:::Perkara yang disebutkan di dalam Al-Quran:::
by Islam Itu Agamaku on Tuesday, 19 October 2010 at 14:27
Subhanallah!
Ajaib tetapi benar!
Lihatlah sebahagian daripada hasil kajian seorang cendekiawan Islam terhadap kandungan Al-Quran.
Didapati banyak perkara telah disentuh dan telah dibuat kajian oleh manusia seperti nombor, astronomi, angkasalepas, perubatan, geologi, kejuruteraan, minda dan sebagainya.
Bilangan tentang perkara yang disebutkan di dalam Al-Quran:
DUNIA - 115 kali
AKHIRAT - 115 kali
MALAIKAT - 88 kali
SYAITAN - 88 kali
HIDUP - 145 kali
MATI - 145 kali
FAEDAH - 50 kali
KERUGIAN - 50 kali
UMMAH - 50 kali
PENYAMPAI - 50 kali
IBLIS : PENGHULU SYAITAN - 11 kali
MOHON PERLINDUNGAN DARIPADA IBLIS - 11 kali
BALA/MUSIBAH - 75 kali
BERSYUKUR - 75 kali
BERSEDEKAH - 73 kali
BERPUAS HATI - 73 kali
ORANG YANG SESAT - 17 kali
ORANG YANG MENINGGAL DUNIA - 17 kali
MUSLIMIN - 41 kali
JIHAD - 41 kali
EMAS - 8 kali
KEMURAHAN HIDUP - 8 kali
KEAJAIBAN - 60 kali
FITNAH - 60 kali
ZAKAT - 32 kali
BERKAT - 32 kali
MINDA - 49 kali
NUR - 49 kali
LIDAH - 25 kali
SUMPAH - 25 kali
NAFSU - 8 kali
KETAKUTAN - 8 kali
BERCAKAP DI KHALAYAK RAMAI - 18 kali
BERDAKWAH - 18 kali
KESUSAHAN - 114 kali
KESABARAN - 114 kali
MUHAMMAD - 4 kali
SYARIAT - 4 kali
LELAKI - 24 kali
PEREMPUAN - 24 kali
SOLAT (SEMBAHYANG) - 5 kali
BULAN - 12 kali
HARI - 365 kali
LAUTAN - 32 kali
DARATAN - 13 kali
LAUT dan DARAT = 32 + 13 = 45
Justeru itu, peratusan laut = 32/45 x 100 = 71.11111111 peratus
Peratusan daratan = 13/45 x 100 = 28.88888889 peratus
JUMLAH = 100 peratus
Kajian sains oleh manusia telah membuktikan bahawa air meliputi 71.111 peratus daripada bumi dan tanah meliputi 28.889 peratus.
Begitulah kebesaran dan keagungan ciptaan Allah SWT!!
Nota: Diterjemahkan daripada karya asal yang dipetik daripada “The Series Of The Scientific Miracles In Quraan,” oleh Dr. Tariq Al Suwaidan.Sekian, semoga bertambah keyakinan dan keimanan anda kepada Allah dengan pendedahan ini
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Woman allegedly mocked during airport strip search
Woman allegedly mocked during airport strip search
By Sheena Goodyear, QMI Agency
Shileen Flynn, 29, had already missed one flight and lost her luggage when she says she found herself in a room at the Vancouver airport, naked and squatting, while two crude border agents strip-searched her.
It was December, 2009, days after a suspected al-Qaida member tried to ignite an explosive device aboard a Detroit-bound flight. Flynn had just returned home to Vancouver from a trip to Seattle, and was on her way to Palma de Mallorca, Spain, to start a new job as a public relations officer.
She was a day behind schedule, having missed her flight from the U.S. the night before, and had to catch the next plane to Germany so she could then catch a flight to Spain and start work the next morning. Somewhere along the way, the airline lost her luggage.
She was talking to her mom on a pay phone when a Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officer approached her.
“All of a sudden, the guy comes over to me and says, 'Can I talk to you?' I said, 'Of course, why not?'” said Flynn.
She said he asked her where she was travelling and why she was using a pay phone. He told her to take off her sunglasses so he could see her eyes. She slipped them off, looked at the officer, and then pushed them back down.
His tone became aggressive, she said.
“He said, 'No take your sunglasses off!'” said Flynn.
As he searched her carry-on bag and asked more questions, a bystander offered her a card for a lawyer, but the officer sent him away, Flynn alleges.
More officers arrived with a police dog who walked up to Flynn, sniffed her, walked away, came back over to her again, hesitated a moment, then left.
Then they brought her to a room with two female CBSA officers for a strip search.
Flynn — a frequent traveller who has been strip-searched twice before — said this time was different. She said the women made her bend over a table, open her legs, and squat and cough. They asked her personal questions, like when she last had sex, Flynn said.
She fought back tears throughout the ordeal.
“I thought, if I start crying, they're gonna think I'm guilty,” she said.
“As soon as they finished the strip search, I started bawling.”
One guard told her if she didn't stop crying, she'd be detained, Flynn said. When she explained why she was crying, Flynn said a guard piped up: “How do you think I feel? I just had lunch. You make me feel sick.”
“It's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me in my life,” said Flynn, who cried the whole way to Frankfurt. “It was totally demeaning and degrading. ... I've done nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing wrong.”
As soon as she got to Spain, she called her father, Charlie Flynn, who reported what happened to CBSA.
CBSA launched an internal investigation, interviewing Shileen and the officers involved.
After months of back and forth, Charlie received a letter from CBSA that read: “We have fully investigated the incident and concluded that the BSOs involved in examination of your daughter followed established guidelines and conducted themselves in a professional manner.”
“They keep saying that I'm lying,” said Shileen.
With no mention of the alleged verbal harassment by the border service officers, the letter explained that a strip search can be conducted if an officer “has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has secreted contraband on or about their body,” as long as a senior officer approves the search, and the suspect is informed of their rights.
“It was sickening to watch and see what they were doing. They then went into full cover-up in the investigation and simply lied when convenient to cover up any wrongdoing,” Charlie told QMI Agency.
On May 18, the CBSA told Charlie there would be a new investigation and that someone would call to answer his questions about their detaining polices. As of Monday morning, he hasn't heard back from anyone.
Mark Holland, federal Liberal critic for public safety and national security, has been helping the Flynns with their case.
While he declined to comment specifically on what happened to Shileen Flynn, he said the case highlights the need for greater transparency and independence in CBSA's complaints process.
“It's like a black hole that people fall through all the time,” Holland told QMI Agency.
CBSA employees investigate complaints, and report to the agency's president, said Holland.
Holland said the government should overhaul the complaints system and appoint an independent officer to investigate cases like Flynn's.
The results of those investigations should be made public, and the officer should be given power to implement mandatory policy changes, he said.
Currently, the CBSA's admissibility branch, which operates independently from the rest of the agency, handles complaints.
If a person isn't satisfied with the branch's conclusions, they can appeal the decision to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal.
QMI Agency placed multiple calls and e-mails to CBSA Friday and Monday seeking information about their complaints process and comment regarding Flynn's allegations, but as of Monday afternoon, has not heard back.
Charlie, meanwhile, is considering pursuing criminal charges or perhaps filing a lawsuit.
Shileen just wants to protect others from experiencing what she experienced.
“All I want from this is that it never happens to anyone else,” she said.
By Sheena Goodyear, QMI Agency
Shileen Flynn, 29, had already missed one flight and lost her luggage when she says she found herself in a room at the Vancouver airport, naked and squatting, while two crude border agents strip-searched her.
It was December, 2009, days after a suspected al-Qaida member tried to ignite an explosive device aboard a Detroit-bound flight. Flynn had just returned home to Vancouver from a trip to Seattle, and was on her way to Palma de Mallorca, Spain, to start a new job as a public relations officer.
She was a day behind schedule, having missed her flight from the U.S. the night before, and had to catch the next plane to Germany so she could then catch a flight to Spain and start work the next morning. Somewhere along the way, the airline lost her luggage.
She was talking to her mom on a pay phone when a Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officer approached her.
“All of a sudden, the guy comes over to me and says, 'Can I talk to you?' I said, 'Of course, why not?'” said Flynn.
