Tuesday, February 25, 2014

14 Reasons You Should Start Eating Cucumber


Source: Fitnea

Cucumbers are number four most cultivated vegetable in the world and known to be one of the best foods for your overall health, often referred to as a super food. Pick a handful of firm, dark green cucumbers and drop them into your shopping cart. Congratulations! You have just bought yourself stuff full of good health.

Cucumber rehydrates body
If you are too busy to drink enough water, eat the cool cucumber, which is 90 percent water. It will cheerfully compensate your water lost.

Cucumber fights heat inside and out
Eating cucumber will get your body relief from heartburn. Apply cucumber on your skin and you will get relief from sunburn.

Cucumber eliminates toxins
All that water in cucumber acts as a virtual broom, sweeping waste products out of your body. With regular eating, cucumber is known to dissolve kidney stones.

Cucumber replenishes daily vitamins
Cucumbers have most of the vitamins the body needs in a single day. A B and C, which boost your immune system keep you radiant and give you energy. Make it more powerful by juicing cucumber with spinach and carrot. Don’t forget to leave the skin on because it contains a good amount of vitamin C, about 12 percent of the daily recommended allowance.

 Cucumber supplies skin friendly minerals
Cucumber is high in potassium, magnesium and silicon. That is why spas abound cucumber based treatments.

Cucumber aids in digestion and weight loss
Due to its high water and low calorie content, cucumber is an ideal source for people who are looking for weight loss. Use cucumbers in your soups and salads. If it is not your favorite snack you can crunchy cucumber sticks with creamy low fat yogurt dip. Chewing cucumber gives your jaws a good workout and the fiber in it is great for digestion. Daily consumption of cucumbers can be regarded as an aid for chronic constipation.

Cucumber revives the eyes
Placing a chilled slice of cucumber over puffy eyes is a clichéd beauty visual but it really can help reduce under-eye bags and puffiness due to its anti inflammatory properties.

Cucumber fights cancers
Cucumber is known to contain secoisolariciresinol, lariciresinol and pinoresinol. The three lignans have a strong connection with reduced risk of several cancer types, including ovarian, breast, prostate and uterine cancer.

Cucumber cures diabetes, reduces cholesterol and controls blood pressure
Cucumber juice contains a hormone which is needed by the cells of the pancreas for producing insulin which is widely spread to be beneficial to diabetic patients. Researchers have found that a compound called sterols in cucumbers can help decrease levels of cholesterol. Cucumbers contain a lot of fiber, potassium and magnesium. These nutrients work effectively for regulating blood pressure. That is why cucumber is good for treating both high blood pressure and low blood pressure.

Cucumber refreshes the mouth
Cucumber juice heals and refreshes diseased gums. Get a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for a half minute, the phytochemcials will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing unpleasant breath.

Cucumber smoothes hair and nails
The wonder mineral Silica in cucumber makes your hair and nails shinier and stronger. The sulfur and silica in cucumbers help to stimulate your hair growth.

Cucumber promotes joint health, relieves arthritis and gout pain
As cucumber is an excellent source of silica it promotes joint health by strengthening the connective tissues. When mixed with carrot juice, cucumber can relieve gout and arthritis pain by lowering levels of the uric acid.

Cucumber cures hangover
To avoid a morning headache or hangover you can eat a few cucumber slices before going to sleep. Cucumbers contain enough B vitamins, sugar and electrolytes to replenish many essential nutrients and reducing the severity of both hangover and headache.

Cucumber keeps kidneys in shape
Cucumber lowers uric acid levels in your body and though keeping the kidneys healthy.

Germany to represent Israel in Islamic countries

24 February 2014
Source: Middle East Monitor

Germany and Israel are today due to sign an agreement allowing Germany to represent Israel's diplomatic and consular relations in countries where Israel has no embassy especially in Muslim countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia; German Der Spiegel newspaper reported.

The newspaper quoted a statement by the Israeli Embassy in Berlin saying the agreement promotes relations between the two sides and allows Germany to represent Israel's consular affairs in countries where Israel has no embassy. Der Spiegel also quoted the Israeli ambassador in Berlin Yakov Hadas-Handelsman as saying the German offer represents a special message from Germany and reflects its global status.

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet will visit Israel on Monday for two days. The delegation will participate in the annual German-Israeli joint cabinet session which started in 2008 to develop strategic partnerships between the two sides on various fields; mainly youth exchange projects and scientific cooperation.

The meetings boost relations between the two sides and make Israel on par with France, Spain, Italy and Russia, which hold joint cabinet meetings with Germany.

Link: www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/europe/9933-germany-to-represent-israel-in-islamic-countries.

Former Supreme Court Justice: Second Amendment Must Be Changed

February 23, 2014

Source: Wall Street Cheat Sheet

 
Some of the issues that most divided the nation during the first five years of President Barack Obama’s presidency — the reform of the American health care system and gun control — are now on the docket of the United States’ highest court. Plus there are cases brought by for-profit companies — the craft store chain Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. — putting the spotlight on the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clause, with the plaintiffs objecting to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that companies subject to the employer mandate must provide workers with policies covering contraception. The Second Amendment has also been placed in the limelight thanks to lawsuits that have been appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Second Amendment — added to the U.S. Constitution on December 15, 1791 — reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” For more than a hundred years, the right to bear arms was a subject untouched by the Supreme Court, meaning there was no legal precedent to define the exact scope of the amendment. As John Paul Stevens, who sat on the bench of the Supreme Court from 1975 until his retirement in June 2010,  told Bloomberg Businessweek, “federal judges uniformly understood that the right protected by the text was limited in two ways: first, it applied only to keeping and bearing arms for military purposes, and second, while it limited the power of the federal government, it did not impose any limit whatsoever on the power of states or local governments to regulate the ownership or use of firearms.”

A Reconstruction-Era Supreme Court case — United States v. Cruikshank — said as much; in determining whether the group of white men who had killed more than sixty black people in what was known as the Colfax massacre had conspired to prevent the newly-freed men from exercising their right to bear arms, the Court found that the “[t]he Second Amendment…has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government.” Subsequent rulings also reaffirmed the idea that states have the authority to regulate the militia. And, in 1897, the Court ruled in Robertson v. Baldwin that laws regulating concealed weapons did not infringe upon the Second Amendment.

But gradually the question of gun ownership became a more pressing issue. However, it was not until 2008 that the Supreme Court began to change its stance. In 2008, the highest court made a landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller. By a five-to-four decision that saw Stevens on the losing end, the justices ruled that the Second Amendment protects a civilian’s right to keep a handgun in his home for self-defense. The decision defined the Second Amendment use of the word “militia” as a group “comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense,” and used American history as support. “The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.”

In 2010, by a second five-to-four vote, the Supreme Court extended their ruling to apply to states and local governments. Shock waves from both those rulings are still sending tremors through the legal system, making it hard to tell whether gun advocates will be able to use Heller to reverse other gun control regulations.
Comments made by Conservative Justice Warren Burger, who led the court from 1969 to 1986, serve to highlight how quickly the Supreme Court’s stance on gun control has changed. Discussing the National Rifle Association’s lobbying campaign opposing gun control laws in the name of Second Amendment rights, he said during a 1991 television interview that the amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud — I repeat, fraud — on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

To Stevens, known as the justice that transformed from a Midwestern conservative to strong proponent of the political left, the time could be ripe to clarify the meaning of the right to bear arms. In fact, with three cases related to gun control set to be argued before the Supreme Court, he believes the justices should consider changing the Second Amendment — not an uncontroversial idea. Stevens explored that idea in his forthcoming book: Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution.

In both of the Supreme Court’s Heller rulings, Stevens dissented. He told Bloomberg that the authors of the constitution included the Second Amendment out of concerns that a national standing army could pose a threat to the sovereignty of the states, not to address homeowners’ fears about intruders. That disparity is his reasoning for the proposed change; the current interpretation of the right to bear arms does not align with the intentions of the country’s forefathers.

The former justice also explained the minute details of the Heller case. Most importantly, he told Bloomberg, the ruling does not prohibit federal, state, or local governments from restricting the ownership of large-capacity weapons like those used in mass shootings in Connecticut, Virginia, Colorado, and Arizona over the past few years. Furthermore, he claimed that Congress’s failure to pass gun control legislation is the fault of both elective politics and lobbying, according to Boomberg.

Regardless of whether the Heller decision was right or wrong, Stevens said that it ultimately pulled the issue of gun control out of the hands of elected politicians and placed it into the power of life-tenured federal judges.

Link: http://wallstcheatsheet.com/politics/former-supreme-court-justice-second-amendment-must-be-changed.html/?a=viewall.


Turkey signs $3.5 bln deal for Sikorsky helicopters





Feb 21 (Reuters) - Turkey signed a deal worth $3.5 billion on Friday to buy helicopters from United Technologies Corp's Sikorsky Aircraft unit, finalizing an order originally agreed upon in 2011, the prime minister said.

The agreement includes options that analysts say could result in billions of dollars of additional orders over the next three decades.

