Latakia: #Russian transport plane crashes during landing at #Hameimim airbase killing 32 invaders. They will always be dying in #Syria الله أكبر: image via Amer almohibany @amer_almohibany, 5 March 2018

#Syria Strikes hit Syria's battered Ghouta after aid convoy turns back @abdfree2: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 6 March 2018

غارات وبراميل وقنابل مضيئة تجعل من ظلمات الليل نهاراً فوق رؤوس المدنيين A general view shows smoke and flames rising from buildings following reported Syrian government air strikes in the besieged #EasternGhouta region on the outskirts of #Damascus #AFP / Ammar Suleiman: image via Ammar Sulaiman @AmmarSulaiman91, 6 March 2018

Five-year-old Anas receives treatment at a make-shift hospital in #KafrBatna after he was wounded in a reported government air strike as he was playing outside his home on March 5, 2018. #AFP / Ammar Suleiman : image via Ammar Sulaiman @AmmarSulaiman91. 6 March 2018

Ghouta, Siria. Al final, la jodida suerte de nacer unos metros más allá. [Ph: @AnadoluAgency]: image via Miguel A. Rodrigues @marodrigues, 6 March 2018

Pro-government forces in recently retaken #EasternGhouta village of Utaya @AFPphoto #Syria #EasternGhouta: image via Jean-Marc Mojon @mojobeirut, 5 March 2018

“The children have not seen the sunlight for 15 to 20 days.” #Media: Raw footage from #EasternGhouta shows the brutal reality families are facing: image via ICRC @ICRC, 6 March 2018

Dozens killed in single day in Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta: Deadliest 24-hours for besieged civilians since UN security council demanded ceasefire: Kareem Shaheen in Istanbul and Peter Beaumont, 5 March 2018

A wounded Syrian child receives medical treatment after being hit in an airstrike by the Assad regime on a residential area of eastern Ghouta.: photo by Anadolu Agency/Getty Images, 5 March 2018

At least 77 people have been killed in the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta on Monday – the deadliest day for civilians there since the UN security council demanded an immediate ceasefire and Russia’s president ordered a daily five-hour truce in the area.

A further 12 people were killed on Sunday but their bodies were only recovered on Monday, doctors said.

The intense violence continued despite the arrival of a humanitarian convoy in the enclave, two weeks into a renewed regime offensive that has killed more than 700 civilians.

The convoy of 46 trucks – a joint effort by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the United Nations – was allowed to deliver food for about 27,000 of the 400,000 people trapped in the enclave.

It was the first aid delivery to the reach eastern Ghouta in weeks, but humanitarian officials said the Syrian military had refused to allow it to bring in critically needed medical supplies.

Ongoing shelling in the area forced the convoy to leave before all the food aid was unloaded.

Pawel Krzysiek, the head of communications for the ICRC in Syria said the situation for civilians trapped inside eastern Ghouta was “very precarious.”

Krzysiek told the Guardian that thousands of civilians had been sheltering in freezing basements for more than two weeks, without water or proper sanitation.

“It took more than 15 days for their children to see the sunlight. There is no possibility to really go outside because the shelling gets so intense,” he said.

“They also fear to eat in front of other people because pretty much everyone there is hungry. So they are very often forced to go back to their places that are more exposed to eat their food – and unfortunately many of them get caught up in the airstrikes when the planes come or the shelling starts.”

“The people are tired and angry, desperate, exhausted, hopeless. They want it to stop. They want to be able to live with dignity, eat normal food, not spend their days in the basement,” he said.

A desperate shortage of supplies meant that the wounded have been dying from treatable injuries and illnesses, aid organisations said.

Volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent on Monday: photo by Youssef Badawi/EPA, 5 March 2018

World Health Organisation official Tarik Jašarević told the Guardian that Syrian authorities who inspected the convoy refused to allow in supplies of trauma, surgical and dialysis equipment.

“WHO has long spoken out against the removal or rejection of lifesaving treatments and medical items from aid convoys by national authorities. The health supplies provided by WHO in these convoys are selected after extensive consultations with health partners working in these areas and are desperately needed to save lives and reduce suffering.”