She said he asked her where she was travelling and why she was using a pay phone. He told her to take off her sunglasses so he could see her eyes. She slipped them off, looked at the officer, and then pushed them back down.
His tone became aggressive, she said.
“He said, 'No take your sunglasses off!'” said Flynn.
As he searched her carry-on bag and asked more questions, a bystander offered her a card for a lawyer, but the officer sent him away, Flynn alleges.
More officers arrived with a police dog who walked up to Flynn, sniffed her, walked away, came back over to her again, hesitated a moment, then left.
Then they brought her to a room with two female CBSA officers for a strip search.
Flynn — a frequent traveller who has been strip-searched twice before — said this time was different. She said the women made her bend over a table, open her legs, and squat and cough. They asked her personal questions, like when she last had sex, Flynn said.
She fought back tears throughout the ordeal.
“I thought, if I start crying, they're gonna think I'm guilty,” she said.
“As soon as they finished the strip search, I started bawling.”
One guard told her if she didn't stop crying, she'd be detained, Flynn said. When she explained why she was crying, Flynn said a guard piped up: “How do you think I feel? I just had lunch. You make me feel sick.”
“It's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me in my life,” said Flynn, who cried the whole way to Frankfurt. “It was totally demeaning and degrading. ... I've done nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing wrong.”
As soon as she got to Spain, she called her father, Charlie Flynn, who reported what happened to CBSA.
CBSA launched an internal investigation, interviewing Shileen and the officers involved.
After months of back and forth, Charlie received a letter from CBSA that read: “We have fully investigated the incident and concluded that the BSOs involved in examination of your daughter followed established guidelines and conducted themselves in a professional manner.”
“They keep saying that I'm lying,” said Shileen.
With no mention of the alleged verbal harassment by the border service officers, the letter explained that a strip search can be conducted if an officer “has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has secreted contraband on or about their body,” as long as a senior officer approves the search, and the suspect is informed of their rights.
“It was sickening to watch and see what they were doing. They then went into full cover-up in the investigation and simply lied when convenient to cover up any wrongdoing,” Charlie told QMI Agency.
On May 18, the CBSA told Charlie there would be a new investigation and that someone would call to answer his questions about their detaining polices. As of Monday morning, he hasn't heard back from anyone.
Mark Holland, federal Liberal critic for public safety and national security, has been helping the Flynns with their case.
While he declined to comment specifically on what happened to Shileen Flynn, he said the case highlights the need for greater transparency and independence in CBSA's complaints process.
“It's like a black hole that people fall through all the time,” Holland told QMI Agency.
CBSA employees investigate complaints, and report to the agency's president, said Holland.
Holland said the government should overhaul the complaints system and appoint an independent officer to investigate cases like Flynn's.
The results of those investigations should be made public, and the officer should be given power to implement mandatory policy changes, he said.
Currently, the CBSA's admissibility branch, which operates independently from the rest of the agency, handles complaints.
If a person isn't satisfied with the branch's conclusions, they can appeal the decision to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal.
QMI Agency placed multiple calls and e-mails to CBSA Friday and Monday seeking information about their complaints process and comment regarding Flynn's allegations, but as of Monday afternoon, has not heard back.
Charlie, meanwhile, is considering pursuing criminal charges or perhaps filing a lawsuit.
Shileen just wants to protect others from experiencing what she experienced.
“All I want from this is that it never happens to anyone else,” she said.
IN THE LAND OF THE FREE
In The Land Of The Free
COINTELPRO and the Omaha Two
By Angola 3 News
July 21, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- In 2007, veteran journalist Michael Richardson began writing a series of articles for OpEdNews.com about Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, who are two Black Panther political prisoners known as the Omaha Two. Richardson argues that they were framed for the 1970 murder of a policeman as part of the FBI’s notorious counterintelligence program, dubbed “COINTELPRO.” This top-secret and illegal operation was a dirty war on the entire US Left, including the civil rights & Black liberation movements.
Illustrating this program’s intent, a March 3, 1968 COINTELPRO memo discussed the need to stop "the beginning of a true black revolution," and to "prevent the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement… Through counterintelligence it should be possible to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them." Another stated goal was "to prevent the long-range growth of militant black nationalist organizations, especially among youth. Specific tactics to prevent these groups from converting young people must be developed." One specific tactical approach was expressed in an April 3, 1968 communiqué arguing that "The Negro youth and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries."
In terms of scale, the FBI's war of repression against the Black liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s was greatest against the Black Panthers. Many Panthers, like Chicago leader Fred Hampton, were assassinated outright, while others were framed for murders they did not commit. A few of these Panthers, like Geronimo Ji Jaga and Dhoruba Bin Wahad, had their convictions overturned and were released, but many of the COINTELPRO survivors remain in prison today.
In addressing why the Panthers were targeted so intensely by COINTELPRO, Noam Chomsky wrote in 1973: "A top secret Special Report for the president in June 1970 gives some insight into the motivations for the actions undertaken by the government to destroy the Black Panther Party. The report describes the party as 'the most active and dangerous black extremist group in the United States.' Its 'hard core members' were estimated at 800, but 'a recent poll indicates that approximately 25 percent of the black population has a great respect for the BPP, including 43 percent of blacks under 21 years of age.' On the basis of such estimates of the potential of the party, the repressive apparatus of the state proceeded against it to ensure that it did not succeed in organizing as a substantial social or political force."
Michael Richardson is now working on a book about the Omaha Two and an archive of his definitive OpEdNews.com series about the case is available here. This year, he began a new series of articles at Examiner.com, exploring the broader history of COINTELPRO, along with a continued focus on the Omaha Two, viewable here.
Angola 3 News: Please tell us about who the Omaha Two are.
Michael Richardson: Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice) were two leaders of the Black Panther affiliate chapter in Omaha, Nebraska and targets of the Federal Bureau of Investigation under Operation COINTELPRO. Both men are serving life sentences at the Nebraska State Penitentiary for the 1970 bombing murder of an Omaha policeman and have been imprisoned forty years. The former Panther leaders have come to be known as the Omaha Two.
A3N: As a journalist at the time, how did you first react to news of their arrests?
MR: I didn’t know Poindexter, but Mondo, then called David, was a friend of mine I met at Omaha City Council meetings. I knew Mondo was the sharpest critic of Omaha police around and that he was constantly being harassed, so I wasn’t surprised he became a prime suspect. I didn’t think he did it though and I followed the case in the news and attended part of his trial the next year. I never got to speak to Mondo after his arrest and I moved from Nebraska within a year of his trial.
My first published article was a report on the trial that appeared in the Omaha Star, but it only reported the surface story as the true facts of the case remained hidden.
Over the years I have wondered if Mondo was guilty, as there seemed to be so much evidence of his involvement. Finally, after over 35 years of doubt I began corresponding with Mondo and started research on the case. I reviewed portions of the voluminous court file, interviewed people familiar with the case including the two current attorneys, read old newspaper accounts, studied formerly secret COINTELPRO files, and visited with both men at the prison where they are held.
I am now convinced Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa did not get a fair trial and were framed by overzealous police and prosecutors who ended up letting the real killers get away to put the Panther leaders in jail.
A3N: Can you briefly explain the charges against the Omaha Two, and what evidence was used to convict them?
MR: On August 17, 1970, an anonymous 911 caller reported a woman screaming at a vacant house. Police arrived to an ambush instead, in which 29 year-old Officer Larry Minard was killed. A recording of the killer’s voice was sent to the FBI crime laboratory for analysis but before Minard was even buried, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had ordered the crime lab to withhold a report on the tape.
A 15 year-old, Duane Peak, was soon charged with the murder and after six different versions of the crime, he implicated Ed and Mondo in exchange for his own freedom.
Dynamite was allegedly found in Mondo’s basement only to have two different detectives both claim they were each the one that found the explosives.
The 911 tape was withheld from the jury. The conflicting police dynamite testimony was also unknown to the jury, as was the deal that allowed Peak his freedom. The jury was never informed that the defendants were COINTELPRO targets.
After five days of deliberation, the jury convicted Ed and Mondo of murder but spared their lives from the electric chair. The two men have been in prison ever since.
