brought the excesses to the attention of the Great Powers in 1895 who subsequently condemned the Porte.

The Powers forced Hamid to sign a new reform package designed to curtail the powers of the Hamidiye in October 1895 which like the Berlin treaty, was never implemented. On October 1, 1895, 2,000 Armenians assembled in Constantinople to petition for the implementation of the reforms but Ottoman police units converged towards the rally and violently broke it up. Soon, massacres of Armenians broke out in Constantinople and then engulfed the rest of the Armenian-populated provinces of Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Erzerum, Harput, Sivas, Trabzon and Van. Estimates differ on how many Armenians were killed but European documentation of the violence, which became known as the Hamidian massacres, placed the figures from anywhere between 100,000–300,000 Armenians.

Although Hamid was never directly implicated for ordering the massacres, he was suspected for their tacit approval and for not acting to end them. Frustrated with European indifference to the massacres, Armenians from the Dashnaktsutiun political party seized the European managed Ottoman Bank on August 26, 1896. This incident brought further sympathy for Armenians in Europe and was lauded by the European and American press, which vilified Hamid and painted him as the "great assassin" and "bloody Sultan."While the Great Powers vowed to take action and enforce new reforms, these never came into fruition due to conflicting political and economic interests.

Gibraltar Airport: Strange Runway

2010-02-26T17:54:00.001+07:00

Source: slightly warped

Dolphin killing festival in Denmark

2010-01-08T17:14:00.001+07:00

Even today in Dantesque, a bloody slaughter in the Faroe Islands, which belong to Denmark is subjected to brutality. A country supposedly rich in 'civilization' and is also an important part of the EUROPEAN UNION. For many people this attack to life is unknown, to sensitivity. IN THIS bloody slaughter to attend Moz or To Show Entering Adulthood its mandatory to kill a dolphin, is absolutely incredible that no one does nothing to prevent this barbarism that are committed against Calderon, an intelligent dolphin who has the particularity of approaching people out of sheer curiosity. It is a festival to them. But its a Crime.

Positions (source: facebook)

While it may seem incredible, even today this custom continues, in Dantesque, - in the Faroe Islands, ( Denmark ).
For many people this attack to life is unknown– a custom to 'show' entering adulthood. It is absolutely atrocious.
No one does anything to prevent this barbarism being committed against the Calderon, an intelligent dolphin that is placid

Thammasat Massacre in Thailand 1976

2009-12-31T11:42:00.001+07:00

Political tensions between leftist and rightist forces reached a bloody climax in October 1976. On October 5, right-wing newspapers in the capital published a photograph of student demonstrators at Thammasat University reenacting the strangling and hanging of two student protestors by police the previous month. The photograph, which was later found to have been altered, showed one of the students as being made up to resemble the king's son, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn.

The right wing perceived the demonstration as a damning act of lèse-majeste. That evening police surrounded the campus of Thammasat University, where 2,000 students were holding a sit-in. Fighting between students and police (including contingents of the paramilitary Border Patrol Police) broke out. The following day, groups of Nawa Phon, Red Gaurs, and Village Scouts "shock troops" surged onto the campus and launched a bloody assault in which hundreds of students were killed and wounded and more than 1,000 arrested. That evening the military seized power, established the National Administrative Reform Council (NARC), and ended that phase of Thailand's intermittent experimentation with democracy.

On the dawn of 6 October 1976, the rightists began firing into the University campus with pistols, automatic rifles and grenade launchers. Although the students pleaded for a ceasefire, police chief authorized a free firing followed by paramilitary groups storming in. Students who surrendered were forced to lie on the ground and were beaten, some to death. Others were shot or hung and their bodies mutilated or set ablaze. Those attempted to escape by jumping into the Chao Phraya River were also shot. The barbarism lasted for several hours until the Border Patrol Police, Red Gaur, Navapol Gangsters, and the Village Scouts re-gathered at the Royal Turf Club and were dismissed.

Samak Sundaravej was awarded a position of a Minister of Interior in a military-backed civillian government. Whereas a large number of survived students and activists went into the jungle to join the Communist guerrilla fighters. These included a lot of at-present politicians, scholars and university lecturers e.g., Theerayuth Boonme, Jiranan Pitrpreecha, Seksan Prasertkul, Thongchai Winijakul, Sombat Thamrongtanyawong, Chingchai Mongkoltham, Adisorn Piangkes, Jaral Ditapichai, Weng Tojirakarn, Amorn Amornratananont, Jaturon Chaisaeng, Promin Lertsuriyadej, Poomtham Vechayachai, Surachai Sae-Dan, Prinya Thewanarumitkul, Terdpoom Jaidee.

