21 Jun 2015
24 Apr 2015
The Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանություն, [hɑˈjɔtsʰ tsʰɛʁɑspɑnuˈtʰjun]), also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, traditionally among Armenians, as the Great Crime (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, [mɛts jɛˈʁɛrn]; English transliteration: Medz Yeghern [Medz/Great + Yeghern/Crime]) was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects from their historic homeland in the territory constituting the present-day Republic of Turkey. It took place during and after World War I and was implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and forced labor, and the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches to the Syrian Desert. The total number of people killed as a result has been estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million. The Assyrians, the Greeks and other minority groups were similarly targeted for extermination by the Ottoman government, and their treatment is considered by many historians to be part of the same genocidal policy.
It is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, as scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust. The word genocide was coined in order to describe these events.
The starting date of the genocide is conventionally held to be April 24, 1915, the day when Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse commonplace. The majority of Armenian diaspora communities were founded as a result of the Armenian genocide.
Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, denies the word genocide is an accurate description of the events. In recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as genocide. To date, twenty countries have officially recognized the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars and historians accept this view.
More Info About The Armenian Genocide At Wikipedia
8 Sept 2014
Ludlow Massacre
Song by Woody Guthrie. Refers to the violent deaths of 20 people, 11 of them children, during an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914
8 Aug 2014
Yezidis massacred by ISIS
Reports that Islamic militants have trapped up to 40,000 members of Iraq’s minority communities have spurred the US into considering a military-led humanitarian action.
Most of the trapped people are members of the Yazidi religion, one of Iraq’s oldest minorities. They were forced to flee to Mount Sinjar in the Iraqi north-west region, or face slaughter by an encircling group of Islamic State (Isis) jihadists. The UN has said that roughly 40,000 people – many women and children – have taken refuge in nine locations on the mountain, “a craggy, mile-high ridge identified in local legend as the final resting place of Noah’s ark”.
Gruesome images of brutally slain people have emerged in the past week, as local officials say that at least 500 Yazidis, including 40 children, have been killed, and many more have been threatened with death. Roughly 130,000 residents of the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar have fled to Dohuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan to the north, or to Irbil.
Reports of violence, repression and murder by Isis and other extremist groups have become increasingly prevalent in Iraq. Christians have also been targeted for their faith. The country’s largest Christian city was all but abandoned on Thursday, as Isis advanced through minority communities in the north-west.
15 Jun 2014
Iraq Isis Crisis: Mass Executions of Civilians and Soldiers in Mosul
The United Nations reports that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) fighters carried out summary executions of civilians and members of the Iraqi army in the northern city of Mosul.
A UN spokesman says the number of killings could run into the hundreds. Unconfirmed reports say 1,700 Shia soldiers have been executed. "We've also had reports suggesting that the government forces have also committed excesses, in particular the shelling of civilian areas on 6 and 8 June," said UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville.
"There are claims that up to 30 civilians may have been killed." A summary execution is a killing committed after a person is accused of a crime and slain without a full and fair trial. The methods of execution committed by the militants remain unclear. Unconfirmed reports have claimed beheadings and crucifixations are being used.
The group have continued their advance towards Baghdad after capturing Mosul and former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The militants have now moved into two towns, Saadiyah and Jalawla, in the eastern province of Diyala.
15 Aug 2013
2 Aug 2013
How the Media Got Guatemala's Dos Erres Massacre Wrong
NPR received a Peabody award for their piece on the 1982 massacre, but they omit one important fact; the US directly sponsored the Guatemalan special forces that brutally killed thousands of civilians
22 Feb 2013
1 Aug 2012
Germany admits NATO favouring Al Qaeda in Syria
German intelligence estimates that "around 90" terror attacks that "can be attributed to organizations that are close to al-Qaeda or jihadist groups" were carried out in Syria between the end of December and the beginning of July, as reported by the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). This was revealed by the German government in a response to a parliamentary question.
In response to the same question, the German government admitted that it had received several reports from the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, on the May 25 massacre in the Syrian town of Houla. But it noted that the content of these reports was to remain classified "by reason of national interest", Like many other Western governments, Germany expelled Syria's ambassador in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, holding the Syrian government responsible for the violence.
Meanwhile, at least three major German newspapers - Die Welt, the FAZ, and the mass-market tabloid Bild - have published reports attributing responsibility for the massacre to anti-government rebel forces or treating this as the most probable scenario.
4 Feb 2012
At least 337 dead in Syria army attack on Homs
At least 337 people were killed in shelling by Syrian forces in the city of Homs, activists said on Saturday. Over 1300 were wounded. Homs attack is the deadliest so far in the Syrian regime's crackdown on protests which erupted 11 months ago. Locals said Syrian forces started shelling the Khalidiya neighbourhood at around 8 p.m. on Friday using artillery and mortars. They said at least 36 houses were completely destroyed with families inside.
