By Vincent Boland in Ankara
Published by Financial Times at FT.com on January 6 2006 10:53am | Last updated: January 6 2006 18:39

A third child from the same family in Turkey died on Friday of bird flu after tests confirmed that two of the victims had been infected with the H5N1 strain of the virus.

Eleven-year-old Hulya Kocyigit died a day after her 15-year-old sister, Fatma. Their 14-year-old brother Mehmet Ali, died on Sunday. Ali Hasan, their six-year-old brother, appears to be recovering. The children had all eaten infected chicken that had lived partly in their home.

By late Friday, hospitals in the east of the country near the Iranian and Armenian borders had reported that at least 34 people had been admitted with bird flu-like symptoms.

more...

Posted by: Michele at 02:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 498 words, total size 3 kb.

Please note that reprinting does not mean approval or endoresement of this action.

Newspaper Article Title: Bloody St. Nick By MARLENE NAANES and ANDY GELLER - EXCLUSIVE TO THE NY POST

Ho, ho . . . no!!!!!

Slay bells are ringing outside a $3 million brownstone on East 18th Street in Manhattan, where, rather than yourtypical jolly St. Nick, a skinny, bloody-bearded Santa holds a knife in his left hand and the severed head of a doll - blood gushing from its eye sockets - in the other.

This 'tis-the-season-to be-creepy display - which has drawn no small amount of community ire - can be found in thefront yard of Joel Krupnik, 58, and his wife, Mildred Castellanos, 43, who said they are protesting the commercialization of the Yule season.

more...

Posted by: Michele at 01:12 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 461 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Well, I'm glad they've got holiday spirit... :-/

Posted by: Harvey at December 13, 2005 08:58 PM (ubhj8)

2 It may be inappropriate, but they have a good point. It's kind of funny too. You wouldn't hear all this griping about the exact same display if it were October.

Posted by: Ted at December 14, 2005 06:48 AM (blNMI)

3 Well, I guess since they're Jews, it can be forgiven that they don't actually know their history about Santa Claus who actually DID exist and was a Bishop of Myra known as St. Nicholas and is very important to Catholics and Orthodox Russians. You should read up about him. He was known to be a very generous man and his vestments were red, white and gold, and green, white and gold, just as the vestments of the clergy are today during the seasons. It's really a beautiful story that encourages people to give without expecting to receive, but if you don't know the story, of course you are going to think that it's all commercialism. Commercialism just like Christian Spirirt is something one holds in their heart, it all is how you take it. Blessings, Dianna

Posted by: Dianna at December 15, 2005 02:28 PM (GXSNL)

4 I went back to read my first line and it sounds deragatory, though it isn't meant to be. I meant it that since they are Jewish they would have had no reason to learn about the history of Santa Claus which is basically a simplified version of St. Nicholas and how the story came to be. Just to clarify.

Posted by: Dianna at December 15, 2005 06:22 PM (GXSNL)

5 To be honest, I don't find it that disturbing. There is a certain humor to it, and I can see their message. I look at it this way, if the guy down the street can decorate his house for christmas and dress as santa on Halloween, why not this?

Posted by: Contagion at December 16, 2005 07:41 PM (Q5WxB)

6 Santa Claus represents goodness, happiness and laughter. Little children are thrilled when they hear Santa is coming to town. Life is hard enough without seeing a cherished symbol bloodied and trampled upon. To see Santa murderously holding a bloody knife with a child's BLOODY HEAD in his hand is despicable! I am so upset, I can't believe this is my NY, the New York I was born in and raised in. The New York I work in and live in. What has happened here? First off, these people are the sickest and nastiest lowlifes imaginable - creatures that think they are being clever or cute... It is injurius, defaming, cruel, insulting to the highest degree, and gas has ruined my Christmas. Christmas is a very important time of the year to people throughout the world. Santa Claus is a cherished symbol of all that is good, and of love and giving. Children everywhere need Santa Claus to believe in the merriment of giving. To read the above comments is to see callousness taken to an all time low. Does the law no longer have decency? Can't these despicabe acts be stopped?

Posted by: Vivien at December 19, 2005 08:17 PM (c6QxB)

7 Funny, I complain to my family every Thanksgiving that their gas has ruined MY holiday! Small world huh? Speaking of Hallowe'en, this display is CONSERVATIVE compared to some displays of that ilk I've witnessed. This wouldn't cause one single eyelash to bat if erected in late October. Most people would probably see it as funny. And Rita? Disconnected? Dang, you ain't kidding! My HEAD is spinning! Tell me the truth -- that post IS a joke, right? 'Emence'? 'Distroy'? 'privilage'? 'neavou riche'? 'There' and 'thier' for what is properly 'there'? And the grammar itself! I laughed, I cried, I projectile vomited!