Some students remained in the city but continued to be alliances of the underground movements e.g., Surapong Suebwonglee.

Peace deal between China and Thailand ended the support of the communist guerilla in Thailand. National reconciliation and amnesty by PM Gen. Prem Tinasulanonth brought a peaceful return of those students to Thai society whereby most of the bitter students could come to terms with the tragedy. Those who feel bitter with termination of Chinese support remain live on and preach on left-wing ideologies. Some like Promin Lertsuriyadej, Poomtham Vechayachaijoin Thaksin Shinawatra's business empire.

Many modern history textbooks in Thailand completely skip this event or include one-sided police reports from the time that claim student protesters had turned violent. Some play down the massacre as a 'misunderstanding' between the two sides while even the most accurate are fairly watered down versions of the event.

Thaksin Shinawatra, with his enormous wealth, can get the right combination of those brilliant old-time left-wing activists, old fashioned politicians and the extreme right-wing politicians to work for his empire. He appointed Samak Sundaravej in his late 70's, the supposed to be retired politician to lead PPP after the coup. It was a chance of a life time to be a Prime Minister for greedy Samak.

In the early months of his Prime Minister term, Samak Sundaravej, in an interview with a foreign mdia, shamelessly denied his involvment with October 6, 1976 Thammasat Massacre and said that there was only one died in that incidence. This Samak's interview challenged the conscience of those left-wing ideologists who lost their comrades in front of their eyes from the smear propaganda of the right-wing extremists.

Thaksin, the mastermind, is just very good at reliving all the parties to serve him. In this present day massacre, 32 years afterward, Samak Sundaravej the advocate, Salang Bunnak the marksman, the racketeers, the leftists such as Surachai Sae-Dan, Thongchai Winijakul, Jaturon Chaisaeng, Weng Tojirakarn, Adisorn Piangkes conspired a betrayal one over their comrades' graves and ashes.

Background

Following the events of 14 October 1973 and the expulsion of the Three Tyrants--Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn, Praphas Charusathien, and Narong Kittikachorn--a new constitution was promulgated in 1974 and elected, democratic government resumed after a long period of military dictatorship. However, with parliamentary factionalism and the fact that there was no clear majority in parliament, the elected government was politically unstable. Furthermore, an economic downturn and the rise of student activism led to increased incidence of organized labor strikes, farmer protests, and rightist concern. Government land reform and other liberal economic policies of Kukrit Pramoj also increased the Right's wariness of increasing liberal sentiment in the country.

During this time, various extreme rightist organizations were given better support and preparation. The Village Scouts (Thai: ลูกเสือชาวบ้าน) were intensely trained and recruited to despise Communists and other "un-Thai" characters, and to fight for the "Nation, Religion, and Monarchy." The Village Scouts were closely tied to the Border Patrol Police. Other more extreme, underground rightist movements also grew. This included the Red Gaurand Navapol, the violent arm of the ultra-right, which were organized and trained by the Internal Security Operations Command. Anti-communist sentiment and fear mongering was hyped up in these organizations to the point that a monk, Kittivudho, publicly claimed that killing Communists was not a sin, but in fact, meritorious. Many rightist riots, fights, and protests were whipped up to terrorize liberals.

This anti-communist hysteria was summarized by a western diplomat: "The Thai government and press are forever explaining away their national problems by pointing at the communists ... the real enemy is alive and well and living in Bangkok, driving around in air-conditioned Mercedes."

Oil, War And A Growing Sense Of Panic In The US

2009-12-29T01:40:00.001+07:00

Don't tell me that America would have invaded Iraq if its chief export was beetroot

