Some people like to say “I gave at the office” or “I made my annual donation two months ago.” All this is good but leaves you far short of what you opught to be doing. The likelihood that you can’t help more than you are doing is slim to none. Just skip two meals per month in your favorite fancy restaurant and send the saved money to some place where it will be appreciated much more than your local restauranteur. Consider what just happened in South Sudan.

BRUSSELS/NEW YORK, May 16, 2013—The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today strongly condemned the deliberate damage and looting of its hospital in Pibor town, in South Sudan’s Jonglei State, which has left tens of thousands of people without access to essential medical care.

The hospital’s infrastructure was systematically damaged May 11–12 in order to render it unusable without major repairs. Therapeutic medical food and hospital beds were looted. The MSF structure is the only hospital facility for Pibor County, with the nearest alternative more than 90 miles away. The hospital’s closure leaves roughly 100,000 people cut off from health care. Many of them have fled to the bush amid conflict between the South Sudan Army (SPLA) and the David YauYau armed militia group.

“A special effort was made to destroy drug supplies by strewing them on the ground, to cut and slash the warehouse tents, to ransack the hospital wards, and even to cut electricity cables and rip them from the walls,” said Richard Veerman, MSF operations coordinator for South Sudan.

From January to March, the Pibor hospital treated 3,000 people and provided surgical care to more than 100 people suffering war-related injuries, including SPLA soldiers. Prior to the attack, MSF was forced to suspend activities in Pibor on April 19 because of threats and intimidation of staff and patients.

“The rainy season has just started and we know from previous years that malaria and respiratory diseases such as pneumonia will start to claim lives if there is no health care available,” Veerman said. In a report issued in November last year, South Sudan’s Hidden Crisis, MSF documented the devastating health consequences when people are forced to flee to the bush.

An MSF team was preparing to return and restart medical activities when the looting and destruction took place. It was the sixth time an MSF medical facility has been looted or damaged in Jonglei State in the past two years.

“It is unthinkable that there will be no health care whatsoever for the next six months for some 100,000 frightened and vulnerable people hiding in the swamps,” Veerman said. “Unless we can return to resume medical activities and have the freedom to move to wherever people need assistance, this unthinkable scenario may become the horrific reality.”

MSF urges the Government of South Sudan to meet its responsibilities to ensure full respect of medical humanitarian facilities and activities. MSF also calls urgently for assurances from all parties in the Jonglei State conflict that its medical teams have unhindered freedom to return to Pibor and the ability to reach out impartially to people in need of medical assistance, on either side of the conflict. Humanitarian and medical assistance is urgently needed in Pibor County and must be resumed in the coming days or weeks.

MSF works in Akobo, Nyirol, Pibor, and Uror counties in Jonglei State. The activities in all locations, including Gumuruk Clinic in Pibor County, continue to function, with the exception of the hospital in Pibor town and the MSF clinic in the village of Lekwongole in Pibor County, which was targeted and damaged in August 2012 and where insecurity and fighting have made access impossible for MSF.

Twenty bucks to help in this crisis would be very sweet. [And maybe again in two months]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpBvKgL8Obo
www.samaritanspurse.org

and, of course, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

May 12, 2013

Floral Tribute Paid to Statues of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il

1. Delegations of different countries and regions Sunday visited the statues of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il on Mansu Hill. The delegations came here to participate in the 16th Pyongyang Spring International Trade Fair.
They laid a floral basket before the statues of the peerlessly great men who made immortal contributions to developing the friendly relations among countries before paying tribute to them.

2. Rodong Sinmun Warns against Japanese Society’s Lurch to Right

The Japanese reactionaries should awaken from the nightmare of realizing their ambition for overseas expansion, clearly mindful that their society’s lurch to the Right would lead Japan to ruin, warns Rodong Sinmun Sunday in a bylined article.
The Japanese ruling quarters are putting a group visit to Yasukuni Shrine on an official and regular basis and justifying it, the article says, and goes on:
Nearly 70 years have passed since Japan sustained a defeat in the war. Politicians of Japan are, however, thronging to the shrine to console the departed soul of the top-class war criminals and pray for “the soul of Yamato”. This is nothing but a wriggling of a venomous serpent of militarism keen to militarize Japan and avenge its defeat in the war. It is not without reason that Japanese society is rapidly veering to the Right. Steeped in the idea of denying history to the marrow of their bones, Japanese politicians are making confusion of people’s thinking in a sly method to attain their sinister political aim.

For more on the evil deeds of the West, go to www. watching politics.com and see the many headlines and links on the left side of the page.

Thousands of lives will be saved and dozens of airline crashes will be avoided thanks to clever intervention of Turkish Airlines, Europe’s fourth-biggest carrier. Along with a ban on nail polish, Turkish Airlines is banning lipstick for female flight attendants. A spokesperson for Turkish Airlines said the new ban is in keeping with the company’s love of pastel shades in all uniforms. Vivid colors on the part of the cabin crew impairs visual integrity.

