Islamic State fighters smash historic statues in Iraq

It looks terrible - vandals of the Islamic State attacking ancient Assyrian statues with sledge-hammers. 

THURSDAY 26 FEBRUARY 2015

Nineveh, on the site of modern day Mosul, was the capital of the Assyrian empire that lasted nineteen centuries from 2500 to 605 BC.

But, according to archaeologists, most if not all the statues in the Mosul museum are replicas not originals. The reason they crumble so easily is that they're made of plaster.

"You can see iron bars inside," pointed out Mark Altaweel of the Institute of Archaeology at University College, London, as we watched the video together. "The originals don't have iron bars."

According to Eleanor Robson, chair of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, the majority of original statues have been taken to the Baghdad Museum for safe-keeping.

'The winged bull'

Nonetheless, the stone winged bull you can see being destroyed is an original, probably one at the gates to Nineveh, dating back to the seventh century.

"I think the Winged Bull is very important locally, because it's one of the few objects that hasn't left the country or gone to Baghdad," said Dr Robson.

The demolition squad of the Islamic State are following in the tradition of the Taliban who blew up the Buddhas at Bamyan, in Afghanistan, and the Malian jihadi group Ansar al Dine which destroyed mud tombs and ancient Islamic manuscripts in Timbuktu.

They quote suras from the Koran that they say demand the destruction of idols and icons. But iconoclasm isn't just a Salafi Islamic idea. In the 17th Century, puritans, under the rule of Oliver Cromwell, destroyed Catholic holy objects and art in Britain.

"We pulled down two mighty great angells, with wings, and divers other angells . . . and about a hundred chirubims and angells," wrote William Dowsing, Cromwell's chief wrecker, after leading his henchmen into Peterhouse college chapel in Cambridge in December 1643.

Countless works of art were lost to history. But such vandalism doesn't just destroy objects. It's also an attempt to deny people their sense of self.

"What ISIS does by destroying cultural sites is fundamentally to undermine people's hope," said Dr Robson. "It undermines the cohesion that holds communities and societies together. That's why it's so damaging and so hard."

Unislamic and barbarous ISIS

US equipped, Mossad trained and Saudi funded conspiracy to discredit Islam and divide war battered Middle East into smaller states to ensure Israel’s supremacy.

By Latheef Farook

Muslims worldwide condemn the ISIS which serves the Israeli, US and European design to   divide the war battered Middle East into smaller states. 

The question is who are these well trained, well financed and well equipped ISIS gangsters?

From where did they descend in the land locked Syria and grab northern Iraqi territories in lightening speed?  How did they bring their weapons into these areas? Who provided such good military training? How did they cross the desert with a skilled and full-fledged army   with advanced artillery to capture a territory larger than the UK?

Unislamic and Barbarous ISIS by Thavam Ratna

Canada pulls funding for Palestinian NGO after founder criticizes Baird

Foreign Affairs pins blame for project's termination on founder's refusal 'to acknowledge Canada’s contribution to the project.'

MIFTAH founder Hanan Ashrawi, pictured here in 2011, accused John Baird of "adopting an arrogant tone" when he criticized Palestine's ICC bid during a trip to Israel in January this year. Two weeks later, Canada terminated its funding agreement with the NGO.

Chris Plecash-Wednesday, 02/25/2015

Canada has terminated a funding agreement for a project aimed at training women to participate in municipal politics in the West Bank following critical comments directed at John Baird by the founder of a Palestinian NGO.

The Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development signed a $27,000 contribution agreement with a Ramallah-based NGO known as MIFTAH on Jan. 13, 2015 for the organization to provide training for women involved in municipal politics in the West Bank.

One week later, then-foreign minister John Baird arrived in Israel for what would be his final Mideast tour before his sudden resignation on Feb. 3. During his visit, Mr. Baird reiterated the Harper government’s position that the Palestinian Authority was making “a huge mistake” and crossing “a red line” by pursuing war crimes charges against Israel at the International Criminal Court.

Mr. Baird’s comments were publicly criticized by Hanan Ashrawi, MIFTAH’s founder and a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s executive committee, who accused him of “adopting an arrogant tone.”

