Iran’s interior minister said China renewed its support Friday for negotiations over his country’s disputed nuclear activities, and he warned that new U.N. sanctions could force Tehran to adopt “other means.”
Mostafa Pour Mohammadi said he had reached a consensus on the issue in meetings in Beijing with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and senior foreign policy adviser Tang Jiaxuan. “The two sides agreed that other methods such as sanctions are inappropriate and ineffective,” Pour Mohammadi told reporters at the Iranian Embassy. Asked whether China had urged more active cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Pour Mohammadi replied, “It’s natural that our friends in other countries hope that talks conclude successfully.”
China’s official Xinhua News Agency quoted Yang as saying China supported a negotiated settlement and opposed the spread of nuclear weapons. “China would like to continue its efforts to push forward the peaceful resolution of Iran’s nuclear issue,” Xinhua quoted Yang as saying. China, one of five permanent veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, has urged Iran to cooperate with U.N. inspectors but has thwarted attempts by fellow permanent Security Council membersthe U.S., Britain and Franceto impose harsh U.N. sanctions on Iran.
Kouchner, after saying “the world must be prepared to go to war over Iran’s nuclear program” (what a brave French man I am! ), now he is saying that he “is ready to go to Teheran”, if he was invited and to “give the necessary time” for the International Agency for Atomic Energy verifies if they are fulfilling the aggreements.
Ahmadine-jihad in a clearly propgandist photo: I’m so good that I go to have a meal with some orphans… politicians are the same wherever the country you look at!!!! (In the case of Ahmi there are some very distinctive qualities, that’s true ).
Plateau has emailed me with some tips. Very important ones (thanks! ). Ahmadeni-jihad has also promised to get rid of the Infidel’s influence at University (wow, the infidels, uuuhhhhhhhh… ) mobilising a special militia to ensure it (well, both the Infidel and the influence… ) disappears:
The radical president refers to his “academic cleansing” plan as “The Second Great Islamic Cultural Revolution.” The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini closed the universities and launched the first “Great Islamic Cultural Revolution” in 1980. A committee created to “cleanse” academia purged more than 6,000 professors and lecturers, virtually destroying Iranian academia. Dozens of academics were executed as hundreds fled into exile. The committee also expelled thousands of students on charges of monarchist or leftist tendencies. It also censored or totally rewrote dozens of textbooks to conform to the Khomeinist ideology.
Ever since its start six years ago, the United States has been waging the War on Terror chiefly on the Sunni side of the religious divide within Islam. The principal targets have been Al-Qaeda and its affiliates.
By contrast, the vision articulated by the president in his 2007 State of the Union Address is substantially broader. It encompasses not only Sunni extremists, but their Shi‘a counterparts as well. And, for the first time, it clearly and unambiguously identifies not just “terrorism” but a specific state sponsor — the Islamic Republic of Iran — as a threat to U.S. interests and objectives in the greater Middle East.
So far, however, this shift is still more rhetoric than reality. “Our strategy to combat terrorism is really only a strategy to combat Al-Qaeda”, Congressman Jim Saxton (R-NJ) pointed out in these pages not long ago. “We are not prepared to deal — in the event hostilities occur — with terrorist organizations that are built differently, like Hizballah.”
“Even though we’ve prevented one terrorist attack, we know that there are still people in Denmark and abroad that have the capacity, the will and the ability to carry out terrorist attacks in Denmark,” Jakob Scharf, the head of Danish intelligence, said in an interview in his office here.
[…] With Europe again focused on the threat posed by terrorist plots, Denmark illustrates the powerful interplay between foreign agitation and domestic discontent. The country became a target of foreign Islamist terrorist groups two years ago after a conservative newspaper here published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, drawing worldwide attention. At home, the children of Muslim immigrants complain of job discrimination and integration problems, feeding the disenchantment of the small but growing Muslim population.
“In the schools, Danish teachers are always talking about democracy and human rights, but now they see what Denmark is doing in Afghanistan and what they did here with the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad,” said Imran Shah, 31, who leads a youth group at a local mosque. “They ask themselves, is this a democracy or are they talking about double standards?”
Double standards?? I don’t know what they are teaching them to consider that “what Denmark is doing in Afghanistan” (why not in Iraq??) is against democracy and Human Rights. And about the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad:
it’s normal in democratic and free country to laugh and make jokes about beliefs. That way, no one thinks he/she is above the rest, and those jokes makes us question ourselves about our own ideas something that is extremely good.
Is someone of another religion asking to kill the cartoonists which draw that cartoons? I have not heard of any. And in any case, if there are, the own believers are going against them.
In her speech, Griffin said: “A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus.”
Kathy Griffin poses backstage with her Emmy after her show ‘Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List’ won Outstanding Reality Program at the 2007 Creative Arts Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Saturday. (Chris Pizzello/AP)
She went on to hold up her Emmy, make an off-colour remark about Christ and proclaim: “This award is my god now!”
The comedian’s remarks were condemned Monday by Catholic League president Bill Donohue, who called them a “vulgar, in-your-face brand of hate speech.”
Well, he asked me what I thought about it. And I answered:
1st this speech speaks more about Kate Griffin than about the religion in itself. Looks like she is more happy because of telling others that they are wrong thanking Jesus because of an award, than because she has been awarded with it.
And secondly, paying attention to that kind of speech, made precisely to arouse criticism, is making her achieving his objective. If I would have been Bill Donohue -and I have a lot of respect for this guy, he is in the first front of the fight against Islamism- I would have said: “Hey, some Catholic Bishop has said some days ago that God can be called Allah. Why she did not say “This award is my Allah now?”. But not considering it as a matter of high importance. Certainly, it’s vulgar but I do not think this is “hate speech”, is more an idiot and inmature speech of someone who wants to attract attention.
So is there a double standard? Yes, but because people are so afraid of Muslim fundamentalism that they dare not say anything against them….
To continue with the subject: In Spain now, there is an exhibition in which late Pope John Paul II is pictured as the passive man in an homosexual trio, in pedophile attitudes, etc. The Ibiza’s Bishop has answered that “he condemns this as an offense to Catholics“, because the exhibition is held in a Catholic church, Santa María de Gracia (if it was not sufficient). So he has threatened the Major with legal measures to end the agreement to use that church to make exhibitions, as they have not fulfilled the terms of use. He added that never “this Bishop or the Foundation -that manages the exhibition if the church- would have given permission for such an exhibition“. But the Culture responsible of City’s Majorship, has said “she would never use censorship against this…
I maintain my position: a) this people only want publicity and no risk: that’s why they are always touching the balls of Catholics but never of Muslims. b) the bad things here are two: first this is an exhibition paid with the money of all citizens including Catholics and secondly, that perversion of exhibiting these pictures in a Catholic Church is of very bad taste.
As Mª Luisa Cava de Llano, First Advisor to the Spanish OmbudsmanAdjunta Primera del Defensor del Pueblo, says:
* It is customary to mention Muhammed before the name.
* What is your father’s name?
– Muhammed Abu
* What’s this in your lap?
– Muhammed cat
😯
DHAKA, Bangladesh: Bangladeshi authorities Tuesday arrested a cartoonist after drawings that Muslims said insulted their religion were published in a national newspaper, police and the government said.
A Home Ministry statement said Arifur Rahman’s sketches — titled “Name” — that came out Monday in a weekly supplement of the Prothom Alo — “hurt the religious sentiments of the people.”
[…] “This is a grievous offense, this is dangerous,” said Obaidul Huq, head cleric of the National Baitul Mukarram Mosque.
For saying what?? Muhammad cat?? Uuuuhhhh, what an offense!! Look here, you’re all ridiculous. The problem is that you have power. If not, these stories would be good in a Groucho Marx’s movie.
Condolezza Rice is called “black snake” by Hamas’ TV. Hmm, yeah. I really think that Muslims get really impressed that she is sexy, intelligent -yes, she has screwed up sometimes, but she is intelligent-, is single (so, she has never married, no need of a man to be Secretary of State ), is a woman -very important fact- and is Black. Hmm, yeah, doh!! She is a liberated Western Black woman! What a danger!!!
“Among the 19 hostages who returned on the second (of September), some were asked by the Taliban to convert and when they rejected, they were assaulted and severely beaten,” reported Park Eun-jo, pastor of the hostages’ home church, Saemmul Presbyterian Church in Bundang, just south of the South Korean capital Seoul.
“I heard from the hostages that they were threatened with death,” he added, according to Christian Today Korea. “Especially it is known that the reason Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu was murdered was because he refused the Taliban’s demand to convert.”
Is there anything wrong about this??? Well, yeah, have you considered that there is no video showing us the faces of these hostages during their kidnapping asking for release?
The hostage agreement reached last week between the Taliban and South Korea has profound implications for all countries fighting in Afghanistan. It puts the lie to those, including the current Canadian government, who say it is impossible or counterproductive to strike a deal with the Islamist insurgents. Clearly South Korea found the talks quite productive.
Hey, the Talibans are going to be exultant because of the results of their actions… What a moron!!!
BERLIN (AFP) – German police have launched an international hunt for 10 accomplices of the three men held over a foiled Islamist plot to blow up airports and US installations in Germany, a top official said Thursday.
“Terrorist attacks need preparation. We are trying to identify all of those who were working in the shadows,” Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning told ARD television.
Police were searching for “the 10 people who were behind this” within Germany and abroad, he added.
The arrests were made at a vacation home, pictured, in Oberschledorn. The suspects had rented the house to store chemicals to make explosives, officials said, and were preparing to leave when security forces swooped in.
But there is more about the already detained:
Newspapers reported on Thursday that investigators believed Fritz Martin G. to have been the ringleader of the plotters.
He had been living in Neu-Ulm, a town in southern Germany seen as a hotbed of Islamist radicals, and was involved in a mosque there which German police have long believed to be a base for extremists planning attacks.
Investigators said an Islamic centre in nearby Ulm was among more than 30 places the police raided early Wednesday. Offices seized documents and computers they hope can point them to those who helped to organise and finance the well-advanced bomb plot.
The three main suspects, pictured in the press wearing blue prisoner overalls, appeared before an investigating judge in Karlsruhe in southwestern Germany on Wednesday.
The authorities have said the men gathered at their Sauerland hideaway on Sunday to start making bombs to use in “massive attacks” with the 12 drums of hydrogen peroxide (left) they had stashed in the garage.
Sources close to the case told AFP the police were looking into the group’s plans to use military detonators to set off bombs because this could provide important clues in the investigation.
Several calls to British numbers are said to been made from mobile telephones linked to two of the men being questioned in Germany. One is said to have been a “known” number.
“On August 31, 2007, the Islamist website {name removed}, hosted by SiteGenie LLC in Rochester, Minnesota, posted a document calling for “martyrdom [i.e., suicide] operations” in Denmark. The author, who identified himself as a member of Al-Qaeda, urged the Muslims not to forget the incident of the Danish cartoons, and promised the people of Denmark that the “brigades of martyrdom seekers are on their way… and will soon carry out blessed operations” in their country. He called on the Muslims to register on the site as candidates for these suicide operations.
Once again this means only one thing: they can go from one place to another and they can communicate to each other, very easily. And we are all menaced, whatever the policy our Governments make.
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Elder of Ziyon has an appaling story which happened in London. A woman enters a café in Edgware Road near Marble Arch and asks for a juice. She sits down and waits for it, noticing she is the only female customer. When the waitress brings it to her, she complaints because it was fermented and tells the woman it needed to be conserved in a refrigerator.
But the waitress answers “No– English”. So exasperated, she shouts:
Is there no-one working here who speaks English? This is Paddington – this is still a London neighbourhood.’ A well-dressed man came over and said ‘I speak English.’ I thought he was going to intervene on my behalf but instead came out with this astonishing observation: ‘You are a racist! You are a racist ape! Look at you– you are an ape!’[…] Shocked, I glared at him, but he had to finish things off : ‘You want them to speak Hebrew, don’t you?’
😯 This man has a problem with geography…
I got up from my seat and went over to him and at the top of my voice said I would be proud to speak Hebrew if I could, it being the language of the Torah and of an ancient culture going back six-thousand years. [Heh, imagine the face of the moron…:twisted: ]. He then embarked on a tirade at me about the ‘five million Indians’ slaughtered in genocide in America. [Of course, Muslims have never killed a poor fly in their whole history…]. Meanwhile, the men in the café were in various states of laughter at me, and exhibiting great admiration for him. Believe it or not, the server had in the meantime brought me a fresh juice which I calmly drank with my very un-Hebrew ham and cheese sandwich, and then I left. I wandered over to the flower shop and found myself commiserating with what seemed to be two Englishwomen who lived in a permanent state of fear in a neighbourhood they had called their own for generations. They told me I must have been mad going into that shop, as ‘all the establishments in Edgware Road are off-limits to us now.’
😯 Not surprised then that the British are going abroad in something very similar to an stampede.
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Once again all of these stories makes this come true:
ejem… I feel this is insulting for the poor pig…
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NYT has run a story critisizing Mother Theresa, and feeling disgusted because normal US nationals know Calcutta not because of its beautiful buildings and educated middle class, but because of her. So what is the problem with her and the liberal media around the world?
As a doctor, I can only shake my head at those sophisticated critics that lament her hospices don’t meet the year 2000 standards of university hospitals. They ignore the question: If Mother Teresa’s hospice was not there, where would the people go? To other Indian hospices? To University hospitals, with private beds and gourmet meals?
… The rest off the criticisms similarly show a strange envy of the good. But why Mother Teresa? Why not slime American born Ram Dass and the Indian doctors and who helped wipe out small pox in India? Or slime Mother Wichiencharoen, a Buddhist nun, for her shelters in Bangkok?But we all know why, don’t we? The NYTimes doesn’t like Catholics.