Doctors on the ground said 712 people had been killed and more than 5,600 wounded since 19 February.

The airstrikes and artillery bombardment have been coupled with a ground offensive by the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his allied Shia militias, whose advances are aimed at splitting eastern Ghouta in half and cutting off rebel fighters.

The World Food Programme’s country director in Syria said aid efforts were still paralysed in many places.

“A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in eastern Ghouta where raging violence has paralysed our response and our ability to reach families who desperately need help,” said Jakob Kern.

Denying access to medical aid and targeting hospitals in eastern Ghouta has been condemned as a deliberate policy of the Assad regime.: photo by Ammar Suleiman/AFP, 5 March 2018

He said he hoped a second convoy could reach eastern Ghouta on Thursday with food rations for some extra 70,000 people.

“The longer eastern Ghouta is deprived of the necessities of life, the more people will die. We appeal to all parties to allow the ongoing and safe delivery of aid to all people in need, no matter where they are.”

Some of the heaviest fighting on Sunday was concentrated in the area of Beit Sawa, on the eastern edge of the densely populated centre of eastern Ghouta, where civilians fled clashes between regime forces and Jaysh al-Islam, one of three main rebel groups.

At a press conference on Sunday evening, Assad vowed to continue what he described as a battle against terrorism in the enclave.

Monday’s roll call of the dead included one doctor. Denying access to medical aid and targeting hospitals in eastern Ghouta has been condemned as a deliberate policy of the Assad regime.

Abdulkarim Ekzayez, a senior fellow at the Centre on Global Health Security, wrote on the Chatham House website last month that targeting healthcare facilities had been used in the past as a tactic to force the displacement of civilians.

GHOUTA AID: 'Repeated and continuous humanitarian access is essential and more must be granted in the coming period,' says ICRC regional head Robert Mardini - #Syria #EasternGhouta: image via Jean-Marc Mojon @mojobeirut, 5 March 2018

46-truck aid convoy enters #EasternGhouta - 14 killed in overnight air raids by Syria aircraft - Regime and allied forces have retaken 33% of enclave: image via Jean-Marc Mojon @mojobeirut, 5 March 2018

My colleague Marianne Gasser who spent her day in #EasternGhouta yesterday told me: « People are so weakened, their situation beyond critical, their suffering beyond imagination ». Our teams are even more determined now to go in again with more help and more support.: image via Robert Mardini @RMardiniICRC, 6 March 2017

Aid trucks reach Syria's eastern Ghouta region for the first time since the start of one of the war's deadliest assaults, but pulled out after shelling started without fully unloading supplies Photo @BassamKhabieh: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 6 March 2018

46-truck aid convoy enters #EasternGhouta - 14 killed in overnight air raids by Syria aircraft - Regime & allied forces have retaken 33% of enclave: image via Jean-Marc Mojon @mojobeirut, 5 March 2018

'People are angry': aid trucks forced to flee eastern Ghouta without unloading: Intensified fighting in the besieged enclave blocks vital deliveries, as figures reveal 1,000 children killed or injured in Syria so far in 2018: Peter Beaumont, The Guardian, 6 March 2018

A United Nations aid convoy enters eastern Ghouta, where an estimated 400,000 civilians are trapped.: photo by Anadolu Agency/Getty Images, 5 March 2018

At least 1,000 children have been killed and injured across Syria so far this year according to the UN, as it disclosed that more than one quarter of the trucks carrying food into besieged eastern Ghouta on Monday were forced to leave the enclave again without unloading.

Officials told the Guardian that they had been unable to unload a significant amount of food from the 46 lorries before they were forced to leave as the suburbs came under attack in the worst day of violence since the UN security council demanded a 30-day ceasefire for Syria.

It came as it emerged that children inside eastern Ghouta are surviving on a single meal a day of boiled wheat mixed with sugar. There are an estimated 400,000 civilians trapped in the enclave.

Details of the convoy’s failure came as the Russian military said it had offered Syrian rebels safe passage out of eastern Ghouta, setting out a proposal to let the opposition surrender its last major stronghold near Damascus to President Bashar al-Assad.

