The Lady of Burma*

On June 19th 2006, Burma's democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, celebrated her 61st birthday. She is now in her eleventh year of detention. She isn't allowed to see family or friends as all visitors are banned. Her phone line is cut and her post is intercepted. More about her bio...

How we can help.


(c) Campaigning for Human Rights and Democracy in Burma




* A play is dedicated to this amazing woman at the Old Vic Theatre in London, on Sunday 12 November.

Crisis Square Mile Run 2006 on 8 june

I am brave. No doubt about it. Who would sign up for two races in the space of three days without having had any running training at all? Okay. I am brave, but not mad: apparently you are allowed to walk as long as you get to the arrival... So, why not?! The route is very interesting from the scenery point of view and for a very good cause: homeless people! From St Paul to London Bridge passing by Tower of London and City Hall, I will be running (v. slowly) Crisis Square Mile Run 2006 with Amanda, Joseph, Jasmin and other people from work. It will be fun! It will be rewarding!

Route:

Race For Life -- it's getting a healthy habit

This June I am going to take part to the Race for Life in Hampsted Heath for the third Summer.
Race for Life is a women charity event with the noble aim to raise money toward breast cancer research.

This year I have been more organised than in the past and set up a website to raise money. If for symphaty and compassion you feel like to sponsor me, then click here.

Full report available in June!

If you wanna follow my example and take part to one of the UK Race for Life this Summer, click on the Race for Life Official Website.

Fallujah, The Concealed Massacre

Italian Satellite TV broadcasts film with evidence that the US used phosphorous weapons in Fallujah with interviews of US military personal; one says that "Bodies melted away before us".
© Remember Falluja

The video is available here:

Fallujah, The Concealed Massacre by RAI News correspondent Sigfrido Ranucci

Italian version and English version

(about 30 minutes long)

[Mind that it is a video which shows, and schock.]

Heavy Staff, opps, Stuff

Airline Weapon










Al Qaeda – The Database
Wayne Madsen Report – November 18, 2005
Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that "Al Qaeda" is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence. "I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . . "Two of my Jordanian colleagues were experts in computers. They were air defense officers. Using computer science slang, they introduced a series of jokes about students' punishment. "For example, when one of us was late at the bus stop to leave the Staff College, the two officers used to tell us: 'You'll be noted in 'Q eidat il-Maaloomaat' which meant 'You'll be logged in the information database.' Meaning 'You will receive a warning . . .' If the case was more severe, they would used to talk about 'Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.' Meaning 'the decision database.' It meant 'you will be punished.' For the worst cases they used to speak of logging in 'Al Qaida.' "In the early 1980s the Islamic Bank for Development, which is located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, like the Permanent Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization, bought a new computerized system to cope with its accounting and communication requirements. At the time the system was more sophisticated than necessary for their actual needs. "It was decided to use a part of the system's memory to host the Islamic Conference's database. It was possible for the countries attending to access the database by telephone: an Intranet, in modern language. The governments of the member-countries as well as some of their embassies in the world were connected to that network. "[According to a Pakistani major] the database was divided into two parts, the information file where the participants in the meetings could pick up and send information they needed, and the decision file where the decisions made during the previous sessions were recorded and stored. In Arabic, the files were called, 'Q eidat il-Maaloomaat' and 'Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.' Those two files were kept in one file called in Arabic 'Q eidat ilmu'ti'aat' which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word for "base." The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is called 'q eidat 'riyadh al 'askariya.' Q eida means "a base" and "Al Qaida" means "the base." "In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database located in computer and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference's secretariat. "In the early 1990s, I was a military intelligence officer in the Headquarters of the French Rapid Action Force. Because of my skills in Arabic my job was also to translate a lot of faxes and letters seized or intercepted by our intelligence services . . . We often got intercepted material sent by Islamic networks operating from the UK or from Belgium. "These documents contained directions sent to Islamic armed groups in Algeria or in France. The messages quoted the sources of statements to be exploited in the redaction of the tracts or leaflets, or to be introduced in video or tapes to be sent to the media. The most commonly quoted sources were the United Nations, the non-aligned countries, the UNHCR and . . . Al Qaida. "Al Qaida remained the data base of the Islamic Conference. Not all member countries of the Islamic Conference are 'rogue states' and many Islamic groups could pick up information from the databases. It was but natural for Osama Bin Laden to be connected to this network. He is a member of an important family in the banking and business world. "Because of the presence of 'rogue states,' it became easy for terrorist groups to use the email of the database. Hence, the email of Al Qaida was used, with some interface system, providing secrecy, for the families of the mujaheddin to keep links with their children undergoing training in Afghanistan, or in Libya or in the Beqaa valley, Lebanon. Or in action anywhere in the battlefields where the extremists sponsored by all the 'rogue states' used to fight. And the 'rogue states' included Saudi Arabia. When Osama bin Laden was an American agent in Afghanistan, the Al Qaida Intranet was a good communication system through coded or covert messages. Al Qaida was neither a terrorist group nor Osama bin Laden's personal property . . .