It’s the sex stupid.
Mother Teresa opposed abortion and promoted chastity. How dare she impose her rigid Catholic morality on poor Hindus, (whose religion, by the way, also opposes abortion and promotes chastity). But the editors of the NYTimes can’t have a rich American slime Mother Teresa, so they find an Indian born woman to do it. So let’s destroy the reputation of Mother Teresa, and we won’t feel so guilty at our next cocktail party.
SC&A writes:
We are not all Mother Teresa. That said, because we are not all Mother Teresa, we ought not diminish her status so that we might be her equal. The ability to reach within and bring the very best of who we are isn’t easy. If it were, we’d all be heroes.
We live in a world that trivializes goodness and and character. The virtues of money, sex and inflexibility are celebrated and extolled. ‘Take no prisoners’ has come to define not only political agendas, but moral ones as well. Success often means trading in values that might actualize the very best of who we are, for values that will clearly enslave us.
We do have the ability to reach that part of ourselves that is the best of ourselves and if we choose, we can make that self actualization as natural as breathing. Who we are won’t change- in fact, we can choose to reach out to our own unique potential and evolve into our best selves. Each of us has within our grasp, the opportunity to be our own expression of Mother Teresa.
Read it all: it’s really worth your time.
I have said around the world because in Spain it was El País (yes, you all know how much I love that newspaper) the liberal MSM which was worried about how on earth someone with doubts could be made saint… because she had lost her faith. 😯 Of course, what the article’s writer did not know is that Nowak -secretary of the Congregation for the Saints’ Cause- said: “It is a phenomenon which happens to every great mistic and spiritual teacher, as Saint Teresa of Jesus or Saint Juan de la Cruz, called spiritual night or senses’ night. They are special periods of the spiritual life of the people who feel themselves abandoned by a God who they feel is very far from them“.
😈 Oh, yeah, but they are independent and objective. Yeah, without doubt…
Only those of an advanced level of spirituality” experience this, Sister Nirmala said, calling it a sign of being close to God. It is like being close “to the sun and so blinded by the brilliance,” she explained.
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Iranian 40.000 human bombs. See the video inside (in English). Is this what gender equality means for the Iranian aytollahs?
Chechneyan Muslims (with connection to Al Qaeda) stormed an elementary school in Beslan, Chechneya, taking over 1,100 teachers and students hostage. During the ensuing standoff with police, the Jihadis raped young girls, shot teachers, strung the entire school with explosives, and forced children to drink urine.
From the comments:
Beslan is not in Chechya, but in Ingushetia. It is a small autonomous district populated by related but different people, chrystian by their faith.
“Some people make groundless accusations against China” that its military attacked the Pentagon, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular news briefing.
“China has all along been opposed to and forbids criminal activities undermining computer networks, including hacking,” she said. “China is ready to strengthen cooperation with other countries, including the U.S., in countering Internet crimes.”
The Financial Times report said the Pentagon was still investigating how much information was stolen, but cited an unnamed person as saying that most of it was probably unclassified.
[…] The Pentagon warned earlier this year that China’s army is emphasizing hacking as an offensive weapon. It cited Chinese military exercises in 2005 that included hacking “primarily in first strikes against enemy networks.”
The Associated Press reported in July that the State Department was trying to recover from large-scale network break-ins affecting operations worldwide. The hackers appeared to target the department headquarters and offices dealing with China and North Korea, it was reported.
However, experts have said that China is home to a large number of insecure computers and networks that hackers in other countries could use to disguise their locations and launch attacks.
Well, it’s a good way to disguise an attack from other people, such as terrorists… BUT for China is a golden oportunity: not only they can claim they are innocent, but they can do it and blame others! AND they have been trained for that…
Also UK has complained because the caring and loving and peaceful Taliban are using Chinese-made weapons. This is the most laughable line in all the article: The authorities in Beijing have promised to carry out an investigation. Bet they will say they are sold without permission?
In 1907, only a few years had passed since the Wright brothers’ first flight, and automobiles had yet to make much headway against horse-drawn carriages. In France, a number of tinkerers were trying out another novel mode of mechanical locomotion: the helicopter. Well, something vaguely resembling modern helicopters, anyway. But the contraptions did count as the first successful steps, however brief, along the way to manned flight powered by rotary wings. And that makes 2007 the centennial of the helicopter.
Designs by Maurice Leger, Jacques and Louis Breguet, and Paul Cornu all got off the ground in 1907–just barely, and for just a very few seconds. These earliest machines also tended to require steadying from people on the ground. Cornu’s craft, shown here, got airborne in November of that year for as long as 20 seconds at an altitude, if you can call it that, of somewhere between knee-high and eye level. It featured two rotors at opposite ends of the airframe that turned in opposite directions to balance out the torque.
Caption text by Jonathan Skillings, staff writer, CNET News.com Credit: Branger/Getty Images
Just wait and see: all the nationalists from all the autonomous Communities, which call themselves “historic“, are going to boicot Nike…, calling it a “remnant of imperialistic Spain“. 😈
[the man in the picture is Spanish tennis-player Rafael Nadal…]
If the uniform requirements of the Garda Reserve were to be waived for a Sikh officer, then they would have to be waived for everyone else who pleaded cultural or religious custom. Male Jewish officers would be allowed to wear the yamulke instead of the cap; female Muslim officers (if their husbands allowed them out) would wear the veil instead of the cap; some might even cover their uniforms with a burqa. Buddhist members (although I’m not sure if their beliefs would allow them to join a force which might be required to use even limited violence against violence) would be able to wear a yellow robe. The possibilities are numerous, and while they might make for a more colourful air around the Phoenix Park and Harcourt Square, it would be the end of uniformity and the discipline it both implies and requires.
Even more to the point, it would further endorse our skewed version of multi-culturalism. The idea of having people of various cultural traditions and ethnic minorities in our defence and garda forces is to ensure integration, not reinforce difference.
I hope they are not revising their previous policy about the uniform…
As Steve says:
Britain opened that Pandora’s Box many years ago when Sikhs were first allowed to ride motorbikes without crash helmets and to work on building sites without hard hats. Their heads are no harder than anyone else’s but health and safety, it seems, took second place to religious feeling.
This reflects our peculiar attitude to cultural minorities which, as I have said before, is a legacy of the Empire. The British establishment would prefer to do deals with the leaders of minority groups than ask them to integrate.
Bad thing altogether. A uniform, as its name says, is to make everyone being the same, to uniform, make all of them of one form, whaever their background. 👿
More than 70 million Christians have been martyred for their faith since 33 AD. This year an estimated 160,000 believers will die at the hands of their oppressors and over 200 million will be persecuted, arrested, tortured, beaten or jailed. In many nations it is illegal to own a Bible, share your faith, change your faith or allow children under 18 to attend a religious service.
Continued prayers for the other Iranian-Americans still detained in Iran: Ali Shakeri and Kian Tajbakhsh, who are still imprisoned, and Parnaz Azima, who is free on bail but is being prevented from leaving Iran.
And this is how Iran could inflict pain on Western countries:
Other interesting fact: new Head of the Revolutionary Guard IS one of the Iranian who kidnapped US Nationals on Nov 4th, 1979.
The appointment of somebody who was involved in taking US hostage, as the commander of a 200,000 strong military force can be interpreted as a provocation in the current cold war between Tehran and Washington. The important question to ask is: how long before such provocations turn into open confrontation? With the massive breakdown in communications and trust between both sides, one could be forgiven for fearing the worst.
Some quotes from Jafari here. Just read them: peaceful, loving guy…
Meanwhile, the former Head of the Revolutionary Guard has stated: “There are 200,000 vulnerable American forces in the region and we have information about all their bases”. 😯
Ayatollah Mojtahedi. “I wish I was a chick“. 😯 He says that then, all the taxis would stop when he wants one.
“Iran’s telecommunication service should transfer the message of our revolution across the whole world….He said it’s vital that we complete this network of communication and from inside these networks, love, hope, faith and modesty should be suggested and the message of Islamic revolution should be transferred througout the world.”
Hi, my name is Mahmoud Admadinejad. I know it is hard to pronounce so you guys can just call me “Spanky.” After all that is what my Iranian school yard chums nicknamed me.
Listen, I just wanted to stop by and let you know that I’m not all that bad of a guy. Sure the Bush administration is out to paint me as a tyrant and a fascist, but hey, we all know he is really the evil one. Right? Good, now that we have the pleasantries aside, I have some important things to talk about with you, the American people.
If you’ve been too busy ogling scantily clad women in the streets of your American cities you might not have noticed that I’ve been spending some time with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But our alliance isn’t about taking over the West or usurping America’s place in the world, and it isn’t even about how good “Vladi” looks without his shirt off.
Umm, not that I’ve noticed or anything…I just…err…we were just attending this Democratic debate and well…don’t ask, don’t tell.
Abortions on demand in the UK. by David Vance. “in some cases, with the procedure just being carried out by a nurse“. 😯 And the health of the mother how is protected is these cases? -the unborn, well, I even don’t mention that little detail. But as abortions are mostly done to protect the mothers’ health…-.
His “Crime”? He wasn’t a Muslim. by Jeremayakovka. WARNING! Extremely graphic image of this slaughter in Southern Thailand. 😦 😡
The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American officials.
The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack.
Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People’s Liberation Army.
One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said there was a “very high level of confidence…trending towards total certainty” that the PLA was responsible. The defence ministry in Beijing declined to comment on Monday.
Some of the same Arab tribes accused of massacring civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan are now unleashing their considerable firepower against one another in a battle over the spoils of war that is killing hundreds of people and displacing tens of thousands.
In the past several months, the Terjem and the Mahria, heavily armed Arab tribes that United Nations officials said raped and pillaged together as part of the region’s notorious janjaweed militias, have squared off in South Darfur, fighting from pickup trucks and the backs of camels. They are raiding each other’s villages, according to aid workers and the fighters themselves, and scattering Arab tribesmen into the same kinds of displacement camps that still house some of their earlier victims.
United Nations officials said that thousands of gunmen from each side, including some from hundreds of miles away, were pouring into a strategic river valley called Bulbul, while clashes between two other Arab tribes, the Habanniya and the Salamat, were intensifying farther south.
Darfur’s violence has often been characterized as government-backed Arab tribes slaughtering non-Arab tribes, but this new Arab-versus-Arab dimension seems to be a sign of the evolving complexity of the crisis. What started out four years ago in western Sudan as a rebellion and brutal counterinsurgency has cracked wide open into a fluid, chaotic, confusing free-for-all with dozens of armed groups, a spike in banditry and chronic attacks on aid workers.
No, honey, this is just racism, because the Arabs from the North are white while the Arabs on the South are Black. (By the way, they are not Arabs, they are Muslims…)
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is in Sudan to “give a push” for a new round of talks to end the four-year regional conflict and mobilize support for the speedy deployment of a new 26,000-member peacekeeping force, a top U.N. official said Monday.
Ban was expected to have dinner with President Omar al-Bashir before heading to southern Sudan on Tuesday to assess implementation of the 2005 agreement that ended a separate 21-year civil war between Sudan’s Muslim government in the north and the mostly Christian southern rebels.
He was then due Wednesday in Darfur to visit a camp for some of the 2.5 million people displaced by the conflict there, which has claimed more than 200,000 lives.
“It is important to move on several fronts,” Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, told reporters traveling with Ban. This is why the secretary-general has come to Sudan at this time, he said.
After his behaviour with NK, I don’t quite consider him really pushing for anything anywhere…
This week, it plans to turn that strategy upside down, making available free software that connects its Windows operating system to software services delivered on the Internet, a practice increasingly referred to as “cloud” computing. The initiative is part of an effort to connect Windows more seamlessly to a growing array of Internet services.
The strategy is a major departure for Microsoft, which primarily sells packaged software for personal computers. With this new approach, Microsoft hopes to shield its hundreds of millions of software customers from competitors like Google and Salesforce.com, which already offer software applications through the Internet.
Microsoft’s new Windows Live software suite includes an updated electronic mail program, a photo-sharing application and a writing tool designed for people who keep Web logs.
The new service is an indication that Microsoft plans to compete head-on against archrival Google and others, and not only in the search-engine business where it is at a significant disadvantage. Instead, Microsoft will try to outmaneuver its challengers by becoming the dominant digital curator of all a user’s information, whether it is stored on a PC, a mobile device or on the Internet, industry executives and analysts said.
Well, this is not a surprise…
Brian Hall, general manager for Microsoft’s Windows Live services, said, “We’re taking the communications and sharing components and creating a set of services that become what we believe is the one suite of services and applications for personal and community use across the PC, the Web and the phone.”
The Windows Live service — which will be found at www.live.com — includes new versions of the company’s Hotmail and Messenger communications services as well as Internet storage components. Microsoft executives said there were roughly 300 million active users each on the Hotmail and Messenger services, with some overlap.
The software release will offer PC users the option of downloading a set of the services with a single Unified Installer program, or as separate components. The individual services are Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger 8.5 and Windows Live OneCare Family Safety, a computer security program.
Gustavo Villoldo, 71, was involved in Guevara’s capture in the jungles of Bolivia, according to unclassified U.S. records and other documents. He plans to auction the hair and other items kept in a scrapbook since the joint CIA-Bolivian army mission 40 years ago.
“It’s time for me to put the past behind and pass these on to someone else,” said Villoldo, also a veteran of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
The scrapbook also holds a map used to track down Guevara in Bolivia, photos of Guevara’s body, intercepted messages between Guevara and his rebels and a set of Guevara’s fingerprints taken before his burial.
let’s party afterwards.
