Tuesday, December 16, 2003

No-count Casualties - Iraq to Stop Counting Civilian Dead, AP - Cluster bombs kill in Iraq, even after shooting ends, USA Today - Depleted uranium causing high radioactivity levels, The Observer QUOTE OF THE DAY "Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him."     - - Martin Luther King Jr. KNOW YOUR HISTORY - DECEMBER 16th 1773 -- Protesting of the heavy taxes placed by the British on their American exports. The Boston Tea Party. American vandals &/or patriotic colonists, dressed as American Indians, sneak aboard a British cargo ship & dump its load of teas overboard 1980 -- Poland: Leaders of the workers' union, Solidarnooeæ, leaders of a new government, & representatives of the Catholic Church, 150,000 strong, gather in Gdansk to recognize the dramatic change which has come to Poland. 1991 -- Belgium: Protesting Vatican funding of logging & telescope construction atop Mount Graham (in SE Arizona), an Apache sacred site, activists in Brussels, pull a bulldozer up to a prominent local cathedral. SAT TV TIP: Thursday Night & Friday - "The People's Voice: Election 2004" Broadcast On Link TV (Available Direct TV CH 375 & Dish Network CH  9410) http://www.linktv.com What if you could sit down with each of the presidential candidates for an hour to ask them hard-hitting questions about issues that real people care about? Link TV is doing just that with its new series, THE PEOPLE'S VOICE - one hour, in-depth, interviews with presidential candidates. Link TV is putting the people back in the electoral process by linking the candidates with the nation's leading citizen activist groups and membership organizations. The first edition of THE PEOPLE'S VOICE features Rep. Dennis Kucinich . Kucinich RHINO HERE: Last week The Iraqi Health Ministry announced it would stop keeping count of civilian casualties of the ongoing Iraq war. They also claimed the U.S. led occupation authority had nothing to do with the policy. Iraq to Stop Counting Civilian Dead By NIKO PRICE, Associated Press Writer , 12/10/03 BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi Health Ministry officials ordered a halt to a count of civilian casualties from the war and told workers not to release figures already compiled, the head of the ministry's statistics department told The Associated Press on Wednesday... MORE AT: Iraq To Stop Counting The worst part of this announcement is not that many more Iraqi civilians will be killed as long as the occupation continues. Instead, it's the fact that even years after the occupation forces are gone, civilians will continue to die from the deadly waste products of war like hidden, unexploded, cluster bombs & strewn about depleted uranium. Thankfully a few news outlets are focusing on these criminal side effects which some people don't want the American (or Iraqi) public to hear about. On cluster bombs, check out the in depth coverage done by USA Today. Cluster bombs kill in Iraq, even after shooting ends By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY, 12/10/03 BAGHDAD - The little canisters dropped onto the city, white ribbons trailing behind. They clattered into streets, landed in lemon trees, rattled around on roofs, settled onto lawns. When Jassim al-Qaisi saw the canisters the size of D batteries falling on his neighborhood just before 7 a.m. April 7, he laughed and asked himself: "Now what are the Americans throwing on our heads?" The strange objects were fired by U.S. artillery outside Baghdad as U.S. forces approached the Iraqi capital. In the span of a few minutes, they would kill four civilians in the al-Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad and send al-Qaisi's teenage son to the hospital with metal fragments in his foot. The deadly objects were cluster bomblets, small explosives packed by the dozens or hundreds into bombs, rockets or artillery shells known as cluster weapons. When these weapons were fired on Baghdad on April 7, many of the bomblets failed to explode on impact. They were picked up or stumbled on by their victim... MORE: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-12-10-cluster-bomb-cover_x.htm And then there's the weapons of pre-mediated random mass murder made with depleted uranium which won't only be killing Iraqis years after the dust settles, but American GI's too. Good coverage on this disaster in the making by The UK Observer is today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE. 11:44:43 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Army shells pose cancer risk in Iraq Army shells pose cancer risk in Iraq Depleted uranium causing high radioactivity levels by Antony Barnett, The Observer, Sunday December 14, 2003 Depleted uranium shells used by British forces in southern Iraqi battlefields are putting civilians at risk from 'alarmingly high' levels of radioactivity.  Experts are calling for the water and milk being used by locals in Basra to be monitored after analysis of biological and soil samples from battle zones found 'the highest number, highest levels and highest concentrations of radioactive source points' in the Basra suburb of Abu Khasib - the centre of the fiercest battles between UK forces and Saddam loyalists. Readings taken from destroyed Iraqi tanks in Basra reveal radiation levels 2,500 times higher than normal. In the surrounding area researchers recorded radioactivity levels 20 times higher than normal. Critics of these controversial munitions - used to penetrate tank armour - believe inhaling the radioactive dust left by the highly combustible weapon causes cancer and birth defects. It has long been alleged that depleted uranium (DU) used in the first Gulf conflict was responsible for abnormally high levels of childhood leukaemia and birth defects in Iraq. Depleted uranium is also believed by some to be a contributing factor in Gulf War syndrome. The disclosure comes days after the charity Human Rights Watch claimed hundreds of 'preventable' deaths of civilians have been caused by the use of cluster bombs by US and UK forces during the conflict. The latest research, based on a two-week field trip by scientists, was carried out by the Canadian-based Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) led by a former US military doctor Asaf Durakovic. MORE AT: Army Shells "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 11:07:03 AM    comment

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