Shell in court over Saro-Wiwa execution

In 1995 Ken Saro-Wiwa swore that one day Shell, the oil giant, would answer for complicity in his death in a court of law. On 26 May his dying wish is to be fulfilled.

According to today’s Observer, Shell and one of its senior executives are to face charges in a New York federal court that in the early 1990s they were complicit in human rights abuses in Nigeria. If found liable, then the company could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of pounds in damages.

Saro-Wiwa campaigned on behalf of the Ogoni people, leading peaceful protests against the environmental damage caused by oil companies in the Niger Delta. There was worldwide condemnation when, along with eight other activists, he was hanged by the Nigerian military government in 1995 after being charged with incitement to murder after the death of four Ogoni elders. Many of the prosecution witnesses later admitted that they had been bribed to give evidence against Saro-Wiwa, who was a respected television writer and businessman.

Lawyers in New York will allege that Shell actively subsidised a campaign of terror by security forces in the Niger Delta and attempted to influence the trial that led to Saro-Wiwa's execution. The lawsuit alleges that the company attempted to bribe two witnesses in his trial to testify against him. Members of Saro-Wiwa's family will take the stand for the first time to give their version of events, among them his brother Owens, who will allege that Brian Anderson, managing director of Shell's Nigerian subsidiary, told him: "It would not be impossible to get charges dropped if protests were called off." Anderson is fighting the action.

Saro-Wiwa's son, Ken Wiwa, said: "For 14 years we have lived with the memory of a father, an uncle, a brother, a son executed for a crime he didn't commit. We have daily reminders. It's painful to live with a monstrous injustice. To wake up one day to finally get our day in court is tremendously satisfying. Part of the reason for the original protest was the way Shell behaved. Ogoni people made their living farming and fishing, but Shell was using open waste pits and oil pipelines criss-crossed the land. These polluting activities were put on top of a delicate ecosystem. It destroyed people's ability to sustain themselves. That's the impact of Shell and, when people tried to protest, they were brutally repressed."

Shell described the executions of the Ogoni 9 as "tragic events carried out by the Nigerian government in power at the time".

Jenny Green, a senior lawyer at the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, said: "Mosop [the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People] was formed to stand up to multinationals and the dictatorship that acted hand-in-hand. This is a significant moment, because it says you can't act with impunity."

For more information on Ken Saro-Wiwa’s life and legacy, go to Remember Ken Saro-Wiwa

Even more proof that chocolate is good for you

There have been quite a few good news health stories about chocolate. Now it seems that it can aid mental arithmetic. According to the Telegraph mental arithmetic became easier after volunteers had been given large amounts of compounds found in chocolate, called flavanols, in a hot cocoa drink. They were also less likely to feel tired or mentally drained.

Prof David Kennedy, director of the brain, performance and nutrition research centre at Northumbria University, and a co-author of the study, said that chocolate could be beneficial for mentally challenging tasks. "For things that are difficult to do, mentally demanding things that maybe crop up in your work it could help," Prof Kennedy said.The flavanols, part of a group of chemicals called polyphenols, work by increasing the flow of blood into the brain.

For the study 30 volunteers were asked to count backwards in groups of three from a random number between 800 and 999 generated by a computer. The findings show that they could do the calculations more quickly and more accurately after they had been given the drink. The findings also show that the volunteers did not get as tired doing the calculations if they had been given the cocoa drink, despite being asked to do them over and over for an hour.

The researchers gave the volunteers a total of 500mg of flavanol, an amount too great to be found naturally in the diet, researchers said that people should ensure that they have lots of flavanols, also found in fruit and vegetables, on a regular basis.

Prof Kennedy added: "The amount that you are giving is more than in the diet but there is quite a lot of evidence that general amounts are protective against declining function and that kind of thing. "The more fruit and vegetables and things that are high in polyphenols the better that is for your brain in the long run

Hmm now I have yest another excuse to eat that bar of Green & Blacks... and that one, and that one....

A bit of Anvil

Metal on Metal - 1983



666- 2005

Only because I'm reading the story of Anvil at the moment.... I haven't had a chance to see the film yet. It'll probably be a dvd rental now rather than a trip to the cinema

Photo Hunt - Stripes

Hover fly in its stripey glory

A rather coy bumble bee

The theme for this week's Photo Hunt is stripes. Again I don;t have a lot that fits in wth the theme so shere's a repeat of hover fly photo posted originally in 2007. Also a bumble bee that chooses not to flaunt its delicious stripines... or should that be hoops? Ah well another stretched theme!