The 109 helicopters, a version of Sikorsky's popular Black Hawk, will be assembled in Turkey. The main contractor is Turkish Aerospace Industries with components to be supplied by Sikorsky, Aselsan and other Turkish companies.

Sikorsky said the deal marked the start of an important partnership with Turkish industry.

"Turkey is such an important market in terms of being a large customer, and it is also strategically important in terms of who they are in the world," Sikorsky President Mick Maurer said in a telephone interview.

He said the agreement would allow Turkish industry to develop the capability to produce nearly every part of the helicopter, including a newly designed Turkish cockpit.

Maurer declined to give many details about the new agreement but said it would give his company a second source for many of the helicopter's components.

He said Sikorsky would work with Turkey to market the international version of the Black Hawk in other countries, leveraging Turkey's existing relationships in those areas and generating additional orders for Turkish suppliers.

"We're going out arm in arm, as we bring in other sales outside of Turkey that will be supplied by the new supply chain," Maurer said.

Maurer said the company expected continued demand for the helicopter in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Even if the co-marketing efforts do not pan out, the deal still gives Sikorsky access to "one of the biggest export helicopter markets in the world," said aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafia. "Turkey has requirements that go way beyond these numbers," he said.

Virginia-based defense consultant Jim McAleese said the deal would help Sikorsky weather a downturn in U.S. helicopter orders and underscored the "franchise value" of the company just weeks after speculation that United Technologies could spin it off as a low-value asset.

"This could not have come at a better time," McAleese said.

Despite the deal, Sikorsky on Friday announced it would begin laying off 600 workers in coming weeks, citing continued "challenging and unstable economic conditions."

Sam Mehta, president of Sikorsky's Defense Systems and Services division, said the deal marked the start of a 30-year relationship, and included options for a wide range of Turkish government agencies to buy versions of the helicopter.

It also opened opportunities for servicing and repairing the helicopters, he said.

Erdogan: I will not give in to any coup attempts

21 February 2014
Source: Middle East Monitor

Turkey will not give in to future coup attempts or pressure, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday.

"We will face any future coup attempts just as we have faced them over the past 12 years and as we faced the recent coup attempt. We will not give in to any conspiracies or pressures," Erdogan said in a speech made before the Confederation of Turkish Labour Unions.
He went on to stress that the political factions are facing the recent attacks collectively "because we stopped the wheel of treason. However, these attacks will not affect us, we have grown used to them since the February 28 [1997] coup, the organisers of which did not commit as much immorality as we are witnessing today."

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/europe/9895-erdogan-i-will-not-give-in-to-any-coup-attempts.

Morsi tells Sisi: You shall be brought to account and severely punished

22 February 2014
Source: Middle East Monitor

President Mohammed Morsi was today permitted to make a statement from within the detention cage inside the court, which is presided over by Judge Sha'ban Al-Shami, the head of Cairo criminal court - which is looking into the case of the storming of Wadi Al-Natroon Prison. He said: "Abdul fattah Al-Sisi, who presides over the military coup d'etat that took place in the country will be called to account before God and will also be tried before the entire people who will show in mercy to him. He will be punished several for what he did to the country. He mobiles the military, the army, inside the country without permission from the supreme commander of the armed forces. This is considered an abhorrent crime committed against this people."

The president sent his greetings to the Egyptian people saying: "My greetings to the entire people. I would like to say to you continue your peaceful demonstrations. I am with you. We shall prevail despite the conspirators who are allied with the Zionists." This is what the Middle News Agency reported.

Link: 
 https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/9915-morsi-tells-sisi-you-shall-be-brought-to-account-and-severely-punished.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Here's Why Microsoft 'Forced' Windows 8 On People, According To A Redditor Who Says He Helped Design It






Microsoft

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

As has been made abundantly clear by now, Windows 8 is not a success for Microsoft. Or to quote Paul Thurrott of the influential Supersite for Windows blog, "Windows 8 is a disaster in every sense of the word."
This really should surprise no one. Microsoft did an almost obscene level of user testing as it was developing Windows 8 – 1.24 billion hours of testing across 190 countries, Microsoft said. 

And throughout all that, users, as well as influential Windows bloggers, told the company repeatedly that they didn't like the new touch-screen interface.

The question is, what is Microsoft's new CEO going to do about it? We are hoping the answer is "scrap it and try again," and not "dig in and insist the world learn to love Windows 8."

But a long post on Reddit from a person claiming to be on the Windows 8 design team might be a worrisome sign.

Remember, Windows 8 has two personalities. It has a "desktop" side, which is basically a version of Windows 7. It also has the Windows 8 side designed as a touch screen. 

When you buy a new Windows 8 PC, the default is to boot to the Windows 8 side. At first, you couldn't turn that part off and choose to use the Windows 7 side exclusively. Now, with Windows 8.1, you can, but the setting that lets you boot to Windows 7 is kind of hard to find.

This person says the reason Microsoft "forced" Windows 8 on people by default was because the company thought it was easier to use for the average PC user:

Metro is a content consumption space. It is designed for casual users who only want to check Facebook, view some photos, and maybe post a selfie to Instagram. It's designed for your computer illiterate little sister, for grandpas who don't know how to use that computer dofangle thingy, and for mom who just wants to look up apple pie recipes. It's simple, clear, and does one thing (and only one thing) relatively easily. ... So we forced it upon them. We drove them to it with goads in their sides.

The problem is that Windows 8 isn't easy to use, particularly for casual users. It has commands and features tucked into all sorts of confusing spots. For instance, sometimes a flick up while in Internet Explorer brings up a list of open tabs. Other times that same gesture brings up a list of frequently used websites.

The self-described Microsoft designer recognizes that Windows 8 isn't perfect for average users. But this person thinks Microsoft is sticking with the basic plan.

Right now we still have a lot of work to do on making Metro seem tasty for those casual users, and that's going to divert our attention for a while. But once it's purring along smoothly, we'll start making the desktop more advanced.

In April, Microsoft will host its annual developers conference, Build, and we hope to hear more details about Windows 9. We're hoping that Windows 9 is to Windows 8 what Windows 7 was to Vista: a seriously big fix.


UX designer for Microsoft here.

I want to talk about why we chose Metro as the default instead of the desktop, and why this is good in the long run - especially for power users.

...but not in the way you might think.

At this point you're probably expecting me to say that it's designed for keyboard execution, or some thing about improved time trials for launching programs, or some other way of me trying to convince you that Metro is actually useful. I've talked about those in the past extensively on reddit, but for this discussion let's throw that all out the window. For this discussion, assume that Metro is shit for power users (even if you don't believe it to be).

Now that we're on common ground, let's dive into the rabbit hole. Metro is a content consumption space. It is designed for casual users who only want to check facebook, view some photos, and maybe post a selfie to instagram. It's designed for your computer illiterate little sister, for grandpas who don't know how to use that computer dofangle thingy, and for mom who just wants to look up apple pie recipes. It's simple, clear, and does one thing (and only one thing) relatively easily. That is what Metro is. It is the antithesis of a power user. A power user is a content creator. They have multiple things open on multiple monitors - sometimes with multiple virtual machines with their own nested levels of complexity.

"But wait," you're thinking, "You said Metro is good for power users, yet now you're saying it's the worst for them, what gives?"

Before Windows 8 and Metro came along, power users and casual users - the content creators and the content consumers - had to share the same space. It was like a rented tuxedo coat - something that somewhat fit a wide variety of people. It wasn't tailored, because any aggressive tailoring would make it fit one person great, but would have others pulling at the buttons. Whatever feature we wanted to add into Windows, it had to be something that was simple enough for casual users to not get confused with, but also not dumbed down enough to be useless to power users. Many, MANY features got cut because of this.

A great example is multiple desktops. This has been something that power users have been asking for for over a decade now. OSX has it, Linux has it, even OS/2 Warp has it. But Windows doesn't. The reason for this is because every time we try and add it to the desktop, we run user tests; and every time we find that the casual users - a much larger part of our demographic than Apple's or Linux's - get confused by it. So the proposal gets cut and power users suffer.

Our hands were bound, and our users were annoyed with their rented jackets. So what did we do? We separated the users into two groups. Casual and Power. We made two separate playgrounds for them. All the casual users would have their own new and shiny place to look at pictures of cats - Metro. The power users would then have free reign over their native domain - the desktop.

So why make Metro the default? And why was there no way to boot to desktop in Windows 8.0?

The short answer is because casual users don't go exploring. If we made desktop the default as it has always been, and included a nice little start menu that felt like home, the casual users would never have migrated to their land of milk and honey. They would still occupy the desktop just as they always had, and we would have been stuck in square one. So we forced it upon them. We drove them to it with goads in their sides. In 8.1, we softened the points on the goads by giving users an option to boot directly to desktop.

Now that the casual users are aware of their new pasture, we can start tailoring. It will be a while before the power users start seeing the benefits of this (that's why I said they'd benefit in the long run). Right now we still have a lot of work to do on making Metro seem tasty for those casual users, and that's going to divert our attention for a while. But once it's purring along smoothly, we'll start making the desktop more advanced. We'll add things that we couldn't before. Things will be faster, more advanced, and craftier than they have in the past - and that's why Metro is good for power users.



