The Sentinel Satellites

I wasn't sure where to put this so I put here if wrong let me know.

[url=http://www.24horas.cl/noticiasbbc/los-satelites-centinela-de-george-clooney--573056 ][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] [/url]


THE SENTINEL SATELLITES GEORGE CLOONEY
Discover how satellites are increasingly being used to detect crimes against humanity, thanks to projects like Satellite Sentinel, driven by the actor.
MARCH 26, 2013

Actor George Clooney is one of the initiators of the Satellite Sentinel Project.
A little over a decade, get pictures of the inside of countries like North Korea was difficult and risky, but today its surface is portrayed in detail thanks to satellite technology.

The UN announced last week it would investigate possible human rights abuses in that country based on the testimony of victims, as well as images of what they suspect could be prison camps forced laborers.

This month, Human Rights Watch also threw hand images of this type to report crimes against humanity in Libya.

According specified satellites detected what they say is the "systematic destruction of large areas of the city (Tawergha, in the north) generated by fires and demolitions that took place after they finished fighting in mid-2011."

All these are examples of the increasing use agencies in defense of human rights are taking this technology, organizations advocating use as Satellite Sentinel, driven by American actor George Clooney.

Satellite Sentinel
Abandoned apartment block in Tawergha. February 2013.
"The Satellite Sentinel Project methods have changed the idea of what it means to investigate human rights abuses", recently wrote about the journalist Ian Daly, the magazine Wired, referring to one of the best known projects in this sense: the Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP).

Powered by Clooney and activist John Prendergast same nationality, the idea of this project is to use satellites as a system of "early warning" to stop atrocities and call public attention.
Clooney and Prendergast conceived the project during his visit to South Sudan as a way of documenting the world with analysis of satellite images provided by DigitalGlobe.

Digital Globe is a network of high-resolution commercial satellite able to collect 1,000 million square kilometers of quality images. Images which are then analyzed by volunteer experts from the University of Harvard.

Here's how the SSP from the page images are regularly published bombings, attacks, mass graves, forced displacement, and populations destroyed during the conflict in Sudan.
These images are then distributed to the media, but mostly flow through social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Refugees in Colombia
Images of alleged mass graves in Sudan satellite captured.
UNOSAT is the UN body that since 2003 is dedicated to conducting mapping and analysis of satellite images for free to organizations inside and outside the UN.

According to its members, tends to assume that the cost of using satellites is too high, but say it is not so, but it is gradually decreasing and is now part of the small budget of a humanitarian operation.

It is particularly useful for locating human movement in the territory, as in the case of refugees in areas of risk or inaccessible.

Latin America is no exception. In 2008, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced a partnership with Google to locate refugee settlements in Colombia as well as in Iraq and Darfur.

Using a Google Earth application, users can obtain information on agency operations in the territory, easily locate refugee camps and learn about its history.

Using satellites are integrated into what is known as "crisis management 2.0", in which the photographs from space combined with mobile and social networks, allowing the emergence of forms of decentralized and participatory management.

However, organizations and activists warn that many guards we have in the sky, the combined use of technology should never replace field investigations, but simply to be a powerful ally.


LOS SATÉLITES CENTINELA DE GEORGE CLOONEY
Descubra cómo los satélites cada vez más se usan para detectar crímenes contra la humanidad, gracias a proyectos como Satellite Sentinel, impulsado por el actor estadounidense.
26 marzo 2013

El actor George Clooney es uno de los impulsores del Satellite Sentinel Project.
Hace poco más de una década, obtener imágenes del interior de países como Corea del Norte era difícil y arriesgado, pero hoy su superficie es retratada con detalle gracias a la tecnología satelital.

La ONU anunció la semana pasada que investigará posibles abusos contra los derechos humanos en ese país basándose en el testimonio de víctimas, así como en las imágenes de lo que sospechan podrían ser campos de prisioneros sometidos a trabajos forzados.
Este mes, Human Rights Watch también echaba mano de imágenes de este tipo para denunciar crímenes contra la humanidad en Libia.

Según especificaron los satélites detectaron lo que dicen es la "sistemática destrucción de grandes áreas de la ciudad (Tawergha, en el norte del país) generada por incendios y demoliciones que tuvieron lugar después de que finalizaran los combates a mediados de 2011".
Todos estos son ejemplos del creciente uso que organismos en defensa de los derechos humanos están dando a esta tecnología, un uso que defienden organizaciones como Satélite Centinela, impulsada por el actor estadounidense George Clooney.

