"Yadaan Vichhre Sajan Diyan Aiyan"

"The memories of my love have come
there is a rainstorm in my eyes
Let separations drown in this world
there is a rainstorm in my eyes"

This qawwali is sung by Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Co. at a performance in the U.K. in 1985. (The boy on the left of the stage is none other than Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, age 11, who was practically raised onstage from that time on. ) 

Trying to figure out the English translation of the lyrics of "Yadaan Vichhre Sajan Diyan Aiyan," as it's sung in the video, is not easy. The verse I posted above is from an introduction to a version of the same qawwali sung by Rahat when he was an adult.  

In response to a plea from a reader at AllTheLyrics.com, someone posted what seems to be the entire lyrics (in Punjabi) to the version of the qawwali sung by Ustad Nusrat & Co. But another poster at the same website, who is Punjabi, underscored the difficulties with translating qawwalis sung by Ustad Nusrat after he translated some of the lyrics for "Yadaan Vichhre Sajan Diyan Aiyan" into English:

==> i didn't heard some parts before, because Nusrat used to add some new/old parts of the song in each version. this is genius, the same song, always sung with different styles/vocalizes/lyrics/impro !!!

==> i used to translate it by listening the same songs for almost 15 years, i always discoverd news meanings and i love it. I also asked parents, friends to translate some words because this is not really the punjabi as talked in pakistan know [now?]. It almost lyrical/literal punjabi which is very rich as language.

In other words even people who are fluent in Punjabi can find it hard to come up with a precise translation of the lyrics in Punjabi, let alone English.

And so one is left to fall back on the heart's translation, which is the best anyhow.

********

The ability to be happy: Longevity secrets from 100+ year old man in Afghan village

"Every day I dance, too, and laugh. Mostly at myself."

By Hollie McKay
May 8, 2017
Fox News

[See the website for McKay's photos of Satar, his home, and Panjshir Valley]

PANJSHIR VALLEY, Afghanistan – Every day, just before sunrise, a hunched figure moves down the mountain from his mud-hut home in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley, ready to work from dawn to dusk collecting wood, cutting stones and using them to build houses.

Only this is no ordinary mountain man. This is Abdul Satar, known by locals simply as "Sheikh." At an estimated 105 years of age – Afghanistan does not have standardized birth records in some rural areas – he has the mental and physical aptitude of men half his age.

With his cheeky toothless smile and a notorious penchant for pulling pranks, Satar has survived through decades of successive rulers, invasions, wars and famines.

His No. 1 longevity secret? He eats butter by the spoonful.

"It makes me very relaxed and strong," Satar tells Fox News, taking an afternoon break in the spring sunshine. "In the winter when there is a lot of snow, the butter makes me very warm and I am not affected by the cold."

Waving his cane around animatedly, he also attributes his long life and ability to work full time to spending all his years in the high altitudes, sleeping just three to five hours a night, and carving out time for his favorite pastime, which is hunting deer.

"And things aren't always happy, but I try just to be happy anyway," Satar goes on. "I tell people not to stress. I like a lot of organic food from the mountain, but the specific food itself is not important. It's important that people just enjoy it."

But equally as fundamental, Satar vows, is giving back to those in the community. During the Soviet war, he devoted his time to carrying refugees to safety, on the back of his horse. Still now, when there is a death in his Panjshir village of Jangalak -- the Persian word for forest -- Satar is often the first to dig the grave and assist in preparing the body for burial.

The hallowed Panjshiri never learned to read or write, has never owned a car -- just once a friend let him steer from the driver’s seat while the friend operated the brake -- and he eschews all modern technology. Nonetheless, Satar is deemed something of a "wise guy" who locals come to for advice.

"If someone goes the wrong way, I try to help them get back to good," he quipped.

However, the younger generation is proving a challenge.

"If you tell them right, they want to go left," Satar laments. "And the girls now wear too much makeup and perfume. God gave us eyes, ears, hands, beauty. Why cover it up with makeup?"

The passage of time, Satar says, has taken only a tiny toll. Once upon a time, he had more than 100 animals on his farm and collected feed from the most far-fetched mountainous terrain to distribute around the villages, but he had to surrender that task several years ago. Today his skin is carved with deep wrinkles and cataracts cloud his sight. 

Nevertheless he dismisses any aches and pains with a shrug.

"Every day I dance, too, and laugh," he says. "Mostly at myself."

When Satar looks back through the lens of history at his nation, which he has never left -- except one short trip to Pakistan decades ago -- two epochs stand out. His military service in his early adulthood, which "made him a man," and Afghanistan in the years prior to the communist coup of 1978, termed the Saur Revolution, in which the leader, Mohammed Daoud Khan, and his family were killed and Soviet-allied leadership took their place.