Turkey Promises Orthodox Policy at Private Central Bank Meeting

Feb 19, 2014



Turkey’s central bank promised economists that its policy is becoming simpler and more predictable, according to two people who attended a private meeting in Ankara today.

Deputy Governor Mehmet Yorukoglu and Abdullah Yavas, a member of the monetary policy committee, told the economists that the bank is moving toward a more orthodox policy where the benchmark one-week repurchase rate will be the main instrument for funding banks, according to Bora Tamer Yilmaz of Ziraat Investment and Inanc Sozer of Odeabank AS, who were at the meeting.

“Bank officials said that they wanted their policies to be viewed as more orthodox and more predictable,” Yilmaz said.

Turkey’s central bank developed an interest-rate corridor since 2010 that allowed it to vary monetary conditions on a daily basis. Critics said the system was over-complicated, and called it a way of circumventing political opposition to higher rates. The bank reversed course last month, raising all its main rates at an emergency meeting as it sought to stem a plunge in the lira.

The bank will keep policy tight until it’s confident that inflation, which was 7.8 percent last month, is slowing toward the target of 5 percent by mid-2015, Sozer said.

The move toward orthodoxy suggests the rates corridor will be symmetrical, with the overnight lending and borrowing rates that mark its boundary at an equal distance from the benchmark, Yilmaz said.

Link:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-19/turkey-promises-orthodox-policy-at-private-central-bank-meeting.html?cmpid=yhoo.

Halkbank Profit Beats Estimates After Former CEO’s Arrest

Feb 18, 2014 



Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS (HALKB) reported full-year profit that beat estimates, two months after the Turkish lender’s chief executive officer was arrested amid a corruption probe.
Net income rose to 2.75 billion liras ($1.3 billion) from 2.6 billion liras in 2012, the Istanbul-based lender said in a stock exchange filing today. That beat the 2.7 billion-lira estimate of 22 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Halkbank stock has dropped 24 percent in Istanbul trading since former CEO Suleyman Aslan was arrested on Dec. 17 after police found $4.5 million in shoe boxes at his home. His lawyer has said the money was charitable donations Aslan had gathered to build Islamic schools in Turkey and Macedonia. Aslan is awaiting trial.

Ali Fuat Taskesenlioglu, who was named CEO earlier this month, made no mention of his predecessor in yesterday’s statement. Instead, he commented on how Halkbank will work toward Turkey’s “2023 vision” by supporting the import and export activities of small and medium-sized Turkish companies. The year 2023 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic and is a symbolic date for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development party.

Shares Unchanged

Halkbank fell 0.4 percent to 11.95 liras as of 3:16 p.m. in Istanbul trading.

“While earnings exceeded our forecast, the quality was weak,” Duygun Kutucu, an analyst at Burgan Yatirim Menkul Degerler AS, said in an e-mailed report. “The decline in the loan-deposit spread and the below-sector fee growth signify a mediocre operating performance.”

Halkbank’s cost of deposits in the fourth quarter increased 50 basis points to 4.8 percent from the third quarter, its earnings presentation showed. The yield it receives on loans remained at 9.4 percent, down from 11.3 percent in the year-earlier period. The lender’s loan-to-deposit ratio was 84 percent, which Elvan Oztabak, head of investor relations, described as a “comfortable level” compared with the industry average of 111 percent.

Deputy General Manager Mehmet Hakan Atilla said on a conference call with reporters the bank hired three external auditors to review its transactions and compliance procedures. “None of them submitted any negative findings or notices,” he said.

Halkbank’s fourth-quarter net income was 741 million liras, little changed from a year-earlier and beating the 682 million-lira mean estimate of 17 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Earnings have been better than analysts’ estimates for at least the past eight quarters.

Link:   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-17/halkbank-profit-beats-estimates-following-former-ceo-s-arrest.html?cmpid=yhoo.

Turkey president signs controversial Internet law into force



Ankara (AFP) - Turkey's president, Abdullah Gul, said Tuesday he had signed into force a controversial law voted in by the government that would tighten controls over web use.

Gul said on his Twitter feed he promulgated the law -- which the opposition and rights groups say infringes on citizens' freedoms -- after the government assured him it would soften parts of it through later amendments.

"I am aware of the problems mainly on two points.... These concerns will be taken into account in the new law," he said.

An opposition lawmaker earlier confirmed the planned amendments to aspects of the bill concerning some powers of Turkey's telecommunications authority.

"The steps are positive but not enough," Akif Hamzacebi of the Republican People's Party (CHP) was quoted as saying by NTV television.

Under the bill, the Telecommunications Communications Presidency (TIB) can demand that Internet providers block pages deemed insulting or considered an invasion of privacy.

But the government is now proposing that the TIB will have to inform a judge about any decision to block a web page, according to the Hurriyet newspaper.

The judge would then have to issue a ruling within 48 hours or the TIB move would be deemed invalid.
The Internet bill has sparked outrage both at home and abroad and fuelled concerns over the state of democracy in the EU-hopeful country under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The legislation came on top of moves to curb the judiciary and a government purge of police and prosecutors in the face of corruption probe that has targeted close Erdogan allies.

Erdogan has vehemently denied accusations of online censorship, and said Tuesday the proposed Internet curbs were aimed at countering "blackmail" and "threats". 

"The Internet will not be censored, freedoms will not limited," Erdogan told his lawmakers from his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in parliament.

He said the number of Internet subscribers in predominantly Muslim Turkey had swelled to 34 million from 20,000 since the AKP came to power in 2002. 

Defenders of the law say the new restrictions protect individual rights while critics argue they amount to nothing more than a fresh assault on freedom of expression and an attempt to stifle dissent.


For Israel, it's all about the population figures





RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian construction worker Nael Yassin and his wife, Wafa, are the proud parents of a new baby girl — the fifth child for the couple in their early 30s.

Such fecundity is usually a private affair, but in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a broader issue is in play. A race for "demographic" prominence — and the fact that Israel may be losing it — has become critical to the current peace effort led by John Kerry.

The U.S. secretary of state himself has started warning Israel that it stands to become a binational state unless it ends the occupation of the lands it captured in the 1967 war. Kerry, who is expected to present a framework for a deal soon, said last month that failure "will make it impossible to preserve (Israel's) future as a democratic Jewish state."

The idea — emphasized as never before — is being listened to in Israel.

In a speech Monday, Finance Minister Yair Lapid presented the issue as the main reason Kerry must succeed: "Every moment we don't separate from the Palestinians is a clear threat to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state."

The "demographic issue" is focusing Israeli minds in a way that moral arguments against occupation have not, particularly when they are weighed against forgoing the West Bank's strategic hinterland and Jerusalem with its unrivaled religious and historic sites.

Some experts are predicting Arabs will outnumber Jews in Israel plus the areas it captured in 1967 — the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

Continued occupation, they say, would force Israel into a hard choice: Formalize Jewish minority rule over disenfranchised Palestinians — or give them the right to vote and end the Zionist dream of a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine.

In this context, those arguing for a pullout on these terms are essentially trying to save Israel as a "Jewish state" — where the degree of Jewishness is a function of the size of the majority.

In a century of Arab-Jewish conflict, the population balance shifted because of Jewish immigration and war-driven displacement of Arabs.

About 750,000 people lived in historic Palestine at the beginning of British rule after World War I, including 78 percent Muslims, 11 percent Jews and 10 percent Christians, said Joseph Chamie, former head of the U.N. Population Division. The Christians and Muslims were generally both Arabs.

In 1947, the United Nations voted to end British rule and partition Palestine into "independent Arab and Jewish states." At that time the population of 1.8 million was 60 percent Muslims, 31 percent Jews and 8 percent Christians.

In the war that followed, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from what became Israel, and many Jews then immigrated to the new country. Jews made up 87 percent of Israel's population in 1950, Chamie said.

The West Bank and the Gaza Strip were seized by Jordan and Egypt, respectively — but when Israel captured those areas in 1967, the demographic equation changed again.

Currently, just over 12 million people live in the combined territory, according to figures from the Israeli and Palestinian statistics bureaus.

Israel's population stood at some 8.1 million in 2013, said Pnina Zadka of Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics. That includes West Bank settlers, Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, captured in 1967 from Syria. The figure breaks down to 6.1 million Jews, or roughly 75 percent, and 1.68 million Arabs, or 21 percent, she said.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics put the number of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem last year at just over 4.4 million.

Subtracting some 300,000 Palestinians in east Jerusalem from the Palestinian bureau's total because Israel already counted them, the result would still indicate near-parity in the Holy Land — 6.1 million Jews and close to 5.8 million Arabs, including those with Israeli citizenship.

Without a partition deal, Jews will eventually become a minority because of higher Arab population growth, said demographer Sergio Della Pergola of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Arnon Soffer, a geographer at Haifa University.

Some Israelis would like to exclude Gaza from the count, since Israel pulled out troops and settlers in 2005 and it is now controlled by the Hamas militant group. But Palestinians see it as an integral part of Palestine and argue that Israel's sea blockade and continued control of airspace mean the occupation continues in another form.