The terrorist actions in Turkey in 2003 were carried out by Turks and the motives were local and not international, unified, or joint. These crimes put the Turkish government in a difficult position vis-a-vis the British and the Israelis. But the attacks certainly intended to 'punish' Prime Minister Erdogan for being a 'toot tepid' Islamic politician. " . . . In the Third World the general opinion is that the countries using weapons of mass destruction for economic purposes in the service of imperialism are in fact 'rogue states," specially the US and other NATO countries. " Some Islamic economic lobbies are conducting a war against the 'liberal" economic lobbies. They use local terrorist groups claiming to act on behalf of Al Qaida. On the other hand, national armies invade independent countries under the aegis of the UN Security Council and carry out pre-emptive wars. And the real sponsors of these wars are not governments but the lobbies concealed behind them. "The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the 'TV watcher' to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money." (Our emphasis, Ed.)

In yet another example of what happens to those who challenge the system, in December 2001, Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel was convicted by a secret French military court of passing classified documents that identified potential NATO bombing targets in Serbia to a Serbian agent during the Kosovo war in 1998. Bunel's case was transferred from a civilian court to keep the details of the case classified. Bunel's character witnesses and psychologists notwithstanding, the system "got him" for telling the truth about Al Qaeda and who has actually been behind the terrorist attacks commonly blamed on that group. It is noteworthy that that Yugoslav government, the government with whom Bunel was asserted by the French government to have shared information, claimed that Albanian and Bosnian guerrillas in the Balkans were being backed by elements of "Al Qaeda." We now know that these guerrillas were being backed by money provided by the Bosnian Defense Fund, an entity established as a special fund at Bush-influenced Riggs Bank and directed by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.

© The Truth Seeker

If you want to read the article in Italian, go here: http://www.effedieffe.com/interventizeta.php?id=781&parametro=%20esteri

Christmas presents

Steve and I finally decided the Christmas present for our far away beloved child Anibal Damian: finger puppets with sound (animal impressions). We also finally wrote our letters to him and his natural mum. I did not dare to write it in Spanish to avoid misunderstandings, but I tried to translate it in my Spanish corner.

Since we missed his birthday because of the long mail system (and not because we are bad sponsoring parents ;o P), we are going to send him another present soon.

I also did some more shopping on the catalogue and bought the Women of Africa and the Women of Latin America CD plus the children's world greetings cards. I like this way of shopping because a percentage of the profit goes towards the various PLAN UK projects.

I have also started some Christmas shopping for friends and family. For example, I ordered the CD of Mondovino for my nonnetto (grandpa) who used to be a wine producer himself. I am sure he will appreciate it, even though the theme about the globalisation of taste is not very promising. Steve and I watched this film at the London Film Festival 2004 and deeply enjoyed it because the director and the main character were present at the screening, and a nice discussion followed the viewing.

Doing More with Less

Extract from the Green Paper on Energy Efficience

Change our electric bulbs, our boilers and our refrigerators, insulate our houses, buy less polluting cars, use public transport: these are some of the things we should do if we want to protect the environment and guarantee a stable supply of energy for our children. The market alone will not enable us to make these energy savings. The prices of electricity or petrol, certainly expensive for part of the population, do not reflect the genuine cost of energy for our society and do not encourage consumers to make sufficient savings. Action by public authorities is therefore essential in order to influence our behaviour and to ensure that the most efficient technologies, that is those which make it possible to use less energy, are systematically used by industry.

The European Commission decided today to relaunch the initiative on saving energy by publishing a new Green Paper. This document analyses the situation and draws up a whole series of actions to be discussed, commented on and supplemented by all stakeholders. It is already clear that, at the end of this consultation, Europe will have to find a way to put an end to this waste of energy through measures and actions at all levels of society and in all sectors of the economy.