The Russian defence ministry said rebels could leave with their families and personal weapons through a secure corridor out of eastern Ghouta, where Moscow-backed government forces have made rapid gains in a fierce assault.

The Russian proposal did not specify where the rebels would go, but the terms echo previous deals under which insurgents have ceded ground to Assad and been given safe passage to other opposition-held territory near the Turkish border.

A Unicef spokesman in Damascus said a second convoy was planned for next week. “We are at least able to deliver some aid but other trucks were not fully or partially offloaded with colleagues telling us that people were tearful and angry as they were expecting the aid to get delivered,” he said.

“People in Douma told us their conditions had been very bad. They are spending a lot of time under ground in cold and humid basements and having no proper sanitation is the norm. People are basically using buckets.

“Access to safe drinkable water is also a problem. People are using hand operated pumps in shallow water and it is polluted. We also spoke to kids who said they were getting one meal a day of wheat, sugar and water. It gives you calories but it is not nutritious.”

The International Committee for the Red Cross also confirmed that its joint convoy with the United Nations had to leave before offloading all its supplies because of the deteriorating security situation Monday.

Ingy Sedky, the ICRC spokeswoman in Syria, said most of the aid from a 46-truck convoy was delivered to the town of Douma in eastern Ghouta, but the mission was cut short before the rest of the supplies could be unloaded.

Iyad Abdelaziz, a member of the Douma Local Council, said nine aid trucks had to leave the area after government shelling and airstrikes intensified in the evening.

Observers say the continuing offensive in eastern Ghouta appears to be following similar tactics to those that Assad and his allies have used at other key points in the war: laying siege to rebel-held areas, bombing them fiercely, launching a ground assault and offering passage out to civilians who flee and fighters who withdraw.

Wael Alwan, the spokesman for one of the main rebel groups in eastern Ghouta, Failaq al-Rahman, said Russia was “insisting on military escalation and imposing forced displacement” on the people of eastern Ghouta, which he called “a crime”.

Smoke rises after an airstrike south-east of Aleppo in August 2016.: photo by Anadolu Agency/Getty Images, August 2016

Russia suspected of using 'dumb' bombs to shift blame for Syria war crimes: UN sources say Moscow’s use of weapons similar to those used by Syrian regime could be attempt to mask involvement in airstrikes: Kareem Shaheen in Istanbul for The Guardian, 6 March 2018

UN sources told the Guardian that Moscow’s use of less accurate bombs, which are closer in their capability to the Syrian air force’s weapons stockpiles, could be intended to make it more difficult for war crimes investigators to identify those responsible for civilian deaths from airstrikes in Syria.

“There seems to be a concerted effort for very similar weaponry to be used [by the Syrian and Russian air forces],” said one UN official. “Since the Syrian air force is using older planes with pilots untrained in smart weapons capabilities, they [Russia] would use less smart weapons capabilities. I suspect they want to use those weapons because it makes attribution more difficult.”

The allegations raise further doubts about Russia’s claims that its aerial campaign in Syria, which was launched in late 2015 in an effort to shore up Assad’s position, and which has reversed his fortunes in the seven-year war, primarily targeted militants and “terrorists”.

It also raises questions about the civilian cost of Russia’s airstrikes, which played a key role in the regime’s victory, late in 2016 in Aleppo after a punishing siege and aerial bombardment, and about the offensive in the enclave of eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, which has killed more than 700 people in two weeks.

Moscow has been accused by weapons experts of using inaccurate munitions in the past in its campaign but those accusations were focused on the motivation that such weapons were likely to be cheaper than precision-guided missiles. The claim that these tactics might be meant to elude war crimes investigators has not been made before.

The assessment is not shared by all UN officials working on Syria. Other UN officials say the use of inaccurate bombs could be a tactic aimed at scaring civilians, who would in turn might pressure rebel groups to surrender.

“My personal sense regarding the use of such weapons in Syria has been that they’re used to create panic, terrorise the civilian population, with the ultimate aim of making it turn against armed groups operating within these communities,” said one official.

The allegations came on the same day as the release of a report by the UN’s International Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria, which identified an attack in a town near Aleppo which used unguided munitions to devastating effect.