Now if you understand Spanish, and want to vomit afterwards, read this interview by moderate centered and objective El País, “the independent diary of the morning“, to Adelaida Guevara, daughter of Ché (thanks Kate for finding it…). And then speak about “the imperialistic Spain in Cuba“. Buaff…
Satanic inscriptions in English and swastikas were discovered on Friday in ten vaults of a cemetery in Toulouse (…) Several graves were covered with the words “Damned the Christ” or with swastikas, while flower pots were turned over and signs pointing to various sections of the Terre-Cabade cemetery were damaged,” according to an AFP report.
Elentir writes that in Spain some far-leftist vandals desecrated the cemetery of Paracuellos -where the victims of Communists in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War are buried- and a fascist web published a map of red (=communist) toombs and monuments to desecrate and destroy them.
What surprise me of this people is that they attack the dead. They should see the Dead of Lord of the Rings… You know: “This path is guarded by the Dead. The dead do not suffer the living to pass“. 😈 And this people so brave with the poor dead people were going to run at a huge speed. 😈
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Now for some photos: This is the Bolivarian Embassy in Peru before and after Chávez. And this is the new Bolivarian 5-star hotel in Caracas. 😈 I wonder what the grand-daughter of its owner would think of the move…
“US administration is propagating a certain version of Christianity that is not based on Jesus Christ (PBUH) teachings, but after securing Zionists’ interests. 😯 [US administration is propagating a version of Christianity not based on Jesus Christ?? Well, then, how would you call that? 😉 ].
Based on this mentality, the Jews must gather in Palestine and then in the course of a revolution two thirds of them to get killed, and the remainder should see the reappearance of Jesus (PBUH).
Therefore, they are after gathering the entire Jews of the world in Palestine, which is definitely a move with political and Satanic roots, but the idea is put forth in the framework of an idea behind the hope for reappearance of Messiah. US President George W. Bush is the standard bearer of that mentality. That man is loathed to an extent in the United States today that the mentality he supports, too, has very limited number of supporters.”
Hey, this man should write script or something. What an imagination!! Heh. 😈
The second YouTube video in as many months where a fairly young guy argues for marrying children based on Islamic values. His argument is straight from the undergraduate liberal arts textbook. He’s preaching moral moral relativism, the flip side of social science doctrine to view cultures without your inherent ethnocentrism. His argument is that since our (westerners) ethics aren’t universally accepted, it isn’t “ethical” to judge other cultures using our moral compass, but we should use the morals and ethics of the society we’re judging to judge them.
[…] Watch to be disgusted, it’s in two parts so settle in. Vid one starts slow, but the last three minutes will make any feminist worth their salt go ballistic. It’s also the verbatim argument made by Jihadi Pervert one who was from California. Odd that the someone from Canada would be repeating the same tripe. It’s almost as if their being self radicalized by hanging around a jihadi propaganda outlet.
Baron Bodissey of The Gates of Vienna is seeking assistance in producing a Counter-jihad Calendar. Each month of the calendar will feature pictures of famous scenes from various countries under threat from Islamisation, along with a series of links for anti-Islamist blogs in those countries. The following countries will be represented: Britain, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Greece, India, Australia, and the USA. Search your blogrolls for your favorite blogsites which focus on the Islamist threat in these countries, and forward them to Baron at vigilantfreedom dot com.
I’m doing a list on Spanish anti-Jihadi sites. If you’re Spanish and you have an anti-Jihadi blog, you can write a comment in this post with the link and your name so I can forward the complete list in a fortnight. According to Baron this is a summary of what this calendar is about:
The calendar was started to supplement the SIOE demonstration at the EU Parliament in Brussels on September 11th, 2007, to protest the ongoing Islamization of Europe.
SIOE asked me to help with graphics and logos for their efforts, and I was glad to comply. In the process I decided to launch a parallel enterprise, one which fits in with the Brussels demo but which will continue afterwards. I call it the “Counterjihad Calendar Project”, and it will include an iconic image of a notable Western monument for each of the twelve months.
One of the themes of the SIOE rally is “Enough is enough!” With the help of people from the various countries involved, versions of the slogan in nine different European languages were created.
Bearing in mind what has happened to Cordoba Cathedral in Spain, Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, and an uncountable number of Hindu temples in India, I wanted to associate a well-known Western building or monument on each page of the calendar. I’ve finished seven months, and have five more to go.
Since our focus at Gates of Vienna is not just on Europe, but on the ongoing Islamization of the entire civilized world, the countries on the calendar will include India, the USA, and Australia.
Some of the monuments used in the images will be well-known to everyone; others will be familiar mainly to the citizens of the countries involved. If all goes well, when the last month is ready, I’ll create a wall calendar that will be sold at our Café Press store.
The kinds of sites I want are those that spend a least 25% of their time posting about Muslim and jihad-related issues. I want to exclude anti-Semitic sites or those that hate Israel, and antything that is truly racist. The issue is the religion and ideology of Islam, and not race.
Thanks for your collaboration.
By the way, please, enter the name of your blog or of someone who has give you express permission. I do not want that later some bloggers complaint about being in the Calendar without their express consentment.
SARAJEVO (AFP) — Organisers of an event in which almost 7,000 couples kissed simultaneously in a Bosnian town on Saturday said their effort deserved a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Bosnia claims world kissing record Mus-lim clerics in Tuzla called for a boycott of the event, arguing it was not in line with Mus-lim tradition.
“it doesn’t appear in the Quran!!” Bwahahahaha!! Must be because there are no boys kissing old men… 😦
Views on missionaries whose chief aim is sharing the gospel in hot spots vary widely among the nongovernmental (NGO) and religious communities. But even those who accept missionaries argue that good intentions, enthusiasm, and bravery must conjoin with a professional approach.
“To work in dangerous areas you need … deep networks, and deep knowledge,” says Jerome Larchu, a director of the Paris-based Médicins du Monde (Doctors of the World), which has volunteers in 55 countries. “You bring in skilled people, lots of locals – and only then do you send people in.”
In February Médecins du Monde pulled its team out of Darfur for security reasons. But the doctors felt their mission wasn’t over. This summer they put scouts into Sudan for eight weeks to travel, talk with locals, and assess risk – before going back in.
If missionaries or aid workers do not have the proper help and concept, “it is a problem for us,” says Mr. Larchu. “I think anyone has a right to proselytize if they want to. But to locals, an NGO is an NGO; they don’t know who we are. They don’t make a lot of distinctions. They don’t know who is legitimate. So NGOs are interdependent, whether we realize it or not. We have to gain local trust together.”
[…] In the past decade, the number of NGOs has risen sharply, as have incidents of violence against them, say Larchu of Médecins du Monde and Martin of Mercy Corps. “More than 80 humanitarian workers were killed in 2006 – that’s more than UN soldiers,” says Larchu.
The number of religious groups is also rising and work closely with secular groups. “Worldvision, the Aga Khan Foundation, Catholic Relief Services – which makes no attempt to hide its name – they channel their faith into humanitarian efforts,” says Martin. “When they come into a dangerous place, they either sit at the table with us, or work at cooperation. If, like the South Koreans, we don’t know them, and they don’t know us, that makes it more difficult for everyone.”
[…] [Marian McClure, former director of worldwide ministries for the Presbyterian Church (USA), says that] a public misconception abroad is that Christians want to “foist” their beliefs on others. “On the contrary, most Christians today suffer not from a tendency to foist our faith on anyone, but from a tendency to be excessively private about our faith,” she argues. “I have never met a follower of a non-Christian religion who would respect someone who could not and would not express his or her beliefs.”
And she is right… 😦
But doesn’t it look like that the NGOs are blaming the missionaries for their own deaths?
You can read also One Free Korea (there’s an interesting photo inside also):
Various news agenies are reporting that the South Korean government paid a ransom of either $2 million or $20 million. Taliban sources are claiming that it was the higher of those amounts. Either sum is enough to build plenty of IED’s to kill American soldiers. [Another update: Seoul has finally gotten around to denying that it paid ransom — yeah, and Larry Craig’s still denying a few things, too – while the Chosun Ilbo publishes a photograph of the Korean spy who probably negotiated it, and who posed arm-in-arm with the terrorists.]
😯 With these friends who needs enemies??? 😡
We forget that the Taliban helped kill 3,000 Americans in our own country. If our government is serious about halting material support for terrorism, the Treasury Department will track down the South Korean and Saudi entities that funneled this money to the Taliban, invoke Executive Order 13,224, and freeze all of their assets colder than Hillary Clinton’s smile. Ideally, that will happen before the money paid by our “allies” is used by our enemies to kill our soldiers. Government entities, too? Yes, especially government entities.
Now, that would be a good start, if USA want to be considered really tough on terrorism. I personally believe that the war on terrorism is not focusing really hard on the finances of the terrorist groups and there are a lot of people who are making a lot of money with weapons in here. And with markets’ unstability…
Are they going to do it? I doubt it. Both South Korea and Saudi Arabia are allies…
[…]our alliance with South Korea today is one of the world’s most lopsided in terms of the mutual flow of benefits. South Korea has been useless or worse as an ally against the terrorists, extraordinarily unhelpful with North Korea, an irritant in our regional security framework (since Japan is a part of that), and a self-declared neutral in checking China’s regional ambitions. South Korea is actually cutting its own military, leaving American taxpayers to take up the slack. There doesn’t seem to be much South Korean gratitude for this expensive commitment, either, judging by displays like these, or polls that consistently show South Korea to be one of the most anti-American countries in Asia.
Something that has been left un-said in the media but on most people minds was if the Taliban sexually assaulted the women or not. The hostages are not talking yet but reports are filtering out of Afghanistan that at least four of the hostages were sexually assaulted by Pakistani Taliban which set off a fight between two Taliban groups. The sexual assault of the Korean women would be highly damaging to the Taliban’s effort to cultivate an image of being mujahadeen fighting for a Muslim cause in Afghanistan when they are going around kidnapping and raping women. I’m sure we will find out sooner or later if the report is true or not, but I would not be surprised at all if some of the women were sexually assaulted by these Taliban criminals.
Taliban strongly rejected allegations regarding sexual assault on four female Korean captives. Militant spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi told to media they were waging jihad against obscenity, immorality and un-Islamic acts in Afghanistan.
Hmm, so they wage jihad against obscenity, immorality and un-Islamic acts by sexually assaulting girls??? 😯
In a sense, and if you just think about it for a minute, cold way, it’s logical considering their ways…
ABC NEWS: I just get sick when I read this kind of comments:
When adherents of any religion are so ill mannered as to venture into another’s area, be it your home or country, with the expressed intention of convincing their targets that they are pursuing the wrong philosophy or way of life, and should adopt the true ways of the proselyte’s, then they should expect, at the very least, rejection. When confronting such as the Taliban,and fundamentalists of any religion, then they should be prepared to reap the harvest of their own ignorance.
Look here. There is NO REASON to kidnap any person, whatever their conditions. And this people are peaceful for God’s sake! They weren’t going to do any harm: if you are Afghan, and don’t want to convert just say so. It’s very simple. It’s called freedom: you use it each time you must decide which option you must follow.
In Spain, there are the famous pairs of Mormons -nearly in all cities-. Well, no one has kidnapped them or anything. Are they proselytising? Yeah. But if they come to me and ask for conversion (I think that three or four times more or less, I have had to hear them 😛 ), just answer them: “I’m a convinced …. I do not want to convert”.
To support the Taliban in what they have done, equating peaceful missionaries with bloody killers and terrorists, is one of the worst equations I have been seeing later.
ANYANG, South Korea, Sept. 2 (Yonhap) — A pastor at the South Korean church whose volunteers were held hostage for six weeks by Afghanistan’s Taliban said some of the captives were “severely beaten” by the insurgents when they refused to convert to Islam.
As JW says, “Feel the love”. 😡
According to the link in Spanish posted below, the Talibans’ spokesman has said that the ransom payed is going to be used to buy weapons and pay for suicide attacks. It also reminds that there are 1 German and 5 Afghans in their power. The German is an aid worker, whose companion had already been killed by peaceful and loving and caring Talibans (hey, Brian, when are you going to film this kidnappings??? 😈 ). The Talibans are also asking Germany to withdraw from Afghanistan and one of their speakers have already said they will not attack citizens from countries which do not have troops on Afghanistan.
Eeh, Zapatero, are you hearing? 😈 What would happen if they kidnap an Spanish? Will you cave in again? What about the Civilizations’ Alliance? Is it also for the Talibans or only for Erdogan’s “Moderate Islam is an offensive and ugly term“? What shocking news, eh? Because it means that “There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it“. And if you don’t like what there is, hmm, well, just bear it… 😈
Lo consideramos (el secuestro) como un brazo que nos puede permitir dar un golpe al enemigo”, declaró a Reuters por teléfono desde un lugar desconocido el portavoz talibán Qari Mohamad Yusuf.
“El secuestro (…) y asesinato de (ciudadanos) cuyos países han venido para la aniquilación de la nación de Afganistán son obras que suprimen al enemigo”, añadió.
Yusuf, uno de los dos portavoces de los talibanes, dijo que no atacarán a los ciudadanos de países que no tienen tropas en este país.
Según el acuerdo alcanzado la semana pasada, Corea del Sur dijo que a finales de agosto retiraría a todos sus ciudadanos de Afganistán, así como al pequeño contingente de 200 soldados e ingenieros a finales de año. La retirada de la misión estaba prevista. [¿A que existe parecido con la retirada de las tropas de Iraq? Si al final han sido los musulmanes integristas…].
[…] Un alto mando talibán dijo hablando a petición de no ser identificado que el acuerdo también incluyó el pago de un rescate de más de 20 millones de dólares (unos 15 millones de euros), que se usarían para comprar armas y financiar atentados suicidas.