Source: information clearing house

Robert Fisk

01 October 2003:(The Independent) Oil is slippery stuff but not as slippery as the figures now being peddled by Iraq's American occupiers. Up around Kirkuk, the authorities are keeping the sabotage figures secret - because they can't stop their pipelines to Turkey blowing up. And down in Baghdad, where the men who produce Iraq's oil production figures are beginning to look like the occupants of Plato's cave - drawing conclusions from shadows on their wall - the statistics are being cooked. Paul Bremer, the US proconsul who wears combat boots, is "sexing up" the figures to a point where even the oilmen are shaking their heads.
Take Kirkuk. Only when the television cameras capture a blown pipe, flames billowing, do the occupation powers report sabotage. This they did, for example, on 18 August. But the same Turkish pipeline has been hit before and since. It was blown on 17 September and four times the following day. US patrols and helicopters move along the pipeline but, in the huge ravines and tribal areas through which it passes, long sections are indefensible.
European oilmen in Baghdad realise now that Iraqi officials in the oil ministry - one of only two government institutions that the Americans defended from the looters - knew very well that the sabotage was going to occur. "They told me in June that there would be no oil exports from the north," one of them said to me this week. "They knew it was going to be sabotaged - and it had obviously been planned long before the invasion in March."
Early in their occupation, the Americans took the quiet - and unwise - decision to re-hire many Baathist oil technocrats, which means that a large proportion of ministry officials are still ambivalent towards the Americans. The only oil revenues the US can get are from the south. In the middle of August, Mr Bremer gave the impression that production stood at about 1.5 million barrels a day. But the real figure at that time was 780,000 barrels and rarely does production reach a million. In the words of an oil analyst visiting Iraq, this is "an inexcusable catastrophe".
When the US attacked Iraq in March, the country was producing 2.7 million barrels a day. It transpires that in the very first hours after they entered Baghdad on 9 April, American troops allowed looters into the oil ministry. By the time senior officers arrived to order them out, they had destroyed billions of dollars of irreplaceable seismic and drilling data.
While the major oil companies in the US stand to cream off billions of dollars if oil production resumes in earnest, many of their executives were demanding to know from the Bush administration - long before the war - how it intended to prevent sabotage. In fact, Saddam had no plans to destroy the oil fields themselves, plenty for blowing up the export pipes. The Pentagon got it the wrong way round, racing its troops to protect the fields but ignoring the vulnerable pipelines.
Anarchy is now so widespread in post-war Iraq that it is almost impossible for international investors to work there. There is no insurance for them - which is why Mr Bremer's occupation administrators have secretly decided that well over half the $20bn (£12bn) earmarked for Iraq will go towards security for its production infrastructure.
During the war, a detailed analysis by Yahya Sadowski, a professor at the American University of Beirut, suggested that repairing wells and pipes would cost $1bn, that raising oil production to 3.5 million barrels a day would take three years and cost another $8bn investment and another $20bn for repairs to the electrical grid which powers the pumps and refineries. Bringing production up to six million barrels a day would cost a further $30bn, some say up $100bn.
In other words - assuming only $8bn of the $20bn can be used on industry - the Bush overall budget of $87bn which now horrifies Congress is likely to rise towards a figure of $200bn. Ouch.
Since the 1920s, only about 2,300 wells have been drilled in Iraq and those are in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. Its deserts are almost totally unexplored. Officially, Iraq contains 12 per cent of the world's oil reserves - two-thirds of the world's reserves are in just four other countries, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait and the Emirates - but it could contain 20 per cent, even 25 per cent.
It's possible to argue that it was Saddam's decision to switch from the dollar to the euro in November 2000 that made "regime change" so important to the US. When Iran threatened to do the same, it was added to the "axis of evil". The defence of the dollar is almost as important as oil.
But the real irony lies in the nature of America's new power in Iraq. US oil deposits are increasingly depleted and by 2025, its oil imports will account for perhaps 70 per cent of total domestic demand. It needs to control the world's reserves - and don't tell me the US would have invaded Iraq if its chief export was beetroot - and it now has control of perhaps 25 per cent of world reserves.
But it can't make the oil flow. The cost of making it flow could produce an economic crisis in the US. And it is this - rather than the daily killing of young American soldiers - that lies behind the Bush administration's growing panic. Washington has got its hands on the biggest treasure chest in the world - but it can't open the lid. No wonder they are cooking the books in Baghdad.

Climate or population?

2009-12-21T21:02:00.001+07:00

Source: Bangkok Post

The "elephant in the corner of the room" at the Copenhagen conference - population growth - has escaped notice, as it always does.

Are we seriously to believe that up to 80% more people (and 50% more energy consumption) by the year 2050 can be accommodated without increasing emissions? What nonsense!

The point our leaders fail to address is that global warming is just a symptom of the underlying problem _ over-consumption of the planet's resources. And the underlying cause of that is, simply, too many people.

What chance is there for the remaining forests, the remaining wildlife, the quality of the oceans and the atmosphere, with 80% more people consuming food, water, cooking fuel, housing, furniture, tiger gall bladders and all the rest?

You may wonder why our world leaders persistently fail to address the blindingly obvious.

