Featuring words partly inspired by one of the hundreds of hand-written anonymous placards carried at the Jan 3rd demonstration in London our Palestine 09 design expresses vividly the cycle of despair that has turned the tiny Gaza strip into a war zone of Israeli reprisals using its overwhelming military might. JUST £16.99! Helping to raise funds for the Viva Palestina aid convoy to Gaza.
In an unusually strong statement, the Dalai Lama made clear he has doubts that his existing conciliatory approach towards the Chinese government can work. The Tibetan leader, however, added that his “middle-way” approach has received support from increasing numbers of Chinese scholars and said he still holds faith in the Chinese people and has not given up on efforts to convince them. Several international media outlets misquoted the Dalai Lama as having said he’d “given up” on pressing the Chinese government on Tibet’s future.Full story - Australia Tibet Council - Dalai Lama Signals Strategy Shift With China
Wartime records and memoirs show that the emperor and some of his aides wanted to end the war by the summer of 1945. But they were vacillating and couldn't prevail over a military that was determined to keep going even if that meant, as a navy official urged at one meeting, "sacrificing 20 million Japanese lives".
The atomic bombings broke this political stalemate and were thus described by Mitsumasa Yonai, the navy minister at the time, as a "gift from heaven".
Without the atomic bombings, Japan would have continued fighting by inertia.
This would have meant more firebombing of Japanese cities and a ground invasion, planned for November 1945, of the main Japanese islands. The fighting over the small, sparsely populated islands of Okinawa had killed 14,000 Americans and 200,000 Japanese, and in the main islands the toll would have run into the millions.
We knew the world would not be the same [streaming video]. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that one way or another.
HIROSHIMA, Japan (AFP) - The mayor of Hiroshima on Wednesday urged the next US president to work to abolish atomic weapons as the city marked the 63rd anniversary of the world's first nuclear attack.
