pesan buat kawan yang alpa.

lukisanmu
dikanvas itu
berbingkai seni berwarna-warna
yang kau pamirkan
didewan dihatimu
kini
tersadai dihujung sepi
bila
semua
pintu dan tingkap-tingkap
tertutup dengan ganasnya
dihempas sang angin
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lalu kau menangis
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didalam gelap.

Yemeni Security Forces Crack Down, Leave over 80 Killed

19 March 2011 :: staff

Yesterday, there were reports of snipers taking up positions around peaceful, unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators, then firing into the crowd, inflicting fatal headshots and hitting other victims in the neck. At least one journalist was killed and another injured in the crackdown, and dozens of journalists have reportedly been targeted —detained, beaten, shot at— since the Saleh regime’s crackdown began.

The violence yesterday has reportedly left at least 48 people dead, and Pres. Saleh has used the killings to declare a state of emergency. Critics say the snipers were plainclothes government agents sent to kill and to terrorize peaceful demonstrators. It now appears the Yemeni government has been involved in deliberate crimes against humanity, using lethal violence against unarmed civilians.

With the crisis in Libya, these other outposts of the “Jasmine Revolution”, the wave of democratic protest spreading across the Arabic-speaking world this winter, have been pushed to the margins of major global news reports on the region. The Center for American Progress publication Think Progress has studied the incidence of news reporting and found the Yemen protests getting significantly less coverage than Libya.

The al-Khalifa monarchy in Bahrain has also been escalating its deliberate use of violence to crush the protest movement there, putting the US in a difficult situation, as it goes to war to protect civilians in Libya, while two close allies are systematically engaging in brutal and deadly attacks on their own people, to maintain fundamentally undemocratic regimes.

Saleh has denied involvement in the mass killing of civilian demonstrators in Sana’a, and it now appears likely the state of emergency will be used to impose extreme penalties on anyone associated with the protest movement, which the government is characterizing as promoting unrest and violence.

With clear evidence now emerging of a systematic, centrally controlled campaign of extreme violence against civilians, apparently planned and carried out by the Saleh regime, the international community must now face the uncomfortable prospect of imposing harsh sanctions on one of the most unstable states in the world, where major powers have key strategic and security interests and there is currently a war ongoing against an al Qaeda linked insurgency.

UPDATE, 4:02 pm EDT: New reports from the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, suggest a new wave of attacks on civilians, leaving more than 80 people dead in the course of this weekend’s bloody crackdown.

Reports from Fukushima find 10 Million Times Normal Radiation

27 March 2011 :: J.E. Robertson

Reports from Tokyo today have authorities telling residents water is now safe for infant consumption, even as reports from Fukushima show radiation levels may have surged to 10 million times the normal level. Readings taken 30 miles out to sea have found radiation levels in seawater at 1,850 times the normal level. More nations around the Pacific Ocean are expressing concern about the handling of the disaster.

There appears to be a rising tension between Japanese government officials and the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, TEPCo. When three plant workers were reportedly exposed to highly dangerous levels of radiation, two of them hospitalized with severe radiation burns, government officials suggested the radiation may have come from a breach of the reactor core and TEPCo officials retorted that the leak could be coming from a water-pumping system.

It is unclear whether the high levels of radiation can be confirmed, as there may be, at the moment, too much danger for workers to return to the site where the 10-million-times radiation reading was taken. Officials have said they are not concerned about the seawater radiation levels, because ocean currents will “disperse” the radiation. But concern about seafood, Japan’s seafood industry, food supply and the impact on marine life, is mounting.

As reports of the spike in radiation levels went out this morning, there have been more warnings that even the initial process of containment will last for months. It is now becoming clear that the Fukushima disaster will be similar to the Chernobyl disaster in at least one respect: there will be a need for plant workers to continue going into an environment of extreme danger, for many years after the crisis is more or less brought under control, on a daily basis, to make sure the containment operation is running smoothly.

There are increasing calls for a long-term strategy, designed to roll back and contain the release of radiation, on a permanent basis, along with the permanent cool shut-down of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Critics of the crisis response have suggested government and power-company officials may be hoping to avoid that kind of long-term permanent shut-down, and that this reluctance may be hindering the planning for a comprehensive crisis resolution.

As of this writing, several questions remain unanswered:

1. What is the source of intensely radioactive water that hospitalized at least two plant workers last week?
2. Have one or more reactor cores been breached?
3. Are elevated levels of radiation in the Pacific Ocean a permanent contamination?
4. If so, of how wide an area?
5. Of what sort of marine life?
6. Is there any way to prevent radiation in seawater from entering the human food supply?
7. Has meltdown begun in one or more reactor cores?
8. Is there any way to contain radiation emanating from the spent-fuel cooling pools?
9. Will the Japanese government and TEPCo agree to permanently shut-down, secure and seal the Fukushima reactors and spent-fuel cooling pools?
10. Is there a plan in place to achieve long-term containment?