Here's why. Declining population means less GDP _ a taboo topic in the ''mine's bigger than yours'' mentality that drives all global meetings. Politicians and businessmen, supported by the media, continue to brainwash the general public into believing that GDP growth equates with greater happiness (really? just ask the villagers at Map Ta Phut).

Also, thanks to the four to five year cycle of democratic elections, important long-term decisions are sacrificed for short-term expediency. ''How do we win the next election? Stimulate the economy! What about the environment? Sorry, too difficult _ leave that one to the next lot." Short-term-ism at its worst. Am I cynical? You bet! Our leaders allocated $6.7 trillion of our taxes to bail out the banks last year. At Copenhagen they've allocated just $30 billion to save the planet - and that's spread over two years!

We don't know what form the eventual apocalypse will take - wars over water when the glaciers disappear, surges of starving refugees flooding across borders causing governments to topple in their wake, Greenland slipping into the sea and taking out our coastal cities, ''weather events'' of such ferocity and frequency that international trade becomes difficult or impossible, a genetically modified nightmare rearing out of a globally-warmed swamp and going on the rampage, maybe all at once. It sure ain't going to be pretty.

The twin gods of democracy and economic growth are hell-bent on destroying the planet, so let's get prepared, let's brush up our survival skills for when the crunch comes. And let's do our bit to try to prevent it. Stop having babies _ now.

NIGEL PIKE

Aggression and Violence

2009-12-16T19:09:00.001+07:00

Source: Future Positive

Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman

To understand the nature of aggression and violence on the battlefield, it must first be recognized that most participants in close combat are literally “frightened out of their wits.” Once the bullets start flying, most combatants stop thinking with the forebrain (that portion of the brain that makes us human) and start thinking with the midbrain (the primitive portion of our brain, which is indistinguishable from that of an animal).

In conflict situations, this primitive, midbrain processing can be observed in the existence of a powerful resistance to killing one’s own kind. Animals with antlers and horns slam together in a relatively harmless head-to-head fashion, and piranha fish fight their own kind with flicks of the tail, but against any other species these creatures unleash their horns and teeth without restraint. This is an essential survival mechanism that prevents a species from destroying itself during territorial and mating rituals.

One major modern revelation in the field of military psychology is the observation that such resistance to killing one’s own species is also a key factor in human combat. *Brig. Gen. S. L. A. Marshall first observed this during his work as an official U.S. Army historian in the Pacific and European theaters of operations in World War II. Based on his post-combat interviews, Marshall concluded in his book Men Against Fire (1946, 1978) that only 15 to 20 percent of the individual riflemen in World War II fired their own weapons at an exposed enemy soldier. Key weapons, such as *flame-throwers, were usually fired. Crew-served weapons, such as *machine guns, almost always were fired. And action would increase greatly if a nearby leader demanded that the soldier fire. But when left on their own, the great majority of individual combatants appear to have been unable or unwilling to kill.

Marshall’s findings were and have remained controversial. Faced with scholarly concern about a researcher’s methodology and conclusions, the scientific method involves replicating the research. In Marshall’s case, every available parallel, scholarly study validates his basic findings. One of these studies was Ardant du Picq’s survey of French officers in the Korean War when the rate of psychiatric casualties was almost seven times higher than the average for World War II. Only after the war settled down, lines stabilized, and the threat of having enemy in rear areas decreased did the average rate go down to that of World War II. Again, just the potential for close-up, inescapable, interpersonal confrontation is more effective and has greater impact on human behavior than the actual presence of inescapable, impersonal death and destruction.

Ardant du Picq’s surveys of French officers in the 1860s and his observations about ancient battles (Battle Studies, 1946), John Keegan and Richard Holmes’ numerous accounts of ineffectual firing throughout history (Soldiers, 1985), Holmes’ assessment of Argentine firing rates in the Falklands War (Acts of War, 1985), Paddy Griffith’s data on the extraordinarily low firing rate among Napoleonic and American *Civil War regiments (Battle Tactics of the American Civil War, 1989), the British army’s laser reenactments of historical battles, the FBI’s studies of nonfiring rates among law enforcement officers in the 1950s and 1960s, and countless other individual and anecdotal observations, all confirm Marshall’s fundamental conclusion that human beings are not, by nature, killers. Indeed, from a psychological perspective, the history of warfare can be viewed as a series of successively more effective tactical and mechanical mechanisms to enable or force combatants to overcome their resistance to killing other human beings, even when defined as the enemy.