A3N: Can you please explain what COINTELPRO was? How do the Omaha 2 fit into the story of COINTELPRO?
MR: Operation COINTELRO was a vast, illegal campaign by the FBI in the 60’s and 70’s to “disrupt” domestic political activity that J. Edgar Hoover deemed dangerous. The clandestine program was national in scope, targeted thousands of individuals and groups and broke a number of laws dwarfing Watergate in magnitude.
The Black Panthers were the primary target of Hoover’s law enforcement conspiracy. Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa had been COINTELPRO targets for at least a year prior to their arrests. Hoover had sent several memos to the Omaha FBI office complaining about a lack of results and urged the Omaha agents to be “imaginative” with counterintelligence actions.
Poindexter had been the subject of a secret FBI smear campaign with forged letters and anonymous phone calls while Mondo was targeted for an ambush while distributing Black Panther newspapers. It was the death of Minard, however, that gave the FBI an opportunity to put the Omaha Two behind bars.
At the time of the trial, the jury had no idea that COINTELPRO manipulation of evidence had occurred. The secret program was officially disbanded a week after the trial ended making Ed and Mondo the last COINTELPRO victims.
The COINTELPRO withholding of evidence did not surface until years later following Freedom of Information requests for COINTELPRO documents.
A3N: Have all the COINTELPRO documents been released?
MR: No. Key documents identifying informants and providing evidentiary details have been destroyed, withheld, or remain heavily redacted.
In the mid 70’s when the Church Committee of the U.S. Senate investigated COINTELPRO, much of the Omaha case remained hidden and so the full story of the FBI duplicity in Omaha remains unknown and will likely never be fully disclosed.
Five different members of the Omaha Police Department ended up making perjured or false statements about the case in court proceedings, to the media, and in congressional testimony.
No official or agent of the FBI ever was publicly disciplined for the COINTELPRO misconduct in the Omaha case.
A3N: What are the Omaha Two doing today to challenge the convictions and imprisonment?
MR: Both Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa have habeas corpus petitions pending in the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and petitions for hearings pending in the U.S. District Court of Nebraska.
Both appeals address the conflicting police testimony on dynamite and new scientific testing of the 911 tape that establishes Duane Peak did not make the deadly phone call as he had claimed.
Poindexter asked the Nebraska courts for review and in 2008 was told by the Douglas County District Court that it didn’t matter where the dynamite was found or who found it. Last year the Nebraska Supreme Court told Ed that it didn’t matter who made the 911 call.
A3N: How has the mainstream media done with reporting on the Omaha Two?
MR: Poorly. The national media has largely ignored the case and the regional media has failed to explore the COINTELPRO aspect of the prosecution. Almost all Nebraska media accounts of the Omaha Two contain factual errors of some sort and glaring omissions of relevant facts. Anyone relying on the mainstream media about this COINTELPRO case is sadly both misinformed and under-informed.
Racism and the stigma against the Black Panthers is partially to blame, while COINTELPRO media manipulation was another factor in early reporting on the case. Why the media continues to ignore this important case today is a mystery to me.
A3N: What upcoming articles are you working on?
MR: Now that internet newspaper Examiner.com has named me the COINTELPRO Examiner, the opportunity to report on the Omaha Two is part of my beat. I intend on revisiting, in serial form, the long convoluted history of the case as well as report on current developments.
My research on the FBI and COINTELPRO has led me to understand that Ed and Mondo are not alone and that each COINTELPRO conviction needs a fresh new look. COINTELPRO was the largest, most systematic attack on our legal system in U.S. history. It is our responsibility today to carefully review the cases of remaining COINTELPRO targets because of the strong possibility of tampering with evidence.
A3N: Having written about the Angola 3, why do you think their case is important?
MR: Any case coming out of the 1970’s involving the Black Panthers is important because of the COINTELPRO abuses. The Angola 3 case is somewhat different than others since its genesis is inside a Louisiana prison. It may have not been technically a J.-Edgar-Hoover-authorized COINTELPRO prosecution but some of the trial tactics, including deals with informers, are the same.
The severity of the punishment, decades in solitary confinement, calls out for review and is itself an injustice.
A3N: Any closing thoughts?
MR: Larry Minard, the father of five young children, was buried on what would have been his 30th birthday. He was a police officer responding to the call of a woman screaming. Larry Minard’s killers walk free today.
The named supplier of the dynamite, a suspected police informant, was never charged with the crime and only spent one night in jail.
The anonymous 911 caller was not properly identified and has never been charged in the case.
Duane Peak, the confessed bomber, was released after less then 3 years in juvenile detention.
J. Edgar Hoover let the killer of Larry Minard, the 911 caller, go free to make a case against the Omaha Two.
Justice has not been done in Nebraska.
--Angola 3 News is a new project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Our website is www.angola3news.com where we provide the latest news about the Angola 3. We are also creating our own media projects, which spotlight the issues central to the story of the Angola 3, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, and more.
Buzz ItShare
COINTELPRO and the Omaha Two
By Angola 3 News
July 21, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- In 2007, veteran journalist Michael Richardson began writing a series of articles for OpEdNews.com about Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, who are two Black Panther political prisoners known as the Omaha Two. Richardson argues that they were framed for the 1970 murder of a policeman as part of the FBI’s notorious counterintelligence program, dubbed “COINTELPRO.” This top-secret and illegal operation was a dirty war on the entire US Left, including the civil rights & Black liberation movements.
Illustrating this program’s intent, a March 3, 1968 COINTELPRO memo discussed the need to stop "the beginning of a true black revolution," and to "prevent the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement… Through counterintelligence it should be possible to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them." Another stated goal was "to prevent the long-range growth of militant black nationalist organizations, especially among youth. Specific tactics to prevent these groups from converting young people must be developed." One specific tactical approach was expressed in an April 3, 1968 communiqué arguing that "The Negro youth and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries."
In terms of scale, the FBI's war of repression against the Black liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s was greatest against the Black Panthers. Many Panthers, like Chicago leader Fred Hampton, were assassinated outright, while others were framed for murders they did not commit. A few of these Panthers, like Geronimo Ji Jaga and Dhoruba Bin Wahad, had their convictions overturned and were released, but many of the COINTELPRO survivors remain in prison today.
In addressing why the Panthers were targeted so intensely by COINTELPRO, Noam Chomsky wrote in 1973: "A top secret Special Report for the president in June 1970 gives some insight into the motivations for the actions undertaken by the government to destroy the Black Panther Party. The report describes the party as 'the most active and dangerous black extremist group in the United States.' Its 'hard core members' were estimated at 800, but 'a recent poll indicates that approximately 25 percent of the black population has a great respect for the BPP, including 43 percent of blacks under 21 years of age.' On the basis of such estimates of the potential of the party, the repressive apparatus of the state proceeded against it to ensure that it did not succeed in organizing as a substantial social or political force."
Michael Richardson is now working on a book about the Omaha Two and an archive of his definitive OpEdNews.com series about the case is available here. This year, he began a new series of articles at Examiner.com, exploring the broader history of COINTELPRO, along with a continued focus on the Omaha Two, viewable here.
Angola 3 News: Please tell us about who the Omaha Two are.
Michael Richardson: Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice) were two leaders of the Black Panther affiliate chapter in Omaha, Nebraska and targets of the Federal Bureau of Investigation under Operation COINTELPRO. Both men are serving life sentences at the Nebraska State Penitentiary for the 1970 bombing murder of an Omaha policeman and have been imprisoned forty years. The former Panther leaders have come to be known as the Omaha Two.
A3N: As a journalist at the time, how did you first react to news of their arrests?
MR: I didn’t know Poindexter, but Mondo, then called David, was a friend of mine I met at Omaha City Council meetings. I knew Mondo was the sharpest critic of Omaha police around and that he was constantly being harassed, so I wasn’t surprised he became a prime suspect. I didn’t think he did it though and I followed the case in the news and attended part of his trial the next year. I never got to speak to Mondo after his arrest and I moved from Nebraska within a year of his trial.
My first published article was a report on the trial that appeared in the Omaha Star, but it only reported the surface story as the true facts of the case remained hidden.