[…] En sus manos sigue un cooperante germano secuestrado el mes pasado, al igual que otro alemán secuestrado junto a un compatriota y cinco afganos. Uno de estos dos alemanes fue asesinado por los talibanes, que exigen la retirada de los soldados alemanes.
North Korea has agreed to fully account for and disable its nuclear program by the end of this year, the top U.S. nuclear negotiator said on Sunday.
“We had very good, very substantive talks,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill said after two days of meetings in Geneva to tackle the next phase of an international deal to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear technology and facilities.”One thing that we agreed on is that the DPRK will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007,” Hill told reporters, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Kim Kye-gwan, Pyongyang’s chief nuclear envoy, told reporters he was pleased with the talks.
Now we have to wait to see if this is true or is a new strategy of Kim Jong-Il…
The Muslim World is going through is greatest crisis. The confrontation with modernity, represented and promoted by the West, which has always been viewed as Christian, a competitor and very often an enemy, chips away at Islam’s stable and uncontested order.
Centuries of intellectual stagnation have made this confrontation visible to all. After Islam’s much vaunted greatness in the period running from the 9th to the 11th century, a feeling of decadence has set in!
Some have escaped into the past when Muslims threw themselves into conquering the world (7th century), giving rise to Islam’s ‘Golden Age.’ Others have sought strength through violence and slid into terrorism in God’s name, thinking that this way they would be defending both Islam and God. Others still have sought a way out of Islam, seen as dead weight, a stranglehold or a prison, opting instead for practical form of atheism and sometimes even Christianity.
In turn the Western World, which is rooted in Christianity no matter what negationists might say, is going through its own great crisis. With God treated as a human invention and religion as an addiction (as the opium of the masses), the West has fallen into an ideological and spiritual vacuum. Some who are idealist find refuge in believing in a brighter future, dreaming a better world; others pursue a form of rationalism devoid of an ethical values and spirituality. Then there are those who seek total freedom, even at the cost of self-destruction. Finally, many simply live by relying on a practical form of materialism.
A clash of civilisation is inevitable under the circumstances. Treating conversion (from Islam) as a betrayal worthy of killing someone is one sign of this. Dividing the world into two camps, separating Good from evil, has turned into an obsession. This is the analytical framework that Professor Ratzinger (who now happens to be Pope Benedict XVI) elaborated and presented in his lecture in Regensburg on September 12, 2006. In it he pointed out that in the West we have a form of rationality that lacks a spiritual content (reason without faith), whilst in Islam we find a type of rationality that has turned into violence (faith without reason). These temptations oppose one another but also run parallel to each other.
The solution lies in the hands of believers who are not fanatical—be they Muslim, Christian or from others traditions. Their openness to all that is human can be the basis on which to build, along with others who may or may not believe, a better world.
“We have more than 3,000 centrifuges working and every week a new set is installed,” Mr Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by Iranian news agencies.
“[The world powers] were thinking that with each resolution the Iranian nation would retreat. But after each resolution the Iranian nation presented another nuclear achievement.”
The installation of 3,000 centrifuges is seen by Iran as a key medium-term goal – which it had hoped to reach by March this year – for its nuclear programme.There has been no independent verification of Iran’s claim.
The UN has already imposed two sets of sanctions and the US is leading the call for a third set if Iran’s uranium enrichment does not halt.
Only last week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had agreed a plan with Iran to clear up key questions about its past nuclear activities, calling it a “significant step forward”.
The IAEA has said 3,000 centrifuges would represent a point of no-return for an industrial-scale production of enriched uranium.
But it also suggested last week that Iran had 1,968 operational centrifuges – significantly short of the breakthrough President Ahmadinejad has now announced.
As if Ahmadinejad has also told the truth to UN inspectors….
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The new solution for all your problems. Whether if it is a headache, a heartache or that you’re losing your hair, you can blame it immediately on this. 😆
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Some days ago, I blogged that some Western professors were defending female genital mutilation. Today I have found this article, in which the author quotes Janice Boddy, a female Canadian Professor and Chair of the Anthropology Department in Toronto, who defends the practice, calling people against it “Crusaders” and “moralising and polemical“. She also says that the campaign against the practice is “sustained by imperialistic logic and spurious empathy“.
the women in the village she chose for her anthropological research insisted that she should learn about this practice and see it performed if she hoped to understand them. She followed this advice and eventually concluded that circumcision validates the village women’s lives, safeguards their fertility and establishes “the meaningful parameters of their selfhood.” 😯 [has she passed the experience herself?…]
[…] she boldly addresses this question with her new book, Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan (Princeton University Press). The fact that she then falls on her face, academically speaking, does not necessarily diminish her bravery.
Her readers discover, almost at the beginning, that she has a limited idea of academic detachment and fairness. A chronology of events at the front of her book twice uses the politics-laden term “propaganda” to describe Britain’s efforts in the 1940s to publicize the harm done by genital cutting. But then she quickly buckles down to her own propaganda project, a storm of disapproval directed at those who argue against the ritual cutting of female genitals.
She also wants the term “Female genital mutilation” changed to “Female genital cutting” (just as abortion should be called free-willing interruption of pregnancy 👿 ) :
She sets the terminology firmly in place, so that she can argue in her own terms. She thinks “female genital cutting” (FGC) properly describes the issue. Apparently she considers that a relatively neutral term. But “female genital mutilation” (FGM) is improperly censorious — an “invidious” label, according to one scholar Boddy approvingly quotes.
As Boddy sees it, those who take a passionately anti-FGM position have no understanding of the context [ 😯 So, what about torture, rape, genocide…??? Well, if you do not endorse them you are not understanding their context?? 😯 ]. She doesn’t much like the argument that FGM can be fatal, particularly when executed by people without medical training, though she won’t quite say it’s false. Nevertheless, that warning is “inflicted on ignorant and powerless women by sadistic men.”
And the article ends:
She obviously can’t endorse FGC, but a careful reading of her book demonstrates that she’s embraced one of the great lies of modern liberalism: Any culture is as good as any other culture and its tradition-endorsed practices (no matter how misguided, harmful and dangerous) deserve respect. Civilizing Women reads in many places like a grotesque parody of academic tolerance but its coherence and its highly detailed account of Sudanese culture reflect years of hard work. The fact that it expresses sympathy for an outlandishly cruel and appalling custom will probably do Boddy no harm in the world of contemporary anthropology.
Fars News just reported that Iranian President Ahmadinejad has given Oliver Stone approval to film his biography:
TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has expressed his approval of acclaimed director Oliver Stone’s plans to make a film about him.
“I have no objection, generally speaking, but they have to let me know what are the frameworks. They should talk to my colleagues. Principally speaking, I have no objection,” President Ahmadinejad told reporters during a press conference here in Tehran on Tuesday.
This was probably the kicker that pushed Mahmoud over the top:
“Stone’s publicist referred to the bad image that the U.S. media has given to Islam and Islamic countries and said that the documentary could assist in countering such negative propaganda.”
English speaking Muslims living in America stomp on the American flag, state that they are taking advantage of the “loophole” in American law that gives them free speech, and proclaim that Islam will take over America and the world, and dribble out a multitude of Allah akbars ….
Officials of the European Union are investigating the special tax treatment accorded to the Catholic Church in Italy, asking whether the policies give unfair competitive advantages to Catholic institutions that engage in commercial activity.
The ANSA news service reports that the European Commission is considering a full inquiry into a 2006 law that exempts Church property for real-estate taxes, and allows a substantial discount for corporate taxes owed by Church-owned businesses.
Bishop Giuseppe Betori, the vice-president of the Italian bishops’ conference, has argued that the tax exemptions are amply justified, since they apply only to Church organizations that engage in charitable, cultural, or educational work. Bishop Betori observed, in an interview with the daily Avvenire, that similar tax breaks are given to other Italian institutions that “serve the common good.”
Later they will raise the VAT tax and say “Ohh, we don’t have enough”.
I do not want the Church to have special treatment -in fact, I support the Church should be treated the same way as the rest of the religious institutions-. But that means the same way, equally to the rest of similar organizations.
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One of the best islamologues the Catholic Church has is Father Samir Khalil Samir, sj (here in Spanish someinterviews; in the latter he says: Europe is stupid if it does not take into account that Islam is using its tolerance to “Islamize” it). He is an Egyptian Jesuit and teacher of History of Arab Culture and of Islamology both in Beirut and Rome. He has written recently two veryinteresting articles for AsiaNews.it about an extraordinary case which is happening just now:
The case of Mohammad Hegazi, young Egyptian converted to Christianity, who wishes to be legally recognized as such, has opened a new debate in the Islamic world on conversions, which are often seen as acts of apostasy that merit death. What has emerged is a veritable obsession in Islam for personal conversions, this religion having been reduced more to an ethnic and sociological submission. There is even talk of a plan to convert Europe and the world to Islam, to which European governments are giving a hand. Beirut (AsiaNews) – The case has received a lot of public attention: a young Egyptian, Mohammad Ahmad Hegazi, age 25, converted to Christianity some years ago (some say 9, others 6 years ago; according to the Islamic version, it was just a few months ago!). He then married a woman named Zeinab, who also became Christian, taking the name Cristina. In recent months, he asked that his documents show his new religious affiliation.In Egypt, identity cards must indicate the holder’s religion and, so far, Hegazi’s is officially Islam. This means that he is considered to be Muslim for various legal questions pertaining to inheritance rights, family law etc.
His request was effectively been turned down by administrative authorities, who did not see his request through. So, Hegazi went to the government direct.Why did he ask for this change to be made only now, years after his conversion? Perhaps because the couple is expecting a baby. And if they are registered as Muslims, the child will have to be as well, regardless of the parents’ wishes.
When administrative authorities balked at his request, Hegazi went to the courts to claim his rights, with the help of a lawyer from an NGO.The case is extremely important, more than it may appear, also because it has been reported by media around the world and now the press in Egypt is also discussing it.Initially, reactions came from imams, then from the general public. The vast majority is saying that Mohammad Hegazi must be killed as an apostate. Only a small part dares to quote the Koran – which states that “there is no compulsion in religion” – and states its support for his freedom.
[…] The Islamic world is truly obsessed with conversions. At least 7 Islamic countries apply the death penalty to those who convert from Islam: Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Mauritania. But in other states, like Egypt, converts are condemned to prison, not as apostates but for contempt of Islam, as Hossam Bahgat, a member of the Egyptian Initiative for personal rights, explains.
According to government daily Al-Massa’, all imams are unanimous on the need to kill the apostate Hegazi. They say that sharia (not the Koran) must be enforced and it calls for the death penalty.The more moderate say: if the apostate hides his conversion, does not broadcast his decision, then it is not necessary to kill him; he can live. If he lets it be known, then he causes scandal (fitna) and must die.
I happened to be looking through the web-site of the “Forum of Arab Aviation.” This case – Hegazi’s conversion —is the sole topic of the site’s “Islamic” section. There are 8 reactions registered on the page and they all say that he must be killed. Some are subtle, saying for example: “The government must take the harshest decision to eliminate this problem,” but all the others quote the Koran: “Fitna is worse than killing” (2,191 and 2,217); others say that “Islam is the better religion”; others still “Kill him to avoid fitna” (8,39); others: “He who wants a religion other than Islam, his worship will not be accepted and in the Hereafter he will be among the losers” (3,85). No one quotes the Koranic phrase that affirms freedom of conscience, the one quoted by the Pope at Regensburg last September 12: “there is no compulsion in religion (2, 186); nor the other that says: “Truth comes from your Lord. Let him who will believe and let him who will not believe” (18,29).
[…] In any case, 3 famous imam have pronounced themselves against Hegazi. The first is Imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a big expert in his field, who cites dozens of references from the first centuries and concludes that Hegazi has to be killed because the group is in danger and the group takes priority over the individual. The idea is: if this person begins to speak and says that he is happy to be Christian, and smilingly appears in photos with a Gospel in his hands, this is intolerable and is non-Muslim propaganda, which is officially allowed neither in Egypt, nor in other Islamic countries. And since Hegazi is spreading Christian propaganda, he must be killed.
Suad Saleh, Muslim judge and dean of the Faculty of Islamic Science at Al-Azhar University, has stated: yes, in matters of faith there is no compulsion, but Hegazi is spreading propaganda and thus the law must be applied. The judge advises that the apostate be given 3 days to repent and reconvert to Islam (istitâbah), then “apply the law” (i.e. execution).
The Grand Mufti of Egypt, Dr Ali Gomaa, Egypt’s highest religious authority, stated to the Washington Post last June that apostasy “should not” be punished by death, eliciting numerous reactions from Al-Azhar. After many people expressed their approval for a death sentence, he retracted in a confused matter and his stance is still today unclear. On the surface, he wanted to reassure the West by using ambiguous wording, like the one that goes: “Apostasy is to be punished when it represents fitna or when it threatens the foundations of society.”
[…] Islam protects itself against conversions by putting apostates in prison or by killing them. But its obsession with conversion includes a series of privileges it claims for itself. So much so that in many Muslim countries, even those that are supposedly secular, the right to promote the Islamic faith is taken for granted and is not enshrined in law. Conversely, the right to promote any other religion is considered de facto and de jure unacceptable.
Islamic propaganda is part of the state’s mandate. In Egypt for example public institutions disseminate songs, prayers, movies and written material that praise Islam and denigrate Christianity. Inevitably this favours conversions to Islam. By contrast, Christian propaganda (tabshīr) is banned by law.
Recently in Algeria, a new law was approved that condemns anyone promoting the Christian faith and anyone who converts to Christianity. Of course, some might say that this kind of law is directed only at Protestant proselytising. True! But Muslims proselytise as well? Should the law not be the same for everyone?
Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly the country where double standards in matter of religion are the most glaring. One example: Saudi Arab Airlines’ website explicitly warns its passengers that Bibles, crucifixes, and any other non-Muslim religious symbol are prohibited on board.If any are found they are confiscated. Another example is when two pieces of wood happen to end up across one another. However inadvertently that may have come about, the resulting cross becomes ipso facto a religious symbol and police are known to have ordered people who happened to be nearby to step on them.
Anti-Christian propaganda is also found in how words are used. In Arabic Christians are called Massihi. In Arabia they are also called Salībi, crusaders, and Nasrami, Nazarenes. Interestingly, at the time of the Crusades Christians were by and large referred to as Faranj or Franks. But the most commonly used word today is kuffar, unbelievers who must be killed. For the past 30 or so years, its use has increasingly spread around the Muslim world.
Also some months ago I blogged about the Government Regulation related to Electronic Communications, by which there was “introduced an administrative procedure to intercept electronic communications without Judicial control“, regulation which was declared illegal by the Supreme Tribunal. Well, afterwards, it came the SGAE (General Society of Authors and Writers) with another foolish proposition:
If a web page is reproducing intellectual works which could go against author’s rights, the SGAE or any other similar association will be able to tell the server where the blog/page is located to inform that the blog’s author is breaking the law. The client will be obliged to defend him before the SGAE of the illegality in the next 6 days if he does not want to see his blog’s content down or closed. Even if the communication is absolutely ridiculous or unmaintainable, it obliges the normal blogger/website’s author to defend himself to regain access to the presumably illicit content”.
Well, it results that the same article that was introduced in the Government Regulation related to electronic Communications, has been introduced in the new project of the Law of the Internet’s Society:
According to the present project, the “competent authority” can shut down webpages without any kind of judicial authorization. The “competent authority” would be those associations who “guard” the rights of intellectual property (SGAE and similars) and, of course, every authority. It is true that after the shutdown, there would be a judicial process. But letting the power to control and possible webs’ shutdown to a “competent authority” is just the same that letting the police not to report to the Tribunals. That is, the kick-to-knock-down-the-door, but this time, digitally way.
The time to present modifications to the law ends on Sept, 4th. It is widely hoped that Popular Party presents some modifications that guarantee the effective right to information.But that is not very clear, because the Popular Party first succeeded in passing a resolution on Senate against the digital canon, but later it voted favorable the Law of Intellectual Property that regulated it (not very coherent, no 😡 ). “There are unanimities which are fearful”, the Web-surfers’ Association’s speaker states. They have already presented a proposal to modify the law.
So, if no one does anything, we could see how the digital kick-to-knock-down-the-door could be consolidated again. A new step in the strategy of reducing (that is, really, of eliminating) the freedom of information.
China says its one-child policy has helped the fight against global warming by avoiding 300 million births, the equivalent of the population of the United States.
But delegates at U.N. climate change talks in Vienna said on Thursday birth control is unlikely to find favor as a major policy theme, partly because of opposition by the Catholic Church and some developing nations trying to increase their population.
Some scientists say that birth control measures far less draconian than China’s are wrongly overlooked in the fight against climate change, when the world population is projected to soar to about 9 billion by 2050 from 6.6 billion now.
So, why don’t we all just commit suicide to prevent any harrassment on the environment? 😯
A quick note on Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto announced some days ago that Pervez Mussharraf was going to step down as head of his country’s military. But today Mussharraf has already denied that. The situation has complicated even more as his rival, Sharif, has been allowed to return to Pakistan. Musharraf has stated already that he seeks reconciliation. Let’s hope that, but I’m not very optimistic in the matter, after all we have witnessed in Pakistan these last months.
Beth has posted about the Florida Masochist going to be operated of melanoma (after 12 years of being clean) and about Kat from Madhouse Cat,who has lost in a single day, one cousin and her daughters as a result of a car crash.
Also a friend of mine has lost his wife rather unexpectedly of cancer. On the first week of August, when they had already begun their vacations, she felt bad and went to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a sudden and fast growing cancer, a week ago she died. He works at my University’s library. I remember him when I began University: he was all smiles, a really helpful guy with all of us who were back then so overwhelmed if we did not find the required book. He was always a patient guy. These days, when I go to find some books there, he is just older but the same. I know the bad times he is going to have now, as they really loved each other. They have an only daughter, aged 19. 😥
The Taliban agreed Tuesday to release 19 South Korean church volunteers held captive in Afghanistan since mid-July, the South Korean government announced, signaling an end to a wrenching hostage crisis that had gripped the country for almost six weeks.
“Together with the families of the hostages and with all South Korean people, we welcome the agreement to release 19 South Koreans,” said Cheon Ho-seon, a spokesman for President Roh Moo-hyun. Mr. Roh, who steps down in February, has been under intense domestic pressure to win the safe return of the hostages, most of them women in their 20s and 30s.
In Afghanistan, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said all 19 hostages would be released over the next several days. “We will release them in groups,” he said Tuesday.
Mr. Cheon said that in return for their release, South Korea had agreed to keep to its earlier plan to withdraw its 200 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and to stop all evangelical activities by Christian groups from South Korea in Afghanistan.
Just look at the Taliban’s faces of the photo in the link above: a smile on those faces is a blow to all people who sustain and support democracy, freedom and Human Rights for Afghanistan.
Related to the Taliban read this (there is a video also inside) h/t ExtremeCentre.org:
Never mind that they don’t even allow street signs with the little symbolic walk or don’t walk figures with heads on them, here’s a video/photo show of the pretty boys of the Taliban. Black eye-liner and hand-holding and pretty long hair are evident in the photos, although homosexual behavior is strictly banned. The Taliban actually turn young boys into sex slaves. Here’s an excerpt from an article on that from Jamie Glazov from FrontPageMagazine.com:
But there is a curious rule that the Western media has typically ignored. Rule No. 19 instructs that Taliban fighters must not take young boys without facial hair into their private quarters.
[…] Rule No. 19 obviously indicates that the sexual abuse of young boys is a prevalent and institutionalized phenomenon among the Taliban and that, for one reason or another, its widespread practice has become a problem.
The fact that Taliban militants’ spare time involves sodomizing young boys should by no means be any kind of surprise or eyebrow raiser. That a mass pathology such as this occurs in a culture which demonizes the female and her sexuality — and puts her out of mind and sight — is only to be expected. To be sure, it is a simple given that the religious male fanatic who flies into a violent rage even at the thought of an exposed woman’s ankle will also be, in some other dysfunctional and dark secret compartment of his fractured life, the person who leads some poor helpless young boy into his private chambers.It is no surprise that John Racy, a psychiatrist with much experience in Arab societies, has noted that homosexuality is “extremely common” in many parts of the Arab world. [1] Indeed, even though homosexuality is officially despised in this culture and strictly prohibited and punishable by imprisonment, incarceration and/or death, having sex with boys or effeminate men is actually a social norm. Males serve as available substitutes for unavailable women. The key is this: the male who does the penetrating is not considered to be homosexual or emasculated any more than if he were to have sex with his wife, while the male who is penetrated is emasculated. The boy, however, is not considered to be emasculated since he is not yet considered to be a man. A man who has sex with boys is simply doing what many men (especially unmarried ones) do. [2] And this reality is connected to the fact that, as scholar Bruce Dunne has demonstrated, sex in Islamic-Arab societies is not about mutuality between partners, but about the adult male’s achievement of pleasure through violent domination. [3]
😯 Hypocrisy… hmm, a word these men have not known about…, eh???
Officially, frankly, I don’t know where we stand now, about the supposed “peace process” with ETA. Apparently, the Government just broke it off, but there are reports that confirm that the conversations never ended, only were just called officially off:
According to sources reached by Hispanidad, the Government would agree to offer a referendum of autodetermination in two years, in the next political term after 2008 elections. Before, that should be preceded by a process of negotiation (another one or just the same?). To go where? (important question: before beginning a walk you must know your destination…). To the Ibarreche planning (uff, the same one which was rejected by Spanish Parliament two years ago…). On the other hand, the pro-ETA supporters are clinging to their project of autodetermination which would include 4 provinces, as it was pointed by Otegi last February. That is, an extended autonomy (more autonomy? You’re kidding… Just make a comparison of the competences that NOW has the Basque Country with any other Autonomous Region and then tell me about…), but including Navarra.
But as Navarra has not agreed with it, ETA terrorists are worried. But the Government has continued with the negotiations, although they have not obtained the desired result. So ETA has decided to stop and give a great punch: the terrorist attack against the house-police station of the Civil Guard. Fortunately without any victims, even when its directors underlines that “they wanted to kill us“. A thesis also named by Vice-President De la Vega. Anyway, what really puzzles about this statement, is that the car was situated at a very great distance from the building.
Something absolutely amazing but true here, is that the Minister of Justice considers that the Spanish citizens don’t have any kind of right to know about the contents of negotiations. As the Spanish MSM are as good and accurate as in every other part of the world, there is not a lot of real information except to say how well the Government is doing everything. There are always exceptions, though, as we have seen.
Another car-bomb exploded in Les Coves de Vinromá (Autonomous Community of Valencia). :
ETA terrorists who exploded the van bomb -with 150 kgs of explosive- in Les Coves de Vinromá could have caused the lack of electricity to Castellón and Valencia, because the high-tension tower that gives electricity to these two provinces from the nuclear power plant in Vandellós is situated just 30 meters away from the place where the two ETA terrorists exploded the charges which they pretended to use in Valencia. More or less, three million people could have been affected by the lack of electricity. Yesterday, the experts from the Civil Guard finished to collect all the proofs, elements which could be used to discover what was the kind of explosive which they were transporting in a new operative phase, which aims at a new long-term and bloody offensive.
Experts in anti-terrorism fight, while pointing out that ETA has a full capacity to kill -it has now a hundred “activists” in its “ranks”-, also advise to be cautious because these “activists” do not receive a lot of training courses. They consider that if they would have been trained, they would have exploded the Mercedes Vito in the high tension tower.
So the question is: if they were so tracked down, how could they possibly cross all Spain without no one stopping them?
And the next question is: in both attacks, the car-bomb was placed very far from the supposedly correct target. Ergo, why are they not targeting people? Is there any profound reason for that? Are they just frightening every citizen to get what they want? And what is the Government’s position in all of this?
I feel like if someone is permanently laughing at us… 😡
The Mercedes Vito had been stoled from a married couple, who were kidnapped with their 4-year-old boy by 5 ETA terrorists. They were released after the explosion after being held for 72 hours. Magnificent, eh???
“The child has become so vested with importance, such a huge burden requiring so many changes to one’s way of life that having one has become inhumane, so my advice to people is don’t have any,” says Maier.
I really believe there is little comment needed. After reading this, I just doubt that the human beings can be considered as “rational” anymore.
You also introduce changes to yourself along your life. Just commit suicide and save us of your stupidity. My goodness!
When I was a little girl, I asked why the people died. Of course, no one answered me in a very logical and understandable way, so I begun to think about it. I reached a conclusion: the cause of death was that your brains had got totally tired of hearing and reading stupid things.
Conclusion: I am going to stop reading the news, just in case… 😈
There is no suggestion that any of the organizations are directly involved in violent crime, but they do promote ideas that feed violence, Kozhevnikova says.
Some of the groups espouse anti-Semitism; many are overtly racist and xenophobic. There are also hundreds of so-called skinhead gangs. Police investigations have found skinheads to be behind the frequent attacks on people with dark skin on the streets of Russian cities.
They may be at the extreme end of the spectrum, but the mainstream shares some of their views. A recent survey carried out by the Levada Center, which monitors public opinion, found that 55 percent of Russians agreed with the statement “Russia should be for Russians,” while 20 percent of young people did not consider the activities of skinhead or neo-Nazi groups to be dangerous.
Kozhevnikova cites a number of reasons for the growing nationalist mood among Russians. “The peak of this xenophobic mood on a domestic level was fixed by sociologists in 2005; [this] domestic xenophobia was first blamed on poor social conditions and then on conflicts,” she says.
“There’s no doubt that the war in Chechnya played a role – the second Chechen war. It was taken as being a war of Russians against Chechens, Orthodox against Muslims. Of course, that played a very big role,” Kozhevnikova adds.
Part of the problem, Kozhevnikova says, is that many nationalist organizations are starting to promote themselves as civil movements, whose aim is to improve social conditions.
Aleksandr Belov, the spokesman for the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, says the group’s goals are “to put a stop to the number of illegal immigrants moving to Russia and to repatriate people with Russian roots living outside the country.”
“We’re a democratic movement made up of people who have their own opinions and who want to live freely in their own country. They want laws to be obeyed. You could call ussocial democrats,” Belov says.
It is worth underlining that Putin has been a supporter of Iranian regime, with which has agreed about nuclear plants as we already know. Then the Orthodox Church’s Patriarch, Alexei II, said (link in Spanish) that Orthodox Christians and Muslims should unite to prevent the existence of a one-polar world, to the Iranian parliament speaker Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel when the latter visited Moscow.
And Putin has also stated: “Russia has always been the most faithful, reliable and consistent defender of the interests of the Islamic world,” he told Chechen lawmakers, to applause. “Russia has always been the best and most reliable partner and ally.”
This is a proof of what I have been saying: if the Governments are silly and do not act within the law to stop a sector’s radicalization, the rest of the society will also create (and follow and obey) their own radicals. We are going to a polarization of the societies which is very dangerous, because that only implies that the law of the strongest is going to be imposed on the weak. If Governments do not respect the law, and the citizens do not compel and oblige them to be compelled by it (that is what democracy is about), the results will be a return to darker times.
