The Observers

Gaza, information battleground

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:00:32 +0100

While the Israeli Army keeps the doors to Gaza firmly shut in the faces of enquiring journalists, the pro-Palestinian press has images of corpses on a loop, a Molotov cocktail of information.

The international press is somewhat lacking in images from Gaza. The Israeli Army only issues footage of successfully targeted bombings, and the war zone is off-limits to journalists — even though the IDF promised to let eight reporters across the border. Now that the Internet has been cut off in Gaza, very few amateur images are making it out of the area. So the media rely almost entirely on their correspondents in the field to find out what's going on. On the pro-Palestine side, TV networks settle for broadcasting endless photos of body parts and children's corpses.

In response to this information starvation, the Web is becoming a battleground between Palestine and Israel supporters. As comments get fiercer, hackers become more inventive.

Our Observers from Jerusalem to Gaza City comment from the middle of this information war. You can ask them questions on their profile pages.

In Naples, reporters have to wear helmets on New Year's Eve

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:00:40 +0100

In Italy it's tradition to fire into the air on New Year's Eve. A custom that left one man dead this year when a 25-year-old was accidentally shot in the head. A Naples journalist was reporting the celebrations on Sunday. The scene is quite comical.

This video, and the translation of the dialogue between the celebrator and the journalist, were sent to us by one of our Observers in Italy, Alberto Celani.

Source: Skytv.it

Celebrator: "Happy New Year to everyone in Napoli!"

Helmeted reporter: "Let we see what you did. Look here! [He shows the gun]. That was a shot for good wishes, let's say."

Some 354 people were injured - 28 seriously - on New Year's Eve in Italy this year, either by fireworks or gunshots. In Naples, the fireworks (some of which use up to a kilo of explosives) are given extraordinary names like "The Bin Laden Bomb", "Maradona", and "Desert Storm".

Gaza conflict: "a reflection of how much has changed in the Middle East during the Bush era"

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:39:09 +0100

One of our Israeli Observers, Joel Schalit, takes a look at the Gaza crisis from a wider perspective, paying particular attention to Iranian influences over Palestinian movements.

Despite the fact that for well over a year now, Israel has engaged in continuous peace talks with two of its most important neighbours - the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and, most recently, the government of Syria - it was ultimately inevitable that it would have gone to war again and risked igniting a larger regional conflict. 'They practically wrote it in the sky,' Egypt's Foreign Minister, Aboul Gheit told Haaretz on Thursday, explaining that in recent months, Israel had been sending out repeated messages that it intended to strike Hamas if it did not halt all rocket attacks on the country. 'Unfortunately, they [Hamas] served Israel the opportunity on a golden platter to hit Gaza.'

As easy as it is to blame Hamas' provocations for helping to ignite the present exchange, it would be equally wise to view Israel's campaign in greater context. Israel is not just striking Hamas. As many Israeli officials, and countless news reports have repeatedly indicated, in a manner very similar to its campaign in Lebanon two years ago, Israel is also striking back at Iran, perhaps even more so than it is attempting to degrade the Islamic organisation's missile launching capability. Though Hamas most certainly represents Palestinian national aspirations, it does so with the financial and military support of Tehran, because of Hamas' usefulness in serving as a proxy front with Israel.

While Hamas is a decidedly different organisation than Hezbollah, both religiously, and of course nationally, its utility for advancing Iranian interests has increased in recent years, in direct correlation with tensions between the United States and Iran over Iraq. In many of the same ways that Iran has used Hezbollah to pressure Israel, as an extension of its conflict with the Americans, Hamas has served a similar purpose. When Hamas took control of Gaza in 2006, its victory was viewed by many military analysts as part of a larger plan to encircle Israel by forces allied with Iran: Lebanon and Syria in the north, now ‘Hamastan', as Gaza was dubbed by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, to the south.

"'Israel surrounded" has a certain

ideological appeal to it"

There is no denying that such visions of an "Israel surrounded" has a certain ideological appeal to it, particularly to Israeli conservatives who believe that the only thing that stops Israel's neighbours from annihilating the Jewish state is Israel's overwhelming military superiority. Unfortunately, the US intervention in the region (under the aegis of the Bush administration), has guaranteed some validity to that vision, at least insofar as the Iranians are concerned. While Israel has developed warmer, if not official, relations with a number of influential Arab and Muslim states, this intimacy has been countered by a further deterioration of Israel's relations with Iran as a consequence of recent US policy in the region.