My cast means that I still can't spend too much time at the pc so please bear with me

A U-boat in Ireland

I have no inspiration for another post today so here is a post recycled from 2006

Contrary to rumours there were no secret U boat bases in Eire during World War II. The chances of one staying secret were virtually nil. Besides if there had been any evidence of one, the resultant British action would have been swift and drastic I am sure. That is not to say that U boats were not present in Irish waters. In one case a U Boat did actually land in Eire in rather unusual circumstances.



On 4 October 1939, the residents of Ballymore near Dingle noticed a strange craft heading for the rock at Ventry Harbour. They rushed towards the shore and to their amazement found that members of the crew of the German submarine, U 35, were landing two Greek sailors from a rubber dinghy.. After landing the men, the German sailors rowed back to the U Boat and brought in two more men, and they continued to make the trip until 28 men were put ashore. They were survivors from a Greek freighter, Diamantis, which had been bound from Freetown to Barrow on Furness with 4,000 tons of iron ore when it was intercepted by the U Boat off south of Ireland the previous day. The sea was so rough at the time that one of their life boats was overturned and in a rare show of chivalry, the German commander, Werner Lott, ordered his crew to rescue the Greek sailors.

All 28 seamen from the Diamantis were brought on board the U 35. The Greek crew were offered beds and told to make themselves comfortable.. Some of the men later expressed their keen appreciation of the way in which they had been treated. “When the Greek sailors said good bye to me on the conning tower they went on their knees and kissed my wedding ring as if I was a bishop,” Lott recalled. “I did not want this but they said ‘we owe our lives to you. You have treated us very nicely’.” After dropping off the Greek seamen, the U Boat left Ventry Harbour at a very slow speed. before submerging.

Much to the embarrassment of the Dublin government, the story was reported not only in the local newspapers but also in the international press. It actually made the cover story of Life Magazine on October 16, 1939.From the Taoiseach Eamon de Valera’s standpoint, however, the report was embarrassing because it gave credence to rumours that German U Boats were being succored by the Irish.

When U 35 returned to Germany, Lott was reprimanded by Admiral Karl Donitz, the head of the German Navy, for endangering the life of his crew. But he was still in charge of U 35 on its next tour of duty. On 29 November 29 U 35 was cruising on the surface in the North Sea, east of the Shetland Islands when she was spotted by the British destroyer HMS Icarus. Blinded by the rising sun, the crew of U 35 failed to see the Icarus approaching until it was too late. The submarine managed to submerge but was hit and badly damaged in the ensuing depth charge attack. The Icarus was joined by other destroyers under the direction of the Captain of HMS Kelly, Lord Louis Mountbatten. Realising that their vessel was doomed, Lott ordered the boat to surface. As U 35 flooded, the crew took to the water - all 43 of whom survived the ordeal.

Normally the British would not wait to rescue German sailors, because the British ships would be sitting targets for any other U boats in the vicinity, but on this occasion Mountbatten ordered that all of the German sailors be rescued. Lott sought him out when they reached England. “I thanked him for the extraordinary efforts his destroyer made to pick us up,” Lott recalled. “That is how life is,” Mountbatten replied. “You were extraordinary picking up the Greeks.”. After the conflict Lott made friends with Mountbatten and they corresponded with one another until Mountbatten was murdered by the Provisional IRA in bomb blast on his boat off Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, in 1979.


This post is based on an article by Ryle Dwyer in teh Irish Examiner, U-Boat net and the U35 website. See links below:

Irish Examiner

U 35 homepage

U boat net

Robyn and Bebe

This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats.

Now we are Three

Here starts the fourth year of the Poor Mouth's existence. When I started I didn't know how long I would last before I got tired and gave up - I didn't expect to make it to to three years, nearly 2300 posts, over 400,000 visits and thousands of comments!

I am grateful to everyone who continues to visit, everyone who has linked to the Poor Mouth and to everyone who has left comments over the years. Without you the Poor Mouth is nothing.

Chick may not be bird brains after all

Again this looked like an April Fool joke when I saw it but it is too widespread t be a prank. According to yesterday’s Guardian (and many other sources), scientists have discovered that chicks can do simple sums soon after they hatch.

Researchers observed "impressive arithmetic" in newly hatched chicks. Rosa Rugani at the University of Trento stated that the chicks had to perform simple arithmetic to work out which screen obscured the larger number of objects.

