Thursday 29th October 2015
And in the
meantime, locally in Tasmania…
I have watched
beautiful Rose, aged three and a half, ingesting enormous amounts of raw kale,
while wearing a glorious fairy dress.
She loves raw kale…this seems very weird, if extremely healthy to me.
I have had a pleasant afternoon at Grandparents Day at Blackmans Bay Primary School, making a mandala with Felix. I very niftily chose the best and most soothing activity; some of the other grandparents had to bend over double trying to play mini-croquet…
The South Hobart girls have been very industriously making paper dolls.
Grace Darcey has won the coach's award for her netball league.
Leo has won almost more ribbons than I could count in his school swimming carnival.
Angus has won the Year Seven prize for prose and poetry recital for a spirited recital of The Places You’ll Go (Dr Seuss.) I had watched, most impartially, of course, from my front row seat and I did think he was THE BEST. I didn’t really expect the adjudicator to agree with me…I am not at all impartial! But…she did!!
We have caught up
with many friends and relations.
And we have been
to a heart-wrenching funeral…
Life is good. But I could do without these untimely deaths…
I have found a little bit more on Google about the
hostages. Nothing very helpful or conclusive,
sad to say.
Militants holding two Canadians, a
Norwegian and a Filipina as hostages in the southern Philippine island of
Mindanao are believed to be led by a college-educated, social media-savvy
fellow fanatic keen on transforming the Abu Sayyaf extremist group from a band
of criminals into a bona fide Islamist movement.
A video showing the hostages begging
for their lives, as masked men stood behind them displaying a black Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) flag, confirms that the Abu Sayyaf's "Tanum
sub-group" is responsible, according to international security analyst
Rommel Banlaoi.
The group is named after a village in
Patikul town, in Sulu province - 1,400km south of the capital Manila - where it
draws most of its fighters. It is led by Hatib Sawadjaan, whom the military
believes commands at least 300 men.
The Tanum group's chief planner is
Sawadjaan's right-hand man, Muamar Askali, reportedly an apprentice of Bali
bomber Umar Patek.
Another analyst, who declined to be
named because he still consults for the military, said while Abu Sayyaf
chieftain Isnilon Hapilon would rather stay in his safe havens in Sulu and
nearby Tawi Tawi island, Askali is keen on expanding the Abu Sayyaf's reach and
elevating the group's profile into a legitimate ISIS affiliate.
The four hostages - Canadians Robert
Hall, 50, and John Ridsdel, 68; Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad, 56; and Filipina
Maritess Flor, 40 - were taken on September 21 from a resort on Samal Island,
off Davao city.
Security officials initially doubted
the Abu Sayyaf's involvement because Samal is over 800km away from Sulu, far
from their usual hunting grounds around Malaysia's Sabah state and the
Zamboanga peninsula in Mindanao.
A task force created to go after the
hostage takers had suggested communist rebels might have been behind the
abduction.
In the video, which the military
conceded could be authentic, a masked man demanded in fluent English that the
military stop its operation to rescue the four hostages.
The man is said to be Askali. He has
been described as a "rising star" and a "true believer"
among Filipino extremists. A one-time criminology student, he is supposedly
valued within the Abu Sayyaf for his family ties with several policemen.
Askali reportedly planned the abduction
of two German nationals off Sabah in April last year. They were released six
months later after the German government paid 250 million pesos (S$7.5
million).
But for defence analyst Jose Antonio
Custodio, suggestions that the Abu Sayyaf is evolving ideologically is rubbish.
"They're using the ISIS flag not because they really believe in it.
They're actually trying to get more support from abroad. They're just after
money… They're still basically merchants," he said.
