某某 2011.12.31

2012 Happy Our New Year！
要寫什麼好呢？
寫我們的回憶好嗎？
寫逝去的曾經好嗎？
寫不出來的話，
從2012我們再慢慢一筆一劃精彩！

某某 2011.12.31

Voyage d'Hermès

source: http://youtu.be/3ee2wk8tQZ4

維護創作自由 瑞士博物館捨知名品牌贊助

轉貼來源: 中央社
http://news.rti.org.tw/index_newsContent.aspx?nid=334020&id=5&id2=2

瑞士洛桑艾里賽(Elysee)攝影博物館為堅持創作自由的原則，於26日決定取消與知名服飾品牌Lacoste合作成立的攝影獎，因為贊助廠商執意排除1名入圍的巴勒斯坦攝影師。

艾里賽博物館館長史都則(Sam Stourdze)為法國人，2010年上任後，促成與以鱷魚為品牌形象的Lacoste合作，聯名設立攝影獎，總獎金2萬5,000歐元(約3萬2,600美元)，用意在發掘並鼓勵新秀。

在11月入圍的攝影師名單中，在耶路撒冷出生的巴勒斯坦人珊蘇兒(Larissa Sansour)以「國家資產(Nation Estate)」為題，拍攝系列圖片，描繪巴勒斯坦國家的誕生。

珊蘇兒在個人部落格指出，這項創作計畫是1組科幻系列照片，以敘事方式描繪巴勒斯坦經歷和平談判，自廢墟中建國；巴勒斯坦人在1棟摩天大樓裡建國，不同城市之間的檢哨站在此由電梯取代。

藝術評論雜誌12月報導攝影獎入圍作品時，不見珊蘇兒的名字。媒體報導，Lacoste公司向艾里賽博物館施壓，表明不願支持這類「太明顯支持巴勒斯坦」的作品。

珊蘇兒在部落格指出，作品遭到Lacoste審查，所以被剔除出入圍名單；Lacoste則表示，完全是因為珊蘇兒的作品不符合今年徵件題目「生命喜悅」。Lacoste並強調，所有決定是與艾里賽博物館一起做成的。

但在爭議擴大後，Lacoste和艾里賽博物館上週陸續發表聲明，宣布取消攝影獎。博物館指明原因在於贊助廠商執意排除珊蘇兒。博物館同時表達支持藝術家，肯定珊蘇兒的藝術創作品質及參與。

US forces mark end of Iraq mission

Palestinian flag raised over UNESCO headquarters

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/12/20111213134259952607.html

Palestinians have raised their flag at the headquarters of the UN cultural agency in Paris in a historic move and symbolic boost for their push for an independent state.

Cheers rose alongside the red, black, white and green flag during a ceremony held in the rain on Tuesday.

"This is truly a historic moment," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said at the ceremony, his speech punctuated by rousing applause and standing ovations.

"We hope this will be a good auspice for Palestine to become a member of other organisations," he said.

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Paris, said, "it was a moment steeped in symbolism".

Palestine was admitted as a member of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in an October vote that prompted the US to cut off funds to the agency.

Two US laws required the halt in the flow of funds to the agency, forcing it to scale back literacy and development programmes in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the new nation of South Sudan.

The Palestinians also are seeking full-fledged UN membership, but Washington has threatened to veto that move, saying a negotiated settlement with Israel should come first.

Abbas said on Tuesday that efforts were continuing to gain full UN membership and admission to other international institutions.

"We are currently holding talks with the parties. We have not yet asked for a vote but this could happen at any moment," he said.

"If we don't have a majority, we will repeat our request again and again."

'Tense diplomatic atmosphere'

Al Jazeera's Rowland said: "President Abbas made it quite clear that it was an important and significant step on the road towards Palestinian statehood. And he also reiterated his willingness to restart peace talks with Israel.

"It seems that everyone agrees that negotiations are not in any way ruled out by this move but [it] certainly has led to a more tense diplomatic atmosphere," she said.

US officials have said UNESCO's decision risked undermining the international community's work towards a comprehensive Middle East peace plan, and could be a distraction from the aim of restarting direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

The US contributes $80m annually in dues - 22 per cent of UNESCO's overall budget - and its 2011 contribution was not yet in when the laws took effect, immediately throwing UNESCO into crisis.

Several countries are lobbying the US to renew its funding.

"The suspension of the lion’s share of the funding to UNESCO really threatens the UN body's ability to continue with very important, particularly educational programmes, some of which are in Palestinian territories themselves," our correspondent said.

"Really the problem now for UNESCO is to find other donors, other member states to come forward and bring that money.

"There is a serious question over the future ability of UNESCO to carry out some of its very important projects."

UNESCO is known for its programme to protect cultures via its World Heritage sites, but its core mission also includes activities such as helping eradicate poverty, ensuring clean water, teaching girls to read and promoting freedom of speech.

The Guerrilla Son

The Guerrilla Son - Witness - Al Jazeera English
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2011/12/2011127103426890594.html

Filmmakers: David Herdes & Zanyar Adami

Zanyar is a magazine publisher based in Sweden. He is about to become a father but before his baby is born he needs to confront his own father, Taher, about why he sent Zanyar to Europe on his own when he was just five years old. At the time, Taher was fighting with the Kurdish rebel forces in Kurdistan.

In 2009, some 300,000 refugees crossed the borders into Europe; a third of these were unaccompanied children from countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, Taher drives a taxi on the roads of Stockholm. He does not talk about his past as a Kurdish fighter or the sacrifices he has made. But Zanyar slowly unpicks his story.

This is an intense and intimate film about an emotional journey, as a son learns about his father’s past and the two explore each other's feelings, before the next generation arrives.

圖說十年戰亂中的阿富汗(2)

難民營

孩子們在難民營裏的臨時住所

搜身

美軍檢查站

巡邏中

圖說十年戰亂中的阿富汗(1)

轉貼來源: 新華網
http://big5.ce.cn/gate/big5/intl.ce.cn/intlpic/201112/03/t20111203_22888172.shtml

新華網北京12月3日電(記者 王碩)美國《外交政策》雜誌通過圖片報道“過去10年的阿富汗”。圖片記錄了2010年-2011年間駐阿美軍和當地老百姓的生活。儘管這些圖片無法展示十年之戰的全貌，但至少反映了戰爭中的人們最真實的一面。戰爭也好，痛苦也罷，命運多舛且堅強的的阿富汗人民的生活仍然繼續著。

禱告的孩子

前去參加婚禮的婦女

總統府

挑水小女孩

打水

黑市，主要售賣偷來的物品。

頂著風塵放風箏

沙塵暴

The Story of Palestine

Home Front

HOME FRONT: Mohammed El Kurd (1 of 4)


HOME FRONT: Terry Benninga (2 of 4)


HOME FRONT: Amal Qassem (3 of 4)


HOME FRONT: Gil Gutglick (4 of 4)

研究指出以色列佔領行動重創巴勒斯坦經濟

轉貼來源:紀念若雪巴勒斯坦資訊網Palestine Information Website
http://palinfo.habago.org/archives/2011/10/05/19.34.33/

Harriet Sherwood於拉馬拉報導；Liz Lai 譯；李鑑慧 校訂
Date: 2011.10.05
原文出處：2011.09.29英國衛報



在Shuweike村附近，巴勒斯坦農人Mussa Samamreh（圖右）仔細檢查園裡橄欖樹的斷枝，他的樹園據當地村民說遭到以色列屯民的破壞。攝影：Abed al-Hashlamoun/EPA




一份在拉馬拉（Ramallah）出版的研究報告顯示：以色列在西岸與迦薩的佔領行動使巴勒斯坦每年承受44億歐元的經濟損失，相當於巴人85%的名義國內生產毛額。

這份研究指出，以色列對巴勒斯坦之「佔領事業」不但對巴勒斯坦經濟造成損害，它還讓以色列與她境內的企業得以藉巴勒斯坦之自然與觀光資源獲利。

「不論巴勒斯坦人迄今靠著自己的力量成就了什麼，佔領行動讓我們無法像居住在自己國家的自由人民一般，完全發揮經濟潛力。」巴勒斯坦自治政府的經濟部長Hasan Abu Libdeh在這份於週四發表的報告中如此表示。他並且說：「國際社會應該要知道，以色列不願意為和平盡最大努力的原因之一，正在於此佔領行動所能提供給她的經濟利益。」

研究顯示，若以方停止佔領行動，巴勒斯坦的經濟規模將可以達到目前的近兩倍，而這也可以減少巴勒斯坦對國際救援的依賴。

這份報告乃是由巴勒斯坦當局之經濟部以及「耶路撒冷應用研究協會」（Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem）所共同完成，是第一個將以色列佔領行為對巴勒斯坦經濟所造成的影響進行量化的研究。它指出：「關於總損失的金額，目前得到的數字是2010年的68.97億美元，高達巴勒斯坦國內生產總額的84.9%。」

「這些損失與安全考量並無太大相關，主要造成因素乃是來自以色列對巴人種種嚴格的限制，這些限制使得巴人無法利用自己所擁有的自然資源，但以方卻得以剝削巴人之水、礦產、鹽、石材與土地等資源。」

研究報告將這近69億美元的損失細分為幾大項，其中包括：封鎖迦薩造成的損失為19億美元、限制用水19億美元、限制使用自然資源18億美元、進出口限制2億8千8百萬美元、交通限制1億8千4百萬美元、死海的觀光收入1億4千3百萬美元。

報告並且顯示，以色列的佔領「對巴勒斯坦的經濟發展設下無數的限制，它讓巴人無法在自己的土地上使用自己的自然資源，將巴勒斯坦孤立於國際市場之外，並將巴人的活動區域限縮在幾個零星的區塊中。」

迦薩地區的經濟高度依賴進出口物資，但封鎖則對進出口設下嚴厲的限制。該區遭受的武力轟炸使得多數基礎建設被破壞以及原物料短缺，這也使得水電供應無法應付工業及農業發展之需求。

許多欲進口至西岸及迦薩的物資被以色列認為具有「雙重用途」而遭到限制，如化學藥品與肥料可能被加工成為武器，這項限制對該區的製造業與農業造成了嚴重影響。

在西岸地區，路障、哨站與分道政策對物資與人力的流通都帶來限制，這使得巴勒斯坦經濟發展受到嚴重壓縮。研究將西岸與其他城市間的直接交通路線與巴勒斯坦人所必須迂迴通行的路線做了比較。如，西岸北方的那不勒斯（Nablus）與約旦河谷的al-Jiftlik兩地間，直接路線為36英里（58公里），但巴勒斯坦人必須繞行的路線卻使得這段路程必須增加至107英里（173公里），造成時間與物資的重大損失。

▲駐守中東西岸的以色列邊境巡警在哨站檢查巴勒斯坦婦女的證件，一群婦女正排隊等候要進入耶路撒冷，圖攝於2011年8月12日。（圖文／路透）

巴勒斯坦人禁止進入死海地區的規定使他們無法藉由該地的礦產、鹽與觀光資源而獲利—這些都成為了以色列的經濟收入來源。報告指出，死海地區的資源可以製作美容美膚產品，而以色列的公司每年藉由生產與銷售這些產品可創造高達1億5千美元（9千6百歐元）之利潤。

