Superb post from Kate about the situation of Venezuelan oposition. An excerpt:
These guys cannot get it through their skulls that there needs to be some sort of united front against Chavez, if for nothing else to create a legitimate opposition. Honestly, if I were chavista, I wouldn’t even bother to write about the opposition; I’d be laughing way too hard to be able to sit down and write something coherent. Primero Justicia wants to vote article by article; the student movement –which has been called sifrino by many in the elite political class– continues, albeit intermittently; COPEI wants to get rid of article 141; AD is nowhere to be found. All the meanwhile, chavistas and the administration are giving opposition forces the run-around by entertaining futile opposition attempts. The saddest part of it all? The opposition are buying into it! They are what my Italian grandmother calls stunods, which are essentially thick-headed people who are gluttons for punishment.
A colombo-americana’s perspective: Trouble in el dizque paraiso de Chavezuela?
You should read it all.
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The accused conspirators in a bombing plot disrupted last week in Germany were part of what the authorities say is a small, but growing, flow of militants from Germany and other Western countries who are receiving terrorism training at camps in Pakistan.
Beginning early last year, at least five of the suspects traveled to the tribal regions of Waziristan, where they learned to prepare chemical explosives and military-grade detonators that they intended to use to build three car bombs, according to German officials and a confidential German intelligence document that details the allegations.
[…] As further evidence of traffic between Germany and the tribal areas of Pakistan, intelligence officials said six other men from Germany who had received similar training had been detained in Pakistan, and they suspect that numerous other Germans have attended the camps without being identified by the authorities.
German officials say they are troubled by evidence that Al Qaeda and other groups are training Western-born recruits whose passports allow them easy access to other Western countries.
“They started to look especially for people from Europe, because they wanted to train them and later to use them here in Germany for operations,” said a high-ranking German intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation.
The accusations in Germany contain similarities to two high-profile cases in Britain.
[…] This summer militants released a 46-minute videotape depicting some 250 graduates of a Taliban training camp near the Afghan-Pakistan border, which included speeches in English by recruits who were grouped by the countries they had been trained to attack, including Germany and the United States.
“We are not only fighting in Afghanistan,” the Taliban leader, Mullah Mansoor, said at the end of the ceremony. “Those American, British, German, French, Canadian and others who have come to finish us, if God wills, we will destroy them with the power of strong faith in God. We will commit suicidal attacks and we will destroy their national assets.”
Read it all.
This also happens in Spain by the way, and specially in Catalonia.
For Islamist terrorist organizations this is something necessary… as they avoid better the police control and the possible suspicions from the neighbourhood.
Also in Germany a rabbi has been stabbed in the stomach:
A rabbi was stabbed in the stomach by another man on a Frankfurt street in what appeared to be a spontaneous attack, police said Saturday.
The 42-year-old rabbi, whose name was not disclosed, underwent surgery after the Friday night attack and appeared to be out of danger, police said.
The rabbi was walking with two other people when they encountered the assailant accompanied by two women, a police statement said. Witnesses said the attacker spoke to the rabbi — who was wearing a yarmulke — in what sounded like Arabic.
The rabbi did not understand, and the attacker then threatened in German to kill him and stabbed him once, police said. The attacker fled and the women who were with him ran in different directions.
So who is the murderer? De Der Spiegel (aquí el link en alemán a la noticia):
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Here in Spain:
a) ETA has accused the Government of “not fulfilling their pacts” (oops, but the Government says there weren’t any…) and that they will continue with the “armed struggle“. Zapatero said that this year was going to be better that the previous one, and the next day the Barajas’ T4 terminal exploded after an ETA’s device went off, killing two persons. Just a few days ago, Zapatero in the independent diary of the morning, that is, EL País, in an interview, blamed on Popular Party the lack of success of the peace process. And today he is accused of not fulfilling his pacts with ETA… Now, that for those who deny Zapatero is a jynx. And a liar…. 
And on Monday 10th, a car has exploded in Logroño, although no one has been killed or hurt…
b) the Government wants to impose on the citizens a new subject, which would be taught at the schools: Education for Citizenship. Roughly speaking, this is a subject whose aim is to teach children, leftists are lovers of the arts, peaceful, good in essence, while right-wingers are militarists, professional haters and so on. I will write about that, as it is an important thing to consider for next generations. But if you speak Spanish, you can go here to know more about it.
c) the same foundation which is training the Education for Citizenship’s teachers has advised that the Civil War’s History must be re-written. Hilarion, in Valea’s blog, (
to both!) wrote this comment [my translation]:
it was about time that someone tells us the truth about what happened. I am going to advise them to include, at least, these fundamental facts which had been systematically manipulated or hidden:
1) Calvo Sotelo was not killed by assault guards who were supporters of Socialist PSOE. He committed suicide shooting himself twice in the back of his own head.
2) Franco made his Moor forces cross the Strait of Gibraltar in makeshift vessels (=pateras).
3) Carrillo had nothing to do with Paracuellos. He was at a program in El País newspaper’s radio Cadena Ser speaking in a program.
4) Andreu Nin escaped to Brasil with the Bank of Spain’s gold. Only the fascist propaganda said that he dissapeared because the stalinists have killed him and that he gave the gold to Stalin so that the latter could guard it.
5) The Republicans (Reds, communists…) won the Ebro’s Battle. But when they were attacking it, they positioned themselved on the wrong side of the river.
6) The Republic won the war, but the Franco’s propaganda achieved its goal: no one had been able to discover that till now.