"Before that, Afghanistan was a very peaceful and very beautiful place," Satar reminisces.

The situation in his conflict-decimated country now, he stresses, is getting to be the worst he has ever seen.

"I am very happy the Americans came, but every day now there are suicide bombers," he laments. "Why are they not being killed first? We need Americans to eradicate the enemies."

Satar also doesn't underestimate the value of a good woman by his side. He married for the first time at age 35, and had two sons and a daughter -- one son was later killed near their home fighting against the Soviet invaders in the 1980s.

He married a second time at 75, falling for a much younger girl in her 20s in a nearby village amid that same brutal war that bloodied much of his beloved province. He visited her little farmhouse every day, promising to respect her, and finally after she accepted his proposal they were married in a small ceremony eight days later.

The couple had six boys and two girls and his youngest child is a mere 13 years old. Today, just six of his children are still alive.

Satar is certain he can "still produce babies" -- and he does want more children -- only his wife, now around 50, long ago mandated no more.

"Still, I worship her," he adds. "Every day I look at her and want to marry her all over again."

Hollie McKay has been a FoxNews.com staff reporter since 2007. She has reported extensively from the Middle East on the rise and fall of terrorist groups such as ISIS in Iraq. Follow her on twitter at @holliesmckay

[END REPORT]

********

The gathering storm in Islam

"For the statement, obviously approved by Vladimir Putin, is as close as Sunni clerics have got to excommunicating the Saudis."

This report, told from Robert Fisk's inimitable viewpoint with plenty of his editorializing stuffed in, is one of only two English-language news reports on a stunning turn of events in Islam that should have been headline news in all the mainstream press last year. 

For the first time, Saudi Arabia is being attacked by both Sunni and Shia leaders
By Robert Fisk

22 September 2016

The Independent

The Saudis step deeper into trouble almost by the week. Swamped in their ridiculous war in Yemen, they are now reeling from an extraordinary statement issued by around two hundred Sunni Muslim clerics who effectively referred to the Wahhabi belief – practiced in Saudi Arabia – as “a dangerous deformation” of Sunni Islam. 

The prelates included Egypt’s Grand Imam, Ahmed el-Tayeb of al-Azhar, the most important centre of theological study in the Islamic world, who only a year ago attacked “corrupt interpretations” of religious texts and who has now signed up to “a return to the schools of great knowledge” outside Saudi Arabia.

This remarkable meeting took place in Grozny and was unaccountably ignored by almost every media in the world – except for the former senior associate at St Antony’s College [Oxford], Sharmine Narwani [writing for RT on 15 September], and Le Monde’s Benjamin Barthe – but it may prove to be even more dramatic than the terror of Syria’s civil war. For the statement, obviously approved by Vladimir Putin, is as close as Sunni clerics have got to excommunicating the Saudis. 

Although they did not mention the Kingdom by name, the declaration was a stunning affront to a country which spends millions of dollars every year on thousands of Wahhabi mosques, schools and clerics around the world.

Wahhabism’s most dangerous deviation, in the eyes of the Sunnis who met in Chechenya, is that it sanctions violence against non-believers, including Muslims who reject Wahhabi interpretation. Isis, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are the principal foreign adherents to this creed outside Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The Saudis, needless to say, repeatedly insist that they are against all terrorism. Their reaction to the Grozny declaration has been astonishing. “The world is getting ready to burn us,” Adil Al-Kalbani announced. And as Imam of the King Khaled Bin Abdulaziz mosque in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, he should know.

As Narwani points out, the bad news kept on coming. At the start of the five-day Hajj pilgrimage, the Lebanese daily al-Akhbar published online a database which it said came from the Saudi ministry of health, claiming that up 90,000 pilgrims from around the world have died visiting the Hajj capital of Mecca over a 14-year period.[1] Although this figure is officially denied, it is believed in Shia Muslim Iran, which has lost hundreds of its citizens on the Hajj. 

Among them was Ghazanfar Roknabadi, a former ambassador and intelligence officer in Lebanon. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has just launched an unprecedented [verbal] attack on the Saudis, accusing them of murder. “The heartless and murderous Saudis locked up the injured with the dead in containers...” he said in his own Hajj message.

A Saudi official said Khameni’s accusations reflected a “new low”. Abdulmohsen Alyas, the Saudi undersecretary for international communications, said they were “unfounded, but also timed to only serve their unethical failing propaganda”.

Yet the Iranians have boycotted the Hajj this year (not surprisingly, one might add) after claiming that they have not received Saudi assurances of basic security for pilgrims. According to Khamenei, Saudi rulers “have plunged the world of Islam into civil wars”. 