By 1946, the US Army had accepted Marshall’s conclusions, and the Human Resources Research Office of the US Army subsequently pioneered a revolution in combat training, which eventually replaced firing at targets with deeply ingrained conditioning, using realistic, man-shaped pop-up targets that fall when hit. Psychologists assert that this kind of powerful operant conditioning is the only technique that will reliably influence the primitive, midbrain processing of a frightened human being. Fire drills condition schoolchildren to respond properly even when terrified during a fire. Conditioning in flight simulators enables pilots to respond reflexively to emergency situations even when frightened. And similar application and perfection of basic conditioning techniques increased the rate of fire to approximately 55 percent in Korea and around 95 percent in Vietnam.

Equally high rates of fire resulting from modern conditioning techniques can be seen in Holmes’ observation of British firing rates in the Falklands and FBI data on law enforcement firing rates since the nationwide introduction of modern conditioning techniques in the late 1960s.

The extraordinarily high firing rate resulting from these processes was a key factor in the American ability to claim that the United States never lost a major engagement in Vietnam. But conditioning that overrides such a powerful, innate resistance has enormous potential for psychological backlash. Every warrior society has a “purification ritual” to help the returning warrior deal with his “blood guilt” and to reassure him that what he did in combat was “good.” In primitive tribes, this generally involves ritual bathing, ritual separation (which serves as a cooling-off and “group therapy” session), and a ceremony embracing the veteran back into the tribe. Modern Western rituals traditionally involve long separation while marching or sailing home, parades, monuments, and unconditional acceptance from society and family.

In the *Vietnam War, this purification ritual was turned on its head. The returning American veteran was attacked and condemned in an unprecedented manner. The traditional horrors of combat were magnified by modern conditioning techniques, and this combined with societal condemnation to create a circumstance that resulted in 0.5 to 1.5 million cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Vietnam veterans. The mass incidence of psychiatric disorders among Vietnam veterans resulted in the “discovery” of PTSD, a condition that we now know traditionally occurred as a result of warfare, but never in such quantity.

PTSD seldom results in violent criminal acts, and upon returning to society, the recipient of modern military conditioning is statistically no more likely to engage in violent crime than a nonveteran of the same age. The key safeguard in this process appears to be the deeply ingrained discipline that the combat soldier internalizes with his military training. However, with the advent of interactive “point-and-shoot” arcade and video games, there is significant concern that society is aping military conditioning, but without the vital safeguard of discipline. There is strong evidence to indicate that the indiscriminate civilian application of combat conditioning techniques as entertainment may be a factor in worldwide, skyrocketing violent crime rates, including a sevenfold increase in per capita aggravated assaults in America since 1956. Thus, the latest chapter in American military history may be occurring in the city streets.

* Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression, 1963. John Keegan, The Face of Battle, 1976. Jim Goodwin, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders: A Handbook for Clinicians, 1988. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, 1995. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, 8th ed., 1996. Dave Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano, Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV Movie, and Video Game Violence, 1999.

Feeling the heat: Climate change and biodiversity loss

2009-12-14T21:26:00.000+07:00

Source: Nature

Many plant and animal species are unlikely to survive climate change. New analyses suggest that 15–37% of a sample of 1,103 land plants and animals would eventually become extinct as a result of climate changes expected by 2050. For some of these species there will no longer be anywhere suitable to live. Others will be unable to reach places where the climate is suitable. A rapid shift to technologies that do not produce greenhouse gases, combined with carbon sequestration, could save 15–20% of species from extinction. The cover shows a species in the firing line. Boyd's forest dragon, Hypsilurus boydii, is found in Queensland, Australia. About 90% of its distribution would become climatically unsuitable by 2050, on maximum climate warming scenarios.

Leaked climate draft sparks anger

2009-12-09T20:31:00.000+07:00

The climate change conference in Copenhagen is barely under way and already a leaked draft agreement is pitting developing nations against their wealthier counterparts.

If the documents are accurate, the proposal would see more power in the hands of rich nations, the UN's negotiating role sidelined and the Kyoto Protocol abandoned.

Developing nations are furious and say they will not sign on to an inequitable deal that they argue would limit their economic growth.

Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher explains.

The Crime of Genocide

2009-12-09T07:06:00.001+07:00

Source: USHMM.org

United Nations Archives and Records Management Section

“[T]he allies decided in Nuremberg a case against a past Hitler, but refused to envisage future Hitlers, or like situations … In brief, the Germans were punished only for crimes committed during or in connection with the war of aggression. Crimes against humanity were not an independent category of crimes in themselves. They were only considered crimes when their connection with other crimes could be established.”
Unpublished memoir of Raphael Lemkin

In 1945, there was no specific legal definition for the systematic destruction of a particular group of people. It was not until 1944 that there was even a word for such an act and in 1948 that this act was formally criminalized in international law.

