Petition for the Creation of a Special Tribunal to try Israeli War Criminals

Please Sign Petition for the Creation of a Special Tribunal to try Israeli War Criminals

http://www.petitiononline.com:80/EAFORD09/petition.html

THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION (EAFORD)

5 route des Morillons, CP 2100. 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland

Telephone: (022) 788.62.33 Fax: (022) 788.62.45 e-mail: info@eaford.org

www.eaford.org

PLEASE SIGN PETITION

To President and Member States of UN General Assembly

The Creation of a Special Tribunal to try Israeli War Criminals

Israeli TV Broadcast

The videos posted, show the effects of indiscriminate firing by the Israeli Defense Forces. The home of a doctor, working in the Gaza Strip as medical aid and informant/reporter for an Israeli Television station, was bombed, killing his daughters and fatally injuring other family members. This was aired on Israeli Television.

Here are two links to the story:

Letter to President Patterson

Below is a letter addressed to Trent University President, Bonnie Patterson, asking her to take an active stance against the hostilities in Gaza. We urge you to sign and forward this petition to President Patterson.

Sincerely,
Peterborough Coalition for Palestinian Solidarity (PCPS)


President Bonnie M. Patterson
Trent University
Suite 107, Bata Library
1600 West Bank Drive
Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8

Dear President Patterson,

On Monday 29 December 2008, the Israeli Air Force bombed the Gaza City Islamic University in the Gaza Strip, as part of its ongoing assault on the Palestinian people. The death toll has reached over one thousand with over four thousand wounded. This comes in addition to the killing of 40 students in an UNRWA run school in the Gaza Strip. Before the beginning of this offensive, Israel kept the Gaza Strip under siege since March 2006. As part of this siege, many Palestinian students were not allowed to leave the Gaza Strip to pursue higher education in academic institutions. They were not even allowed to travel to the West Bank, which is also part of the Palestinian territory under Israeli occupation since 1967.

Israel's deliberate attack on the Gaza City Islamic University is a violation of International Humanitarian Law and should be condemned as a war crime. The destruction of the university punishes students in Gaza by infringing on their right to freely pursue a higher education. The administration at Trent University has remained silent in light of these Israeli attacks against students. The university claims that it stands for academic freedom and the pursuit of a higher education, and therefore we demand that Trent University condemn the Israeli attacks against Palestinian academic institutions.

The autonomy of the university and academic freedom are values that Trent University cherishes most and stands behind unequivocally. Due to the systematic targeting of Palestinian students and universities by the Israeli army, the Trent Community calls on the university to join them in publicly condemning the attacks on universities and students, and issue a statement upholding the principles that Trent University stands behind with regard to Palestinian students and Palestinian academic institutions.

We also call on Trent University to show its solidarity with Gaza by respecting the call from the Palestinian Association of University Teachers in Gaza to sever institutional ties with Israeli academic institutions. Answering this call, which comes from behind the Israeli imposed siege, and from the ruins of the Islamic University, is the most symbolic act of solidarity that any university that values human life and that stands behind universal principles of peace and human dignity, could do.

Sincerely,

Letter to Local MP

Here is a copy of a letter drafted by PCPS. We would like you to sign and forward this letter to your MP, asking him and the Canadian Government to take an active stance against the atrocities in Gaza.

Sincerely,
Peterborough Coalition for Palestinian Solidarity (PCPS)


Dean Del Mastro
1840 Lansdowne Street West
P.O. Box 21030
Peterborough, Ontario
K9J 8M7
Canada

Dear Mr. Del Mastro,
As a member of the Peterborough community, I would like to express my condemnation of Israel's attack on Gaza. With over one thousand Palestinians dead, including over 300 children, and over 5000 wounded, your constituency calls on the Canadian government to demand an immediate cessation of Israeli hostilities.