However exaggerated his words, one thing is clear: for the first time, ever, the Saudis have been assaulted by both Sunni and Shia leaders at almost the same time.

The presence in Grozny of Grand Imam al-Tayeb of Egypt was particularly infuriating for the Saudis, who have poured millions of dollars into the Egyptian economy since Brigadier-General-President al-Sissi staged his doleful military coup more than three years ago. 

What, the Saudis must be asking themselves, has happened to the fawning leaders who would normally grovel to the Kingdom? 

“In 2010, Saudi Arabia was crossing borders peacefully as a power-broker, working with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Qatar and others to troubleshoot in regional hotspots,” Narwani writes. “By 2016, it had buried two kings, shrugged off a measured approach to foreign policy, embraced ‘takfiri’ madness and emptied its coffers.” A “takfiri” is a Sunni who accuses another Muslim (or Christian or Jew) of apostasy.

Kuwait, Libya, Jordan and Sudan were present in Grozny, along with – you guessed it – Ahmed Hassoun, the grand mufti of Syria and a loyal Assad man. Intriguingly, Abu Dhabi played no official role, although its policy of “deradicalisation” is well known throughout the Arab world.

But there are close links between President (and dictator) Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechenya, the official host of the recent conference, and Mohamed Ben Zayed al-Nahyan, the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince. The conference itself was opened by Putin, which shows what he thinks of the Saudis – although, typically, none of the Sunni delegates asked him to stop bombing Syria. But since the very meeting occurred against the backcloth of Isis and its possible defeat, they wouldn’t, would they? 

That Chechnya, a country of monstrous bloodletting by Russia and its own Wahhabi rebels, should have been chosen as a venue for such a remarkable conclave was an irony which could not have been lost on the delegates. But the real questions they were discussing must have been equally apparent. 

Who are the real representatives of Sunni Muslims if the Saudis are to be shoved aside? And what is the future of Saudi Arabia? Of such questions are revolutions made.

[END REPORT]

1) I haven't seen the database, but I'd find it unlikely the entire death toll of 90,000, if accurate, relates to Saudi government negligence. Probably many terminally ill Muslims choose to spend their final days in Mecca. And given the large numbers of people who make pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia during the month of Ramadan and during the Hajj, surely there are deaths among pilgrims from illness and accident that would have nothing to do with lax security/safety measures on the part of the Saudis. 

The high death toll for the September 2015 stampede/crush incident at Mina, however, does point to negligence on the part of the Saudi security forces during that year's Hajj. See Sharmine Narwani's article, linked above, and the Wikipedia article on the incident, for information on the death toll.    

******** 

Why did I have to learn about severe flooding in US from Russian news site?

"We're surrounded by water. The water is rising one foot an hour. We don't know what to expect." -- Mayor of Portia, Arkansas
Nothing about the flooding at Google News. [shaking her head]  But it's not even worth complaining about anymore. For more than a year I've been checking at Google News only as an afterthought, and often not for days at a time, or when I'm searching for additional news reports on a specific topic. 

All right; here's a report from Sputnik; see the website for videos and several photographs of the flooding, which is so severe in Arkansas that the governor said it was the most extensive flooding in an urban area he'd during his time as governor.  

Cities Submerged: Swollen Rivers Flood the US Mid-South (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)
22:27 - 04.05.2017 (updated 23:39 - 04.05.2017)

Swollen rivers have caused severe damage in Missouri, Arkansas and other US states. Five Missourians have been killed, as have at least seven Arkansans, including an 18-month-old girl who is presumed dead after she was swept away by floodwater.

​Damage has also spilled into neighboring states like Illinois and Tennessee. Since the flooding began on the weekend, more than 20 people have died.

​Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson has deployed 100 members of the National Guard as well as 25 guard vehicles to fight the floods and rescue those endangered by floodwater. Numerous levees throughout the state have been breached, he said.

​"This is the most extensive flooding in an urban area that I've ever seen as governor," said Hutchinson as he declared a state of emergency. More than 500 people have been evacuated throughout Arkansas.

The US Coast Guard has halted water traffic along a 14.5 mile stretch of the Mississippi River. US Highway 63 has also been shut down in Arkansas' Lawrence County after floods from the Black River breached nine levees and forced an evacuation of the city of Pocahontas (population 6,500).

"We're surrounded by water," Portia Mayor Kelly Duckworth told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "The water is rising one foot an hour. We don't know what to expect."

Towns fewer than 30 miles from St. Louis like West Alton (population 522) and Eureka (population 10,189) have experienced severe flooding of their own. While the former was evacuated, the latter managed to avoid major flooding damage through the use of 250,000 sandbags. Eureka was badly damaged in a December 2015 incident, but the city has learned its lesson about flood safety.