Apart from the beneficial effect on visual integrity, the ban will please the 99% of the country that is Muslim. Of course that is only an unintended byproduct of the brilliancy. Turkish men are like bulls who go mad at the sight of red. Even more so since bulls are really colorblind. Turkish men and Muslim men generally who see women in red have a 500% higher rape incidence than men who are spared the disgusting sight. Earlier this year, The flag carrier caused a stir when newspapers published mockups of a new Ottoman-style uniform for stewardesses with ankle-length dresses. After lots of protest, the insistence on these uniforms was dropped.

Bill Maher has done a wonderful show satirizing the fashion industry in Muslim countries. Catch it, if you somehow can.

For some people, the music in this video is the thing. For most of us, I hope, it is an astonishing revelation of the way the world turns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=L7N6slVrQeY&vq=medium

MONDAY’S GAMES AND FROLICS

Boston Massacre 3 dead.
Kabul, Afghanistan – 24 dead.
Mogadishu, Somalia – 38 dead.
Combined all-star team in Iraq – 61 dead, 271 wounded.

The major leagues are tough and the Boston Marathon just doesn’t have what it takes to make the Big Time. However, our prayers and well-wishing thoughts go out to all the victims and their families and especially to Michelle Obama and her two kids, Sasha and Malia, as they busy themselves grieving as proxies for all America.

The federal sequester, (the across-the-board cuts in federal spending) that took effect March 1, is an assault on the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The sequester is financially squeezing federal defenders. Consider what is happening in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, which comprise the federal trial courts for New York City and some surrounding counties.

There are 280 prosecutors against 38 Federal Defender lawyers, who represent approximately 40 percent of the New York metropolitan area’s federal criminal defendants. The sequester will slash the budget of the defenders for the next six months by 20 percent by forcing these 38 defense lawyers to take an average of six weeks of furlough, more than one day a week. The alternative was laying off one third of the lawyers. As of now, the prosecutors will take no furlough…. In the landmark case of Gideon vs. Wainwright in 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned a notorious decision that proclaimed that only in capital cases do defendants have a right to state-appointed counsel. But now, what we assumed to be a Sixth Amendment right is subordinate to good old-fashioned MONEY. Are you really surprised?

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A GOOD DOSE OF DEATH

Amnesty International has released its annual compilation of capital punishment trends. Only 21 countries were recorded as having carried out executions in 2012, the same as in 2011, but down from 28 countries a decade earlier. It said at least 682 executions were known to have been carried out worldwide in 2012, two more than 2011, and at least 1,722 death sentences were imposed in 58 countries, compared with 1,923 imposed in 63 countries the year before….[Don't ask me how 58 countries carried out executions when only 21 are recorded as carrying out executions. Mathematics is a mysterious thing.]

The big slayers, as per usual, were China, whose total was not released, Iran 314, Iraq 129, Saudi Arabia 79. The United States trailed badly with 43. People were zapped, hanged, bludgeoned and poisoned for a range of crimes including non-violent drug-related and economic offences, but also for “apostasy”, “blasphemy”, and “adultery.” [Hell, nothing wrong with making these capital offenses.] India, Japan, Pakistan and Gambia, all of which had seemed to aboard the anti-death penalty bandwagon have now reversed course. An Amnesty official in Singapore said, “Every human life is precious”. This is downright WRONG but you get the idea which, in general, is that killing is bad business and we can get along just fine without it. It doesn’t do much good for the anti-death penalty crowd to exaggerate and wander into stupidity. Of course the case against killing is made easy by the insanity of the countries that rely on it. In Iran, four people were executed last June for “enmity against God.” This should make atheists of us all.

It’s mostly Islamic states that are committed to butchering but please don’t let that influence your good opinion of Muslim people. Do you want a scorecard? Sure. You can’t tell your butchers without them: In addition to the above champions of death, we have Afghanistan, Bangladesh, N. Korea, Indonesia, Ghana, Palestine (those sweethearts who would restrict the penalty to Jews, if they had the power to do so), Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan. Small fry trying to make names for themselves.

The USA is fiendishly trying to maintain its status as a big leaguer with its 43 executions: Texas (15) and Mississippi (6) lead the way but don’t count a few others out as mere pretenders to the throne. Awaiting their moments to die are 77 others in such hotbeds of common sense as Florida (22), California (13) and Pennsylvania (7).

Cuba, that godawful bastion of communism, does not have even one person under sentence of death. Don’t you just hate Fidel Castro?

Cyprus is a chunk of junk, a piece of garbage that stinks to high heaven and yet is being treated with tender mercies, love, and undeserved concern. Newspapers are squandering a lot of good ink on the most trivial plot of earth on the planet.

