Friday, May 30, 2008

Don't let it be

An article from the Ovi magazine

Kids live their darkest times, not that they ever lived any better times since they have been the victims all through human history, but what they have to deal with today in the beginning of the 21st century with all this social and scientific advance is nearly unbelievable. Paedophilia is nothing new and has existed since the beginning of history and in some times it was not even a taboo and a crime, the use of kids as slavery is something that we saw even at the beginning of the last century, crimes with kids as the victims are immeasurable from the beginning of history. But we thought that humanity evolved.

And when I’m talking about evolution I don’t mean the physical or the technical evolution of the society but the social evolution where humanity became better and more aware of the environment as a wide meaning. Actuality and environment, where humanity realized the crucial part it plays and its role in this gigantic chain for survival, should evolve to something better. Respect to others’ rights didn’t even exist two centuries ago and it was a case of personal honour and ethics; nowadays there are laws to protect human rights and most importantly to protect the defenceless, much more to protect the kids. But what happens when the ones who are oblige to protect the innocent and the kids turn to be the bad wolves?

A leading UK charity organization, the organization Save the Children, accused peacekeepers in Ivory Cost, Sudan and Haiti for sexually abusing kids as young as six-years-old. The dramatic part of it is that this is not the first time peacekeepers have been accused for similar cases and it still remains to find the truth what happened in the former Yugoslavia and the many places the peacekeepers where based and there is a lot of talking for similar accusations.

A thirteen-year-old girl has already described in an interview how ten UN peacekeepers gang-raped her in a field near her Ivory Coast home and I quote her own word, "They grabbed me and threw me to the ground and they forced themselves on me... I tried to escape but there were 10 of them and I could do nothing. I was terrified. Then they just left me there bleeding." Despite her testimony and recognizing her tormentors no action was taken against the soldiers. When the UN was informed and received a full report from the organization including a series of testimonies the answer was that they will study the report …closely!

According to the same organization, the testimonies they managed to collect were very few even to give an idea of the reality since most of the kids are scared to report anything in front the authority of the UN so the majority of these crimes go unpunished giving the criminals a chance to repeat their crime again and again. The UN spokesman, Nick Birnback, said to international media that it was impossible to ensure "zero incidents" within an organization that has up to 200,000 personnel serving around the world. "What we can do is get across a message of zero tolerance, which for us means zero complacency when credible allegations are raised and zero impunity when we find that there has been malfeasance that's occurred," he added.

I’m really sorry but I find his excuses very poor and sad. It's pathetic if we excuse crimes like that blaming them on …human nature and I demand a better and more careful evaluation for the peacekeepers from the UN and the responsible officers. These people are not just soldiers, they are ambassadors of peace and arguments like …zero instincts have no room here but in a mercenary army out of a Rambo film! I’m not going to go after Ban Ki-moon, the UN General Secretary, I thought from the very beginning that he was the wrong person for the seat and unfortunately he hasn’t proved me wrong; but the act and the UN’s reaction probably shows that there is something seriously wrong with our society where we can excuse acts like that arguing about human nature.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Talking to the deaf

An article from the Ovi magazine

It has been a long time since I wrote anything about Iran and that’s not because we are lacking news from Teheran or quotes from its president but because the man so often crosses the line so much that I’m speechless and cannot think of anything to write except… Man, shut your mouth, you are dangerous! The problem is that when I think of that I then read the new threats by an American politician and that makes me think that this is a totally idiotic situation.


When Ahmadinejad, Iran’s puppet president, demands the destruction of Israel you think that the man is not only an idiot but a dangerous idiot, but what can you call the US presidency hopeful Hillary Clinton when she’s warning that if Iran continues with nuclear plants she will bomb the country; she will start another war in the area? You might say that Hillary says things like this for internal use trying to attract voters who want a US international supreme police, judge and executioner. Yet, then again, how many of these people can drive a foreign policy by threatening a war that will definitely push the Middle East even further into the dark? How strong these few voters are? And if there are so many to influence foreign policy then Obama has bigger problem than he thought!

My position for this issue has been very clear from the very beginning. I’m strongly against using nuclear power for energy and that is not because I’m blinded by the dark side of the nuclear power; I have the logic to understand the need of energy in the modern world and I do understand that nuclear is one option but I'm against the use of it because there are three unsolved factors. First of all the cost is not lower, especially now we are talking about new generation nuclear plants. When governments talk about cheaper energy they mean the cost of energy after the plant is fully working but nuclear plants don’t just grow in the field one spring day, they need a huge amount of money and effort to be built and naturally all the costs lay on the consumers in the end. The use of electricity hasn’t become cheaper in Finland because there are four nuclear plants and definitely will not become cheaper after building the fifth and sixth.