In 1944, a Polish Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, including the destruction of European Jewry. He formed the wordgenocide by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. In proposing this new term, Lemkin had in mind “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” The next year, the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg charged top Nazis with “crimes against humanity.” The word genocide was included in the indictment, but was used as a descriptive, not legal, term.

On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust and in no small part due to the tireless efforts of Lemkin himself, the United Nations approved a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention established "genocide” as an international crime, which signatory nations “undertake to prevent and punish.” In the words of the landmark Genocide Convention:

[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

a. Killing members of the group;
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse

2009-12-04T22:25:00.001+07:00

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." - James Baldwin

Source: Dancing in the darkness

Rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse are sexual activities involving a person who does not or cannot consent.

Rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse are serious and devastating crimes. Sexual violence often causes emotional scars that can last for years, and fears that, if not addressed, can last for a life time. For many survivors rape and sexual abuse are a defining moment that divides their life, life before the abuse and life after.
The aftermath of any kind of sexual abuse is a challenging and difficult journey. The violence does not end with the rape, the sexual abuse, the assault, the insults and the humiliation. Sexual violence keeps repeating itself in a time that seems endless. It can be hard to understand how much pain remains after a rape, mostly because the trauma imprisons you from the inside and it's often misunderstood. Rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse survivors are left feeling vulnerable, angry, betrayed, frightened, violated, dirty, embarrassed and powerless.
Yet, there is the tendency to think that sexual violence needs to be hidden, particularly when it take place within familiar doors. A large percent of survivors are haunted by feelings of guilt, self-blame and shame, mostly due to the fact that in our society the common response to rape and sexual abuse is still embarrassment. Sadly, despite their epidemic proportions, rape, sexual assault andsexual abuse are still considered unspeakable crimes, something people prefer not to acknowledge. This unspoken statement suggests that rape and sexual abuse survivors should not speak about their experiences and spare others from an unpleasant issue, which as a result contributes enormously in increasing their isolation and pain. People who are mugged and robbed don't feel ashamed and no one treats them differently, but when the crime is linked to sexual violence suddenly everything changes.

We have to ask ourselves what it is that makes people want to look away.
The possible consequences of a sexual assault are uncountable. Each person reacts in a unique way, sexual abuse survivors might experience some, none, or even all of the following:

Anger
Depression
Drug Addiction
Eating Disorders
Fear of Intimacy
Flashbacks
Inability to Sleep
Nightmares
P.T.S.D.
Rape trauma Syndrome
Shame
Suicidal Thoughts
Self Injury
And many others..

The denial of chronic feelings, such as depression or frustration, it's very dangerous and can leave survivors in a perpetual state of needing to live a lie. As a result, often survivors feel cut off from the world and negatively affected in the way they interact with others. If survivors are too afraid or ashamed to face their true feelings and keep maintaining a false image, they will not be able to deal with their grief.

Seeking professional help can be one of the hardest things to do. Survivors may be scared that counseling will open a can of worms they don't want to see unopened, however, pain is a sign that something needs attention; counseling is a gift survivors can give to themselves - an expression of self caring. Being haunted by the past has a serious impact on a person’s emotional and physical well being. Therapy can help survivors of rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse to understand, accept and overcome.

Please remember that asking for help is a sign of maturity and strength and not of weakness. It takes a lot of courage.

War, torture and rape

2009-12-01T01:14:00.002+07:00

Source: UNICEF

Many children suffer appalling violence as soldiers, but even those who remain 'civilians' can be subjected to horrific experiences. Anything that can be done to adults, however monstrous, can also be visited on children. Children have been tortured as part of collective punishments for whole communities, or as a means of extracting information about peers or parents. They have also been tortured as a way of punishing their parents, or in some cases simply for entertainment. Once immersed in this savage environment, differences of age soon seem irrelevant.

This also means that children are as likely as adults to be captured and imprisoned. The treatment of child prisoners is a matter of increasing concern—particularly in Rwanda where, for the first time in history, children have been imprisoned and are facing trial for genocide.

In these violent circumstances, women and girls in particular suffer the added trauma of sexual abuse and rape, which psychologists identify as the most intrusive of traumatic events. Without help, girls will carry the long-term effects of such abuse into their adult lives.