“‘The red line’ is the impunity that Israel enjoys for its violations and the fact that Israel is enabled by apologists like John Baird to persist with the support of self-appointed advocates who become complicit in these war crimes,” Ms. Ashrawi fired back in a PLO press release on Jan. 20.

On Jan. 27, MIFTAH says it received a call from Sidney Fisher, head of the political section for Canada’s Representative Office to the Palestinian Authority, requesting that Ms. Ashrawi give the representative a personal tour of the project.

“She asked me if I could ask Dr. Ashrawi to accompany the representative of Canada [Katherine Verrier-Fréchette] to an activity that was being implemented in northern Palestine—Nablus,” Lily Feidy, MIFTAH’s chief executive officer, told Embassy in a recent phone interview. “Dr. Ashrawi told me that she was going to be away. I informed Sidney. She then asked me if Dr. Ashrawi can write a letter thanking the Canada Fund for this small grant.”

Ms. Feidy said that it’s never been her organization’s policy to write letters of thanks to individual donors. Instead, she writes a letter of recognition in her capacity as CEO that addresses all donors once a project has concluded. She said Ms. Ashrawi refused to write the letter on the grounds that it was not her responsibility as a member of the organization’s board. Two days later, on Jan. 29, Ms. Fisher called MIFTAH to inform them that funding agreement was over.

“Further to our telephone conversation, this is to confirm that MIFTAH's contribution agreement with [DFATD], dated 13 January 2015, is hereby terminated. All aspects of the project that have been completed by MIFTAH to the satisfaction of DFATD prior to termination will be paid for by DFATD in accordance with the contribution agreement,” Ms. Fisher wrote in a Feb. 4 email obtained by Embassy.

Ms. Feidy said MIFTAH will receive about $10,000 of the funding to cover costs incurred before the agreement was terminated. The project had to be temporarily discontinued until she secured funding to cover the $17,000 shortfall.

The funding was made available through the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, a $14-million fund that provides support for short-term, small-scale projects aimed at democratic, economic and social development abroad. 

Canada has partnered with MIFTAH on development projects in the past. Last year, MIFTAH received funding for a similar project aimed at training women for participation in municipal councils in the West Bank.

“Sidney was very apologetic. We had very good relations with [Canada’s Representative Office], until this incident happened,” Ms. Feidy said of their phone conversation. “It’s well known that board members don’t engage in the daily work of an institution, and you don’t approach the board to talk about these things. Why should Ashrawi accompany the representative? I would have done it gladly.”

Miffed by MIFTAH

According to Foreign Affairs, the agreement with MIFTAH was terminated because the organization failed to meet its terms and conditions. Foreign Affairs spokesperson François Lasalle denied that the decision was made because of Ms. Ashrawi’s criticism of Mr. Baird.

“The termination of this one project was based solely on the decision by Dr. Ashrawi, as chairperson of the board, to not adhere to the provisions of the agreement, by refusing to acknowledge Canada’s contribution to the project,” Mr. Lasalle said in an email. “The remaining funds will be used to support another Palestinian project.”

Embassy obtained a copy of the contribution agreement from MIFTAH and found no mention of mandatory letters of thanks. Only two MIFTAH members are named in the agreement presented toEmbassy—CEO Lily Feidy and Hanan Kaoud, the organization’s director of development and communication outreach. Ms. Feidy’s signature appears on the final page along with Canadian representative Katherine Verrier-Fréchette’s. 

Embassy requested a copy of the same agreement from Foreign Affairs but the department said such agreements are confidential. 

The copy seen by Embassy stipulates that MIFTAH was to publicize Canada’s contribution to the project by using promotional materials such as logos, emblems and stickers provided by the department. MIFTAH was also required to acknowledge Canada’s contribution in any public references to the project, such as speeches, press releases and advertising.

The agreement as presented contains no mention of Ms. Ashrawi or of a personalized letter of recognition addressed to Canada. It does give Foreign Affairs the option of terminating or suspending the contribution agreement at the department’s discretion.

