ProLost: Redrock Gets It
Array An opening keynote from Barry West, CTO of Sprint Nextel and President of Sprint 4G, and a closing keynote from Scott Richardson, the newly minted Clearwire COO, more than made up for the absense of the WiMAX Forum.It was the same witty and convincing Barry. 3G technologies are not affordable for the volume of data demanded by mobile broadband and Mobile WiMAX delivers 10 times of 3G economics. The key focuses of Sprintâs new model are embedded devices, mobile Internet usage models and applications, and elimination of subsidies. Mobile WiMAX will lock up CE devices (itâs real estate). If CE manufacturers already embed WiMAX, why should they spend another 5 to integrate other mobile broadband technologies. Clearwire will support mobile and portable devices and even bundles of devices. Now it’s up to Sprint and Clearwire to prove to the world that mobile WiMAX will become a major piece of the mobile broadband pie. Our forecast predicts that by 2012, mobile WiMAX will account for 8% of global mobile broadband subscribers.
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Five days later, the market was higher four of those five occasions, with three of the gains exceeding 1% and the one loss under half a percent.If we loosen the criteria and examine all periods in which we’ve had 5 out of 6 days making lower price lows (N = 61), we find a similar bullish edge five days out. By contrast, the rest of the occasions in the sample averaged a five day loss of -.03% (891 up, 814 down).On a related note, I see that, as of Monday’s close, we were down on a five, ten, and twenty day basis in SPY.
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-ne Parade magazine’s straw poll asks: Does the UN still matter?Right now, the vote is running just about 60/40.That’s 59% no, 41% yes, as of this moment.While more scientific polling also reveals a lot of skepticism about the UN’s ability to work well, public polling results also typically indicate significant public support for making the UN work better.
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Ken Roth Executive Director of Human Rights Watch is a Jew who’s parents fled the Nazis in 1938.In his official bio he gives that as the reason he has dedicated him self to fighting Human Rights abuses all across the world. What his bio doesn’t say is what has caused him to ignore Human Rights violations against Jews and why he runs an organization which uses falsehoods to slander Israel on an almost daily basis. But I think I know why, (and Don’t worry Kenny boy —you ARE getting your wish) NGO Monitor’s systematic and detailed analysis shows a significant increase in Human Rights Watch’s focus on Israel in 2006, following a decline in 2005, and returning to the disproportionate agenda and lack of credibility characteristic of the 2000-2004 period. HRW publications dealing with Israel used unreliable and unverifiable eyewitness accounts, rather than photographic, documentary, or other evidence. These core deficiencies were particularly evident in its reporting on the July-August conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Similarly, HRW continues to use the language of demonization with respect to Israel, compared to publications on other Middle East countries. The evidence in this report demonstrates that despite HRW’s recognition that international standards of human rights apply to all people equally, this powerful NGO continues to promote an anti-Israel political agendaReport on HRW’s Activities in 2006: Political Bias Undermines Human Rights NGO MonitorJune 26, 2007 This report presents quantitative and qualitative (vocabulary-based) analyses of HRW publications regarding Israel, followed by detailed examples from individual publications issued in 2006. The report applies the methodology used in NGO Monitor’s previous annual reports, based on a weighted scale for the ten different forms of publications produced by HRW. An analysis of HRW’s publications related to the conflict in Colombia and published by a research group at the University of London found similar political biases and lack of credibility. [1] Quantitative Analysis: Focus on Israel Far Exceeds Other Middle East Countries NGO Monitor’s examination of HRW covering the years 2000-04 showed that a very clear and disproportionate level of HRW’s resources were devoted to condemnations of Israel. There was a significant downward trend in 2005. (See report for details.) However, this trend was reversed in 2006, as the organization reverted back to its earlier pattern. While 8 percent of HRW publications and activities on the Middle East during 2005 focused on Israel, (59 of 702 points, as measured by the weighted method) in 2006, this jumped to 20 percent (223 of 1088 points). Indeed, Israel’s score far outweighed that of any other Middle Eastern country including Egypt (81 points), Libya (75 points), Saudi Arabia (47 points), and Syria (38 points). In other words, allegations against Israel received more than 6 times the attention from HRW than did Syria’s dictatorial regime that is being investigated by the UN for involvement in the assassination of Lebanese leaders, including former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The following graph shows the weighted point totals for all Middle East countries in 2006: A large percentage of the increase between 2005 and 2006 can be attributed to HRW’s obsessive focus on Israel during the war with Hezbollah, with almost 30 publications issued (close to one per day), including reports, press releases, opeds, and letters. In contrast, if this period is removed from the annual total, HRW’s relative focus on Israel was largely unchanged. In 2005, 8% of HRW publications on the Middle East (based on the weighted methodology) focused on Israel, and in 2006, 10% focused on Israel, excluding the five week war.From this comparative perspective, HRW’s disproportionate focus on Israel during the war appears to reflect a decision by its officials to use this event as an opportunity to return to their core political agenda, as displayed between 2000 and 2004. Over two-thirds of these publications on the war condemned Israeli responses to the Hezbollah attack, as shown in the following graph: This extreme over-emphasis is particularly evident when comparing HRW’s publications on Israel with publications regarding the conflict in Iraq.