News, facts, fiction and fake news

I haven't written anything on this blog for a a decade but this was important enough that I felt I had to write it.

Some background 

I worked for the BBC TV News many years ago and there was a principle that they had in the news that they would go with a story based on a staff reporter but require at least two 'stringers' to go with a story if not verified by a staff reporter. I also filmed in Northern Ireland during 'the Troubles'. There were approximately 30,000 terror attacks during the Troubles and I remember during my time at school we regularly practiced bomb alerts so we knew what to do. Filming in Belfast I ended up seeing what it felt like to have the British military point guns at you. 

Explosion at the Anglican Hospital in Gaza

The news item that I want to cover to illustrate the problem is what was first announced as an 'Israeli missile attack' on the Anglican Hospital in Gaza. Someone I knew some years ago had been a plastic surgeon working at that hospital and I had talked with her about it so I felt I knew the place albeit that I had never visited it. Here's how I first heard the news: I listen to BBC World Service News during the night so it was an audio-only radio version. 

During the night the BBC went to their staff reporter in Gaza for the news of the event. He talked of hundreds of Palestinians taking shelter in the hospital compound sleeping on mattresses on the ground for safety. He talked about body parts strewn around and the figure of 500 deaths was mentioned. The impression one got was of total devastation.

Early in the morning, the BBC spoke to an IDF spokesman who blamed the Palestinians for a failed rocket. The BBC asked for what evidence he had for that and the spokesman claimed the Al Jazeera live feed showed the rocket exploding in mid-air then falling to the ground. The BBC presenter then said he was looking at the same Al Jazeera feed and he thought it appeared to show an explosion mid-air followed by the rocket falling to the ground and then some seconds later a second explosion on the ground possibly caused by an IDF missile. 

The BBC have a copy of this video on their website. It appeared to corroborate what the BBC presenter claimed if the deaths were as high as initially believed. 

The IDF spokesman then became desperate, pleading with the BBC presenter to believe his side of the story and then said they also had an intercept from communications between terrorists that proved they were correct. Asked if they would make that available the IDF spokesman became evasive and said they wanted to protect their sources. He continued pleading with the BBC that they were telling the truth. The whole demeanor of the IDF spokesman was not very professional and so he came across with all the pleading as untrustworthy.

The BBC also had an interview with a university professor in Gaza who claimed to have seen the event. He claimed that yes, the missile had exploded and fallen to the ground but there was also an F16 or F35 in the area that fired a missile at roughly the same time and it was that missile that hit the Anglican Hospital in Gaza.  

I have had friends who are Al Jazeera reporters and their thesis to 'tell the truth but to always look for the conflict in the story'. So I know their approach. Their story headlined 'An explosion hit a hospital at Gaza city, killing at least 500 people and sparking international condemnations.' It was repeating again the number of 500.

Image from Al Jazeerah website

The image looked horrendous! It was obviously a composite, but I assumed used some images from the hospital. Al Jazeera cited the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem in a statement under the heading

Church condemns massacre at hospital and grieves the loss of 100s of innocent civilians

'The devastation witnessed, coupled with the sacrilegious targeting of the church, strikes at the very core of human decency. We assert unequivocally that this is deserving international condemnation and retribution.'

I've met Archbishop Hosam Naoum and I know how careful the diocese are with facts, usually to the point of making an interesting news story boring. 

Checking other sites the images were equally horrific. For example NDTV:

NDTV used AFP (Agence France Press) material and had a photograph that showed people looking at a building in total devastation.

I knew the Cyprus Picture Editor for AFP some years ago and I new how careful they are with their images. They frequently win awards for their photojournalism.

The article cites UN Human Rights Chield Volker Turk.

"Words fail me," Volker Turk said in a statement.

"Hundreds of people were killed -- horrifically -- in a massive strike at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, including patients, healthcare workers and families that had been seeking refuge in and around the hospital. 

"Once again the most vulnerable. This is totally unacceptable." 

This is the image they carried: There is massive destruction of reinforced concrete structures and a huge crater. There is an ambulance in the background.

Photo uncredited on NDTV site assumed to be AFP

However...

However, that is not the whole story nor all the facts. Later in the day the BBC came up with a different version of the news of the hospital attack on their website. In that article  they have three photos.