The second worrying factor is the nuclear waste. Most of the countries that use nuclear power for energy have problems with nuclear waste and after poisoning oceans and African countries now they have to store this waste in their own country without been able to calculate the damage they do. Finland is using an old cave to store the nuclear waste in north western Finland but the damage which most of the scientists describe it is to be seen after two or three generations. To understand how dangerous that is you just need to look the mistakes two or three generations did in the last decades and the damage they have done to the earth today. How different things would have been if back in sixties and seventies we had done some simple things to protect environment, things we were aware back then anyway. How different would have been for metropolis like Los Angeles, London, Tokyo or even Athens cities that have become environmental monsters with their pollution and citizens with constant asthma problems.

And then it is the third factor, the human factor! All the accidents happened in nuclear plants from the Three Miles Island to Chernobyl a human error was what started the disaster and whatever they do, however much robotics develop, concrete on the cell becomes stronger and heavy water purer a human will press the right or the …wrong button in the end. Please don’t tell me that the people who work in these places are experts and fully aware of their work because the same responsible experts a few years ago sent the Challenger spacecraft to death by using cheaper material due to budgets and costs; and I’m taking the official excuse avoiding all the theories for enriching bank accounts and corrupted directors. The human error can happen in any level of the nuclear reactor and the result …well nobody knows for how long the area and the people who lived around Chernobyl when the accident happened will have to deal with and pay the cost often with their own lives. Sorry for been dramatic or cynic but nobody knows how many generations, especially young kids will have to deal with leukaemia because of a …human error.

This has nothing to do with Iranians capability to handle a project like a nuclear plant, first of all if you check all the scientific centres you will be surprised how many Iranian scientists you will find and Three Miles Island was not in Teheran or in any Third World country!

But human error is the choice to turn an otherwise for peaceful use nuclear reactor into a nuclear bomb - this is not literal but I know you understand what you mean. I do understand the logic behind this balance of horror, actually my generation in Europe lived it, and we were learning naively how to cover ourselves behind concrete walls in a case of nuclear war like there was any chance to be saved from the invisible power. And it did work but why do we have to continue a mistake just because it didn’t prove lethal the first and the second time? It needs only one time to destroy us all and there is no trial period in that.

The US and Russia are not the only ones living in this balance of terror, Pakistan and India do the same, Pakistan a country proved corrupt at every level from the ones we call terrorists, the Taliban. But then neither the Indians who have nuclear bombs nor the Pakistani people are worrying. Neither leader ever said that they are planning to eliminate the other country and both even in the worst of times when there were minor conflicts in Nepal tried to find ways through diplomacy.

Ahmadinejad on his side has called provocatively for the elimination of Israel; he has used the most prejudice often racist language for the people who are his neighbours damaging in the end every single right the Palestinians might have in their conflict with Israel since they are Ahmadinejad’s excuse to show his haters against Israel. The people who ruling Iran are dangerous and they are in an dangerous are where people blinded of their cause can become suicide bombers without caring how many innocent they are going to take with them. This is the human element that makes Iran a dangerous country to have a nuclear plant and in extent the ability to have nuclear weapons, the word weapons of mash distraction takes a different meaning in the hands of the Iranian cleric dictators and fanatics.

And when you feel that you made your argument and that there was logic in it Hillary comes and threatens with a war and you feel like talking to deaf for so long!

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Ovi magazine, Copycats and Nokia

First of all, we want to thank reporters, journalists and bloggers because they are the only ones who have seen what Mr. Nikula missed and hopefully the legal department of Nokia Corporation will not ignore. Mr. Nikula unethically ignored that there was already an Ovi magazine in Finland that had been well-established since December 2004 well before he ever created his copycat.

Read the original story here: http://ovimagazine.com/art/926

The fact that there is an internet link with the same name was a major clue, plus when he was forced to choose a name like Ovi dash something. Actually he missed that there is Ovi Lehti, Ovi Sanomat, Ovi Junior, Ovi Cartoons, Ovi iKritic, Ovi-magazine, Ovi stories, Ovi iBite and many others that belong to Ovi magazine and are registered to Chameleon Project, never forget the Ovi Bad Boys weekly radio show that is announced to all the Finnish newspapers and magazine; none of which are for sale. Fortunately reporters and bloggers did notice and they are aware of the major ethical injustice.