Over the years I have wondered if Mondo was guilty, as there seemed to be so much evidence of his involvement. Finally, after over 35 years of doubt I began corresponding with Mondo and started research on the case. I reviewed portions of the voluminous court file, interviewed people familiar with the case including the two current attorneys, read old newspaper accounts, studied formerly secret COINTELPRO files, and visited with both men at the prison where they are held.
I am now convinced Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa did not get a fair trial and were framed by overzealous police and prosecutors who ended up letting the real killers get away to put the Panther leaders in jail.
A3N: Can you briefly explain the charges against the Omaha Two, and what evidence was used to convict them?
MR: On August 17, 1970, an anonymous 911 caller reported a woman screaming at a vacant house. Police arrived to an ambush instead, in which 29 year-old Officer Larry Minard was killed. A recording of the killer’s voice was sent to the FBI crime laboratory for analysis but before Minard was even buried, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had ordered the crime lab to withhold a report on the tape.
A 15 year-old, Duane Peak, was soon charged with the murder and after six different versions of the crime, he implicated Ed and Mondo in exchange for his own freedom.
Dynamite was allegedly found in Mondo’s basement only to have two different detectives both claim they were each the one that found the explosives.
The 911 tape was withheld from the jury. The conflicting police dynamite testimony was also unknown to the jury, as was the deal that allowed Peak his freedom. The jury was never informed that the defendants were COINTELPRO targets.
After five days of deliberation, the jury convicted Ed and Mondo of murder but spared their lives from the electric chair. The two men have been in prison ever since.
A3N: Can you please explain what COINTELPRO was? How do the Omaha 2 fit into the story of COINTELPRO?
MR: Operation COINTELRO was a vast, illegal campaign by the FBI in the 60’s and 70’s to “disrupt” domestic political activity that J. Edgar Hoover deemed dangerous. The clandestine program was national in scope, targeted thousands of individuals and groups and broke a number of laws dwarfing Watergate in magnitude.
The Black Panthers were the primary target of Hoover’s law enforcement conspiracy. Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa had been COINTELPRO targets for at least a year prior to their arrests. Hoover had sent several memos to the Omaha FBI office complaining about a lack of results and urged the Omaha agents to be “imaginative” with counterintelligence actions.
Poindexter had been the subject of a secret FBI smear campaign with forged letters and anonymous phone calls while Mondo was targeted for an ambush while distributing Black Panther newspapers. It was the death of Minard, however, that gave the FBI an opportunity to put the Omaha Two behind bars.
At the time of the trial, the jury had no idea that COINTELPRO manipulation of evidence had occurred. The secret program was officially disbanded a week after the trial ended making Ed and Mondo the last COINTELPRO victims.
The COINTELPRO withholding of evidence did not surface until years later following Freedom of Information requests for COINTELPRO documents.
A3N: Have all the COINTELPRO documents been released?
MR: No. Key documents identifying informants and providing evidentiary details have been destroyed, withheld, or remain heavily redacted.
In the mid 70’s when the Church Committee of the U.S. Senate investigated COINTELPRO, much of the Omaha case remained hidden and so the full story of the FBI duplicity in Omaha remains unknown and will likely never be fully disclosed.
Five different members of the Omaha Police Department ended up making perjured or false statements about the case in court proceedings, to the media, and in congressional testimony.
No official or agent of the FBI ever was publicly disciplined for the COINTELPRO misconduct in the Omaha case.
A3N: What are the Omaha Two doing today to challenge the convictions and imprisonment?
MR: Both Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa have habeas corpus petitions pending in the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and petitions for hearings pending in the U.S. District Court of Nebraska.
Both appeals address the conflicting police testimony on dynamite and new scientific testing of the 911 tape that establishes Duane Peak did not make the deadly phone call as he had claimed.
Poindexter asked the Nebraska courts for review and in 2008 was told by the Douglas County District Court that it didn’t matter where the dynamite was found or who found it. Last year the Nebraska Supreme Court told Ed that it didn’t matter who made the 911 call.
A3N: How has the mainstream media done with reporting on the Omaha Two?
MR: Poorly. The national media has largely ignored the case and the regional media has failed to explore the COINTELPRO aspect of the prosecution. Almost all Nebraska media accounts of the Omaha Two contain factual errors of some sort and glaring omissions of relevant facts. Anyone relying on the mainstream media about this COINTELPRO case is sadly both misinformed and under-informed.
Racism and the stigma against the Black Panthers is partially to blame, while COINTELPRO media manipulation was another factor in early reporting on the case. Why the media continues to ignore this important case today is a mystery to me.
A3N: What upcoming articles are you working on?
MR: Now that internet newspaper Examiner.com has named me the COINTELPRO Examiner, the opportunity to report on the Omaha Two is part of my beat. I intend on revisiting, in serial form, the long convoluted history of the case as well as report on current developments.
My research on the FBI and COINTELPRO has led me to understand that Ed and Mondo are not alone and that each COINTELPRO conviction needs a fresh new look. COINTELPRO was the largest, most systematic attack on our legal system in U.S. history. It is our responsibility today to carefully review the cases of remaining COINTELPRO targets because of the strong possibility of tampering with evidence.
A3N: Having written about the Angola 3, why do you think their case is important?
MR: Any case coming out of the 1970’s involving the Black Panthers is important because of the COINTELPRO abuses. The Angola 3 case is somewhat different than others since its genesis is inside a Louisiana prison. It may have not been technically a J.-Edgar-Hoover-authorized COINTELPRO prosecution but some of the trial tactics, including deals with informers, are the same.
The severity of the punishment, decades in solitary confinement, calls out for review and is itself an injustice.
A3N: Any closing thoughts?
MR: Larry Minard, the father of five young children, was buried on what would have been his 30th birthday. He was a police officer responding to the call of a woman screaming. Larry Minard’s killers walk free today.
The named supplier of the dynamite, a suspected police informant, was never charged with the crime and only spent one night in jail.
The anonymous 911 caller was not properly identified and has never been charged in the case.
Duane Peak, the confessed bomber, was released after less then 3 years in juvenile detention.
J. Edgar Hoover let the killer of Larry Minard, the 911 caller, go free to make a case against the Omaha Two.
Justice has not been done in Nebraska.
--Angola 3 News is a new project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Our website is www.angola3news.com where we provide the latest news about the Angola 3. We are also creating our own media projects, which spotlight the issues central to the story of the Angola 3, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, and more.
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REQUIEM FOR ANTI-WAR
Requiem for the Antiwar Movement
By Cindy Sheehan
“When you vote for war, don't be surprised when you get it.” Cindy Sheehan
“I will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan.” Presidential Candidate Barack Obama
“This war (Iraq) prevents us from tackling every serious threat that we face, from a resurgent al-Qaeda in Afghanistan to a hostile Iranian regime intent on possessing nuclear weapons.” Candidate Barack Obama
“And if we have actionable intelligence about high-level al-Qaeda targets (in Pakistan), we must act if Pakistan will or cannot.” Candidate Barack Obama
July 19, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- This article and these observations are going to piss some people off—but oh well. You will be angry with me, even though I am not the one who is ordering more war, paying for more war, torturing people and imprisoning them without due process, destroying the economy and the environment, blah, blah, blah. I have developed an incredibly thick skin and if I rankle, it’s because I think time is running out to halt the disastrous trajectory this planet (via the US Military Corporate Complex) is on. I promise that I am not writing this because I am holding protests and no one is coming—these thoughts have been percolating in me for months now. (Note: Remember that old saying: “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” Well, here in DC I am living the opposite: “What if they gave an antiwar protest and nobody came?”)
My grandbabies and other people’s grandbabies WILL NOT live in a world where war for profit is so normal that state-sanctioned violence is rarely even questioned—and if it is, then the person questioning is the “looney tunes,” the “mama moonbat,” the “radical.” That is one seriously messed-up world. You know it is and we are the only ones who have the key to unmessing it.
Last week, the Democratically controlled House of Representatives voted to give Barack Obama 33 billion more dollars to prosecute two idiotic and ill-advised wars. Of course they did—it wasn’t the first time since 2007 that a Democratic Congress voted to fund wars, and it won’t be the last—do you all know why? BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS DON’T WANT PEACE—THEY ARE JUST ONE-HALF OF THE “WAR PARTY.”