If Gaza residents are removed from the count, then Jews would make up 61 percent of the population in Israel and the West Bank, but would still end up as a minority in 20 to 25 years, Della Pergola said.
In Israel itself, the higher Arab and lower Jewish growth rates will converge in about a generation, said Zadka of the Israeli statistics bureau.

So if Israel gives up most of the West Bank, it can assure a Jewish majority at home "for eternity," Soffer said.

On the other hand, Della Pergola said, keeping the West Bank means "you must give up on a Jewish state."
Several former right-wing Israeli politicians, most prominently prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, seem to have come to the same conclusion despite past support for the occupation. Sharon oversaw Israel's pullout from Gaza while Olmert pursued a partition deal in talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that broke down in 2008.

Current premier Benjamin Netanyahu, long a hard-liner, now seems to be at least a partial convert as well. He speaks of a two-state solution and vows to prevent a binational state.

But his Likud Party still formally opposes a Palestinian state and his messages can appear halfhearted and mixed. Palestinians especially distrust him, pointing to his refusal to freeze the settlement effort that has complicated partition by placing 550,000 Israelis on occupied land.

Much of Israel's current thinking involves how to keep as much as possible of the West Bank — to minimize the number of settlers that will have to be moved — while at the same time incorporating as few Palestinians as possible. The Palestinians bristle at significant changes to the pre-1967 border.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman caused a stir in recent weeks by proposing to swap parts Arab-populated parts of Israel proper for areas of the West Bank with Jewish settlements.
Some on the Israeli right still argue that the demographic threat is overstated.

The American-Israel Demographic Research Group, a private initiative led by Yoram Ettinger, a former Israeli consul in Texas, claims Palestinians in the West Bank number only about 1.5 million — or about 1 million less than the Palestinian count.

Ettinger's group alleges that two Palestinian censuses, of 2007 and 1997, were flawed. He argued that in 1997, Palestinian demographers counted some 325,000 Palestinian emigres and presumed large-scale immigration that didn't materialize.

Ola Awad, the chief Palestinian demographer, said the 2007 census was based on a detailed head count, with advice from the U.N. and Norway. Anders Thomsen of the U.N. Population Fund backed her up, saying the census was "done according to international standards," with support by his and other U.N. agencies.

Yacov Faitelson, a member of Ettinger's group, also argued that Arab fertility is falling in much of the region while Jewish fertility — already exceptionally high for a developed country with three children per woman — is on the upswing.

Della Pergola said he factored declining Arab fertility rates into his forecasts, and charged that his critics ignore that Palestinian society is younger, with more people of reproductive age.

The Yassins, who live in the Qalandiya refugee camp north of Jerusalem, illustrate some of those trends. Like others in their generation, they tend to have smaller families than their parents, but still have more children, on average, than Jewish couples.

Nael Yassin, 34, who was one of seven siblings, said he hopes baby Rahaf will be his last. At his wife's bedside, he objected to the idea of a demographic race, calling it unsustainable.
"Where would everyone go?" he said.

___
Perry reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed reporting.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Israeli Minister Slams Boycotts as ‘New Form of Anti-Semitism’

Feb 17, 2014 



Using economic sanctions to influence Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians is a “new form of anti-Semitism,” Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said, even as boycott activists contended that recent successes had Israeli leaders “panicking.”

Bennett told a Jerusalem conference of American-Jewish leaders today that despite boycott efforts, Israel continued to draw record foreign investment, especially in its technology sector.

“I’m not at all ignoring this sort of threat, but let’s be very clear: Anyone who suggests to boycott Israel, that’s an unacceptable approach, that’s a new form of anti-Semitism,” Bennett said. He asked conference participants to campaign against boycotts.

Finance Minister Yair Lapid and other Israeli officials have warned that the sanctions’ still-negligible economic effect may deepen after several European companies and institutions cut ties in recent months with Israeli companies that operate in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. Palestinians claim the territories, captured by Israel in 1967, for a future state.

The sanctions campaign also won a higher profile after actress Scarlett Johansson cut her ties last month with the U.K.-based humanitarian group Oxfam, which criticized her for acting as a celebrity spokeswoman for SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA), the Israeli maker of home soda machines with a factory in the West Bank.

Boycott leaders, meeting today in the West Bank near Ramallah, said a decade of activism was bearing fruit.
The boycott initiative has “reached a tipping point in its struggle for comprehensive Palestinian rights under international law,” said Omar Barghouti, a founder of BDS, the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions movement. “The Israeli government is panicking because of the recent fast growth of BDS around the world, particularly in countries that have always been considered Israel’s closest allies in the world: the U.S., Germany, the Netherlands, among others.”

Link:   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-17/israeli-minister-slams-boycotts-as-new-form-of-anti-semitism-.html?cmpid=yhoo.

Abandoning Egypt: Travel Operators Report Further Declines

Feb 11, 2014
 By  By Christina Zander
Source: The Wall Street Journal

 Companies in the European travel business are crossing their fingers for Egypt, after political unrest in late 2013 put another dent in the North African nation’s appeal as a vacation destination.

British travel companies Thomas CookTCG.LN -0.05% and TUITT.LN +1.29%, and Helsinki-based FinnairFIA1S.HE -0.74% all cited slack demand for winter holidays in their most recent earnings calls. “The whole European travel industry was hit by the decline in the Egypt market and we were no exception,” Thomas Cook Chief Executive Harriet Green said in a call Tuesday.

The direct impact could be seen at Finnair, a Nordic carrier with hefty reliance on flights to warmer locales, such as Thailand or Southern Europe. The airline said fourth-quarter leisure traffic sagged 20% compared with the prior year, and a lack of interest in Egypt played “a major part” in the decline.

Finland’s largest airline by passenger numbers posted a net loss of $18.7 million in the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of EUR4.8 million the same period 2012, as sales fell by 8.5% to $767 million.
While many travel companies have avoided Egypt altogether, even customers interested in visiting face complications. Insurers, for instance, have been hesitant to write policies for package tours due to the uncertain situation in the country.

Thomas Cook posted 0.9% drop in sales in the three months ended Dec. 31 to $2.78 billion. Excluding Egypt, first-quarter revenue grew 4.1% compared with the same period a year earlier.

Thomas Cook’s Ms Green said the company was “very encouraged to see people beginning to return, particularly from the U.K., Germany and Russia.”

No such optimism could be detected from Finnair. For 2014, the airline said uncertain economic outlook in Europe and Asia is contributing to weak consumer demand in some of its main markets. The carrier noted in its report for the third quarter that the impact of Egypt cancellations would be reflected in the fourth quarter as well as in the first quarter 2014.

Finnair said Egypt package tour cancellations will also impact the first quarter and the drop in leisure traffic can be seen in the traffic data for January that the company reported last week.

British travel operator TUI also cited Egypt as a challenge. “We had pretty much no customers there during the month of October,” Chief Financial Office William Waggot said in an earnings call last week.  ”And the program for the rest of winter is about 50% down on where we were planning to be.”

- Jana Weigand contributed to this article

Link:   http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2014/02/11/abandoning-egypt-travel-operators-report-further-declines/?mod=yahoo_hs.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Egypt's Morsi sees spying trial adjourned after stormy start






Cairo (AFP) - Egypt's deposed president Mohamed Morsi claimed he was being muzzled in a soundproof dock at the start of his trial on espionage charges Sunday, as his defence lawyers staged a protest walk-out.
The court adjourned the trial, the third for the Islamist since his July 3 ouster, to February 23 to allow the lawyers' syndicate to appoint new lawyers.

Morsi, who has shouted that he was Egypt's legitimate and elected president in hearings of other trials against him, said the court was trying to silence him.

"We are in a farce, all this because you are afraid of me. You are afraid that the president speaks," Morsi cried out.

"If this farce continues, don't come to the court," Morsi told his defence.

Mohamed Selim al-Awa, a member of the defence team, told AFP: "We have withdrawn until the court removes the glass cage, we will not get in the room today."

The soundproof dock is designed to stop Morsi and the other defendants from interrupting the proceedings with outbursts. On Sunday, 20 defendants were brought to court, including Morsi, who was placed in a separate dock with a former aide, and the Brotherhood's supreme guide Mohamed Badie and his deputy Khairat al-Shater.

The accused include former presidential aides and renowned political scientist Emad Shahin, who is being tried in absentia.

The latest court case is part of a relentless government crackdown targeting Morsi and his Islamist supporters since he was ousted by the military after a single year in power.

Morsi and 35 others, including leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood, are accused of espionage "for the international organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood, its military wing and (Palestinian) Hamas movement."
If found guilty, the defendants could face the death penalty.


Morsi, who was Egypt's first democratically elected and civilian president, is already on trial for alleged involvement in the killing of opposition protesters in December 2012.

Along with 130 others, including dozens of members of Hamas and Lebanon's Shiite militant group Hezbollah, he is separately being tried on charges linked to a jailbreak during the 2011 uprising that toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak.

The ousted leader also faces trial for "insulting the judiciary". A date for that has yet to be set.

