“The Israeli soldiers beat me on the ship,” said Audeh in a telephone
interview with CBC from Jordan.
“They had us bound, handcuffed
... and we were detained for an extensive period of time and were not
allowed to go to the washrooms ... or sleep. It's been a rough 24 to 48
hours, let's put it that way.”
Audeh said the attack began in the early hours of Monday morning when
Israeli naval ships began firing live rounds, rubber bullets and sound
bombs at the flotilla.
Troops then boarded the ships via
helicopter and began shooting at the passengers, Audeh said, adding that
dozens were injured in the attack.
Audeh denied Israeli reports
that the flotilla passengers responded to the raid with violence and
resistance, calling such accusations “ridiculous.”
“The question
is, why were they coming after us in international waters and attacking
us? It was a humanitarian aid ship. We were all civilians, we were
unarmed and we did not attack them.”
...
A word on the legal position, which is very plain. To attack a
foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not
piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is
rather an act of illegal warfare.
Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean
however that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of
the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place
on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody’s territorial waters) the
applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the
incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish
territory.
There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.
Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf
of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In
that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls
under international jurisdiction as a war crime.
Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli
military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If
Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then
it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under
Turkish law.
In brief, if Israel and Turkey are not at war, then it is Turkish law
which is applicable to what happened on the ship. It is for Turkey, not
Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation into events and to
initiate any prosecutions. Israel is obliged to hand over indicted
personnel for prosecution.
...
The UN Security
Council has condemned acts leading to the deaths of civilians during
Monday's Israeli attack on a humanitarian aid convoy that was headed to
the Gaza Strip.
In a formal statement adopted after more than 10 hours of closed-door
negotiations, the council requested the immediate release of ships and
civilians held by Israel and called for an impartial investigation.
...
See also:
Previous Activists Killed By Israel
One of the ships in the Freedom Flotilla aid convoy is named Rachel Corrie, in honour of an American peace activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer.
US Middle East policy in spotlight
... among some quarters in Washington, questions over unqualified US support for Israel remain.
OTTAWA – A two-year inquiry into Brian Mulroney’s dealings with
German-Canadian arms lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber has concluded that the
former prime minister acted in an “inappropriate” way when he accepted
large amounts of cash from Schreiber.
The report by Justice Jeffrey Oliphant said Mulroney “failed to
live up to the standard of conduct that he himself adopted in the 1985
ethics code.”
The judge said he could not accept Mulroney’s testimony that his
acceptance of at least $225,000 in cash was an error in judgment.
Rather, it was an attempt to hide the transactions, Oliphant said.
...
At least 19 people were killed and dozens injured when troops
intercepted the convoy of ships dubbed the Freedom Flotilla early on
Monday, Israeli radio reported.
Read the link above for more information.
More related news:
Turks rally against Israeli Attack
Gaza's real humanitarian crisis
...
It took months, but the effects were obvious and enormous. All of the
mice displayed far more normal grooming habits; four of the mice were
completely cured, while the other six healed a lot of their wounds and
regrew substantial portions of their hair. The team also tried all the
other possible combinations - normal mice given mutant marrow started
showing obsessive-compulsive data, normal mice given normal marrow
showed no change, and mutant mice given mutant marrow exhibited extreme
self-mutilation and sometimes died from their self-inflicted wounds.
Previous studies have managed to link the immune system with mental
illness, but this is the first time a clear cause-and-effect link has
been demonstrated in which a problem in the immune system directly
affects the proper functioning of the mind. Still, while Capecchi and
his colleagues think similar treatments work for humans, they don't
expect to see bone marrow transplants become a common way to treat
psychiatric disorders. They are among the most painful types of medical
procedures and are typically only used to help treat life-threatening
illnesses.
"With my colleague, the Archbishop...
of Ottawa, who like me has close ties to governments, I am appealing to
the conscience of my fellow Canadians, women and men, so that together
we may one day call for a change in this unjust situation in our
country – the current legal void in abortion matters."
The Yellow Pages
Group, Canada’s leading provider of print and online directories,
has asked the Canadian
Radio-television Telecommunications Commission to no longer require
mass distribution of the residential listings phone book in seven big
cities, including Toronto. In those cities, home and business listings
are in separate directories. The phone book for businesses, the yellow
pages, is still slated for door-to-door delivery.
The requested change would save 35 metric tons of paper every year,
says Annie Marsolais, communications director for Yellow Pages Group.
The CRTC is still reviewing the matter.
More consumers are letting their fingers do the scrolling,
searching online for home phone numbers or storing them on their
cellphones, she explains. Some cellphone users no longer bother with a
land line and aren’t listed in any directory.
“Our industry is evolving and we have to adapt,” says Marsolais.
About two to five per cent of the normal run of home phone books
will be printed. But those who want them need to request them. Consumers
can ask for the 2010 ones by calling 1-800-268-5637 or by visiting ypg.com/delivery.
More than 35,000 printed copies are presently in storage.
This is a long-distance trend. Earlier in May, Verizon, the
largest phone company in New York State, also asked regulators for
permission to end mass delivery. Such approval has already been granted
to distributors in four states.
...
Hundreds of wind turbines could be built in Lambton County if all the
projects on the drawing board proceed as planned.
When the Ontario Power Authority awarded a new round of contracts to
wind generation projects in April no Lambton sites were on the list.
Bob
Rae writes today about the 25th anniversary of the Liberal-NDP
governing accord in Ontario. Excerpts presented here for historical
reminiscing and well, who cares it's just good educational, timely and
topical stuff in light of the UK events too:
This week
marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Liberal-NDP Accord in
Ontario. The election in early May of 1985 had elected a minority
parliament, with the Conservatives at 50, the Liberals at 45 and the NDP
at 25. The vote split was roughly 37/37/25.
...
If you're in the market for a low-cost tablet, hang tight, because
several affordable models are on the way, says
VIA's Richard Brown, vice president of marketing at VIA. In an
interview with Bloomberg, Brown said he expects about five different
models ranging in price from $100 to $150 to be available in the second
half of 2010, all of which will sport a VIA processor inside.
All five models will be built around Google's open-source Android
platform, which will play a big role in keeping the overall cost to a
minimum.
...
OTTAWA – A flat-out denial yesterday by Minister of Human Resources
and Social Development Diane Finley that she is making cuts to 15
Employment Insurance (EI) processing centres in Ontario conflicts with
the facts, says New Democrat MP Charlie Angus (Timmins – James Bay). In
Question Period, Finley denied that a major set of cuts to the centres
is in the works. But Angus says the plans are already well developed.
“Perhaps the minister did not understand the question. We are talking
about cuts right across Ontario to 15 centres for EI including
Brantford, Peterborough, Oshawa, Kenora, Timmins and other communities.”
...
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