以色列的公司也藉由在西岸進行的採礦與鑿石作業而獲利。西岸的水資源並且被導入以色列屯墾區、工業區與農業區。研究指出，以色列人由西岸的三大地下蓄水層所汲取的水資源是巴勒斯坦人的10倍之多。約有250萬棵樹，其中包括橄欖樹叢，自1967年起因為屯墾區、基礎建設與隔離牆之建立而被連根拔起。研究估計每棵成年橄欖樹的年產量為70公斤，每公斤的產品可獲利1.1美元。

巴勒斯坦農人多失去了土地或是無法進入自己的土地耕作。Abu Libdeh說，「（西岸與東耶路撒冷地區）有62萬屯民在6萬4千德南（dumans；1德南約1000平方米）的土地上耕作，而400萬居住在西岸的巴勒斯坦人，則僅能耕作10萬德南的土地」。

「在我們準備建國的同時，我們希望這會是個能夠經濟自主、對環境友善、見容於國際社會的永續生存的國度，」他表示「以色列在土地權利、交通、自然資源使用等方面設下種種限制，使得巴勒斯坦人無法自己營生。要建立能夠永續生存的巴勒斯坦，以色列必須停止終止佔領行動。」

由聯合國、歐盟、美國與俄國所共同構成的「中東四重奏」（Middle East Quartet）上週發表聲明，嘗試讓以巴雙方再度展開和談。對此，巴勒斯坦領導人於週四表示這乃是「令人鼓舞」的發展。「巴勒斯坦解放組織」的資深官員Yasser Abed Rabbo在巴解的執委會議後對外表示：「我們呼籲以色列尊重這項發言中所提出的原則及相關參考事項。」

他說：「『中東四重奏』此次聲明特別提及以巴雙方於『和平路線圖』（譯註：此為『中東四重奏』於2003年針對以巴問題所提出之和平方案）下之義務，以及呼籲避免煽動行為的發生。我們認為這構成明確呼籲，要求以色列停止各種形式的屯墾行為，這是個令人振奮的徵兆。」

以色列內閣於週二就這項發言進行會議討論，但無法達成共識並做出回應。

個案研究

位於那不勒斯的Pal Karm化妝品公司主要生產銷售化妝品以及保養品，銷售對象是當地市場以及以色列。甘油是該公司產品的主要原料。自2007年中起，以色列禁止甘油進口至巴勒斯坦自治區，從那時開始，該公司的產品即無法在以色列市場販售，因為以色列的健康部門規定該類產品必須含有甘油成分。這個公司估計其產品因此在以色列市場損失了30%的獲利。

* 完整研究報告請見「耶路撒冷應用研究協會」（Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem）網站

楊宗緯@20111010大彩虹音樂節

Goodbye R.E.M.

Palestinians submit statehood request to UN

Orphan Elephants 肯亞大象孤兒院的故事

source: National Geographic Magazine
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/09/orphan-elephants/siebert-text

Orphans No More

After the trauma of attack and loss comes healing—and a richer understanding of the emotions and intelligence of elephants.

By Charles Siebert
Photograph by Michael Nichols

Along the northern rim of Kenya's Nairobi National Park, a mysterious array of brightly colored wool blankets can be seen draped over the gnarled branches of some of the forest's upwardly braiding croton trees. Set against the region's otherwise drab browns and greens, the hanging blankets could be construed as remnants of some ancient tribal ritual—until shortly before five each evening, when their function as part of a new interspecies experiment becomes apparent.

Off in the distance a few upright figures in bright green coats and crumpled white safari hats appear, calling out names in trilling, high-pitched voices: "Kalama!" "Kitirua!" "Olare!" All at once baby elephants emerge from the brush, a straggled procession of 18 flap-eared brown heads, their long trunks steering their bulbous heft with a heavily hypnotic grace. They come to rest beneath the color-draped trees, where the keepers tie a blanket around each one for warmth before resuming the trek home.

Home is the Nairobi nursery of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the world's most successful orphan-elephant rescue and rehabilitation center. The nursery takes in orphan elephants from all over Kenya, many victims of poaching or human-wildlife conflict, and raises them until they are no longer milk dependent. Once healed and stabilized at the nursery, they are moved more than a hundred miles southeast to two holding centers in Tsavo National Park. There, at their own pace, which can be up to eight to ten years, they gradually make the transition back into the wild. The program is a cutting-edge experiment in cross-species empathy that only the worst extremes of human insensitivity could have necessitated.

These are sad and perilous days for the world's largest land animal. Once elephants roamed the Earth like waterless whales, plying ancient migratory routes ingrained in their prodigious memories. Now they've been backed into increasingly fragmented territories. When not being killed for their tusks or for bush meat, they are struggling against loss of habitat due to human population pressures and drought. A 1979 survey of African elephants estimated a population of about 1.3 million. About 500,000 remain. In Asia an estimated 40,000 are left in the wild. And yet even as the elephant population dwindles, the number of human-elephant conflicts rises. In Africa, reports of elephants and villagers coming into conflict with each other appear almost daily.

A recent arrival at the Nairobi nursery was an elephant named Murka, rescued near Tsavo National Park with a spear lodged deep between her eyes and gaping spear and axe wounds along her back and sides. The spear had penetrated ten inches, rupturing her sinuses, which prevented her from using her trunk to drink. Her deep wounds were filled with maggots. Most likely orphaned by poachers who killed her mother for profit, the one-year-old baby is believed to have been subsequently attacked by local Maasai tribesmen who were angry about losing their traditional grazing land to the park. A mobile vet unit was able to tranquilize her, clean her wounds, and extract the spear.

The plight of elephants has become so dire that their greatest enemy—humans—is also their only hope, a topsy-turvy reality that moved a woman named Daphne Sheldrick to establish the nursery back in 1987. Sheldrick is fourth-generation Kenya-born and has spent the better part of her life tending wild animals. Her husband was David Sheldrick, the renowned naturalist and founding warden of Tsavo East National Park who died of a heart attack in 1977. She's reared abandoned baby buffalo, dik-diks, impalas, zebras, warthogs, and black rhinos, among others, but no creature has beguiled her more than elephants.

Orphan infant elephants are a challenge to raise because they remain fully dependent on their mother's milk for the first two years of life and partially so until the age of four. In the decades the Sheldricks spent together in Tsavo, they never succeeded in raising an orphan younger than one because they couldn't find a formula that matched the nutritional qualities of a mother's milk. Aware that elephant milk is high in fat, they tried adding cream and butter to the mix, but found the babies had trouble digesting it and soon died. They then used a nonfat milk that the elephants could digest better, but eventually, after growing thinner and thinner on that formula, these orphans succumbed as well. Shortly before David's death, the couple finally arrived at a precise mixture of human baby formula and coconut. This kept alive a three-week-old orphan named Aisha, helping her grow stronger every day.

It was Aisha that revealed to Daphne another essential ingredient for raising an orphan elephant. When Daphne traveled to Nairobi to prepare for a daughter's wedding, she left Aisha, then six months old, in the care of an assistant. In the two weeks she was away, Aisha stopped eating and died, apparently overcome with grief at the loss of another mother. "When Aisha died, I realized the mistake I'd made," says Daphne, still pained by the memory. "She missed me too much. You mustn't let an elephant get too attached to one person. It was stupid of me to think I could do it without substituting a larger family. I mean, I knew wild elephants. I had watched the elephants in Tsavo my entire married life, so I should have known better. One just has to look at an elephant group to understand the importance of family. So we have to replace what the elephant would have in the wild."

Any wild elephant group is, in essence, one large and highly sensitive organism. Young elephants are raised within a matriarchal family of doting female caregivers, beginning with the birth mother and then branching out to include sisters, cousins, aunts, grandmothers, and established friends. These bonds endure over a life span that can be as long as 70 years. Young elephants stay close to their mothers and extended family members—males until they are about 14, females for life. When a calf is threatened or harmed, all the other elephants comfort and protect it.

This cohesiveness is enforced by a complex communication system. When close to each other, elephants employ a range of vocalizations, from low rumblings to high-pitched screams and trumpets, along with assorted visual signals. They express a range of emotions using their trunk, ears, head, and tail. When they need to communicate over longer distances, they use powerful low-frequency, rumbling calls that can be heard by others more than a mile away.

After a death, family members show signs of grief and exhibit ritualistic behavior. Field biologists such as Joyce Poole, who has studied Africa's elephants for more than 35 years, describe elephants trying to lift the dead body and covering it with dirt and brush. Poole once watched a female stand guard over her stillborn baby for three days, her head, ears, and trunk drooped in grief. Elephants may revisit the bones of the deceased for months, even years, touching them with their trunks and creating paths to visit the carcass.

What has amazed Sheldrick most since establishing the Nairobi nursery is how readily even severely traumatized babies begin to reweave the elaborate social fabric of the wild group. "They are born with a genetic memory and are extremely social animals," she says. "They intuitively know to be submissive before elders, and the females are instinctively maternal, even from a very young age. Whenever we get a new baby here, the others will come around and lovingly put their trunks on its back to comfort it. They have such big hearts."

Standing amid a group of orphans one afternoon as they browsed on croton tree branches, I was struck by their distinct personalities. Kalama, a female found at five weeks old in a water well in northern Samburu, was cheeky and playful. Kitirua, found abandoned at around 18 months old near a swamp in Amboseli National Park, was a recent arrival and still shy and aloof. Tano, a four-month-old suspected poaching victim from the Laikipia region of central Kenya, had become so close to the keepers that she kept pushing other orphans away out of jealousy. Yet another suspected poaching victim, Chemi Chemi, was a mischievous male elephant. "We call him al Qaeda," explained Edwin Lusichi, the nursery's head elephant keeper. "He's always shoving us and the other orphan elephants around."

It was as though I were hanging out with a group of precocious schoolkids vying to establish their standing and make an impression on the new kid on the playground. When I approached an achingly adorable two-month-old female named Sities, I soon found myself deposited in a nearby bush by the cracked-leather rump of another elephant, getting a parting stomp on my foot for good measure.

"That's Olare," Lusichi called out, gesturing toward the one-year-old that had just put me in my place. "She's practicing to be a matriarch."

When it was time to head toward the nursery stables, I positioned myself along one flank of the pachyderm procession. I'd started off toward the trees of blankets, when an elephant trunk suddenly struck my midsection with such force that I dropped to my knees.

"I forgot to warn you," Lusichi said, helping me up with a broad smile. "Tumaren doesn't like it when anyone walks ahead of her."

Spend enough time around elephants and it's difficult not to anthropomorphize their behavior. "Elephants are very human animals," says Sheldrick, sitting one afternoon on the back porch of her house at the edge of the nursery grounds, the wide, acacia-dotted plains of Nairobi National Park sprawling in the distance. "Their emotions are exactly the same as ours. They've lost their families, have seen their mothers slaughtered, and they come here filled with aggression—devastated, broken, and grieving. They suffer from nightmares and sleeplessness."

What makes this particular moment in the fraught history of elephant-human relations so remarkable is that the long-accrued anecdotal evidence of the elephant's extraordinary intelligence is being borne out by science. Studies show that structures in the elephant brain are strikingly similar to those in humans. MRI scans of an elephant's brain suggest a large hippocampus, the component in the mammalian brain linked to memory and an important part of its limbic system, which is involved in processing emotions. The elephant brain has also been shown to possess an abundance of the specialized neurons known as spindle cells, which are thought to be associated with self-awareness, empathy, and social awareness in humans. Elephants have even passed the mirror test of self-recognition, something only humans, and some great apes and dolphins, had been known to do.