[2] According to the HRW World Report 2007, 1,000 civilians were killed in Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah War (July 12-August 14), while 5,000 were killed in Iraq during the months of July and August alone. Nonetheless, the following graph, using the weighted documents methodology, shows that HRW focused almost as much on the month-long war as it did on Iraq during the entire year: Similarly, during this same period (July 12-August 14, 2006), hundreds died in the fighting in Sri Lanka, but HRW issued only two minor press releases, and the ongoing brutality killing thousands in Darfur also received relatively little attention from HRW. Language as a Reflection of HRW’s Political Agenda In addition to the steady stream of press releases, opeds, statements, letters, and media interviews, HRW reports continued to reflect disproportionality, lack of universality, and inconsistency in reporting on Israel. For example, HRW’s one major report on the Lebanon War was a 49-page document with the highly politicized and subjective headline, “Fatal Strikes: Israel’s Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon”. As reflected by this title, the report overwhelmingly highlights the condemnations of Israel, with only minor references to Hezbollah’s violations of human rights, and no statements regarding aggression. As in many similar HRW reports in the past, (such as the organization’s October 18, 2004 politicized report, Razing Rafah: Mass Home Demolitions in the Gaza Strip this report also erases the context, including Hezbollah’s aggression and its extensive use of human shields. Peter Bouckaert, HRW’s “emergencies director”, played a major role in HRW reporting on the war, and its institutional biases. On July 31, in The Guardian (UK), Bouckaert called Israel’s claim that Hezbollah used human shields a “convenient excuse.” Similarly, Ken Roth, HRW’s Executive Director, wrote in the New York Sun on July 31, 2006 that Israel’s actions in Lebanon during 2006 were the morality of some more primitive moment. (Roth’s offensive reference to the Biblical phrase an eye for an eye also demonstrated an immense ignorance.) These specific examples are further evidence of the violation of universality in the language used by HRW with respect to claims regarding human rights in the case of Israel, as demonstrated in previous NGO Monitor analyses. In 2006, HRW publications also disproportionately and inconsistently applied international legal and human rights terminology. The terms “violation of international humanitarian law” and “violation of international human rights law” were utilized 30 times in its reporting on Israel, while only 19 such phrases were found in the case of Iraq. HRW officials also used “grave/serious Human Rights violations/abuses” 21 times regarding Israel, and 28 allegations that Israeli had acted illegally or violated the law. These terms were used far less frequently by HRW with respect to Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, despite routine and systematic human rights abuses practiced by these regimes. The following chart displays the number of times HRW cited each country with different terms in international law and IHL: However, in other ways, HRW’s use of language reflects a somewhat more measured and judicious approach. For example, in 2005, HRW limited its use of “war crimes” exclusively to Israel, but in 2006, the term was used with respect seven countries in the region: Israel (15), Iraq (28), Iran (4), Jordan (1), Syria (4), PA(6), and Hezbollah (19[3]). Nevertheless, when all the evidence of distorted language in HRW reports for 2006 is taken into account, the double standards and demonization of Israel are clear. In addition to the examples cited above, we note that: Israel was cited 30 times for “Violation International Humanitarian Law/ Human Rights Law” and Libya 23 times as opposed to 2 such citations for Egypt and 6 for Syria. Israel was cited 21 times for “grave/serious Human Rights violations/abuses” as opposed to 4 for Egypt and 0 each for Libya and Syria. Israel was cited 28 times for illegal/violating the law and Libya 34 times as opposed to 1 citation each for Syria and Egypt. The following graph covering HRW publications for 2006 illustrates this systematic imbalance: Erasing Aggression against Israel and Kidnapping from the Context In addition to the statistical biases detailed above, HRW’s activities regarding Israel in 2006 focused on narrow issues that omitted the context of responses to attack. In this way, HRW has continued to be a central contributor to the Durban Strategy of delegitimizing Israel through the rhetoric of human rights. For example, HRW’s reporting systematically erased Hezbollah’s aggression and terrorism. Instead, HRW reports characterized Hezbollah as an “organized political Islamist group based in Lebanon, with a military arm and a civilian arm, and is represented in the Lebanese parliament and government.” This description also ignored