The commission had accused both Russia and the Syrian government of using unguided weapons in the past, particularly during the siege of Aleppo, which it said had relied almost exclusively on such munitions.

The attack on Atarib on the afternoon of 13 November 2017 took place at a crowded market, with a series of airstrikes that damaged or destroyed an area of approximately 5,000 sq metres, and killed at least 84 people. At the time, Moscow denied launching airstrikes in the area, but radio intercepts identified Russian-speaking pilots who took off half an hour earlier from Hemeimeem airbase, the main stronghold for Russian forces in western Syria.

The commission’s investigation into the attack, detailed in an annex in the report, said that two types of weapons were used – blast weapons and earth penetrators. Based on video and images from the site, including of an unexploded bomb, investigators said the weapons used were the unguided OFAB-500 fragmentation bomb, which is manufactured by Russia, and the BeTAB-500 unguided bunker buster bomb, which the Russian air force has used multiple times in Aleppo.

“The impact points show that unguided bombs roughly fell in a line with a 250m dispersion, which suggests that the aircraft lined up on the target dropping weapons into an area that formed a target box rather than conducting a precision strike against the point target,” the report said.

The commission’s report did not speculate on the reasons why Russia used less precise weapons, and said the target of the strike could have been a meeting involving al-Qaida-linked militants. But the Russian denial of the airstrikes, coupled with the use of Russian-made unguided bombs, lends credence to the allegations that Moscow sought to obfuscate its involvement in airstrikes near a crowded market that would probably cause heavy civilian casualties.

“There is no evidence to indicate that this attack deliberately targeted civilians or the Atarib market,” the report concluded. “Through the use of unguided bombs, including blast weapons in a densely civilian populated area, however, this attack may amount to the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in death and injury to civilians.”

The commission’s report, which covered the period from July last year to mid-January, also said it would help victims of crimes in the Syrian war pursue justice through national and international jurisdictions in the future. The possibility of prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria by the international criminal court has so far been stymied by the threat of a Russian veto.

The ICC can only investigate cases if they are referred to it by the UN security council or by a country voluntarily joining the organisation.

The commission also documented a chemical attack against rebel fighters in eastern Ghouta in November 2017, and condemned both the ongoing siege and the retaliatory shelling of Damascus by rebel groups.

Gaza. Ibrahim Faraj: image via Miguel A. Rodrigues @marodrigues, 5 March 2018

#Iceland These stunning pictures by @afpolm show Aurora borealis glowing above the Lofoten Islands, in Bostad.: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 6 March 2018

DR Congo survivors recount nightmare of ethnic massacre #AFP Photo @wesselsjohn1: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 6 March 2018

Ethnic cleansing' of Myanmar's Rohingya continues: UN Photo @edwardesjones #AFP: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 6 March 2018

#haveaniceday Birds fly over the river Ganga during sunset at Sangam, the confluence of the rivers Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati in Allahabad. Photo @sanjaykanojia07: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 6 March 2018

Joseph Ceravolo: Dreamscape Reality

Untitled: photo by A.D.Q, (Arthur Quesada II), 1 September 2012

Any March Now | by all quiet please proceed

I work in a dreamscape of reality. Everything seems to shut down for a split second. The language the feeling seems to exist on the edge of shutdown when suddenly all opens up. It's a tremendous relief. One doesn't worry about success or failure, only the motion of the gods feeding the words, and that freedom, that freedom.

15 July 1986

Joseph Ceravolo (1934-1988): I work in a dreamscape of reality..., (15 July 1986) from Mad Angels (poems 1976-1988), in Collected Poems, 2013

Fire Fire Everywhere in Gouta | by Take a look on Syria without propaganda

Fire Fire Everywhere in Ghouta | Firemen from the White Helmets in Ghouta trying to put out the fire and pull out people bodies from under the rubble after Russian aircraft raided and bombed an area full of civilians. This past week, Ghouta lost more than 400 hundred people, most of them children. This is not the first time this happens for Ghouta, in the last 6 years, Ghouta has been getting bombed on a daily basis. Gouta has lost thousands of civilians. This genocide happens to allow the regime to control all Rural Damascus and give it to the Iranian militia who are working on changing Damascus demographically. Ghouta, Damascus, Syria on 21/02/2018: photo by Dimashqi Lens, 21 February 2018

Like in Home Ec

As in dream, sound at door. Quite unheard by me. She called out.

