French doctors in Gaza tell of horror (Audio)

Thank goodness, help has arrived in Gaza.

French doctors are now in situ and a French A-310 carrying 40 tons of humanitarian aid to the civilian population of Gaza left Wednesday 14 January for Israel from where the cargo will be transported to Gaza, according to an AFP report published in Le Figaro.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the humanitarian aid cargo constitutes 6,000 blankets, 3,000 of which were supplied by a French NGO Voix de l'Enfant, 5,000 water cannisters, 30 boxes of medicine from Tulipe, a French organisation that federates medical donations from companies, and 14 water purification systems with a total value of 350,000 euros.

The cargo will be distributed in Gaza in collaboration with the World Health Organisation and the UNRWA, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

Also in Le Figaro: A French doctor from the University Hospital of Lille has just arrived in Gaza with a team of surgeons and speaks of the horror. He talks of the total lack of equipment needed to treat the wounded and of the devastations inflicted on the families.

L'ONG française Help Doctors est entrée hier dans la bande de Gaza. Son président Régis Garrigue, médecin urgentiste au CHU de Lille avec une équipe de médecins et de chirurgiens sont sur zone. Cette mission est soutenue par la Communauté Urbaine de Dunkerque qui est jumelée avec la ville de Gaza depuis avril 1996. (French NGO Help Doctors arrived last night on the Gaza strip. Régis Garrigue, a doctor with the emergency unit of the University Hospital of Lille along with a team of doctors and surgeons are now in Gaza. Their mission is backed by the Urban Community of Dunkirk that has been a twin city to Gaza since April 1996.)

Click on link to listen to tape: A French doctor in Gaza talks about the horror

Click on link to read plea by Help Doctors: Gaza: "Il faut que les décès d'enfants cessent !" (Gaza: "Death of children must stop!")

The death toll in Gaza has reached more than 1,000, many of them children. Israel has been accused by Human Rights Watch of using a new weapon that causes worse and far bigger damage than the size of the Gaza strip itself and calls on Israel to stop its unlawful use:

Israel: Stop Unlawful Use of White Phosporous in Gaza.

(Jerusalem) – Israel should stop using white phosphorus in military operations in densely populated areas of Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. On January 9 and 10, 2009, Human Rights Watch researchers in Israel observed multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over what appeared to be the Gaza City/Jabaliya area.

Israel appeared to be using white phosphorus as an “obscurant” (a chemical used to hide military operations), a permissible use in principle under international humanitarian law (the laws of war). However, white phosphorus has a significant, incidental, incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields, and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza’s high population density, among the highest in the world.

“White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. “Israel should not use it in Gaza’s densely populated areas.”

Human Rights Watch believes that the use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life. More here.

Calling Israel: Stop the murderous rampage in Gaza

We all know now that Israel welcomed 2009 by launching a murderous raid into Gaza.

More than 120,000 people all over France mobilised last Saturday calling for a stop to this senseless war that has killed more than 700 Palestinians of whom more than 200 were children.

This blog supports the call for this murderous rampage to cease!

AFP/PIERRE VERDY Manifestation à Paris contre la guerre à Gaza, samedi 10 janvier.

AFP/ERIC CABANIS Manifestation à Toulouse contre la guerre de Gaza, samedi 10 janvier.

AFP/VALERY HACHE A Nice, samedi 10 janvier.

From Le Monde:

A Toulouse, une mobilisation similaire a eu lieu en fin de matinée. Entre 1 600 et 4 000 personnes ont défilé dans les rues de la "ville rose", sans que les autorités ne constatent de débordements. Réunis derrière un grand drapeau palestinien, les manifestants ont scandé de multiples slogans, notamment "Bush, Olmert, Livni, Barak assassins, Sarkozy complice" ou encore "Etat d'Israël, Etat criminel" et "solidarité avec le peuple de Palestine". Des syndicats et l'ensemble des partis de gauche étaient visibles en fin de cortège. A Lyon, entre 8 000 et 10 000 composaient le cortège qui s'est rassemblé devant la préfecture du Rhône avant de défiler dans le centre de la ville.