Hezbollah’s fortified underground positions along Israel’s northern border; the killing of Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of their bodies in October 2000; repeated rocket attacks on Northern Israel, long after the May 2000 Israeli withdrawal from all of Lebanese territory and before the war, and similar events. In addition the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, igniting the war, and the refusal to allow visits by the International Committee for the Red Cross or any other contact, (clearly in violation of international law and human rights norms) were given very limited attention in HRW reports. Inexplicably, they were not labeled as aggression or violations of international law despite their clear status as such. Following the war, The Intelligence and Terrorism Center at the Israeli Center for Special Studies (CSS) issued a detailed report on these events. It provides extensive documentation and photographic evidence of “Hezbollah’s consistent pattern of intentionally placing its fighters and weapons among civilians,” showing that Hezbollah was “well aware of the civilian casualties that would ensue” from this activity. The detailed evidence in this report stands in sharp contrast to the allegations by Human Rights Watch that it found “no cases” in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as human shields.Indeed, as noted, HRW officials even claimed that the assertions about Hezbollah’s use of human shields were merely a “convenient excuse” on Israel’s part to justify counter-attacks. The “Evidence” Cited in HRW Reports on Israel Is Not Credible During 2006, a systematic examination of the evidence presented in HRW publications that condemn Israeli actions determined that such evidence lacks credibility. For example, an HRW report regarding a July 16 Israeli air-strike in Lebanon following the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers is based on claims from unnamed journalists, unnamed UNIFIL members, and Lebanese “eyewitnesses”. HRW does not state how these witnesses were selected, how many witnesses were interviewed, and whether any testimony was verified or discounted. Many HRW publications cite media reports without providing the publication details, date, or the authors, preventing independent verification. HRW does not specify whether any of its officials visited the site of an alleged attack, it does not identify the members of its team, how long the team was at the site, their language skills, or what investigative techniques it used. This lack of detail is found in almost every report published by HRW during the war, and is characteristic of many previous HRW reports condemning Israel for alleged war crimes. And many of HRW’s claims in these reports are contradicted by far more credible evidence. NGO Monitor’s December 28, 2006 report examining claims during the Lebanon war highlighted the contrast between the details in the C.S.S. report (cited above) and the publications of HRW and Amnesty International. For example, HRW repeated that eyewitness claimed that there was no fighting taking place in [Bint Jbeil] there was no one but civilians. The civil defense was there to help us [recover the bodies]. The CSS report, on the other hand, showed 20 bases and 5 weapons storehouses, along with 87 rockets fired from within village houses, 109 from within a 200 meter radius of the village, and 136 within a 500 meter radius, in Bint Jbeil. The report also documented 60 regular Hezbollah operatives in the village, including about 15 in charge of the storehouses. Similarly unreliable evidence was used in HRW’s highly publicized campaign regarding what has come to be known as “the Gaza beach incident”. On June 9, eight Palestinians were reportedly killed on a Gaza beach in disputed circumstances. Amnesty International and several Palestinian NGOs, including Miftah, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights issued condemnations of Israel in the days following. On June 12, the IDF concluded, based on detailed evidence including shrapnel removed from the victims taken to Israel for treatment, that the IDF was not responsible. On June 13, however, HRW presented the findings of Marc Garlasco, a former “battle damage expert,” in a widely publicized press conference in Gaza. Garlasco was also one of the authors of HRW’s Razing Rafah report of 2004, which contained many unverifiable and disputed claims, and was highly politicized. Ignoring contradictions in the evidence, and the apparently fabricated video that was released by the Palestinians, HRW declared that “the evidence overwhelmingly supports the allegations that the civilians were killed by artillery shells fired by the IDF”. HRW’s lack of credibility was highlighted again on June 19 and 20. After a second press release on the incident was issued on June 15, Garlasco met with Maj.