***My humble comments are at the bottom…***

By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer

Thu Jul 27, 12:10 AM ET

JERUSALEM - U.N. observers in Lebanon telephoned the Israeli military
10 times in six hours to ask it to stop shelling near their position
before an attack killed four observers and sparked international anger
with Israel, U.N. officials said Wednesday.

The
U.N. observation post near Khiam came under close Israeli fire 21 times
Tuesday — including 12 hits within 100 yards and five direct hits from
1:20 p.m. until the peacekeepers’ post was destroyed at 7:30 p.m., Jane
Lute, assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, told the U.N. Security Council in New York.

U.N. officials said Hezbollah militants had been operating in the
area of the post near the eastern end of the border with Israel, a
routine tactic to prevent Israel from attacking them.

"We did repeatedly in recent days say (to Israel) that this was an
exposed position, that Hezbollah militants were 500 meters (yards) away
shielding themselves near U.N. workers and civilians," U.N.
humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said. "That’s why it is so inexplicable
that what happened."

Israeli officials had told the United Nations
that the bombing around the base was part of an "an aerial preparation
for a ground operation," said the senior official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity.

Officials in the outpost called the Israeli army 10 times during
those six hours, and each time an army official promised to have the
bombing stopped, according to a preliminary U.N. report on the
incident, which was shown to an Associated Press reporter on Wednesday.

Once it became clear those pleas were being ignored, the force’s
commander sought the involvement of top officials in New York, a senior
U.N. official in New York said, speaking on condition of anonymity
because the investigation of the incident was not yet complete.

U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown and Lute herself
then made several calls to Israel’s U.N. mission "reiterating these
protests and calling for an abatement of the shelling," Lute said.

The bombing put Israel on the defensive two weeks into its campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed "deep regret" for the deaths and dismay over U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s accusation that the attack was "apparently deliberate."

Olmert told Annan in a phone call Wednesday that the attack was
inadvertent and he promised a "thorough investigation," his office said
in a statement.

"It’s inconceivable for the U.N. to define an error as an apparently deliberate action," Olmert said.

China called for an Israeli apology and asked the U.N. Security
Council to condemn the bombing — which killed one of its citizens — and
demand Israel stop attacking U.N. positions and personnel.

"For China and for others, we condemn this because I think any
attack on the United Nations positions and the United Nations personnel
is inexcusable and unacceptable," China’s U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya
said.

In New York, China proposed a draft council statement condemning the
bombing and alluding to Annan’s accusation that Israel appeared to have
struck the site deliberately, but several diplomats said the U.S.
objected to the wording and blocked the statement. The diplomats spoke
on condition of anonymity because they didn’t want to speak for the
nations involved.

Austria and Finland, both of which also lost citizens in the attack,
also condemned the bombing, with Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki
Tuomioja calling it "truly tragic." The fourth victim was Canadian.

"These so-called precision attacks seem to be mainly targeting
everyone else except the Hezbollah," Tuomioja said. "The longer this
continues, the more likely it is that there will be more similar
victims."

Meanwhile, Australian Defense Minister Brendan Nelson said Thursday
that his country was withdrawing its 12 U.N. peacekeeping troops from
southern Lebanon because of the danger.

White House spokesman Tony Snow described the strike as a
"horrible thing," but said Israel was behaving responsibly in its
aftermath.

"They’ll be completely transparent in the way they conduct the
investigation," Snow said. "And I think that’s the appropriate way to
proceed."

U.N. officials said the observation position was well marked. A
picture the world body released Wednesday showed the three-story
building was painted white with the letters "U.N." emblazoned in large
black letters on all sides, and a light blue U.N. flag hung from a
nearby flagpole that was roughly 50 feet high. Witnesses said the
building, which was surrounded by concrete blast walls and barbed wire,
also had the letters U.N. painted on the roof and it was illuminated by
floodlights at night.