As per the position of UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Palestine, Richard Falk, the attack constitutes a war crime in that it is completely disproportionate to the threat posed, and violates international humanitarian law on at least three grounds: Collective punishment, Targeting Civilians, Disproportionate military response. Israel's latest assault on Gaza has been devastating and it is now facing a “full-blown humanitarian crisis,” according to the International Red Cross - in stark contrast to repeated Israeli claims to the contrary and this government’s endorsement of that position. In recent days, a UN-run elementary school where civilians had been sheltering, Red Cross ambulances, and a UN aid convey have all come under Israeli fire. As a result of the repeated Israeli attacks, John Ging, the head of the U.N. mission has been forced to stop all further aid deliveries in Gaza and stated "we are abandoning 750,000 people. We need the world to do something."

We call on the Canadian government to implement sanctions against the
Israeli government until it ceases its attack against the people of Gaza and fully complies with international law. As our elected federal representative, we demand that you take this position to your governing party.


Sincerely,

Demonstrate Against the Israeli Assault on Gaza! LIFT THE SEIGE!

Demonstrate Against the Israeli Assault on Gaza! LIFT THE SEIGE!

When: Saturday, January 17, 2009 Time: 12:00 p.m.
Where: City Hall, 500 George Street, Peterborough

As the Israeli ground, air and sea assault continues on the civilian population
of Gaza – we need to continue mobilizing against these war crimes. At least
800 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured in the single largest
massacre in Gaza since Israel illegally occupied the area in 1967.

These latest war crimes occur in the context of official Canadian complicity
with Israel 's illegal siege, bombardment and starvation of the civilian
population in Gaza . We must denounce this on-going support - including the
intensification of bilateral military, political and economic links between
Canada and Israel . Palestinian civil society continues to urge solidarity in
the form of a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign until Israel complies
with international law. This is the time for people of conscience to take up
this call from Palestine.

On January 3rd, over 10,000 people rallied in Toronto in the largest Palestine
solidarity demonstration in decades. This coming Saturday, millions of people
across the globe will return to the streets in internationally coordinated
demonstrations against the Israeli onslaught.

Join us this Saturday to demand that the Canadian government call for an
immediate halt to Israel 's attacks and an end to the siege of Gaza!

Demonstration Endorsed By:
Peterborough Coalition for Palestinian Solidarity (PCPS)
Peterborough Coalition Against Poverty (PCAP)
Decolonization & Anti-Racism Coalition (DARC)
Trent Active Minds
Transmission
Ontario Public Interest Research Group - Peterborough (OPIRG)
Trent University Native Association (TUNA)
Trent Women's Centre
Trent Queer Collective (TQC)
Zatoun
CUPE Local 3908

For more information, contact:
peterboroughcps@gmail.com
darcpeterborough@riseup.net

This Saturday in Toronto: Demonstration and Teach-In

**please forward far and wide**

1) DEMONSTRATE AGAINST THE ISRAELI ASSAULT ON GAZA! LIFT THE SIEGE!

*WHEN: 11am Saturday January 10, 2009
*WHERE: Israeli Consulate, 180 Bloor St West, Toronto.

As the Israeli ground, air and sea assault continues on the civilian population
of Gaza – we need to continue mobilizing against these war crimes.

At least 540 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured in the single
largest massacre in Gaza since Israel illegally occupied the area in 1967.

These latest war crimes occur in the context of official Canadian complicity
with Israel's illegal siege, bombardment and starvation of the civilian
population in Gaza. We must denounce this on-going support - including the
intensification of bilateral military, political and economic links between
Canada and Israel. Palestinian civil society continues to urge solidarity in
the form of a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign until Israel complies
with international law. This is the time for people of conscience to take up
this call from Palestine.

Last Saturday, over 10,000 people rallied in Toronto in the largest Palestine
solidarity demonstration in decades. This coming Saturday, millions of people
across the globe will return to the streets in internationally coordinated
demonstrations against the Israeli onslaught.

Join us this Saturday to demand that the Canadian government call for an
immediate halt to Israel's attacks and an end to the siege of Gaza!