This common neurobiology has prompted some scientists to explore whether young elephants that have experienced assaults on their psyches may be exhibiting signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), just like orphaned children in the wake of war or genocide. Gay Bradshaw, a psychologist and the director of the Kerulos Center in Oregon, has brought the latest insights from human neuroscience and psychology to bear on startling field observations of elephant behavior. She suspects that some threatened elephant populations might be suffering from chronic stress and trauma brought on by human encroachment and killing.

Before the international ivory trade ban in 1989, poaching took a steep toll on many elephant populations and in some instances significantly altered their social structure because poachers tended to target older elephants. Field biologists found that the number of older matriarchs, female caregivers, and bulls in vulnerable groups had fallen drastically. In Uganda, for instance, one study reported that many females between the ages of 15 and 25 had no close family members whatsoever.

In the decades since the ban, some populations have stabilized, though most elephants remain threatened by human encroachment. As poaching has flared up in the past five years in the Congo Basin and large swaths of central and eastern Africa, many elephant families there have lost most of their adult females. Where such social upheaval exists, calves are being raised by ever more inexperienced females. An increasing number of young orphaned elephants, many of which have witnessed the death of a parent through culling or at the hands of poachers, are coming of age in the absence of the traditional support system. "The loss of older elephants," says Bradshaw, "and the extreme psychological and physical trauma of witnessing the massacres of their family members interferes with a young elephant's normal development."

Bradshaw speculates that this early trauma, combined with the breakdown in social structure, may account for some instances of aberrant elephant behavior that have been reported by field biologists. Between 1992 and 1997, for example, young male elephants in Pilanesberg Game Reserve in South Africa killed more than 40 rhinoceroses—an unusual level of aggression—and in some cases had attempted to mount them. The young elephants were adolescent males that had witnessed their families being shot in cullings at Kruger National Park—sanctioned killings to keep elephant populations under control. At that time it was common practice for such orphaned elephant babies to be tethered to the bodies of their dead relatives until they could be rounded up for translocation to new territories. Once moved to Pilanesberg, the orphans matured without the support of any adult males. "Young males often follow older, sexually active males around," says Joyce Poole, "appearing to study what they do. These youngsters had no such role models."

For Allan Schore, an expert on human trauma disorders at UCLA who has co-authored papers with Bradshaw, the behavior of these elephants conforms to a diagnosis of PTSD in humans. "A large body of research shows that the neurobiological mechanisms of attachment are found in many mammals, including humans and elephants," he explains. "The emotional relationship between the mother and her offspring impacts the wiring of the infants' developing brain. When early experiences are traumatic, there is a thinning down of the developing brain circuits, especially in areas that process emotional information and regulate stress. That means less resilience and an enduring deficit in aggression regulation, social communication, and empathy."

One effort to repair the torn fabric of an elephant group lends further support to the idea that early trauma and a lack of role models can lead to aggression: After Joyce Poole suggested that park rangers in South Africa introduce six older bull elephants into Pilanesberg's population of about 85 elephants, the aberrant behavior of the marauding adolescent males—and their premature hormonal changes—abruptly stopped.

If elephants can wound like us, they can heal like us as well, perhaps more readily. With humans acting as stand-ins for their mothers, along with the help of the other nursery elephants, the majority of the orphans that survive recover to become fully functional wild elephants again. To date, Sheldrick's nursery has successfully raised more than a hundred orphan elephants. They have returned to the wild in wary, halting, half measures at first, having become "homo-pachyderms," caught between a deep devotion to their human caregivers and the irresistible call of their true selves.

One evening during the dry season a huge group of wild elephants emerged from the bush to drink at the water trough at the Ithumba compound in Tsavo, one of two locations where the orphans transition to the wild. There were 25 to 30 elephants—massive, long-tusked bulls and matriarchs, adolescent males and females, some ex-orphans, and several newborn calves. Directly alongside the trough were the open-air stockades where the Ithumba orphans had already gathered for the night, staring over at their wild counterparts, which, between sips, stared back. The keepers and I were standing no more than 30 yards from the wild group, much closer than one usually would get. And the elephants were much closer to humans than wild ones normally venture. The dreamlike scene was dictated by the presence of the orphans and their conversations with the wild group. "They have let the wild ones know it is OK," explained Benjamin Kyalo, Ithumba's head elephant keeper. "The word is clearly being spread around Tsavo: Good humans. Good water. Let's go!"

By day the keepers lead the orphans into the bush to browse. They deliver midday bottles of formula at a designated mud-bath venue. When a cluster of wild elephant heads appears in the distance, the keepers keep the milk-dependent orphans close, not allowing them to leave with the group. But by the age of five or seven, the orphans may go off with the wild ones. Some will stay out for a few nights before returning to the stockades, as though they'd been away at a sleepover. Some will go for good, becoming full-fledged members of their own wild families.

One orphan named Loijuk was so eager to join a wild group that she twice opened the Ithumba gate with her trunk and let herself out. Months after the second breakout she had become a member of a wild ex-orphan group. Another precocious orphan named Irima was just over three years old and still milk dependent when he insinuated himself into a wild group near Voi, the other stockade where orphans are introduced to the wild. After five days the Voi keepers heard a series of frantic, high-pitched elephant trumpets coming from the direction of an electrified fence. "Irima must have told the group that he still needed his milk and orphan family and wanted to go back, so Edo [a former orphan] escorted him home," Voi's head keeper, Joseph Sauni, recalls. "The keepers opened the gate, and Edo escorted Irima all the way back to the stockades. Edo drank some water from the well, ate some food, and took off again. Mission accomplished."

Even fully "repatriated" orphans like Edo will return to the stockades to visit their human family. In December 2008 Emily, a matriarch that had been brought to the Nairobi nursery in 1993, showed up at the Voi stockades one afternoon with her group and a surprise guest. "She'd given birth the day before, about a mile away," says Sauni. "She led the baby here to show us her newborn. We named her Eve."

Back at the Nairobi nursery the baby elephants return for their six o'clock feeding, breaking into a full sprint once they see the line of keepers holding up huge bottles of milk before each of the stables. A major ruckus ensues when they arrive—some stable assignments have changed to make room for a new arrival, and elephants hate alterations to their routine. The nursery's most veteran keeper, Mishak Nzimbi—known as the "elephant whisperer" and the clear favorite of all the orphans—steps into the fray. Heeding little more than an upheld hand and one stern utterance, the residents settle into place, sucking down gallons of formula in seconds.

"The control the keepers have over these elephants, without even a stick or anything!" marvels Daphne's younger daughter, Angela, the current executive director of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. "It all stems from the elephants' desire to please someone they love. It's amazing and beautiful to see. With elephants you reap what you sow, and the way you get the most out of them is through love."

We walk over to the stable marked Murka—the orphan that had been found with a spear lodged in her head. "Now look at her," Daphne says, as Murka, with only the slightest indent in her forehead to show for her brutal ordeal, approaches the half-opened door of her stable and takes two of my fingers to suckle on. "The vets didn't expect her to make it through the first night."

"And she's healed psychologically," Angela adds. "She was one extremely traumatized little elephant when she first woke up, lashing out at everyone—and rightly so. But slowly she began to trust again, and after about a month she wasn't just fine about people, she was seeking them out. And it wasn't just our doing. She would never have recovered so quickly without the input of other elephants."

All around us orphans and keepers are settling in for the night. Each elephant sleeps with a different keeper every night to prevent it from getting too attached to a particular person—and perhaps vice versa. Leaning on the stable door, Nzimbi, Murka's overseer for the night, recalls first visiting the nursery 22 years earlier. He immediately asked Daphne for a job. "I understand these animals," he says. "I love them so much."

Directly above Murka's straw-and-blanket bed is Nzimbi's bunk, with a small radio perched by his pillow. I ask if he has an alarm clock to wake him for the elephants' feedings.

"Oh no," he says. "Every three hours you feel a trunk reach up and pull your blankets off. The elephants are our alarms."

巴勒斯坦勇闖聯合國

國際特赦組織年度報告(2011) - 以色列及巴勒斯坦佔領區

轉貼來源: 紀念若雪巴勒斯坦資訊網Palestine Information Website
http://palinfo.habago.org/archives/2011/06/13/12.35.04/index.php?page=1

楊舜斌 譯；李鑑慧 校訂
Date: 2011.06.13

原文出處：國際特赦組織2011年度報告
事件發生期間：2010年1月至12月
國家元首：Shimon Peres
行政首長：Binyamin Netanyahu（3月接替Ehud Olmert）
死刑：一般犯罪免除
人口數：730萬人（以色列）；440萬人（巴勒斯坦佔領區，OPT）
平均壽命：80.3歲（以色列）；72.9歲（巴勒斯坦佔領區，OPT）
五歲以下兒童死亡率：每千名兒童，男6女5（以色列）；男23女18（巴勒斯坦佔領區，OPT）

2009年1月，以色列軍隊與巴勒斯坦武裝團體的停火協議普遍獲得認同。但以色列軍隊持續地在佔領區嚴厲監控巴勒斯坦人的行動自由，包括封鎖迦薩走廊地區，讓當地的150萬人民的生活日益艱困並且形同被監禁。數百名巴勒斯坦重病患申請前往迦薩境外接受特殊醫療照護，卻遭到以色列當局拒絕或延遲，許多病患因此而死亡。大部分的迦薩居民皆仰賴國際援助才得以生存，然而以色列的軍事封鎖卻嚴重阻擾各界的國際援助。5月，以色列軍隊在國際海域上，攻擊一艘試圖進入迦薩封鎖圈的國際援助船隻，並且殺害了9人。

在約旦河西岸，由於以色列所設置的數百個檢查哨、關隘，並且持續地在西岸內築起長達700公里的隔離牆，導致巴勒斯坦人的行動自由嚴重受到限制。巴勒斯坦人的住家、蓄水池、建築物遭受以色列政府破壞的數目有顯著的增加，數以千計的居民生活都受到影響。以色列政府並且摧毀位於以色列南部的貝都因人村落。以色列藉由非法佔領巴人土地來擴張其屯墾區，部分土地直到去年9月26號才重新獲得使用。

以色列依然沒有對於該國軍隊在「鑄鉛行動」襲擊中，涉嫌多起戰爭罪和其他嚴重違反國際法的行為進行適當地調查。從2008年12月至2009年1月，在以色列軍隊「鑄鉛行動」22天的襲擊侵略中，造成約1400名巴勒斯坦人喪生，其中有超過300名是孩童。以色列士兵與移墾者，針對巴勒斯坦人及其財產所犯下的嚴重侵犯，包括非法殺人和襲擊，但以色列政府通常都不追究他們的罪行。

以色列軍隊在巴勒斯坦佔領區(OPT)殺害了包括八個孩子在內的33名巴勒斯坦平民。數百名巴勒斯坦人遭到以色列軍隊逮捕和拘留，至少有264名巴勒斯坦人以行政拘留之名在未經起訴或審判之狀況下被監禁，有些人甚至被關了兩年多。而關於刑求與虐待的報導也很多，但是調查動作卻很少見。大約有6000名巴勒斯坦人目前仍被關在以色列監獄裡，許多人後來都遭受不公平的軍事審判。在以色列因良心問題而拒服兵役者則持續地遭到收押。