Why give priority to energy saving?
Today the European Union imports about 50% of its energy needs, which amounts to approximately 240 billion euros each year. If nothing is done, 70% of the EU energy needs could be covered by imports by 2030. Our dependence increases each day. With the development of transport, oil remains our main energy source while the price per barrel of crude takes off and the environment deteriorates. The European Union is also confronted by a significant growth of energy consumption while energy sources are becoming scarce. The EU has limited room for manoeuvre on the energy supply side. Renewable energy has not evolved enough to replace oil and gas in a sufficient quantity. Therefore the Commission had already proposed in November 2000, in its Green Paper "Towards a European strategy of energy supply", to act mainly on the energy demand side. Saving energy is indeed the most rapid, easiest and most effective way to answer the challenge of our energy dependence. And the potential for saving energy is considerable.

An average household can easily save an amount ranging between 200 and 1000 euros a year according to its consumption level. Energy consumption is also the main reason for the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

• By saving 20% of energy consumption, it would be possible to secure 50% of the necessary reductions of CO2 emissions. European industry has already started to develop advanced technologies in the field of energy saving.

• Saving 20% of energy consumption would also strengthen the competitiveness of our economy and facilitate the creation of one million jobs in Europe.

We face a real drift: the consumption of energy in Europe increases by 1 to 2% a year. The growth of transport and electricity demand represents the most worrying trends. If nothing is done to reverse the tendency, energy consumption could still increase by about 10% over the next 15 years. Transport alone represents almost one third of the total EU consumption. However, 98% of the transport market depends on oil. Hence,transport, a vast majority of which is by the road, is responsible for 26% of CO2 emissions. Mobility experienced a very strong growth over the last 30 years and this is mainly by road. If 30 years ago one travelled on average 17km per day by car, today wetravel up to 35km on average. Road transport also accounts for almost 45% offreight transport and this should still increase by 2010. The supremacy of road transport is today synonymous with congestion and pollution and costs the European economy around half a point of the G(ross) D(omestic) P(roduct) per year. The demand for electricity also experienced considerable growth in recent years. In fact, more than two thirds of the energy needed to generate electricity are lost in production, transport and distribution. Finally the building sector alone takes 40% of the energy consumed in the European Union for its account. Too much energy continues to be wasted in buildings because of inefficient heating systems and lighting. One should add certain new phenomena which contribute to the drift of our energy consumption, such as increasing use of air conditioning, the craze for large 4x4 vehicles or the introduction of the stand-by mode for electrical equipment which today represents almost 7% of total electricity consumption on its own.
A potential of 20% savings by 2020
It is possible to save up to 20% of our energy consumption (a saving of 60 billion euros a year).

• 10% savings could be carried out by fully implementing the measures already set out by Europe in the building, domestic appliances, heat production and transport sectors.
  
• To save the remaining 10%, new measures must be outlined using all possible levels of action.

© European Communities, 2005

What can I do?
Well, at a personal level, keep the data below in mind:

Type of Equipment: Old TV Set
Standby: 6 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 43.6 kWh (20 hours per day in standby)
Annual Energy Cost: (€)5,6 €
Type of Equipment: New TV Set*
Standby: 2 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 14.6 kWh
Annual Energy Cost:1,9 €
Type of Equipment: DVD
Standby: 2 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 17.5 kWh
2,3 €
Type of Equipment: VCRs Old
Standby: 8 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 70 kWh
Annual Energy Cost: 9,1 €
Type of Equipment: VCR New*
Standby: 3 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 26 kWh
Annual Energy Cost: 3,4 €
Type of Equipment: Hi-Fi system
Standby: 3 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 26 kWh
Annual Energy Cost: 3,4 €
Type of Equipment: Hi-Fi system new*
Standby: 1 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 8.7 kWh
Annual Energy Cost: 1,14 €
Type of Equipment: ADSL modem
Standby: 2 W to 10 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 73 kWh (20 hours in per day standby)
Annual Energy Cost: 9,5 €
Type of Equipment: Set Top Boxes
Standby: 5 W to 20 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 146 kWh (20 hours in per day standby)
Annual Energy Cost: 19 €
Type of Equipment: PC (soft off-mode)
Standby: 1 W to 5W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 36.5 kWh (20 hours in per day standby)
Annual Energy Cost: 4,7 €
Type of Equipment: Printer (sleep mode)
Standby: 2 to 10 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 87.6 kWh
Annual Energy Cost: 11,4 €
Type of Equipment: External Power Supply
Standby: 0.2 to 2 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 17.5 kWh
Annual Energy Cost: 2,3 €
Type of Equipment: Microwave Oven
Standby: 2 W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 17.5 kWh
Annual Energy Cost: 2,3 €

Total (Worst case and with 5 external power supplies, one new and one old TV)
Standby: 81W
Type of Equipment Consumption: 646.8 KWh
Annual Energy Cost: 84 €

Data © European Communities, 2005