CONTACT:
Palestine House
info@palestinehouse.com

Demonstration Organized By:

Palestine House
Canadian Arab Federation
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
Canadian Union of Public Employee (Ontario)
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Steel Workers – Toronto Area Council
Canadian Peace Alliance
Toronto Coalition to Stop the War
Not in Our Name – Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network Toronto
Indpendent Jewish Voices
Yosher – Jewish Social Justice Network
Women In Solidarity with Palestine
Muslim Unity
Educators for Peace and Justice
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East
Near East Cultural and Educational Foundation
Canadian Forum for Justice and Peace in Sri Lanka
Muslim Association of Hamilton
Canadian Druze Society
Canadian Syrian Cultural Club
Al Huda
Canadian Shia Muslims Organization
Worker to Worker Canada Cuba Solidarity Network
Somali Canadian Diaspora Alliance
Science for Peace
Bayan – Canada
Bengali Student Association
McMaster Muslims for Peace and Justice
Arab Students Association at Ryerson University

Please send further organizational endorsements to: info@palestinehouse.com

********************************************************************************
Followed by:

Free Gaza: A Teach-In
Saturday, January 10
1:00-5:30 pm
United Steelworkers Hall

25 Cecil Street (1 block south of College, 2 blocks east of Spadina)

1:30-2:30 Workshops: The Crisis in Gaza - History and Context
· Israel, Gaza and the War on Terror
· Gaza, Israeli Apartheid and the Political Economy of the Middle East
· Canada's Complicity, Zionism and Islamophobia
· Media Mythology: "Rebranding" Israel, and Covering the War

3:00-4:00 Gaza: the Humanitarian Crisis

4:15-5:30 Building Solidarity: Next Steps
Register Now: E-mail your name, with subject "Free Gaza Teach-in", to:
faculty@caiaweb.org

(Pay what you can at the door - $5-50 suggested)
Followed by Free Gaza Fundraiser, with DJ No Capitalista
Venue: TBA 8:00 pm

Organized by Palestine House, Canadian Arab Federation and the Coalition Against
Israeli Apartheid

Info: www.palestinehouse.com

Two new statements from Palestine calling for BDS

WE ARE ALL GAZANS:
A message from
The Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions

Sisters and brothers:

The PGFTU has been working at all levels in Palestine and in its
international relations to mobilize international support for peace in the
region. This is the ultimate goal for our working families in Palestine,
who labored in every way possible to bring about an end to the Israeli
occupation of all Palestinian territories. This occupation is the longest
and worst in the modern history.

Over the years and even at this moment, these efforts have been met only
with terrorism against our people by the Israeli army of occupation, which
has indiscriminately destroyed homes and worksites, slaughtered our
people, confiscated our land, established and expanded illegal
settlements, and limited the movement of workers who are only trying to
feed their families. These measures have affected every member of the
Palestinian society.

The recent construction of the Apartheid Wall stands as a symbol of the
extent of Israel's brutal aggression against the Palestinian people and
denial of their legitimate rights, dignity and human needs.

We call upon all peace-loving people in the world:

You are now witness to the criminal aggression by the Israeli army in its
offensive in the Gaza Strip, bringing a new wave of killings and massacres
against the Palestinian people by Israel as the occupying state. These are
war crimes according to international humanitarian law and the Geneva
Conventions.

As our families in Gaza (the poorest in the middle East) are being
slaughtered nonstop for a week now, many of us are reliving what occurred
in the summer of 2006 during the Israeli aggression against the people of
Lebanon.

We witnessed then as we experience now waves of support and solidarity and
similar anger and energy against this brutal injustice. We cannot afford
to let this surge of support pass us by without utilizing the moment to
build our movement to face future challenges. The most important thing is
to be aware and equipped.

· We urgently ask you and your sister labor organizations to help us
spread the message that " WE ARE ALL GAZA" – that this war is against all
poor workers and families of the world. These are not just crimes against
the people of Palestine. They are crimes against humanity.

· Help us create a strong voice for the working families of Gaza by
building coalitions with unions, faith groups, antiwar movements and all
social justice organizations.

· We join you in the hope that in the election of Barack Obama, he will
fulfill his reputation as a pro-union antiwar candidate, and that he
understands that the CHANGE he spoke about during the campaign must
include a fundamental change in U.S foreign policy so that "FREE GAZA.
…FREE PALESTINE" becomes more than just a slogan.