背景

以色列和黎巴嫩邊境地區之關係仍然持續緊張。8月3日，在兩國軍隊的一場交火中，造成至少3名士兵以及1名黎巴嫩記者的死亡。

儘管以色列軍隊與巴勒斯坦武裝團體們大致都能遵守停火協議時，但是後者偶爾仍會向以色列南方隨意地發射火箭砲與迫擊砲（請參閱巴勒斯坦篇），雖然在程度上已經較去年減少，以色列軍隊因此襲擊並且殺害他們認為應為此負責的巴勒斯坦人。8月31日，四名以色列屯墾者在西岸遭到槍殺，於2006年贏得巴勒斯坦大選並且掌管迦薩地區之哈瑪斯的羽翼戰鬥團體Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades宣稱該攻擊事件為其所為。

9月，美國召集以色列與巴勒斯坦當局（但不包含哈瑪斯）進行談判會議。然而談判很快就中斷了，因為以色列為期10個月於西岸興建屯墾區的局部禁令，在9月26日宣布解除，這使得巴勒斯坦當局退出會談。這項屯墾區的停建禁令並不包含東耶路薩冷及其周邊，此外在西岸為了「安全需要」的建築以及各種公共建設亦同樣有增無減。

封鎖迦薩與人道危機

從2007年6月以來，以色列持續封鎖迦薩走廊，造成當地經濟蕭條，而人民則幾乎是赤貧的狀態。在健康與衛生條件持續惡化、貧窮與營養缺乏的狀態下，有80%的迦薩人被迫依賴國際人道救援，而人道救援過程中卻總是遭到軍事封鎖的阻擾。嚴重的物資短缺狀況造成高物價，這也導致大部分由聯合國提供的診所與學校的重建計畫必須延後，如此一來，原本有資格可在9月份進入聯合國學校就學的4萬民巴勒斯坦孩童將無法如願。

幾乎所有的迦薩人形同被囚困在一個孤立的土地上，在這裡面有許多需要前往它處就醫的重症病患，以及需要到外地求學與工作的學生和勞工，只有極少數人能獲得允許離開迦薩。

5月，以色列軍隊強行攔截試圖進入封鎖圈的國際援助船隻，一共有9個人遭到殺害並且有超過50人受傷，其中幾位傷勢嚴重，另外幾位以色列士兵也受了傷。針對該起攻擊事件，包含兩個由聯合國所執行之幾個調查單位展開調查。9月份，根據聯合國人權委員會（UN Human Rights Council）所公布的調查指出，「由於以色列軍隊廣泛並且隨意地使用致命性武器，造成不必要的大量死亡或嚴重受傷」。一個由以色列政府所指派的調查委員會則缺乏超然性和透明度。

隨著國際社會對於攻擊事件的批評聲浪之增高，以色列政府宣布將部分鬆緩封鎖，然而這樣的舉動依然不足，無法顯著改善迦薩當地之狀況。直到12月8日，以色列持續地禁止迦薩的各種貨物出口；而直到年底，以色列宣布鬆綁出口限制的支票，也遲遲沒有兌現。國際特赦組織認為，封鎖措施已經構成一種集體懲罰，並且違反國際人權法，並且也不斷地呼籲以色列應盡快解除封鎖。

在西岸對人民的各種限制
 數以百計的以色列軍事檢查哨和關隘限制了巴勒斯坦人在西岸的活動，他們阻礙或阻止巴勒斯坦人進入工作場所、教育單位、衛生組織以及使用其它公共服務。

2010年底，一個長達七百公里長的隔離牆已經完成將近60%，而整個路線卻有85%是建築在巴勒斯坦的西岸土地之內。該隔離牆造成數千名巴勒斯坦人與他們的農田和水源分隔開來，想要進入東耶路撒冷的西岸巴勒斯坦人，要獲得入境許可證，只能向隔離牆所設置的16個檢查哨中的其中3個檢查哨申請。這對於嘗試要到達東耶路薩冷的六間專門醫院之病患與醫務人員特別造成影響並導致嚴重後果。

以色列持續拒絕巴勒斯坦人前往他們位於以色列屯墾區附近的大片農田，而這些屯墾區的建立與維持都是違反國際法的。以色列人屯墾於約旦河西岸，包括東耶路撒冷在內的人口已超過50萬人。巴勒斯坦人也被禁止或有限制地使用約300公里長、專為以色列移墾者所建設之公路。雖然2010年在以色列移除了一些路障，以及改善巴勒斯坦交通網路後，往來巴勒斯坦大部分城鎮的旅途時間，有了些許改善，特別是北方，但是旅程依然是緩慢而艱辛的。

居住權－強制驅逐
 居住在西岸，包括東耶路撒冷的巴勒斯坦人，他們在興建房屋時面臨嚴格限制，也因此居住權受到嚴重侵犯。以色列在西岸，包括東耶路撒冷，進行強制驅逐，其理由是那些房屋並沒有獲得建築許可，然而巴勒斯坦人想要從以色列當局獲得許可證幾乎是不可能的。拆遷團隊在安全人員的陪同下，一般在無事前通知的狀況下抵達，並且幾乎不給家屬機會取出他們的財產。因為以色列的軍法適用於西岸的大部分巴勒斯坦人地區，因此以色列並不需要對迫遷的家庭重新安置或給予補償。而在東耶路撒冷的巴勒斯坦人，儘管受以色列民事當局管理，實際上也沒有受到更好之待遇。2010年，以色列當局在東耶路撒冷和西岸拆毀了431處建築，比2009年的數量高出59％。

至少有594名巴勒斯坦人，其中一半是兒童，在他們的家園遭到以色列當局拆毀後因而流離失所。另外有超過一萬四千名巴勒斯坦人因為蓄水設備、水井和相關建設被摧毀而生計受到影響。

* 位於西岸 Khirbet Tana 村莊的房屋跟建築，遭到以色列軍隊兩次摧毀，該村莊位於約旦谷地西邊一個被宣告為「封閉軍事區」之內。1月10日，他們搗毀了100個居民所居住的房屋、鄉村學校以及12座牲畜圍欄。還有在12月8日，他們摧毀了10戶人家、17個動物遮蔽所以及一所重建的學校。在更之前的2005年，該村莊就已經被摧毀過一次，村民自從1970年代開始都得不到以色列當局的建築許可證，然而位在附近的 Mekhora 和 Itamar 的以色列屯墾區卻早已經建設完成。

至於位在以色列南部境內，居住於Negev（或 Naqab）區域的貝都因人，其房舍被搗毀的數目有顯著的增加。居住在數十個村莊中的數以萬計的貝都因人雖然是以色列公民，但是卻不為以色列當局所正式認可。這些村莊缺乏基礎建設，而居民們也活在房屋隨時會被拆除與被逐出家園的陰影下。

* 在「未被承認」的 Negev 地區的 al-’Araqib村，大約有250名貝都因居民，他們在7月27日至12月23日間，遭到以色列土地管理局和武裝警察共8次的摧毀。每次遭遇摧毀過後，村民就重建臨時避難所。

武力使用過當

以色列安全部隊以過度地武力對付巴勒斯坦平民，包括在西岸和迦薩地帶的非暴力示威者，以及以色列在迦薩或沿海水域所劃定的「禁區」中的農民、漁民和其他勞工。根據聯合國人道事務協調辦公室（UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs） 所指出，2010年期間，在佔領區裡有33名巴勒斯坦平民，其中包括8名兒童，被以色列軍隊殺害。以色列軍隊為了維持在迦薩北部、東部邊界內約1500米寬的「禁區」以及海上禁令，殺害了15名巴勒斯坦平民，其中包括4名兒童，並使100多人受傷。

* 3月20日在約旦河西岸 Iraq Burin 村莊一場示威活動中，因遭受以色列軍隊實彈射擊，兩名巴勒斯坦少年死亡。Muhammed Qadus被子彈擊中胸部，Usaid Qadus被子彈擊中頭部。四月份，根據以色列軍警調查，兩名以色列高級官員在死亡事件後遭到申斥。

* 9月，三名巴勒斯坦牧羊人—91歲的Ibrahim Abu Said、他16歲的孫子Hosam Abu Sa’id，和17歲的Isma’il Abu ‘Oda—在迦薩Beit Hanoun附近的「禁區」放牧時，被以色列的坦克砲彈炸死。以色列當局後來承認，這三名受害者是平民，而不是他們最初所認定的「恐怖分子」，並宣布將對這一事件進行調查，但直到2010年底前並沒有任何結果。

法外免責

以色列士兵、保安部隊成員和屯墾者依舊享有對巴勒斯坦人人道犯行的法外免責，包括非法殺害。屯墾者的暴力行為包括射擊巴勒斯坦人和破壞巴勒斯坦人的財產。僅有少數案例的肇事者被繩之以法。

2010年10月，根據以色列人權組織 B'Tselem 一份針對有罪不罰之情形所做的詳細報告所公布，以色列軍方在2006-2009年殺害了1,510名巴勒斯坦人，這數字並不包含那些在「鑄鉛行動」中遭到殺害的人數。其中有617名亡者，包括104名18歲以下的兒童，並無從事任何具敵意之行動卻仍遭到殺害。B'Tselem呼籲，針對大部分在迦薩走廊發生的148起犯罪，並造成288人死亡的事件進行調查。然而最終只有22起事件受到調查，而且大部分是發生在西岸地區之案件。B'Tselem報告說，事實上只有四次調查是在案發一個月內就展開調查。在兩個調查結案後，並沒有起訴任何涉案的士兵。

鑄鉛行動

雖然以色列軍方正在調查與此行動相關之事件，但是以色列當局仍然沒有依照國際標準超然地針對以色列軍隊在「鑄鉛行動」中所涉嫌的戰爭罪和其他嚴重違反國際法的罪刑展開調查。關於2009年這次衝突，由聯合國所授權的實地調查團發現（戈德史東報告；Goldstone report），以色列軍隊和巴勒斯坦武裝團體都犯下戰爭罪行，和可能違反人道的罪行。

到2010年底，只有三名參與「鑄鉛行動」的以色列士兵被定罪，其中兩名被認定犯有「非授權行為」，命令一名19歲的巴勒斯坦男孩Majed R.充當「人肉盾牌」去打開一個可能是誘敵裝置的袋子。11月，他們被降職並且暫緩三個月的徒刑。

由於雙方皆沒有進行充分調查，國際特赦組織呼籲，希望透過國際仲裁機制來調查此次行動。

由於「鑄鉛行動」造成聯合國建築物受損，以色列在一月份支付聯合國一千零五十萬美元做為賠償。然而，遭到攻擊的受害者，卻沒有得到任何的補償。聯合國表示，這項賠款解決了「鑄鉛行動」所造成的財務損失。但是戈德史東報告中明確建議聯合國在尋求賠償時，除了針對在攻擊事件中於聯合國建築物裡喪生的聯合國人員和平民，也應該要為其他在「鑄鉛行動」中遭到攻擊的平民受害者求償。

司法系統

未經審訊的拘留
以色列持續施行一套「行政拘留」辦法，在未經起訴或審判下，長時間地強制拘留巴勒斯坦人。在2010年至少有264名巴勒斯坦人遭行政拘留，有些人已經被關超過兩年了。

* Moatasem Nazzal，一名16歲來自Ramallah附近Qalandiya難民營的學生，3月20日在沒有任何說明下於自家被逮捕。他被審問時遭到鐐銬。他連續收到三次行政拘留令，這使他待在監獄直到2010年12月26日。

監禁情況—親屬探訪遭拒
約680位巴勒斯坦囚犯的親屬持續被拒絕前往探訪獄中家屬。有些人已經連續三年無法探視家屬，因為以色列對迦薩實施封鎖，禁止迦薩人前往位於以色列境內的監獄。

