Mick Hartley

The latest from the Islamic Republic of Sudan (via), from Daniel Tugume at the Uganda Observer:

A Sudanese judge, Sami Ibrahim Shabo sentenced to death by stoning a young woman accused of committing adultery.

Intisar Sharif Abdalla, believed to be between 15 and 17 years of age (although prison authorities claim she is 20) was sentenced to death in accordance with Article 146 of the Sudanese criminal law albeit without legal representation.

The judgment was made on May 13, 2012 after just one hearing and came after an “admission of guilt” plea following torture and brutal beatings by Sharif’s brother who instigated the case. Her co-accused however remains un-convicted and walks freely.

This absurd decision demonstrates both the inhumane and brutal sanctioning to death for committing sexual relations outside of marriage, but furthermore calls into questions the legal institutions and frameworks applied, especially as the “admission of guilt” was made under duress.

Sharif is accused of having a relationship outside wedlock and getting impregnated by a man that is not legally her husband.  Initially, she and the man whom she is co-accused with both denied the charges.

Her lawyer, only able to access her after the judgment was made, understands that following her initial denial she was beaten up and tortured repeatedly by her brother forcing her to confess to committing adultery. With the ‘coerced’ confession, Judge Sami Ibrahim Shabo of Ombada General Criminal Court, Khartoum state, sentenced her to stoning after just one court session.

Sharif is understood to be deeply traumatized and is without access to any suitable psychosocial support. Her newly born child is also with her in prison. Ultimately, some observers believe the judgment demonstrates the scale of discrimination against women and girls in Sudan and the biased judgments made against them for acts which involves two sexes – a man and woman.

I think they might be on to something there, these observers.

London street art animation from Dr Cream (via):

More from the semi-derelict Kingsland Estate, Hackney (previously):

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which is being transformed by artist Nazir Tanbouli:

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More weirdness from street artist Sweet Toof, on the Lea across from the Olympic site:

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Meanwhile, what's the story with those Chinese fishermen captured by North Korea last week?

The BBC had an anodyne little piece yesterday:

The 29 Chinese fishermen and three boats seized in the Yellow Sea by unidentified North Koreans have been released back to China, reports say.

The North Korean foreign ministry notified the Chinese embassy in Pyongyang on Sunday that the men were free, said Xinhua news agency.

They arrived in the northeast port city of Dalian on Monday, it said.

The group were seized on 8 May in the Yellow Sea, which lies between China and North Korea.

The men were in "sound health condition with sufficient food and healthcare", Jiang Yaxian, a counsellor at the Chinese embassy in Pyongyang, told Xinhua news agency.

The captors had asked for payment in return for the release of the men and boats, Chinese media reported, but Xinhua's report did not say whether payment had been made.

It remains unclear if the boats were seized by North Korean authorities or kidnappers, as some reports have suggested.

We learn more here:

The publication of the Chinese Communist Party, People’s Daily reported today that the Chinese fishermen who were released after being captured by North Korea were assaulted and most of their belongings were taken from their vessels. A similar article was carried by a sister publication, Global Times.

According to, Zhu Chuang, the captain of fishing vessel Liaodanyu No. 23536, it was North Korean soldiers who captured the Chinese fishermen, and most could not speak Chinese well.

The armed soldiers approached on a speedboat and, upon boarding, took the Chinese fishermen’s cell phones away, disabled the communications equipment on the ship and took the boats to North Korea. The soldiers moored the three ships on an island and locked the Chinese fishermen in a cabin used to store waste.

On the second day, the soldiers forced the captain to sign a document stating that they had been captured while fishing illegally.

Thereafter, the soldiers ordered the captain to ask the ship’s owner via satellite phone to transfer the ransom money, warning him that if he strayed from the script he would be beaten.

The fishermen also testified that their nets, wallets, personal belongings and clothing were all taken.

Captain Zhu remembered that the satellite navigation device was pointing to N 38° 39’ by E 125° 02’. If correct, the Chinese fishermen were held in Gwail County, South Hwanghae Province.

Where, we are informed, starvation conditions apply.

Could the kidnappers be desperate rogue soldiers, then? Or was this seizure sanctioned higher up? And, given that the case has attracted considerable attention in China, including a mention in the official People's Daily, can we expect a more robust reponse from the Chinese than is usually the case with such indiscretions from their troublesome little neighbour?