As news spread, Syrians stormed the Syrian embassy in Cairo in protest, and rallies broke out outside Syrian missions in Britain, Germany and the United States. Some opposition activists said the violence was triggered by a wave of army defections in Homs. According to Reuters, the opposition Syrian National Council that it believed Assad's forces were preparing for similar attacks around Damascus and in the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour.
30 Nov 2011
Norwegian mass killer ruled insane
Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik may avoid jail but end up in a psychiatric institution indefinitely after court-appointed experts concluded he is criminally insane, prosecutors said Tuesday. In Norway's worst attacks since World War Two, Breivik killed 77 people in July by bombing central Oslo and then gunning down dozens of mostly teenagers at a summer camp of the ruling Labor Party's youth wing.
Prosecutors said a psychiatric report on Breivik, a self-declared anti-immigration militant, showed he believed he had staged "the executions" out of love for "his people." "The conclusion ... is that he is insane," prosecutor Svein Holden told a news conference on the psychiatrists' report. "He lives in his own delusional universe and his thoughts and acts are governed by this universe."
5 Oct 2011
Rumsfeld in heated conversation with Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera's Abderrahim Foukara asks the former US defense secretary whether he made adequate preparations to avoid the thousands of lives lost in Iraq.
Part of Donald Rumsfeld's first interview with Al Jazeera after disparaging comments he made in 2004. He claimed then that the network's coverage from Iraq was "vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable".
26 Jul 2011
Norwegian Police Knew Gunman’s Name Before Arrest
Despite being portrayed by the media as inept due to the length of time it took them to reach the island of Utoeya, it has now emerged that police knew the name of gunman Anders Behring Breivik before they even arrested him, a startling admission that prompted one of Britain’s top news anchors to question how authorities were aware of the gunman’s identity in advance.
During his Channel 4 News broadcast on Friday evening, host Jon Snow asked “why police knew the killer’s name by the time they had arrived on the island,” reported the Telegraph live blog.
“He surrendered the moment police called his name 3 minutes after they arrived. What we don’t know is how the police knew the terrorist’s name before they arrested him,” said Snow, who is recognized as one of Britain’s most trusted news anchors, and cannot be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”. Snow also posed the question on his official Twitter page.
How authorities knew the gunman’s identity before his slaughter of young Norwegians on the island of Utoeya had even come to an end, and while the overwhelming speculation still centred around Islamic terrorists, is a mystery, as is the question of why the cops didn’t shoot Breivik immediately.
24 Jul 2011
Link Between Breivik and Israeli Mossad
Anders Behring Breivik is suspect in massacre of over 80 at Labour Party Youth camp on Norwegian island and downtown Oslo bombing. Breivik is being called a Christian fundamentalist even though he was a Freemason and supporter of such vile Zionist Islamophobes as Pam Geller and Richard Pipes.
Pipes and Geller are ciphers for Israeli intelligence and propaganda elements and provide a clear link between Breivik and Mossad, which is under orders to stage false flag attacks to garner support for Israel against Palestine, Cyprus and Norway being the two most recent examples of Mossad-staged attacks.
And when it comes to “Al Qaeda’s” Mossad seal of approval, the vicious Zionist Rupert Murdoch and his Zio-trash papers can always be relied on to help out. Murdoch’s scandal-plagued “Sun” reports that Norwegian attacks are the work of “Al Qaeda”
22 Jun 2011
Dutch state to answer for 1947 bloodbath
On 9 December 1947, Dutch troops on Java raided the village of Rawagede, around 100 kilometres east of the Indonesian capital Jakarta. The Dutch military campaign to put an end to the Indonesian independence struggle has always been referred to rather euphemistically as the “police actions”. Indonesian proclaimed its independence in August 1945, after the end of the Japanese occupation during World War II. It took The Hague until the end of 1949 to give in to international pressure and recognise the independence of its former colony.
Eye witnesses say the men of the village were lined up and shot dead. The Committee of Dutch Debts of Honour claims 431 people were killed, in a report written 1969 on the campaign’s excesses this figure is put at just 150 victims.
It was 20 years before the report was published, but the United Nations concluded in January 1948 that the military operation in Rawagede was deliberate and ruthless. However, there were no consequences for the Netherlands. This made it easier for the Dutch legal authorities to avoid prosecuting the Dutch officer responsible for ordering the bloodbath, Major Alphons Wijnen.
More on Radio Netherlands Worldwide and attorney statement here (pdf)