Why else did the Democrats vote for more war, more death and more destruction? If you are a Democrat and voted for one of these scum—did you vote for them hoping that you would get more war? Did you vote for Obama hoping that he would dig this country into a deeper hole, and do you still believe that fucking things up even more is the way to solve problems?
Do you all know what else? The wars that were begun in the Bush presidency and fully funded and increased during the Obama regime belong to everyone who voted for Obama, too. If you listened to what Obama said, and not just how he said it, then you would have heard him promise you that he was going to SEND MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN. You would have heard him say that nothing was “off the table” for dealing with Iran.
During the campaign, many colleagues and friends of mine, assured me that Obama was just saying this hostile crap to “get elected” and once he was elected that he would “do the right thing.” Well, first of all, why support such a pandering Jackwagon, and secondly, how has that ever worked? Three days after Obama swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, he drone-bombed a “target” in Pakistan killing 3 dozen civilians—and since that day he has elevated the art of drone bombings to new heights, while the so-called antiwar movement looks on in silent complacency and while Democratic operatives disguised as antiwar groups are hoping against hope that Obama comes out strong with a new antiwar marketing campaign to assure his “re-election.” Even though not one progressive issue has been propagated during his term, these war supporters are looking forward to another four years of the dance of death. Right foot kill—left foot torture—spin around for environmental devastation—allemande left for health care fascism—and shimmy right for bankster bailouts. Wasn’t eight years of this crap during the Bush stain enough for y’all?
Many antiwar groups and people who claim they are for peace lose their minds during election season thinking that the razor-thin difference between the Democrat and Republican is enough to go ape-shit crazy in working for the Democrat. Just take the last two Democratic candidates, for example. Kerry and Obama both supported more war. An “antiwar” movement de-legitimizes itself when it works hard for a candidate who does not promise total and rapid withdrawal of troops from wherever they happen to be at the time AND does not promise to end war as an imperial tool of corporate conquest.
The majority of the so-called antiwar movement, in fact, voted for a candidate that PROMISED to contract one war only to be able to profoundly EXPAND another. Obama all along said that he is not against all war, just “dumb wars.” If there existed an antiwar movement that had integrity—it would have said that “all wars are dumb,” and we withhold our support for just another dyed-in-the-wool warmonger.
What do we do now that we have another two and a half years of a hawk who thinks it is just hunky-dory that his supporters are under the delusion that he is a dove—he was awarded the war-establishment’s highest prize wasn’t he? He is, after all, a Nobel Laureate.
First of all, voting just doesn’t cut it. Realistically, our choices are between War Party Candidate A and War Party Candidate B. A true peace candidate is marginalized, metaphorically spat upon, and reviled. This is not a nation that honors peace and non-violence. From the top down, we are a violent nation—so from the bottom up, we have to restructure society. Liberate yourself and remove your Obama bumper sticker that has a peace sign instead of the “O.” If you are antiwar, you know in your heart that he is not a peace monger.
Secondly, our resources and energy are stretched thin. We live in a credit based economy where good jobs are scarce. Many people, who have the same values, in this almost value-free society, constantly tell me that they would be with me if they could afford it.
Since my son was killed, which was as violent of a paradigm shift as anyone should have to endure, I have whittled my life down to a bare minimum. I have no car. I have no pets. I have no plants. I have no credit cards. My income is based on my donations from my itinerant peace travels and book sales. I have moved eight times since Casey died and now I can move with one small u-haul. I have a cell phone and computer, a bed, clothes, a few dishes, a few valued books and peace paraphernalia and pictures of my children and grandbabies.
As HD Thoreau said: “You don’t own your possessions, they own you.” This consumer orgiastic society makes us literal slaves to a system that is detrimental to our health. Freeing oneself from those chains frees one to be a full-time, or near full-time activist. “Simplify, simplify, simplify.”
Massive antiwar protest in this country is dead. We may as well acknowledge that and just bury the corpse, mourn, and then figure out a better way of doing things.
In the Christian tradition, death was only a prelude to new and better life and farmers well tell you that a seed has to die before a health-nourishing plant can be born and then there’s the ever ubiquitous example of the ugly, hairy, and yucky caterpillar being reborn as a magnificent and beautiful butterfly. Have I hammered you with enough clichés yet?
The key to turning this caterpillar of a country into a beautiful butterfly is in Peace and recognizing that no matter if one is Bush, Obama, McCain or Palin—these people don’t want Peace, but we do.
I think we lose the raw humanity of war when we allow ourselves to wallow in War Party politics. When the Democratic Wing of the War Party took over the mis-management of the Empire, the anti-war movement was effectively neutralized even though the wars weren’t.
So after we are done mourning, we get together as one human family to organize something that will bring positive change. We are not enemies with each other—we may be “enemies of the state,” but the state is our enemy.
No more marching in circles, it makes us dizzy.
No more signing petitions, it gives us writer’s cramp.
No more calling Congress-scum, the war machine is its master.
The establishment wants us to think that this busy-work has a chance to be effective—but when is the last time any of these tactics worked on a Federal level? Your president or your congress rep couldn’t care less want you think or want. Your vote doesn’t even count—in case you haven’t heard, they steal votes and falsely manipulate you, anyway.
I am going to close with my organization’s motivational quote. Peace of the ACTION takes our inspiration from a Mario Savio quote that he said on the steps of Sproul Hall at UC Berkeley, 46 years ago:
“There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part. You have to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who own it, to the people who run it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
By Cindy Sheehan
“When you vote for war, don't be surprised when you get it.” Cindy Sheehan
“I will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan.” Presidential Candidate Barack Obama
“This war (Iraq) prevents us from tackling every serious threat that we face, from a resurgent al-Qaeda in Afghanistan to a hostile Iranian regime intent on possessing nuclear weapons.” Candidate Barack Obama
“And if we have actionable intelligence about high-level al-Qaeda targets (in Pakistan), we must act if Pakistan will or cannot.” Candidate Barack Obama
July 19, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- This article and these observations are going to piss some people off—but oh well. You will be angry with me, even though I am not the one who is ordering more war, paying for more war, torturing people and imprisoning them without due process, destroying the economy and the environment, blah, blah, blah. I have developed an incredibly thick skin and if I rankle, it’s because I think time is running out to halt the disastrous trajectory this planet (via the US Military Corporate Complex) is on. I promise that I am not writing this because I am holding protests and no one is coming—these thoughts have been percolating in me for months now. (Note: Remember that old saying: “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” Well, here in DC I am living the opposite: “What if they gave an antiwar protest and nobody came?”)
My grandbabies and other people’s grandbabies WILL NOT live in a world where war for profit is so normal that state-sanctioned violence is rarely even questioned—and if it is, then the person questioning is the “looney tunes,” the “mama moonbat,” the “radical.” That is one seriously messed-up world. You know it is and we are the only ones who have the key to unmessing it.
Last week, the Democratically controlled House of Representatives voted to give Barack Obama 33 billion more dollars to prosecute two idiotic and ill-advised wars. Of course they did—it wasn’t the first time since 2007 that a Democratic Congress voted to fund wars, and it won’t be the last—do you all know why? BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS DON’T WANT PEACE—THEY ARE JUST ONE-HALF OF THE “WAR PARTY.”
Why else did the Democrats vote for more war, more death and more destruction? If you are a Democrat and voted for one of these scum—did you vote for them hoping that you would get more war? Did you vote for Obama hoping that he would dig this country into a deeper hole, and do you still believe that fucking things up even more is the way to solve problems?
Do you all know what else? The wars that were begun in the Bush presidency and fully funded and increased during the Obama regime belong to everyone who voted for Obama, too. If you listened to what Obama said, and not just how he said it, then you would have heard him promise you that he was going to SEND MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN. You would have heard him say that nothing was “off the table” for dealing with Iran.
