PBS’s WorldFocus on Gaza & Use of Phosphorus
By SusanUnPC on January 16, 2009 at 3:45 AM in Gaza, Israel, Pakistan
I realize that the U.S. Air landing in the Hudson was a miracle and required great thinking by the crew, heroism by crew, passengers and rescuers, and extensive prior training to save all lives. But I was also disgusted that the cable news outlets blacked out all other news stories today. And let’s face it: The news producers are afraid to switch from a sensational “made for TV” plane crash because they’d lose audience and ad revenue. So here are a couple stories that are getting short shrift:
Via WorldFocus, aired on a Washington state PBS station:
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) suspended some of its Gaza operations on Thursday after its compound was struck by Israeli shells. Israel claimed militants were firing from the compound.
After 20 days of war, the death toll has surpassed 1,100 and thousands more have joined the endless lines for food. Relief agencies like UNRWA have struggled to meet the basic needs of those in the region.
A new weapon has also been introduced into the conflict: The smokescreen artillery shell. Some say it contains phosphorus, though the Israeli army denies that claim.
Andrew Whitley, the head of the New York office of the UNRWA office for Palestine refugees, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the current humanitarian situation, the U.N. compound and the use and legality of phosphorus in artillery shells.
BELOW: Taliban launches major offensive in Pakistan
In a tribal area of northwestern Pakistan near Afghanistan, Taliban militants have launched a major offensive. Officials say about 600 militants, most of them from Afghanistan, attacked a paramilitary camp in Pakistan on Sunday, sparking a major battle that left six security troops and 49 insurgents dead. The Associated Press reports the raid reflected sophisticated cross-border coordination and the continued strength of the Taliban.
Vikram Singh, a specialist on Afghanistan and Pakistan with the Center for a New American Security, joins Martin Savidge to discuss this latest Taliban offensive, the timing of the attack and the deaths of two high-level al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan last week.
(Release: November 13)
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Why is Israel flaunting such contempt for the UN as they dare to care for displaced and injured Palestinians?
Because the UN is heavily biased against the US and Israel.
Mawm, you sound pathetically like George Bush.
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/01/15/patients-scramble-to-flee-gaza-city-hospital-set-ablaze-by-israeli-attack/
mountainaires, please stop with the insults.
I have always previously been sympathetic to Israel – after this latest barbaric butchery – I now strongly feel that Israeli’s leaders, especially, Netanyahu, Olmert and their new Amazon, Lativi (sp?) should be arrested immediately and hauled off the the world court. I also feel that Bush, Cheney, Rice and the neo-cons should be arrested immediately upon leaving the buildings and brought to the world court for their complicity in this hell.
Using Phosphorous, destroying hospitals, food and medical supplies, make Attila the Hun look like a Humanitarian, compared to the current crimes, atrocities and genocide being committed by Israel.
Please do not tell me to understand history. While not Jewish, I had a Polish Aunt who spent almost 3 years in Auswitch and who died of stomach cancer at the age of 46 due to that experience. Believe me I am VERY familiar with the WHOLE, not just selected parts, of that history and what the Zionists did to exacerbate it!
Jews were not the only ones who suffered 63 year years ago, although they were the majority. History is NO EXCUSE to perpetrate even worse on people who had absolutely nothing to do with Nazi Germany.
The Zionists should ALL be rounded up for doing much worse to the Palestinians IMO.
The brutality and atrocities committed in Gaza have my stomach churning and tears stuck on my eyelids – I am disgusted, horrified, and deeply saddened.
Perhaps if the Israeli’s had to pay out of their own tax dollars for rebuilding Gaza’s infrastructure, and replacing the food and medicine they have destroyed, they would not be so quick to condone leaders like Netanyahu and Olmert. I sure as heck am not willing to provide Israel ONE DIME of American Taxpayer money after this horrifying butchery!
The specious justification of not approving of another country’s elected leadership does not give anyone the right to invade another. If this had ANY justification, the Arabs could use the same excuse to obliterate Israel. Those country’s are not too fond of Israeli’s elected leadership!
I am truly sickened to the depths of my soul!
Good reports. Thank you!
The “Vikram Singh” link is dead for me. The story and video can be found at this link:
http://www.cnas.org/node/660
Thank you. I copied the link from WorldFocus’s site, but didn’t get a chance to check it out.
This WorldFocus is a 1/2 hour news show on PBS stations, and I’m thrilled that they are stretching Americans’ awareness of world news. God knows we need it since our major networks have dumped most of their foreign correspondents.
Hell, as someone on Fox News noted last week, CBS did not have a single reporter or cameraperson in Gaza, and they had to buy footage and reporting from Sky News, which (heh) is owned by Fox News.
Anyway, I’ve put WorldFocus on my DVR to record daily. I also watch BBC World News America, which is on my BBCAmerica channel. Bummer part: They don’t have any embed videos — just like BBCNews’s YouTube channel where you can watch their videos but not embed them. Maybe they have a law in the UK that doesn’t permit it, but it’s dumb. Not to mention frustrating, since sometimes they have stories that other news outlets don’t have.
I’d trust Joe the Plumber’s reportage over that of our MSM.
Considering that half of the Palestinian population is 18 years old or younger, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is just cementing for Israel another generation of “neighbors” who resent and hate them.
Reminds me of the end of Charlie Wilson’s War
“We did great and glorious things. Then we fucked up the end game.”
