🛑 Travellers on an intercity train in Austria were startled on Sunday when a recording of an Adolf Hitler speech was played on board.
Instead of the normal announcements, a crowd could also be heard shouting “Heil Hitler” and “Sieg Heil” over the train’s speaker system.
The operator said there had been several such incidents in recent days.
One passenger on the Bregenz-Vienna service told the BBC that everyone on the train was “completely shocked”.
David Stoegmueller, a Green Party MP, said the speech by the Nazi German leader was played over the intercom shortly before the train, an ÖBB Railjet 661, arrived in Vienna.
“We heard two episodes,” he said. “First there was 30 seconds of a Hitler speech, and then I heard ‘Sieg Heil’.”
Mr Stoegmueller said the train staff were unable to stop the recording and were unable to make their own announcements. “One crew member was really upset,” he added.
In a statement sent to the BBC, Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) said: “We clearly distance ourselves from the content.
“We can currently assume that the announcements were made by people directly on the train via intercoms. We have reported the matter to the police,” the ÖBB said.
It is understood that complaints have been filed against two people.
Mr Stoegmueller said he had received an email from a man who was on the train with an old lady who was a concentration camp survivor. “She was crying,” he said.
He said another passenger remarked that when other countries had technical problems, it involved the air conditioning breaking down.
“In Austria, the technical problem is Hitler.”
Hitler was born in Austria and emigrated to Germany in 1913 as a young man.
☆ Kevin ‘van’ Durant Joins the Phoenix Suns and appears in Phoenix
👉 Martin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States March 4, 1837 – March 4, 1841
💭 What Do They Have Planned?
☆ Why are QAnon believers obsessed with 4 March?
QAnon followers believe that the United States turned from a country into a corporation after the passage of the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 – maintaining that every US president, act and amendment passed after 1871 is illegitimate.
Why 4 March?
Before the 20th amendment of the US Constitution – adopted in 1933 – moved the swearing-in dates of the president and Congress to January, American leaders took office on 4 March.
🚂 “Montgomery!?” The whole derailment thing is getting nuts!
🚂 One person is dead after a train derailment in Montgomery County… at 59 and Midline (Fostoria). Authorities say, avoid the area… there’s a possible hazmat situation.
💭Storms, Tornadoes Cause Extensive Damage Across U.S. Southeast | Rainbow at Lisa Marie Presley’s Graceland
🛑 Anagram
Alabama + Tennessee + Georgia + Arkansas + Pine Bluff + Memphis + Jackson + Marietta + Montgomery + Magnolia = Lisa Marie Presley
🛑 Gematria
“Storm Grace” = 119 (Ordinal)
☆ The 156th Prime number is 911
☆ The 9/11 attacks fell 11009 days after the final eclipse from Saros 116:
☆ This week’s FAA’s nationwide flight grounding was a tribute to 9/11.
☆ Can You See Those Face Shapes? – The profile that appears in the bigger picture looks like the wicked football player Colin Kaepernick.
☆ And The Place is Called: “East Palestine”?! Wow!
🚂 Train derailment: East Palestine Ohio residents file lawsuit seeking medical testing
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Residents who filed a federal lawsuit in the fiery derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals along the Ohio-Pennsylvania line are seeking to force Norfolk Southern to set up health monitoring for residents in both states.
The lawsuit filed Thursday by two Pennsylvania residents calls for the rail operator to pay for medical screenings and related care for anyone living within a 30-mile radius of the derailment to determine who was affected by toxic substances released after the derailment. The lawsuit also is seeking undetermined damages.
About 50 cars, including 10 carrying hazardous materials, derailed Feb. 3 in the Ohio village of East Palestine. No one was injured in the derailment that investigators said was caused by a broken axle.
What happened after train carrying toxic chemicals derailed
In Cincinnati:Water works monitors for hazardous chemical in Ohio River after East Palestine derailment
Three days after the accident, authorities decided to release and burn vinyl chloride inside five tanker cars, sending hydrogen chloride and the toxic gas phosgene into the air.
Environmental regulators have been monitoring the air and water in surrounding communities and have said that so far the air quality remains safe and drinking water supplies have not been affected.
But some residents have complained about headaches and feeling sick since the derailment.
Norfolk Southern declined to comment on the lawsuit.
💭 As much of the world’s attention is focused on the bloodshed in Ukraine, the head of the World Health Organization saya there is ”nowhere on earth where the health of millions of people is more under threat” than Ethiopia’s Tigray region..
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation in Tigray from where he hails was “catastrophic,” saying the region had been “sealed off from the outside world” for about 500 days.
“No food aid has been delivered since the middle of December,” Tedros told a press briefing, adding that about three quarters of health facilities assessed by WHO in the region had been destroyed. He said there was no treatment for about 40,000 people with HIV in the region.
“Yes, I’m from Tigray and this crisis affects me, my family and my friends very personally,” Tedros said. “But I, the director general of WHO, I have a duty to protect and promote health wherever it’s under threat,” he said. “And there is nowhere on earth where the health of millions of people is more under threat than Tigray.”