Satélites centinela
Bloque de apartamentos abandonado en Tawergha. Febrero 2013.
"Los métodos del Proyecto Satélite Centinela han cambiado la idea de lo que significa investigar los abusos contra los derechos humanos", escribía recientemente al respecto el periodista Ian Daly, de la revista tecnológica Wired, en referencia a uno de los proyectos más conocidos en este sentido: el Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP).

Impulsado por Clooney y el activista de misma nacionalidad John Prendergast, la idea de este proyecto es utilizar los satélites como sistema de "alerta temprana" para detener atrocidades y llamar la atención del público.

Clooney y Prendergast concibieron el proyecto durante su visita a Sudán del Sur, como una forma de documentar al mundo con análisis de imágenes proporcionadas por los satélites DigitalGlobe.

Digital Globe es una red de satélites comerciales de alta resolución capaz de recolectar 1.000 millones de kilómetros cuadrados de imágenes de calidad. Imágenes que luego son analizadas por expertos voluntarios de la Universidad de Harvard.

Así es como desde la página del SSP se publican regularmente imágenes de bombardeos, ataques, fosas comunes, desplazamientos forzados, así como poblaciones arrasadas durante el conflicto sudanés.

Estas imágenes son luego distribuidas a los medios, pero sobre todo fluyen a través de redes sociales como Twitter y Facebook.
Refugiados en Colombia

Imágenes de supuestas fosas comunes captadas por satélite en Sudán.
Unosat es el organismo de Naciones Unidas que desde 2003 se dedica a realizar mapeos satelitales y análisis de imágenes de forma gratuita para organismos internos y externos a la ONU.
Según sus miembros, se suele pensar que el costo de usar satélites es demasiado elevado, pero aseguran que no es así, sino que éste está disminuyendo de forma progresiva y ya forma parte del pequeño presupuesto de una operación humanitaria.

Es útil sobre todo para localizar desplazamientos humanos en el territorio, como es el caso de los refugiados en zonas de riesgo o difícil acceso.

América Latina no es una excepción. En 2008, el Alto Comisionado de la ONU para los Refugiados (Acnur) anunció un alianza con Google para localizar los asentamientos de refugiados en Colombia, así como en Irak y Darfur.

Usando una aplicación para Google Earth, los usuarios pueden obtener información sobre operaciones de la agencia en el territorio, localizar fácilmente los campos de refugiados y conocer su historia.

El uso de satélites se integra en lo que ya se conoce como "gestión de crisis 2.0", en la que las fotografías desde el espacio se combinan con la telefonía móvil y las redes sociales, permitiendo el surgimiento de formas de gestión descentralizadas y participativas.

Sin embargo, organismos y activistas alertan que por muchos centinelas que tengamos en el cielo, el uso combinado de la tecnología jamás debe sustituir a las investigaciones de campo, sino limitarse a ser un poderoso aliado.

thanks for the article
thanks to G

Been away - just catching up and WOW! Great article, Mazy. Wonderful find

Thanks Mazy. This is the George I admire.

Hi
Here are some links for the Satellite Sentinel Project

.http://www.satsentinel.org/sites/default/files/Architects_of_Atrocity.pdf

The first is for a complete report it is very interesting what you can see.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

This second is a main page where you can get monthly reports graphics lots of info

scaring....

Hi Mazy. Thank you loads.

Enough Project and Not on Our Watch are worth a look, too.

And Satellite Sentinel's now on Twitter @SudanSentinel

No problem. I follow them all and get email up-dates. they send links I check them out and tweet about them. I have anywhere from 300 - 400 emails from the president's groups to news outlets and my causes.

Great ,Mazy! Me too. Hope to get over there one day....

Enough project and Not on our Watch are very interesting, have read a lot on those subjects myself. Sentinel Satellites, technology at its best in my opinion.

Yep. Clever Mr C and Mr P and all their friends................Stunning how two blokes sitting looking at the stars can result in this. A huge amount of work and dedication involved too.

And the whole idea is taking off globally...



.

Its a good idea to try and keep the criminals honest, well a bit more anyway.

For those of you that are interested; Sec.John Kerry wrote a colunm for Huff Post April 03, 2013. Apparently they have come up with a plan. President Obama is offering rewards for some of the worst war criminals in Sudan $5Million for them. Here is the link I am sure George is happy. I am but I didn't see alBashir's name, could be the ICC has a warrant out on him.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Anyway here's the link.

I think they have got a warrant out Mazy.
That's a brilliant idea and a very interesting read.
Thanks for posting it Mazy

thanks girls for all news

This looks really interesting.

Not on our Watch is holding a fundraising Races Day at Sandown Park, Esher, Surrey in the UK on June 15.