"We were able to save a lot a lot of homes and businesses that before we lost," said Eureka Mayor Kevin Coffey.

More than 100 highways around St. Louis and 270 roads throughout Missouri are closed, according to the state Department of Transportation.

[END REPORT]

********

DEBKAfile's take on Syria portion of phone call between Putin and Trump

I have no comment on the following report, no idea how much 'spin' if any is reflected in it; it simply is what it is -- a view of the phone call from an Israeli website with a strong connection to the IDF: 

Trump-Putin call focuses on Syria, security zones
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

May 2, 2017, 10:12 PM (IDT)

One of the most consequential exchanges on the disposition of Syria’s border lands with Israel and Jordan - and the future of the Syrian conflict at large - took place between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Tuesday, May 2. The call took place when German Chancellor Angela Merkel was visiting Putin at his Black Sea residence in Sochi.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources reveal that the two presidents focused strongly on an effort to agree on how de-escalate the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year and bring it to an end. The Russian leader proposed drawing armistice lines between the warring sides under the guarantee of a special Russian military mechanism. The Americans have not released any ideas, but they are believed to be contemplating establishing safety zones barred to the Syrian air force. One of those zones would be marked out in the south on Syria’s borders with Israel and Jordan.

The Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, the Iranian military-political command and Hizballah are resisting US feelers for the introduction of these safe zones, regarding the plan as a ploy hatched by the Saudis, Israelis and Jordanians to take control of South Syria by engaging local Syrian rebel groups as their vehicle. Damascus, Tehran and Beirut believe that if they allow the scheme to go forward without resistance, it will be the start of similar off-limits enclaves in other parts of Syria, and the country will quickly fall apart into self-ruling segments.

That is why late last month, Syrian army units, the Shiite militias under Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers' command and Hizballah combined their resources to push against the local Syrian rebels of the South in the regions of the borders with Israel and Jordan.

It is doubtful whether Trump and Putin were able to work out something tangible in their first phone conversation since the US fired Tomahawk cruise missiles against the Syrian Shayrat air base on April 7. The Russian president used the shock of that event to cultivate closer ties with the Syrian ruler and strengthen his missile defenses, in case of an American repeat attack or Israeli air strikes on military targets in Syria.

At the same time, Putin became more careful about infringing on parts of Syria deemed to be under American influence, especially the Kurdish enclaves.

The US president was also careful not to direct personal attacks on Putin or criticize Russia’s military involvement in Syria, merely expressing the hope that at some point the two powers could reach an understanding to end the vicious conflict.

When reporters in Sochi asked the Russian president if he thought he could sell his plan to Assad, he replied: “A ceasefire is the first priority and cooperation with Washington is critical.”

At the same time, Russia operates in tandem with Turkey and Iran and was trying to “create the conditions for political cooperation on all sides,” he said.

Clearly, Putin was making the point that, just as the US deals with the Syrian issue in alignment with Saudi Arabia, Israel and Jordan, Russia coordinates its actions with Iran and Turkey. Since both presidents are similarly weighed down by their allies, the road to a consensus between Washington and Moscow is destined to be long with many convolutions. 

Therefore, the tension on the Israeli and Jordanian borders of southern Syria will continue to escalate before it abates.

[END REPORT]

********

"Damascus claims France involved in staging Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack"

List of links from Moon of Alabama comment section.

"Damascus claims France involved in staging Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack"

http://tass.com/world/943520

"Moscow demands OPCW explain how White Helmets emerged unharmed in Syrian sarin attack"
http://tass.com/world/942326

Russia now pressuring the French on how they obtained the samples they claim prove Syrian culpability in Khan Sheykhoun CW attack.

The National Evaluation (in English) is rather coy as to how the French obtained the samples:

"... France has deployed the required resources to obtain its own samples from the alleged sarin attack on 4 April 2017 in Idlib Governorate ..."
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files/syria/events/article/chemical-attack-in-syria-national-evaluation-presented-by-jean-marc-ayrault

Did the French have any people on the ground? Or is it likely that the samples were provided to them by none other than the jihadists themselves?

Posted by: Jen | Apr 29, 2017 2:07:19 AM | 44

********

"Aayega aanewala" The one meant to return will return

"Aayega aanewala" is the biggest hit song from Kamal Amrohi's Hindi-language 1949 movie Mahal, India's first "reincarnation thriller" -- and probably the world's first sight of such -- named by the British Film Institute as among the top ten romantic horror movies of all time. 