We like to emphasize this ‘not for sale’ because the Ovi magazine is not just an internet magazine but it is an idea with a heart and soul that hosts from its establishment in 2004 the ideals of democracy, freedom of speech and the exchange of opinion. Human rights, domestic abuse, the plight of children have been among just a few of the worthy causes we have championed, while simultaneously offering a platform for the work of new writers and illustrators, from Finland and from all around the world. That makes us a universal family that cannot be estimated in money.

Unfortunately, through leaks to the press, we discovered that Mr. Nikula is negotiating the sale of his copycat magazine and the Ovi trademark to Nokia Corporation. We trust that this is just a wishful thought and that Nokia Corporation will search a little bit better as to what is going on behind the name Ovi magazine.

Our four years of hard work advocating freedom of speech was recognised and rewarded by Newropeans, while we have had cooperation with many national and international magazines, such as Ydin magazine, Europe & Us, Agenda magazine, Books from Finland, EU-MAN, Free magazine, Newropeans-Magazine, OneWorld, Psihadi magazine and more. We have relationships with Non-Governmental Organizations, such as Reporters without Frontiers and Finland's International Cultural Center CAISA, and the site receives well-over 20,000 visitors a week - the numbers literally increase day after day. We are considered a well-established magazine and trademark internationally and Ovi magazine has been reference for hundreds of sites and blogs from all around the world.

We have always believed that this was an issue of ethics should it ever come to a court house – where, as we are well-informed by experts, we can easily win the case – and it comes as a surprise that, according to leaks to the press, some representative of the Nokia Corporation said that they had never heard of us. It is a simple enough task for them to Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves or whatever else to locate the name Ovi and then find us straight away. Of course we didn’t financially invest in the promotion and push of Ovi magazine, like an international corporation can do, but the thousands of articles, the thousands of links and references to our work, even from Wikipedia and most of all the thousands readers keep us on the top in every search engine.

The fact that the copycats of the printed Ovi magazine ignored us, despite the fact that we could open a case anytime demanding a large percentage of their profits, which they knew, doesn’t excuse an international corporation like Nokia maintaining the same attitude. We are expecting their telephone call before investigating our legal rights on what they plan to pay the copycat because we want to know whether it is true and not a wishful greedy act of somebody who wants to increase his lost popularity.

It has been a justifiable question as to why we didn’t take the case to the court. From the very first moment, other than the support that came from every side and every corner of Finland including employees of the certain magazine, we believed that there is justice that punishes the unethical and the failure of the magazine from its second issue to reach anybody in Finland was proof.

Regarding the money behind this case, we believe that the people who read this magazine and have seen the path we have followed and the fights we have given over the last four years for democracy, for justice, against poverty and have realized the hours, the effort and the financial cost we have put in this magazine will know in their heart of hearts whether we are after the money!

The Ovi Team


Monday, May 19, 2008

The gangsters of Myanmar

An article from the original Finland's Ovi magazine

What happens this minute in Burma is heartbreaking and the only way to put the way I feel is that I’m really angry. I’m really angry with the international community that has failed to stop once more a crime against humanity. I’m sorry, there is no other way to describe what’s going on there.

The state, this miserable gang of criminals who like to call themselves the governors of Myanmar – guilty of what they are doing to the country could not even let them keep the historic name of the country, so Burma under the military boots became Myanmar; this very state announced that the number of dead has raised to 98,000. How true the number is remains to be discovered over the next few months, since the real information will not come from the officials - if you could call them that - but from the NGOs that work under incredible difficulties in the country.

burma02_400When 98,000 people are dead it make it a global issue and not a local incident, and it is natural to raise interest from all the organizations and institutes all around the world, including governments and the United Nations but there is one question behind this increasing number, how many of them got killed from the cyclone and how many of them got killed from an irresponsible state and a gang of drug dealers in military uniform who run it?

The military junta that rules Burma for decades is nothing more than common drug dealers which use a whole nation – in this case, their very own compatriots – as slaves, they have created a nation drug cartel which is included in the biggest exports of opium, heroin and cocaine internationally most of it finding its way into the European market and they have invested millions in drug laboratories leaving a nation into illiteracy, without schools and hospitals, but the worst of all without any defense against poverty and starvation. A nation under starvation that’s the reality of Myanmar.