-General Meir Klifi for three hours on June 19 to discuss their investigations. Following the meeting, Garlasco told the Jerusalem Post that HRW could not contradict the findings of the Israeli inquiry and he claimed that the most likely source of the explosion was unexploded Israeli ordinance. On June 20, however, HRW issued a third press release, claiming that the IDF investigation was “incomplete”, contradicting his statements to the Jerusalem Post, and called for an “independent inquiry.” (See NGO Monitor’s detailed timeline and report on NGOs reporting of the incident.) HRW Flip-flops on Palestinian Use of Human Shields On November 22, 2006, Human Rights Watch issued a press release condemning Hamas for calling on civilians to protect “fighters” engaged in attacking Israel and surrounded by the IDF. HRW noted that this call endangered civilian lives, constituting at worst human shielding, at best failing to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from the effects of attack. Following publication, radicalized NGOs and fringe political commentators — including Palestinian NGOs PCHR, Al-Mezan, and Al-Dameer, and the anti-Zionist Norman Finkelstein (in Counterpunch) – criticized HRW, calling these Palestinian actions acts of “non-violent resistance” and pressured the organization to retract the statement. Rather than upholding the universality of human rights in this case, HRW changed its position in a December 16 press release and withdrew its condemnation. In defending this reversal, HRW officials cited factual claims and the interpretation of international law. “We have since concluded that we were wrong, on the basis of the available evidence, to characterize the IDF’s planned destruction of the house as an act of war. The key
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-ne Yes, I know I have already written a fair bit about the jurisdiction-related aspects of the Genocide case, but recent research, and a few ideas resulting from that, leads me to add a few short comments on the notion of res judicata applied by the Court (the judgment is now here, the Courtâs website having been much improved since my original post).It will be recalled that the Court treated the 1996 judgment as deciding not only that the Court had jurisdiction under Article 36 of the Statute, but also that the parties had a right of access to the Court under Article 35 of the Statute.This may seem unremarkable â or at any rate, not nearly as remarkable as some other aspects of the 2007 decision on jurisdiction. It is therefore hardly beyond the bounds of reason to say that a finding of jurisdiction in the sense of Article 36 implicitly makes a finding on access within the meaning of Article 35 (and Article 34(1), as well).The truly exceptional holding in the jurisdiction part of the merits judgment is that the doctrine of res judicata can apply even to such an implicit finding, as opposed to one that the Court has clearly expressed and for which it has given reasons.It is this part of the judgment on jurisdiction that has come in for very serious criticism, not least from the dissenters within the Court itself (see the Joint Dissenting Opinion of Judges Ranjeva, Shi and Koroma, passim). This in turn would suggest that the dissenters in the ICJ were wrong to paint their supposed limitation of res judicata effect as a general principle, and conversely, that the majority of the Court did not so much extend the concept of res judicata, but only applied a broader notion that had existed previously.In English law, the leading case on the finality of judgments is Henderson v. WSP Group Plc and Others [2007] EWHC 55 (TCC):âIn trying this question, I believe that I state the rule of the court correctly, when I say, that where a given matter becomes the subject of litigation in, and of adjudication by, a court of competent jurisdiction, the court requires the parties to that litigation to bring forward their whole case, and will not (except under special circumstances) permit the same parties to open the same subject of litigation in respect of a matter which might have been brought forward as part of the subject in contest, but which was not brought forward, only because they have, from negligence, inadvertence, or even accident, omitted part of their case. The plea of res judicata applies, except in special cases, not only to points upon which the court was actually required by the parties to form an opinion and pronounce a judgment, but to every point which properly belonged to the subject of litigation, and which the parties, exercising reasonable diligence, might have brought forward at the time.â (My emphasis)A much later court said this about the case: âThe rule in Henderson v. Henderson is now accepted as relating not to res judicata in the strict sense of the word, but to express a separate rule of abuse of process: a party to case A would, in seeking in a case B to relitigate case A or to litigate anew arguments which he could have brought forward in case A, abuse the process of the court in case B, and case B would therefore be dismissed.
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I leave that matter to the experts in the field and those that like to smash their heads against the language versus dialect debates.I’ve always regretted not having been taught Cajun French by my grandparents, especially after I started studying French in high school. From the same page above that gave me that biographical information on Father Daigle:The French language was once so dominant in Louisiana that official state documents were published in French and English. In 1898, the State Constitution provided that the French language may be taught in those parishes and localities where the French language predominates. Children were spanked for merely uttering French words on the school grounds.It’s been said that the stigma against Cajun French was because que ce n’est pas le bon francais, but the stigma must’ve been stronger than that, for my grandfather even went so far as to change the ending of his name, Babineaux, to an -o, Babino, to make the name appear more Italian.
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Sit down first though.)Redrock Micro, maker of the popular M2 35mm lens adapter, is showing a new compact handheld rig at Cinegear Expo in LA today and tomorrow. At Redrock there are fans of external LCD displays and fans of viewfinders, and this rig is designed to support either.We’ve seen some Frankenhoopty-lookin’ HV20 rigs here on ProLost.