Tedros said the U.N. health agency had now documented 43 attacks on health care workers and facilities in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began last month.
WHO has now opened supply lines to many cities in Ukraine, but some access challenges remained. The agency continued to call for attacks on health workers and facilities to stop.
But Tedros said the crisis in Ukraine was “far from the only crisis to which WHO is responding,” citing ongoing problems in Yemen, Syria and Ethiopia.
Earlier this year, the government of Ethiopia sent a letter to the World Health Organization, accusing Tedros of “misconduct” after his sharp criticism of the war and humanitarian crisis in the country.
💭 Stranded on trains Africans making their way by car told there’s no exit for them. Many Africans are taking shelter after being left stranded. Most of them are women and children.
Similar actions and stories of blocking, detention and maltreatment filtering out from “undesired” potential African asylum-seekers are widespread in North Africa, Turkey, Yemen, and now even at the Ethiopia-Sudan border, blocking Tigrayans fleeing the #TigrayGenocide.
An estimated 500,000 people have fled Ukraine to the eastern edge of the European Union (E.U.) since Russia invaded Ukraine last Thursday, U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi said on Monday.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on October 13, 2021
Week after week, the Ethiopian government blockade of Tigray prevents aid agencies from moving life-saving relief of food, medicine, shelter items, fuel, and cash necessary to stop famine that continues to grow virtually uninterrupted. Today, almost a million people in northern Ethiopia are experiencing famine conditions.
Here’s what you need to know this week:
Ethiopia’s blockade of Tigray continues…
Despite protestations, the blockade put in place on June 27 continues to prevent relief assistance from entering Tigray. From September 5-7, 147 trucks of humanitarian supplies arrived in the northern Tigray region via neighboring Afar, bringing the number of humanitarian trucks that entered Tigray since July 12 to 482—a far cry from the estimated 100 trucks needed every day, or 8,700 trucks since the blockade came into effect. In addition, the blockade denies many critical supplies, including communications equipment, cash, and fuel, without which humanitarian operations cannot continue. Even personal phones, hard drives, can-openers, and multivitamins are restricted from being brought in by aid workers who manage to travel.
…and is driving and human suffering and famine.
On September 16, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released a weekly humanitarian update, providing the latest information on the impact of Ethiopia’s blockade on Tigray. Virtually every sector was forced to suspend activities, as new reports of starvation deaths have emerged.
Food relief aidremains suspended for a lack of supplies, cash, and trucks. Since March 27, the UN and NGOs nearly completed a three-month distribution for 5.2 million people, and with reduced supplies reached 1.4 million people in a second round. This roughly translates to four months of food for a population denied the ability to access communications, banking, or markets to support themselves.
Access to potable watervia trucking was reduced to 25 percent coverage due to shortages in cash and fuel. Insufficient or unpotable water drive disease outbreaks, particularly for those weakened by malnutrition.
Health servicesare only partially functioning, with supplies for only 20 percent of the population at a time when disease outbreaks continue to rise. The European Union initiated Humanitarian Air Bridge arrived in Tigray with nutrition supplies, and the World Health Organization (WHO) airlifted supplies from Dubai for 150,000 people. While these massively expensive innovations are welcome, that they are necessary in the first place speaks volumes about the brutality of the blockade and the lengths to which the world is going to find solutions.
Nutrition assistancefor children under five was suspended for children in outpatient and in-patient care due to shortages in cash, fuel, and supplies. The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) was quoted as saying 30 percent of children under five and 80 percent of pregnant and lactating mothers now suffer from malnutrition. This is double international emergency standards for malnutrition in children and more than 5 times emergency thresholds for nursing mothers.
Some 45 days ago, UNICEF noted, “This malnutrition crisis is taking place amid extensive, systematic damage to the food, health, nutrition, water and sanitation systems and services that children and their families depend on for their survival.” It is usually children, pregnant women, and other vulnerable groups that bear the brunt of famine. Yet, since this warning from UNICEF, it bears repeating – less than 10 percent of the needed supplies to keep people alive have been allowed entry to Tigray, months after empirical evidence proved famine conditions.
Hunger and alleged atrocities are spreading beyond Tigray.
The conflict now risks expanding into a wider civil war that threatens Ethiopia and regional stability. As the war spreads, so does hunger with the UN estimating that 1.5 million more people are food insecure in the areas where the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) has advanced in neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar in recent weeks. Their advance includes fresh accusations of atrocities that warrant independent investigation alongside alleged crimes committed in Tigray. Active conflict has prevented UN and NGOs teams from accessing conflict-impacted areas. Historically, these areas were some of the poorest subsistence communities in the region and will require assistance in addition to the 5.5 million people FEWSNET defined as ‘in crisis’ and ‘without assistance will descend into famine’ in Tigray.