‘Political blackmail’

Soon after Foreign Affairs terminated the agreement, Ms. Ashrawi again blasted the Canadian government, and Mr. Baird in particular, for engaging in what she described as “political blackmail.”

“The Palestinians and their institutions are not up for sale, and should not be subjected to extortion. Canada’s decision to end the co-operation agreement is a blatant attempt to extract political concessions in return for economic support for projects,” she stated in another PLO press release on Feb. 5.

Embassy requested an interview with Ms. Ashrawi, but she was unavailable for comment. She recently appeared in a Manhattan court to give testimony in a lawsuit against the PLO and Palestinian Authority for providing “material support” for terrorist attacks that occurred in Jerusalem between 2002 and 2004. On Feb. 23, the PLO and PA were ordered to compensate American victims and their families $218-million USD.

Ms. Ashrawi founded MIFTAH in 1998 and remains chair of the organization’s board of directors, but her name appears nowhere in the 19-page agreement. In recent years she has criticized Canada for its outspoken support for Israel in her capacity as a PLO executive member.

Ms. Feidy said she agreed with the accusation that Canada was attempting to “blackmail” the organization.

“It was conditional. They’d give us the money if she [wrote the letter]. That wasn’t right. I’d call it blackmail, definitely. If it wasn’t blackmail, why stop the funding?” she said.

“Mr. Baird said it was wrong to join the ICC on the part of the Palestinians. As a member of the PLO, [Ms. Ashrawi] responded…. We have nothing to do with her statements as a PLO member.”

cplecash@embassynews.ca
@chrisplecash

Israeli settlement activities increased by 40% in 2014

Israeli settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories increased by 40 per cent during 2014. [File photo] 

Tuesday, 24 February 2015

Israeli settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories increased by 40 per cent during 2014, Anadolu has reported. According to Israeli NGO Peace Now, which campaigns against illegal settlement construction, Israel started building 3,100 residential units in the Palestinian territories last year. It added that tenders for 4,485 additional residential units were published throughout 2014.

"On 30 January," notes a Peace Now report, "tenders were issued for 450 more units in the occupied West Bank by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu." Between 31 March 2009 and last month, the NGO pointed out, the two governments led by Netanyahu promoted at least 106 construction plans for 13,077 different residential units in 57 settlements.

International law considers the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories captured by Israel in 1967. All construction of Jewish settlements on the land is illegal. Palestinian negotiators have insisted that the establishment and building of Israeli settlements has to end before the stalled peace talks with Israel can resume.

How a book club is helping to keep ex-offenders from going back to jail

Two former D.C. jail inmates talk to PostTV about Free Minds, the program that allows teens to express themselves by writing. Robert Barksdale and Juan Peterson share poetry they wrote while behind bars. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)

By Robert Samuels February 25 at 7:17 PM

Robert Barksdale steps in front of the students in an English class at Eastern High School, searching for some semblance of redemption.

“For me, school is a treat because I never got to be in school, for real,” he begins. He always envisioned visiting a school to speak to students but was beginning to realize the pressures of standing in front of the classroom. He scans the room and says: “Y’all are a little intimidating.”

How a Book Club is Helping to Keep Ex-Offenders From Going Back to Jail by Thavam Ratna

South Africa spied on own government to get facts on joint project with Russia

Intelligence agency used agent with links to Russian government to glean information about satellite surveillance programme, leaked cables reveal 

A Russian carrier rocket with broadband communications satellites on board takes off. Photograph: Jody Amiet/AFP/Getty

Seumas Milne and Ewen MacAskill-Wednesday 25 February 2015

South Africa’s intelligence service relied on a spy “with direct access to the Russian government” to find out details of its own government’s involvement in a $100m (£65m) joint satellite surveillance programme with Russia, the leaked spy cables obtained by al-Jazeera and shared with the Guardian reveal.

The satellite system, known as Project Condor, which was launched into orbit by Russia in December last year, provides surveillance coverage of the entire African continent. The project has been shrouded in secrecy, with Russia originally refusing to reveal who its client was.