The International Monetary Fund is making demands of one sort or another in exchange for a bailout of $12.8 BILLION. That’s “billion,” not “million.” Why bother? The country is small enough to bomb to smithereeens. We need to make sure none of the inhabitants escape. Once upon a time, Cyprus grew red grapes but now it mainly produces sour grapes. The people in the Euro Zone who voted to let Cyprus join them in 2008 are morons. The country produces nothing of value and young people who have legs and brains are fleeing in numbers that defy the counting skills of anybody left who is over age 40. I have a proposal for the IMF. Give me $3 billion, a saving for the IMF of $9.8 billion. Then, as the saying goes: TRUST ME. I will put the money to good use. TRUST ME. I will take a lousy $30 million off the top for my fee – 1% – and use the rest to bomb the island, gas the survivors, and transplant the prettiest of their copious prostitute trade to places like Ann Arbor, Michigan, where they are desperately needed. TRUST ME. I know what I am doing.

This tiny little island that hardly merits having a name has gotten more attention than it deserves. Newspapers and TV flood us with stories about its economy. But why?

In truth, if a giant tsunami washed over this bit of land smaller than Connecticut, nobody would notice or care. The Cypriots themselves would be dead and less than indifferent. Cyprus is a member of the European Union and that accounts for the interest its vacillating fortunes create. Angela Merkel is that kind of Guy.

What is really interesting about Cyprus is just this: it is a destination country for men and women who are subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution; trafficking victims in Cyprus originate from Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Belarus, the Philippines, Morocco, China, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Greece, the United Kingdom, Colombia and the Dominican Republic; sex trafficking occurs within commercial sex industry outlets in Cyprus, including cabarets, bars, pubs, and massage parlors disguised as private apartments. The CIA reports that “the government failed to demonstrate evidence of increasing efforts to address human trafficking over the previous reporting period; trafficking-related complicity significantly hampered the government’s anti-trafficking efforts though the government took some initial steps to address it; very few prosecutions resulted in traffickers being held accountable; the government made few improvements in the protection of victims; it did not ensure procedures for the safe repatriation of foreign victims; a nationwide campaign to specifically address demand within Cyprus has yet to be implemented (2011)” Apart from all this fun and games, Cyprus is duller than dishwater.

For the record, the population is 1,138,071 (as of last July), the people are mainly Greek and their favorite cult religion is Greek Orthodox (78%) distantly trailed by Muslims with an 18% showing.

If you have a summer home in Connecticut, stay put. Winter home? Autumn? Spring? Do likewise.

The question is this: After the police beat them up and so-called “justice” is doled out by an indifferent judicial system, where do the victims go? Every country is proud of its viciousness score and they are all entered into a lottery to determine who gets the prize for SCUM OF THE EARTH.

Here is how things stand at the moment. The United States seems to have a lock on first place but rallies are always possible. Prison Population and Prisoners per 100,000 People, by Country. Data is as of 2007. Ranked by Highest to Lowest Incarceration Rate (per 100,000 people)

Rank ……….Prison Population…….Per 100,000

——- ————— ————
1 United States 2,186,230…… 738
2 Russia 869,814….. 611
5 Cuba 55,000…… 487
12 Ukraine 165,716….. 356
17 Kazakhstan 49,292…… 340
18 South Africa 157,402….. 335
31 Thailand 164,443….. 256
37 Poland 87,901…… 230
40 Iran 147,926…… 214
46 Mexico 214,450……. 196
48 Brazil 361,402……. 191
51 Uzbekistan 48,000…… 184
55 Morocco 54,542…… 175
67 Spain 64,215……. 145
71 Argentina 54,472……. 140
73 Colombia 62,216……. 134
83 United Kingdom 88,458……. 124
84 Myanmar 60,000……. 120
87 China 1,548,498….. 118
92 Philippines 89,639……. 108
96 Viet Nam 88,414……. 105
97 Italy 61,721……. 104
102 Germany 78,581……. 95
107 Turkey 65,458……. 91
110 Egypt 61,845……. 87
113 France 52,009……. 85
132 Japan 79,055……. 62
139 Pakistan 89,370……. 57
143 Bangladesh 71,200……. 50
144 Indonesia 99,946……. 45
151 India 332,112……. 30

Palestinian Territories .. ..
Equatorial Guinea .. ..
Bhutan .. ..
Eritrea .. ..

Countries for which there is no adequate or comparable data are listed at the bottom of the table.

Russia is sagging while India and South Africa are surging. Look for a change in the rankings by 2020. The USA is, of course, unthreatened. We are always best at everything, including at being the worst. American Tribune figures (Nick Medvecky) are more up to date concerning incarceration in the USA. AT says: 2,418,355 and that is updated by the minute. That is roughly 300,000 more than I have.

Obama’s human rights campaign in Africa is failing miserably (but not surprisingly). For the grim story, turn here.
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/feb/25/obama-failing-african-spring/

What the article does not discuss at all is Obama’s indifference to the slaughter of protected species in Africa. Given his passion for speaking out in favor of hunting, it is not surprising. For details on elephant and rhino slaughter, please turn to today’s www.watchingpolitics.