From the Daily NK:

Food shortages in the North Korean agricultural heartland of Hwanghae Province are leading to starvation deaths, Daily NK has learned. A significant percentage of cooperative farm workers are reportedly too malnourished to work, and a number are leaving their farms to seek help.

A North Hwanghae Province source told the Daily NK in recent days, “Local people are in pain from hunger, but the only help that households short of food are receiving from the authorities is 1 or 2 kg of corn; it’s emergency relief but only sufficient to stop them starving. Seeing the situation getting worse and with help from the authorities being so inadequate, there are people leaving for other areas to get help from family.”

The source gave an example of one village, saying, “Hangae-ri in Shingye County alone has seen a total of six children and elderly people die of starvation. At the same time, all the authorities are doing is telling everyone to try and overcome the difficulties.” ...

There are three main reasons for the widespread food insecurity in North and South Hwanghae Province in recent months. First, production in 2011 fell locally due to flooding; second, military units charged with procuring supplies from farms sent most of the autumn harvest to military stores or for public distribution in Pyongyang. Finally, during the 100-day mourning period for Kim Jong Il (December 17th-March 25th) market trading was disrupted, removing the food safety net that has helped North Korea to avoid famine repeatedly in recent years. 

Market trading was initially forbidden in this period, and although markets did soon reopen on the orders of Kim Jong Eun, the source said that since only people who hold a specific entry permit can enter militarily sensitive South Hwanghae and Gangwon Province, “the Haeju area got cut off because it was impossible to obtain a travel permit.”

As food insecurity worsened, people reportedly urged officials to help, but violating Party decrees during the mourning period was seen as more than their life was worth. 

Tokyo Shinmun reported in mid April that 20,000 people had died of starvation in three counties in South Hwanghae Province; Baechon, Yeonan and Chungdan. Though information about inaccessible and sparsely populated Gangwon Province is limited, it seems unlikely that the area could avoid cases of starvation entirely.

Another report:

Example interviews published in Korean by ASIAPRESS include a woman in her 40s from South Hwanghae Province who claimed that for her the “situation is more difficult than during the ‘March of Tribulation’,” referring to the famine that killed many hundres of thousands of North Koreans in the 1990s.

“The food situation is worse than it was three years ago,” the woman went on. “The waiting room at the station in Sariwon in North Hwanghae Province is overflowing with beggar children, both boys and girls, younger and older.”

A man in his 30s from South Hwanghae Province also testified similarly, saying that “Malnutrition is getting more prevalent for farmers. The farming is going really badly.”

Another witness, from North Hamkyung Province but with experience of visiting Hwanghae, claimed, “I heard from a Hwanghae Province resident that people dead from starvation are appearing in Haeju every day.

And here:

To North Korean defectors, it is clear that the civilian starvation is a direct result of the decision to prioritize the military under the military-first policy and the subsequent obligation on the part of cooperative farms to provide rice for soldiers, coupled to controls covering trading activities by farm employees.

AFP have picked up the story:

Food shortages have worsened even in North Korea’s southwestern rice belt and some residents have starved to death there, a Seoul-based online newspaper said Monday....

Good Friends, a Seoul-based aid group, also said on its website that starvation continued to claim victims throughout South Hwanghae. At Hwanghae Steelworks some workers had died because food rations stopped, it said.

December 1942, Melrose Park, Illinois. "L. Logan, of West Chicago, boilermaker at the Proviso Yard roundhouse, Chicago & North Western R.R." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano, Office of War Information:

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[Photo: Shorpy/Jack Delano]

Full size.

Abney Park Cemetery:

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From the Iranian Fars News Agency:

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi said threats and pressures cannot deter Iran from its revolutionary causes and ideals, and stressed that the Iranian nation will remain committed to the full annihilation of the Zionist regime of Israel to the end.

Clear enough? Or perhaps it's another recycled lie.

At Rothamsted Research they're developing a genetically modified wheat that can repel insect pests by emitting a natural repellent, thus obviating the need for pesticides. Three weeks ago we heard about a group of green activists calling themselves Take the Flour Back who vowed to trash the place, because...well, because that's what green activists do. You can read more about the controversy here, plus a Nature editorial here.