I remember when I began blogging nearly two years back, as a result of Paris Nov 2005’s riots. Pastorius was then very worried about the consequences that a lack of action against Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism could have in and for Europe. I was also but for different reasons: Pastorius thought back then that European future was Islamic or Fascist; mine was just that this kind of news did not have any publicity, they were just buried. I have been seeing a progression here in two directions. The first is that most people now know about the danger and understand the nature of it. The second is that, while politicians do not act against it, the public is divided: while some don’t really how to act, others are beginning to get nervous and to demand courses of action which are a little surprising, desperate and possibly, at his moment, totally unnecessary.
But, just let time elapses with the present situation. We can be in the dawn of a new (and not very pleasant) era. Hope I’m not right, though.
Arson has been widely blamed. Six people have been charged with deliberately setting fires. Arson suspects are rarely convicted. Where cases are proven, the motives are typically profit, revenge against neighbors, or the clearing of pastures by shepherds.
As much as 469,000 acres were laid waste between Friday and Tuesday alone — 10 times the annual average for the past 50 years, according to the European Commission’s European Forest Fire Information System, or EFFIS. A total of679,000 acres — an area almost the size of Rhode Island — has gone up in smoke since the start of the year.
“There are still some fires burning, but definitely the speed of increase of the fire front in the areas burnt is much, much smaller than in the first three days, which was very, very fast mainly due to the strong winds,” EFFIS researcher Paulo Barbosa said.
“The conditions are better and I think in the next few days the situation will be under control,” he told The Associated Press.
Some say it was the worst catastrophe since a Turkish army ravaged the Peloponnese in 1825, during the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire.
Apart from the blow to the Peloponnese’s fragile ecosystems, Greenpeace Greece director Nikos Haralambidis warned that mountain populations could end up as internally displaced “environmental refugees.”
“There will be several thousand people faced with the choice of staying in a burnt land or moving to the cities,” he said. “Their main source of income was olive oil production … and new olive saplings need at least 15 years to produce a decent crop.”
[…] The fires are dominating political debate before the elections. Criticism that the government failed to respond quickly enough — and its suggestions the fires resulted from an organized attack — could hurt Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis.
Hmmm…
By the way, the Pope has condemned both the Greek and the Italian arsonists. In Italy four people have been killed last week when a wildfire consumed a hotel where they were staying, near Messina. Two shepherds have been detained as the culprits.
Archbishop Baltazar Porras Cardozo warned Venezuelans this week that the constitutional reforms proposed by President Hugo Chavez are leading the country towards a dictatorship similar to the Castro regime in Cuba or the Pinochet regime in Chile.
The archbishop recalled that democracy is based on the balance of powers and that many of the reforms proposed by Chavez are inspired by Communism. What is even more dangerous, he said, is that the proposals would make Chavez another Pinochet or Castro, “who are not the models of democratic virtues.”
If you want to laugh and understand Spanish, you should read this. An excerpt:
My admired Chávez: Bolívar was of an Spanish Imperialistic origin. He had no aboriginal blood. He does not merit to give his name to an emancipated native people. He only created a new criollo regime (NOTE -thanks Kate-: criollo is the Spanish word for the people whose parents were born on the Iberian Peninsula but who were born in South America, while mestizo were the descendants from both Indians and Spanish in South America 😳 ). The country shouldn’t also be called Venezuela, which comes from Little Venice, as Américo Vespuccio named it following Spanish orders.
Venezuela was a prosperous conventional democracy, but it had a lot of corruption. Now there is more corruption, true, but there is also another thing which compensates it: an Anti-system Revolution.
Fortunately, you are the most important thing, you, who, full of revolutionary spirit, gave a coup d’état in 1992. It went wrong, but afterwards you were victorious in the elections. Just the same as another exemplary nationalist and socialist: Adolf Hitler.
Paolo writes: Ahmadinejad is centered in achieving a force, specially in Ortega’s Nicaragua, to counter-measure all the US force, in the case of an air attack against nuclear laboratories and Iranian missiles’ positions. Considering that Sarkozy has menaced Iran with action, this is necessary to prevent any change in the Iranian surroundings (which are mainly, and besides South America, Moscow and Pekin).
In Africa, there is still the belief that, if a grown-up man who has been infected by AIDS, maintains sexual relationships with a girl under 15, he is going to be cured. If he is not cured, the treatment is repeated. This is how most girls are becoming infected with AIDS. Psycologists also say that these girls normally adopt promiscuous sexual behaviour or end working as prostitutes.
In spite of the brutality of the practice and of the negative consequences, it’s complicated to measure the importance of this practice, as “men do not want to be identified (the cowards…) and the victims fear the shame, they prefer to be silent on the matter. Anyway, African newspapers often report about this practice“. “The consequences of them are normally the stigma and the discrimination“, according to Félix Fuentenebro, director of Medicus Mundi, underlining that the poverty is the culprit of a lot of insane habits.
“Poverty alsomeans the survival of several negative cultural practices, as the one that obliges to inherite the dead brother’s wife. 😯 In a lot of places, when a man dies, the older brother inherites his wife. If the dead was infected by AIDS or died as a result, it’s probable that his wife is also infected with the virus, and so, her new husband and his other wife or wifes, could also be infected“.
BETHLEHEM Mayor Victor Batarseh yesterday attacked Israel and angered members of Australia’s Jewish community within hours of arriving in Sydney – just as Australian immigration officials in the Middle East warned would occur if he was granted a visa.
Dr Batarseh told The Australian Israel’s construction of a security wall was about grabbing Palestinian land, not stopping suicide bombers. “If you want peace, you build bridges of love and understanding between people, you don’t build walls of hatred,” he said.
The mayor of Bethlehem is still a Christian, as always. Eight out of the fifteen seats on the city council are still reserved for Christians. But in the latest municipal elections, which took place in May of 2005, a coalition with crucial support from the Muslims of Hamas emerged victorious.
The leader of the Hamas contingent in the municipal council of Bethlehem, Hassam El-Masalmeh, exalts the suicide attacks against the Jews, and asserts that these will continue until all of Palestine, including the territory of Israel, is under Palestinian control.
But mayor Victor Batarseh, a practicing Catholic, condemns the terrorist attacks and wants Hamas to stop carrying them out. He says that he is ready for a territorial compromise with Israel in order to bring about a true Palestinian state. But even before the latest municipal elections, he chose Hamas as his main ally, together with another extremist group called Islamic Jihad.
A magnificent and very coherent Catholic. Uaghhhh!
Tiberge writes about a marvellous French Christ from the XVIth century which has been mutilated (most possibly, deliberately) to portrait the image making an obscene gesture. 😯
A French gossip magazine has been ordered to pay €15,000 damages to the lover of France’s Socialist Party leader François Hollande.
A court ruled that the images Closer published of M. Hollande frolicking on a Moroccan beach with journalist Valérie Trierweiler were a breach of her privacy. Mme Trierweiler hit the headlines in June when Hollande’s long-term partner Ségolène Royal booted him out of their family home for his affair with the reporter.
The photos of the alleged “intimacy violated” are here. I really do not see any intimacy as they were in the beach and both of them are public figures… if you don’t want to be pictured, stay inside. And if not, you are risking that they take your pictures…
Police had been alerted to jokes he cracked about the Kor-an and the Ar-ab language in an attempt to stop him entering the country for a show tomorrow night.
Fearing the local press would whip up a frenzy of protest against Meo, his agent and the organisers of the gig decided it would be safer if he didn’t perform.
Meo’s agent said: ‘It was a mutual decision between us. There was a small but still unacceptable risk to his safety.’
She comments:
We, here in the West..well ya see..We don’t get our panties into a bunch so quickly and um…….we actually believe in laughter.
Especially our ability to laugh at ourselves at times.
Needless to say, this takes self esteem and inner strength. (hint hint)
Yesterday, I wrote about illegal immigration in Spain and the misunderstanding between Spanish PM Zapatero and French PM Fillon about the massive regularization. Well, it looks like that Fillon has phoned Zapatero to calm him down and to tell him that he understands truly well why he had to do it.
Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin are democrats but they don’t respect democracy. They speak about Iraq as if it were their property”, Malike said in a press conference. He added that both senators “have never lived controversies like the ones we are knowing in Iraq. When they speak, they don’t know what reconciliation means”.
Maliki reacted like that to some statements made by Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton -favourite of his party to the 2008’s presidential career in USA- who asked the Iraqi MPs to choose another person to leader a national unity government, after the extinction of the Iraqi coalition government.
He also critisized Bernard Kouchner, French FM, who visited Iraq some days ago, and whose visit was considered a success at first.
Last week Mr Kouchner said the Iraqi government was “not functioning” and was quoted saying he had told the US that there was strong support in Iraq for Mr Maliki to resign and he “has got to be replaced“. 😯
In an interview with RTL radio on Monday, Mr Kouchner said: “I think that he [Mr Maliki] misunderstood, or that I was not clear enough that I was referring to comments I heard from Iraqis I talked to.” [Do you really think he was misunderstood???].
“If the prime minister wants me to apologise for having interfered so directly in Iraqi affairs, I’ll do it willingly,” he said.
Mr Kouchner visited Baghdad last week to promote France’s role in efforts to solve the Iraq crisis and mend relations with Washington damaged by France’s opposition to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
So what do Iraqis think about the intervention? h/t Desde el Exilio.
Spanish National Library’s President, old Rosa Regás, is now a fan of Chávez -well, err, not now, this is something which we have known in Spain for so long-:
Her article is compulsory. Her analysis is a panegyric to Chávez, with numbers very far from reality, which nowadays does not belong to the Venezuelan people as it never happened in the last 50 years, sunk in the most cruel misery, where a citizen dies each half an hour killed by gangs, with a record of being one of the most corrupt places in the world, no.170 these days, according to the Corruption Perception’s index. An expert regime in manouvring to sell lies, while at the same time it’s proclaiming himself the poors’ saviour.
[…] When Rosa Regás tells us “Why against Chávez?” with the conviction that she does it, with a bad tempered arrogance, it looks like, with Zapatero, the Spain of democracy and progress is menaced. I’m convinced that she does not wish this country to be reflected in Venezuela’s mirror.
I should say that depends on who was going to exert power… I really believe some of them, at least, think, that just as Franco was 40 years in power, they have a right (non-written one) to be another 40 years, whatever the means for that. I’m not saying even that all Socialists think that, not even that the majority of them think it, but some of them do -of course, they never say that publicly…-.
At the same moment, two world maps of 1482 have been stolen from the institution she is in charge. 😡 And she has presented her dimission because she “does not feel the new Minister of Culture, César Antonio Molina, trusts her“. 😈 These are good news, indeed…
On Aug. 8, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights reported that it had confirmed more than 500 cases of police abuse since 1993, including 167 deaths — three of which took place this year — that the group “strongly suspects were the result of torture and mistreatment.” The organization previously found that while Egypt‘s population nearly doubled during the first 25 years of Hosni Mubarak‘s regime, the number of prisons grew more than fourfold and that the number of detainees held for more than one year without charge or indictment grew to more than 20,000.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have corroborated chilling accounts of torture in Egyptian prisons. The independent daily Eldestour recently published two important facts: that the annual budget for internal security was $1.5 billion in 2006, more than the entire national budget for health care, and that the security police forces comprise 1.4 million officers, nearly four times the size of the Egyptian army. “Egypt has become a police state par excellence,” the paper’s editor noted.
For the people who uses bloglines, there is a new beta version for you to try.
The new cause of anger in Aghanistan: a ball with the Saudi flag. You know, the one with the Islamic declaration of faith?
A demonstration has been held in south- east Afghanistan accusing US troops of insulting Islam after they distributed footballs bearing the name of Allah.
The balls showed the Saudi Arabian flag which features the Koranic declaration of faith.
The US military said the idea had been to give something for Afghan children to enjoy and they did not realise it would cause offence.
Last news from Venezuela: now Chávez wants to move the country’s time zone to “offer a more equitable distribution of sunlight“. The socialism of XXIth century also distributes the sunlight in a more equitable way… This sounds like the Galizian Nationalist Party asking to change the time zone of Galizia as if Spain was the USA and had huge need of several time zones… 😈
Islamism, Islamist militancy, and Islamist militant terrorism are very adept at converting people to Islam and to Islamist terrorism. And so not only do we need to worry about the usual suspects, so to speak, but also those who have been converted. Our obliviousness to this is exploited by Islamist terrorists, as can be seen by a number of the people involved in the plot by Britons to attack American and British trans-Atlantic flights from London. One was even a white (that is, British) pregnant woman, someone who would not register on anyone’s counter-terrorism radar.
[…] My suggestion is that while focusing on the usual suspected ethnicities or people of suspected ethnic origins (Arab, especially Saudi, and South Asian, especially Pakistani), we need to watch for suspicious behavior by any and all people. Besides, Islamist terrorism is not the only threat: some people are simply deranged and up to no good. We should, thus, be able to stop not only Islamist terrorist attacks but also attempts by anyone, for any reason, to conduct lethal attacks of any sort. And, who knows, maybe by cracking down on people who show an inordinate interest in information and data regarding our infrastructure, we might be able to help counterintelligence efforts as well. Preventing Iran, Russia, China, or any of the host of our enemies from getting intelligence will help The Republic.
Well, in my case, I do not think this is a problem of ethnicity nor do I consider this an ethnic problem. It’s an IDEOLOGICAL one: it’s based on an ideology that wants to rule the world, using a religion. I’m not going to discuss now if this is the religion in itself or it’s being used, but clearly not all Muslims are terrorists or want to rule the world. The problem, as I have said before, is that if the extremers are supported -as it’s happening in most of the West-, the people who are not, do not feel supported at all, in the end, that’s going to cause a surge in support for extremism in both sides.
And when I say Westerners are supporting several madnesses/extremisms, it’s because it’s true:
Academia’s fixation on cultural sensitivity is changing the debate around female genital mutilation, with a growing number of professors and women’s rights activists becoming hesitant to condemn the practice.