7) It is not true that Hemingway and Dos Passos ended with all the reserves of gin in Madrid. What is true is that they were stinking with a known smell, because, when they have just arrived in Madrid, an unknown and not very careful waiter, stinked their clothes with a Beefeater Gin’s bottle and, considering the bad state of finances in the capital then, they weren’t able to change their clothes throughout all the war.
d) the agressions against PP members continue: a New Generations’ militant (New Generations is the association for youths of PP) has been hurt after being beaten heavily. A group of violents have already attacked the PP stand in Alcorcón (celevrating now its patron’s holidays). The party’s spokerperson in Alcorcón, Fernando Díaz, has also suffered some contusions in the face, arm and hand, and has denounced the facts to the Police.
According to their statement, at 7:30 pm, around 15 youths began “to insult and menace the people who were there working inside the stand. When the latter considered what was happenning, they abandoned what they were doing and scaped running“, he said.
But the agressors run after them, pursuing the hurt man, an Italian national, who was beaten severely, and was later driven to Hospital, although he was discharged from hospital later.
The agressors were identified as okupas, “belonging to anti-system groups who came from another caseta with republican flags“.
e) the Prince of Asturias’ daughter has begun going to school. But not to a normal/ordinary school. After repeating in all TV shows, that the Prince and his family are “youths of their age” (though they don’t have to pay mortgage..), the Infanta Leonor is going to a school built for her, whose companions are sons and daughter of the Civil Guard. The school has been built by the Defense Ministry (as if it had a huge budget…) and a third part of it is paid by the Autonomous Community of Madrid (as if they were Kings only of it, instead of Spain… something which would not reduce the general criticism against “the capital”, just because it is the capital…). 🙄
f) On Sunday, the victim no. 56 (of this year) as a result of domestic violence was killed. The Fundación Mujeres (Women Foundation) has released a video to make the women aware of the emotional blackmail a majority of them suffer. That same emotional blackmail is the root of some of them stopping the criminal processes against their husbands/lovers/…
If this proves something is that the Law of Full Protection against Gender Violence has had very little effect in preventing this kind of acts. From my point of view, there are two very interesting things in this law: first, that if a woman beats her husband he has not the same protection as she would have in the same situation; and that if it is a same-sex marriage, the partners are also excluded from the law. And secondly, considering the measures the law imposes, the budget to really make them possible should be enormous. But the budget is not so important as to make that possible…
In fact, this is not a problem of huge budgets or of engaging more policemen or civil servants, but of education. Intelligence, goodness, beauty, honesty, etc. are valors which are not given by nationality, height or sex, but that appear in some individuals while are not present in others. But if both chauvinists and feminists keep on saying their sexes are above the other -while neither of them is right-, the situation will be maintained in the long run. Situation which is aggravated by the immigration which normally comes from places which are even more chauvinistic than Spain.
According to the report from the Spanish General Council of Judicial Power h/t Desde Mi Rincón, these are the numbers:
| Protection orders | Presented accusations | |||
| Total | 13.472 | 39.079 | ||
| Victim | Man | Spanish>18 | 1.721 | 7.690 |
| Spanish minor | 148 | 494 | ||
| Foreign>18 | 217 | 1.091 | ||
| Foreign minor | 37 | 101 | ||
| Woman | Spanish>18 | 8.363 | 22.612 | |
| Spanish minor | 315 | 678 | ||
| Foreign>18 | 2.832 | 7.140 | ||
| Foreign minor | 126 | 305 | ||
| Accused | Spanish man | 8.897 | 24.326 | |
| Foreign man | 3.053 | 7.639 | ||
| Spanish woman | 1.197 | 6.192 | ||
| Foreign woman | 322 | 1.316 |
So some men are suffering mistreatment in silence, aren’t they? No one speaks about this… and campaigns are normally aimed at mistreated women, but no mistreated man is mentioned. 
And in the present state of things I feel we will have to wait to see that 
This is not equality, really. At least, from my point of view. 
g) The socialist Major of Sevilla has supported the Chaves‘ initiative of giving free apartments in Andalucía and has announced that he will raise the Tax on Real State a 50% to the unnoccupied houses. He maintains that his objective is “to make more attractive the renting market” to ensure that the appartments are a “fundamental right” and not a “business“. He has not outlined what criteria will be used to decide if a house is or not occupied. From PP, Javier Arenas considers the Chaves’ initiative a “joke of the worst taste“.
NOTE: Chávez is the Venezuelan Bolivarian blablabla President. Cháves is the President of the Autonomous Community of Andalucia. I know, I also mix them up. 
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Noblesse Oblige writes about Pakistan and the return of Nawaz Sharif, scheduled for Monady 9/10. And… Nawad Sharif was arrested and deported to Saudi Arabia:
After landing in Islamabad he was charged and put on board a plane bound for Saudi Arabia, Religious Affairs Minister Ejaz ul-Haq told BBC News.
Mr Sharif says he wants to challenge President Pervez Musharraf, who ousted him in a 1999 coup, ahead of elections.
Mr Sharif arrived in Pakistan weeks after the country’s Supreme Court affirmed his right to return.
On board the plane which flew him to Pakistan from London, Mr Sharif told the BBC he wanted to help restore the rule of law.
“It’s democracy versus dictatorship,” he said.
Once the plane arrived in Islamabad, paramilitary troops surrounded it and there was a stand-off on board as Mr Sharif refused to hand over his passport to immigration officials for nearly two hours.
Eventually he agreed to leave the plane and was escorted to the airport’s VIP lounge.
But shortly afterwards, he was separated from his entourage, returned to the tarmac and put on board a helicopter. Later, he was transferred to a plane bound for Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
Officials said he had been charged with money-laundering and corruption.
So, Musharraf wanted reconciliation, didn’t he?
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Oh, and last but not least, Sandmonkey, the best -for me- of Egyptian bloggers is back. Sooo, go there and read… 
Spanish Pundit 