Trying to please everybody is impossible – if you did that,
ou’d end up in the middle with nobody liking you.
You’ve just got to make the decision about what you
think is your best, and do it. ~John Lennon

No Color
No Shape
No Place
No Size
No Money
No Rich
No Poor
But still essential for living and forever.

Source: sms4smile

The death toll from devastating midweek landslides in Hiroshima rose to 50 with 38 others missing on Sunday as fresh rain stoked fears of more disasters and hampered the round-the-clock search for survivors.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called off a planned inspection tour of the
western Japan city by helicopter on the day as his presence was feared
to further complicate the search and rescue mission as rain intensified,
media reports said. (AP)

Photo source: dtnews

Firefighters and Self-Defense Force members make search operation for the people still missing in a mud-covered residential area following a massive landslide in Hiroshima, western Japan, Sunday, Aug. 24, 2014. (AP/Kyodo News)

Flowers for all my friends. May your day be beautiful. May your night be peaceful. Make sure you wake up with a big smile. If you have smoothie do not forget to share with Jendhamuni.

This beautiful ox cart is part of our Cambodian tradition and history. But this famous transportation is becoming an endangered species due to the introduction of engine-driven tractors.

“A bullock cart or ox cart is a two-wheeled or four-wheeled vehicle pulled by oxen (draught cattle). It is a means of transportation used since ancient times in many parts of the world. They are still used today where modern vehicles are too expensive or the infrastructure does not favor them.” Wikipedia

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Caption: In northern Nineveh province, hundreds of Yazidis were killed and up to 2,500 kidnapped in early August, Pillay said, citing testimony from victims and witnesses. Yazidis fled their ancient homeland of Sinjar and other villages to escape the militants, who regard the ethnic minority as devil worshippers

MailOnline, 25 August 2014

The persecution of entire communities and systematic violations by the al-Qaeda offshoot, documented by U.N. human rights investigators, would amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes under international law, she said in a statement.

‘Grave, horrific human rights violations are being committed daily by ISIL and associated armed groups,’ Pillay said, citing targeted killings, forced conversions, abductions, slavery, sex crimes, forced recruitment and destruction of places of worship.

‘They are systematically targeting men, women and children based on their ethnic, religious or sectarian affiliation and are ruthlessly carrying out widespread ethnic and religious cleansing in the areas under their control.’

Christians, Yazidis and Turkmen were among the minorities targeted by the Sunni militant group, which has forced people to convert to their strict form of Sharia law, she said.

Islamic State insurgents have captured a third of Iraq with little resistance and declared a caliphate in the areas of Iraq and Syria it controls. It has drawn the first American air strikes in Iraq since the end of the occupation in 2011.

Last week Islamic State released a video showing one of its fighters beheading the U.S. journalist James Foley, kidnapped in Syria in 2012. Their wealth and military might represent a major threat to the United States that may surpass that once posed by al Qaeda, the U.S. military says.

Some 1.2 million people have fled fighting and ISIL’s advance in Iraq this year, the U.N. refugee agency says.

A young boy who has been displaced from his home by IS militants, climbs  a stairwell in the unfinished building near Dohuk which is his temporary home

The al-Qaeda splinter group seized control of the city of Mosul on June 10, in a spectacular show of strength against the Shi’ite-led Baghdad government.

ISIL loaded 1,000 to 1,500 prisoners from Badush prison in Mosul onto trucks and took them to a vacant area for screening, Pillay said. Sunni inmates were taken away again on the trucks.

‘ISIL gunmen then yelled insults at the remaining prisoners, lined them up in four rows, ordered them to kneel and opened fire,’ she said.

Up to 670 prisoners from Badush prison were killed by Islamic State on June 10, she said, quoting dozens of survivors and witnesses, some of whom survived by pretending to be dead.

‘Such cold-blooded, systematic and intentional killings of civilians, after singling them out for their religious affiliation, may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity,’ said Pillay, a former U.N. war crimes judge who steps down on August 31 after serving six years as U.N, rights boss.

In northern Nineveh province, hundreds of Yazidis were killed and up to 2,500 kidnapped in early August, Pillay said, citing testimony from victims and witnesses. Yazidis fled their ancient homeland of Sinjar and other villages to escape the militants, who regard the ethnic minority as devil worshippers.

Those who agreed to convert are being held by ISIL, but witnesses report that among those who refused, ‘men were executed while the women and their children were taken as slaves and either handed over to ISIL fighters as slaves or threatened with being sold’, the U.N. statement said.

