Satellite Images Used to Document International Atrocities

wikkedwoman wrote with a link to a Washington Post story about the use of satellite imagery to detect atrocities around the world. The story details Amnesty International's efforts to identify areas in the world that may have been subject to man-made disasters. By comparing and contrasting imagery captured over time, researchers can produce hard evidence to present to a hard-to-please international community. "Tonight, [Amnesty Researcher Jeremy] Nelson begins his work by making a copy of the [older] shot in the right-hand screen and pasting it directly over the [newer] one on the left. Then he makes the top one nearly transparent. A river that cuts through the scene becomes a marker to help him line up the two. Now he can easily flip back and forth to look for changes. Sudanese huts tend to follow a similar pattern: a solid base ring with a steep, thatched roof. In the earlier image, they show up as small circles, with a slight shading to the dome, depending on the direction of the sun. Nelson draws a small, green circle slightly larger than the area of the average hut and makes several dozen copies of it ... When he finishes, he moves the 2007 shot to the top and begins the analysis again ... parts of this region were burned so thoroughly that there's nothing left but a large black scar. If you didn't know that huts were there before, you'd have no idea they were now gone. 'Whoever did this did a good job,' he says quietly. 'Thorough, at least.'"

Comments

Actually, that's the whole point

[Moraelin]

Those are some interesting points about Western civilization, to be sure, but you really don't have the first clue about the Sudanese conflict, do you?

Actually, thanks for bringing that up. 'Cause, see, that's the whole flippin' point I was trying to make.

No, I don't know enough about that conflict to have an informed opinion. And I'm not going to suddenly jump to a spoon-fed conclusion based on some emotional images and wording. When I have enough other data there, I might make a judgment. But I refuse to jump to one of the sides and wave a banner, just because the media spoon fed me some images.

That's all I'm preaching: exercise some healthy skepticism, get your information from more than one source. That's all.

If you already know enough about that conflict, by all means, go ahead and have an opinion about it. But so far I only have someone's word that some pictures mean what he says they mean. And that's just not enough data to base an opinion on.

Eyes on Darfur from AI and other examples

[Lord Satri]

I'm surprised TFA does not mention the newly announced by Amnesty International "Eyes on Darfur" website. Oh, Beirut imagery has been updated to reflect the situation after the 2006 Lebanon War.

Here's a few stories in the same vein:
Documenting Humanitarian Crisis with Google Earth
New Google Earth Layers: Darfur and more
The Israel-Lebanon Conflict in Google Earth
Beirut Destruction Through Remote Sensing
Israel - Lebanon Conflict and Geospatial Data Access

Re:It is hard to get good information out of Darfu

[FromTheHorizon]

OK, so I'm pretty sure that this is flamebait, but you did it on my comment, so I took it...

Sudan is already in the top 30 oil exporters in the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chart_of_exports_and _production_of_oil_by_nation), so rubbish about what you're saying about it taking decades to get the oil out of there. Admitted I don't think that it's coming out of Darfur, but it's still the same government.

I actually believe that the biggest problem comes as much from people with close minded views such as your. When people think like that it becomes a "war of civilizations", instead of just an peacekeeping-operation to end genocide, of course the Sudanese government is going to object. Your views of Islam and Muslims are incredibly narrow-minded, and I can only guess, very uneducated. By thinking like that you prevent peaceful dialog from happening.

I have personally spent the last 18 months living mostly in Pakistan and Indonesia - the worlds two largest Muslim countries. Despite standing out as a tall westerner, I didn't have any trouble at all, no terrorists, no jihads. Actually I found most of the people much friendlier than the people back home.

So please take some time to think about the situation, and what will make it better, before spreading such narrow minded rubbish.