In the espionage trial, the prosecution aims to implicate Morsi in a vast conspiracy involving foreign powers, militant groups and Iran to destabilise Egypt.

The defendants are accused of "espionage for foreign organisations abroad to commit terrorist attacks in the country", a prosecution statement said.

Some defendants, including Essam Haddad, Morsi's second in command when president, also stand accused of betraying state secrets to Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

During Morsi's short-lived presidency, ties flourished between Cairo and Hamas, a Palestinian affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood which rules neighbouring Gaza.

But since July, Egypt's military-installed government has accused Hamas of backing Morsi and his Brotherhood and carrying out terrorist attacks inside Egypt.

The army has destroyed several hundred tunnels used to smuggle crucial supplies, including fuel, into the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip.

Since Morsi's ouster, his supporters have faced a relentless crackdown by Egypt's government that has left more than 1,400 people dead, according to Amnesty International, and seen thousands more arrested.



Sunday, February 16, 2014

BOMBSHELL: Dead JPM bankers “Knew each other and had uncovered something”

February 13, 2014
Silver Doctors
Source: Osnet Daily

Wednesday we reported that another JP Morgan banker has been found dead, as the latest banker to meet a sudden and untimely demise is Ryan Henry Crane, the Executive Director in JPMorgan’s Global Equities Group.

Today, Steve Quayle’s banker source “V”, who predicted that a wave of banker hits was imminent when the very first bankers began dropping last week, has dropped a bombshell regarding the death of Ryan Henry Crane.

V states that Crane oversaw all of the trade platforms and worked closely with Gabriel Magee of JPM’s London desk (who fell 32 stories off the JPM London roof moments after texting his g/f he would be home shortly), and that the pair had access to the exact same info.

V concludes Crane & Magee: “Knew each other and had uncovered something“.

V’s update on the latest JPMorgan banker to turn up dead is below:

From Steve Quayle’s banker source “V”
One other thing he was the head at the program trading desk. Meaning he over saw all of the trades and was familiar with all of the software (trade platforms) that these trades were done in. This job works closely with guess what? That’s right the London desk and who died last week in London? That’s right Gabriel Magee the one who jumped off the 33rd floor. What was his post? Head of IT and trade platforms meaning he had access to info that Ryan Henry Crane would have.
They knew each other and uncovered something they were about the same age and these hits happen when two big announcements by JPM.
1. They are out of commodities, and
2.  The wholesale selling of their HQ downtown to the Chinese.
“V” The Guerrilla Economist
Link: http://osnetdaily.com/2014/02/bombshell-dead-jpm-bankers-knew-each-other-and-had-uncovered-something/.

Gun rights: Federal judges rule against Calif. restrictions on concealed carry






In a major victory for gun rights activists, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday that concealed firearms regulations in California violate a Second Amendment right to bear arms in public for self-defense.
The opinion is likely to spark renewed debate over gun control measures in a country plagued by spontaneous shootings at schools and other public places. And it sets the stage for a potential Second Amendment showdown at the US Supreme Court.

The 2-to-1 decision came in a case challenging a San Diego County gun regulation that required residents to prove they have a justifiable need to carry a concealed weapon.

Unless the applicant could demonstrate a heightened risk to his or her safety, the permit would be denied.
The majority judges said such a requirement cannot be imposed on a constitutional right. Responsible, law-abiding citizens do not have to justify whether they are under an imminent threat to their safety to carry a gun for protection, the judges said.

The Second Amendment guarantees to them the authority to decide for themselves whether to carry a weapon for personal safety. At issue was whether gun control regulations in California and San Diego prevented citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights.

“The question is not whether the California scheme (in light of San Diego County’s policy) allows some people to bear arms outside the home in some places at some times; instead, the question is whether it allows the typical responsible, law-abiding citizen to bear arms in public for the lawful purpose of self-defense,” wrote Appeals Court Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain for the two-judge majority.

“To be clear, we are not holding that the Second Amendment requires the states to permit concealed carry,” Judge O’Scannlain said. “But the Second Amendment does require that the states permit some form of carry for self-defense outside the home.” 

California law prohibits all gun owners from openly carrying firearms. So the only means of exercising a right to bear arms for personal protection in California would be to obtain a concealed carry permit.

Gun owners challenged the San Diego permit process in federal court, arguing that they should not have to prove they face an imminent threat to their safety to qualify for a concealed carry permit.

County officials defended the concealed carry permit regime, arguing that the Supreme Court in its landmark gun rights decision in 2008 said concealed carry restrictions were “presumptively lawful.”

The high court observed that the majority of 19th-century courts that examined the issue concluded that prohibitions on concealed weapons did not violate the Second Amendment, lawyers for the county argued.
Judge O’Scannlain brushed the point aside. He said the California/San Diego regulations failed because they left gun owners with no choice between open carry – which is illegal in California – and concealed carry, which is subject to the discretion of government officials.

“California’s favoring concealed carry over open carry does not offend the Constitution, so long as it allows one of the two,” the judge wrote.

In a dissent, Judge Sidney Thomas said the county’s policy was constitutional and fully in line with the Supreme Court’s observation that such regulations are “presumptively lawful.”

Judge Thomas said the appeals court should have focused on that narrow question. “There is no need to reach any other issue,” he said. “In dealing a needless, sweeping judicial blow to the public safety discretion invested in local law enforcement officers and to California’s carefully constructed firearm regulatory scheme, the majority opinion conflicts with Supreme Court authority, the decisions of our sister circuits, and our own circuit precedent.”

To date, four other appeals courts have examined the issue of whether the Second Amendment protects a citizen’s right to bear arms outside the home for self-defense.

Three courts have upheld gun regulations, one found a broad constitutional right. Thursday’s decision makes the split among the appeals courts 3 to 2, a substantive disagreement that increases the likelihood that the Supreme Court will examine the issue.

O’Scannlain knew his decision would spark controversy.

“We are well aware that, in the judgment of many governments, the safest sort of firearm-carrying regime is one which restricts the privilege to law enforcement with only narrow exceptions,” he wrote.

The judge then quoted from two recent Supreme Court decisions: “Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of the Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court [or ours] to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”

O’Scannlain added: “Nor may we relegate the bearing of arms to a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than other Bill of Rights guarantees.”

The case is Peruta v. County of San Diego (10-56971).

Utah representative wants to shut off water to NSA facility

| 
Source: cbsnews.com

Utah state Rep. Marc Roberts is drafting a bill that would cut off state water to the National Security Agency's massive data storage warehouse. CBS News' John Blackstone reports.

Link:  http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/utah-representative-wants-to-shut-off-water-to-nsa-facility/.

Egyptian anti-coup youth launch web-based channel

16 February 2014
Source: Middle East Monitor

A number of Egyptian youth based in different countries have launched a television channel called "Mekammeleen". The channel is designed to be interactive and will be mainly broadcast on the internet.
According to the channel directors, Mekammeleen will "end state monopoly on television as it will reply mainly on internet broadcasting, thus it won't be subject to state censorship."

"The audience will determine the final product of the channel as we will rely on crowdsourcing and citizen journalism," the directors said.

The channel will employ modern communications technology such as FTP, Drop Box, Send Space, and 4Shared, in addition to social networking sites and video-sharing websites such as YouTube and Vimeo.
The channel can be viewed on Nilesat 11075 (V), hot Bird 12111 (V), or online at: www.mekameleen.tv

Link: /www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/9779-egyptian-anti-coup-youth-launch-web-based-channel.

Libyan and Tunisian security inseparable, says Marzouki

15 February 2014
Source: Middle East Monitor

Tunisian interim president Moncef Marzouki has reiterated his country's support for Libya, hours after the Libyan Prime Minister denied a coup d'état in Libya.

In a phone call with the president of the Libyan National Congress (LNC) Nouri Abu Sahmein, Marzouki asserted Tunisia's support for Libya's democratic path.

He reaffirmed Tunisia's support for the legislative authority represented by the LNC and its government, which the Libyan people chose to be their representatives.

"Libyan and Tunisian security is inseparable," Marzouki said.

Abu Sahmein reassured Marzouki that the situation in Libya is stable and that the democratic path is proceeding as approved by the people.

He confirmed that rumors of a coup in Libya are completely false, and that the revolutionaries, the army and the people would not accept any coup after the February 17 revolution and what it achieved for Libyans.

On Friday, the president of LNC and supreme leader of the armed forces Nouri Abu Sahmein said in a televised speech that the national intelligence agency and military police had been ordered ti arrest all officers who publicly took political stances, attended political events, or secretly met with politicians.

Abu Sahmein indicated that the retired general Khaleefa Haftar, who announced his control of army units on Friday, tops the list of wanted officers. He said that Haftar "does not represent anything in the military. Yet he alleged carrying out a coup, although he has no official title in the army and had retired a while ago."

Link:   /www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/9770-libyan-and-tunisian-security-inseparable-says-marzouki.

Libya thwarts military coup

13 February 2014
Source: Middle East Monitor

The Libyan government thwarted an attempt by former military leaders and politicians to overthrow the National Congress and form a military junta to rule the country, Libya's Defence Minister Abdullah Al-Thani said on Wednesday.