ISIL also killed and abducted hundreds of Yazidis in Cotcho village in southern Sinjar on August 15, Pillay said, citing witness testimony including ‘harrowing phone calls’.

Yazidi child victims of the Isis rampage collect filthy water from a muddy rivulet in Zakho district, a few kilometers from the Iraqi-Turkish border, Dohuk

U.N. human rights investigators have received increasing reports of civilians being targeted for killing, she said, citing incidents of dozens being killed in Basra and Diyala.

In Baghdad, medical sources indicate that at least 15 bodies are found in the city on a daily basis. ‘All appear to have been bound and executed’, Pillay said.

Pillay called on the Iraqi government and international community to protect vulnerable ethnic and religious groups.

These included at least 13,000 Shia Turkmen in Salahuddin province besieged by ISIL forces since mid-June amid ‘fear of a possible, imminent massacre’ and Yazidis in besieged villages of Sinjar who remain at ‘serious risk’, she said.

Caption:  Peter Gabriel and Venerable Luon Sovath in New York City at WITNESS’ Focus for Change benefit dinner and concert co-hosted by Peter Gabriel and Maggie Gyllenhaal. December 2, 2010. PHOTO CREDIT: Ann Billingsley +Sovath Loun

http://kimedia.blogspot.com/2014/08/blog-post_792.html

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FORT LEE, Va.— An enraged soldier with a gun barricaded herself in an office inside a major command’s headquarters, throwing objects and then shooting herself in the head as law enforcement officials tried to negotiate with her, the Army said Monday.

The heavily-trafficked base went on lockdown while she was barricaded on the third floor of the four-story building that houses the Army’s Combined Arms Support Command. About 1,100 people were inside, but no one else was hurt, Army officials said.

“This situation could’ve been worse,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen R. Lyons, who took over as commanding general of CASC at Fort Lee on Friday.
An enraged soldier with a gun barricaded herself in an office inside a major command’s headquarters, throwing objects and then shooting herself in the head as law enforcement officials tried to negotiate with her, the Army said Monday.

The heavily-trafficked base went on lockdown while she was barricaded on the third floor of the four-story building that houses the Army’s Combined Arms Support Command. About 1,100 people were inside, but no one else was hurt, officials at Fort Lee said.

“This situation could’ve been worse,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen R. Lyons, who took over as commanding general of CASC on Friday.

The Army did not identify the soldier or give her condition. She was taken to Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, which confirmed that it received a patient from Fort Lee but did not provide other details.

The soldier is a sergeant 1st class who has been in the Army for 14 years and at Fort Lee for three, Lyons said. Her gun was not a service weapon, he said.

“We are sad for our soldier in arms that she faced those kinds of challenges she had to resort to those kinds of actions,” Lyons said.

He said officials did not know whether she was being treated for any mental health issues and could not speculate whether drugs or alcohol might have been a factor. Lyons described the soldier as upset and enraged during the incident but said he couldn’t say whether that was consistent with her personality.

Fort Lee reopened and normal operations resumed within an hour of the incident, Lyons said, with trucks and cars entering and exiting the base. The main gate — closest to the scene — continued to control traffic, but other gates were operating as normal.

The daily population at Fort Lee — 25 miles south of Richmond and 130 miles from Washington — is about 34,000, with members from all branches, their families, civilians and contractors. Fort Lee’s website says the installation has seen enormous growth and renovations over the past decade as a result of realignment and closures of bases across the U.S.

Army officials initially labeled Monday’s incident an “active shooter” situation. The Department of Homeland Security uses the term to describe someone actively trying to kill people, usually in populated areas, with no pattern of choosing victims.

The shooting is the fourth violent act at a Virginia military installation this year. In March, a civilian truck driver shot and killed a sailor aboard a Navy destroyer at Naval Station Norfolk before he was shot and killed by Navy security.

In June, authorities said a sailor repeatedly stabbed another near Naval Medical Center Portsmouth. The same installation was placed on lockdown in April when a sailor shot and killed himself inside a barracks there.

Monday’s lockdown came days after Fort Lee announced in its official newspaper that a new mass warning and emergency notification system would be activated in the coming weeks. The system allows users to input phone numbers, email addresses or pop-up alerts on any computer that’s part of the main Fort Lee network, the newspaper said. Officials said Monday that the system is not yet in place.

———

Associated Press writer Brock Vergakis contributed to this report from Norfolk.