不公的審判

受制於以色列的軍法制度，佔領區內的巴勒斯坦人接受公平審判的權利仍然遭到嚴重侵犯。他們通常在沒有律師陪同下遭到審訊，並且儘管他們是平民，他們的案子仍是由軍事法庭而非一般法庭審理。

刑求及其他虐待

對於包含兒童在內的刑求及其他虐待的持續指控，常見於許多報導。其中最常被提及的方法包括了毆打、威脅被拘留者或他們的家庭、剝奪睡眠及長時間使其維持在受壓迫的姿勢。據稱，被指控乃是在脅迫下所取得的自白在以色列的軍事和民事法庭裡依然被視為證據。

* A.M，一名15歲、來自Hebron附近的Beit Ummar村莊的巴勒斯坦人，5月26日遭到逮捕，被關在Gush Etzion的拘留中心，在六天的審訊中據稱遭到刑求，而他在「承認」扔石頭後被釋放。他說：「安全官員在他的生殖器上繫上一條電線，並威脅他將遭到電擊」。八月份，兩個非政府組織，一個來自巴勒斯坦，另外一個來自以色列對於該青年所指控的刑求，向以色列警方和軍隊提出控訴。在警方方面，此案以「證據不足」為由結案，軍方則是到2010年年底仍在調查這起控訴。

言論和集會自由

以非暴力方式抗議以色列興建隔離牆而遭到逮捕、審判和監禁的人數明顯地增加。通常有關當局憑藉軍事命令第101條（Military Order 101）—「禁止10人以上的集會，若其行為具有政治目的或者可被解釋為具有政治性的」，除非抗議活動事先獲得以色列軍事指揮官的許可。

* 十月，以色列軍事法庭判處Abdallah Abu Rahma一年監禁。他是一名老師，同時也是西岸Bil'in村反抗隔離牆人民委員會（Popular Committee Against the Wall in the West Bank）的領導者，他被認定犯有「組織和參與非法示威罪」和「煽動罪」。在「投擲石塊」和「擁有武器」之指控上，他則被判定無罪。他是一名良心犯。

* 2010年5月，前核子技術員Mordechai Vanunu被送回監獄三個月，罪名是接觸了外國公民。幾乎是即刻地，他被單獨監禁。他是一個良心犯。他因為揭露以色列的核武能力給一家英國報紙而曾遭到18年的監禁。自從他在2004年獲釋後，仍因受制於軍事命令而持續受警方監督；此一軍事命令每半年會重新更新一次。除此之外，該命令禁止他與外國人交涉或出國。2010年10月，以色列最高法院駁回了取消這些禁令的請願書。

良心犯—以色列的良心反對者

至少有12名良心犯因拒絕服兵役而遭到監禁。

* Shir Regev來自以色列北部Tuval村莊，因拒絕服兵役被監禁過三次，共64天，因為他反對以色列軍事佔領

國際特赦組織年度報告(2011) - 巴勒斯坦當局

轉貼來源: 紀念若雪巴勒斯坦資訊網Palestine Information Website
http://palinfo.habago.org/archives/2011/06/13/12.17.24/

湯智巽 譯；Liz Lai校訂
Date: 2011.06.13

原文出處：國際特赦組織2011年度報告
事件發生期間：2010年1月至12月
巴勒斯坦當局元首: Mahmoud Abbas
自治政府首相: Salam Fayyad
死刑存廢: 保留
人口數: 440萬人
平均壽命: 73.9歲
五歲以下幼兒死亡率: 每千名兒童，男23女18
成人識字率: 94.1%

當迦薩執政的哈瑪斯肆意拘禁與法塔聯繫的人民時，西岸由法塔掌控的巴勒斯坦當局，也同樣任由安全部隊拘禁與哈瑪斯通聯的人民。在雙方的拘禁行動中，人們被施以酷刑及慘無人道的虐待，而施行者卻可獲得法外免責。雙方都對人民的言論與結社的自由進行箝制。在迦薩，至少有11人被判死刑，5人的判決被執行，這是自2005年以來首度執行的死刑。在迦薩走廊，150萬居民的人道危機隨著以軍在佔領區的封鎖與國際間對執政的哈瑪斯所實施的制裁而不斷惡化。

背景

約旦河西岸、東耶路薩冷與迦薩走廊皆處於以色列的佔領之下，但有兩個獨立的非國家巴勒斯坦當局各自以其有限的權力運作著。西岸是臨時巴勒斯坦自治政府，由法塔掌管，總理為Salam Fayyad，迦薩則由前巴勒斯坦當局總理Isma’il Haniyeh所領導的哈瑪斯執政。雙方關係至今依然緊張。

自2009年一月起，附屬於哈瑪斯的武裝團體，大致上和以色列維持著非正式的停火協議。但其他的巴人武裝團體仍零星地對以色列南部以無特定射擊目標的方式發射火箭及迫擊砲。

巴勒斯坦當局仍是國際承認的巴人代表機構，9月時並參與了一系列由美國所發起的新的雙邊會談，目的在與以色列就屯墾區的問題做政治協商。但此次會談終於破局，因為除了東耶路撒冷之外，以色列拒絕延長在西岸屯墾區的停建計畫。所有的協商，哈瑪斯均被排除在外。

以色列持續控制著迦薩的邊界與空域，並擴大管制西岸的出入境。以色列對迦薩的軍事封鎖嚴重地影響當地居民的生計，使當地的人道危機更加惡化，其中約80%的迦薩人民需仰賴國際人道救援組織提供的物資度日。迦薩人民的出入境均受到嚴格控管與限制，即使是重症患者也無法順利出境尋求迦薩境內無法獲得的專業醫療。持續而廣泛的進口限制，除了以方在6月及12月實施的「寬鬆政策」外，已為糧食安全、健康及當地建設帶來嚴重的衝擊。對迦薩人民的封鎖行動構成了集體懲罰，此舉違反了國際人道法。迦薩通往埃及的地下道是人民走私民生用品的管道，因以軍對該地進行的空襲、地道本身的崩壞及其他事故，導致46人死亡及89人受傷。

有數個拉丁美洲國家正式承認巴勒斯坦以其1967年的邊界為一獨立國家。

哈瑪斯軍隊與其他巴人武裝團體在「鑄鉛行動」時遭指稱犯下戰爭罪與危害人類罪，但哈瑪斯當局並無致力調查；該行動是以色列所發動、為期22天的軍事攻擊，結束於2009年1月18日。

2009年9月，聯合國真相調查團的報告建議給予以色列與巴勒斯坦有關當局6個月的時間，用來調查並起訴這場衝突中的戰爭罪犯。哈瑪斯執政當局在2月提交聯合國的報告中，否認巴人武裝團體以平民為目標進行攻擊。7月，由哈瑪斯所指派的調查委員會在另一份報告中指出：並無「可靠的證據」能起訴那些被指稱蓄意攻擊以色列平民的人。

哈瑪斯仍一再拒絕被俘虜的以色列士兵Gilad Shalit與「紅十字會國際委員會」（ICRC）接觸，也拒絕其家人探視。該名士兵在2006年6月被俘。

任意逮捕與拘禁

在西岸的巴勒斯坦安全部隊任意逮捕及監禁疑似支持哈瑪斯的人民，而迦薩的哈瑪斯安全部隊也以同樣方式對待疑似支持法塔者。雙方的執政當局都放任其安全部隊濫權，包括非法逮捕、拘禁、刑求與虐待犯法的人民，且給予上述行為法外免責權。「獨立人權委員會」（ICHR） 的報告指出，他們於西岸地區收到了超過1400件任意逮捕的投訴案件，迦薩地區有300件以上。

刑求與其他虐待情事

據傳安全部隊與警察對被拘禁者有刑求與虐待的情事，犯行主要來自於西岸巴勒斯坦當局的「預防性安全部隊」（Preventive Security force） 與「情報總局」，以及迦薩的「內部安全機構」（Internal Security）。「獨立人權委員會」（ICHR） 指出，其在西岸受理遭到巴勒斯坦當局刑求或虐待的投訴案件超過150件，在迦薩，受害於哈瑪斯的則超過200件案例。以下是2009年案例的最新報告。

在西岸與迦薩，犯下刑求與虐待情事者皆享有法律免責權。在一極罕見的獲起訴案件中，有5名「情報總局」成員在2010年被控涉及2009年Haitham Amr在羈押中死亡的案件，但軍事法庭判他們無罪。

* Mohammed Baraka Abdel-Aziz Abu-Moailek在迦薩被「內部安全機構」（Internal Security）的人員刑求，他在2009年4月以疑似以「通敵(以色列)」為名遭到逮捕，隨後遭斷絕對外通聯長達50天。他表示曾遭到電擊刑求、打腳底板、香菸燙傷及受到死亡威脅以迫其認罪。直到2010年底，他仍被拘禁與審問。

* 一位機械工Ahmed Salheb於9月遭到巴勒斯坦安全人員逮捕，隨後遭到刑求。安全人員稱其涉嫌勾結哈瑪斯。他說他在一個極度痛苦不適的姿勢下被長時間緊緊捆綁，這使得再先前受到安全人員酷刑所造成的背傷嚴重惡化。10月，他被無罪釋放。
在迦薩，一人在拘禁中遭警察毆打致死。

* 1月1日，迦薩的Nazira Jaddou’a al-Sweirki遭警察重擊背部與接續的毆打後隨即死亡。她的三個成年的兒子都遭毆打，其中兩個更以涉嫌支持法塔遭拘禁。

司法體系

在西岸，保安機構並未遵守法庭命令釋放被拘禁者。巴勒斯坦當局持續禁止前司法人員及警察到迦薩為哈瑪斯工作，而迦薩的哈瑪斯當局則繼續自行任用缺乏適當訓練、資格不符且不具司法獨立精神的檢察官及法官。

死刑

在迦薩，至少11人被「軍事及犯罪法庭」宣判死刑，其中5人在死刑執行前並沒有經過符合國際公平標準的審判，當中2人在4月間因以「通敵(以色列)」入罪，3人於5月間被判謀殺定讞。

言論及結社自由

西岸的巴勒斯坦當局與迦薩的哈瑪斯當局都持續嚴密地箝制言論自由，並且騷擾記者、部落客及評論家，甚至起訴他們。

* 10月31日，一位部落客Walid al-Husayin在西岸的Qalqilya遭「情報總局」拘禁。他在部落格裡張貼的文章被懷疑倡導無神論及批評伊斯蘭和其他宗教；直到年底，仍未獲得釋放。

* 2月，一名英籍記者Paul Martin在設法幫助一名遭指控「通敵(以色列)」的人民之後被逮捕。最初他被控為以色列的間諜，但在拘禁25日後無罪釋放。

哈瑪斯與巴勒斯坦當局箝制人們的結社自由，兩者都阻撓伊斯蘭團體Hizb ut-Tahrir的聚會，強制驅離和平抗議者，並限制其他政黨與民間組織的活動。

* 8月25號，在Ramallah的一場和平抗議被安全人員強制驅散，當時的訴求為反對巴勒斯坦當局與以色列開啟新的和平對話。在場的許多記者、攝影師、人權觀察者也都受到襲擊。

* 自5月31日起，一個在拉法（Rafah）地區宣導家庭計畫的民間組織，「南方婦女健康協會」（South Society for Women’s Health），據報被哈瑪斯當局強制關閉了3週，之後僅能在其內政部的監督下重新運作。另外兩個在拉法（Rafah）的婦女團體也同時被強制關閉。