Photo Credit: Reuters

So then I went to Google Earth to verify. Here's a screen capture showing where I believe those photos are taken from:

Image Credit: Google Earth

So the photos appear to match the location (whereas the image from NDTV could be anywhere) but the important thing is, they don't show massive destruction and I would be skeptical of 500 deaths and it looks more like a flash burn from rocket fuel than an Israeli rocket! Although the 'body parts' would have been cleared away quickly there was no remains of the mattresses mentioned at all, and it didn't look like hundreds of people had been there overnight.

There is also some video available that shows how little (relatively) damage there is in the area. A JDAM like the IDF use leaves a very large crater:

This photo comparison provided by

@Israel_Alma_org

, a man who served as a JTAC (A Joint Tactical Air Controller /Forward Observer) who coordinated air and artillery strikes.

Audio intercept

Then later in the morning... the IDF did release what they claimed to be the intercept of the mobile call between terrorists that their spokesperson mentioned.

Link: IDF post of intercept of discussion between terrorists

Transcript:

Hamas operative 1: I'm telling you this is the first time that we see a missile like this falling
Hamas operative 2:  And so that's why we are saying it belongs to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Hamas operative 1: What!?
Hamas operative 2:  They are saying it belongs to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Hamas operative 1: It's from us?
Hamas operative 2: It looks like it!
Hamas operative 1: Who says this?
Hamas operative 2: They are saying that the shrapnel from the missile is local shrapnel and not like Israeli shrapnel.
Hamas operative 1: What are you saying (name)?
SILENCE
Hamas operative 2: But God bless, it couldn't have found another place to explode?
Hamas operative 1: Never mind, yes, (name) they shot it from the cemetery behind the hospital.
Hamas operative 2: What?!
Hamas operative 1: They shot it coming from the cemetery behind the Al-Ma'amadani Hospital and it misfired and fell on them.
Hamas operative 2:  There's a cemetery behind it?
Hamas operative 1: Yes, Al-Ma'amadani is exactly in the compound.
SILENCE
Hamas operative 2:  Where is it when you enter the compound?
Hamas operative 1: You first enter the compound and don't go toward the city and it's on the right side of the Al-Ma'amadani Hospital.
Hamas operative 2:  Yes, I know it.

Some thoughts on this audio intercept: Firstly the audio quality is excellent. The IDF probably therefore cleaned it up but that reduces the credibility of the audio. Secondly the Arabic sounds very clean, there are no expletives for something potentially a major catastrophe. Thirdly the content is almost too neat explaining everything.

So back to Google Earth...

Image Credit: Google Earth

But, some of the video from another TV station in southern Israel seems to show the launch location further away, although the scale on that video is difficult to tell.

Number of deaths much lower than originally reported

Later in the day, the number of injuries and deaths was reversed downwards to maybe 50 deaths. This is still horrendous but nothing like the 500 it started from! That was credible for the photos that I could verify the location for.

The bottom line is that it appears that the IDF version of events is most likely correct but because of their pleading and evasive press spokesman early on, they lost credibility! 

Footnote

There is something to add... some days earlier (Saturday 14 October) the hospital or close to it had been hit severely damaging their diagnostic centre.

Damage at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza after it was hit by a missile on Saturday evening

Photo Credit: Anglican / Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem

Steadicam operator?

Trying my hand at being a Steadicam operator during the filming a couple of weeks back. It's not as easy as it looks!

The camera does stay steady, but the way that you move affects how it 'bounces'. I'm guessing that a ballet dancer would make a good Steadicam operator, but never found out.

I wish we'd had Jay, a friend who works with my son Daniel, with us. But... it was actually very enjoyable. We'll see how good the footage is.

I should mention that the silver 'foil' is actually a car windscreen protector that we cut up to protect the camera, which is black and hence tends to overheat.

Filming in Cyprus

The last two weeks I've been filming in Cyprus. It has been a real joy... and pain to be back filming. A joy because I love filming, but a pain trying to co-ordinate dates and availability of the crew and actors.

Somehow whenever I arranged the dates something crashed in on them and made it impossible and forced me to reschedule! At last we got to be filming. It's not complete yet, but the majority has been shot now.

The films are two short stories trying to communicate the love of God as our Father to people from the Middle East. They are like modern parables. We started by writing the stories, then recorded audio versions and at each stage checked with people around the region that they worked. Finally we committed to film.

This was also a change in technology for me. Up till now we have been filming in 'SD' or standard definition. This was a move up to 'HD' (high definition) but also towards electronic cinematography rather than just 'video'.