Posted by: We Don't Need No Steenking at December 24, 2005 09:25 PM (zZizN)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Eighteen months ago, I started writing about corruption at the highest levels in the United Nations organization, which extended to vendors and subcontractors and which funded violence in Israel, in Darfur and other areas of the Sudan. I would link to some of those posts now, but when my old blogspot site was hacked into, I lost most of them. In those posts, I wrote about the corruption involving Kofi AnnanÂ’s son and Boutros GaliÂ’s son, as well as other high-ranking UN officials in the Oil for Food program.

On Monday, Paul Volker released a full report on Part 1 of his investigation on the Oil for Food programÂ’s bribery and corruption scandal, which is believed to involve a number of senior officials. One official, Alexander Yakovlev, has already pleaded guilty in Federal court to charges of bribery, after being stripped of diplomatic immunity. Benon Sevan, the former head of the Oil for Food program, continues to be in hiding somewhere in Cyprus, he is expected to receive indictments this week.

As the investigation continues, the focus will now move to the Security Council staff and members. The committee has already requested AnnanÂ’s notes, as well as Security Council meeting minutes related to sanctions against Iraq in the years before the 2003 Iraq invasion, for possible conflict of interest.

HereÂ’s what angers me the most, the failure of the UN to live up to its responsibilities and charter time and again, especially in the face of dire human crisis. We began to see their disregard for human life in Uganda. We continued to see their ineffectualness in Somalia. We are now seeing the UN's analysis/paralysis in Nigeria, where thousands have already died, and where it is expected that hundreds of thousands more will starve to death over the next few weeks. This is in spite of the self-delusional attempt to end poverty and famine through the world-wide Live8 concerts, which featured Kofi Annan as one of its speakers.

The true crime here, and the crime no one will be prosecuted for, is the continual victimization of the youngest victims through greed, corruption, abuse of power, and in-action. In doing so, the UN secured an Aushwitz-like death for thousands of the worldÂ’s poorest and most vulnerable children.

Posted by: Michele at 06:17 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 382 words, total size 3 kb.

In the Spring Â’05 issue of The Wilson Quarterly, an international opinion magazine published by Princeton UniversityÂ’s Center for IntÂ’l Relations & Diplomatic Scholars, William Powers writes a lengthy article on the 7 Steps to Big MediaÂ’s Salvation (free). I summarize his views here for your consideration, and then take issue with his viewpoint.

1. Relax. Nobody likes a whiner, particularly one who doesnÂ’t know how lucky he is. YouÂ’ve been around for centuries, and youÂ’re more powerful now than ever before.

2. Enjoy yourselves. Â…traditional news outlets have become joyless things. Most American [broadcasts and] newspapers are dull, fearful creatures. In contrast, blogs and other online news sources often possess an attractive, intelligent vibrancyÂ… because it connects us to the great throng of humanity.

3. Be natural. Enough already with your pretensions to objectivity and neutrality. Everyone has leanings, passions, and, yes, biases. By claiming to be superhuman—bias free—you come off as weirdly subhuman. In all honesty, sometimes you have the public personality of an android. Striving for perfect fairness is a fine goal. Just don’t act as though you achieve it on a regular basis.

4. DonÂ’t patronize. One reason young people say they avoid newspapers and other traditional news media is that whatÂ’s offered by those outlets has no apparent connection to the world they live in. To them, the news doesnÂ’t look or sound like life but rather like some false approximation of it. Swear off demographics. Hire journalists of all ages, and deploy them in unexpected ways. In journalism, thereÂ’s no such thing as generationally correct work. Have an octogenarian cover blogs. When David Broder retires from The Washington Post, give his column to the sharpest 27-year-old you know. The results could be strange and wonderful.

5. Make trouble. ItÂ’s a fact: Nobody respects a suck-up. Why did it take the surprise attack of 9/11, and a war launched partly on the basis of bad intelligence, for you to wake up to the problems in the U.S. intelligence agencies? That story was an investigative journalistÂ’s dream, and you missed it. You were probably in a strategy meeting about how to regain all those eyeballs no longer trained on you.
more...

Posted by: Michele at 03:17 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 923 words, total size 6 kb.

Yesterday, Newsweek, had it's spinners all over the national media trying to absolve themselves of any culpability by explaining that they did everything they could to ensure they were responsible and accurate in their reporting. As details kept emerging, and criticisms from the public and bloggers grew, it became harder for Newsweek to drown out the truth and spin the resulting 15 deaths and the hundreds that were maimed and injured into anything positive. The fact that they tried made their efforts more abhorrent to the public. They have finally retracted their story!

Where do we go from here? For me it's clear, we go back to the pre-watergate era when reporters were questioned thoroughly by their editors; when claims by anonymous sources were investigated by reporters and corroborated with existing factual information and not just from a source's lone witness account; when editors personally met big news sources to gage their credibility and truthfulness, double-checked that against the data and story their reporters had presented.