If non-Hindi speakers want to watch Mahal on YouTube, which doesn't have a version with English subtitles, they'd be well-advised to first read both Wikipedia's plot summary and the discussion of the plot at Outlook India, which is aptly titled Palace of Delusion. The reviewer, Nasreen Munni Kabir, is a filmmaker and author of books on cinema. I am not sure I would agree with either view of the gardener's daughter; however, as I have only seen the first half of the film so far I'll reserve judgment for now.    

 Kabir notes Mahal wouldn't scare audiences today. I'd add "Perhaps unless an audience thinks deeply about the plot." 

It's a very odd thing about the phenomenon misleadingly termed "reincarnation" -- while it's an actuality it's also something that should only greatly concern those most determined to break free of it; e.g., serious practitioners of the Buddha's path. 

For the rest, confusion and delusion are too often the result if they become entranced with the idea of their "past lives." They end up as a kind of ghost, with one foot in the present and one in the past.

From that point of view Mahal is more than a horror story; it's also a morality tale.

For those who'd prefer not to think deeply about the plot of Mahal, there is the fun of watching the birth of a Indian movie genre that created "an appetite for tales about ghostly mansions, murderous goings-on, unhinged minds and a female apparition sauntering as a haunting melody plays," as Kabir put it. 

But the reviewer also puts in a word for the romantics:

... at heart, Mahal is less about reincarnation than about people obsessed with finding eternal love. This search for and union with the perfect beloved is close to the Sufi idea of divine love, a theme running through all of Amrohi’s films: in Pakeezah and Razia Sultan, the question is whether love can transcend social and class barriers; in Mahal, it is whether love can transcend death itself."

There is also much in the movie to interest film buffs given that the cinematographer, a German, was a master of German Expressionist cinema and film noir, which derived from it. 

Yet it is the haunting "Aayega aanewala" and its singer, Lata Mangeshkar, who is never seen in the film, which still make the movie a topic of conversation even today among people who've never seen Mahal. There was a secret to how the haunting sound was achieved, as Kabir explains for India Outlook:

"Today sound perspectives are created using digital technology. But Aayega, aayega... was recorded more than 60 years ago. In an interview, Lata Mangeshkar once told me how much inventiveness Amrohi, composer Prakash and she brought to the recording to the give the song a ghostly feel: she stood in a corner of the studio, with the microphone at its centre, and walked towards the microphone singing the opening verse, from Khamosh hai zamana... to is aas key sahare, and when she got close to the mike, she sang the refrain, Aayega, aayega.... After much trial and error with this procedure, the song was finally recorded to everyone’s satisfaction."

Here is the English translation of the lyrics:

Time stands still,

The stars are silent,
The world is at rest.
Yet my heart is uneasy.
Suddenly, I hear footsteps nearing,
As though someone were
walking through my heart.
Or is it the sound of my heart
quickening with hope?
The one meant to return
will return

********

Steven Mnuchin's position does not absolve him of the Judgment at Nuremberg

April 24, 2017, TASS:

The US sanctioned on Monday 271 employees of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center in connection with an alleged use of chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun (Idlib province), the US Department of the Treasury said. 

"These 271 SSRC employees have expertise in chemistry and related disciplines and/or have worked in support of SSRC’s chemical weapons program since at least 2012," the press center reported.

The statement qualified Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), as "the Syrian government agency responsible for developing and producing non-conventional weapons and the means to deliver them".

The report also quoted Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin speaking on the decision. 

The statement [identified] Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), as "the Syrian government agency responsible for developing and producing non-conventional weapons and the means to deliver them".

The report also quoted Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin speaking on the decision. 

"The United States is sending a strong message with this action that we will hold the entire Assad regime accountable for these blatant human rights violations in order to deter the spread of these types of barbaric chemical weapons," the treasury secretary said. "We... will relentlessly pursue and shut down the financial networks of all individuals involved with the production of chemical weapons used to commit these atrocities". ...

So much information has come into the public domain about the April 4 Khan Shaykhun chemical incident that I would find it hard to accept Steven Mnuchin doesn't know that he is bearing false witness by calling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government poisoners.

My question is whether Mnuchin is aware that Befehl ist Befehl ("Just following orders") has not been an acceptable legal defense since the Nuremberg Judgment. 

The same question could be asked about any others serving the White House who have knowingly borne false witness against Assad to rationalize the April 6 military strike against the Syrian government that was ordered by the American president.

For those who need a refresher, here is Principle IV of the Nuremberg Judgment:

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him".

Not only under "international law."  No civilized country can any longer accept that a person's official capacity acquits him of responsibility for following orders that amount to a war crime.

********

They're escalating. 2 recent robberies use militarized swarm tactics

1. Paraguay: "Robbery of the century": Gang unleashes war tactics as up to $40mn stolen (GRAPHIC IMAGES, VIDEO); April 25:

A group of up to 50 armed assailants laid siege to a police headquarters in Paraguay on Monday while stealing up to $40 million from a security firm. Four people were killed in what was dubbed the “robbery of the century” and subsequent police operations.