Israel- like the US- has been fucking up the end game for decades. IMHO- THIS is why we need more women in positions of real power and leadership. It’s all about the end game for most women, not the conflict itself. It why we will go thru periods of conflict and upheaveal. To make it better on the otherside.
I would never believe anything the UN says. That is a viper pit filled with our enemies.
Well, thats not true.
It is very true. Good description Mawm
The UN is completely useless in its present form. No credibility. War is breaking out all over the world and no one even cares what the UN thinks. Their headquarters got blown up because they told Hamas that this was an off limits sight to the Israelis. Naturally, Hamas decided to launch a rocket from there. Safe for Hamas and great propaganda if Israel bombed the headquarters with food and supplies for the innocent in Gaza. The UN has become such a tool for the left that they have given away any sense of authority or non-biased opinion. THe USA need to withdraw from the UN, stop giving them money and a place to be. I think the UN should be investigated as to how they allowed rockets to be shot from one of there buildings. Although the UN officials deny the rocket fire it will be easily proved by the Israelis who have the technology to show it to the world. Then of course we can guarentee the end of the now biased UN.
“…Jobs program for Third World Bureaucrats.”
Jeanne Kirkpatrick
Cheney was reported to have authorized the use of white phosphorus agaisnt the Iraqis, in Fallujah.
Without the protections of the White House, which were illusory to begin with, the fear of their own mortailty I think, is starting to manifest.
Meaning, for all the brave talk about torture, they’re terrifed of the recrimnaitons.
I know this is nitpicky but I wish people would stop using the word “miracle” when referring to yesterday’s plane crash. The world miracle implies supernatural forces at work, when, in fact the successful landing with no loss of life should be attributed first to the expertise of an experienced, older pilot, the professionalism of the crew and the calmness and compliance of passengers. With some good luck (calm water, low winds) thrown in with the terrible luck of hitting a flock of geese.
I am not trying to diminish what happened, rather I would like to see people focus on the fact that the guy in charge was no youngster. At a time when older workers (or politicians) are being shoved aside as having nothing special to offer it was heartening to see that the man who had the skill and cool to land that plane so perfectly. I have watched a lot of the coverage (I live in Charlotte)and have heard very little discussion of the pilot’s age.
Experience–so it IS important after all. Well said.
best part is you used the word luck.
Luck : chance considered as a force that causes good or bad things to happen
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14055.htm
I’m sure the film at the above site has been recommended before. It’s 79 minutes long and worth every minute. It explains how so many Americans can support the occupation by Israel and this insane war without any reservations. I hope Karma rejects collective punishment.
Silence and evil—you know the saying.
The Times’ Michael Evans says the evidence proves Israel is using white phosphorous–a clear violation of International law.
Phosphorus denial outweighed by evidence
Michael Evans: behind the story
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5526955.ece
“To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; to be credible, we must be truthful.” — Edward. R. Murrow
While I did not support the expansion of the war into Iraq, I did support going into Afghanistan.
Not for revenge, but to bring international criminals to justice. I would have supported efforts to seriously alter the landscape of that country.
My view of Arab countries may be incorrect, but they appear to be mixtures of abject poverty and corrupt opulence, and only contribute a mere pittance to people like the Palistenians.
The U.N. is also corrupt and a disappointment, but the world has no better vehicle in these times of dire need.
Lemme put it this way, Sassy:
The UN is much LESS corrupt than is the Bush/Cheney administration and its connections to the Israeli neocons.
The U.N. is all there is, really, for the hope that the world can hold all countries to the same international standards of law.
face it, the un is our hope and our greatest disappointment.
Final victory will not go to the one handing out the greatest punishment but to him who can absorb the most.
The holocaust Jews refer to is when 60 Million people , of which 6 million were Jews , were killed. They have consigned the other 54 million people to history. This was before the Iraq war, the Vietnam war, the Korean war. In fact it was in the first half of the last century.
The perpetrators were hanged. The same should happen to to-days perpetrators. They should be arrested anywhere they go in the world. Like the Serb leaders.
The brand name holocaust has been handed to the people of Gaza
The holocaust to-day is Gaza where war crimes with illegal weapons have murdered and maimed over 3000 people. After the cease fire Israel was the first to break it as they did in most other cases. Gaza reacted with a few harmless rockets that killed no-one. We would do the same. It is called pride.
Moshe Yaalon Israelli Chief of Staff in 2002 said “The palestinians must be forced to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated People”
Boycott and picket all stores who sell israeli goods and all goods and services of all child murder supporters.
boindub, err you forgot to mention boycotting the products of those countries supporting the people of gaza with missles, etc. you know the ones killing jews? how about an even handed approach in raising hell about this. one sided doesn’t cut it.
Pathetic! I’ll buy whatever I want. I’ll spend my money on Israel too. Perhaps I would boycott those that support the militants. But you see I don’t buy the Poppies. And oh yeah, the militants don’t produce anything decent that people would want to buy.
boindub,
Well Said – i agree with you! They better round up Bush, Cheney, Rice and the rest of America’s neocons to go with the Israeli perpetrators of this despicable genocide.
Israeli’ actions this last month, make Attila the Huns’ forays appear like humanitarian missions!
In Gaza, it appears The Pot is Calling the Kettle Black. Curiously, PBS missed this one.
Folks would do well to read some of the Hamas Charter. HT Jawa Report.