The cyclone didn’t come to bury hundreds of thousands of innocent people but to unveil the reality these people live. For months we watch people and monks in orange and red robes demonstrating in Burma and then when the sports news starts we forget, we forget them like they are the children of another planet, of another world. The Chief Executive of the organization Save the Children UK, Jasmine Whibread visited Myanmar a few days ago and the only thing she could say was that most of the children in the suffering areas suffer of ‘acute malnourishment’, the most serious level of hunger to be followed by death. Already over 30,000 kids in the very same area were malnourished before cyclone Nargis hit the area, the number now has increased dramatically and the majority of them are under five years old. The only thing to save these children is for them to receive urgently energy-high food, otherwise death is a case of weeks.

And that would have been possible if the gangsters of Myanmar let the organizations, the nations and the UN do their job by bringing into the country everything that already waits. But they don’t, they leave limited access and that only when they can take out any sign of a foreign help and show that they are the ones who provided it, so they can show that they care. In the meantime and while they try to do all that more kids die.

But the gangsters of Myanmar are not alone in this crime, they have confederates or at least some who wittingly close their eyes in front the reality and especially one very powerful ally, China. How dramatic ironic, China suffers the very same moment a natural disaster and has welcome help from every nation from all around the world trying to save the lives of thousands of people. China has long supported in many levels the gangsters of Myanmar and truth is that during the Cold War many countries did so, never forget how many banana dictatorships were supported from the American administrations included J.F. Kennedy period. But things have changed and nowadays the Chinese support to the Myanmar regime makes them accomplice in a crime against humanity and I presume that’s one of the problems China can live without at the moment.

But then who? The United Nations is one thing but the General Secretary Ban Ki-moon has been proven incapable of the responsibility to lead a global organization, what is left is the nations' themselves. The United Nations is an organization that includes nearly 150 nation and these nations have an individual voice as well. France has loud complained already and threatens the gangsters’ regime, what will happen if the rest of the nations follow the example forcing China to join? Wouldn’t that mean the beginning of the end for these criminals?

Last but definitely not least, I have said it before, democracy doesn’t feed people but doesn’t kill either and definitely saves lives. Burma is the best prove for that!

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

The psychotic excuse

I’m returning to the same subject after a very brief time from my last article but with all the news agencies full of reports I cannot avoid it and I’m referring to the unbelievable Austrian father and the two families that grew under his tyranny. What triggered me this time was a report that his attorney is planning to ask psychiatric care for him instead of any other punishment and definitely avoid imprisonment, and to strengthen his argument he says that if the state’s specialist doesn’t confirm his psychotic status he's going to ask help from experts outside the state psychologists and psychiatrists.

When I read things like that I understand all the arguments psychologists and experts have made for the last forty years over televised series and films that show a twisted view of the investigation work. I am personally a fan of those films but I have the ability to understand and separate reality with Hollywood and by Hollywood I mean this entire fake world these series and films create. There are thousands of crimes happening every day in all the big cities all around the world. Thousands of them are solved one way or another but thousands more are not; and are not solved due to a series of reasons including state responsibility, police inability, misunderstanding or mistranslating the law and even because of luck.
But crimes are not solved in CSI laboratories, for example. CSI laboratories are there to assist the detectives in solving a crime and they work under the directions of the police. Profilers don’t transform in seconds into criminal minds that can understand how a criminal is thinking and solve crimes in hours or even worse, prevent a crime. The process to solve a crime is slow if there is no obvious proof, tracks or eye witnesses and it demands a lot of work, time and research and it is not solved in an hour’s episode including the adverts.

What happened in Austria will take time to unveil in full reality despite the fact that the crime is known, the criminal to start with confessed – doesn’t matter what his attorney says afterwards – and all the proof is there, including the results from the laboratories that proved that the man has fathered all the kids. You see, as I mentioned in my last article, in this crime the victims are not only the imprisoned daughter and her three kids but all the family including the mother and wife who was a prisoner of his the last forty years.

Social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, profilers, criminologists and any other expert you can imagine will want to examine the family and hundreds of essays are going to be written especially about the father and I’m sure somebody will base their career on this family. But for the ones who will succeed in reaching the family and the father will mean two basic things: first of all, a very slow process with countless interviews and, secondly, more seriously, these people will be interested in the 'why he did what he did' and not to prove that he is not guilty. His guilt is a fact, his crime is a fact.