We support and encourage your Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS)
efforts against Israel around the world, but especially in Europe and most
particularly in the United States as a response to the harsh economic
conditions, violations of labor and human rights, and other forms of
oppression imposed by the illegal and immoral Israeli Apartheid
occupation.

We ask you to stop U.S aid to Israel. This becomes not only necessary but
also a duty of international solidarity among labor unions around the
world. It is U.S. government aid that provides Israel with the weapons of
oppression and U.S. government support that enables them to use those
weapons against our people.

We ask you to be an active player in raising funds to meet the bare
necessities of food, medicine and medical supplies for the people of Gaza.

With your solidarity with our struggle for human rights and justice, we
can transform this moment of crisis into a turning point for an end to the
brutal occupation and a step toward the liberation of the people of
Palestine.

With the will and determination of all the people, we can say "FREE
PALESTINE … YES WE CAN.

Manawell Abdel Al
Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)
"The Palestine General Federation of Trade Union" is an independent
democratic labor union Federation. It enjoys the full rights according to
the valid national legislation. It has been established in 1965 as an
extension to the Palestinian labor movement struggle that started in 1921
in "Haifa", it was known as the Arab laborers' society during the British
mandate in Palestine who licensed it.

------------------------------

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http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=34568

Association of University Teachers in Gaza calls for help
Date: 04 / 01 / 2009 Time: 10:27

Bethlehem - Ma an - The Palestinian Association of University Teachers in
Gaza calls upon all peace-loving, freedom-loving nations, NGOs,
universities, intellectuals, cultural and academic institutions, trade
unions and syndicates, as well as human rights organizations all over the
world to:

1. Immediately impose boycotts, sanctions and divestments on the Apartheid
Israeli state.

2. Try the Israeli generals for their on-going crimes against the
Palestinian people.

3. Demand a halt to Israel s savage aggression, end its brutal occupation
and lift its suffocating and lethal siege on the Gaza Strip.

4. Implement all UN resolutions related to the inalienable national
rights, particularly UN resolution 194 calling for the right of return for
the Palestinian refugees to their homes and their property from which they
were uprooted by the terrorist Zionist gangs in 1948.

5. Comply with 4th article of the Geneva Convention, the international
human rights law, the international humanitarian law, and the universal
declaration of human rights as well as all other related agreements.

6. Lift the draconian blockade against Gaza as stipulated by the 1948
convention on Genocide, and consider anyone participating as a war
criminal who must be tried for crimes against humanity.

Israel is a rogue state that is a threat and danger to world peace and
security; therefore she must be banished and punished by the international
community, before it is too late for the people of Palestine, the people
of Israel and the people in the surrounding countries.

Is the UN complicit in Israel's massacre in Gaza?

Omar Barghouti, The Electronic Intifada, 1 January 2009

Who will be held accountable for complicity in the massacring? (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

A friend forwarded to me the most original greeting for the New Year: "I wish in 2009 a horrible year for all war criminals and their accomplices." I could not but think of whether some United Nations officials can be counted among such "accomplices."

Over the last two days, various UN officials stated that the percentage of civilians among those Palestinians killed in the current Israeli war of aggression on Gaza is about "25 percent" and is "likely to increase." Assuming the best of intentions, stating such a painfully low figure reflects shabby research or scandalous incompetence. At worst, it reveals intentional deception and misinformation that can only benefit the already massive and well-oiled Israeli public relations machine.

The UN's complicity in Israel's propaganda war is the latest, albeit hardly ever mentioned, dimension of the international organization's utter failure in defending its principles, foremost among which are the prevention of war and the promotion of peace, when performing such a duty is expected to stir the wrath of the US master and the uniquely influential Israel lobby. Not only has the UN Secretary-General betrayed the very Charter of the UN and all relevant international law principles by failing to even condemn Israel's massacre of civilians and targeting of civilian institutions and residential neighborhoods; the entire UN system has so far dealt with it as a "war" between two relatively symmetric forces, where the mightier side has sufficient justification to "defend itself," but should do so more proportionately, while the weaker side is chiefly responsible for triggering the "armed conflict."