News Editors need to dig deep into their values and go back to a place before news was a commodity; before news became earnings, ratings and subscriptions competition, to a place where a News Editor's role is once again that of a vanguard and protector of the truth. For that is what the American people want, and that is what our system of democracy demands.

If we are to have any credibility, as a leader in democratic principles and the lone nation that will singlehandedly stand up in the global war on terror, it is imperative that truth be valued more highly than anything else. For it is only then that we will have the most powerful weapon in our arsenal, one that is undeniably powerful in opening the hearts and minds of our critics, and potential enemies. Truth is the most accurate and powerful weapon we have in the battle against propaganda and holy jihad. For what we are fighting in essence is an ideology and a belief system.

The only way our nation will ever be effective in combatting the darkness of terror, is by holding up the powerful light of truth for all to see.

The blogosphere has similar opinions but from diverging viewpoints. Several former journalists and prominent bloggers bring up excelent points. I'm linking to Laughing Wolf, Indiepundit, and Buzzmachine, are all good reading on this subject.

Posted by: Michele at 12:39 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 406 words, total size 3 kb.

In the past few weeks I've been monitoring media stories and their retractions for errors made as a result of not verifying facts!

The riots and deaths that have recently occurred in Afghanistan are one of the most egregious examples of bad journalism I've ever seen. That it came out of a Newsweek Magazine story (worldwide circulation of 4.9 million) is all the more shocking.

The media has of course, white-washed or muted the truth of their culpability in this situation. The facts are that unverified inflammatory and defamatory information found it's way to print. This caused a destabilization in a politically charged environment which fragmenting relations with a population that were still tenuous at best, creating chaos and causing many injuries and death (to both Afghani's and Americans), from the rioting which result from these stories.

These injuries and deaths are a result of unbridled arrogance by yet another news organization, whose hubris led them to neglect their duty as vanguards of the truth.

Is it any wonder why viewership of tv news and readership of newspapers is at an all time low? No one can trust or believe in what they report anymore as they have proven, especially in the last 9 months, to be extremely fallible. I'm sure Marshall McLuhan has been turning over in his grave.

Update: This is what National Review has to say after contacting Newsweek editors and reporters responsible for this story:

Equally disturbing is the fact that Newsweek reporters seemed to have little idea how explosive such a story would be. While noting that, to Muslims, desecrating the Koran “is especially heinous,” Thomas looks for explanations, including “extremist agitators,” of why protest and rioting spread throughout the world, and maintains that it was at Imram Khan’s press conference that “the spark was apparently lit.” He confesses that after “so many gruesome reports of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, the vehemence of feeling around this case came as something of a surprise.”

What planet do these people live on that they are surprised by something so entirely predictable? Anybody with a little knowledge could have told them it was likely that people would die as a result of the article. Remember Salman Rushdie?

Dudes, the damage has been done! I say each family of a deceased and injured person should teach Newsweek a valuable and costly lesson!

Posted by: Michele at 08:12 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 413 words, total size 3 kb.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger does not want to destroy the moon.

A U.S. political commentator has admitted he failed to check his facts when he erroneously reported on the MSNBC cable news network last month that Schwarzenegger had jokingly advocated doing away with the moon.

In one of the stranger mea culpas from a major U.S. news outlet in recent years, the commentator, Joe Scarborough, a former congressman, acknowledged on Friday that the governor's purported lunar outburst on the nationally syndicated radio show of Howard Stern was actually a spoof, something he was unaware of.

Citing a British newspaper, Scarborough had quoted Schwarzenegger on the air as saying: "If we get rid of the moon, women, whose menstrual cycles are governed by the moon, will not get (pre-menstrual syndrome). They will stop bit%$ing and whining."

more...

Posted by: Michele at 09:32 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 353 words, total size 2 kb.

NEW YORK (AP) — Two small makeshift grenades exploded outside the British Consulate early Thursday, causing slight damage to the building but injuring no one, officials said.

The blasts occurred at 3:50 a.m. and originated inside a cement flower box outside the consulate in midtown Manhattan, said police department spokesman Noel Waters.

In Britain, voters were voting in national elections, a heated race in which Prime Minister Tony Blair's fight for a third term could be hampered by public anger over the Iraq war. It was not known whether the explosions were related to the elections.

After piecing together the shrapnel, police determined the devices were toy grenades that had been filled with gunpowder. Officers estimated that one was the size of a pineapple; the other the size of a lemon.

The blasts shattered a panel of glass in the building's front door and ripped a one-foot chunk from the planter. The department's bomb squad was at the scene and streets were closed in the area.

The building has retail shops on the lower level

Posted by: Michele at 07:56 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 187 words, total size 1 kb.