First time ever. I think, and about the same time the whole crew are likely to be here for the UK filming of Monuments Men - and not a million miles from where they usually stay.....................

Full information and ticket prices are here.....

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

See you there, Jo. Restaurant booking?

party animal - not! wrote:See you there, Jo. Restaurant booking?

I'm away in Cornwall !
Hope you get there though !

Supposed to be in Italy.........but will spread the word to friends and rellies nearby..........looks like a really good day

Bravi! So maybe Matt and G there?

Just seen a piece in the Guardian/Observer dated Saturday, March 24 headed 'George Clooney's satellite spies reveal secrets of Sudan's bloody army' byline Paul Harris, Cambridge, Mass

Will check the date again, cos I thought it was 2012, so I couldn't work out why it's just come to light.

Great piece tho, irrespective of date.............

Just found. If you go to @PruMcNellis of Prudence Productions and scroll down you will see a post that says that Our Man will be speaking on E!News on June 15 about NotonourWatch, at the fundraising horseracing day at Sandown Park, Surrey......now whether this is him talking at the event is not clear.........

So probably not in flesh?

This just popped up on twitter, I truly mean it God Bless George he is a one of a kind. Love you George.

George Clooney, the Satellite Sentinel
MARTA HUERTA DURAN FROM
MAY 31, 2013
PRISM INTERNATIONAL

Mines in Jebel 'Amer, Sudan.
Photo: DigitalGlobe
MEXICO CITY (approved). - The Mexican Zetas are a well behaved girls compared with Janjaweed warlords in Sudan, whose mission, to tell of his victims, is to destroy the black population.

In addition, the Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, already has an international arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court based in The Hague. He is accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.
The day after learning of the arrest warrant, al-Bashir of Sudan expelled 13 NGOs that provided assistance to hundreds of thousands of refugees who survived in camps under inhumane conditions. For journalists there is no possibility or even close. Indeed, Sudan is a violent country.

Where there are no witnesses
American actor George Clooney is a fierce defender of human rights has taken the case of Sudan in a very personal and one day, along with another activist John Prendergast, came to become a "paparazzi" of rights humans. Satellite technology to take pictures in places where neither the press nor the human rights defenders have access.
The project Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) released by Clooney, Prendergast and Enough organization, is to take photographs, films and monitor villages and refugee camps from a satellite.
In Sudan there are two areas of humanitarian crisis: Darfur and the Nuba Mountains. Information reaching the satellite is analyzed by scholars, jurists and human rights activists, who at this time have their attention on the areas of greatest population attack.
The information is also used for sending alerts and enable people to get to safety, as if it were a tsunami warning.
SSP page for its acronym in English is: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] .

The Satellite Sentinel Project has documented all kinds of attacks on people and served to find pits filled with dead.
Anyone in the world can work with photos, donations, analysis or political activism. The information is also published on Facebook and Twitter.

First Darfur, Nuba Mountains now
The United Nations (UN) organizations and human rights defenders have documented over recent decades in Sudan is practiced slavery, forced enlistment of children, rape as a weapon of war and genocide. Policies and Sudanese government armed campaigns seeking to enforce an "ethnic cleansing" and wipe the Nuba people.

The war between the Sudanese regular army, the Popular Defence Forces, militias loyal to the government in Khartoum and the People's Liberation Army since 2003 has left nearly two million deaths. The struggle for control of the great natural resources is seasoned with religious conflicts between the Muslim north and the Christian south shamanistic, as well as epidemics and famines.
Erosion and overuse have left the land barren of large tracts of northern Sudan, so that the fertile lands of the Kordofan region in the central part of the country, are violently disputed.

The Nuba live as in the Neolithic and are sedentary, the war has destroyed everything and are literally hunted. The attackers sent from Khartoum practiced scorched earth policy. Village by village is systematically converted into ashes.
To make matters worse, the Nuba villages are on oilfields. People clogs, you have to get rid of it.
The Nuba Mountains are home to most of the Christian population, and black animist Sudan.

In March 2013, the UN announced that photographs and information Clooney satellite will be used as evidence that prison camps are subjected to forced labor.
The Satellite Sentinel Project participants
Satellites that capture such images are 50 thousand feet.
Google, which has become a participant, uses its mapping system, useful to place the actors in this drama and let people know where to walk the perpetrators. That information, as tsunami alarms serves to gain a little time, a tiny advantage for people to take shelter, hide.

Since June 2012, Harvard University is also collaborating on the project. The group The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative follows step by step and documents human rights violations in real time.