Western donors have given generously to Ethiopia for decades, pouring tens of billions of dollars into Ethiopia’s economy, heavily subsidizing Ethiopia’s budget. All told, western donors contribute at least 37 percent of Ethiopia’s budget through humanitarian, development, security, and other support. Yet their efforts to raise alarm at the avalanche of credible atrocities including war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide have been met with outright rejection by Ethiopia and at the UN Security Council—with China blocking efforts to put the crisis on the Council’s agenda. Even the role of perhaps the most destructive force in this conflict—Eritrean forces (EDF)—has not been addressed by the Council. Clearly, the status quo much change.
The Biden administration is stepping up the pressure.
In the face of continued violence that continues to spiral out of control, U.S. President Biden issued an Executive Order that paves the way for a sanctions regime that can target any party responsible for prolonging the conflict in northern Ethiopia, those that commit human rights abuses, and those obstructing humanitarian access including Ethiopia’s blockade of Tigray. Given the challenges facing the population, this is a step in the right direction but must be implemented and not an idle threat to be effective.
Famine will continue to grow as the blockade impedes food aid, medical and nutrition supplies, fuel, and cash. There needs to be an immediate ceasefire and end to the blockade to ensure assistance is possible to those affected in Tigray, and now in Amhara and Afar.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on July 5, 2021
💭 My Note: They say, there is war in Oromia too – so, why don’t they do the same to the Oromos in Addis? The Answer is because it’s the Oromos who are the perpetrators. It’s all lies, there is no war in Oromia – there ain’t no such thing as “Eritrean soldiers in Oromia” – Evil Abiy Ahmed’s fascist regime is an Oromo one – and it’s the Oromos + the Amharas who are responsible for the #TigrayGenocide. Will the Addis Ababa residents now have a desire to show solidarity with Tigrayans against this sort of barbarity? No, they won’t! Unless the TDF advance towards Addis Ababa, I smell Auschwitz!
Thousands of Ethnic-Tigrayan Residents of Addis Ababa Being Marched to Mass Detention Centers
FRESH WAVE OF ARBITRARY ARREST OF TIGRAYANS IN ADDIS ABEBA
Video showing thousands of ethnic Tigrayan residents of Addis Ababa – the city they built and modernized — being marched on the street to mass detention centers before they are transferred to concentration camps in Awash Arba and other locations.
Reports are surfacing to the arbitrary arrest and rounding up of ethnic Tigrayans residing in Addis Abeba by police along with non-uniformed security forces. Addis Standard received reports indicating that these arrests are taking place in different locations around the capital.
An eyewitness who wants to remain anonymous in fear of reprisal told Addis Standard that Addis Abeba police accompanied by men wearing civilian clothes appeared in Summit, a neighborhood with a huge presence of Tigrinya speaking community, and started to check for IDs and conduct body searches checking on what is on them. The eyewitness said that the police took people who didn’t have their IDs on them and sarcastically made inappropriate remarks and asked those being checked, “Are you a junta?”
Another eyewitness who also asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal detailed for Addis Standard similar incidents and said, “It was a mix of Addis Abeba police and Federal police personnels.” Addis Standard learned from the same source who was previously arrested that there was physical abuse of detainees at the police station he was held at.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) also said that it is monitoring reports of arrests of media personnel in Addis Abeba as well as residents of Tigray origin suspected of connection with the ongoing situation in the region and warned, “Such measures could aggravate the public‘s concerns on the risk of ethnic profiling.” Addis Standard contacted the senior media advisor at the rights commission, Aaron Maasho who on his part said that no further information is available but added, “Our team is monitoring the situation closely.”
The wife of the Awlo Media cameraman Muse Hadera who was arrested on Friday, July 02, 2021 said that she doesn’t know his whereabouts and was told when she went to the federal police with his lawyer that he was freed. Mesi told Addis Standard, “I know that he wasn’t released and is held somewhere. We just want to know what his charges are as we are still not clear on them. Also we want to make sure that he was not arrested for his identity and we can only understand by having answers as to his whereabouts and his charges.”
This fresh wave of arbitrary arrests coincides with the arrest of at least 12 journalists at two online media platforms. The lawyer, Tadele Gebre, told Addis Standard that the 10 journalists, a cameraman alongside Five members of the Awlo media staff, were arrested by federal police. Tadele also disclosed that Two journalists, Abebe Bayu and Yayesew Shimeles from Ethio-Forum, a Youtube based news outlet were also arrested. At the time the Federal police commission said their arrests were due to their affiliation with a terrorist group which is banned by the parliament. It also comes in the backdrop of an earlier wave of arrests that swapped returnees from the Middle East earlier in May, 2021.
Addis Standard also contacted both the spokesperson of the Addis Abeba Police commission and the spokesperson of the Federal police commission to verify claims made by eyewitnesses and concerned family members. While Fasika Fanta, Addis Abeba police commission spokesperson denied having any knowledge of the arrests, the spokesperson for the federal police commission said, “The federal police commission did not and does not arrest citizens based on their identity unless otherwise they are involved in criminal acts,” he added, “ Police can arrest every one without any discrimination, when suspected with criminal act.” AS