Returning to the beginning and the attorney’s remark that his customer is psychotic and that his place should be in a hospital and not in a prison I turn my remarks to how much television series like "C.S.I." has twisted the way people see a crime and the investigation. I have to admit that I would never expect a remark like that from somebody who has been at least educated to understand the law and if this is his line of defense he’s hurting more his customer than helping him and finally he should stop watching so much television and start reading his law books.

The only reason a court would ever accept that defendant should be hospitalized instead of imprisoning is if the defendant cannot distinguish the difference between bad and good. This means an individual with serious brain handicap and there are cases like that where the defendant had the reactions of four or five years old. In this case the defendant knew very well the difference in such level to organize his acts a decade before actually acting. The man knew very well how to distinguish bad and good by using every possible way including his mind power over the family and his despotic behavior to hide the truth from them. He even used contemporary events the excuse of a cult where his daughter had supposedly joined, remember that the whole event is going on in mid-eighties where cults had become fear and passion for a lot of young people in central Europe. The man had every sense of good and bad and even his latest act to stop talking to the police and the investigators without the presence of his lawyer and not admitting anything shows that he’s been …watching a lot of television also!

Last and not least is the lawyer’s remark that his customer is …psychotic! The man should have done at least some research before saying that, just think how many times a day we call somebody crazy because of the way he/she drives, because the way they eat or the way they hold their handbag or newspaper. As I mentioned before if that’s his line of defense he has definitely chosen the wrong way, he has better advise his customer to admit his crimes and help the experts help a traumatized family – including his wife and his other kids – to recover at least partly of this nightmare!

Monday, May 05, 2008

Ovi iBite

An article from the original Finland's Ovi magazine

There has been outrage in Italy after the outgoing government published every Italian's declared earnings and tax contributions on the internet.

They were trying to spot Mafia godfathers!

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Haiti faces a "major crisis" if the international community does not increase food aid to the country, the UN's food agency has warned.

It is coming closer! Washington D.C.: The Homeless Capital.

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The US has ordered the expulsion of the remaining six Belarus diplomats in Washington and New York, the Associated Press news agency has said.

The good old days of the USSR return! The spy who came from the …Caspian Sea!!!

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans are attending a May Day parade in Havana honoring the world's workers. President Raul Castro, who succeeded his ailing brother Fidel in February, is attending the celebrations. He did not address the crowds.

Sorry to say but a May Day without a seven-hour speech from Fidel is just …not the same!

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Officials in Texas have found signs of injury among children removed from a polygamous sect and are checking for possible sexual abuse of boys.

What bruised knees or egos?

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The EU has described a vote by the Turkish parliament to soften its controversial law limiting free speech as a "welcome step forward".

Yeah right, just now they have to let people practice it!!!

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Scientific tests have confirmed that bones found last year in Russia belong to the two missing children of Tsar Nicholas II, Russian officials say. DNA tests carried out in the US showed the remains are those of Crown Prince Alexei and his sister Maria.

No more Anastasia legends and theories? Are they going to tell us that E.T. is not real also?

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Tehran has complained to the UN about remarks made last week by Hillary Clinton on the circumstances under which the US might attack Iran. The Democratic presidential hopeful said last week the US could "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel.

I really don’t get this, has George W. Bush or Barack Obama said anything different? It must be some kind of feminist issue!

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The trial of Iraq's former deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz over the deaths of a group of merchants in 1992 has opened in Baghdad.

Another lynching on the way?

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Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission has started to verify the results of the disputed presidential election, more than five weeks after the vote.

For others ‘go home’ might apply, in Mugabe’s case the magic phrase is: go to your cell!!!

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Sir Ian McKellen has confirmed he will reprise his role as Gandalf in the film version of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit. "Yes, it's true," he told Empire magazine. "It's not a part that you turn down. I loved playing Gandalf."

There is no sarcastic comment here but the news is so exciting I could not avoid mentioning it!

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Veteran singer Tina Turner has revealed plans to tour the US, despite announcing her retirement from performing on the road eight years ago. The 68-year-old pop legend told TV host Oprah Winfrey the tour would kick off in October in Kansas City.

Here I will not try to be sarcastic but who’s next? The Egyptian mummies?

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Microsoft has yet to decide if it will up its $41.8bn (£21bn) bid for Yahoo, go hostile or walk away from the deal. A meeting of the Microsoft board on Wednesday ended without any decision, according to the Wall Street Journal.

And talking about mummies here is …Bill Gates!

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You might see a copycat Ovi magazine

Remember that whoever copycats Ovi magazine shows how limited and untalented some parasites can be! But the legal system prevails, even the Mexican one!