The UN has a program of monitoring and mapping satellite called UNITAR's Operational Satellite Applications Programme, better known as Unosat, used for natural disasters such as floods, landslides, volcanic eruptions, and on the initiative of George Clooney, is also used to humanitarian crises in Sudan and Syria.

The governments of the powers use the information obtained satellite for military purposes, the novel is now being used in the search for peace and human rights, which is in the hands of civilians and that anyone has access to that data in time Real.
UNOSAT is the main tool in the Masters in Humanitarian Action offered by the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
Currently, the UN is used for mapping and analysis of the fighting between rebels and the Syrian army. There's even an app for iPhones that can be downloaded free. With that, the user can get information in a disaster area and can also contribute photos and information as if it were a reporter.
The Web address of the site UNOSAT is [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] .

A spy movie
"Do not stop pushing, we must take the spotlight where they are needed," says Clooney in every interview. He exploits his fame and popularity to afford satellite project costing, according to Los Angeles Times Magazine, two million dollars a year.
The Satellite Sentinel Project has the support of the organization, Enough ('enough' or 'enough', in Spanish) and the group Not in Our Name, founded by actors Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, Jerry Weintraub.

Now, pay TV is not cheap. So George Clooney is on the world giving lectures and organizing collections to pay the cost of the satellite. "Most of the time people want to talk about movies. No matter what you want to hear, the issue is not important, but the financing, "said actor John Horn, LA Times Magazine, in December 2011. "The floodlights do not need to focus on the red carpet but in things," topped the lover of 51 years old.

According to LA Times, thanks to Satellite Sentinel were discovered in August 2011, several mass graves, and in October of the same year it was revealed that police in central Sudan committed several war crimes near the UN camp.
The March 16, 2012, George Clooney and his father, journalist Nick Clooney, the grandson of Martin Luther King and several personalities were arrested in Washington for protesting outside the embassy of Sudan. They accused the government of Omar al-Bashir of causing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world to conduct consistent and systematic attacks against the population and block access to food and medical aid to the Nuba Mountains, on the border between Sudan and South Sudan.
Al-Bashir is responsible for the first genocide of the century, according to its detractors.

The Nuba were on the wrong side
When South Sudan split from Sudan (July 2011), the Nuba, who supported independence, were left out of the negotiations and to set new boundaries, Sudan left side. Revenge of the Khartoum government came with all brutality.Some Nuba were armed and there are constant clashes with government troops in Khartoum.

Khartoum requires huge sums of money to the government of South Sudan for using the pipelines and transport oil from south to north. South Sudan, in response, paralyzed oil production.

The lawsuit by the oil pose a threat of war between Sudan and South Sudan.
But, to make matters worse, there are also gold. On Tuesday, May 9, 2013, the Satellite Sentinel page published an indictment of the government in Khartoum making him responsible for the massacres in Darfur. The organization denies Enough Khartoum official version, that violence is caused by ethnic conflicts. "No, the government's interest in Al-Bashir is the absolute control of the gold deposits," says Askahya Kumar, a researcher at Columbia University and a specialist in Sudan. The gold deposits were discovered in Darfur in 2010.

Starring for the second time
George Clooney is the second film man approaching the Nuba. The first was the film director Leni Riefenstahl Nazi propaganda. She was among the Nuba of 1962-1977. He lived with them and filmed. His works are of great historical, anthropological and ethnological.

The German filmmaker, born in 1906, rose to fame with the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will, about the National Socialist Party Congress in 1934.Another of his notable documentaries was Olympia, on the Olympic Games in Nazi Germany in 1938.

A World War II ended, Leni Rienfenstahl was saved from being prosecuted. He continued with photography and pioneered underwater filming. At 97 he went to Sudan to photograph the Nubians. He returned to the region during the war and the helicopter in which he had to flee crashed. Nobody died. Leni broke several ribs and after recovery continued traveling and filming. He died at 101 years old.


[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Will Using ‘Live’ Satellite Imagery to Prevent War in the Sudan Actually Work?

Posted on December 30, 2010 | 24 Comments


Update: Heglig Crisis 2012, Border Clashes 2012, Invasion of Abyei 2012

The Satellite Sentinel Project has hired private satellites to monitor troop movements around the oil-rich region of Abyei during the upcoming Sudanese referendum and prevent war. The images and analysis will be made public on the Project’s website. George Clooney, who catalyzed this joint initiative between Google, UNOSAT, the Enough Project, Trellon and my colleagues at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), calls this the anti-genocide paparazzi:

“We want them to enjoy the level of celebrity attention that I usually get. If you know your actions are going to be covered, you tend to behave much differently than when you operate in a vacuum.”

