Tim Burton and Johnny Depp team up for Alice in Wonderland 2010

How exciting! The even darker and more twisted side of Alice in Wonderland, a children's story that has been marked by allegations of similarity to a drug trip. An already somewhat confusing and at times, frightening, story is taken over by a characteristically dark and sinister Tim Burton, and Johnny Depp, who has made a name in dark comedy. March 2010 is the proposed release.

Al Jazeera English - Americas - US House rejects Goldstone report

Al Jazeera English - Americas - US House rejects Goldstone report

RT 11/3/09 AlJazeera

The US House of Representatives has rejected as "irredeemably biased" the findings of a UN-sponsored report which says Israel committed war crimes during its military assault on the Gaza Strip.

The house on Tuesday voted 344 to 36 in favour of a non-binding resolution calling on Barack Obama, the US president, to maintain his opposition to the report, which was written by a panel led by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge.

The report accused Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group, which has de facto control of Gaza, of war crimes during the 22-day conflict in December and January.

But most of its criticism was directed towards Israel's conduct during the offensive, in which human rights organisations say about 1,400 Palestinians - many of them women and children - were killed.

Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were also killed over the course of the war, Israel has said.

Steny Hoyer, the Democrat House majority leader, said it was important to adopt an official resolution against the Goldstone report as it "paints a distorted picture".

It "epitomizes the practice of singling Israel out from all other nations for condemnation," he said on Tuesday.

UN assembly pressure

The US house vote came a day before the United Nations General Assembly is expected to debate its own resolution endorsing the findings of the Goldstone report.

Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey, reporting from the UN in New York, said that while the majority of the assembly's member nations were expected to vote in favour of the resolution, the US vote on Tuesday, although non-binding, was likely to dampen its impact.

"Remember - the key recommendation of Goldstone is to get a credible investigation into the alleged war crimes that the Goldstone commission found evidence of in Gaza, and the UN Security Council is the only body that can move forward and demand an investigation," she said.

"The general assembly just does not have that power. Of course, on the security council, the United States is a veto-wielding member and, as the congressional vote underscores, the US is not going to be interested in moving forward in the security council to call for an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC), or anyone else for that matter."

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has previously criticised the report, calling its recommendations "unprecedented for any country, not just Israel".

The United Nations Human Rights Council, which sponsored the Goldstone commission, has already voted to endorse the report.

Bias claims

Steven Rothman, a Democratic congressman from New Jersey, told Al Jazeera that the report was biased against Israel, even after the Goldstone commission's mandate was expanded so that it could investigate war crimes alleged to have been committed by Hamas.

"The report was not written to talk about 12,000 rockets intentionally sent by Hamas to slaughter Israeli men, women and children, versus the Israelis trying in many respects to minimise the damage to Palestinian civilians," he told Al Jazeera.
"So there have been completely different standards applied."
But when asked if he had read the Goldstone report in full, Rothman said he had read only the report's executive summary.

"I did not read the 400 or 500 pages, but I read the executive summary designed for members of congress and other world leaders to read, and I found it terribly, terribly biased and one-sided," he said.

Keith Ellison, a Democrat congressman for Minnesota, criticised his colleagues for rushing to judgement on the issue.

"I urge members to oppose this resolution because it will undermine President Obama's belief that all countries, including our own, should be held accountable for their own actions," he said during the debate.

Goldstone clarifications

Goldstone last week sent a letter to the US House of Representatives saying that the text of the US resolution had "factual inaccuracies and instances where information and statements are taken grossly out of context".

He offered several rejections and clarifications of the ideas expressed in the resolution.

In response to Goldstone's criticism, three parts of the resolution were amended on Tuesday to clarify that Goldstone had sought an expansion to the commission's mandate so that his team could investigate claims that Hamas had violated international law during the Gaza war.

The Goldstone report, which accused Israel of using "disproportionate force" and of deliberately targeting civilians, called for independent investigations to be held into Israel's and Hamas's conduct during the war.

The report called for the cases to be referred to the ICC in The Hague if Israel and Hamas do not investigate the war crimes allegations against them within six months.

Hamas has agreed to hold such an investigation, but Israel has not.

Marwa El-Sherbini - stabbed 18 times in a German courtroom

Just 2 weeks after the media frenzy over Neda, the Iranian woman who was killed during the political protests, Marwa El-Sharbini was stabbed 18 times in a German courtroom by the man she was suing for racism, and her husband was shot by the security guard when he tried to save her.

Weird that it was all over Arab news, but never broadcast in the U.S. aside from a short mention by CNN and BBC. Read more from The Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/07/german-trial-hijab-murder-egypt

Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize

Congratulations to a great man on unifying the world during an economic crisis and taking over the collosal mess left behind by the previous administration. He has written 2 books, is a professor at the University of Chicago, an intellectual as well as a politican. His achievements should not be put aside because he is the president or because people think he is only getting the award as a result of his eloquence and fame.