Sexual violence is particularly common in ethnic conflicts. In fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, it has been deliberate policy to rape teenage girls and force them to bear 'the enemy's' child. A European Community fact-finding team estimated that more than 20,000 Muslim women have been raped in Bosnia since fighting broke out in April 1992.

In Rwanda, rape has been systematically used as a weapon of ethnic cleansing to destroy community ties. In some raids, virtually every adolescent girl who survived an attack by the militia was subsequently raped. Many of those who became pregnant were then ostracized by their families and community; some abandoned their babies, others committed suicide. In the Renamo camps in Mozambique, young boys, who themselves had been traumatized by violence, frequently inflicted sexual violence on young girls—threatening to kill or starve them if they resisted.

Even women and girls who are not physically forced to have sex may still be obliged to trade sexual favours for food, shelter or physical protection for themselves or their children.

The rise of sexually transmitted diseases, and particularly of HIV/ AIDS, is therefore inevitable. One factor contributing to the high rate of AIDS in Uganda could be that some women had to trade sex for security during the country's civil war. As a result, the next generation is at an even greater disadvantage, as more children are born with AIDS or are orphaned.

Air Pollution

2009-11-28T21:02:00.000+07:00

From sidoney000

This video provides many pictures of the effects of air pollution.

Child Labour

2009-11-25T22:34:00.001+07:00

Child Labour

An estimated 158 million children aged 5-14 are engaged in child labour - one in six children in the world. Millions of children are engaged in hazardous situations or conditions, such as working in mines, working with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or working with dangerous machinery. They are everywhere but invisible, toiling as domestic servants in homes, labouring behind the walls of workshops, hidden from view in plantations.

In Sub-Saharan Africa around one in three children are engaged in child labour, representing 69 million children.
In South Asia, another 44 million are engaged in child labour.
The latest national estimates for this indicator are reported in Table 9 (Child Protection) of UNICEF's annual publication The State of the World's Children.

Children living in the poorest households and in rural areas are most likely to be engaged in child labour. Those burdened with household chores are overwhelmingly girls. Millions of girls who work as domestic servants are especially vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

Labour often interferes with children’s education. Ensuring that all children go to school and that their education is of good quality are keys to preventing child labour.

Definitions of Child labor

UNICEF defines child labour as work that exceeds a minimum number of hours, depending on the age of a child and on the type of work. Such work is considered harmful to the child and should therefore be eliminated.

Ages 5-11: At least one hour of economic work or 28 hours of domestic
work per week.
Ages 12-14: At least 14 hours of economic work or 28 hours of domestic
work per week.
Ages 15-17: At least 43 hours of economic or domestic work per week.

War and Hunger...

2009-11-23T02:55:00.003+07:00

By Social Geographic from Flickr.com

"At a time when $700 billion can be found overnight to bail out the richest bankers in the world and $1000 billion can be spent on one single “war,” when sovereign wealth funds in a few rich countries alone are at $2500 billion and growing, it stretches credulity when we are told that the world can’t find an extra $18 billion a year to save the lives of millions of children and women and meet the basic needs of the majority of the world’s population."
---- Global Director, U.N. Millennium Campaign, Salil Shettywww.hindu.com/2008/10/08/stories/2008100855121100.htm

Another 40 million people have been pushed into hunger in 2008 primarily due to higher food prices, according to preliminary estimates published by FAO. This brings the overall number of undernourished people in the world to 963 million, compared to 923 million in 2007 and the ongoing financial and economic crisis could tip even more people into hunger and poverty, FAO warned.

Nearly one billion people go hungry each day, 65 percent of them in just seven countries: India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Ethiopia and Congo, reported the UN food agency (www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/8836/ ). “For millions of people in developing countries, eating the minimum amount of food every day to live an active and healthy life is a distant dream”, said FAO’ Assistant Director-General Hafez Ghanem.

The globalisation had to ensure the maximum good for the maximum numbers around the world and not just the privileged few who got richer under the corrupt political regime. It is true that every successful economy is a market economy, the problem lay in the way it evolved in the corrupt regime which privatised profits and socialised losses. That is not capitalism. The current crisis showed that system was inadequate to cope with the changing situation. The societies needed to practise social responsibility throughout their business, ensuring that they did not make profits by harming lives, livelihoods and the environment.

Eight years ago, in 2000, leaders of 189 countries signed the Millennium Declaration agreeing to do everything in their power to end poverty. They pledged to do this by achieving the Millennium Development Goals, a roadmap to end extreme poverty by 2015. Are we even half way to meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals?

