'World stands disgraced' as Israeli shelling of school kills at least 15

United Nations officials described the killing of sleeping children as a disgrace to the world and accused Israel of a serious violation of international law after a school in Gaza being used to shelter Palestinian families was shelled on Wednesday.

At least 15 people, mostly children and women, died when the school in Jabaliya refugee camp was hit by five shells during a night of relentless bombardment across Gaza. More than 100 people were injured.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said the attack was "outrageous and unjustifiable" and demanded "accountability and justice". The UN said its officials had repeatedly given details of the school and its refugee population to Israel.

The Guardian

Mysterious Pictures

Many things can be explained by Photoshop, however, many of these occurred before the software was invented!

beforeitsnews.com

The making of Angela Merkel

Israel and Palestine, an animated introduction

Jewish Voice for Peace

Thousands Of Women Killed In Witch Hunts

"In places where superstition and vigilantism overlap and small rumors can turn deadly, nearly 2,100 people accused of witchcraft have been killed between 2000 and 2012, according to crime records gathered by the Indian newspaper Mint. Others placed the number at 2,500; others higher still. “Like the proverbial tip of a very deep iceberg, available data hides much of the reality of a problem that is deeply ingrained in society,” according to New Delhi-based Partners for Law in Development. “It is only the most gruesome cases that are reported — most cases of witch-hunting go unreported and unrecorded.”

Despite Growing International Condemnation, No End to Gaza Violence in Sight

The Real News

GetUp!

Bericht door GetUp!

GetUp!

This Land Is Mine

See Nina Paley for a Who’s Killing Who? A Viewer’s Guide, Because you can’t tell the players without a pogrom!

Why are Americans Flocking to Fight for Israel?

Abby Martin breaks down recent developments in Gaza, including the targeted shooting of Al Jazeera's office in the violence stricken Gaza Strip. She also comments on the mysterious case of two Americans who have died during Operation Protective Edge while serving in the Israeli Defense Forces, highlighting how their case as foreign nationals fighting for Israel is not unique considering at least 5,500 "lone" soldiers serve in the IDF.

Breaking the Set on YouTube

Isis orders all women and girls in Mosul to undergo Female genital mutilation

The militant group Islamic State (Isis) has ordered all girls and women in and around Iraq's northern city of Mosul to undergo female genital mutilation, the United Nations says. The "fatwa" issued by the Sunni Muslim fighters would potentially affect 4 million women and girls, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, Jacqueline Badcock, told reporters in Geneva by videolink from Irbil.

"This is something very new for Iraq, particularly in this area, and is of grave concern and does need to be addressed," she said. "This is not the will of Iraqi people, or the women of Iraq in these vulnerable areas covered by the terrorists," she added. No one was immediately available for comment from Isis, which has led an offensive through northern and western Iraq.

The Guardian

Israeli sniper killing wounded civilian

20/7/14: International and Palestinian volunteers accompanied Civil Defense and other rescue crews, as well as family members, into Shujaya, in an attempt to locate survivors of overnight and ongoing shelling by the Israeli army. A young Palestinian man, in a green t-shirt, who hoped to reach his family's home, was shot by an Israeli soldier while crossing an alley between buildings. Two additional rounds struck him as he lay injured on the ground.

ISM Palestine

MH17 Crash Speech by Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs at Security Council

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands Frans Timmermans gives an emotional speech from the UN Security Council Meeting on Ukraine. The Netherlands lost the most lives of any country, 193 of the 298 people on board, when MH17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine.

Thousands Flee Major Battle In Gaza

Escalating their ground offensive, Israeli troops backed by tanks and warplanes battled Hamas militants in a crowded neighborhood of Gaza City early Sunday. The fighting, including heavy Israeli tank fire, killed scores of Palestinians, forced thousands to flee and damaged or destroyed dozens of homes. Palestinian health officials reported at least 65 people killed as air and artillery strikes echoed across the city for hours. They put the number of displaced at 35,000, with at least 435 people killed in the nearly two-week conflict.

Israeli military casualties spiked in the fighting, with 13 killed Sunday, raising the total number of dead soldiers to 18. Two civilians also have died in mortar and rocket attacks. Sunday's battle in Gaza City's Shijaiyah neighborhood was the deadliest so far in Israel's 3-day-old ground offensive, which followed 10 days of heavy airstrikes on targets linked to Gaza's Hamas rulers. Israel has said it sent thousands of troops into Gaza to destroy Hamas rocket launchers and tunnels dug by the Islamic militants to sneak into Israel.