The gang, believed by police to include members of notorious Brazilian drug gang First Capital Command, targeted the headquarters of Prosegur, a security company specialising in the transportation of cash in the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este.

An explosive blew open the front of the facility, killing one policeman who was on guard, reported BBC Mundo. The gang then seized the contents of the firm’s vault, described by public prosecutor Denise Duarte as being full at the time. Police said the vault can hold $40 million in cash but the amount stolen has yet to be confirmed.

The gang, believed by police to include members of notorious Brazilian drug gang [First Command of the Capital], targeted the headquarters of Prosegur, a security company specialising in the transportation of cash in the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este.

Heavy gunfire can be heard in video geo-located to Ciudad del Este and shared to social media at the time of the incident.

[...]

2. USA, April 24: BART takeover robbery: 40 to 60 teens swarm train, hold up riders:

BART police are beefing up patrols at Oakland [California] stations after dozens of juveniles terrorized riders Saturday night when they invaded the Coliseum Station and commandeered at least one train car, forcing passengers to hand over bags and cell phones and leaving at least two with head injuries.

The incident occurred around 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Witnesses told police that 40 to 60 juveniles flooded the station, jumped the fare gates and rushed to the second-story train platform. Some of the robbers apparently held open the doors of a Dublin-bound train car while others streamed inside, confronting and robbing and in some cases beating riders.

“I’ve been there 24 years and this is the first time I’ve heard of anything like this happening,” said Keith Garcia, a BART police officer and union president.

[...]

******** 
 

A neuropharmacologist debunks use of sarin in the Khan Shaykhun incident

CNN, April 13, 2017: 

The US military and intelligence community has intercepted communications featuring Syrian military and chemical experts talking about preparations for the sarin attack in [Khan Shaykhun] Idlib last week, a senior US official tells CNN. ...

From Denis O'Brien's April 13, 2017 post at LogoPhere:

... let me make it absolutely clear that as one trained in neuropharmacology I know with absolute certainty that the [April 4 incident in Khan Shaykhun - "KS"],  like the one in Ghouta in 2013, was not a sarin attack.  ...

After taking verbal pokes at reporters and officials involved in the sarin poisoning hoax, O'Brien settles into presenting LogoPhere's Top Ten Ways to Tell When You're Being Spoofed by a False-Flag Sarin Attack. 

http://logophere.com/Topics2017/17-04/17_017-BLA-Sarin.htm

Here I'm just going to extract from his article the 10 subject headers and a few sentences under each heading and/or summarize his explanation under each header. 

#1. People intoxicated with sarin don't look well. Ever. None of them. 

It amazes me that I would even have to raise this point. But what also amazes me is how often one sees perfectly healthy looking people being passed off as "sarin victims" ...

  #2. People intoxicated with sarin don't gasp, cough, cry, or pant. 

Anoxia is one of those medical conditions that is either corrected immediately or never.  Anoxia is when the amount of oxygen in the blood drops too low to sustain life. Anoxia is what sarin victims succumb to, and the reason is that sarin paralyzes the muscles required to move air in and out of the lungs -- the respiratory muscles. Understanding this simple pharmacological fact is key to understanding so much of what is going on in the fake sarin videos. ...

#3: People intoxicated with sarin don't often foam at the mouth. 

... The physiological issue with the foaming is much the same as with coughing and panting.  Sarin does produce an increase in the production of mucus in the airways -- bronchorrhea -- but if the respiratory muscles are compromised or totally paralyzed, all of that mucus will not likely be pushed into the mouth and nose, nor will there be enough air-flow to aerate the mucus into a foam.  The more common scenario is that the mucus will plug-up the airways and add to the victim's respiratory problems.  ... 

[Foaming could occur if the antidote atropine was administered immediately after the victim was exposed to sarin; see the article for details.]

#4 & #5: People intoxicated with sarin defecate massively and urinate all over themselves. 

Many of the "victims" shown in these dramatic videos from KS are shown in their underwear, which is, in an of itself, a little odd because when I worked in an ER, one of the first things we did with seriously ill patients of all kinds was to cut all of their clothes off so the clothes didn't get in the way or contaminate anything. But the point I want to make here is that in these terrorists' videos if the victims had soiled themselves, it would be immediately evident. And not just for the ones shown in their underwear. ... And the reason ... is that sarin squeezes the smooth muscles of the intestines and bladder so hard that everything is going to come out. ... the lack of feces and urine staining a person's clothes is one of the most evident clues that the person has not been poisoned by sarin.