*「Sharek青年論壇」（Sharek Youth Forum）是一個由「聯合國發展計畫」（UN Development Programme） 資助的民間組織，運作於西岸與迦薩走廊。該論壇自11月30日起即被通知暫時關閉，隨之而來的是哈瑪斯當局為期數月的騷擾。直到2010年底，其迦薩地區的辦公室仍被關閉。

武裝團體的暴行

與「法塔」、「伊斯蘭聖戰」（Islamic Jihad） 和「解放巴勒斯坦人民陣線」（Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine） 有關的武裝團體，在3月18日向以色列南部以無特定射擊目標的方式發射了若干火箭與迫擊砲，造成一位泰國移民工死亡，並危及其他人的生命安全。火箭發射的數量較過去幾年減少很多。以軍亦對這些攻擊者發動反擊。

5月及6月間，一名身分不明的持槍巴人將聯合國近東巴勒斯坦難民救濟工作署（UNRWA，UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East） 的設施燒毀，那是夏日兒童遊戲計畫所使用的設備。

8月31日，就在美國所發起的新的雙邊對話前夕，有四名以色列人在西岸的以色列屯墾區Kiryat Arba附近被殺，包含一名孕婦。隔天，又兩名以色列人在另一個屯墾區Kochav Hashachar附近遭槍擊受傷。哈瑪斯的羽翼戰鬥團體，Izz al-Din al-Qassam旅，聲稱犯下這兩起攻擊事件。

被漠視的東非乾旱饑荒

Kashmir: A wounded paradise

Village fights for survival

source: Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/inpictures/2011/07/2011719151145851623.html

Wadi Fukin village, which sits just west of Bethlehem along the 1967 border, was destroyed when the Israeli army dynamited much of the town during and in the years following the 1948 war, and then rebuilt when residents returned almost 20 years later. It was the only time, as far as many Palestinians can recall, that residents rebuilt a town destroyed in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. Now the town's 1,200 residents are facing what many fear could be its second death. The neighbouring Beitar Illit settlement has the highest birthrate of any settlement in the occupied West Bank and currently houses more than 40,000 Israeli settlers. The expanding settlement, deemed illegal under international law, continues to take more of Wadi Fukin's land.

Ironically, it is often the men from Wadi Fukin who run the jackhammers and build the settlement's multi-story homes. Land confiscation, along with cheap Israeli produce that has flooded the Palestinian markets, is putting farmers in this verdant valley out of business and pushing them into construction jobs within the settlement. Under the proposed route of the Israeli wall, Wadi Fukin will eventually be surrounded on three sides, cutting the village off from the rest of the West Bank.

1) Yousef Manasra, 87, raises his cane in frustration as he looks at the Beitar Illit settlement on the hill above Wadi Fukin on December 30, 2009. "As much as life squeezes us ... we are still holding on tightly to our land, still holding on to our homeland," he said [Jakob Schiller]

2) A farmer and sheep herder pass each other on one of the main roads in Wadi Fukin on January 2, 2010. The town, which is fed by several springs, used to be known as the breadbasket for the nearby city of Bethlehem. Today, few people still work the land because they have to compete with cheaper produce, imported from Israel's large-scale farms [Jakob Schiller]

3) Men from the town of Wadi Fukin participate in a wedding celebration on June 3, 2011 [Jakob Schiller]

4) Young boys from the town of Wadi Fukin jump into an irrigation pool to cool off on June 2, 2011. Farmers in Wadi Fukin use the pools to store water from the natural springs that flow into the valley [Jakob Schiller]

5) Maher Sukkar harvests turnips from his land in Wadi Fukin on December 29, 2009 [Jakob Schiller]

6) Since it is difficult for farmers to sell goods in the market, most of the food grown in Wadi Fukin is eaten by the community. Some of the crops include wheat, cabbage, turnips and chili peppers [Jakob Schiller]

7) Ibrahim Manasra tends to one of his sheep while they graze above his house in Wadi Fukin on January 1, 2010. Manasra is part of the first generation in Wadi Fukin who can no longer make a living from the land. At one point he was forced to drive a cement truck in the Beitar Illit settlement to support his family [Jakob Schiller]

8) Two young men from the town of Wadi Fukin sneak through a fence on their way to work illegally in the Beitar Illit settlement on December 29, 2009. The Israeli occupation prevents residents in Wadi Fukin from earning their traditional living in agriculture, so most of the young men now make their living by working construction in nearby settlements or in Israel. "At the end of the day, people need money and a source of income for their families - and the only available source of income to be seen for Wadi Fukin, and maybe many communities around it, is work inside the settlements themselves; building these same settlements that suffocate them," said Suhail Khalilieh, who monitors settlements for the Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem, a Palestinian think tank [Jakob Schiller]

9) Wael Manasra, 34, helps his four-year-old son, Adel, with his homework on January 1, 2010. Last year, Wael illegally snuck into Israel to work on a housing development. While he was there, he fell off a set of scaffolding and knocked out his front teeth. Bloody and in shock he had to spend the night hiding on a rooftop before he could sneak back into Palestine. Since his accident he has lost 30 pounds, because he can't eat solid foods. He's currently trying to save enough money for a set of dentures [Jakob Schiller]

10) Wisam Manasra, 25, gets his hair cut by Nader Manasra on March 28, 2006. At the time, Wisam wanted to attend a university and work as a journalist, but feared it would be impossible with Israel's impending wall. Instead, he left Wadi Fukin after marrying a US citizen he met online. He now lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and works the night shift at a bakery [Jakob Schiller]

11) Men dance during a wedding celebration in Wadi Fukin on June 2, 2011. The lights from the nearby Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit can be seen in the distance [Jakob Schiller]

12) Ibrahim Manasra plays with his grandkids Malik, 13 (L), and Sameh, 14, in Wadi Fukin on January 1, 2010 [Jakob Schiller]

13) An abandoned couch sits in front of the Israeli wall near the Palestinian town of al-Walaja, located just northeast of Wadi Fukin. The wall will eventually surround Wadi Fukin on three sides, cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank [Jakob Schiller]

14) Mohammed Mizher (L) and Mohammed Fahri, both 11, point out where they live in Wadi Fukin on December 31, 2009 [Jakob Schiller]

15) Majid Atta, 9, in Wadi Fukin on June 2, 2011 [Jakob Schiller]

Hard Road Back: A war that never ends?

source: Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2011/08/201181122156892311.html



After decades of war, today the Colombian government claims to be putting an end to one of the oldest guerrilla organisations in the world: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The strategy that accompanies the government's military strikes is to offer opportunities and guarantees to those soldiers who decide to leave the ranks of the group. But can Colombia keep its promise of peace for the ex-FARC guerrillas returning home from the jungle - and can they resist temptations? In the following account, filmmaker Russ Finkelstein describes the issues behind the demobilisation programme and why many ex-FARC guerrillas are struggling with demobilisation.

The FARC has been fighting a revolution in Colombia for 47 years now. What first began as a Marxist-inspired struggle over land rights, social and agrarian reforms and resistance to neo-imperialism has been intensified and warped by the influence of the extremely lucrative cocaine trade.

At times, the FARC has held support among Colombia's lower classes, especially in the countryside. In other contexts they have been feared and despised for their ruthless tactics. The Colombian government, the US state department and the European Union consider them to be a terrorist organisation.

Alvaro Uribe, who was president of Colombia from 2002 to 2010, made eradicating the FARC a top priority of his administration.

Contrary to his predecessor, Andres Pastrana Arango, who held peace talks with the guerrillas, Uribe took a hardline approach to ending the conflict; perhaps in part because his own father was killed by the FARC during a 1983 kidnapping attempt.


During his presidency, Uribe launched countless military operations against the group, and his former minister of defence and the country's current president, Juan Manuel Santos, has kept putting an end to the FARC a top priority of the current administration.

For the guerrillas, the harshness of the jungle combined with enduring increasingly effective military strikes has made life for the combatants treacherous, if not intolerable.

Thousands of the groups remaining members have been tempted to defect thanks to the government's demobilisation programme, which consist of a pardon for having been a member of a terrorist organisation as well as economic, educational and psychological assistance while integrating into civilian life. The Santos government considers the programme, along with the military pressure on the FARC, to be successful, citing the large numbers of demobilised combatants as forward progress in the seemingly endless war.

"The best way to win the war is to prevent combat from continuing while still being able to achieve one's objectives," said President Juan Manuel Santos at a recent forum on the demobilisation process, adding, "How can we defeat them as quickly as possible? Of course military action continues. They are constantly adapting, they have and continue to finance themselves through drug trafficking, and so what will put an end to them once and for all? We have told them to demobilise and form part of the [demobilisation] programme, because if they don't it will either be jail or the grave. For this to be more convincing, we've got to make demobilisation more attractive, and we've got to make the threat of jail or the grave more effective."

The end of a war that does not necessarily end

While we were making Hard Road Back, it became apparent that for the ex-combatants the war does not necessarily end with their demobilisation. The FARC continues to exist. They consider their defected former comrades, including those who participated in our film, to be traitors to the organisation, an offence punishable by death. Most of the ex-combatants we spent time with were hesitant at first to appear on camera as they generally try to remain anonymous for the sake of their personal safety.

Additionally, they do not usually discuss their pasts as they try to avoid discrimination they are likely to face in a society that generally considers them to be terrorists, extortionists, kidnappers, torturers, rapists and murderers. For these reasons many of the demobilised leave their homes in the countryside to settle in large cities where they can live anonymously.

For their personal surrender as well as for their participation in psychological counselling and basic education, the ex-combatants receive a modest monthly stipend from the government. The programme also allows them plenty of free time in which they are encouraged to work. We learned however after talking to dozens of ex-combatants in the programme, that with little if any education, few employable skills and the discrimination they face as former terrorists, the demobilised ex-combatants generally live lives of poverty.

At the same time, the war continues to manifest and change. New armed groups have sprung up in marginal neighbourhoods of major cities; which also happen to be the types of places where many of the ex-combatants settle after demobilising. These criminal elements, including urban wings of paramilitary groups, pay three to five times the amount of the monthly government stipend to those who work as hired guns. The money is often sufficient temptation for those with the experience and know-how necessary for this type of work.

After meeting dozens of ex-combatants and hearing them tell their stories, it became apparent that the existence of these new armed groups and the temptation they represent to the demobilised ex-combatants presents a significant challenge to the success of the government's programme and to the prospect of peace as proposed by the current policies.

The government's efforts may be diminishing the FARC's numbers, but if a significant number of those who leave the group end up taking up arms to fight for other illegal armed groups, then the war will perhaps mutate and persist. The names of the groups doing the fighting may change though the profile of the individual combatants remains essentially the same. For the most part, they are poor and frustrated people to whom joining in the fighting represents a means of survival.

As is usually the case with people from the countryside anywhere in the world, the ex-combatants we came in contact with were all very hospitable, humble, friendly, respectful and accommodating. At first it was startling to recall that the people who had invited us into their homes and offered us their food had a few months or years ago been carrying out unthinkable acts in the jungle. We soon realised though that they are tired of fighting and are now doing their best to leave their violent pasts behind.

Giving up on the FARC's revolution

All of the former FARC combatants we met including Julio came from rural poverty. Julio first joined the FARC as a miliciano or plain-clothed, unarmed helper, when he was eleven or twelve years old. He was an orphan and had been forced to work in the fields as a young boy. To him, the well dressed, well-armed FARC soldiers commanded respect. Furthermore, they stood for political ideals that directly reflected the injustices he lived as a peasant from the countryside. He soon became dedicated to the organisation and was convinced that the FARC would topple the powers that be and establish a new and more just government in Colombia.