This meant that we are trying to make it look like electronic film. So the focus is incredibly tight and we need a 'focus-puller' as well as DOP (Director of Photography). The results were varied. Some I'm extremely pleased with... some we will re-shoot in a couple of weeks time. Overall though I'm very, very pleased.

What was particularly good was to have my oldest son over here for the filming as sound recordist. 

EasyFlight on EasyJet... not

The alarm went off at 5am, time for a quick shave, after all I'm flying home to my wife. Then a shower before driving to the airport at 5:30. I'm in North Africa so the shower was hot, but tortuous. There is no shower tray and the drain didn't work well in the guest apartment and so the water tended to overflow out under the door of the bathroom and down the corridor. The trick was to have a bucket or two beneath you, standing over one of them carefully. Thus when you showered you would to catch as much water as possible and then tip it down the toilet after your shower.

Driving to the airport was uneventful, if slightly stressed since there was an early morning sea mist rolling in over the coastal highway. Navigation was easy though, since I had my trusty iPhone with me and Jane (the voice of that SatNav App) guided me to the airport. I was driving a virtually brand new Kangoo. I'd last driven one when we rented it from EasyCar in the UK some years back. I had booked a Peugeot 206 with air conditioning but the Kangoo without a/c was my 'upgrade' or so I was told. The alternative was some micro car that the rental company didn't recommend on highways. I took the Kangoo!

Arriving at the airport I was disconcerted to find my flight was not advertised. I was further dismayed when the information desk didn't know about it either. However, another passenger also waiting at information assured me that it was OK and pointed me in the direction of the embarkation gate. Uneventful till I was queuing at the gate and was told that my online boarding pass was invalid and that I should return to checkin and get a real boarding pass. Eventually they let me on, sternly warning me that I should not do it next time. They tried to explain in Arabic. My Arabic didn't cope with that complexity. They asked if I could read French, which I said I could a little, so they pointed me to a box on my English boarding pass in Italian, claiming it was French. The box is to the left of an advert, so I had assumed it was just another advert.

Arriving at Milano I find that transit passengers have to exit the airport and cross to the entrance of the terminal about half a kilometre away.

This time my flight is displayed but showing a delay of 2 hours 40 minutes.

Never mind, I will use the time usefully by connecting to the Internet and doing some work. That it seems, is easier said than done. In Milano you get 15 minutes free and then you have to pay for the rest. I believed it should be worth it to redeem the time sitting around in the airport. 

Setting up the account with Milano Internet was relatively easy, albeit they only accepted one of the three email addresses I tried. I never did find out why they didn't like my gmail address or an address which was relatively short.

When the free time had expired I tried logging in to pay for the remaining hours I wanted. I completed the online form indicating that my residence was Cyprus and the form changed accordingly but didn't accept the address I entered. It appeared that they also wanted my 'Tax reference number' as well. I tried my Alien Registration Number and then a few random numbers but no way would it accept my data.

So I thought that I would try the UK address of our company. Changing my residence to the UK worked fine except now they wanted a ZIP code, and no way would a British Post Code work in that field as it accepted numbers only and British Post Codes are number letter combinations.  Suddenly and without warning the screen changed to Italian and again asked for my Tax Number, presumably my Italian Tax Number (Codice Fiscale), which of course I don't have.

Then there was an announcement over the tannoy that was sufficiently clear that I understood it was about the Larnaca EasyJet flight but sufficiently garbled that I had no idea what the announcement was. The tannoy is actually so loud and the speakers so close to passengers when queuing that it is a serious health hazard.

I visit another information desk and they directed me to one of the gates where there would be specific information about my flight.

There wasn't information but there was an offer of a very small voucher for a snack. My snack cost three or four times what the voucher offered. 4.5 EUR or 3 GBP doesn't go very far in airport eating establishments! However, here was an EasyJet representative who should be given the employee of the year award for going as far as humanly possible to help a client.

I asked him to translate the Italian message on my English EasyJet online boarding pass. A liberal translation, reinterpreted by me, is approximately thus: 'You have just wasted your time with an online boarding pass as we don't accept them in this country so you have to queue like the rest of us'. So despite being in Italian on a English boarding pass it actually applied to a North African country that speaks neither English nor Italian!

Next he tries to help with the problem of the Internet connection. He makes phone call after phone call to different departments around the airport.  He basically agrees that its impossible for a non-Italian to complete the form even though its probably foreigners who need the Internet most in Milano.