Those in the dark appear to have included South Africa’s intelligence agency. But a South African agent with access to Russian military intelligence was able to help, according to a leaked espionage report marked “top secret” and dated 28 August 2012.

The intelligence report records a briefing from an agent codenamed “Agent Africanist”, who is identified as having direct links with the government in Moscow and Russian intelligence officers, including those closely involved in the joint satellite project.

Project Condor would, the agent reported, place “South Africa in a position to conduct its own aerial surveillance in Africa, potentially right up to Israel for strategic military purposes”.

The satellite system, which is reported to be costing Pretoria $100m, has been the focus of criticism in South Africa since some details emerged in local media. The scheme, first proposed eight years ago, has been reported as being the pet project of General Moretti Motau, former head of South African military intelligence, who has now retired and sits on the board of the weapons firm Armscorp.

Most countries have several intelligence agencies, usually one responsible for collecting information and running agents overseas, one for domestic work and one run by defence departments for more specific military information. Much of the time they act as rivals, reluctant to share information.

The country’s parliamentary opposition has challenged its value, at a time of cost-cutting elsewhere in government, and questioned the secrecy around the project. Critics claim there is no clear need for such a scale of surveillance, aside from peacekeeping operations in the rest of Africa and spotting poachers in remote parts of the country.

The report from Agent Africanist identifies South African and Russian military intelligence (GRU) as being the “key role players” in relation to the Condor project, and details changes in Russian foreign intelligence (SVR) deployments in southern Africa.

“Project Condor is regarded as a significant part of the envisaged strategic cooperation” between Russia and South Africa, the secret report states. “Currently, there are 30 Russian technicians working in South Africa in close cooperation with South African authorities on the project.”

The report suggests South Africa is seeking closer strategic ties with Russia on the basis of the integration of the Condor project, with another satellite system being developed by Moscow. “The aim is to eventually integrate the two satellite systems and capabilities providing wider strategic coverage with obvious benefits for both countries,” the intelligence document says.

The prospect is also held out of the two countries working together to challenge the domination of African arms sales by the US and France. A GRU official is quoted as reporting that the South African government is “seriously deliberating” selling shares in the state-owned arms manufacturer Denel.

“This has attracted the interest of the Russian arms industry,” the cable says. If a sale were to go ahead, “Russia will strongly consider entering into a strategic arrangement with Denel”, whose focus would be “geared specifically towards the African market, taking on the likes of France and the US”. In recent years the state enterprise has sold off subsidiaries, but to German and French – rather than Russian – arms manufacturers.

Indian Ocean: China-India-US Jostling for Power; cases of Sri Lanka and Maldives

by D. S. Rajan

( February 25, 2015, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The strategic importance of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), providing major sea routes for world commerce, connecting East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and Africa, with Europe and Americas is growing day by day.

Indian Ocean China-India-US Jostling for Power; Cases of Sri Lanka and Maldives by Thavam Ratna

India aims to invest $137 billion in railways in next 5 years

BY MANOJ KUMAR-Thu Feb 26, 2015 

(Reuters) - The government unveiled plans on Thursday to invest $137 billion in its decrepit rail network over the next five years, heralding Prime Minister Narendra Modi's aggressive approach to building infrastructure needed to unlock faster economic growth.

Over the next year, India will increase investment by about a half to 1 trillion rupees ($16.15 billion) including funds raised by market borrowing.

To meet the five year target, investment will have to speed up even more after that, leaving economists questioning where the money would come from as the government has to rein in its fiscal deficit.

Presenting the rail budget two days before the Union Budget - also expected to hike infrastructure spending - Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu shied away from hiking passenger fares to finance the upgrades, but raised freight rates.

He said the budget "set the direction of a long and difficult road of reform."

Modi, who called the rail budget "a paradigm shift" is expected to use Saturday's Union Budget to lay out an economic vision focused on building the roads, power and technology needed to make India a leading global economy.

Prabhu, one of Modi's trusted economic aides, said he would raise funds from multi-lateral lenders, infrastructure and pension funds, as well as "monetizing" railway assets. He said the railway would not be privatized.