Where feminists rallied against the operation from the pages of Ms. magazine in the 1970s, today’s critics are infinitely more cautious, with most suggesting that the Western world butt out until Muslim African communities are ready to reconsider what they are doing to their daughters.
The shift in attitudes about the practice– which in the worst of cases involves the carving out of a woman’s clitoris and inner labia and can cause lifelong urinary tract infections, sterility and even death — comes at a time when high-profile victims of the operation such as writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali and model Waris Dirie, both Somalis, have launched very public campaigns against the practice.
To know more about this practice, click here. It’s a shame someone cannot or doesn’t comdemn that practice.
A reward is offered in Greece to capture the culprits of the fires which were provoked and which had already killed at least 60 people.
Fire in the countryside and smoke surrounding Athens.
Statue of Victory at Olympia surrounded by smoke.
Map of the fires.
More about the Greek fires by Paolo. Impressive the NASA’s satellite image of the fire he has posted. Last news are that there are two possibilities: the first being it was caused by organised criminality, the second being it was international terrorism to influence in Greek elections, in which the center-right’s margin has been slightly reduced these last weeks. So a prosecutor on Monday ordered an investigation into whether arson attacks could come under Greece’s anti-terrorism and organized crime laws. (CNN).
There were at least a couple of instances where the ones trapped called the TV and radio stations, got on the air, said their final goodbyes to their families, and then were burned alive. While the stations were doing their best to send aid, the fact that the emergency reponses are streched so thin made rescue efforts near impossible.
My grandmother’s village was completely burned down. It was one of the worse hit and there is nothing that remains. The local authorities say that it’s completely erased off the map.
[…] There is a video of two men setting one of the fires. That is now fishy since we now know that the fires were started remotely via cell phone bombs.
I have dealt with the problem of hyper-Jewish self-criticism repeatedly in the past, including issues concerning the Alvin Rosenfeld Controversy. Among other things, I emphasized the role of a kind of “prophetic” criticism that uses high rhetorical excess to “whip” the Jews/Israelis into the right path. When combined with a desire to “please” fellow, non-Jewish progressives by showing how “non-tribal” one is, this produces a lethal combination, documented by Rosenfeld, that makes some Jews willing to confess to anything (racism, apartheid, Nazism, the illegitimacy of the State). They do this not only to urge their fellow Jews to mend their ways, but also to pursue a kind of “therapeutic” dialogue where, if they are sufficiently magnanimous in accepting blame, then maybe their enemies, say, the Palestinians, might also respond by being a bit more self-critical.
Hmm, yes, I understand this very well. And I mean it. Well, the result is just the opposite: whatever the Israelis do in this direction, is not going to grant them anything but even more problems.
Read it all: another great post from Richard Landes.
In response to the refusal by gynecologists of the public health care system of Andalusia to perform abortions, a considerable number of women are being sent to private clinics that have agreed to collaborate with the Council for Health Care.
I wrote some months ago about a platform whose objective is to send Aznar to the International Criminal Court because of “his support to the illegal Iraqi war”. Another platform, called “Aznar for ICC” is preparing a “hot autumn“, as United Left’s MP from Andalucia’s Autonomous Community Antonio Romero has said. He added:
Neither Aznar, nor Bush nor Tony Blair can go away without punishment after causing an illegal and immoral war, which has produced the death to 700.000 Iraqis, the majority of which were civil, more than 2 million of people in exile, the complete destruction of the country’s infraestructures, of its historical and cultural heritage and the absolute looting of its natural resources, specially, of oil”.
For you to consider the personality of this man: he was condemned some years ago, because in a strike, he beat, insulted and menaced an old man, owner of a little cafeteria, and one of the clients because he did not want to go on strike. He shouted at both: “fascist, son of a bitch, asshole”, after yelling at them “you’re going to shut whether you like it or not, or you’re going to shut por cojones“. You know, a peaceful, respectful and calm guy… But the best is what he said: “I only wanted to defend their rights -whether they liked it or not-, telling him how marvellous it was to close all the shops for Andalucia’s rights“.
“Nefarious plans to ruin Turkey’s secular and democratic nature emerge in different forms everyday,” Buyukanit said in his statement. “The military will, just as it has so far, keep its determination to guard social, democratic and secular Turkey.”
Russian man detained in Afghanistan carrying 500 kilos of explosives and, in a rapture of manliness, wearing a burqa. His two other companions were also wearing a women’s clothes. If they like so much being a woman, why they do not change their sex? Yes, I think that, for these chavinist male … individuals, that would be a good punishment. Imagine Bin Laden … 😈 There was a joke here some years ago: the worst fate for Bin Laden would be to catch him -US SEALs could be employed for that-, transport him to a clinic, change his sex and then set him loose in Saudi Arabia. Je. With an inside camera to see his reaction: “Hey, I’m Bin Laden”.
Gordon Brown will not allow a referendum about the EU Constitution, after he promised to do so. He faces 120 Labour MPs who have rebeled against him, although David considers that Brown will not allow it, “as he knows he can lose it“.
Some weeks ago I discovered a very good blog called Modestly Yours, entirely written by women (where I discovered a book I would like to read…, when I have finished reading all I have to read now, but the title is promising: “Girls gone Mild. Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find that it’s not Bad to be Good“). Well, just read about the “Sexy Crazy Cancer” movie:
The film itself actually looks quite interesting. As described on her website, the idea for the documentary came about in 2003 after the “31-year-old actress/photographer…was diagnosed with a rare and incurable cancer. Weeks later she began filming her story. Taking a seemingly tragic situation and turning it into a creative expression, Kris shares her inspirational story of survival with courage, strength, and lots of humor.”
As the author says, I don’t know how the sexy thing fits in there.
There is another very good blog post called: “The War on Vulgarity“. Thank God, someone is saying this loudly. Looks like it’s better to be vulgar and really there is no need. There are people who consider that to be manly (I must be tough), to speak out better the truth (that is, to be more sincere) or just because it sounds much more direct. For me, that is only foul language… 😈
Lastly, after the scandal surrounding Sarkozy about his lack of fitness, look at this cartoon. 😆
Hmm, these are the kind of news that make me vomit. How on earth people can be sooooo brute???? I’m going to name this kind of news “World’s going nuts” 😡
A security video from an apartment hallway shows at least 10 witnesses ignored a woman’s cries for help for more than an hour as a man beat and sexually assaulted her, prosecutors in Minnesota said.
The surveillance video clearly showed men and women looking out their apartment doors or starting to walk down the hallway before retreating as the woman was assaulted for nearly 90 minutes, police spokesman Tom Walsh said.
Police said they responded to a call of drunken behavior and found Somali immigrant Rage Ibrahim, 25, and a woman lying unconscious in the hallway early Tuesday. The woman’s clothing had been pulled up and she had fresh scratches on her face and blood on her thigh, according to the criminal complaint.
Ibrahim says he is innocent and that the incident was a misunderstanding, according to Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, who spoke on Ibrahim’s behalf.
“Ibrahim says he is innocent and that the incident was a misunderstanding“. Yeah, right. And I believe that.
More about this here: It should be noted that this Jamal slug was convicted of lying to immigration officials and should have already been deported. Law was not fulfilled and a woman was attacked. The every-day’s tale… 😡
A peaceful pro-life witness was violently assaulted outside an abortion site on Tuesday. Police responded late to his 911 after he was beaten by an unknown visitor to the clinic.
Early on Tuesday morning August 21, three Rockford pro-lifers-Ken Plez, Pat Brady and Kevin Rilott-were praying quietly in front of the Northern Illinois Women’s Center (abortuary) for an end to abortion. A large white truck pulled into the clinic parking lot, and without setting foot on the clinic property, Rilott approached and tried to talk to the people inside.
In a detailed account of the event Rilott described how the pro-choice man got out of his truck and approached him, saying, “You shouldn’t be here, you’re upsetting my wife.” He then began to hit Rilott in the chest, ribs, and stomach. Rilott did not strike back at the man, but managed to call 911. As he was being beaten, he begged for immediate police assistance.
He told his pro-abortion attacker that the police were on the way, but the man said he didn’t care. The assaulter also said that “after he bonded out” he would come back and get him. After breaking Rilott’s sign, the man then went into the abortion clinic.
A large portion of the Indian population believes that male children enable families to survive and ensure that their parents will be taken care of. Female children are considered a burden for whom parents will have to shell out expensive dowries, which leads many to elect to abort them.
On the other hand, a 2001 census revealed that there were 927 girls for every 1000 boys among children younger than age 7, as opposed to 945 in 1991. Last month, police discovered thirty bags full of aborted and newborn babies in a well near a clinic in eastern India.
Meanwhile, a huge explosion in India has killed at least 44 people. According to CNN, “militants” were responsible for it:
“These are things that will not be openly discussed … we can comment when the investigation is complete,” Home Secretary Shivraj Patil said at a news conference in Hyderabad.
In earlier news conferences, local officials placed the blame squarely on Islamic militants.
“Available information points to Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups being behind the blasts,” Y.S.R. Reddy, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state told reporters. The minister earlier said “this is definitely terrorist activity,” and urged everyone to stay calm.
Moroccan Islamists support pragmatism (well they are going to present themselves to the elections, so it’s better for them to seem moderate. Link in Spanish):
The Party of Justice and Development (PJD), the main Islamist party in the oposition, is going to present a program in which the daily worries of the voters will be the first objective instead of religion in the campaign for the parliamentary elections of September 7th, according to its leader.
Experts consider it’s possible the party will obtain more MPs and could be the main group in an election where more than 30 parties will concur to.
Observers see the result as a measure of the level of disillusion with the liberal and laic elites who have been in charge in Morocco for the last 50 years.
The Parliament only has limited powers in the North African country, where the King Mohammed VIth, controlls all the main sectors from the Army to the religious affairs, and can name the Prime Minister and “veto” laws.
Some analysts say that in any case the elections will help to revitalise some aspects of the body of the governing elite.
“Our agenda is inspired without doubt in our Islamic surrounding, but in an Islamic surrounding linked to the voters’ needs”, told Reuters the PJD’s leader, Abdelilah Benkiran.
[…] “Frankly, the citizens won’t vote for us if we go to the elections to impose the veil on women, the bears on men and to all the people to make them go to the mosque”, he added.
Just let them take power. After four or five years, we speak about this.
Evans Antoine wakes at 7 a.m. and dusts himself off from his night on the floor. While other children in his middle-class neighborhood overlooking the Haitian capital head to school, the 15-year-old puts on toeless sneakers and gets to work washing dishes, scrubbing floors and running errands at the market. He also works in the yard and sometimes wields a scythe in the family’s fields.
There is little reward for his toil, except for food and a roof over his head. And often, the quality of his work isn’t good enough; his caretakers sometimes hit him with a switch or slap him on the back of the scalp. Once they tied his hands and put a bag over his head before beating him with a stick.
This has been his life for the past three years.
Read it all. Specially interesting is this paragraph: “Haiti revolted against French colonial rule and became the first “black republic” in 1804. With newly emancipated slaves in power, it also became the first nation to outlaw slavery. Dependent on coffee and sugar, however, Haiti kept the plantation system after the revolution, requiring “mandatory labor” of many citizens. The masters were no longer white, but working conditions improved only marginally“.
The proof that changes sometimes don’t change anything really. Just another people step on charge.
Iran vowed Sunday to use a new 2,000-pound “smart” bomb against its enemies and unveiled mass production of the new weapon, state television reported.
The government first announced development of the long-range guided bomb Thursday, saying it could be deployed by the country’s aging U.S.-made F-4 and F-5 fighter jets.
“We will use these (bombs) against our enemies when the time comes,” Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said on state television Sunday.
Iran often announces new weapons for its arsenal, but the United States maintains that while the Islamic Republic has made some strides, many of these statements are exaggerations.
A prominent bishop of the underground Catholic Church in China was arrested on August 23, apparently to prevent him from distributing the Pope’s message to the Church in China.
Bishop Jia Zhiguo of the Zheng Ding diocese was taken into custody on Thursday morning, the US-based Cardinal Kung Foundation reports.
The bishop’s arrest came after several days of tight surveillance in his residence. The Cardinal Kung Foundation reports that visitors to the bishop’s home were held and interrogated by police before being released.
But religious persecution does not only exist in China. In Uzbekistan:
When seven police officers with a video camera raided his home on Sunday morning, 29 July, Nikolai Zulfikarov was away. But this did not stop prosecutors launching a criminal case to punish him for “illegally” organizing a religious community, with a possible sentence of five years’ imprisonment. The small Baptist congregation that meets in his home in the eastern Namangan Region refuses on principle to apply for state registration. One local Baptist told Forum 18 News Service that prosecutors wanted to sentence Zulfikarov immediately, but now there is “total silence”. He added that “it is not clear if this means they will abandon the attempt or if they are moving stealthily behind the scenes”.
Another defeat for President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan’s Supreme Court has narrowed the options for the U.S.-allied military leader as he seeks to extend his rule.
Thursday’s ruling that his arch rival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, can return from exile leaves the general vulnerable at home and abroad ahead of crucial elections.
Talks with another ex-prime minister on a pact that would keep Musharraf in office are proving tough. And U.S. impatience with his failure to eliminate Taliban and al-Qaida strongholds near the Afghan border is growing.
Driven by a clamor for the restoration of democracy, the military-led government has responded with calls for national reconciliation.
But Musharraf “is hardly talking from a position of strength,” the Dawn newspaper said in a weekend editorial. Talks with his opponents “must have a one-point agenda: a truly free and fair general election.”