That Iran would find natural affinity with the Palestinians, particularly Islamist Hamas, as an old fashioned nationalist-religious liberation movement, is patently obvious. This sympathy existed well before 9/11, and the subsequent American occupations of Iranian neighbours Iraq and Afghanistan. However, it was only after the election of Ahmadinejad in 2005 that Israel came to occupy the overwhelmingly exaggerated space that it does in contemporary Iranian foreign policy, far beyond any emphasis that it had under Ayatollah Khomeini, despite his support for Lebanon's Hezbollah. In fact, prior to Ahmadinejad taking power, only in 2003, Iran was even rumoured to have been considering some kind of agreement with Israel, and sending out signals to that effect.

Hence the ferocity of Israel's present campaign against Hamas. It's a reflection of how much has changed in the Middle East during the Bush era. With a new American government coming into office in three weeks, one which has repeatedly indicated, to much Israeli chagrin, that it would prefer to engage in dialogue with Iran, despite the country's ongoing nuclear weapons development programme, this was the last possible opportunity to act without restraint. Prevented from attacking Iran directly as of late - even by the Bush administration - which had, on numerous occasions, also considered encouraging such an Israeli operation, attacking Gaza was the best possible last minute compromise. It is no surprise that the outgoing US government ended up approving it.

"Palestinian forces have humiliated

successive Israeli governments"

That Israel's ongoing conflict with Hamas offered the possibility of exploiting such opportunities on behalf of much larger strategic concerns is without question. Committed to a policy of territorial closure, Israel has never succeeded in preventing Palestinian militants from launching attacks on Israeli territory in response. Though Israeli casualty numbers have remained relatively low, Palestinian forces have succeeded in striking an effective balance of fear amongst Israelis who live in the south, and have humiliated successive Israeli governments, and the Israeli military, who, for nearly a decade, have failed to eliminate the threat. In the same way that it is impossible to separate the intensity of the present campaign in Gaza from Israel's conflict with Iran, it is equally difficult to disconnect it from the sense of shame that Israeli authorities have been made to feel by this situation.

Throughout the current Israeli operation against Hamas, everyone has been asking when Hezbollah is finally going to get involved. After all, it was Israel's last campaign in Gaza, in June 2006, that led to Hezbollah ambushing an Israeli army patrol on the Lebanese border, which in turn sparked the Second Lebanon War. The fact that no such incident has taken place yet is no reassurance that it will not happen. Yet, if for some reason Hezbollah feels that it is not in a position to exert pressure, it is no guarantee that Iran won't eventually find itself the only party with the capacity to intervene on Hamas' behalf. A failure to do so, by the only other militarily capable power in the region, will have repercussions that will be felt for years to come. Though Israel may never fully triumph over Hamas, it will at least have found a way to deter, using Gaza as its example, Iran."

Pro-Palestine hackers launch their offensive

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:03:24 +0100

Israeli site Ynetnews, the English version of the major daily Yedioth Ahronoth, was hacked this morning by Pro-Palestinian cyberactivists. Is the Gaza conflict to be the centre of a hackers' war?

This information was first made known on Twitter (#Gaza). Here's the page that web users came across when they typed in the URL for Ynetnews, which is considered a politically moderate publication. One of the messages on the hacked page reads "The only solution for peace for all peoples in Palestine, Jews and Muslims and Christians is the demise of the Zionist and that the treatment of malignant cancer tumor". At around 2pm, the normal website reappeared.

It seems however that not all webusers were affected by the "hackage". Many who accessed the address saw the normal homepage. We'll carry on looking into this and update the post soon.

The Ynetnews homepage un-hacked

Stalin is a national treasure according to modern Russians

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:42:37 +0100

Russian TV watchers have just finished voting for their most treasured countryman. The icon to take the crown was medieval prince Alexander Nevsky. But that's not what everyone's talking about. It's the unlikely figure looming at number three that's stolen the show. Read more...