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Array An opening keynote from Barry West, CTO of Sprint Nextel and President of Sprint 4G, and a closing keynote from Scott Richardson, the newly minted Clearwire COO, more than made up for the absense of the WiMAX Forum.It was the same witty and convincing Barry. 3G technologies are not affordable for the volume of data demanded by mobile broadband and Mobile WiMAX delivers 10 times of 3G economics. The key focuses of Sprintâs new model are embedded devices, mobile Internet usage models and applications, and elimination of subsidies. Mobile WiMAX will lock up CE devices (itâs real estate). If CE manufacturers already embed WiMAX, why should they spend another 5 to integrate other mobile broadband technologies. Clearwire will support mobile and portable devices and even bundles of devices. Now it’s up to Sprint and Clearwire to prove to the world that mobile WiMAX will become a major piece of the mobile broadband pie. Our forecast predicts that by 2012, mobile WiMAX will account for 8% of global mobile broadband subscribers.
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Five days later, the market was higher four of those five occasions, with three of the gains exceeding 1% and the one loss under half a percent.If we loosen the criteria and examine all periods in which we’ve had 5 out of 6 days making lower price lows (N = 61), we find a similar bullish edge five days out. By contrast, the rest of the occasions in the sample averaged a five day loss of -.03% (891 up, 814 down).On a related note, I see that, as of Monday’s close, we were down on a five, ten, and twenty day basis in SPY.
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-ne Parade magazine’s straw poll asks: Does the UN still matter?Right now, the vote is running just about 60/40.That’s 59% no, 41% yes, as of this moment.While more scientific polling also reveals a lot of skepticism about the UN’s ability to work well, public polling results also typically indicate significant public support for making the UN work better.
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Ken Roth Executive Director of Human Rights Watch is a Jew who’s parents fled the Nazis in 1938.In his official bio he gives that as the reason he has dedicated him self to fighting Human Rights abuses all across the world. What his bio doesn’t say is what has caused him to ignore Human Rights violations against Jews and why he runs an organization which uses falsehoods to slander Israel on an almost daily basis. But I think I know why, (and Don’t worry Kenny boy —you ARE getting your wish) NGO Monitor’s systematic and detailed analysis shows a significant increase in Human Rights Watch’s focus on Israel in 2006, following a decline in 2005, and returning to the disproportionate agenda and lack of credibility characteristic of the 2000-2004 period. HRW publications dealing with Israel used unreliable and unverifiable eyewitness accounts, rather than photographic, documentary, or other evidence. These core deficiencies were particularly evident in its reporting on the July-August conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Similarly, HRW continues to use the language of demonization with respect to Israel, compared to publications on other Middle East countries. The evidence in this report demonstrates that despite HRW’s recognition that international standards of human rights apply to all people equally, this powerful NGO continues to promote an anti-Israel political agendaReport on HRW’s Activities in 2006: Political Bias Undermines Human Rights NGO MonitorJune 26, 2007 This report presents quantitative and qualitative (vocabulary-based) analyses of HRW publications regarding Israel, followed by detailed examples from individual publications issued in 2006. The report applies the methodology used in NGO Monitor’s previous annual reports, based on a weighted scale for the ten different forms of publications produced by HRW. An analysis of HRW’s publications related to the conflict in Colombia and published by a research group at the University of London found similar political biases and lack of credibility. [1] Quantitative Analysis: Focus on Israel Far Exceeds Other Middle East Countries NGO Monitor’s examination of HRW covering the years 2000-04 showed that a very clear and disproportionate level of HRW’s resources were devoted to condemnations of Israel. There was a significant downward trend in 2005. (See report for details.) However, this trend was reversed in 2006, as the organization reverted back to its earlier pattern. While 8 percent of HRW publications and activities on the Middle East during 2005 focused on Israel, (59 of 702 points, as measured by the weighted method) in 2006, this jumped to 20 percent (223 of 1088 points). Indeed, Israel’s score far outweighed that of any other Middle Eastern country including Egypt (81 points), Libya (75 points), Saudi Arabia (47 points), and Syria (38 points). In other words, allegations against Israel received more than 6 times the attention from HRW than did Syria’s dictatorial regime that is being investigated by the UN for involvement in the assassination of Lebanese leaders, including former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The following graph shows the weighted point totals for all Middle East countries in 2006: A large percentage of the increase between 2005 and 2006 can be attributed to HRW’s obsessive focus on Israel during the war with Hezbollah, with almost 30 publications issued (close to one per day), including reports, press releases, opeds, and letters. In contrast, if this period is removed from the annual total, HRW’s relative focus on Israel was largely unchanged. In 2005, 8% of HRW publications on the Middle East (based on the weighted methodology) focused on Israel, and in 2006, 10% focused on Israel, excluding the five week war.From this comparative perspective, HRW’s disproportionate focus on Israel during the war appears to reflect a decision by its officials to use this event as an opportunity to return to their core political agenda, as displayed between 2000 and 2004. Over two-thirds of these publications on the war condemned Israeli responses to the Hezbollah attack, as shown in the following graph: This extreme over-emphasis is particularly evident when comparing HRW’s publications on Israel with publications regarding the conflict in Iraq.