A Lille, ils étaient près de 10 000 à défiler derrière d'immenses drapeaux palestiniens et une banderole de l'Association France-Palestine solidarité (AFPS), alors que la précédente manifestation avait mobilisé près de 3 000 personnes. Entre 2 000 et 3 000 manifestants ont été recensés au Havre, au moins 3 500 à Grenoble, entre 2 500 et 3 000 à Mulhouse et près de 2 000 à Rouen. Des incidents ont été signalés lors d'un rassemblement qui a réuni entre 2 500 et 6 000 à Nice, samedi. Les vitrines d'un Mac Donald dans l'avenue Jean Médecin, la principale artère de la ville, ont été brisées avec des chaises et des tables qui se trouvaient sur la chaussée. La police n'a pas fait état de blessés. A Marseille , entre 2 000 et 5 000 personnes ont défile et à Bordeaux, entre 1 800 et 8 000 manifestants ont traversé les rues de la ville aux cris de "Israël assassin" et "Gaza vaincra, Gaza vivra". Dans un tract distribué aux manifestants, le comité Action Palestine a par ailleurs dénoncé la poursuite du jumelage de la ville de Bordeaux avec la ville israélienne d'Ashdod, "élevée sur la destruction de villages palestiniens et le massacre de leurs habitants".

D'autres manifestations ont eu lieu à Nantes, Strasbourg, Colmar, Besançon, Lorient, Saint-Brieuc, Caen, La Roche-sur-Yon, Laval, Albi, Auch, Agen, Angoulème, Pau, Roanne, Le Creusot ou encore Evry, partout à l'appel d'un Collectif national pour une Paix juste et durable entre Palestiniens et Israéliens. Outre les incidents à Nice et Paris, le ministère de l'intérieur a signalé de légers problèmes à Toulouse et Perpignan.

Headline grabbers this week: Sarkozy-Dalai Lama meet, 2 million American jobs destroyed, US contempt for rule of law, cluster bombs

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Despite vulgar threats threats from Peking, President Nicolas Sarkozy keeps meeting with the Dalai Lama in Poland.

From Le Figaro: Première rencontre entre Sarkozy et le dalaï-lama First meeting between Sarkozy and the Dalai Lama

(Eric Feferberg / AFP)

[...] «Il convient de ne dramatiser aucun rendez-vous. Je suis libre de mon agenda», a tranché le président de la République, avant de s'entretenir avec le leader spirituel tibétain samedi en Pologne. [...] "There's no reason to over-react about any meeting. I'm free to do as I please", so decided the president of the Republic before meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader in Poland today.

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[...] C'est fait. Après des mois d'attentes, de polémiques et de menaces de Pékin, le président français Nicolas Sarkozy a rencontré le dalaï-lama, pour la première fois, samedi à Gdansk, au nord de la Pologne. L'entretien entre les deux hommes a débuté peu après 16h30 et se poursuit actuellement. Peu avant, lors d'une conférence de presse, le chef de l'Etat français avait affirmé qu'il convenait de «ne pas dramatiser» cette rencontre. [...] Done. After months of waiting, of controvery and of threats from Peking, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Dalai Lama met for the first time on Saturday (today) in the Polish town of Gdansk. The meeting between the two men began at around 4.30 PM and is still going on. More here.

Well, well... that will learn 'em Chinese not to go around threatening leaders of sovereign European states with whatever.

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Of course, it didn't stop Chinese authorities attacking France, qualifying Sarkozy's decision to meet with the Dalai Lama as opportunistic and hasty for not only ruffling Chinese feelings but also for weakening Sino-Franco relations. Frankly, who cares!

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On the other side of the pond, things are going from bad to worse. Reports have it that the US has almost reached the two million job loss mark for the year, the highest in the last 15 years. More than half a million jobs were lost for the month of November alone and still counting.

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From Le Monde: Le chômage aux Etats-Unis au plus haut depuis quinze ans The highest unemployment rate in the United States in the last 15 years.

Meanwhile in the :

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Roger Cohen writes about the "snub symbol of U.S. contempt for the rule of law."

[...] THE HAGUE: Of the many issues that have soured relations between Europe and the United States under the Bush administration, few have been as poisonous as America's refusal to join the world's first permanent war crimes court here. The snub symbol of U.S. contempt for the rule of law.

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In one of his last acts, Bill Clinton signed the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, but the signature never led to U.S. ratification. On the contrary, President Bush withdrew the signature.

.../...

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The effect of U.S. rejection of the court, combined with the trashing of habeas corpus at Guantánamo Bay, has been devastating. Allies from Canada to Germany that are court members have been dismayed by the U.S. dismissal of an institution they see doing evident good.

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Other smaller nations from Latin America to Africa, browbeaten by the United States on the issue, have looked elsewhere for lost military or financial support. The American idea, grounded in legal principles, has been undermined. [...] More here.

Human rights be damned? Let's hope the incoming US administration will prove to be as good as the world expects them to be.

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And the good news is from Oslo: Afghans sign treaty banning cluster munitions

In a surprising last-minute change of policy, the government of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan agreed Wednesday to join about 100 nations signing a treaty banning the use of cluster munitions, Afghan officials said.

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The decision appeared to reflect Karzai's growing independence from the Bush administration, which has opposed the treaty and, according to a senior Afghan official who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, had urged Karzai not to sign it.

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