After the Brits predictably voted Winston Churchill their 'Greatest Briton' in 2002 and the French, Charles De Gaulle Le Plus Grand Français in 2005, this year the world waited to see who Russia would select as their most celebrated icon.

But just weeks after the "Name of Russia" polls opened in May, huge numbers of votes for Soviet leaders Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin had pitched the pair to first and third places respectively. The results came as such a surprise that the project's organiser, state channel TV Russia, suspected Stalin-supporting fraudsters of having dabbled with the counter. Following media uproar, the decision was taken to scrap the online contribution to the tally and suspend internet voting.

But despite the new rules, month after month, Stalin didn't budge from second place. Even though his votes were halved when the organisers cried foul again just before the last round, he still managed to squeeze into the final 12 for the ultimate poll. When the final votes were counted on Sunday, the infamous tyrant had crept back up to take the bronze prize, beating favoured poet Alexander Pushkin. Is Stalin back in fashion? Nokia phone sellers think so, they've already lined the shelved with 'Stalin mobiles'...

The most striking amateur images from 2008

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:54:37 +0100

Team Observers has made a selection of the best videos, photos and Observers' accounts of 2008. Vote for your favourites.

The Israeli Army shows off its target skills on YouTube

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:58:32 +0100

Israel's war against Hamas is being drawn out on the internet as well as on the ground. The Israeli Army has just launched a YouTube channel to house videos of its aerial attacks - which happen to be perfectly targeted.

The "IDF Spokesperson's Unit" channel is the Israeli Army's official YouTube page, planned to "help bring our message to the world". Launched on Monday, each video has already received tens of thousands of hits in just two days. A day after its launch, some of the videos posted were removed - due to YouTube's flagging system - nonetheless provoking outrage from supporters of the site. While some bloggers are describing the concept as "a propaganda campaign, pure and simple", others have called it a "a brilliant strategy (...) to counter the typically anti-Israeli sentiment prevalent throughout the international media". And then there are those who feel the PR idea will "fall flat" because you can't see anything on the videos. What is sure is that the channel has provoked an immense reaction from the blogosphere and new media audiences - something that the IDF Foreign Press Branch head Maj. Avital Leibovich recently called "another war zone" itself...

The air force strikes what the IDF claims are rockets being transported by Hamas. Posted 29 Dec. 08.

Israeli Navy attack. Posted 29 Dec. 08.

Sci-fi tanks meet prehistoric rockets in Gaza

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:29:17 +0100

While Hamas is throwing rockets by hand, the Israeli military is unveiling high-tech weaponry like the new "Iron Fist", capable of exploding a missile before it's even reached its target. Will technology make all the difference in Gaza?

Israel's reputation as a mighty military force was left shaken in 2006 after its bloody conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The war began with a missile attack on Israeli tanks, a strategy that Hezbollah then continued to use successfully throughout the 33-day fight. In response, the Jewish state has spent the past two years developing state-of-the-art equipment designed to prevent missiles by neutralising them with an interceptor before they make contact. Christened the "Iron Fist", the system has been tried and tested in production, but is yet to see real combat. As the promotional video states, "this age of asymmetric warfare poses a neat challenge to the survivability of armoured fighting vehicles".

When we tried to contact the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), they refused to comment on the potential uses and impacts of this type of equipment.

Why are people dying needlessly in French hospitals?

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:11:40 +0100

Thought of as one of the best in the world, the French healthcare system is under fire after two fatal incidents within a week. Former nurse and blogger William Rejault condemns the system's insufficiencies and calls on health minister Roselyne Bachelot to take the problem of staff shortages seriously.

On 24 December, a three-year-old child died in a Parisian hospital after a nurse administered an injection of magnesium chloride instead of glucose, supposed to rehydrate the toddler. Five days later, a 53-year-old patient died after ambulance services were unable to get find him a hospital place. By the time he reached suitable care, he had suffered four heart attacks. The French accident and emergency workers union blamed the deaths on staff and funding shortages. The Socialist Party has used the incidents to renew their call on the government to pump money into public hospitals. A spokesperson for Sarkozy's UMP party responded by saying that "our country has the highest per capita health spending in the world" (AFP).