[2] According to the HRW World Report 2007, 1,000 civilians were killed in Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah War (July 12-August 14), while 5,000 were killed in Iraq during the months of July and August alone. Nonetheless, the following graph, using the weighted documents methodology, shows that HRW focused almost as much on the month-long war as it did on Iraq during the entire year: Similarly, during this same period (July 12-August 14, 2006), hundreds died in the fighting in Sri Lanka, but HRW issued only two minor press releases, and the ongoing brutality killing thousands in Darfur also received relatively little attention from HRW. Language as a Reflection of HRW’s Political Agenda In addition to the steady stream of press releases, opeds, statements, letters, and media interviews, HRW reports continued to reflect disproportionality, lack of universality, and inconsistency in reporting on Israel. For example, HRW’s one major report on the Lebanon War was a 49-page document with the highly politicized and subjective headline, “Fatal Strikes: Israel’s Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon”. As reflected by this title, the report overwhelmingly highlights the condemnations of Israel, with only minor references to Hezbollah’s violations of human rights, and no statements regarding aggression. As in many similar HRW reports in the past, (such as the organization’s October 18, 2004 politicized report, Razing Rafah: Mass Home Demolitions in the Gaza Strip this report also erases the context, including Hezbollah’s aggression and its extensive use of human shields. Peter Bouckaert, HRW’s “emergencies director”, played a major role in HRW reporting on the war, and its institutional biases. On July 31, in The Guardian (UK), Bouckaert called Israel’s claim that Hezbollah used human shields a “convenient excuse.” Similarly, Ken Roth, HRW’s Executive Director, wrote in the New York Sun on July 31, 2006 that Israel’s actions in Lebanon during 2006 were the morality of some more primitive moment. (Roth’s offensive reference to the Biblical phrase an eye for an eye also demonstrated an immense ignorance.) These specific examples are further evidence of the violation of universality in the language used by HRW with respect to claims regarding human rights in the case of Israel, as demonstrated in previous NGO Monitor analyses. In 2006, HRW publications also disproportionately and inconsistently applied international legal and human rights terminology. The terms “violation of international humanitarian law” and “violation of international human rights law” were utilized 30 times in its reporting on Israel, while only 19 such phrases were found in the case of Iraq. HRW officials also used “grave/serious Human Rights violations/abuses” 21 times regarding Israel, and 28 allegations that Israeli had acted illegally or violated the law. These terms were used far less frequently by HRW with respect to Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, despite routine and systematic human rights abuses practiced by these regimes. The following chart displays the number of times HRW cited each country with different terms in international law and IHL: However, in other ways, HRW’s use of language reflects a somewhat more measured and judicious approach. For example, in 2005, HRW limited its use of “war crimes” exclusively to Israel, but in 2006, the term was used with respect seven countries in the region: Israel (15), Iraq (28), Iran (4), Jordan (1), Syria (4), PA(6), and Hezbollah (19[3]). Nevertheless, when all the evidence of distorted language in HRW reports for 2006 is taken into account, the double standards and demonization of Israel are clear. In addition to the examples cited above, we note that: Israel was cited 30 times for “Violation International Humanitarian Law/ Human Rights Law” and Libya 23 times as opposed to 2 such citations for Egypt and 6 for Syria. Israel was cited 21 times for “grave/serious Human Rights violations/abuses” as opposed to 4 for Egypt and 0 each for Libya and Syria. Israel was cited 28 times for illegal/violating the law and Libya 34 times as opposed to 1 citation each for Syria and Egypt. The following graph covering HRW publications for 2006 illustrates this systematic imbalance: Erasing Aggression against Israel and Kidnapping from the Context In addition to the statistical biases detailed above, HRW’s activities regarding Israel in 2006 focused on narrow issues that omitted the context of responses to attack. In this way, HRW has continued to be a central contributor to the Durban Strategy of delegitimizing Israel through the rhetoric of human rights. For example, HRW’s reporting systematically erased Hezbollah’s aggression and terrorism. Instead, HRW reports characterized Hezbollah as an “organized political Islamist group based in Lebanon, with a military arm and a civilian arm, and is represented in the Lebanese parliament and government.” This description also ignored Hezbollah’s fortified