Al-Thani told Libya's Al-Ahrar channel: "The Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Nuri Abu- Sahmin, ordered the officers and politicians who orchestrated the coup to be arrested. The rebels are still being pursued by the army which was able to thwart the coup before it began."

A member of the Libyan Committee for National Security Conference, MP Abdul Rahman Aldeebani said earlier that: "The National Congress presidency received information from military intelligence indicating that some military officers and politicians were planning to release a public statement calling for the formation of a military junta to rule the country and overthrow the parliament and the government."

Informed sources said intelligence service reports to the General National Congress presidency called for the plenary session, which was scheduled on Tuesday morning, to be cancelled. It also called for caution of any suspicious movements near the parliament headquarters and palace complex in the capital Tripoli.

WW II - The REAL Reason !

Source:  the fuhrerbunker.com
Massacre of Volksdeuterhers (ethnic Germans) by Polish military and civilians.

Most real scholars of World War Two are aware of the reasons that Adolf Hitler sent the Wehrmacht into Poland.  When we look back on what we now know, it was easy to understand why England and France threatened Hitler not to invade Poland.  They all knew it was inevitable and they all knew why.  Most governments knew of it; but the well-spun propaganda and controlled press made it appear that a power-crazed Adolf Hitler only wanted to kill Jews and rule the world.  Even today, this same false propaganda is taught in schools.

Simply put - not only was Germany herself under attack from the World Jewish community (the call to boycott all German made goods in the early 1930's) but worse yet, the Polish authorities were engaged is mass murder, rape and robbery of Volksdeutscher (ethnic Germans) living in Poland.  It reached such massive proportions that Hitler, as leader of the German people, could not ignore it.  He had to send in the Wehrmacht.

             DEPORTATION ORDERS

Deportation orders did not begin, as we are told to believe, with Germans deporting Jews.  In fact, the Deportation Orders began in Poland, deporting and/or arresting ethnic Germans.  There were three types of orders - the yellow form was merely deportation to central or eastern Poland; the pink form meant internment and the red form meant outright arrest.  In reality, each form meant deportation to one degree or another and ultimate death for most.

You will now read FIRST-PERSON accounts of that time, and they all justify the incursion into Poland.  In fact, they demanded intervention.

EUGEN HOFMANN - On 2 September 1939 this Bromberg merchant was arrested on orders of the commander of the air raid district, Isador Berger, a Polish Jew and was taken to the women's prison in Bromberg.  On 4 September, he and all Germans held in this prison were given a certificate of release and were indeed released.  However, this 'release certificate' also ordered any police officer to kill the bearer!  All but Hofmann were murdered the same day.  He escaped to tell his story by hiding with relatives.


  ROBERT KUNDE - Monday, 4 September 1939, four Polish soldiers entered the home of Kunde at Wierbathstraße 23 in Bromberg and searched for weapons.  Finding none, they wrote comments in the passports of Kunde and his son Wilhelm, that stated the bearer was "suspect" and on other pages, made the note that the bearer should be shot.  These soldiers arrested the male members of the Kunde family and handed them over, along with other Germans, to Polish soldiers who took them into the nearby woods.  Kunde and another German, a man named Grüning, managed to escape - all the others were shot dead.  Kunde later learned that his father had also been murdered.

 VERA GANNOTT - The home where she and her parents lived was invaded by Polish authorities on Sunday, 3 September.  Here is the translation of her sworn statement, taken on 14 September, 1939:
"I am 19, Protestant, without occupation.
          When it became known in town that the German troops were coming in, the civilian population and Polish soldiers began to commit acts of violence.  At about 2 o'clock on Sunday, Polish soldiers and civilians came toward our house at Thorner Straße 125, two and a half miles from town.  The Polish civilians said; "Germans live here!"  The soldiers immediately began to fire.  We fled into a shed.  I believe the Polish soldiers also threw hand grenades.  My father was the first taken from the shed.  The Poles asked him where he had the machine gun.  My father did not understand the question as he did not know Polish.  Thereupon I came out of the shed, for I knew Polish and wanted to help my father.  I asked the Poles what we had done to them and interceded for my father.  But the Poles shouted; "Down with you German swine!"  My father was repeatedly struck on the face and body with rifle butts, then stabbed with a bayonet.  Thereupon my father fell to the ground and as he lay, he was shot six times before dying.  The mob then left, after telling civilians they could loot the house else they (the soldiers) would burn it down.  Now my mother also came out of her hiding place.  She and I wanted to wash my father, who was completely covered with blood.  Just as we started, there appeared another Polish mob armed with pickets and clubs.  My mother and my aunt were beaten with the clubs.  I was slapped again and again.  Then they left.  After a while there came another mob of Polish soldiers and civilians.  As they approached, I ran into the River Brahe, which flows past the rear of our house.  I was dragged out by the hair.  Between ten and fifteen civilians dragged me into the house.  They said they were going to show me that the Poles weren't so bad after all; they would allow me to change my wet clothes.  No one left the room so I refused to change.  The Poles thereupon tore my clothes off and laid me on the ground naked.  About ten men held me down by the head, hands and feet while one of them raped me.  He completed the act and I suffered injuries.  I had considerable pain during the first days, but not any more.  The other Poles did not attack me.  During this time my mother was taken to a room on the upper floor and held at the point of a rifle.
          Polish soldiers robbed money, a bag, watches and rings from my father and myself.  Our home was completely destroyed - the furniture hacked to pieces with axes.  Our china and the linens were stolen.
          We did not have any arms in our house.  We had previously surrendered them to the police because of a general order."


 LORENZ BREITINGER was part of a group that was force-marched across Poland.  His sworn testimony reads:
"From Konin, our march could not be continued towards Kutno so we suddenly turned north.  About seven kilometers beyond Konin, our guards left us, only one remaining being a weak minded policeman.  We were now ill-treated with long clubs and stones by soldiers of the Polish reserves.  Military policemen rescued us.  We were allowed to stop for three days on a farm near Maliniec because our policeman first had to go and get orders as to what was to be done with us.
          Beyond Slesin we passed through many Polish positions and were placed on a farm which was completely overrun with Polish soldiers.  Here a young Polish lieutenant threatened us with  death, cursing us all the time.  On the next morning we were called as early as 2 o'clock to continue our march.  The carts with the cripples and children remained behind.  I heard later that they were shot.  They were the entire Schmolke family and another war invalid who had only one leg.  A forced march under the thunder of cannon, took us to Babiak.  We continued in the afternoon after having been subdivided into three groups and a number of soldiers having been added to our guard.  On a forest path, we were forced to hand over our watches and other jewelry, our money and, many of us even our wedding rings, to the soldiers.  When we were forced to continue on Monday morning, some of us were unable to stand on our feet.  Five who were ill and quite incapable of going on - a women school teacher from Posen among them - remained behind.  Three able bodied men stayed behind to protect them.  We learned later that the guards had shot them and beaten them to death with stones in a bestial manner.
          After days of aimless marching - the war front drawing nearer to us all the time - we were freed by German troops on 17 September 1939.  The German Army brought us home via Breslau."


 SISTER SCHMIDT and the CHILDREN'S HOME - "Bloody Sunday"
"The Deutsches Kinderheim (German Children's Home) on Thorner Straße in Bromberg, was searched five times in all on 'Bloody Sunday'.  About seven AM, two Polish soldiers demanded admittance.  They searched the house for arms and left after having convinced themselves that their mission was futile.  The soldiers were polite.
          The second search, by six Polish soldiers, occurred at about 9:30 AM.  They beat against the door with their rifle butts and demanded admittance.  One of them put his pistol to the temple of Sister Olga, head of the Kinderheim.  Insisting that a machine gun was hidden in the house and that shots from it had just been fired, they demanded surrender of the arms.  Sister Olga replied that there were no weapons, and bade them search.  The soldiers searched the house thoroughly, breaking into drawers and cupboards that could not be easily opened.  Finding no weapons, the searchers left.
          In the late forenoon, as the children were about to lunch, a third search was undertaken by four or five Polish soldiers accompanied by as many civilians.  Some of these soldiers had taken part on the previous search.  The soldiers again insisted that shots had been fired from the house and demanded to see the 'machine gun'.  One of them threatened the Sister with his bayonet.  The Sister repeated that she had no weapons.  One of the soldiers - the Sister believed that he was an officer - thereupon said; "But we have been told that shots were just fired from here."  The soldiers who had taken part in the previous search confirmed that there was really nothing upstairs.  However, a Pole named Maximilian Gackowski, the only civilian who had followed the soldiers to the staircase, kept shouting; "Shots have been fired from here.  I saw it myself!"  Turning to Sister Schmidt he yelled; "You old hag!  You old shrew - you and your brats should have been driven away long ago!  If I could have done what I wanted, you would have been dead long ago.  I would have killed you all myself!"  He brandished a weapon, believed to have been steel rod, in the Sister's face.  However, Gackowski could not convince the soldiers and the search ended.
          The next search by about five soldiers and five civilians, took place at about 3 PM.  Gackowski was again present.  The leader of the group ordered all inmates including three Sisters and eighteen children ranging from two to eighteen years, to gather and raise their hands.  Gackowski ranted as before, insisting time and again, that shots had been fired from the house and asked for the 'machine gun'.  He brought a 'witness' who, he claimed, was ready to swear that shots had been fired.  While the soldiers searched the house, one of them remained standing before Sister Olga with his Bayonet.  Gackowski took part in this search of the house.  After this group had found nothing, Gackowski declared, "They work in the daytime, but evenings they have men upstairs, they smoke cigarettes.  I have seen it myself, and nights they shoot."
          The raiders left the Kinderheim just as a man accused of having fired shots was being brought from the direction of the Schützenhaus.  Gackowski was the first to turn against this man.  After the fourth search, the Sisters discovered that smaller valuables, among them Sister Olga's watch, were missing.  The last search was made about 5:30PM.  It was again made by soldiers and civilians.  The head of the group approached Sister Olga with his rifle and threatened to shoot her.  At this moment, one of the Sisters who had been ordered to help in the cleaning up of the railroad station returned amid a mob of soldiers and civilians.  The Sister, having compelled to clean the railroad tracks, was very dirty.  At the instigation of Gackowski, who was again present, a railway man charged that the lubrication oil on the hands and the dress of the Sister was from a machine gun.  As before, Gackowski sought to entice the soldiers by declaring that shots had been fired.  However, it was proved that there were no arms in the Kinderheim and that no shots were fired from the house."