Is the Israeli intervention justified?

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:46:32 +0100

The Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, launched this weekend, has already killed over 300 Palestinians - some of them members of Hamas, others, civilians. Our Observers, from Gaza to Jerusalem, tell us about the escalating violence and question the legitimacy of the attack.

What do you think about the intervention? Give your opinion (insulting or hateful comments will be deleted).

This footage was shot by the International Solidarity Movement, who reported that a pharmacy in the Hi Alijnina district of Rafah, south Gaza, was bombed at 7am on Saturday morning.

Ahmadinejad takes the Queen's throne on British TV

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 17:05:26 +0100

In an original take on Britain's traditional Christmas speech from the Queen, Britain's Channel 4 decided to ask Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to convey a message instead. Presented as an "alternative view" by the channel and received as an example of freedom of speech by many, the UK government, on the other hand, has condemned the speech.

Channel 4 watchers are used to receiving their Christmas message from unusual characters. In previous years the honour has been given to Brigitte Bardot, Marge Simpson and gay icon Quentin Crisp. But this year's choice from the major commercial channel caused so much trouble that it was moved to a different time slot than the Queen's, which is shown on other channels at 3pm. On Thursday the broadcast was condemned by Britain's Foreign Office, who said that it would "cause offence and bemusement not just at home but amongst friendly countries abroad".

Evicting tenants by loudspeaker

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:49:30 +0100

Imagine receiving threats all day long, through a loudspeaker. That's daily life for residents of a town in northeast China, where the authorities are trying everything to get rid of them.

In need of moving them out before demolition, the Shenyang authorities chose to bombard remaining residents with endless announcements over loudspeaker. For almost a year the crackly threats have been echoing around the district of Nanta. Webusers from the neighbourhood vent their frustrations online.

This video was filmed in October and posted on YouTube with the subtitles by BetterChina along with this comment:

I think this loudspeaker business is still going on and will be going on for a long time - until the tenants give in or the authorities run out of patience and end up simply knocking everything down.

It's a snapshot of life in China, life under an oppressive government, where the rights of the people have no protection. The Chinese are accustomed to things people in other countries would find awful. The government can treat people how they like, and no one can do anything about it."

We weren't able to confirm if the loudspeakers are still being used.

Good behaviour guide for U.S. soldiers

Ségolène Team Observers — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 11:12:44 +0100

American soldiers can now get closer to their Iraqi and Afghani neighbours before their feet hit the ground. With virtual teachers, soldiers learn the lingo and the local customs at the same time... in a virtual game..

When the US Army touched down in Afghanistan in 2002, they barely spoke anything but English. When villagers ran into the streets, the soldiers, unable to communicate, couldn't work out if they were friend or foe. It was as the situation unravelled that a Californian defence professor came up with the idea of launching a "tactical language" programme www.tacticallanguage.com. Now, soldiers are briefed by their virtual counterparts in Arabic, Pashto or Dari, and given a few hints on how to follow the local customs and avoid cultural boo-boos. Former soldiers in Iraq tell us why the training isn't to be laughed at.

This year in Santa's sack: "Adadas" and "IVIKE" trainers

Ségolène Team Observers — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:54:09 +0100

With counterfeit brands all the rage in China, children might be surprised to unwrap "Adadas" or "IVIKE" trainers on Christmas day this year. Faced with tougher laws, fakers have given up on producing exact replicas and moved on to innovative ways to reproduce brand names.

The world's biggest counterfeit producer; China is struggling to reform its intellectual property laws. The industry represents 8% of the country's GDP, and employment for up to five million people, according to a French report by the IRPI.

Counterfeiters are not giving in easily to increasingly the stricter laws. SQNY is replacing SONY and fast food giant KFC finds itself facing KFG. Our Observers check out the latest brands on the Chinese high street.

Guinea 'indifferent' to president's death

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:24:02 +0100

The death of Guinean President Lansana Conté has left the country in a state of utter confusion. In power since 1984, the authoritarian ruler leaves behind a financially devastated country, despite its wealth of minerals.

Just hours after the former French army sergeant died, the Guinean Army suspended the constitution and parliament and set up a committee for national recovery - news announced to the country's population of 10 million over state radio.