"Over the next five years, the railways have to undergo a transformation," Prabhu said in a speech that was short on details.

While India has the world's fourth largest rail network, it has been outstripped by China, which now has more than six times as much track following an intensive expansion and modernisation of its network over the past two decades.

QUESTION OF FUNDING

Providing jobs for 1.3 million people, the railway is India's largest single employer, and reform is politically sensitive. Successive governments have shied away from modernization, preferring instead to use the system to provide cheap transport and create jobs.

Economists welcomed the minister's decision to break with a populist budget tradition of announcing dozens on new trains for politically sensitive region, but said they would like to see more explanation of how the investment will be funded.

"I am little doubtful about the ways the railway minister will finance the huge capital expenditure as the budget lacks the specific detail, said Jyotinder Kaur, principle economist at HDFC Bank, New Delhi.

The rail budget - a relic of Indian's British colonial past - said the share of rail revenue available for investments would rise to 11.5 percent in the fiscal year starting on April 1, up from 8.2 percent in the current fiscal year.

Excluding market borrowing, the amount projected for investment in 2015/16 is up by 31 percent, signaling an increased commitment to infrastructure from federal funds.

State-run Indian Railways has more funds available thanks to a sharp drop in the price of diesel fuel that powers most Indian locomotives.

The finance ministry increased central funding for the railway to 400 billion Indian rupees ($6.47 billion) from 301 billion Indian rupees ($4.87 billion) budgeted in 2014/15.

The BSE Sensex reacted negatively to the speech, sinking 0.7 percent, with wagon makers Titagarh Wagons down 2.6 percent, while Texmaco Rail & Engineering lower 7 percent.

Passenger fares are subsidised by freight revenues that are high compared to other countries. Prabhu raised rates further, with a 6.3 percent hike for coal transport. He said he planned to raise the amount of freight carried to 1.5 billion tonnes a year, from 1 billion tonnes at the moment.

The minister said spending would be focused on improving and expanding existing railway lines, many of which are operating at more than full capacity, with the average speed of the country's best trains a sluggish 70 km (44 miles) per hour.

Accidents are common and trains, platforms and toilets on the network are often filthy.

($1 = 61.9400 Indian rupees)

(Additional reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi and Abhishek Vishnoi in Mumbai; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Simon Cameron-Moore)

Heartbreaking Photos and Tragic Tales of San Francisco's Homeless

Psychiatrist Robert Okin spent years getting to know the city's street people. Now he's sharing their stories.

Mary "told me she had once been very beautiful, but that was a long time ago." Photographs by Robert Okin

—By Gabrielle Canon

| Tue Feb. 17, 2015

Jeff rarely smiles. After 10 years sleeping on sidewalks in San Francisco, stealing to survive and score his next heroin fix, an infection robbed him of most of his teeth. "If you have a big nose, well, no one can blame you," he says. "It's just the way you were born. But if you have no teeth, it's proof that you've fucked up real bad—that you must be nothing but a fuckup."

Heartbreaking Photos and Tragic Tales of San Francisco's Homeless by Thavam Ratna

Flow Beehive Crowdfunding Beats Goal By 3,000%

Too good to be true? Flow Hive invention delivers honey on tap directly from the hive.

The newly-invented Flow Hive delivers honey straight from the hive! Photo: honeyflow.com

Feb-23-2015-(SALEM, Ore.) - For the first time ever, there may be an easier way to extract honey from the hive. A father-son team, Stuart and Cedar Anderson, from Australia has been perfecting their idea for ten years, and it's been in use in experimental bee yards for three years.

"Flow™ is the most significant innovation in beekeeping since 1852,” said Cedar Anderson.

The success of their progressive beehive brought them to the point that they are ready for investors, and so they began a Crowdfunding campaign yesterday, asking for $70,000.

In ONE day, they raised $2,155,661 USD, which is 3,080% of their goal, with 41 days left (campaign closes April 5). That's something to buzz about!

The Crowdfunding campaign was clearly brilliant. They offer several options for supporters. For instance, for $350, supporters will receive their own Flow Full frame kit to fit into a Langstroth 8 frame super (no bees included!).