      

WILHELM STARKE testifies about the horticulturist Herr BERNDT
"An SS cap was reputedly found at the establishment of horticulturalist Bernd of Lissa.  Berndt was thereupon arrested.  Neither he not his brothers had ever had the SS cap in their house.  It was later discovered that the cap had been found by the Polish attackers of the village of Geiersdorf.  There were ten SS men in the village who had to leave without their outfits.  It was ascertained that the cap belonged to an SS man, Ernst Wiedermann, of Vienna."

                                        

Attack on the MATTHES FAMILY
"Late in the morning of 3 September 1939, the accused Kazimir Dybowski, Paul Kinczewski and Peter Pijarowski, accompanied by a considerable number of unidentified Polish civilians and by several Polish soldiers with fixed bayonets, marched along Albertstraße in Bromberg.  Dybowski had a knife in his hand; Kinczewski and Pijarowski had an axe and a hatchet.  When the mob arrived in front of Albertstraße 24, where witness Herbert Matthes, a member of the German minority (Volksdeutscher), carried on a large cabinet making trade.  They were incited by Kinczewski to raid the house.  Speaking to witness Biermann, who was responsible for the air raid protection of the house, Kinczewski insisted that Matthes had fired on Polish soldiers.  Biermann's repeated denials of the charge were to no avail and the mob broke through the courtyard to the drying room in which Matthes, his wife and two sons, and his 72 year old mother had hidden.  The door of the room was locked and when it was not opened at the ringleader's demand, Kinczewski simple smashed it in with his axe.  Thereupon, Mrs. Ella Matthes, her two sons and her mother-in-law appeared in the doorway; Herbert Matthes remaining in hiding at first.  Mrs. Matthes told the members of the mob and the soldiers that her husband was not at home and that she did not know where he had gone.  Kinczewski replied that in that case the two sons had would be taken as hostages.  However, Matthes stepped forward to save his children.  Kinczewski swung his axe at Matthes but Biermann caught the handle and deflected the blow.  Simultaneously Pijarowski with his axe, and Dybowski with his knife, headed toward 72 year old Selma Matthes, but failed to harm her.  Finally Matthes and his two sons were led away by Polish soldiers.  Matthes later succeeded in himself and his children by escaping while their Polish captors were quarreling over the division of the valuables taken from Matthes, thus relaxing their vigil."

      

'The SZWABY Must Be Shot!'  (Szwaby or Swabians was a derogatory Polish term for Germans)  Blood and Brains Spattered....
"My name is Johanna Giese, nee Keusch.  I am 51, Protestant, Volksdeutscher and live in Bromberg at Konopnickiej 9.
          On Sunday, 3 September 1939 between 11 and 12 o'clock, we were in the cellar of our residence.  Polish soldiers and civilians entered our yard and demanded that we come out of the cellar.  When we obeyed, a soldier asserted that shots had been fired from our home.  There were however, no weapons at all in our house.
          My son-in-law was the first to leave the cellar, and was greeted by a civilian's shout of 'The Szwaby must be shot!'  Without hesitation, the Poles fired at my son-in-law.  The first bullet pierces his jugular vein, while three others lodged in his chest and neck.  Nevertheless he was still alive when we were forced to flee that night.  We could not take him along, so we put him on a couch in our dwelling.
          When German troops entered Bromberg on Tuesday, a corporal accompanied me to our farmstead to see how things looked.  A horrible sight met out eyes.  The mob had taken my son-in-law from the couch and had dragged him into the kitchen.  His remains lay under the kitchen table.  His head was split, his skull cap was missing.  Brains and blood were spattered on the kitchen wall.
          My son, Reinhard Giese, 19 years old, had been in the cellar with us.  When he saw that my son-in-law was being shot, he dashed out and jumped over the fence to our neighbor's plot.  The Poles followed, caught my son and shot him.  In the evening, I managed to get the body into our laundry.  Reinhard was shot through the chest.
          Another son of mine, Friederich Geise, 25 years old, was reported shot in the mass murder of the family with which he had hidden in Hopfengarten."

              

'SLAY THE GERMANS!'                 Eyes Gouged out with Bayonets
"My name is Paul Sikorski.  I am 35, Catholic, a merchant.  I call myself Volksdeutscher and reside in Bromberg, Mühlenstraße 4.
          At about 6:00 am on Sunday, 3 September 1939, I went to the mill to put out the light and to stop the turbine.  On my way, I suddenly heard loud shouting from the direction of the railroad.  About a hundred meters away, a mob of railway men, civilians and soldiers with bayonets, rifle butts and clubs were attacking  seven people of ages varying from about 20 to 60.  The victims were surrounded.  As I approached the scene, I heard members of the mob call in Polish, 'Slay the Germans!'  I could see blood spurting.  It was then that I turned and fled for the mob was about to assail me.  I returned to the scene at nine o'clock and looked at the bodies.  The eyes of two corpses had been gouged out by bayonets.  The sockets were a mass of blood.  The skulls of three had been cracked open, and their spattered brains lay a meter away.  The other bodies were similarly slashed to pieces.  One belly was split wide open.  I recognized two of the murdered men; the butcher Leichnitz or Jägershof, and Mr. Schlicht.
          About three in the or four o'clock in the afternoon, a band of soldiers and railway men brought eighteen Germans to my mill. (the Peterson mill).  I could see from the garden that the Germans were tied in pairs.  All eighteen were shot, two at a time, then beaten as they lay on the ground.  Among them was a fourteen-year-old boy and a woman.  The murderers were obviously in a great hurry, for they all disappeared immediately after the slaughter.  I later had a thorough look at the bodies, which lay there for three days.
          At noon on Monday, when it was already rumored that the Polish troops had left, I saw two Polish soldiers march an elderly couple to the wall at the mill.  I ran up to the soldiers, knelt before them and begged them in Polish to spare the people, who were both about 65.  I was struck with a rifle butt and told, 'Let the damned Niemcys (Germans) die like dogs!'  Even before I could rise to my feet, the soldiers had shot down the two old people.  The bodies rolled into a ditch as the soldiers trotted away."

     

WILDEMANN MURDER     "They Should be Beaten to Death!"
Testimony of Frau Wildemann:

"On the morning of September 3rd, several raiding parties searched Frau Wildemann's house in Bromberg at Schwedenbergerstraße (Ugory) 56, but found no weapons.
          At about 3 p.m., a new mob, consisting of approximately thirty men all armed with clubs and similar weapons appeared.  Claiming that shots had been fired from the house and that it must therefore be searched for arms, the mob entered.  Several objects belonging to Wildemann family were stolen.  There were not arms in the house, and no shots had been fired from it.  When he saw the approaching mob, Herr Wildemann hid in the cellar.  Questioned as to her husband's whereabouts, Frau Wildemann said that he had gone to visit acquaintances in Kufawierstraße.  She was taken to the address.  When her husband could not be found there, Frau Wildemann was threatened.  Finally, after having been assured that nothing would happen to Herr Wildemann, she revealed his hiding place.  The mob returned to the couple's home, seized both the husband and wife, beating them on the way, dragged them into the garden.  They were stood up as if they were going t be shot.  When they embraced each other and began to pray, they were ridiculed.  Shouts were heard again & again,  'They should be beaten to death!'.  One of those who shouted was a barber names Alfons Lewandowski.  When Frau Wildemann asked him, 'Why should you kill me?  What have I done to you?' he slapped her in the face saying, 'German pig!  Damned Hitlerite!'  Herr Wildemann was then taken away by the soldiers who, on the whole, were less hostile than the rabble.  Several days later Wildemann's body was found nearby under a thin layer of sand.  So horribly mutilated was he that only by his clothing and the contents of his pocket could he be identified."