Now, senior UN officials, excluding the particularly courageous and principled UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Richard Falk, and a few others, are only focusing on "women and children" victims of the massacre, implying, even if unintentionally, that all Palestinian men in Gaza are fair game for the Israeli killing machine. The tens of Palestinian civilian policemen that were butchered in the opening hours of the massive Israeli attack by dozens of fighter jets were, thus, conveniently dismissed by such irresponsible UN figures of casualties as Hamas "fighters," more or less, that may be targeted with impunity. This is not to mention the scores of male teachers, doctors, workers, farmers and unemployed who were killed by Israel's indiscriminate bombing in their workplaces, public offices, homes or streets and were not accounted for as civilian victims of Israel's belligerent murder spree.

Above everything else, this UN discourse not only reduces close to half a million Palestinian men in that wretched, tormented and occupied coastal strip to "militants," radical "fighters," or whatever other nouns in currency nowadays in the astoundingly, but characteristically, biased western media coverage of the Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, as some international law experts have described them; it also treats them as already condemned criminals that deserve the capital punishment Israel has meted out on them. I am not an expert on the history of the UN, but I suspect this sets a new low, a precedent in dehumanizing an entire adult male population in a region of "conflict," thereby justifying their fatal targeting or, at least, silently condoning it. But this should surprise no one as the same UN leaders have for 18 months watched in eerie silence or even indirectly justified, one way or another, Israel's siege of Gaza which was described by Falk as a "prelude to genocide" and compared by him to Nazi crimes.

If one wants to be truly magnanimous and give those UN officials the benefit of the doubt -- not something I would recommend at all, given the scale of the massacre and their verifiable complicity -- one has to assume that they are quite confused as to how best to categorize the thousands of Palestinian victims of Israel's war on Gaza, whether those injured or killed. A casual overview of Israeli army press statements and human rights organizations' reports, however, will immediately dismiss the possibility that the UN figure of 25 percent was the product of clinical incompetence or technical ineptness, widely recognized trademarks of the organization.

A recent article published in The Washington Post, for instance, quoted a senior Israeli military official saying: "There are many aspects to Hamas, and we are trying to hit the whole spectrum, because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel." An Israeli army spokeswoman went further, stating "Anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target." Given that, in the ghetto of Gaza, Hamas is effectively the "ruling" party -- it was democratically elected, after all -- and its network of social and charitable organizations are the largest provider of social services to the impoverished and besieged population, all of Gaza's civilian infrastructure, public schools, hospitals, universities, law and order organs, traffic police, sewage treatment and water purification stations, ministries providing vital services to the public, mosques, public theaters and many non-governmental institutions can technically be considered "affiliated" with Hamas.

Lest the reader feel that this is an exaggeration, today, in the first hours of the first day of the new year, the Israeli air force already bombed the following "targets" in Gaza: the Palestinian Legislative Council, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Justice. Earlier, several mosques were pulverized to the ground. So were main buildings in the Islamic University of Gaza, which serves 20,000 students. Ambulances and private homes were not spared either.

Even B'Tselem, Israel's leading human rights organization that often issues sanitized, "balanced" or selective reports focusing on Israel's less criminal behavior in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, was compelled to conclude that the Israeli army was intentionally targeting "what appear to be clear civilian objects" that are not "engaged in military action against Israel," without making the distinction between male and female civilians. A statement from the organization on 31 December said:

For example, the military bombed the main police building in Gaza and killed, according to reports, 42 Palestinians who were in a training course and were standing in formation at the time of the bombing. Participants in the course study first-aid, handling of public disturbances, human rights, public-safety exercises, and so forth. Following the course, the police officers are assigned to various arms of the police force in Gaza responsible for maintaining public order.

Another example is yesterday's bombing of the government offices. These offices included the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Labor, Construction and Housing. An announcement made by the [Israeli army] Spokesperson's Office regarding this attack stated that, 'the attack was carried out in response to the ongoing rocket and mortar-shell fire carried out by Hamas over Israeli territory, and in the framework of [Israeli army] operations to strike at Hamas governmental infrastructure and members active in the organization.'