If you already have hives, they explain how to modify your boxes using only 2 cuts to fit the Flow frames. Depending on the size of your existing hive, three or four Flow frames may be placed in-between your traditional frames.

"We are blown away with the response!" commented co-inventor Cedar Anderson. "Some things appear sold out, but we are creating new options as we speak."

Is this Hive for Real?

Indeed it is. This isn’t just a concept, these special frames apparently really work. The bees fill the pre-fab cells with honey and when they are full, the beekeeper turns a switch which shifts the cells apart and the honey drains down and out. No bees are harmed in this form of extraction, and there is no mess or clean up.

Cedar and Stuart Anderson

Honey is captured straight out of the hive, without even opening the hive. That’s right. These new-fangled frames actually stay in place, and when each is full of honey, the beekeeper decides when to drain it by turning a tap, and releasing the honey into a jar.

This hive invention may be “the beekeeper's dream”, but it has many traditionalists skeptical. Of course it’s a great idea, and could be a great gimmick for the hobbyist beekeepers, but what is the real potential for high end production?

"In 2014 I had the pleasure of testing the Flow frames,” commented John Gates, BC Ministry of Agriculture.

“The bees quickly accepted the frames and in less than 2 weeks stored and capped 40 lbs. of honey. I must say it was quite exciting to see the first bit of honey appear at the outlet, then make its way down the tube into the jar. Mesmerizing.” Gates has been beekeeping since 1974.

In regard to the savings of time and energy, Michael Bush, author of Beekeeping Naturally (and one of USA’s most famous beekeepers) said, “Mind Blowing...It's not very often something is so revolutionary as to blow my mind...Saving 20% of harvest labor is not trivial, 40% is amazing, 60% is revolutionary. But 95%, that’s Mind Boggling!”

Where Does Honey Come From?

In order to best appreciate the end product, honey, it is important to understand how honey is made.

A honeybee colony contains one Queen (a fertile female), a few thousand drones (fertile males), and tens of thousands of Worker bees (sterile females). Altogether, a hive may have 60,000 honey bees under one roof. Worker honey bees are all female, and they have every job description in the hive. As they mature, their jobs evolve.

Older workers are the ones that fly out from the hive and forage, bringing nectar back to the hive. Using its tongue, a straw-like proboscis, the honey bee drinks the sweet liquid from nectar-rich blossoms and stores it in a special stomach called the honey stomach.

Once in the honey stomach, enzymes break down the nectar’s complex sugars (sucrose) into two six-carbon sugars (glucose and fructose), which are less prone to crystallization. This is called inversion.

The worker bee may visit hundreds of flowers, until her honey stomach is full. Bonus: While gathering nectar for their survival, honeybees inadvertently transfer pollen grains from one flower to another, pollinating crops as she flies from one blossom to the next.

When she’s full, the worker bee heads back to the hive and passes the already modified nectar to one of the younger “hive bees” via regurgitation to finish the work of turning it into honey. Then she heads out to forage some more.

The hive bee breaks down the sugars even further, then regurgitates the inverted nectar into a cell of the honeycomb. To remove the extra water content from the honey, hive bees beat their wings furiously, fanning the cells of nectar until the sugars thicken into honey, leaving only about 18-percent water in honey.

Then the hive bee caps the cell with beeswax, and she goes on to the next.

One worker produces only 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime, so it takes thousands of bees working together from spring to fall to produce at least 60 pounds of honey to sustain the colony through a typical winter. Beekeepers always leave honey for the bees’ consumption, or they will starve.

Comparing FLOW with Traditional Extraction

Flow Hive

Traditionally, after all the cells are packed with honey and sealed with wax, the beekeeper “takes off” the honey by removing the full box from the hive and replacing it with an empty, with all new frames.

This new invention removes that entire process.

With the FLOW hive, when the honey is ready to harvest, the beekeeper would simply trek out to the hives with jars to fill, instead of what they do today, a very physical undertaking:

Firing up a smoker to sedate the bees, breaking the seal on the top lid with the hive tool and brushing the bees aside so you can lift the super, full of frames heavy with honey, off the rest of the hive and transport to be extracted.