The group hopes that they can deter war crimes by observing troop buildups and troop movements in advance. If successful, the project would accomplish an idea first proposed more than half-a-century ago by US President Dwight Eisenhower during a US-Soviet Summit in Paris at the height of the Cold War. Eisenhower announced his plan to “submit to the United Nations a proposal for the creation of a United Nations aerial surveillance to detect preparations for attack.” Interestingly, Eisenhower had crafted this idea five years earlier as part of his Open Skies Proposal, which actually became a treaty in 2002:

“The Treaty establishes a regime of unarmed aerial observation flights over the entire territory of its participants. The Treaty is designed to enhance mutual understanding and confidence by giving all participants, regardless of size, a direct role in gathering information about military forces and activities of concern to them. Open Skies is one of the most wide-ranging international efforts to date to promote openness and transparency of military forces and activities.”

If you want to find out more about Eisenhower’s efforts, please see my blog post on the subject here.

So there is some precedence for what Clooney is trying to pull off. But how is the Sentinel project likely to fare as a non-state effort? Looking at other non-state actors who have already operationalized Eisenhower’s ideas may provide some insights. Take Amnesty International’s “Eyes on Darfur” initiative, which “leverages the power of high- resolution satellite imagery to provide unim- peachable evidence of the atrocities being committed in Darfur–enabling action by private citizens, policy makers and international courts.”

According to Amnesty, the project “broke new ground in protecting human rights by allowing people around the world to literally ‘watch over’ and protect twelve intact, but highly vulnerable, villages using commercially available satellite imagery.” The imagery also enabled Amnesty to capture the movement of Janjaweed forces. Amnesty claims that their project has had a deterrence effect. Apparently, the villages monitored by the project have not been attacked while neighboring ones have. That said, at least two of the monitored villages were removed from the site after reported attacks.

Still Amnesty argues that there have been notable changes in decisions made by the Bashir government since “Eyes on Darfur” went live. They also note that the government of Chad cited their as one of the reasons they accepted UN peacekeepers along their border.

In my blog post on Eisenhower’s UN surveillance speech I asked whether the UN would ever be allowed to monitor and detect preparations for attack using satellite imagery. I now have my answer given that UNOSAT is involved in the Sentinel Project which plans to “deter the resumption of war between North and South Sudan” by providing an “early warning system to deter mass atrocities by focusing world attention and generating rapid responses on human rights and human security concerns” (Sentinel). But will these efforts really create an effective deterrence-based “Global Panopticon”?

French philosopher Michel Foucault has famously written on the role of surveillance as an instrument of power. “He cites the example of Jeremy Bentham’s ‘Panopticon,’ an architectural model for a prison enabling a single guard, located in a central tower, to watch all of the inmates in their cells. The ‘major effect of the Panopticon,’ writes Foucault, is ‘to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.’”

According to Foucault, the Panopticon renders power both “visible and unverifiable”: Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is being spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so. But potential perpetrators of the violence in the Sudan do not actually see the outline of the satellites flying overhead. They are not being directly harassed by high-powered “cameras” stuck into their faces by the anti-genocide paparazzi. So the power is not directly visible in the traditional sense. But who exactly is the inmate in or connected to Abyei in the first place?

There are multiple groups in the area with different agendas that don’t necessarily tie back to the Sudanese government in Khartoum. The Arab Misseriya tribe has thus far remained north during this dry season to avert confrontation with the Ngok Dinka in the Southern part of Abyei. These nomadic tribes typically carry Kalashnikovs to guard their cattle. So distinguishing these nomads from armed groups prepared to raid and burn down villages is a challenge especially when dealing with satellite imagery. Using UAV’s may be more useful and cheaper. (Note that monitoring the location and movement of cattle could be insightful because cattle issues are political in the area).

If armed groups who intend to burn down villages are the intended inmates, do they even know or care about the Satellite Sentinel Project? The ICC has already struggled to connect the chain of command back to the Sudanese government. Besides, the expected turn-around time to develop the satellite imagery is between eight to twenty-four hours. Getting armed men on a truck and raiding a village or two doesn’t take more than a few hours. So the crimes may already have been committed by the time the pictures come in. And if more heavy military machinery like tanks are rolled in, well, one doesn’t need satellite imagery to detect those.

As scholars of the panopticon have noted, the successful use of surveillance has to be coupled with the threat of punishment for deviant acts. So putting aside the issue of who the intended inmates are, the question for the Sentinel Project is whether threats of punishment are perceived by inmates as sufficiently real enough for the deterrence to work. In international relations theory, “deterrence is a strategy by which governments threaten an immense retaliation if attacked, such that aggressors are deterred if they do not wish to suffer great damage as a result of an aggressive action.”