These are just the most urgent questions. There are others that must be asked, by extension. For instance: how is radiation reaching Tokyo in such levels that drinking water was considered no longer safe for infant consumption last week? Then: how can those radiation levels be considered safer now, as levels measured at the source of the radiation —the Fukushima Daiichi plant— soared?

These are difficult questions. No one could possibly envy the officials forced to deal with them, much less the workers who have to do the most dangerous work on the ground. But they are open questions, and tens of thousands of lives will likely hinge on how well and how swiftly they are answered. It is possible to answer these concerns directly, in a forthright manner, and with a scientifically viable crisis response. But it is not possible to do any of that, if authorities do not fully admit to the radical long-term gravity of what they are dealing with.

PESANAN UNTUK ALGOJO BANGSAKU

Tenggelammu dalam putaran arus
Terjahan kata-kata yang pekat
Jiwamu lantasnya
Mendambakan kedamaian
Musik senimu dalam irama yang sumbang
Gendang-gendang cuba melakarkan seribu pujian
Tiada langsung sentuhan seni budaya
Kekalutan semata yang menghambatmu
Dalam sebuah okestra.

Dataran ini nak kau nobatkan
Buat mencapai hasratmu
Yang berkarat tanpa secebis keluhuran
Kesangsian yang bersarang
Dalam kalutnya okestramu
Yang kau rangka
Demi hidangan untuk Sang Ratu,
Menjelma sebagai
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Pada sebuah karya picisan.

Serupa dan seiras itu biasa - jadi jangan terburu-buru buat kesimpulan

Selagi pengesahan secara saintifik dilakukan terhadap video yang di katakan melibatkan Anwar dalam skandal seks yang dipaparkan oleh Dato Trio baru-baru ini tidak siapa yang boleh membuat pengesahan secara sendirian. Tuduhan ini merupakan tuduhan yang serius dan perkara ini merupakan perkara yang boleh memecah belahkan negara.

Di akhir zaman ini tidak boleh sesiapa menganggapkan apa yang kita nampak benar itu betul dan apa yang kita nampak salah itu fitnah dan tidak betul. Bayangkan jika kita hidup di zaman Nuh alaihissalam dahulu mungkin kita akan percaya yang nuh adalah seorang yang gila kerana semua manusia di zaman itu percaya persepsi semua dalam masyarakat nuh itu seorang yang gila kerana membina kapal yang begitu besar di padang pasir yang berbukit-bukit. Akhirnya apabila bah besar tiba barulah terbukti bahawa orang yang di katakan gila itu adalah manusia yang mempunyai mukjizat yang besar.

Tidak ada siapa yang percaya kepada Nuh kecuali beberapa orang yang telah dibuka hijabnya oleh Allah, tuhan semesta alam. Junjungan besar Muhammad saw sendiri dikatakan oleh setengah orang Islam di Kota Mekah sebagai berbohong dan kembali murtad. Ramai kembali murtad apabila Muhammad saw memberitahu yang baginda telah di israkkan dari Masjidil Haram ke Masjidil Aqsa dan seterusnya dimikrajkan dari Masjidil Aqsa ke Sidratul Muntaha bersama Jibril. Muhammad saw telah menghadap Allah bersendirian di Arash dan kembali ke Mekah dalam masa setengah malam sahaja.

Tetapi kepada siapa yang telah diangkat hijab mereka terutamanya di kalangan Yahudi semasa itu terus sahaja bermusyahadah dan berkeyakinan yang inilah sebenarnya Muhammad yang mereka di beritahu akan tiba suatu masa nanti. Mereka terus tanpa berlengah-lengah lagi dan bermusyahadah dan menjadi penganut Islam yang benar-benar mukmin.

Dalam isu video yang di katakan sebagai video seks Anwar ini, kita perlu berhati-hati membuat tuduhan yang sangat serius ini. ‘Pelakon’ yang di katakan itu mempunyai iras-iras Anwar dan ini sangat merbahaya untuk dibuat kesimpulan yang muktamad terutamanya kepada kita yang belum menyaksikan video ini.

Kita semua tahu ramai manusia yang seiras dengan manusia yang lain. Contohnya kalau kita kenal dengan Shuhaimi Ibrahim kita akan lihat yang beliau adalah seiras dengan Anwar Ibrahim. Percakapan dan suara beliau sekali pun serupa dengan Anwar Ibrahim. Eskay sendiri ada iras-iras Anwar. Kalau kita tengok gambar Ahmad Said, MB Terengganu, beliau ada iras Pol Pot dari Kamboja dahulu. Rais Yatim kalau kita tengok betul-betul ada rupa Dato Aziz Sattar, pelakon veteran era P Ramlee dahulu. Saya selalu keliru apabila melihat gambar Aziz Sattar dan Rais Yatim.

Oleh yang demikian elok kita tunggu sahaja penyiasatan secara saintifik dilakukan oleh pihak yang berwajib. Jangan terburu-buru dengan sentiment politik semata-mata kerana ianya mungkin membawa mudharat kepada politik, terutamanya kepada pihak yang berkuasa.

Oleh yang demikian fokuskan lah kepada isu-isu lain yang banyak boleh diperkatakan. ( Blog Aspan Alias)