Honey is then extracted by taking the frame and using a hot uncapping knife, slicing the capping off each frame and sliding them into an extractor which spins out the honey using centrifugal force. It’s a process beekeepers know well. After the honey is collected, it is strained to remove bits of wax and parts of bees, then put into jars and shared with others.

No doubt, there is an ample amount of clean up following the extraction process, and plenty of work in prepping the frames to be used again. Still, it is not something most large scale beekeepers complain about. It’s been a fact of life….for a very long time.

After they experience the Flow frames, they may feel differently. With only a turn of the tap, beekeepers can sit back and watch the honey jars be filled. What a shock to the system!

Honeybees Make More Than Honey

Honey is a treasure from nature. It’s a stable food that naturally resists molds, fungi and other bacteria, allowing it to last for years without refrigeration. It may granulate, but can be liquefied easily and without losing any of its inherent qualities.

Honey is a bi-product of the beekeeping industry, not the mainstay. So what’s more important than honey? Pollination.

Many beekeepers do move their bees into high honey producing areas, especially in the summer months, but for most commercial beekeepers, pollination is what bees do best.

According to the American Beekeeping Federation, some crops, including blueberries and cherries, are 90-percent dependent on honey bee pollination; one crop, almonds, depends entirely on the honey bee for pollination at bloom time.

My father, Alan Ehry, was one of the first beekeepers to move bees from Oregon into the almonds in California. Today, more than a million colonies are used every year to pollinate the almonds.

If he were still here, I know he would be intrigued by this new invention and their claim that “It’s far less stress for the bees and much, much easier for the beekeeper.”

My dad loved his bees, and I think he would have liked this idea...making it easier for all involved. Hey, it’s worth a shot.

One thing’s for sure: Beekeeping is a labor of love, no matter how your honey flows.

Notorious AG/45/2010 file to the fore again!

Wednesday, 25 February 2015 

The AG/45/2010 file that the attorney general’s department had dealt with in the past six years, with the mediation of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, under whom that particular department functioned, has come to the limelight once again.

This file details the former internal trade minister Johnston Fernando’s having aided and abetted, for a fee of Rs. 50 million, an LTTE suicide bomber who had come to assassinate the ex-president.

The CID filed a ‘B’ report to the Colombo magistrate’s court regarding this matter for the first time in January 2009. According to the B/7465/01/2009 complaint, the suicide bomber had been accommodated at the Madiwela MP’s quarters of Johnston Fernando.

The plan was for three suicide bombers, namely Sivarasa Subha Krishnan, Thawarajasingham Subhash and Linton Chandrashan, on the orders of one Rajesh who had been in exile, to target Mahinda Rajapaksa, with the support of Johnston Fernando, at  a place frequented by the ex-president, including at no: 16, Gregory’s Road, Colombo 07. Had that plan failed, there was a standby plan to target him at a location when Mahinda Rajapaksa was to come and watch his sons practise rugby.

For the entire contract, the LTTE had promised Johnston a sum of Rs. 50 million, and he had received a Rs. 10 million advance inside his vehicle when he had come to Fort Bo tree to take charge of the bombers. In addition, the military intelligence was able to record telephone conversations Johnston Fernando had with the bombers and with Rajesh. Present external affairs minister Mangala Samaraweera, at a media briefing then, issued this voice tape to the media.

It was our website that first revealed the entire incident in the late 2009.

A UNP MP at that time, Johnston Fernando was forced, by showing him this file and threatening him, to support Mahinda Rajapaksa in order to strengthen his hands. This file was also used by the then defence secretary to make Johnston Fernando go before the military tribunal to give evidence against Gen. Sarath Fonseka to the effect that he had engaged in politics while in the Army. It was not due to his generosity to pardon his enemies that the former president had cohabited with and even done businesses with a person who had plotted to assassinate him, but because he had received the Rs. 10 million the LTTE had given to Johnston Fernando, it was well known at the time.