During the shelling, the observers took refuge in a bomb
shelter designed to withstand a strike by a 155mm artillery shell, U.N.
officials said. The bunker collapsed in the attack, and the extent of
the damage suggests it was hit with a large bomb, said Brig. Gen. J.P.
Nehra, the deputy force commander for the U.N. peacekeeping force in
Lebanon known as UNIFIL.

"We can only say the destruction of the bunker was quite
devastating, of the kind that aerial bombs can achieve. The ones of the
very heavy variety," he said.

After the blast, Israel agreed to give UNIFIL safe passage for
two armored personnel carriers to evacuate the position, Lute said.
They arrived at 9:30 p.m. "and found the shelter collapsed and major
damage to the rest of the position," she said.

Despite negotiating safe passage, those APCs also came under
Israeli attack, she said, adding that the attacks continued Wednesday
when an artillery round hit about 10 yards from UNIFIL headquarters in
the town of Naqoura.

Since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants began two
weeks ago, there have been several dozen incidents of firing close to
U.N. peacekeepers and observers, including direct hits on nine
positions, some of them repeatedly, a U.N. official said. As a result
of these attacks, 12 U.N. personnel have been killed or injured, U.N.
officials said.

During an Israeli offensive against Lebanon in 1996, artillery
blasted a U.N. base at Qana in southern Lebanon, killing more than 100
civilians taking refuge with the peacekeepers.

The U.N. mission, which has nearly 2,000 military personnel and
more than 300 civilians, is to patrol the border line, known as the
Blue Line, drawn by the United Nations after Israel withdrew troops
from south Lebanon in 2000 and ended an 18-year occupation.

On Wednesday, dovish lawmaker Ran Cohen, a colonel in the
Israeli army reserves, said that from his experience in Lebanon, it was
quite possible to make such a mistake.

"I have not even the slightest doubt that we’re talking here
about a mistake, technical or otherwise. The army, as long as I’ve
known it and I’m fairly critical, never wants to hit UNIFIL forces,"
Cohen said.

Article taken from Yahoo! News

Comments:
Q1: Hello!!!! What has the Israeli Occupation Forces done so persistently in its previous ‘battles’ with the so called ‘Islamic terrorists’????
A: Bomb poeple and places that have obviously no connection!!

Q2: What has the Israeli Occupation Forces done to so many UN posts it just happens to stumble upon???
A: Pretend there are ‘armed and dangerous’ men in there, just to blow it up with shells, along with all the UN personnel in there!!!

Q3: How could the Israeli Occupation Forces, with all their ‘technological capabilities’ shipped in from the ’superpower’ America, fail to stop hitting UN post, which was well distinguished from the other buildings???
A: I don’t know for sure, but it’s either they’re so jack-ass stupidthey’re unable to use those ’smart bombs’ of theirs, or they just don’t give a damn!!

And they still insist on making the buffer zone be created in LEBANON’S borders…. doesn’t that sound like a LAND GRAB to you???

so what’s up with the brawling UPM students??

hmmm… it has been a while eh? what with the start if the new semester, the arrival of my *juniors* (ngeh3), and the router going haywire… plain hectic…

or is it? compared to semester 1, i’ve got things very relaxed in my schedule. take today, for example, just 2 (two) lectures/labs to attend, starting at 12noon… 2 out of 3 labs are only once in 4 weeks, nad the some lectures dont even stress the importance of attenace! hooray!! lots of free time…. lots of time to kill…. it really does…. kill…. i mean, imagine what to do in all that spare time?? study of course! uh, all the time???…. no… i think it’s safe to say that would do more harm than good (only my personal opinion)… so what SHOULD we do with all that time? looking back on the past week., no take the past few days.. i don’t think i’ve used it all that well… then the feeling of regret comes in…

"By (the token of) Time (through the Ages),
Verily Man is in loss,
Except such as have Faith, and do righteuos deeds, and (join together) in mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy."
    (S. Al-’Asr: 1-3)

of course, i have done many useful things, like… like… like… eheh…

…have no connection to the contents of this post, but that they share a common name; WELLINGTON…

… i hope that word didn’t apply to me at anytime during the past few weeks…but it does tie in nicely with this post about the bersatu closing dinner, where most ppl try to cram in as much as they can…

urgh…. the dinner…. it was so long and draggy…. nk cakap savour the moment… tak jugak… we were straved!! and they had the nerve to blab on… hehe, those of us sitting in the back [ehem... WMSO, PETUNIA...] finished eating the bread they gave us before the first round of speeches were done, then when the pumpkin soup finally got served, terpaksa la ratah soup…. kahkah! u were supposed to dip the bread in the soup… good thing i asked for more, hmm… felt a bit like oliver twist..