But after nearly two decades with the organisation and changing personal circumstances, Julio decided to defect. He moved to Bogota with his wife and son and has since been doing his best to make ends meet; though it has not been easy. Although he has given up on the FARC's revolution, he still remains politically committed to social change and progress for Colombia's poor. He has had to put his political ideals aside to some degree however in order to address the more pressing issue of his family's wellbeing.

Julio is charming and charismatic. In the FARC he rose to the rank of commander and in civilian life he has attracted countless friends and comrades. He is currently organising a committee of ex-combatants in his neighbourhood which he hopes will, among their other objectives, help prevent the demobilised from falling back into the war. The idea is to pool resources, improve relations with the community and establish solidarity and camaraderie amongst the demobilised in order to improve their situation.

For the government, the success of the demobilisation programme is seen as a vital strategic step in putting an end to a gruesome war that has gone on for nearly half a century. But for the FARC's former combatants, most of whom have endured hardship and turmoil all their lives, the government's programme offers an opportunity to start anew and pursue something they have never known: a peaceful life. If they are to achieve this goal, however, they must be personally committed to peace in order to resist the ever-present possibility of reverting back to a life of violence.

n

july

MJ

歐巴馬宣布 結束阿富汗戰爭

Israeli forces fire at 'Naksa' protesters

source: Al Jazeera and agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/20116591150521659.html



Syrian state media says at least 23 people have been killed and 350 more wounded after Israeli forces opened fire along the frontier to disperse pro-Palestinian demonstrators attempting to enter the Israel-occupied portion of the Golan Heights.

The official SANA news agency quoted Wel al-Halki, the country's health minister, as saying the dead included a woman and a 12-year-old boy.

The reported deaths occurred as the protesters marching from the Golan Heights approached the Israel-occupied area on Sunday. The day is observed as "Naksa Day" or "Day of Defeat" by many, marking the 44th anniversary of the 1967 war, when Israel occupied the area.

"Anyone who tries to cross the border will be killed," Israeli soldiers reportedly shouted through loudspeakers at the crowd of several hundreds.

Protesters waved Palestinian flags and threw rocks and rubbish over the fence.

Protesters, most of them young men, eventually managed to cut through coils of barbed wire marking the frontier, entering a buffer zone and crawling towards a second fence guarded by Israeli troops.

A Reuters correspondent at the scene saw at least 11 demonstrators carried away on stretchers by the crowd.

"We were trying to cut the barbed wire when the Israeli soldiers began shooting directly at us," Ghayath Awad, a 29-year-old Palestinian who had been shot in the waist, told the AP news agency.

US 'deeply troubled'

Sunday's protests were designed to draw attention to the plight of Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from their homes during Israel's war of independence in 1948.

Now, around half a million Palestinian refugees live across 13 camps in Syria.

The US state department expressed its concern over the clashes, saying: "We are deeply troubled by events that took place earlier today in the Golan Heights resulting in injuries and the loss of life.

"We call for all sides to exercise restraint. Provocative actions like this should be avoided."

The US statement emphasised that "Israel, like any sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself".

Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank, skirmishes broke out at the main crossing into Jerusalem as several hundred Palestinian young people tried to approach the checkpoint.

Reacting to Sunday's incidents, Mustafa Barghouthi, an independent Palestinian politician, told Al Jazeera: "What we saw in the Golan Heights, and in front of the checkpoint to Jerusalem, were peaceful Palestinian demonstrators demanding their freedom and the end of occupation, which has become the longest in modern history.

"And they were encountered by terrible violence from Israel. They have used gunshots, tear gas, sound bombs and canisters emanating dangerous chemicals against demonstrators.

"They also beat us. I was one of those who was beaten today by the Israel soldiers today while we were peacefully trying to reach the checkpoint to Jerusalem."

Israeli account

Israel has accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of permitting the Golan protests to try to divert international attention from his bloody suppression of the popular revolt against his authoritarian rule.

Giving Israel's version of the events, Avital Leibovich, the Israeli army's spokesman, told Al Jazeera: "We [the military] saw near 12 noon an angry mob of a few hundreds of Syrians trying to reach the border fence between Israel and Syria.

"We did three steps. We first warned them verbally, we told them not to get close to the fence in order for them not to endanger their lives.

"When this failed, we fired warning shots into the air. When this failed, we had to open fire selectively at their feet in order to prevent an escalation."

The Israeli military also accused the Syrian government of instigating the protests to deflect attention from its crackdown of a popular uprising at home.

"This is an attempt to divert international attention from the bloodbath going on in Syria,'' Leibovich said.

Israel had vowed to prevent a repeat of a similar demonstration last month, in which hundreds of people burst across the border into the Golan Heights.

More than a dozen people were killed in that unrest, in which protesters had gathered to mark the 63rd anniversary of the "Nakba", to mark the expulsion of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians following Israel's 1948 declaration of statehood.

The teenage miners of Bolivia

Source: Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2011/05/2011531111512141102.html



Jorge Mollinedo and Alex Choque are best friends. They have worked together in the tin mines of Bolivia, hammering out a living from the underground rock.

They are now teenagers and looking for a way out of their desperate poverty and lives blighted by silicosis and ill health caused by mining. Jorge sees the military as a way to change his life and his country. But Alex's plight keeps him tied to the mines.

This is the third time that Witness has filmed with these two, the original Child Miners, over several years. Teenage Miners is a poignant look at the lives of two young people fighting the cycle of poverty as they grow up into young men.

Here, filmmaker Rodrigo Vazquez writes about turning the idea of filming two child miners as they grow older into a reality.

Jorge Mollinedo, the main character in the award-winning film Child Miners, is now 15 years old and has become an energetic teenager determined to have a better life than his father, who has been a miner all his life and has contracted silicosis, the 'miners' disease' that kills thousands of people every year.

Thanks to the possibilities opened up by Evo Morales' government in the mining areas, "leadership courses" have been set up in Huanuni, Jorge's town. Jorge has begun attending these classes because he says that he would like to become a "leader of the poor" and to "raise awareness about the need to stop child labour".





The use of this kind of vocabulary by Jorge would have been impossible when we started filming, six years ago. Back then, he was articulate but did not realise that he was caught in a deadly cycle of poverty, forced labour and sickness that kills miners before they reach 40.

Making the film has been a blessing for all of us. I have learnt from Jorge and Alex what is like to have no idea of future. To be in their shoes for a moment has strengthened my resolve to combat child labour, poverty and social exclusion through cinema, and has increased a feeling that made me start making this film in the first place - one that makes me relate to the injustices committed in the world as if they were being committed against me. This experience has increased my awareness of the need for social change and the need to protect the environment against extractive industries such as open-pit mining.

Jorge and Alex have, through the simple experience of watching the films we have made together, become aware of their own lives from the outside, have been able to observe themselves and contextualise their plight. Now they know that their situation is not normal, that poverty is not a natural state for human beings, that child labour is wrong and that it could kill them in a short time.

Although Alex has not quite quit working in the mine, Jorge has - in no small part thanks to donations sent by Al Jazeera viewers that have managed to fund the kids' education at crucial times.





Thanks to this process of increasing self-awareness, Jorge has decided to become involved in politics somehow. So every Friday, Jorge gathers groups of child miners to talk about the need to get out of the mines and sings a bit of hip-hop with mine-related lyrics that he has written.

In this film, Jorge is finishing the compulsory military service and visiting Alex in the mining town. Alex, who is now 12, is not doing so well. Alex's mother forces him to work in the mine and Jorge is trying to make her understand that this could kill Alex. At the same time, Jorge is trying to get Alex to go to school regularly to finally learn how to read and write properly. In addition, Jorge has decided to find work in Bolivia's capital La Paz and wants to be trained to work on television, as his desire is to shed light on social issues such as child labour.

We will continue filming Jorge and Alex next year. Jorge is slowly becoming a responsible adult and is an example of willpower to transcend one's own circumstances. Alex's plight to quit mining is worth following as his life is at stake.

Ten years on, young Afghans still lack basics

source: Al jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/05/201151113246797936.html

Earlier this year, Afghan president Hamid Karzai signed an agreement with the United Nations to curb the recruitment of underage children in the Afghan police force. The agreement comes after the UN placed Afghanistan's National Police on a blacklist of organisations that recruit children. Also included in the agreement is a ban on a 3,000-year-old Central Asian paedophiliac practise known as bacha bazi - the practise highlighted in Khaled Hosseini's controversial novel The Kite Runner - using pre-pubescent boys to "entertain" local elders through dance, and at times, sexual acts.

The Karzai administration lauds the agreement as an example of its commitment to the millions of Afghan children. But youth advocates in the country argue that the problems facing many Afghan youth go far beyond the belated actions of the government.

"The government is doing nothing of its own," says research analyst at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in Kabul, Abdulhadi Hairan. "It has only been doing things that it has been told by the international community," he says.

Hairan is one of many international aid workers, young Afghans, journalists, and policy makers, who in a series of interviews, paint a much more grim picture of government actions that over the last 10 years have fallen short of addressing the central issues - poverty, access to education, lack of opportunity, and exploitation - that face 68 per cent of the Afghan population.

Third time's the charm?

Fatima Popal is a Georgetown University graduate student and a restaurateur. In recent years, she has made several trips to Afghanistan and volunteered as a girls' basketball coach in orphanages in the capital, Kabul. Her experiences depict a nation where, despite 10 years of international presence and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, the largest segment of the population - the youth - still lack such basic necessities such as food, water and housing.

Popal says the orphanages she worked in had no housing facilities; the street children - who according to the UN estimates make up between 60,000 to 70,000 of the four million people in Kabul - used the facilities during the day and returned to the streets at night.

She recalls that the orphanages could not provide nutritious meals for the children, noting "bread vendors around the area would give day-old bread to the orphanages," who would then serve it with tea for lunch. Even in a nation where, according to UNICEF, half of all children under 5 suffer from malnutrition, Popal points out that these meagre meals were "not really nutritious".

"We were coaching basketball on gravel and the basketball hoops were not hoops; it was almost as if they were coat hangers made into hoops," says Popal, noting that the girls did not even have sneakers to play in.

Yousef Mohamed, founder of the Aschiana Foundation, which has operated a number of youth education and vocational centres in Afghanistan since 1995, says organisations like his are struggling due to a lack of funds. Mohamed believes the financial problem is exacerbated by the government's over-reliance on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to address the fundamental problems plaguing young Afghans.

Mohamed contrasts this surge of NGOs with the Taliban era when, "we had a lot of activity for women and children because no one wanted to put themselves in danger" by doing such work. Mohamed attributes this fact with having made it "easier then to do the work" of the Aschiana Foundation.

Today, Mohamed says there are more NGOs, thus "it's not easy to find a budget for real programmes for the best interest of the children, with more people looking for visibility and thinking very short-term - that if we build this building, then we are done."

Mohamed says his organisation's centres receive greater support from the community than from the government. Speaking of the community's role in the success of the Aschiana Foundation, which has mentored more than 50,000 children and young adults since 1998, Mohamed says, "They see the impact of the programme with their eyes. They see how much it changes the life of the children and needy people."

I haven't seen anything

For 23 year-old Bates College student Mustafa Basij-Rasikh, who spent his entire life in Kabul before coming to the United States in 2006, Mohamed's statements about the lack of government presence in the community rings true.