During the campaign, many colleagues and friends of mine, assured me that Obama was just saying this hostile crap to “get elected” and once he was elected that he would “do the right thing.” Well, first of all, why support such a pandering Jackwagon, and secondly, how has that ever worked? Three days after Obama swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, he drone-bombed a “target” in Pakistan killing 3 dozen civilians—and since that day he has elevated the art of drone bombings to new heights, while the so-called antiwar movement looks on in silent complacency and while Democratic operatives disguised as antiwar groups are hoping against hope that Obama comes out strong with a new antiwar marketing campaign to assure his “re-election.” Even though not one progressive issue has been propagated during his term, these war supporters are looking forward to another four years of the dance of death. Right foot kill—left foot torture—spin around for environmental devastation—allemande left for health care fascism—and shimmy right for bankster bailouts. Wasn’t eight years of this crap during the Bush stain enough for y’all?
Many antiwar groups and people who claim they are for peace lose their minds during election season thinking that the razor-thin difference between the Democrat and Republican is enough to go ape-shit crazy in working for the Democrat. Just take the last two Democratic candidates, for example. Kerry and Obama both supported more war. An “antiwar” movement de-legitimizes itself when it works hard for a candidate who does not promise total and rapid withdrawal of troops from wherever they happen to be at the time AND does not promise to end war as an imperial tool of corporate conquest.
The majority of the so-called antiwar movement, in fact, voted for a candidate that PROMISED to contract one war only to be able to profoundly EXPAND another. Obama all along said that he is not against all war, just “dumb wars.” If there existed an antiwar movement that had integrity—it would have said that “all wars are dumb,” and we withhold our support for just another dyed-in-the-wool warmonger.
What do we do now that we have another two and a half years of a hawk who thinks it is just hunky-dory that his supporters are under the delusion that he is a dove—he was awarded the war-establishment’s highest prize wasn’t he? He is, after all, a Nobel Laureate.
First of all, voting just doesn’t cut it. Realistically, our choices are between War Party Candidate A and War Party Candidate B. A true peace candidate is marginalized, metaphorically spat upon, and reviled. This is not a nation that honors peace and non-violence. From the top down, we are a violent nation—so from the bottom up, we have to restructure society. Liberate yourself and remove your Obama bumper sticker that has a peace sign instead of the “O.” If you are antiwar, you know in your heart that he is not a peace monger.
Secondly, our resources and energy are stretched thin. We live in a credit based economy where good jobs are scarce. Many people, who have the same values, in this almost value-free society, constantly tell me that they would be with me if they could afford it.
Since my son was killed, which was as violent of a paradigm shift as anyone should have to endure, I have whittled my life down to a bare minimum. I have no car. I have no pets. I have no plants. I have no credit cards. My income is based on my donations from my itinerant peace travels and book sales. I have moved eight times since Casey died and now I can move with one small u-haul. I have a cell phone and computer, a bed, clothes, a few dishes, a few valued books and peace paraphernalia and pictures of my children and grandbabies.
As HD Thoreau said: “You don’t own your possessions, they own you.” This consumer orgiastic society makes us literal slaves to a system that is detrimental to our health. Freeing oneself from those chains frees one to be a full-time, or near full-time activist. “Simplify, simplify, simplify.”
Massive antiwar protest in this country is dead. We may as well acknowledge that and just bury the corpse, mourn, and then figure out a better way of doing things.
In the Christian tradition, death was only a prelude to new and better life and farmers well tell you that a seed has to die before a health-nourishing plant can be born and then there’s the ever ubiquitous example of the ugly, hairy, and yucky caterpillar being reborn as a magnificent and beautiful butterfly. Have I hammered you with enough clichés yet?
The key to turning this caterpillar of a country into a beautiful butterfly is in Peace and recognizing that no matter if one is Bush, Obama, McCain or Palin—these people don’t want Peace, but we do.
I think we lose the raw humanity of war when we allow ourselves to wallow in War Party politics. When the Democratic Wing of the War Party took over the mis-management of the Empire, the anti-war movement was effectively neutralized even though the wars weren’t.
So after we are done mourning, we get together as one human family to organize something that will bring positive change. We are not enemies with each other—we may be “enemies of the state,” but the state is our enemy.
No more marching in circles, it makes us dizzy.
No more signing petitions, it gives us writer’s cramp.
No more calling Congress-scum, the war machine is its master.
The establishment wants us to think that this busy-work has a chance to be effective—but when is the last time any of these tactics worked on a Federal level? Your president or your congress rep couldn’t care less want you think or want. Your vote doesn’t even count—in case you haven’t heard, they steal votes and falsely manipulate you, anyway.
I am going to close with my organization’s motivational quote. Peace of the ACTION takes our inspiration from a Mario Savio quote that he said on the steps of Sproul Hall at UC Berkeley, 46 years ago:
“There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part. You have to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who own it, to the people who run it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
The Other Tragedy
By Fidel Castro
July 21, 2010 "Periodico" -- In the meeting I had with the economists of CIEM (World Economy Research Center) on Tuesday, July 13, I talked to them about an excellent documentary film by the French director Yann Arthus-Bertrand which includes statements by the most farsighted and well informed international personalities about another terrible danger threatening the human species that is cropping up right before our eyes: the destruction of the environment.
The documentary clearly and categorically asserts as follows:
“In the great adventure of life on Earth, each species has a role to play; each species has its place. None of them is either useless or harmful; they all balance one another. And it is right there when you, Homo sapiens, the intelligent human, come into history. You are the beneficiary of the fabulous legacy of 4 billion years provided by the Earth. You are only 200 000 years old, but you have already changed the face of the world.”
“The invention of agriculture changed our history. This happened less than 10 000 years ago”.
“Agriculture was our first great revolution. It produced the first surpluses and gave rise to cities and civilizations. The memories of the thousands of years spent looking for food faded away. Having turned grains into the yeast of life, we multiplied their varieties and learned to adapt them to our soils and climates. We are like any other species on Earth. Our main daily concern is feeding ourselves. When soils are less than generous and water becomes scarce we are capable of making incredible efforts to get enough from the earth in order to continue living.”
“Half of mankind tills the land; more than three fourths do it with their bare hands.”
“Pure energy. The energy that comes from the sun has been captured by millions of plants for more than 100 million years. It is coal; it is gas, but, most of all, it is oil.”
“During the last 60 years, the Earth population has almost tripled. More than 2 billion people have moved into the cities.”
“New York, the world’s first megalopolis, is the symbol of the exploitation of the energy that the Earth provides human ingenuity with: The labor of millions of immigrants, the energy that comes from coal, the indispensable power of oil. The United States was the first to ride on the phenomenal, revolutionary power of ‘black gold’. In the countryside, machines replaced men. One liter of oil generates as much energy as 100 pairs of hands in 24 hours.”
“They produce enough grain to feed 2 billion people. But much of that grain is not used to feed persons. Here, as well as in other industrialized nations, grains are transformed into animal feed or biofuels.”
“Fertilizers below and plastics above as far as the eyes can see. The greenhouses of Almería, in Spain, are Europe’s vegetable garden. Day after day, a city of vegetables, all of them the same size, awaits the hundreds of trucks that will take them to the supermarkets of the continent. The more developed a country is, the more meat its inhabitants consume. How could the world demand be satisfied without resorting to concentration camp-like cattle farms? Things move faster every time. It is like the life cycle of cattle; quite likely they never catch sight of a prairie.”
“In these food plots, crowded with millions of livestock units, not even a blade of grass grows. A whole fleet of trucks coming from every part of the country bring in tones of grain, soybean food and granules of proteins that will be turned into tones of meat. As a result, 100 liters of water are required to produce 1 kilogram of potatoes; 4000 liters are required to produce I kilogram of rice and 13 000 liters are required to produce 1 kilogram of beef, not to mention the amount of oil burned during production and transportation.”
“We know that the end of cheap oil is imminent, but we refuse to believe it.”
“Los Angeles. In this city that spans more than 100 kilometers, the amount of cars is almost the same as the amount of inhabitants.”
“Daytime is nothing but a faint image of the nights that turn the city into a star-spangled sky.”
“Everywhere there are machines digging, extracting and grabbing the pieces of stars buried deep into the Earth since its creation: The minerals.”
“…Eighty per cent of that mineral wealth is consumed by 20 per cent of the world population. Before this century comes to an end, excessive mining would have used up almost all reserves in the planet.”