…please, Sir, can I have some more?…

haha… reminds me of my days in the primary school choir…

back to the story… after [finally] getting the main course, i guess you can say the rest is history… boring… it really is… can’t even be bothered writing about it… just a lot of shouting and screaming (they call this a dinner?? a semi-formal dinner??)… and… well…hmm…

but there was some fun to it, like the ‘katak lompat’ game, the ‘botol’ game and sewaktu dengannya… why? like i said before, it’s during events like this, baru kenal siapa dia ni… hehe…

kay, i’ll get back to this later…

!!!UPDATE!!!

hmmm… let’s see now… 6 days, 6 nights in Dunedin, of which 3 days and 2 nights were spent at the Edgar sports centre… of which 10-15 minutes were used to warm up, and about 5-10 minutes where i actually got on the court, of which [sigh, eyes rolling] i touched the ball once, i think… hmmm… can i continue later?

!!!UPDATE!!!

So what did i get out of going to Dunedin huh? met a lot of people? yea.. had lots of fun? yea… fond memories? let’s see…

…hangin out in that freezing sports centre from 8 til late… oh yeah, there was one thing that i didn’t really notice until the last day; there was a digital clock up on the wall, which told the itme (duh!) and the temperature…. (o0o0o) guess the temperature? 8 degrees… indoors… brrr…

…shouting and ranting around till ii lost my voice… but we still lost most games, so we have to
rethink the strategy… hmmm… have to think up of a good chant for next year… have to say, the other teams came up with some good ones, like UMSA’s ’shotgun’ and ‘drumroll’, WMSO’s ‘Itik’ and ‘Hot stuff’…

…met some cool people too… do i still remember their names? hmmm…. there’s ppl from intec, tengkuk, amin, wardo, etc. etc…. hmmm… there’s munir, ridzuan, ah chong, jeb, and so on, whose names i don’t remember haha…. ahh… then there’s also ppl in petunia who’d have remained largely unknown before this… funny isn’t it?

so i guess it wasn’t such a bad idea after all…. [grins]

oh, the title u see up there was bersatu’s slogan…

delay after delay… that was my journey to this place called Dunedin all the way down south… hmmm… ape lagi ye? owh, it’s kinda funny (to me it is) to see the airports here at that time of night, x macam Heathrows or KLIA… Glasgow pon lagi meriah, if i’m not mistaken… remind me to post photos later.

so now i’m ‘tumpang’ing at my friend’s friend’s place on Queen’s St, no, not in Auckland, in Dunedin… yeah, they’ve run out of ideas for street names haven’t they? ah… how i got here was another story, interested? well, this whole coming to Dunedin thing looked  like a dodgy idea from the beginning, (but who can say no to adventure?
but then i’m also to blame for lack of preperation, but enough of that….) so after the delays mentioned earlier, i [finally...] arrived in Dunedin at 9:35ish, and guess what? nothing… nobody around… so then baru kelam kabut nk contact orang… hehehe… but it was no biggie, sleeping at the airport didn’t seem
like such a bad idea…

but then this guy comes along and offer a ride into town, [but i guess he forgot to tell me he was a taxi driver...uhuh ] ops! there goes NZD70.00! good thing i did that one-off, ay? so it was a phone call here, a quick call there, message here, message there… and half way through the journey, i got the neww destination… good old queen’s street, can’t run away from her…

so here i am, rearing to go! [long sigh...]

lagi satu, it isn’t as cold as i’d have expected here… (good or bad? i dunno)…