Eventually after yet another phone call he says it depends if I am a transit passenger or not, because, he says, since I am not, I cannot have the Internet. I explain that I am a transit passenger, having just flown in this morning on his airline. Ah, he says, and takes all my details and heads off to administration to try and sort it out.

About 5 minutes later he returns and makes another call spelling out my name, email address and other details with the international phonetic alphabet - Foxtrox Alpha India Romeo Hotel Echo Alpha Delta. Then he tells me I will soon get an SMS with a new username and password which will give me at least an hour on the Internet. No SMS comes but I try logging in again with the old username and password and find that I have now been credited with another free 15 minutes... which does turn out to be an hour.

Eventually it is time to go to the gate. I have to go through another Passport Control to get there. This makes two passport controls in Milano to go from one EU country to another EU country, maybe even from a Shengen country to another wanna-be Shengen country! The organization here is bizarre but everyone is very friendly and one just has to shake ones head and wonder.

The plane arrives from Prague and everyone leaps at queuing despite the fact that we will naturally not be allowed to board until they have finished refueling and reprovisioning and changing crews. 

No point in racing, I have an online boarding pass that is accepted in Milano with my seat number allocated. However...

EasyJet have changed their contract with the passengers, it's now an 'English contract' I am told by an EasyJet gate representative, and I am not allowed to take my carryon case onto the plane, it will have to go into the hold. 'Please take all you need for the flight from your case'. So I leave my case on the Tarmac and I now have a collection of other items on the chair beside me. 

When on board the flight crew proudly tell everyone that EasyJet are pleased to announce the new rules for cabin baggage to be found on page 189 of the inflight magazine. Basically this means that if you have regular IATA sized cabin baggage you are unlikely to be able to take it onboard and you need to have a smaller case to have the 'EasyJet guarantee'.

But wait a moment... today is June the 30th... the new rules come into effect on July 2nd.

But the new rules are interesting: One of the good things about flying EasyJet is they have no weight limit on cabin baggage. Sometimes we have had up to the 20kg limit on checked baggage and up to 16-18kg on cabin baggage. With the new rules this means if you have a much smaller bag with your real cabin baggage within your official cabin baggage ready to extract at a suitable time when challenged you'll be able to get away with two 20kg effectively checked cases rather than one. The trick will be to put the small, high density items (like books) in what is originally called 'cabin baggage'.

Apparently this plane is not the one that should have been on this route, but a replacement due to some mechanical problem with the original one, hence the delay. This means that many of the online boarding passes and those issued at checkin don't correlate with the actual seating plan of the plane. People who booked a row of four seats are really put out as there are only three seat rows on this aircraft and somehow some seats have become double booked. The ever friendly cabin crew handle the situation with diplomacy and everyone seems satisfied.

What was observable was that the crew were scrambling and racing to get us off as quickly as possible, since we were within minutes of hitting the €400/person compensation time obligated by the EU. Maybe they were offered a bonus if they saved the airline the compensation it would otherwise have to pay. It ended up they made it by something like 16 minutes! Having a fixed cut off point sort of helps, but in reality what would be better is a scaled compensation: Any delay over 30 minutes, free Internet till you leave. Any predicted delay over 90 minutes, a €30 food voucher (not €4.50 as I actually got). Then the real financial compensation at the 3 hour cut off. And EasyJet, here's a tip... whenever you have a delay offer everyone on the flight a free drink and a free muffin.

The cost of food on EasyJet is quite reasonable, so I order a fresh baguette only to find it might be a baguette but fresh it is not. Sad really because on the other two EasyJet flights I had a chocolate muffin and coffee. The chocolate muffins on EasyJet are such that it's almost worth taking the flight just for the muffin!

The inflight magazine proudly informs us that they are having a trial run with 'mobile check in' at a number of selected airports. One wonders how EasyJet North Africa will cope if they cannot even cope with printed online boarding passes.

I've never taken a Ryan Air flight when they haven't been on time or early. EasyJet is very friendly but efficient… not. I arrived home just before midnight.

Kindle edition

It's almost 12 months since I wrote on this blog. I definitely should get back to doing so. 


I finally got the Kindle edition of my book published. Available both on US and UK Amazon sites: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004J176AShttp://www.amazon.com/dp/B004J176AS. I priced it at the lowest that Amazon permits: $0.99 or £0.74. Any idea what would be a good price in the UK? The aim is to get people to read it rather than make money (all the money goes to the charity anyhow).