'Tis the Season

sloes                                 gin                                            

Tennistastic!!!

What a tournament, what a match. Congrats to the Belgium organisers of the Davies Cup final who, in difficult security circumstances, staged a brilliant event. What a crowd, such a contrast to the stuffiness of Wimbledon. Great to see supporters who can be partisan and friends at the same time. One of the best doubles matches ever, and the Murray/Goffin match worthy of Centre Court.

Again, well done everyone who had a hand in this event.

Let's just drop a few more bombs!

(article from 'Dispatches' No 79)

In the early morning hours of 3 October, a U.S. gunship repeatedly bombed a Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan. The attacks killed 22 people, including 12 MSF staff and 10 patients, and injured more than three dozen patients and MSF staff. The hospital itself was destroyed, leaving several hundred thousand people without access to emergency trauma care. 

Survivors have recounted it as a horrifying experience. Beyond that, attacking a protected site such as a hospital is a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions. The precise GPS coordinates of the four-year-old MSF hospital in Kunduzwere provided to U.S. and Afghan authorities in Washington and Kabul in the days prior to the bombing, and the hospital contained nearly 200 patients and staff at the time of the attack.

Investigations have been launched by the U.S., NATO, and the Afghan government, but it is impossible to expect the parties involved in the conflict to carry out independent and impartial investigations of acts in which they themselves are implicated.

It was for that reason, and in the name of our killed and wounded colleagues and patients—and for all of our staff and patients worldwide—that MSF called for an independent international investigation into the events of 3 October by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC), the only permanent body set up specifically to investigate violations of international humanitarian law.

Now that the call to mobilise the IHFFC has been answered, we are calling for the United States and the Obama administration to consent to the IHFFC investigation into the Kunduz hospital bombing, as it must before a truly impartial truth-seeking investigation can be launched.

PLEASE SIGN NOW!

By signing this petition, you can add your voice to these calls and demand that parties to this conflict—and parties to conflicts the world over—respect the statutes of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions

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