The chicks were reared with five plastic containers of the kind found inside Kinder chocolate eggs. This meant the chicks bonded with the capsules, much as they do with their mother, making them want to be near the containers as they grew up. In a series of simple maths tests, Rugani's team attached a fishing line to each of the plastic capsules and used it to move them behind two screens that the chick could see from behind a clear plastic door. When all of the containers had been hidden, the chick was set free to investigate.

Rugani's team found that when the chicks went in search of the capsules, they peered first behind the screen that concealed the larger number of containers.In a more difficult test, the researchers moved the containers back and forth behind the two screens while the chicks watched. When they were released into the enclosure, the chicks still made for the screen obscuring the most containers, suggesting they had been able to keep track of the number of capsules behind each by adding and subtracting them as they moved.

Well there you go - proof positive that chicks are smarter that many Nuts and Okay readers and every single member of the BNP

Her Sorrow - Sohrab Sepheri

Like Her Grief by Ahmad Shamlou, Sohrab Sepheri's poem is a tribute to Forough Farrokzad

She was grand.

She was a noble native of today.

She was grand.

Her realm was all boundless spheres,

And she sensed, so intensely, the ways of water and the earth.

The tone of her voice pictured

the anxious sadness of the truth.

Her eyes recalled the live direction of the roots.

And her hands, one day,

waved tender steam of generosity

and floated us in the stream of care.

She played the intimacy of her soul,

And she portrayed the straightness of her love

in all sharp bends of her time,

for the mirrors.

She was alike the rain,

full of freshness of the flow.

She was alike the tree,

spread in the ease of lights.

She was always calling early years of the breeze

And she forever tied strings of her words

to the neat relevance of rivers.

One night, for us

she spelled so plainly the green prayer of innocence

that we reached out for the kind texture of the soil

and we revived… alike refreshing accent of a pail.

Many times we saw:

with plenty of wooden baskets, she left

to gather bushes of golden plaques.

But it couldn’t be

that she’d stand in front of crystal belief of the birds.

Thus she went to the limits of naught

and laid in the wake of white serenity of the lights.

And she didn’t believe,

She didn’t believe at all,

that within revolted intonation of the gates

we would be left massively alone.

Even to taste a piece of fruit,

we are now left extremely alone.

By: Sohrab Sepehri

Translation: Maryam Dilmaghani

From the Maryam Dilmaghani's website Forough Farrokhzad - The sad little fairy

Miss Universe’s Gitmo travelogue

When I saw this in today’s Independent I thought that this must surely be an April Fool’s joke but the BBC says otherwise.

It would seem that Miss Universe, Venezuelan Dayana Mendoza, has been fulsome in her praise for Guantanamo Bay. "I didn't want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful," she wrote in her blog at the end of a five-day trip.

Ms Mendoza, a Venezuelan model, was crowned Miss Universe last summer. Since then, she has clocked up stops in Indonesia, Spain, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. "This week, Guantanamo!!!" she trumpeted on her blog. Her visit to the base was designed as a morale-boosting treat for troops. "The first thing we did was attend a big lunch and then we visited one of the bars they have in the base. We talked about Gitmo and what it was like living there," wrote Ms Mendoza.

Other highlights included meeting the military dogs – who "did a very nice demonstration of their skills" – and a first-hand look at the detainee camps with their orange jump-suited inmates. "We saw the jails, where they shower, how they recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books," she said. "It was very interesting."

Cori Crider, who has represented more than 40 current and former Guantanamo prisoners, described the visit as the "latest surreal chapter" in the history of the prison. The lawyer had just finished visiting an inmate, who had been shackled to the floor, and was driving back to her office when she saw a large crowd of jostling soldiers. "At the centre of the uniform swarm was a shock of glossy hair and a brightly patterned top that looked more like one you'd wear on beach holiday, her hip was out, her arm around a Marine," said Ms Crider. "It's obviously tempting to blame her for posing for a photo a stone's throw away from the isolation camps, but people don't think. They miss human suffering going on right under their nose."

Miss Mendoza described the sea thus: "The water... is soooo beautiful! We went to the glass beach, and realised the name of it comes from the little pieces of broken glass from hundreds of years ago. It is pretty to see all the colours shining with the sun." Miss Universe's final encounter was with a jewellery maker. "I bought a necklace from her that will remind me of Guantanamo Bay."

Hmm I wonder if some of the longer term visitors will have similar fond memories, but then I doubt any of them had the chance to buy a necklace or visit the glass beach...