“Since 1950, the volume of international trade has twenty folded; 90 per cent of trade is travels by sea; 500 million containers are transported every year; they are sent to the biggest consumption centers…”
“Since 1950, fishing has five folded –from 18 to 100 million metric tones per year. Thousands of factory-vessels are leaving the oceans empty. Three fourths of the fishing areas are depleted, terminated or face the risk of becoming so.”
“Five hundred million human beings live in the desserts of the world –this is more than the total population of Europe.”
“Israel turned the dessert into arable land.
While these farms now have a drip irrigation system, water consumption continues to grow as much as exports.”
“The once powerful Jordan river is now only a stream. Its waters have flown inside fruits and vegetables crates to supermarkets all over the world.”
“India is facing the risk of becoming the country that would suffer the most in the coming century out of lack of water. Mass irrigation has nurtured its growing population and during the last 50 years 21 million new wells have been dug.”
“Las Vegas was built in the dessert. Millions of persons live there. Thousands arrive in every month. Its inhabitants are among the world’s biggest water consumers.”
“Palm Springs is another dessert city with tropical vegetation and luxurious golf courts. For how long will this mirage continue to thrive? The Earth can not withstand it.”
“The Colorado River, which supplies water to these cities, is one of those rivers that no longer make it to the sea.”
“The lack of water could affect 2 billion people before 2025.”
“All living matter is interconnected: water, air, earth, trees.”
“Primitive forests provide a habitat to three fourths of the biodiversity of the planet –that is, three fourths of the whole life on Earth.”
“…in only 40 years, the Amazon, the world’s biggest rainforest, has shrunk by 20 per cent to make room for cattle farms or soybean fields; 95 per cent of this soybean is used to feed livestock and poultry in Europe and Asia. Thus, a forest has been turned into meat.”
“More than 2 billion people, almost one third of the world’s population, still depend on charcoal. In Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, charcoal is one of the population’s main consumer goods.”
“Up in the mountains of Haiti, only 2 per cent of forests remain…”
“Every week, the cities of the world increase their population by more than one million persons. One out of six human beings lives now in a precarious, unhealthy and overpopulated environment, deprived from daily needs such as water, sewage or electricity. Hunger is expanding again. It is affecting almost 1 billion people. All over the planet, the poor are struggling to survive, while we continue digging for the resources we can no longer live without.”
“Our actions cause the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Without even realizing it, we have affected, molecule by molecule, the climate balance on Earth.”
“The ice cover of the Arctic is melting away as a result of global warming. After 40 years it is now 40 per cent thinner. This area shrinks year after year during summer time. It could disappear by the summer of the year 2030. Some say it could disappear by the year 2015.”
“By 2050, one fourth of the terrestrial species could be facing the risk of extinction.”
“…Since Greenland is warming up very quickly, the fresh water of a whole continent is flowing into the ocean.”
“The ice of Greenland accounts for 20 per cent of all the fresh water of the planet. If it melts away the sea level will increase by almost 7 meters. Our planet’s atmosphere is an indivisible whole. It is an asset we all share.”
“Lakes are becoming part of Greenland’s landscape. The ice cover is melting at a pace not even the most pessimistic scientists could have predicted 10 years ago. More and more these rivers, nurtured by the glaciers, are merging and emerging to the surface. It was thought that, deep into the ice, water would freeze. Quite on the contrary, water flows under the ice, pushing the ice cover into the sea, where it breaks up and become an iceberg.”
“Only in the 20th century, the expansion of warmed up water caused a 20 cm sea level increase. Everything becomes unstable. Coral reefs are extremely sensitive to the slightest change in water temperature. Thirty per cent of them have disappeared. They are an essential link in the chain of species.”
“If the sea level continues to rise quicker and quicker, what will big cities like Tokyo –the most densely populated of the world- do?”
“…in Siberia as well as in many other parts of the world it is so cold that the soil is permanently frozen. This phenomenon is known as permafrost. Beneath that surface lies a climatic time bomb: methane, a greenhouse effect gas that is twenty times more powerful than carbon dioxide. If the permafrost melts, the release of methane could cause the greenhouse effect to go out of control, the consequences of which no one could predict.”
“Twenty per cent of the world’s population consumes 80 per cent of the world’s resources.”
“The world invests twelve times more in military expenses than in the assistance to developing countries.”
“Five thousand persons die everyday after drinking contaminated water; 1 billion persons do not have access to potable water.”
“Around 1 billion are afflicted by hunger.”
“More than 50 per cent of the grain that is marketed in the world is used for animal feed or biofuels.”
“Species are dying one thousand times faster than the natural pace.”
“Three fourths of the fishing areas are depleted, diminished or are dangerously decreasing.”
“The average temperature during the last 15 years has been the highest ever recorded.”
“The ice cover is now 40 per cent thinner that it was 40 years ago.”
During the final minutes of the documentary, director Yann Arthus-Bertrand uses a milder language to praise some positive actions by countries he was forced to mention –and I don’t mean to offend or hurt anyone.
His final words went as follows:
“It is time for us to be all together. What matters now is not what is gone, but what still prevails. There are still half of the world’s forests, thousands of rivers, lakes and glaciers and thousands of successful species. Today we know that solutions are right here. We all have the power to change. Then, what are we waiting for?
It is up to us to write what comes next, together.”
The topic that has absorbed most of my efforts –the imminent risk of a war that would be the last in the prehistory of our species-, to which I have devoted 9 Reflections since June 1st, is a problem that becomes more and more serious by the day.
Obviously, 99.9 per cent of persons entertain the hope that elemental common sense would prevail.
Unfortunately, based on all the elements from the reality I perceive, I don’t see there is the slightest chance that this could be so.
Therefore, I think it would be far more practical for our peoples to be prepared to cope with that reality. That would be our only hope.
The Iranians have done precisely that, just as we did in October 1962, when we would rather disappear than put down our banners.
Out of mere chance -and not because of the merits of the intelligence or the individual history of anyone of us- things are evolving today just as they were then.
News coming from Iran everyday are not even one millimeter away from their announced position to uphold their just rights to peace and development, but they include a new element: they have already managed to produce 20 kilograms of 20 per cent enriched uranium –an amount enough to produce a nuclear artifact-, which is making all those who long ago decided to attack them to go even crazier. I discussed this with our ambassadors on Friday 16.
Not even Obama could change that decision –nor has he given so far any indication he would be determined to do that.
Fidel Castro Ruz
July 18, 2010 - 4:28 p.m.
By Fidel Castro
July 21, 2010 "Periodico" -- In the meeting I had with the economists of CIEM (World Economy Research Center) on Tuesday, July 13, I talked to them about an excellent documentary film by the French director Yann Arthus-Bertrand which includes statements by the most farsighted and well informed international personalities about another terrible danger threatening the human species that is cropping up right before our eyes: the destruction of the environment.
The documentary clearly and categorically asserts as follows:
“In the great adventure of life on Earth, each species has a role to play; each species has its place. None of them is either useless or harmful; they all balance one another. And it is right there when you, Homo sapiens, the intelligent human, come into history. You are the beneficiary of the fabulous legacy of 4 billion years provided by the Earth. You are only 200 000 years old, but you have already changed the face of the world.”
“The invention of agriculture changed our history. This happened less than 10 000 years ago”.
“Agriculture was our first great revolution. It produced the first surpluses and gave rise to cities and civilizations. The memories of the thousands of years spent looking for food faded away. Having turned grains into the yeast of life, we multiplied their varieties and learned to adapt them to our soils and climates. We are like any other species on Earth. Our main daily concern is feeding ourselves. When soils are less than generous and water becomes scarce we are capable of making incredible efforts to get enough from the earth in order to continue living.”
“Half of mankind tills the land; more than three fourths do it with their bare hands.”
“Pure energy. The energy that comes from the sun has been captured by millions of plants for more than 100 million years. It is coal; it is gas, but, most of all, it is oil.”
“During the last 60 years, the Earth population has almost tripled. More than 2 billion people have moved into the cities.”
“New York, the world’s first megalopolis, is the symbol of the exploitation of the energy that the Earth provides human ingenuity with: The labor of millions of immigrants, the energy that comes from coal, the indispensable power of oil. The United States was the first to ride on the phenomenal, revolutionary power of ‘black gold’. In the countryside, machines replaced men. One liter of oil generates as much energy as 100 pairs of hands in 24 hours.”