underground positions along Israel’s northern border; the killing of Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of their bodies in October 2000; repeated rocket attacks on Northern Israel, long after the May 2000 Israeli withdrawal from all of Lebanese territory and before the war, and similar events. In addition the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, igniting the war, and the refusal to allow visits by the International Committee for the Red Cross or any other contact, (clearly in violation of international law and human rights norms) were given very limited attention in HRW reports. Inexplicably, they were not labeled as aggression or violations of international law despite their clear status as such. Following the war, The Intelligence and Terrorism Center at the Israeli Center for Special Studies (CSS) issued a detailed report on these events. It provides extensive documentation and photographic evidence of “Hezbollah’s consistent pattern of intentionally placing its fighters and weapons among civilians,” showing that Hezbollah was “well aware of the civilian casualties that would ensue” from this activity. The detailed evidence in this report stands in sharp contrast to the allegations by Human Rights Watch that it found “no cases” in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as human shields.Indeed, as noted, HRW officials even claimed that the assertions about Hezbollah’s use of human shields were merely a “convenient excuse” on Israel’s part to justify counter-attacks. The “Evidence” Cited in HRW Reports on Israel Is Not Credible During 2006, a systematic examination of the evidence presented in HRW publications that condemn Israeli actions determined that such evidence lacks credibility. For example, an HRW report regarding a July 16 Israeli air-strike in Lebanon following the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers is based on claims from unnamed journalists, unnamed UNIFIL members, and Lebanese “eyewitnesses”. HRW does not state how these witnesses were selected, how many witnesses were interviewed, and whether any testimony was verified or discounted. Many HRW publications cite media reports without providing the publication details, date, or the authors, preventing independent verification. HRW does not specify whether any of its officials visited the site of an alleged attack, it does not identify the members of its team, how long the team was at the site, their language skills, or what investigative techniques it used. This lack of detail is found in almost every report published by HRW during the war, and is characteristic of many previous HRW reports condemning Israel for alleged war crimes. And many of HRW’s claims in these reports are contradicted by far more credible evidence. NGO Monitor’s December 28, 2006 report examining claims during the Lebanon war highlighted the contrast between the details in the C.S.S. report (cited above) and the publications of HRW and Amnesty International. For example, HRW repeated that eyewitness claimed that there was no fighting taking place in [Bint Jbeil] there was no one but civilians. The civil defense was there to help us [recover the bodies]. The CSS report, on the other hand, showed 20 bases and 5 weapons storehouses, along with 87 rockets fired from within village houses, 109 from within a 200 meter radius of the village, and 136 within a 500 meter radius, in Bint Jbeil. The report also documented 60 regular Hezbollah operatives in the village, including about 15 in charge of the storehouses. Similarly unreliable evidence was used in HRW’s highly publicized campaign regarding what has come to be known as “the Gaza beach incident”. On June 9, eight Palestinians were reportedly killed on a Gaza beach in disputed circumstances. Amnesty International and several Palestinian NGOs, including Miftah, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights issued condemnations of Israel in the days following. On June 12, the IDF concluded, based on detailed evidence including shrapnel removed from the victims taken to Israel for treatment, that the IDF was not responsible. On June 13, however, HRW presented the findings of Marc Garlasco, a former “battle damage expert,” in a widely publicized press conference in Gaza. Garlasco was also one of the authors of HRW’s Razing Rafah report of 2004, which contained many unverifiable and disputed claims, and was highly politicized. Ignoring contradictions in the evidence, and the apparently fabricated video that was released by the Palestinians, HRW declared that “the evidence overwhelmingly supports the allegations that the civilians were killed by artillery shells fired by the IDF”. HRW’s lack of credibility was highlighted again on June 19 and 20. After a second press release on the incident was issued on June 15, Garlasco met with Maj.-General Meir Klifi for three hours on June 19 to discuss their investigations. Following the meeting, Garlasco told the Jerusalem Post that HRW could not contradict the findings of the Israeli inquiry and he claimed that the most likely source of the explosion was unexploded Israeli ordinance. On June 20, however, HRW issued a third press release, claiming that the IDF investigation was “incomplete”, contradicting his statements to the Jerusalem Post, and called for an “independent inquiry.” (See NGO Monitor’s detailed timeline and report on NGOs reporting of the incident.) HRW Flip-flops on Palestinian Use of Human Shields On November 22, 2006, Human Rights Watch issued a press release condemning Hamas for calling on civilians to protect “fighters” engaged in attacking Israel and surrounded by the IDF. HRW noted that this call endangered civilian lives, constituting