Basij-Rasikh says even in the capital, "You don't really see the presence of the Ministry of Youth at the community level." The Ministry of Youth has been so reduced in its role that "the people would not know that this person works for the youth," adds Basij-Rasikh.

The oft-repeated statements by the government and the international community on how many girls have returned to school do not impress organisations like Human Rights Watch, who find the figure of three million school-aged girls currently attending school much less encouraging.

Advocacy Director for the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, Jo Becker, also says there has been some progress in terms of access to education for Afghan youth, yet "it hasn't been as good as often portrayed in the media". According to Oxfam, though the six million school-aged children currently enrolled represent a five-fold increase from 2001, that number represents only half of the total school-aged children in the nation.

In response to what the Karzai government is doing to empower the girls, Popal said they often felt they couldn't endure the physical stresses of athletics because they hadn't eaten anything. This is a startling fact from a nation that was historically food self-sufficient.

"I haven't seen anything. I haven't seen any kind of funding that goes into programmes that helps girls in sports," Popal says pointing to the empowering role of non-profit organisations, like Skateistan, that have taken the place of the government.

For Popal, the lack of progress made in empowering girls and women in Afghanistan is embodied in a recent USAID decision to re-direct funding of women's initiatives in Afghanistan. In a Washington Post interview, Alexander Thier, director of USAID's office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs, said, "If you're targeting an issue, you need to target it in a way you can achieve those objectives." Referring to this interview, Popal says the re-direction of funds is simply "because they're not effective, in most of these programs the money is going to projects that cannot manoeuvre or sustain over time."

Ahmad Shuja, a 23 year-old Berea College student and blogger, spent six years in war-torn Afghanistan before becoming one of the 1.78 million Afghan refugees in neighbouring Pakistan, where he lived for 13 years until he came to the United States to study political science and economics.

As one of the 68 per cent of Afghans under 25, Shuja says his story is indicative of the lengths youth in Afghanistan will go to in search of opportunity. "There are very few opportunities for the large youth bulge," says Shuja. Using many of his own friends as examples, Shuja says "it speaks volumes about what the government has done to create opportunities within Afghanistan when a teenager risks his life by travelling from Iran to Turkey, boating his way to Greece, smuggling himself into Italy and, ultimately, to France or one of the Nordic countries," in search of opportunity.

You're Afghan, you're young, you have this potential

To Shuja, his entire generation of Afghan youth who "were simply too young to have fought in the civil wars", are one of the nation's greatest untapped assets. Many of the youth who make up the majority of Afghanistan's population were "uninvolved in the atrocities and killings" that followed the Soviet ouster in 1989. This generational gap from the warlords and political establishment means these young Afghans "can legitimately spearhead a national healing and reconciliation process," says Shuja.

Seeing this potential for youth-led change in Afghanistan, Basij-Rasikh, and 21 year-old Williams College student, Matiullah Amin started the Afghan Youth Initiative in May 2010, a youth empowerment based project.

"It's time to realise the promise of the next generation because it's 68 per cent of the population and we want this generation to be strong and run its own country without anyone else's help," Amin says.

Basij-Rasikh says what the millions of Afghans under the age of 25 need is someone to tell them "you're Afghan, you're young, you have this potential. Now get up and do something" for your country.

For Basij-Rasikh and Amin, the disempowerment of the youth of Afghanistan is a product of the on-going conflict. Amin says often times "the youth are put in the corner because the older generation says 'you are young, you don't have enough experience. Let us solve the communal problems'." Given this fact, Basij-Rasikh says it is especially important that as two young Afghans who grew up in conflict themselves, that they be the ones to tell other young people of Afghanistan "that people can bring change on a very small scale" regardless of their position in society or their place in the political structure.

This direct engagement of the youth has lead the Afghan Youth Initiative to address the very practical problem of hygiene, by partnering with the youth of the Western province of Farah to place 35 trash receptacles in the provincial capital, Farah City.

Though these young Afghans may have been too young to remember Afghanistan's moves towards democracy in the 1960s and 70s before the Soviet occupation, they are well aware of the current political situation in their nation.

"They have to be - the daily grind of politics affects the people more directly in less developed countries than it does in developed countries," says Shuja. He uses the bribery that has become a "common practise in all levels of government bureaucracy" as an example of the political problems facing the Afghan youth. To Shuja, unlike Western youth where "for example, government services are interrupted only when there is a labour strike," being apolitical is not an option in a nation where the youth are the majority but are routinely silenced by a political environment that makes it "very difficult for the youth to become engaged in politics in any systematic way," says Shuja. Amin says much of this interest in politics can also be attributed to the expanding media environment in the nation.

Basij-Rasikh says he was heartened to see a clear sign of increasing youth political engagement when he was in Kabul during the 2010 Parliamentary elections. "I was very shocked not to see the old faces with the long beards," says Basij-Rasikh recalling the many images of people closer to his own age running for parliament, which Amin points out was in stark contrast to "the 2005 Afghan Parliament full of the older generation".

Class, power and advancement

The bacha bazi provisions in the January agreement highlight another important issue affecting young Afghans - exploitation. "Bacha bazi, in many instances, is ingrained in the local power structures," says Shuja. Though the practise dates back centuries and spans several Central Asian nations, Shuja says, bacha bazi, like all things in Afghanistan over the last three decades, has to do with access to opportunities and advancement.

For Shuja, the exploitative practise is as much about class and power as it is tradition.

"A poor farmer struggling to feed his family won't indulge in such practises; it is the wealthy and the powerful that do," says Shuja.

Though they feel "the class structure dismantled over the course of the last 30 years", Basij-Rasikh and Amin do see the lack of opportunities as a possible factor in the practise.

In a society "where you have young children not going to school and then you have the older 20-plus just sitting around," the youth are more susceptible to fall victim to predatory practises like bacha bazi and child recruitment on either side of the nation's on-going conflict, says Amin.

Despite the many challenges facing Afghan youth today, Popal, who has lived in Europe and the United States since her family fled the Russian occupation, says the youth of Afghanistan embody an enthusiasm for life she has not seen even in Western children who have everything.

These children "have absolutely nothing, but they're some of the happiest children because they are alive and breathing," says Popal of the smiles that she credits with constantly pulling her back to Afghanistan.

"Giving them a hand puts a big smile on their face," Popal says, recalling her experience with a street kid who became her helper in her time as a basketball coach.

"No one liked him around because he was dirty and always wore the same clothes," but Popal employed him "as my little helper" and paid him a dollar a day for chasing basketballs around. It was on her final day with that 8 year-old little boy that Popal realised the importance of showing these Afghan youth even a little attention. "I gave him a hundred dollar bill and he came back to me and said 'I didn't help you for money, I helped you because you were kind to me'," as he returned her hundred dollars to her.

The story of Popal's "little helper" is proof of a 2007 statement by United Nations Afghanistan spokesman Aleem Siddique that the problems facing the Afghan youth is not "solely related to money" and that the youth need "more than just aid money". This, despite the fact that USAID spent $342 million in Afghan education projects in the period between 2002 and 2007.

When the boy returned her 100 dollars to her, Popal says she was shocked because "this is a little street kid that need[ed] a hundred bucks right now". Yet, reminded that "all these little kids were running around with such enthusiasm", she and her colleagues decided to take a proactive approach to the one of the most troubling and utilitarian issues they faced on a daily basis: "We took our money and bought them 150 pairs of shoes."

France presents plan to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks

source: WAFA
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=16328

RAMALLAH, June 2, 2011 (WAFA) - French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe Thursday expressed hope that a new French plan to revive the peace process before September would be accepted by both Palestinians and Israelis.

He said that Paris plans to hold an international peace conference in late June or early July to revive the peace process if the protagonists accept the French plan.

Juppe, speaking at a press conference in Ramallah after meeting Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, said that the French plan is based on US President Barack Obama’s proposal of resuming Palestinian-Israeli negotiations on the bases of the 1967 borders with agreed land swap.

The French official had presented the plan to President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday in Rome.

Juppe said that in addition to basing the negotiations on the 1967 borders with land swap, it also calls for security for Israel and Palestine, and that the issues of Jerusalem and refugees would be resolved within one year.

Fayyad said that a proposed economic conference planned in Paris for later this month could be expanded to also include political issues, which has been a Palestinian demand.

The Paris economic conference, which is “a Palestinian interest,” said Fayyad, “can also have very clear political dimensions that should lead to an end to occupation.”

France has called for a conference to be held in Paris to discuss aid to the Palestinian Authority for its 2011-2013 development plan. The Paris II economic conference, as it has been called, may be expanded to become an international peace conference if the French plan gets accepted.

Juppe said he would discuss his plan with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he meets him later Thursday in Jerusalem.

He said he expects both sides to give answers to the French plan within days, not six months, because “we are convinced that if nothing happens between now and September, the situation will be difficult for everyone.”

The Palestinian Authority is going to ask the United Nations in September to recognize its 1967 borders and accept it as a full member.

Juppe said the French position regarding this issue is that “if nothing happens between now and September, France would act according to its responsibilities,” adding that “all options are open.”

Juppe welcomed the Palestinian reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, describing it as “good news.”

He said, however, that it should be agreed that what this would lead to is two states for two people.


France presents plan to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks

source: Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/france-presents-plan-to-relaunch-israeli-palestinian-peace-talks-1.365538

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe presented a peace plan to the Palestinian Authority Thursday during a visit to Ramallah, meant to revive stalled talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

The peace plan, Juppe said, is largely based on U.S. President Barack Obama's speech last month, which called for a resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps.

However, while Obama focused on guaranteeing Israel's security, the French initiative is concerned with "security for the two states (Israel and Palestine)," Juppe told a news conference with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the central West Bank city.

The plan had already been shown to President Mahmoud Abbas in Rome Wednesday.

The French initiative sets a one-year deadline for resolving the issues of Jerusalem and refugees, which Obama referred to without time-lines.

Juppe said he did not expect the Palestinians to respond to his proposal immediately, adding that he was scheduled to meet later Thursday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem to present the French plan to the prime minister as well.

"The situation here cannot continue," he said. "We are convinced that if nothing happens between now and September, the situation will be difficult for everyone," he said.

Juppe was referring to Palestinian plans to address the United Nations in September, asking for full membership in the UN as a state with recognized borders.

He did not specify whether France would support the proposed UN resolution, reiterating the French position, as stated by President Nicolas Sarkozy, that "if nothing happens between now and September, France would act according to its responsibilities, adding "all options are open."

Juppe said he hopes the French plan, which he claims has European Union and U.S. backing, will receive further credibility during a proposed international peace conference France wants to host in late June or early July.

The conference would be an expansion of a planned economic conference, also referred to as Paris II. France wants to host the economic conference in June in order to enlist aid for the Palestinian Authority for the next three years, according to Fayyad.

The Paris II conference "is primarily a Palestinian interest," said Fayyad in response to a question if the PA would accept an invitation to the proposed international peace conference.

"We also want it to have very clear political dimensions that would lead to the one thing we all want, and that is an end to the Israeli occupation and the establishment of the independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders," the Palestinian prime minister said.

Juppe said he expected Palestinians and Israelis to take time to discuss the French peace plan before responding to it.

Official Palestinian sources told the German Press-Agency DPA that Abbas told Juppe after the Rome meeting he will convene with the Palestinian leadership to discuss the plan before he gives his final answer.