The Israeli military said 8 percent of more than 1,700 rockets fired at Israel since July 8 came from Shijaiyah and that its troops faced heavy resistance there. Residents of the neighborhood said Israeli tanks entered after midnight and fired heavily. "The gate of hell has opened, and shrapnel came through the windows," Shijaiyah resident Jawad Hassanain said by phone. He said he and his family sought shelter in a nearby building after their house shook from the explosions.

The World Post

The Sahara's Forgotten War

In Part 1, we attend the 38th anniversary celebration of the proclamation of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. The Sahrawis celebrate this anniversary every year despite the facts that Morocco controls a third of their homeland and the parade takes place in Algerian refugee camps run by the Polisario.

More on VICE News

Tuareg Refugees Must Choose Between Hunger and Violence

Russian Roulette

On Thursday, July 17, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet carrying 298 people was shot down over eastern Ukraine — allegedly by pro-Russia separatists. Residents in the area described bodies falling from the sky and landing in their own backyards.

VICE New

More Than 100 AIDS Researchers and Advocates Perished on Downed Malaysian Jetliner

More than 100 AIDS experts and public health officials on their way to the International AIDS Conference in Australia were among those killed when a Malaysian jetliner was shot down over the Ukraine yesterday. Their deaths prompted an outpouring of grief from their colleagues.

“The International AIDS Society today expresses its sincere sadness at receiving news that a number of colleagues and friends en route to attend the 20th International AIDS Conference taking place in Melbourne, Australia, were on board the Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight that has crashed over Ukraine earlier today,” the group's organizers said.

Among the passengers was Glenn Thomas, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, and Joep Lange, an eminent HIV researcher from the Netherlands who was also the former president of the International AIDS society. Lange led a campaign to expand affordable care for HIV patients in impoverished regions. He is considered an icon in the AIDS medical community. “Joep was a giant in this field; a researcher who really ‘got it’ in terms of human rights, equity and justice. He was as much activist as researcher — and that is rare. Incredibly sad,” Mitchell Warren, an AIDS activist, told NBC News.

The exact number of individuals on flight MH17 who were heading to the conference is unknown, but Australian officials have said it's a “substantial number” including medical doctors, scientists and AIDS advocates. The event is set to host  about 14,000 delegates from around the world.

More @ Alternet

The Golden Age

Woodkid Featuring Max Richter "Embers"

Four Palestinian boys from same family killed on Gaza beach by Israeli shell

It could be any picture-postcard image of a family playing happily on the beach. But moments after this photograph was taken, these four boys were dead - wiped out by an Israeli shell as they ran for their lives. The children were killed in Gaza yesterday as more than 100,000 Palestinians were urged to evacuate their homes ahead of a possible ground offensive and new air attacks. A second picture also emerged on Twitter that is believed to show a different view of the boys as they scrambled across the sand.

Haunting: This picture has emerged showing four Palestinian boys from the same family running on a beach in Gaza moments before they were killed by an Israeli shell

Mail Online

Also all mothers of all Palestinians must be killed:

A well-known Israeli politician and parliament member has branded  Palestinians as terrorists, saying mothers of all Palestinians should also be killed during the ongoing Israeli assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, Daily Sabah reported. Ayelet Shaked of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party called for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who give birth to "little snakes."

"They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists," Shaked said, adding, "They are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists.”

The remarks are considered as a call for genocide as she declared that all Palestinians are Israel's enemies and must be killed

Presstv.ir

Photos trapped in time

Iconic images of war photographers, and the photographs they took.

LiveLeak.com

Nestlé - Sucking the World Dry

Nestlé's unfair and inhumane tactics with regard to water have been brought to light in many excellent documentaries, e.g., For Love of Water, Blue Gold, Tapped and Bottled Life.

Freedom

Rage Against The Machine - Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee

Israeli troops mass on Gaza border in preparation for ground attack

Israel was today massing its troops on the Gaza border in preparation for a possible ground attack - just hours after its airforce struck a mosque that was allegedly being used to hide Hamas's weapons. Donning military gear and carrying rifles, thousands of soldiers moved into a new position on the border on the fifth day of the deadly conflict, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 120 people.

They were spotted transporting armoured vehicles along the border, before setting up and firing shells towards members of the militant group Hamas. The latest move is in preparation for a potential ground offensive, with some 33,000 reservists mobilised out of 40,000 approved by Israel's cabinet.