The destruction was planned for the 27th May. But now:

A man has been charged with criminal damage following a break-in at the Rothamsted Research centre where a trial of GM wheat is being held.

Rothamsted said that crops had been vandalised, causing "significant" damage.

The incident took place on Sunday morning at the centre's test site in Harpenden, Hertfordshire.

The project aims to see whether the modified crops can deter aphids - a major wheat pest.

Rothamsted has previously pleaded with anti-GM campaigners not to destroy their experimental plots, which they say could help reduce pesticide use.

But opponents of GM technology claim that planting the crops in the open air would allow modified pollen to get out into the surrounding environment.

Rothamsted have issued a statement:

This vandalism is consistent with the threats made by the protest group "take the flour back" and despite our best efforts to engage with them over recent months we are disappointed by this course of action, attempting to destroy our scientific experiment through illegal activity.

The trial has been approved by the independent Government advisory group, ACRE (the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment), who said it was "satisfied that all appropriate measures have been taken to avoid adverse effects to human health and the environment from the proposed release" back in September 2011.”

Director Maurice Moloney said “This act of vandalism has attempted to deny us all the opportunity to gather knowledge and evidence, for current and future generations, on one possible technological alternative approach to get plants to defend themselves and therefore reduce pesticide use.

More links at sense about science.

Wheler Street, Shoreditch:

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Ralph Eugene Meatyard, from Normal, Illinois? Yes, his photographs were strange:

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[“Untitled,” ca. 1968. © The Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.]

David Blackburn at the Spectator meets Shin Dong-hyuk, the subject of "Escape from Camp 14" (previously here and here) and talks to author Blaine Harden:

The military and nuclear threats have created what Harden calls “the most extraordinarily long living extortion known to man.” Diplomats call North Korea the “impossible state”. The Kim regime banks on us caring more for North Koreans than it does. The caring West, and particularly the United States, usually sends food and medical aid to North Korea. The aid is immediately confiscated by the regime and distributed among its security forces, perpetuating humanitarian crisis among the general population. Hunger is the Dear Leader’s most reliable servant; the people don’t have the energy to revolt.

Shin journeyed north from Camp 14 through a land of want and ignorance. He survived by theft, joining a band of Dickensian urchins who pillaged wherever they went. It is plain from Shin’s account that the regime’s economic control has degenerated into nothing. Black markets thrive, supplied by goods smuggled across the Chinese border. The Kims tolerate this nascent capitalism because the country’s broken economy would disintegrate without it. The dictatorship is adaptable, which explains its tragic durability.

But Harden says that other pillars of tyranny are crumbling as state education is undermined by malnutrition. “Defectors come to Hanawon (a resettlement area in South Korea). They’ve weighed and measured them all over a decade and the young men are about 5 inches shorter than their South Korean counterparts. The same is true, but to a lesser extent for the women. Most nutritionally deprived North Koreans are cognitively impaired.”

This is beginning to affect the security services. Shin bribes his way into China by giving ragged soldiers a few packets of biscuits. CIA assessments say that the regime’s greatest challenge is to find enough recruits who were not mentally damaged by infant malnutrition.

Related: North Korea vs. South Korea in a nutshell.

From an In Focus gallery Scenes from Brazil:

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[Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino]

Revellers relaxing during the "Carnival of All Colors" in Maragojipe city, on February 21, 2012.

Keep your eyes on the cross in the middle, and watch those celebrities turn ugly (via):

You can check that there's no trickery involved by occasionally focusing on one or the other face: yep, there they are, same as ever. 

The original version of the illusion, Pretty Girls Turn Ugly, was posted last year. Watch as a succession of ordinary looking girls turn into grotesques before your very eyes.

How does it work? Researcher Matthew B. Thompson calls it the Flashed Face Distortion Effect:

The effect seems to depend on processing each face in light of the others. By aligning the faces at the eyes and presenting them quickly, it becomes much easier to compare them, so the differences between the faces are more extreme. If someone has a large jaw, it looks almost ogre-like. If they have an especially large forehead, then it looks particularly bulbous. We’re conducting several experiments right now to figure out exactly what’s causing this effect, so watch this space!