Just to drive the point closer to home for an average western reader who may have internalized over the years a perception of Israelis -- inaccurately and quite deliberately depicted by Israeli and western propaganda as part of the "west" -- as full humans and Palestinians, along with almost all global southerners, as relative humans, perhaps the following mirroring exercise is necessary.

Imagine if the Palestinian resistance, in exercising its otherwise perfectly legitimate, UN-sanctioned right to fight Israel's occupation and apartheid, were to regard all institutions "affiliated" with the Israeli government as legitimate targets, justifying the bombing of universities, hospitals, civilian ministries, publicly-run synagogues, neighborhoods where government or army officials live or work, and other civilian "targets," killing in five days only 1,600 Israelis and wounding 8,000 (four times the current toll in Gaza, given that Israel's population is four times as large). What would the UN do? Would UN officials only count Israeli women and children victims? Would they call on both parties to "exercise restraint" or to end "the violence"? Morally, and even legally, this is not even a fair reversal of roles, for Israel, no matter what, remains the occupier and settler-colonial oppressor, while the indigenous Palestinians remain the colonized and oppressed.

The truth is the UN leadership, in the unipolar world that we are still living in and is perhaps on its way to be transformed to more multipolar space, has effectively turned into a rubber stamp bureau for US dictates. Ban Ki-moon will go down in history as the most subservient and morally unqualified Secretary-General to ever lead the international organization. The only question remaining is whether one day he and his senior staff will stand trial for being accomplices in Israel's war crimes, together with leaders of the US, the EU and many Arab regimes. In a more just world, governed by the rule of law, not the US-dominated rule of the jungle, they should.

Omar Barghouti is a Palestinian human rights activist and commentator.

Israeli Slaughter, International Culpability

Gaza massacre points to urgent need for viable sanctions

Dan Freeman-Maloy

There is every reason to be outraged. But despite the severity of
Israeli atrocities in Gaza, we have little right to act surprised.
Whatever else can be said, Israel has made it abundantly clear that
until its actions are met with credible international sanctions, it
will subject Palestinians (and very likely others in the region) to
massive, recurring waves of violence.

This was clear when the Obama-Biden campaign helped to lay the
political foundation for this assault. It was clear when, amidst
threats of such an operation and ongoing colonization in the West
Bank, the European Union voted to upgrade relations with Israel
earlier this month. For those of us in Canada, it has been clear as
the Harper government has sharpened its alignment with Israel in the
absence of any sustained parliamentary opposition.

Still, although "Operation Cast Lead" (as the Israeli regime has
dubbed its latest assault) extends more or less naturally from
longstanding Israeli policies, it is many ways especially despicable.
The most obvious issue is its scale. Beginning on the morning of
Saturday the 27th, approximately 110 Israeli Air Force (IAF) fighter
jets and helicopters bombarded the densely populated Gaza Strip with
more than 100 tons of explosives, initiating what may well evolve into
an even broader onslaught. By the end of the day, more than 230
Palestinians had been killed, an additional 780+ wounded.

As the death toll from air strikes continues to climb, hundreds of
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) infantry and armored corps troops have
been deployed on the border with Gaza along with IDF artillery
batteries, and several thousands reservists have been called up in
preparation for a potential ground invasion.

The assault has been characterized by brazen contempt for civilian
life and by crass, cynical diplomacy.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reports that the IDF, long planning for such
an operation, received final authorization the morning of Friday the
26th. That day, Major General Amiram Levin (res.) spoke on IDF Radio
and conveyed the flavour of Israeli military doctrine regarding the
then impending attack: "The whole issue of fighting against and
bringing down the Hamas regime is a mistake and very difficult to
achieve. What we have to do is act systematically with the aim of
punishing all the organizations that are firing the rockets and
mortars, as well as the civilians who are enabling them to fire and
hide." Yoav Galant, the head of Israeli Southern Command and a key
commander in the attack, has since stated that a key operational goal
is pursuing "the maximum number of enemy casualties keeping Israel
Defense Force casualties at a minimum." Recall that Israel has
designated the Gaza Strip as a whole an "enemy entity."

Continue reading:
www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet171.html#daily