This means that official state actors need to step up and publicly pledge to carry out the necessary punishment if the satellite imagery collected by Sentinel provides evidence of wrong-doing. The ICC should make it crystal clear to all inmates (whoever they are) that evidence from the satellite imagery will be used for prosecution (and that they should care). There also need to be armed guards in “the tower” who are proximate enough to be deployed and have the political will to use force if necessary. Or will the anti-genocide paparazzi’s many eyes be sufficient to keep the peace? It’s worth remembering that the Hollywood paparazzi haven’t exactly turned movie stars into alter boys or girls. But then again, they’d probably get away with a whole lot more without the paparazzi.

US spy satellites have no doubt monitored conflict-prone areas in the past but this hasn’t necessarily deterred major crimes against humanity as far as I know. Of course, the imagery collected has remained classified, which means the general public hasn’t been able to lobby their governments and the international community to act based on this information and shared awareness.

The Sentinel Project’s open source approach changes this calculus. It may not deter the actual perpetrators, but the shared awareness created thanks to the open data will make it more difficult for those who can prevent the violence to look the other way. So the Satellite Sentinel Project may be more about keeping our own governments accountable to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) than deterring actors in the Sudan from committing further crimes.

How will we know if Clooney succeeds? I’m not quite sure. But I do know that the Sentinel Project is a step in the right direction. More evidence is always more compelling than less evidence. And more public evidence is even better. I have no doubt therefore that Eisenhower would back this Open Skies project.

p.s. It is worth noting that the satellite imagery of Sri Lankan forces attacking civilians in 2009 were dismissed as fake by the Colombo government even though the imagery analysis was produced by UNOSAT.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Here's how to help His Nibs keep Satellite Sentinel up and running.......

Go to prudenceproduction.com/raffle.php

A raffle to be drawn next Saturday June 15 at 5 30 for a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce and speedboat trip, with the odd glass of something thrown in I think. Tickets a very reasonable £10 via Paypal etc. More details on the site

Thank you very much I will check and see what that is in dollars, i have PayPal.

The organisers of the raffle are charging £3 for postage and packing
On a raffle ticket !

Personally I'd rather donate direct to George's charity.....

Not On Our Watch donation link

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Interesting, Jo. Funnily enough I've tried to find out how much of the Sandown ticket price goes to NOOW, still awaiting a reply

Oh dear. Here we go again - in the most appalling way. The displaced figures alone are mindbloggling.

So pleased to hear Our Hero is keeping close watch and helping to bring evidence to the table....and it would be nice to think that more countries would lend their weight behind the US/British/Norwegian statement. 

Let us hope further diplomatic pressure is applied to the Sudanese Government a s a p

You are right PAN it is horrific. If I posts every time a group was killed or raped it would be 3-4 a day. So I try to keep it mentioning George. God bless him , John P and the rest of them that keep the pressure on.

Well, Mazy, I think that's what works - and exactly shows the effect His Nibs and John Prendergast being involved achieves. It's admirable (even tho we know it to be a fact) that Our Hero monitors the situation on a day-to-day basis, as well as doing the odd bit of directing, producing, writing and acting every now and then...

Supporting individual projects and programmes is the level I'm working at - and I don't do any of the above jobs in my spare time!

We all do what we can in our own way. Just discussing it here brings a little more light to the situation. Not shutting your mind off to what is going and making believe it's not happening, you care. If you talk to one person about Darfur you are helping spread the word.

If it wasn't for loving George I would never have heard about Darfur and what is happening to those poor people. I was as blind as the next person. The more that people know the better.

Just recently John Kerry issued rewards of 5 and 10 million on the heads of some of them, with Pres. Obama's sanction. That's some progress. I will stop now I get carried away on the subject.

So sad
And G has plenty of work to do
.....

This is really important to know

Ikea donated houses for UNHCR

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

It'sMe I tried to get Ikea's video but couldn't I will try again soon.

I mainly put this here to show you how they word a lot of their tweets, not all but a lot.