Chicago 2016 Olympic bid

Chicago's Daley Plaza is buzzing today with people flowing in from all sides to see what's going on. The water fountain has been dyed orange and bands are playing, they are giving away T-shirts and mugs and there are 2 big screen TVs.

Chicago, Rio de Janiero, Tokyo and Madrid are vying to host the 2016 Olympics, which will be the next Olympics after London hosts in 2012.

After living in London for the past few years, I have seen the steps the city is taking to update neighborhoods, increase open transportation, reduce pollution and generally spiff up the city. I know people have complained about the money, but the lasting effects should not be downplayed.

Chicago has already built Millennium Park and updated Grant Park, built additions on the blue line to include the pink line and have begun restructuring and rebuilding the Bronzveville neighborhood. Those are great things for Chicago.

But Chicago also had a big budget shortfall recently and had to sell our parking meters to a private company that messed everything up royally. It was a blemish for Mayor Daley, but nothing Chicagoans aren't used to. So if we are already in the negative and are selling things off to make ends meet, then would we want to take on the added gamble of the Olympics - which are touted to make millions of dollars, but have left most cities in debt - ? So can we take this risk? Every Chicagoan I have talked to says No. But PaddyPower and William Tell, betmakers in London are putting 16-to-1 odds on Chicago winning the bid.

There is also the issue of crime and bad neighborhoods and whether tourists would be able to get around. And be safe. This is where I think Chicago should host. We already pay the highest taxes on goods and services in the United States. Bring in a few million people and we will be rolling in dough. The city, according to the Chicago Tribune, has insurance totaling a billion dollars to cover any shortfall of money, and Obama has already given Chicago a ton of money for rebuilding and renovating the city. It can only be a good thing for the modernization of Chicago and putting us on the map for tourism. The last huge international event here was the World Fair in 1933!

I think that most people in Chicago do not realize what a huge, huge step this would be for us. It would bring us into the homes of millions of people around the world. We would be in people's minds for the next 7 years until we host. The athletes would be renting out rooms and houses from Chicagoans ----

Oh. The news just broke. Chicago was the first city to be eliminated. I guess this discussion has ended... lol :)

Tiananmen Square

I wish I was the Tank Man. I really, really want to know what happened to him.

Fiscal Manifestations

As I sit in Starbucks reading back issues of The Economist (from November 29th to December 5th 2008) I am surprised. As I read about the financial catastrophy from my seat, 9 months into the future, I am very surprised. In September of last year I traveled to Iceland on a whim, to soak in the soothing, ethereal waters of the Blue Lagoon and watch geysers explode. We did not know the Icelandic Krona was only weeks, even days away from complete collapse. In June, my sister planned a trip to London from the U.S. and I thought about moving back to the U.S. at the end of the year. In the passage of my daily life, there were hints that the world economy was unwell. The collapse of Northern Rock in the summer, the drop in retails sales...But I did not think this would have led to the catastrophic headlines of hundreds and hundreds of bankers losing their jobs, of New Labour slashing interest rates by 1.5%, of the bankruptcy of Iceland.

Apparently, other people did.

When Northern Rock was having so much trouble at the beginning of 2008, the British government subsidized them so they wouldn't go under, dragging other banks with them. I didn't understand this back when it happened. So one bank mismanaged their money - what does that have to do with other banks? Now I see. It was about confidence. People see a bank going under and they think their money is unsafe. But why didn't anyone take that as a red flag? Why didn't all these stimulus plans begin around that time, before the worth of the inflated pound plummeted and chaos descended on the world? It doesn't make sense that all this drama was foreshadowed so early last year, and no one did anything and I didn't see it.

If I would have waited a month, even a few weeks to go to Iceland I would have saved tons. If I had moved from the UK to the US 3 months earlier, my savings would be worth hundreds more. I did not have the insight to see the handwriting on the wall. Did anyone else?

If articles about the economic stimulus plans of the US, the UK, the EU, France and Germany are in The Economist as early as November, then someone must have had a heads-up before September. While it is my ego-centric nature to ask why no one warned me against my ill-fated decisions, a more important question I feel I need to ask is why didn't anyone do anything?? Northern Rock was taken over by the state in February of 2008, the economic collapse happened in September and it was SCARY. The headlines, for days, were like being hit in the stomach with a bag of bricks - bankers killing themselves, thousands losing their jobs, companies tanking. Was there enough advanced notice from the U.S. sub-prime mortgages to have saved the public from all the ulcers and headaches?

This brings up even more questions about big business execs and the government role in protecting them. The fiscal year ends in July, right? Is that when they hand themselves bonuses? A healthy three months later, they are all bankrupt. Am I missing something?