Traumatised: Social worker Selva, 63, was badly injured after her employer Beit Lahia Disability and Rehabilitation Services' headquarters were destroyed in an airstrike.

Meanwhile in Israel…

More at Mail Online

The Invasion of America

Between 1776 and 1887, the United States seized over 1.5 billion acres from America's indigenous people by treaty and executive order. The Invasion of America shows how by mapping every treaty and executive order during that period. It concludes with a map of present-day federal Indian reservations.

Raju the Elephant cried tears of joy after being freed from suffering

These incredible pictures show the moment an elephant who was held in chains and beaten and abused for fifty years cried as he was released to freedom. Raju the elephant was left bleeding from spiked shackles and living on hand-outs from passing tourists after he was captured and tied up by his 'owner'. But, after 50 years of torture, the animal cried tears of relief after he was rescued by a wildlife charity in a daring midnight operation -- fittingly on American Independence Day.
North London-based charity Wildlife SOS stepped in to save Raju from dying in his bonds after learning of his plight in India.

Wildlife SOS Blog

How Many Countries Are There?

CGP Grey

These 5 Corporations Helped Carry Out the Holocaust

Abby Martin highlights the top five companies that aided Nazi Germany during the height of WWII, calling out companies such as Hugo Boss, IBM and Ford.

The War You Don't See

John Pilger

China attacks Japan for 'barbarous' past

China's president has sharply criticised Japan's history of military aggression in China and South Korea, during a speech in Seoul that came days after Tokyo changed its pacifist constitution. "In the first half of the 20th century, Japanese militarists carried out barbarous wars of aggression against China and Korea, swallowing Korea and occupying half of the Chinese mainland," Xi Jinping said on Friday at Seoul National University.

China and the Korean peninsula were occupied by Japan in the early 20th century.Xi's speech came on the second and last day of his state trip to South Korea, which had been flagged as a snub to ally North Korea because of his decision to visit Seoul before Pyongyang. But the key issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons was mentioned in a passing reference to the need for a "denuclearised Korean peninsula".

Japan announced this week that its military had the right to go into battle in defence of allies, a major shift in the nation's pacifist constitution. China, Japan, North Korea and its southern enemy are locked in a series of political and territorial disputes. Relations between Seoul and Tokyo are at a low ebb, with governments mired in disputes related to Japan's 1910-45 rule over the peninsula. China is also embroiled in a territorial row with Japan over areas of the East China Sea.

Al Jazeera English

George Orwell

Alien Base On The Moon In Detail

One link in an official NASA link. It no longer has the hi-res photos but only the low-res photos of the area. The other link is of a persons site that saved massive amounts of NASA photos ten to fifteen years ago for the public to view. His photo of the same area is hi-res and gives us this amazing close up that is mind boggling to say the least. The hacker Gary McKinnon said in an interview that he hacked into US military computers and saw first hand documents that stated the US military has off world officers stationed on an alien base, and since the moon is the closest celestial body it has to be there.

NASA Link -  Moon Photo Site (Hi-Res) - UFO Sightings Daily 

UFOnewsUK - Beyond Science

Believe in Good

Police Arrest 511 After Big Democracy Rally In Hong Kong

Hong Kong police have arrested more than 500 people holding a sit-in a day after tens of thousands in the former British colony joined a massive march to push for democracy. Anger at mainland China has never been greater after Beijing warned recently it holds the ultimate authority over the freewheeling capitalist enclave. That's despite a mini-constitution that gives the city a high degree of autonomy until 2047.

Police said 511 people were arrested Wednesday for unlawful assembly and preventing police from carrying out their duties. They were holding an overnight sit-in after the rally. Police said 98,600 people joined Tuesday's rally at its peak, while organizers said 510,000 turned out, the highest estimates in a decade. Hong Kong University researchers put the number at between 154,000 and 172,000.

The World Post

America Celebrates Gay Pride at Home and Exports Anti-Gay Hatred Abroad

Uganda has one of the harshest anti-gay laws in the world (81 countries have laws against homosexuality, fyi. That's Oliver; always instructing as he entertains—and rants.) And while the African country was already good at hating and persecuting homosexuality, it was the influence of American evangelicals, and insanely homophobic preacher Scott Lively who amped up the hatred, and the law, to new, murderous heights.

Alternet