Clooney's [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] reveals war crimes, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] threats using [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] imagery: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— Satellite Sentinel (@SudanSentinel) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Sorry
Searched from different site but didn't find yet

I went to follow one of the articles that TheMinis  put up and got lost but i found this thought it was very interesting.
STRANGER THAN FICTION A FEW WORDS ABOUT AN ETHICAL COMPASS FOR CRISIS MAPPING

Posted on February 12, 2012 | 11 Comments
The good people at the Sudan Sentinel Project (SSP), housed at my former “alma matter,” the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), have recently written this curious piece on crisis mapping and the need for an “ethical compass” in this new field. They made absolutely sure that I’d read the piece by directly messaging me via the @CrisisMappers twitter feed. Not to worry, good people, I read your masterpiece. Interestingly enough, it was published the day after my blog post reviewing IOM’s data protection standards.

To be honest, I was actually not going to spend any time writing up a response because the piece says absolutely nothing new and is hardly pro-active. Now, before any one spins and twists my words: the issues they raise are of paramount importance. But if the authors had actually taken the time to speak with their fellow colleagues at HHI, they would know that several of us participated in a brilliant workshop last year which addressed these very issues. Organized by World Vision, the workshop included representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Care International, Oxfam GB, UN OCHA, UN Foundation, Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF), Ushahidi, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) and obviously Word Vision. There were several data protection experts at this workshop, which made the event one of the most important workshops I attended in all of 2011. So a big thanks again to Phoebe Wynn-Pope at World Vision for organizing.

We discussed in-depth issues surrounding Do No Harm, Informed Consent, Verification, Risk Mitigation, Ownership, Ethics and Communication, Impar-tiality, etc. As expected, the outcome of the workshop was the clear need for data protection standards that are applicable for the new digital context we operate in, i.e., a world of social media, crowdsourcing and volunteer geographical informa-tion. Our colleagues at the ICRC have since taken the lead on drafting protocols relevant to a data 2.0 world in which volunteer networks and disaster-affected communities are increasingly digital. We expect to review this latest draft in the coming weeks (after Oxfam GB has added their comments to the document). Incidentally, the summary report of the workshop organized by World Vision is available here (PDF) and highly recommended. It was also shared on the Crisis Mappers Google Group. By the way, my conversations with Phoebe about these and related issues began at this conference in November 2010, just a month after the SBTF launched.

I should confess the following: one of my personal pet peeves has to do with people stating the total obvious and calling for action but actually doing absolutely nothing else. Talk for talk’s sake just makes it seem like the authors of the article are simply looking for attention. Meanwhile, many of us are working on these new data protection challenges in our own time, as volunteers. And by the way, the SSP project is first and foremost focused on satellite imagery analysis and the Sudan, not on crowdsourcing or on social media. So they’re writing their piece as outsiders and, well, are hence less informed as a result—particularly since they didn’t do their homework.

Their limited knowledge of crisis mapping is blatantly obvious throughout the article. Not only do the authors not reference the World Vision workshop, which HHI itself attended, they also seem rather confused about the term “crisis mappers” which they keep using. This is somewhat unfortunate since the Crisis Mappers Network is an offshoot of HHI. Moreover, SSP participated and spoke at last year’s Crisis Mappers Conference—just a few months ago, in fact. One outcome of this conference was the launch of a dedicated Working Group on Security and Privacy, which will now become two groups, one addressing security issues and the other data protection. This information was shared on the Crisis Mappers Google Group and one of the authors is actually part of the Security Working Group.

To this end, one would have hoped, and indeed expected, that the authors would write a somewhat more informed piece about these issues. At the very least, they really ought to have documented some of the efforts to date in this innovative space. But they didn’t and unfortunately several statements they make in their article are, well… completely false and rather revealing at the same time. (Incidentally, the good people at SSP did their best to dissuade the SBTF from launching a Satellite Team on the premise that only experts are qualified to tag satellite imagery; seems like they’re not interested in citizen science even though some experts I’ve spoken to have referred to SSP as citizen science).

In any case, the authors keep on referring to “crisis mappers this” and “crisis mappers that” throughout their article. But who exactly are they referring to? Who knows. On the one hand, there is the International Network of Crisis Mappers, which is a loose, decentralized, and informal network of some 3,500 members and 1,500 organizations spanning 150+ countries. Then there’s the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF), a distributed, global network of 750+ volunteers who partner with established organizations to support live mapping efforts. And then, easily the largest and most decentralized “group” of all, are all those “anonymous” individuals around the world who launch their own maps using whatever technologies they wish and for whatever purposes they want. By the way, to define crisis mapping as mapping highly volatile and dangerous conflict situations is really far from being accurate either. Also, “equating” crisis mapping with crowdsourcing, which the authors seem to do, is further evidence that they are writing about a subject that they have very little understanding of. Crisis mapping is possible without crowdsourcing or social media. Who knew?