at worst human shielding, at best failing to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from the effects of attack. Following publication, radicalized NGOs and fringe political commentators — including Palestinian NGOs PCHR, Al-Mezan, and Al-Dameer, and the anti-Zionist Norman Finkelstein (in Counterpunch) – criticized HRW, calling these Palestinian actions acts of “non-violent resistance” and pressured the organization to retract the statement. Rather than upholding the universality of human rights in this case, HRW changed its position in a December 16 press release and withdrew its condemnation. In defending this reversal, HRW officials cited factual claims and the interpretation of international law. “We have since concluded that we were wrong, on the basis of the available evidence, to characterize the IDF’s planned destruction of the house as an act of war. The key
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-ne Yes, I know I have already written a fair bit about the jurisdiction-related aspects of the Genocide case, but recent research, and a few ideas resulting from that, leads me to add a few short comments on the notion of res judicata applied by the Court (the judgment is now here, the Courtâs website having been much improved since my original post).It will be recalled that the Court treated the 1996 judgment as deciding not only that the Court had jurisdiction under Article 36 of the Statute, but also that the parties had a right of access to the Court under Article 35 of the Statute.This may seem unremarkable â or at any rate, not nearly as remarkable as some other aspects of the 2007 decision on jurisdiction. It is therefore hardly beyond the bounds of reason to say that a finding of jurisdiction in the sense of Article 36 implicitly makes a finding on access within the meaning of Article 35 (and Article 34(1), as well).The truly exceptional holding in the jurisdiction part of the merits judgment is that the doctrine of res judicata can apply even to such an implicit finding, as opposed to one that the Court has clearly expressed and for which it has given reasons.It is this part of the judgment on jurisdiction that has come in for very serious criticism, not least from the dissenters within the Court itself (see the Joint Dissenting Opinion of Judges Ranjeva, Shi and Koroma, passim). This in turn would suggest that the dissenters in the ICJ were wrong to paint their supposed limitation of res judicata effect as a general principle, and conversely, that the majority of the Court did not so much extend the concept of res judicata, but only applied a broader notion that had existed previously.In English law, the leading case on the finality of judgments is Henderson v. WSP Group Plc and Others [2007] EWHC 55 (TCC):âIn trying this question, I believe that I state the rule of the court correctly, when I say, that where a given matter becomes the subject of litigation in, and of adjudication by, a court of competent jurisdiction, the court requires the parties to that litigation to bring forward their whole case, and will not (except under special circumstances) permit the same parties to open the same subject of litigation in respect of a matter which might have been brought forward as part of the subject in contest, but which was not brought forward, only because they have, from negligence, inadvertence, or even accident, omitted part of their case. The plea of res judicata applies, except in special cases, not only to points upon which the court was actually required by the parties to form an opinion and pronounce a judgment, but to every point which properly belonged to the subject of litigation, and which the parties, exercising reasonable diligence, might have brought forward at the time.â (My emphasis)A much later court said this about the case: âThe rule in Henderson v. Henderson is now accepted as relating not to res judicata in the strict sense of the word, but to express a separate rule of abuse of process: a party to case A would, in seeking in a case B to relitigate case A or to litigate anew arguments which he could have brought forward in case A, abuse the process of the court in case B, and case B would therefore be dismissed.
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I leave that matter to the experts in the field and those that like to smash their heads against the language versus dialect debates.I’ve always regretted not having been taught Cajun French by my grandparents, especially after I started studying French in high school. From the same page above that gave me that biographical information on Father Daigle:The French language was once so dominant in Louisiana that official state documents were published in French and English. In 1898, the State Constitution provided that the French language may be taught in those parishes and localities where the French language predominates. Children were spanked for merely uttering French words on the school grounds.It’s been said that the stigma against Cajun French was because que ce n’est pas le bon francais, but the stigma must’ve been stronger than that, for my grandfather even went so far as to change the ending of his name, Babineaux, to an -o, Babino, to make the name appear more Italian.
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Sit down first though.)Redrock Micro, maker of the popular M2 35mm lens adapter, is showing a new compact handheld rig at Cinegear Expo in LA today and tomorrow. At Redrock there are fans of external LCD displays and fans of viewfinders, and this rig is designed to support either.We’ve seen some Frankenhoopty-lookin’ HV20 rigs here on ProLost.
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