[He makes the point that the videos of victims show their underwear to be clean]

#6:  People intoxicated with sarin will vomit up everything they haven't defecated.

From both the physiological and evidentiary points of view, this diagnostic point is much the same as the last one.  Sarin causes the smooth muscle that make up the stomach walls to contract so tightly that the person will vomit profusely and the evidence of such emesis will be readily visible.   .... I have waded through dozens and dozens of these videos purporting to show Assad's sarin attacks on his own people, I have seen hundreds of "victims" in those videos, and in all of that supposed sarin-carnage [including the 2013 Ghouta attack] I have only seen two possible examples of vomiting. 

#7&8:  People intoxicated with sarin will produce a large volume of tears and a large volume of watery saliva.

One of the fetishes of the people making these anti-Assad sarin-porn movies is pin-point pupils, aka "miosis."  ... Sure, sarin causes miosis, but then so do a lot of drugs ...

... sarin acts directly on the tear glands to produce a constant, uncontrollable stream of tears. And yet what the terrorists show us [in videos] when shining flashlights in "victims'" eyes is not just pin-point pupils but also absolutely dry eyes, meaning the person could not have possibly been exposed to sarin.  

And they do this over and over again, proving every time what liars they are.  You can find dozens of these pin-point pupil episodes, and none showing excessive tears, except for kids who are crying.  

And it is much the same with the salivary glands -- sarin directly stimulates them, too. And this would produce a large amount of saliva and copious drooling.  So when the terrorist cameraman zooms in for the iconic shot of some poor distressed child's face close-up, and the child is not drooling like a bull mastiff at dinner time, then we have more proof that sarin was not involved in whatever the child's problem is, and most likely, neither was Assad.

#9: People intoxicated with sarin turn blue. Always. 

[My summary: Sarin creates cyanosis, which is most strikingly evident "in the lips, cheeks, ears, and nose where the blood vessels come close to the surface of the skin." O'Brien makes the point that there is no available photographic record, not anywhere or at any time including the KS incident, of a purported sarin victim showing cyanosis. So to convey exactly what cyanosis looks like, O'Brien publishes a rare photograph of a cyanotic condition although not from sarin. Again, none of the videos and photos produced in relation to the KS incident show purported victims with blue or blue-tinged skin.]

#10.   People intoxicated with sarin never turn pink or red. Never.

From the foregoing description of cyanosis, it should not surprise you to learn that people exposed to sarin -- certainly sarin at high enough concentrations to kill -- do not turn red or pink, which is called being rubicund.  Sarin causes anoxia, which causes the blood to turn bluish, which causes people to turn bluish, but blood that has large amounts of oxygen is bright red, which is why anyone who has been intoxicated with sarin cannot, physiologically speaking, be rubicund. 

And yet look at the victims in those sarin-porn flicks that the terrorists put up on YouTube. Look at their skin color. Over and over and over the skin color is pink to bright red.  Look at the victims shown in the images under points #1, #2, #3, #4 & #5 above. ...

[...]

Denis O'Brien makes several other points in this, his third deconstruction for the public of the sarin poisoning hoax, but the above are the 10 key points about the symptoms of sarin poisoning.

As to those who might worry that by publishing the truth about the symptoms, this will help the terrorists who stage sarin hoaxes and the governments that collude with them -- if they got another chance to fool the public about such a serious matter, then yes, I assume they would be more careful in the future to stage accurate depictions of symptoms. I do not think they are going to get another chance.

Most definitely you would want to read O'Brien's entire exposition, which he simplifies very well for laypersons, and which includes several photographs. You need to understand in detail the extent of the contempt with which governments and news organizations who claim and report on the use of sarin by Syria's government hold the public.  

I refuse to blame this on stupidity, unless I am to accept that the world's wealthiest governments and news organizations were so stupid they never consulted with even one pharmacologist to determine the most telling signs of sarin poisoning. No, they knew; they've known for years. It's just that they also knew the public didn't know the symptoms.  So they proclaimed blatant lies to our faces, then they laughed at us.     

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Shooting of a conservationist in Kenya: a deadly mix of drought, corruption, politics

"There's a lot of, actually, politicians, people within the police, people within the administration, storing their wealth in cattle and laundering ill-gotten money through cattle." - Kuki Gallmann's daughter 

Kuki, 73, is a tough old bird; today she survived a severe wound to her stomach from a gunshot that was clearly meant as an assassination attempt. My prayers for her swift and complete recovery.