Slowly I began to rise. She headed me off.

Ah, old Hanf!

No, an opossum!

The long and longer nights grow older and larger even as they grow shorter and less differentiable from the younger and more ancient nights to come, this much we think we know, yet though only months, seems years ago now that the last opossum was hiding out in the basement, or could this be the same one, or a relative, gnawing gnawing gnawing through the walls, perhaps attempting to nest, frantic, digging, scratching, burrowing, chewing, tunneling for weeks on end working inside the walls all night much as condemned prisoner inside gestapo jail, waiting til the house fell silent each night to begin its long labors.

Not to find freedom, but more like in Home Ec, homemaking.

Untitled: photo by Manuel NA, 22 December 2017

Untitled: photo by Manuel NA, 6 February 2018

It's wonderful to think what eight or nine tequila shots can do for a crappy piece of hardware

Chennai, India. Muslim women pray at a school grounds in the southern Indian city.: photo by Babu Babua/Reuters, 6 March 2018

Hollywood, California, USA. American women pray to their god before consuming it.: photo by Getty, 6 March 2018

working too close

Protesters, police, and white nationalists all mixed it up today at MSU. #gettyimagesnews: image via scott olson @olsongetty, 5 March 2018

Alt right vs Antifa at MSU. How a photographer knows when he is working too close. #gettyimagesnews: image via scott olson @olsongetty, 5 March 2018

Morning, from #Kashmir

Protests erupted across Kashmir on Monday, with government forces and demonstrators clashing as tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected militants. Photo Mukhtar Khan: image via AP Images @AP_Images, 5 March 2018

A Kashmir man weeps over the body of a civilian Suhail Ahmad during his funeral procession at Pinjoora in Shopian district.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @basiitzargar, 5 March 2018

Funeral pictures of a civilian Suhail Ahmad, who was killed in a brief shootout at Pahoo Shopian yesterday.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @basiitzargar, 5 March 2018

Photograph by @lookaround81 - A man crying at the feet of a civilian Suhail Khalil in Pinjoora area of south Kashmir's Shopian some 50 kilometers from Srinagar, Kashmir on March 05, 2018. Suhail was killed by Indian army along with five others in a shootout in Pahnoo, Shopian: image via Faisal Khan @lookaround81, 5 March 2018

Funeral pictures of a civilian Suhail Ahmad, who was killed in a brief shootout at Pahoo Shopian yesterday.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @basiitzargar, 5 March 2018

Mother of Suhail Ahmad a civilian mourns, who was killed in a brief shootout, during his funeral procession at Pinjoora in Shopian district.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @basiitzargar, 5 March 2018

Morning, from #Kashmir: image via Rouf Bhat @RoufBhat_, 5 March 2018

By all means, Indian Army will "establish" role of slain civilians with militants.: image via Rouf Bhat @RoufBhat_, 5 March 2018

Restrictions imposed in many areas of Srinagar city following separatist leaders called for a valley wide shutdown against the civilian killings in Shopian on Sunday.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @basiitzargar, 5 March 2018

Children Watch the funeral procession of Suhail Ahmad, a civilian who was killed in a brief shootout at Pahoo Shopian.: image via BASIT ZARGAR @basiitzargar, 5 March 2018

Candle-light protest in solidarity with Asifa Bano and Syrian children on March 04, 2018 in Srinagar, Kashmir. @lookaround81: image via Faisal Khan @lookaround81, 5 March 2018

TOM CLARK

Wednesday, 7 March 2018

Joseph Ceravolo: Reality Dreamscape | working too close (Like in Home Ec) | They will always be dying in #Syria | Morning, from #Kashmir

Russia suspected of using 'dumb' bombs to shift blame for Syria war crimes: UN sources say Moscow’s use of weapons similar to those used by Syrian regime could be attempt to mask involvement in airstrikes: Kareem Shaheen in Istanbul for The Guardian, 6 March 2018

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