Clearly, the authors are confused. They appear to refer to “crisis mappers” as if the group were a legal entity, with funding, staff, administrative support and brick-and-mortar offices. Furthermore, and what the authors don’t seem to realize, is that much of what they write is actually true of the formal professional humanitarian sector vis-a-vis the need for new data protection standards. But the authors have obviously not done their homework, and again, this shows. They are also confused about the term “crisis mapping” when they refer to “crisis mapping data” which is actually nothing other than geo-referenced data. Finally, a number of paragraphs in the article have absolutely nothing to do with crisis mapping even though the authors seem insinuate otherwise. Also, some of the sensationalism that permeates the article is simply unnecessary and poor taste.

The fact of the matter is that the field of crisis mapping is maturing. When Dr. Jennifer Leaning and I co-founded and co-directed HHI’s Program on Crisis Mapping and Early Warning from 2007-2009, the project was very much an exploratory, applied-research program. When Dr. Jen Ziemke and I launched the Crisis Mappers Network in 2009, we were just at the beginning of a new experiment. The field has come a long way since and one of the consequences of rapid innovation is obviously the lack of any how-to-guide or manual. These certainly need to be written and are being written.

So, instead of  stating the obvious, repeating the obvious, calling for the obvious and making embarrassing factual errors in a public article (which, by the way, is also quite revealing of the underlying motives), perhaps the authors could actually have done some research and emailed the Crisis Mappers Google Group. Two of the authors also have my email address; one even has my private phone number; oh, and they could also have DM’d me on Twitter like they just did.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Mazy wrote:It'sMe I tried to get Ikea's video but couldn't I will try again soon.

Might be because of regional transmission rights.
It shows a construction of a 20sqm home for refugees, shown in fast speed.

The house Ikea for Refugees
The Swedish brand leading furniture low cost has decided to take care of refugees, building prefabricated houses for refugees. The project, carried out by the foundation Ikea Foundation, in collaboration with the United Nations Agency for Refugees (UNHCR), is financed with 4 and a half million dollars. The new houses, designed to replace tents or prefabricated, will measure 20 square meters. Designed to be lightweight, air-conditioned and green with the help of solar panels, are warranted for three years

Re: your video on Sudanese army, the extremist army officers are inciting fanaticism by telling them to "kill all. Take no prisoners." The rebels retaliate more.
Perhaps a strong, commanding leader would serve as an inspiration to fight this war on terror. As Obama said yesterday about Mandela, "he showed moral courage" and succeeded....

Thanks Juliette, saw video at the link that It'sMe posted I was going to try and get it for her if I could. So I could post it maybe but I just stared doing videos and they have to be ones that are easy.

The army one is of the leaders, i.e. Omar alBashir giving orders not to bring back prisoners, in other words kill them all. He is the main Head Honcho their and he tries to say that he does not order his men to commit rape, genocide and torture; the burning of their homes and villages. This video proves other wise.

The ICC has had an arrest warrant out for him for almost 7 years now. I cannot understand why they have not picked him up by now, it is a disgrace. Don't mind me I am always on the net getting updated information on Darfur and the like. I don't post nearly 1/10 of the articles that I save, I try to limit it to reports or major events. Because people are getting killed on a daily basis.

I know who Omar al-Bashir is & about  his reign of terror.
Think the ICC needs more evidence to link back to his administration.

Can't embed that video either but YouTube have some new ones like this:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
About refugee home construction in general.

Great found Juliette
And amazing idea From Ikea !!!

I love the Idea from Ikea. So many people always talking about to make things better and everyone claims to do charity but it is much better when you hear somebody got an Idea and really goes ahead with that. I love IKEA.

It's not so much the evidence as to how he is arrested. The other leaders in Africa won't hold him for them to pick him up when he is out of his area. I believe it has something to do with who and how they actually get him. If he's in his own area they aren't going to go in there.

It seems to be very complicated, the legality of arresting him. Also who is afraid of him or just won't cross another so called leader. Between the Satellite and things like this tape and what else they have it seems like they have the evidence. A month or two ago he was going to one of the other states for a big meeting and they were asked for him to be detained however no one would comply.

It is really very confusing the way their government works and I end up spending hours on one little detail, because I follow the links that explain a small issue. Then you go on to the next. The so many different military groups, I have to stop and think okay this one is bad and this one is good. But trying to learn as much as I can is the only way to partially understand.

It is just very heartbreaking and I feel like if upsets me this much what about the poor victims. The least that can happen to them is that their homes and farming lands gets burnt out. What hurts it seems to be the same of thing racial. the Arabs (alBashir) are killing of the blacks in their genocide against them. What George says is so true, "it get into your blood."