Kuki Gallmann at her conservancy in Kenya

Daughter of Italian climber and writer Cino Boccazzi, Kuki Gallmann, fascinated by Africa, moved to Kenya with her husband Paolo and son Emanuele in 1972. They acquired Ol ari Nyiro, a 98,000 acre estate in Western Laikipia in Kenya's Great Rift Valley. At the time the estate was still a cattle ranch, which she would later transform into a conservation park. Both her husband and son eventually died in tragic accidents ... Kuki decided to stay on in Kenya to make a difference. She chose to work toward ecological conservation in the early '80s, becoming a Kenyan citizen.

As a living memorial to Paolo and Emanuele she established the Gallmann Memorial Foundation (GMF), which promotes coexistence of people and nature in Africa and is active in education, biodiversity research, habitat protection, reforestation, community service, peace and reconciliation, poverty alleviation and public health. GMF promotes environmental education of Kenyan students. She dedicated Ol ari Nyiro to this ideal, converting it into the Laikipia Nature Conservancy. ... [Wikipedia] 

"I Dreamed of Africa" Author And Conservationist, Shot In Kenya
By Miles Parks

April 23, 20172:26 PM ET
NPR

Kuki Gallmann, a conservationist best known for her book I Dreamed of Africa, was ambushed and shot while she drove across her conservancy in Kenya Sunday morning.

Gallmann, 73, was shot in the stomach and "severely injured" while surveying her property with rangers of the Kenya Wildlife Service, according to her brother-in-law Nigel Adams and a press release from a farmers' association of which she's a member.

She was flown to a hospital in Nairobi for treatment, and was still conscious and speaking after the attack, according to The New York Times.

Her conservancy, the Laikipia Nature Conservancy, has been the center of a bloody battle for weeks, as a large-scale drought has pushed cattle-herders to extreme measures to try and find grazing land.

NPR's Eyder Peralta spoke on All Things Considered earlier this month about the issue, after the owner of another ranch was shot and killed.

"You have nomadic herders who are moving into private wildlife conservancies with thousands of heads of cattle," Peralta said. "And in response, the Kenyan government launched a military-style operation to push the herders out. But what we've seen is an escalation of violence. Police have killed lots of cows. And the herders have responded by burning tourist lodges on the properties."

In fact, Gallmann was said to be surveying arson damage inflicted on her property, when she was attacked.

Members of the Pokot and Samburu tribes have long grazed on conservancy land in Kenya, but over the past few years things have changed. Herders have brought more and more cows, killed other wildlife, and begun to vandalize property. Gallmann's daughter, Sveva Gallmann, told NPR last month that the escalation concerned her.

"That's not just grass," she said. "That is heavily politicized violence. And that is what's much more worrying about this situation."

She added that she doesn't think the herders even own many of the cows.

"There's a lot of, actually, politicians, people within the police, people within the administration storing their wealth in cattle and laundering ill-gotten money through cattle," she said.

Government officials deny those claims.

Kenya has a national election coming up in August, and local land owners also blame politicians for inciting herders to push their cattle onto privately-owned land as a way of boosting their popularity, reports the United Kingdom's The Telegraph.

In an interview with NPR Sunday, Martin Evans, the chair of the Laikipia Farmers' Association, agreed that the battle between the herders and the Kenya Defense forces is politically motivated.

"It started a year ago," Evans said. "At the time it started, there was plenty of rain, it was nothing to do with lack of grass at that time so yes, I think it's definitely being pushed by politicians."

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta's office issued a statement warning politicians in the area not to inflame the situation with "reckless rhetoric."

"Politicians encouraging invasions of privately-owned property or attacks on individuals can expect strong deterrent action in terms of the law," Kenyatta's spokesman, Manoah Esipisu, said.

In the last month, the violence seemed to be escalating on the Gallmann ranch. Herders burned down a famous resort on her property, and she exchanged text messages last week with The New York Times that showed her concern.

"Pokot militia openly carrying firearms," Gallmann wrote on April 15. "Not just herders. Group of armed men without livestock. 13 firearm spotted."

[...]

NPR's Eyder Peralta contributed to this report.

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April in Paris

April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom
Holiday tables under the trees

April in Paris,
This is a feeling no one can ever reprise

I never knew the charm of Spring, never met it face to face
I never knew my heart could sing

Never missed a warm embrace
'Til April in Paris

I never knew my heart could sing
I never missed a warm embrace
'Til April in Paris

Whom can I run to?
What have you done to my heart?

Photographs are from the Daily Mail report published 13:42 EDT, 20 April 2017; updated 19:38 EDT, 20 April 2017 and headlined "Dramatic video captures French police shooting dead terrorist who killed officer and wounded two others just days before French election - as it's revealed he was released EARLY from 20 year sentence for trying to kill cops" 

Lyrics, above, for "April in Paris" by Yip Harburg, composition by Vernon Duke.  

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