Still, every day, 50,000 people die as a result of extreme poverty and the gap between rich and poor people is increasing. Nearly half the world’s population live in poverty, 70% are women.

We have the power to change this. Push your governments for peace, more and better aid, debt cancellation, education for all boys and girls, healthcare, trade justice, gender equality and public accountability.

Say No To Unfair Social System!
Say No To Corrupt Political Regime!
Say No To Unfair World Order!!!
Say No To Unfair Trade!!!!

Fight for peace!
Fight against hunger!!
We can make 'War, Terrorism and Hunger History' in our lifetime!!!

www.flickr.com/people/standagainstpoverty/
www.standagainstpoverty.org/
www.endpoverty2015.org/
www.whiteband.org/
www.unglobalcompact.org/

pollution at harbour

2009-11-19T15:21:00.001+07:00

pollution_at_harbour
Originally uploaded by Mandar Sengupta

This was taken during a zoological excursion to study the marine ecosystem at Vizaag and there in the harbour I came across this scenario where few boys are bathing carelessly in the murky waters and the water was polluted beyond imagination.

We have to make these people aware and let them know the minimum standards of life, we have a duty to make them aware about what they think normal in their daily life is far below the standards.

These boys taught about the consequences of water pollution can stop this.God give me the powers to do something for them.

view full size and imagine yourself in there
This photograph is selected for Kenneth Kole's Awearness Blog.
awearnessblog.com/mandar_sengupta/2008/04/

Bagged GOLD at AUOP see www.auop.de/sea_and_sun.html

Gaza: The Killing Zone

2009-11-15T18:18:00.003+07:00

Uploaded by Journeyman Pictures

May 2003
life in Gaza is a constant gauntlet of Israeli sniper fire, military rockets and army bulldozers. No one is safe. In light of the escalating tensions, we're bringing back one our most moving documentaries, a hard-hitting expose of life in the Occupied territories. We speak to the children caught in the crossfire and find out the true cost of Israel's targeted assassinations policy.

Tian'anmen Square massacre

2009-11-13T21:25:00.002+07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article containsChinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofChinese characters.

Tiananmen Square protests of 1989

Tank Man — This famous photo, taken on 5 June 1989 by photographer Jeff Widener, shows thePLA's advancing tanks halting for an unknown man near Tiananmen Square.

Chinese

六四事件

Literal meaning

June Fourth Incident

[show]Transliterations

alternative Chinese name

Traditional Chinese

天安門事件

Simplified Chinese

天安门事件

Literal meaning

Tiananmen Incident

[show]Transliterations

The Tian'anmen Square protests of 1989, referred to in most of the world as the Tian'anmen Square massacre and in the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the June Fourth Incident (officially to avoid confusion with two prior Tiananmen Square protests), were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the PRC beginning on 14 April. Led mainly by students and intellectuals, the protests occurred in a year that saw the collapse of a number of communist governments around the world.

The protests were sparked by the death of a pro-democracy and anti-corruption official, Hu Yaobang, whom protesters wanted to mourn. By the eve of Hu's funeral, 1,000,000 people had gathered at Tiananmen square. The protests lacked a unified cause or leadership; participants included disillusioned Chinese Communist Party members and Trotskyists as well as free market reformers, who were generally against the government's authoritarianism and voiced calls for economic change and democratic reform within the structure of the government. The demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square, in Beijing, but large-scale protests also occurred in cities throughout China, including Shanghai, which remained peaceful throughout the protests.

The movement lasted seven weeks, from Hu's death on 15 April until tanks cleared Tiananmen Square on 4 June. In Beijing, the resulting military response to the protesters by the PRC government left many civilians dead or severely injured. The number of deaths is not known and many different estimates exist. Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times estimated the death toll at 400-800 based on information he gathered from multiple medical sources.

Following the conflict, the government conducted widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, cracked down on other protests around China, banned the foreign press from the country and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the PRC press. Members of the Party who had publicly sympathized with the protesters were purged, with several high-ranking members placed under house arrest, such as General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. There was widespread international condemnation of the PRC government's use of force against the protesters.

The Killing Fields - Cambodia

2009-11-11T16:20:00.004+07:00

The Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Vietnam War.

At least 200,000 people were executed by the Khmer Rouge (while estimates of the total number of deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including disease and starvation, range from 1.4 to 2.2 million out of a population of around 7 million). In 1979, Vietnam invaded and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime, which was officially called Democratic Kampuchea.

Killing Fields Memorial