“They produce enough grain to feed 2 billion people. But much of that grain is not used to feed persons. Here, as well as in other industrialized nations, grains are transformed into animal feed or biofuels.”
“Fertilizers below and plastics above as far as the eyes can see. The greenhouses of Almería, in Spain, are Europe’s vegetable garden. Day after day, a city of vegetables, all of them the same size, awaits the hundreds of trucks that will take them to the supermarkets of the continent. The more developed a country is, the more meat its inhabitants consume. How could the world demand be satisfied without resorting to concentration camp-like cattle farms? Things move faster every time. It is like the life cycle of cattle; quite likely they never catch sight of a prairie.”
“In these food plots, crowded with millions of livestock units, not even a blade of grass grows. A whole fleet of trucks coming from every part of the country bring in tones of grain, soybean food and granules of proteins that will be turned into tones of meat. As a result, 100 liters of water are required to produce 1 kilogram of potatoes; 4000 liters are required to produce I kilogram of rice and 13 000 liters are required to produce 1 kilogram of beef, not to mention the amount of oil burned during production and transportation.”
“We know that the end of cheap oil is imminent, but we refuse to believe it.”
“Los Angeles. In this city that spans more than 100 kilometers, the amount of cars is almost the same as the amount of inhabitants.”
“Daytime is nothing but a faint image of the nights that turn the city into a star-spangled sky.”
“Everywhere there are machines digging, extracting and grabbing the pieces of stars buried deep into the Earth since its creation: The minerals.”
“…Eighty per cent of that mineral wealth is consumed by 20 per cent of the world population. Before this century comes to an end, excessive mining would have used up almost all reserves in the planet.”
“Since 1950, the volume of international trade has twenty folded; 90 per cent of trade is travels by sea; 500 million containers are transported every year; they are sent to the biggest consumption centers…”
“Since 1950, fishing has five folded –from 18 to 100 million metric tones per year. Thousands of factory-vessels are leaving the oceans empty. Three fourths of the fishing areas are depleted, terminated or face the risk of becoming so.”
“Five hundred million human beings live in the desserts of the world –this is more than the total population of Europe.”
“Israel turned the dessert into arable land.
While these farms now have a drip irrigation system, water consumption continues to grow as much as exports.”
“The once powerful Jordan river is now only a stream. Its waters have flown inside fruits and vegetables crates to supermarkets all over the world.”
“India is facing the risk of becoming the country that would suffer the most in the coming century out of lack of water. Mass irrigation has nurtured its growing population and during the last 50 years 21 million new wells have been dug.”
“Las Vegas was built in the dessert. Millions of persons live there. Thousands arrive in every month. Its inhabitants are among the world’s biggest water consumers.”
“Palm Springs is another dessert city with tropical vegetation and luxurious golf courts. For how long will this mirage continue to thrive? The Earth can not withstand it.”
“The Colorado River, which supplies water to these cities, is one of those rivers that no longer make it to the sea.”
“The lack of water could affect 2 billion people before 2025.”
“All living matter is interconnected: water, air, earth, trees.”
“Primitive forests provide a habitat to three fourths of the biodiversity of the planet –that is, three fourths of the whole life on Earth.”
“…in only 40 years, the Amazon, the world’s biggest rainforest, has shrunk by 20 per cent to make room for cattle farms or soybean fields; 95 per cent of this soybean is used to feed livestock and poultry in Europe and Asia. Thus, a forest has been turned into meat.”
“More than 2 billion people, almost one third of the world’s population, still depend on charcoal. In Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, charcoal is one of the population’s main consumer goods.”
“Up in the mountains of Haiti, only 2 per cent of forests remain…”
“Every week, the cities of the world increase their population by more than one million persons. One out of six human beings lives now in a precarious, unhealthy and overpopulated environment, deprived from daily needs such as water, sewage or electricity. Hunger is expanding again. It is affecting almost 1 billion people. All over the planet, the poor are struggling to survive, while we continue digging for the resources we can no longer live without.”
“Our actions cause the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Without even realizing it, we have affected, molecule by molecule, the climate balance on Earth.”
“The ice cover of the Arctic is melting away as a result of global warming. After 40 years it is now 40 per cent thinner. This area shrinks year after year during summer time. It could disappear by the summer of the year 2030. Some say it could disappear by the year 2015.”
“By 2050, one fourth of the terrestrial species could be facing the risk of extinction.”
“…Since Greenland is warming up very quickly, the fresh water of a whole continent is flowing into the ocean.”
“The ice of Greenland accounts for 20 per cent of all the fresh water of the planet. If it melts away the sea level will increase by almost 7 meters. Our planet’s atmosphere is an indivisible whole. It is an asset we all share.”
“Lakes are becoming part of Greenland’s landscape. The ice cover is melting at a pace not even the most pessimistic scientists could have predicted 10 years ago. More and more these rivers, nurtured by the glaciers, are merging and emerging to the surface. It was thought that, deep into the ice, water would freeze. Quite on the contrary, water flows under the ice, pushing the ice cover into the sea, where it breaks up and become an iceberg.”
“Only in the 20th century, the expansion of warmed up water caused a 20 cm sea level increase. Everything becomes unstable. Coral reefs are extremely sensitive to the slightest change in water temperature. Thirty per cent of them have disappeared. They are an essential link in the chain of species.”
“If the sea level continues to rise quicker and quicker, what will big cities like Tokyo –the most densely populated of the world- do?”
“…in Siberia as well as in many other parts of the world it is so cold that the soil is permanently frozen. This phenomenon is known as permafrost. Beneath that surface lies a climatic time bomb: methane, a greenhouse effect gas that is twenty times more powerful than carbon dioxide. If the permafrost melts, the release of methane could cause the greenhouse effect to go out of control, the consequences of which no one could predict.”
“Twenty per cent of the world’s population consumes 80 per cent of the world’s resources.”
“The world invests twelve times more in military expenses than in the assistance to developing countries.”
“Five thousand persons die everyday after drinking contaminated water; 1 billion persons do not have access to potable water.”
“Around 1 billion are afflicted by hunger.”
“More than 50 per cent of the grain that is marketed in the world is used for animal feed or biofuels.”
“Species are dying one thousand times faster than the natural pace.”
“Three fourths of the fishing areas are depleted, diminished or are dangerously decreasing.”
“The average temperature during the last 15 years has been the highest ever recorded.”
“The ice cover is now 40 per cent thinner that it was 40 years ago.”
During the final minutes of the documentary, director Yann Arthus-Bertrand uses a milder language to praise some positive actions by countries he was forced to mention –and I don’t mean to offend or hurt anyone.
His final words went as follows:
“It is time for us to be all together. What matters now is not what is gone, but what still prevails. There are still half of the world’s forests, thousands of rivers, lakes and glaciers and thousands of successful species. Today we know that solutions are right here. We all have the power to change. Then, what are we waiting for?
It is up to us to write what comes next, together.”
The topic that has absorbed most of my efforts –the imminent risk of a war that would be the last in the prehistory of our species-, to which I have devoted 9 Reflections since June 1st, is a problem that becomes more and more serious by the day.
Obviously, 99.9 per cent of persons entertain the hope that elemental common sense would prevail.
Unfortunately, based on all the elements from the reality I perceive, I don’t see there is the slightest chance that this could be so.
Therefore, I think it would be far more practical for our peoples to be prepared to cope with that reality. That would be our only hope.
The Iranians have done precisely that, just as we did in October 1962, when we would rather disappear than put down our banners.
Out of mere chance -and not because of the merits of the intelligence or the individual history of anyone of us- things are evolving today just as they were then.
News coming from Iran everyday are not even one millimeter away from their announced position to uphold their just rights to peace and development, but they include a new element: they have already managed to produce 20 kilograms of 20 per cent enriched uranium –an amount enough to produce a nuclear artifact-, which is making all those who long ago decided to attack them to go even crazier. I discussed this with our ambassadors on Friday 16.
Not even Obama could change that decision –nor has he given so far any indication he would be determined to do that.
Fidel Castro Ruz
July 18, 2010 - 4:28 p.m.
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