       

GOLLNICK & KÖPERNICK MURDERS     "All Germans Must be Butchered!"
Testimony of witnesses Olga and Franz Tafelski of Bromberg

"The throng milling about Breite Straße arrounsed the soldiers against a German named Gollnick.  The soldiers beat Gollnick down with their rifle butts and left him lying in the street badly injured.
          Toward evening, Franz Tafelski noticed that the victim's left leg and left hand were still twitching.  Gollnick had fallen on his face but the mob had turned him over and tore open the front of his trousers, exposing the whole lower part of his torso.  A civilian and two soldiers appeared and ran a bayonet into Gollnick's belly.  Following this, a final shot was fired into the body.
          Throughout the afternoon, a mob had milled up and down Breite Straße right by the dying man.  They shouted that the Germans had shot from their homes.  Sofie Bednarczyk, an unemployed woman, was in the mob.  She flirted with the soldiers and, according to Olga Tafelski, behaved 'like a mad woman'.  Franz Tafelski saw her, arms forled, leading the mob.  Her manner revealed a morbid lust for power.  Olga Tafelski heard her shout 'Give me the rifle; all Germans must be butchered!  The damned Hitlerites!'
        Franz Tafelski heard her shout, 'All Germans must be slain!'.  All the time she was laughing and flirting with the soldiers.  She stopped at the corner of No. 5 Breite Straße, where Gollnick lay with his trousers torn open.  Witness Bartkowski heard her shout, 'This Hitlerite ought to have his testicles cut off!'  About half an hour later, Köpernick, a Volksdeutscher, was dragged past the same house and murdered."

        

GOLLNICK MURDER     "The Swine is Still Alive!"
Testimony of Christa Gollnick of Kujawierstraße 101 in Bromberg

"We operated a flour and feed store.  As the first Polish troops were leaving, I noticed a Polish neighbor talking to a Polish major and pointing at our house.  Thereupon Polish soldiers broke open the door and rushed into our store.  Thinking that a skirmish was in progress and that the soldiers wanted to entrench themselves in our house, we ran toward the shelter which we had been ordered to build.  We did not reach the shelter because the Polish soldiers fired at us.  My husband was shot in the shoulder and hit in the face with a rifle butt.  He reeled but still tried to escape.  He started to climb the fence, but was held back by a civilian.  A Polish soldier gave him another rifle butt blow which knocked him out.
          A Polish lieutenant led me and the children back into the house.  From an attic window, I could see my prostrate husband.  He lingered on for a long time.  I saw him draw his legs up and stretch them.  Oncein a while he would life his hand.  However, it was impossible for us to go to him, for he was surrounded by Polish soldiers and civilians.  A Polish policeman stood guard at the fence.  Polish women shouted, 'The swine is still alive!'  Towards evening, my husband was shot three more times by Polish soldiers.  He had also been stabbed through the stomach with a bayonet.  Time and again he tried to open his trousers, finally succeeding.  The woman next door told me that he was still breathing the next day.  My husband was tall and strong and only 38 years.  Probably that is why he had such a hard time dying.  He lay about eighteen hours before he was released from his agony."





       

BETTIN MURDER     "We'll Butcher You!  Here's Some Young Hitler Blood for You!"
Testimony from Frau Bettin of Bromberg:

"About noon on 3 September 1939, the so-called 'Bromberg Bloody Sunday' a horde of Polish bandits overran the Bettin property at Frankenstraße 76.  The Bettins, hearing their windows being smashed in, decided to investigate.  They were seized and forced to raise their arms and kneel.  A Swastika, which Fraulein Bettin was wearing on her dress, fell to the ground.  Seeing the emblem led the mob to insult the girl outrageously.  Some of the Poles bore revolvers and pitchforks; one had an axe.  They shouted such things as:
     'Hitler Blood!'
     'Hitler Pigs!'
     'We'll Butcher You!'

Fraulein Bettin was taken away by two Poles, one of whom was a railroad employee named Bruski.  The captive was treated roughly and practically hurled from the farmstead.  She was dragged on by the arm and threatened with a club.  At the corner of Bölitzer Straße, she was turned over to two other Poles, a postal employee disguised as a policeman and a railway man.  Bruski told them, 'Here's some young Hitler blood for you!'  Between 4 and 5 p.m., she was freed by a young Polish officer.  When she got home she found that only her mother and sister-in-law were still there.  Her father and brother had been dragged away by the Polish mob.  Her brother's body was found some time later.  Her father is still missing and probably also murdered."

                          

THIEDE and MITTELSTÄDT MURDERS     "Hold Him so that I can Kill Him!"
Testimony of Gerda Thiede and Otto Papke, both of Schulitz:

"Waclaw Pasterski, a chauffer, owned property opposite the Thieses in Schulitz.  The Thiedes, a mother and two children Gerda and Werner, were Germans and had lived here for many years.  Waclaw Pasterski was a Pole and came to Schulitz about seven years ago.
          On Sunday, 3 September 1939, Polish soldiers drove stray cattle belonging to Poles who had fled, into the Thiede's best fields.  Accompanied by Emil Mittlestädt, who owned property nearby, the Thiedes went out to see how much damage had been done.  While they were there, a troop of Polish soldiers came from the direction of the woods and called, 'Germans or Poles?'  Werner Thiede answered, 'German.'  Mittlestädt replied 'Pole.'  Werner Thiede was searched and found unarmed.  The Thiedes were then compelled to walk with raised hands towards the woods.  The soldiers followed them, allowing Mittlestädt to remain in the meadow.
          Meanwhile, Waclaw Pasterski, armed with an axe and a knife, came out of the woods.  Seeing Werner Thiede, he shouted to the soldiers, 'Hold the little fellow so that I can kill him!'  At this threat, Werner turned and ran in another direction.  The soldiers pursued him, firing as they went.  Gerda Thiede now looked back, although the soldiers had forbidden it, and saw Mittlestädt, his side slashed open, lying in the meadow.  Since the soldiers had left the meadow in order to follow Werner, and Mittlestädt and Pasterski were left alone, Gerda attributed the wound to an axe blow by Pasterski.  No one else could have struck the blow.  Gerda furthermore had heard Pasterski insist that Mittlestädt was German.  Otto Papke who saw Mittlestädt lying in the meadow was certain that the would was caused by the blow of an axe.  Mittlestädt was in agony until he died some time during the night.  Werner Thiede's body was later found and buried by Kriewald, another neighbor.  Gerda Thiede had stated that according to information from Kriewald, her brother had been shot in the back and had his head slashed.
          Werner Thiede was 20, Mittlestädt in his early thirties.  The latter was a widower and is survived by a young child."

FINGER MURDER          "For God's Sake.....Now We'll Die"
Testimony of Käthe Finger

"My name is Käthe Finger, nee Böhkle.  I am 48, the widow of a bank attorney.  I reside in Bromberg.  I am in no way related to the accused.
         On 'Bloody Sunday', several Volksdeutscher and a Polish woman whom we had summoned for our protection, were gathered in my home. About 11 a.m. a mob came down our street.  The brothers Weyna, who live in the Raddatz house opposite us, and the accused Owczaczak were in the crowd.  One of the Weyna brothers was armed.
          I heard my husband in the next room telling our girl, Göde, that Owczaczak was pointing at our residence.  My husband then came to me and said, 'For God's sake, the mob is coming in.  Now we'll die!'  He added that we should perish together.  At that moment the mob broke into our apartment.  There was a soldier among them who demanded that my husband and I lie down on the carpet.  We obeyed.  The soldier fired and my husband was killed instantly.  I expected a second shot and since it failed to come, I raised myself a little.  My hands were red with my husband's blood.  I cried, 'My God!' and I was yanked to my feet by the soldier.  Then I was pushed through the door and led away with the others who had sought refuge in our house.  On the way we were insulted, beaten and kicked by the members of the mob.  As we passed the canal gates, a Polish civilian shouted, 'Psia krew Hitlerowa!' (Damned Hitlerite women!) and pulled me toward the canal.  I managed to tear myself loose.  I was then brought to the police station where I was kicked so viciously that the force hurled me against a wooden fence.  We were then all forced to lie down in the courtyard of the police station, amid shouts of, 'Lie here like cattle, you German bloodhounds!'.  Now victims, beaten, bleeding and groaning in pain - more were arriving continuously.  My 12-year-old son was lying beside me.  We were under constant fire from the neighboring houses and from the direction of the canal gates.  Many Germans were struck.  These were taken away.  How many were dead, I do not know.  My son and I lay there about seven hours before a Polish policeman effected our release.
          A machine gun had been trained on us in the police courtyard, while we received orders to shout, 'Hoch Rydz-Smigly!'.  We were then asked whether we enjoyed living in Poland and when one woman replied negatively, the machine gun was aimed at her.
          There was great confusion in the courtyard.  I cannot enumerate the hardships inflicted on us.
          I swear that this testimony is true, and reaffirm the oath I have already taken in connection with this matter before the Bromberg Special Tribunal on 11 September 1939."


Link: http://www.thefuhrerbunker.com/WWII.htm.