The Arab-European League (AEL), a pro-Hezbollah organization of Arab immigrants in Belgium and the Netherlands, is rallying its members to march in Brussels on 11 September “against Islamophobia and racism in Europe.” The AEL demonstration is a response to the request by the Danish-British-German organization Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) for permission to demonstrate on 9/11 in front of the European Union’s buildings in Brussels against the introduction of Sharia laws in Europe.
Two weeks ago the SIOE demonstration was banned by Freddy Thielemans, the mayor of Brussels. According to Mr Thielemans the SIOE demonstration is a criminal offence because it “incite[s] to discrimination and hatred, which we usually call racism and xenophobia. [This] is forbidden by a considerable number of international treaties and is punished by our penal laws and by the European legislation.”
Of course, Hizbullah’s members are peaceful, respectful of other people’s lifes and caring. As I said, the world’s going nuts…
“There are circumstances beyond our control, and I think I am better able to handle things I have no control over,” she said. “It’s a horrible prospect to ask yourself ‘What if? What if?’ But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world,” she said. “So I think I’m the best of the Democrats to deal with that as well.”
Nigeria: From Gateway Pundit: Angry Muslim Mob Storms Prison to Lynch Homosexuals. A prison guard has been injured. Will all the Gay Pride’s organisers say something about this? Eehh, no, that’s only said if they are Christian and preferably Catholics the ones who critisize the right to marry. That is an offense grade A. But if fundamentalist Muslims do it, ehh, welll, then it’s only an offense grade Z, at the most…
More about HuT and the Global Caliphate: Hyscience. And it’s not the only group claiming for it: specially in Internet, this kind of ideas are proliferating.
The way to eternal life is narrow because it is demanding, requires commitment and denial of one’s own selfishness, Pope Benedict XVI said today in his Sunday angelus address. He was referring to today’s Gospel in which Jesus calls on his followers to strive to enter the “‘narrow gate’ to eternal life, because many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able”.
“What does the ‘narrow gate’ mean?”, the Pope asked pilgrims gathered in the courtyard of his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. “Why do many not succeed in entering through it? Is the way reserved for just a few elect?”
The Pope said it is often a trap and a temptation to interpret this passage as a reference to religious practice as a source of privilege or security. But in reality, “the message of Christ is actually quite the opposite”, the Pope explained. “All can enter eternal life, but for everyone, the door is narrow. They are not privileged. The path to the eternal life is open to all, but it is narrow because it’s demanding, asks for commitment, abnegation, and the mortification of selfishness”.
More and more Italians, tired from the routine and noise of the city, are opting to spend their vacations in monasteries and convents that offer them a time of reflection and contact with nature.
Many religious communities—even cloistered convents–have opened their doors to young people and families to join in their daily life of prayer and activities, as well as to listen to their concerns and provide them spiritual guidance.
I think I’m going to book a holiday like that… when I have time for it! 😆
This little Iraqi girl’s entire family was executed. They intended to execute her also and shot her in the head, but they failed to kill her. She was cared for by John Gebhardt’s hospital and is healing, but has been crying and moaning The nurses said John is the only one she seems to calm down with, so John has spent the last four nights holding her while they both sleep in that chair. The girl is coming along with her healing
The clips, some lasting almost 10 minutes, posted on the internet video-sharing site depict Muslims being attacked by Western forces and asks “for how much longer?”
Produced by the group’s Malaysian branch, the clips call on Muslims to “arise and shake off the dust” of European colonialism and show members marching in support of Palestinians to the commentary “O armies of the Muslim world, we wait for your help.”
Well, this is is something not very rare considering what role Syria has been playing.
To continue with the Global Caliphate:
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Tuesday that rule of Islam on mankind is the only way for salvation of human beings.
“There is no truth on earth but monotheism and following tenets of Islam and there is no way for salvation of mankind but rule of Islam over mankind,” said Ahmadinejad in a meeting with Afghan Sunni and Shiite ulama at Iranian Embassy in Kabul.
By the way, we were the other day watching Anastasia and it struck me how much the bad guy, Rasputin, resembles Ahmadinejad:
Both of them very attractive… 😈
One Ahmadinejad is attractive (for his mother maybe). But not as attractive as a lot of armed clerics marching:
The victim, Naglaa Khamis, went into a coma and suffered severe hemorrhaging after the removal of part of her genitals, but was saved after being taken to hospital by her parents.
Police took the woman who carried out the mutilation in Minya, south of Cairo, into custody.
The health ministry said, last week, that a law to toughen penalties against female circumcision will be put to parliament when it reconvenes in the autumn, after two young girls died during such operations in recent months.
Tom Burnett, Sr., from Minnesota – whose son Tom, Jr. died on Flight 93 – and others continue criticizing the design of the memorial (and I agree with them), for its structural designs which appear to honor Islam and the terrorists instead of the all the passengers on Flight 93.
Nearly two years after the design of the United Flight 93 Memorial was changed to eliminate any perceived Islamic symbolism, the father of one of the people killed in the crash has asked that his son’s name be withheld from the monument.
Six weeks ago Ms. Larisa Arap, a 49 year old Russian journalist, went to the doctor’s for her annual physical. While there her doctor discovered that she wrote an article entitled “Madhouse” that exposed the alleged child abuse at the Murmansk Regional Psychiatric Hospital. So, as any normal paranoid freak would do, the doctor summed the police and had Ms. Arap committed to a psychiatric hospital herself.
“[The doctor] said, ‘It’s not possible to write such things. It’s forbidden.'” Doctors also told Taisiya Arap that her mother needed “long term treatment and might never leave the clinic,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.
The fact that an independent panel of three psychiatrists have found Ms. Arap to be of sound mind and should be released has made no impression on the state doctors.
I don’t have time for a long post, but I have to repost this one from Kamagir. Just another proof of brutality, unjustice and cowardice in Iran
Meisam Lotfi was reportedly executed for being a gang- member. He is in fact a student activist. Shahrzad News, a reputable independent website, talked to his mother, before he was executed.
It was 1am when they woke up with a knock on their door. The 25-year-old son tried to escape from the Police, but was shot at with 17 bullets, two of which hit his leg. He was then sentenced to execution. Before we managed to find and publish his pictures he was executed.
Meisam spent six month in the infamous Evin Prison after the July 1999 student riots. His sister was also attacked by the Police and received 40 stitches. Meisam had spent 55 days in solitary confinement after he was accused of setting tires on fire during the protests which followed the fundamentalists raid to the dormitory of University of Tehran.
I am copying partially this post by my friend Plateau, post which is really frightening about the degree of contempt these men are treated with, only by collecting signatures for a petition intended to ensure women’s equality. 13 activists have already been imprisoned by that crime.
Today at last Amir Yaghoubali (right) went to the judge and judge ruled that he has to be moved to the Evin prison. His sister asked the judge What is Amirs crime?! Is talking with people and gathering signatures illegal? (referring to 1 million signatures campaign for gender equality and womens rights). He (the judge) asnwered Being Legal or Illegal is not the issue. The issue for me is the reason of doing this. He is man, so WHY he is active in these womens issues? He has to study and nothing more. And this man is our JUDGE! He has to learn that being a feminist or believing the equality of men and women is not dependent on being MAN or WOMAN. It depends on having a functioning mind.
Oh ! And one important point to mention. In Iran hijab is obligatory but we have two kind of Hijab; Manto and Chador. Chador is a big black scarf which reaches to the floor and Muslims wear it. But the Manto is a more moderated hijab just like a long shirt plus a scarf. This one is easier to wear and most of the Iranians wears that (or forced to wear that). Ive just learned that if you do not wear Chador (the long black scarf) you DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO ENTER ANY COURT! It means if you do not wear chador, you do not have the right to justice! Same thing applies to many hospitals and official offices. This is a shame: If you do not act as I say, you do not have any rights in this regime.
Updated (1) – Amir Yaghoubali Transfered to Section 209 of Evin Prison (Payvand News – excerpt) – After 5 days in detention, reports indicate that Amir Yaghoubali has been transferred to the 209th Section of Evin Prison. Instead of releasing Amir, as promised by Judge Jamshidi, family members were reportedly informed that Amir has been transferred to the 209th Section of Evin Prison. This order was apparently issued by Judge Hadad, in the security branch of the Revolutionary Courts.
Amir is one of a growing number of young men, involved in the One Million Signatures Campaign, and the womens movement. Through their growing activism on behalf of equal rights for women, these young men not only forgo the rights unjustifiably accorded to them by law, but take risks and face imprisonment in an effort to ensure that women in Iran are viewed as full human beings under the law. Their commitment to human rights and equality should be met with applause and encouragement, not imprisonment.
It should be noted that the act of collecting signatures for a petition intended for the Parliament is not defined as an illegal activity under Iranian law. To date 13 members of the One Million Signatures Campaign have been illegally arrested for involvement in this most civil and peaceful of activities.
One such case was the brothers Pourya and Pouya Fazlollahi, one an indoor football player for Paysa and the other a wrestling champion. Hardly an immodest pair, but their crime was that they used to hand out political flyers and articles to their friends, particularly those by the Reza Pahlavi.
Early in the morning on May 17th they heard their door broken open and masked men rushing in to the house. The brothers soon had a gun pointed to their head, handcuffed and then dragged out in to the street. The bruises tell us what happened afterwards.
Heinous and horrible crime what they have done with this man, only for marrying a woman, marriage which was declared void and both man and woman accused of adulterers. She has not been stoned… yet -That I know of-.
One of two known Al Qaeda leadership councils meets regularly in eastern Iran, where the American intelligence community believes dozens of senior Al Qaeda leaders have reconstituted a good part of the terror conglomerate’s senior leadership structure.
the movie will not be more than 90 minutes long (out of the original 194 minutes), the piece goes on by asking what the relationship between Jack and Rose can be. “They can not be brother and sister, neither can they be any other family members”, Mehr adds. This rather weired sentence refers to the fact that “lover” is not a legitimate role in movies shown in the national television. Thus, Jack and Rose have to be a couple or siblings. Their passion makes both options impossible. Mehr lists other impossible concepts of the movie as “the scene on the deck, the drawing scene, dances and parties”. “The card-playing scene might however survive”, Mehr adds.
And the roles in a film cannot be stoned to death, hein?
Iran has arrested 20 people including some foreigners near the border with Iraq and accused them of belonging to a spy network, the state-run news agency reported Monday. The IRNA news agency did not provide the nationalities of the foreigners. Iran last month claimed to have uncovered spy rings organized by the United States and its Western allies. IRNA, quoting the head of the intelligence department in the Kerman Shah province, said the 20 were trained by intelligence services “of the enemy” for economic, military, political, cultural and social purposes. It did not elaborate.
Iranian authorities have charged four Iranian-Americans with endangering national security. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was jailed in early May. The other four are Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with George Soros’ Open Society Institute; Parnaz Azima, a journalist for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda; and Ali Shakeri, a founding board member of the University of California, Irvine, Center for Citizen Peacebuilding.
Iranian police and plainclothes security agents broke up a sit-in marking Monday’s anniversary of a bloody raid on a Tehran university dormitory, then stormed the offices of the country’s main pro-democracy student group, student leaders said.
Fifteen students and a mother were beaten and detained, they said. There was no confirmation by the government, which rarely comments on such arrests.
Iran had banned street protests to mark the anniversary of July 9, 1999 raid by police and hard-line vigilantes on a Tehran University dormitory that killed one person and injured at least 20.
Those attacks triggered six days of nationwide protests, the worst since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-U.S. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought hard-line clerics to power.
Pouya Ifaei, a student leader, said the students organized their sit-in at Amir Kabir University Monday to protest the continued detention of eight students been in custody since May on vague charges and to mark the anniversary of the 1999 attack.
“Six students were attacked, beaten up and then detained by police and plainclothes security agents as they staged a sit-in at the main entrance to Amir Kabir University,” Nariman Mostafavi, another student leader, told The Associated Press.
But there are more bad news from Teheran. My friend Aquiles had sent me a tip (in Spanish) but I have managed to found nearly everything in English. You can read it in the following posts:
Jafar Kiani, the man who was sentenced to stoning, along with his partner, Makroumeh Ebrahimi, was stoned. The stoning was arranged for two weeks ago, causing huge disgust in the blogosphere which helped aware the public, something which only paused the verdict, he was stoned on Thursday. There is still no news about Makroumeh, who is still held in prison in Qazvin. One of her lawyers has stated his worries about her, “They are going to carry the verdict on her, too”. The couple have married together thirteen years ago, and have an eleven-year-old child. The judge has not accepted their marriage and has called it adultery. The news is both approved by activists (also, also, also) and by the news sources close to the reformists. Reportedly, the public hesitated from attending the stoning and thus the Police stoned the man. The stoning carried out in Aghche-kand village, in Takistan, Qazvin Province. The Judiciary is still not commenting on the news, but local sources have undoubtedly verified it (source: Roozna).
Just read everything in the links posted before.Another 20 members of different gangs will be also executed on charges of rape, acting against God’s rule, and homosexuality. Asked if the execution will be in public, Jamshidi, the Judiciary’s spokesman, said “that depends on the Judiciary’s decision”. “There are other cases in other cities as well”, he added.
Plateau writes about the new film Oliver Stone is going to make: about Ahmadinejad (no, you have not read wrongly):
Oscar-winner Oliver Stone has sent aletter to the Iranian president’s office requesting permission to makea docudrama on President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, stated an Iranian producerwho is regularly consulted by the president’s art and culturaladvisors.
“The request was made three months ago byStone, the famous U.S. filmmaker, who has directed numerous films with socio-political themes over the past few years,” Alireza Sajjadpur toldthe Persian service of the Iranian Students’ News Agency on Friday.
“I think it is a good proposal and I would like the request to be accepted,” he added.
I bet he is not going to consider the treatment of women,
There are good reasons to believe that the students have received repeated physical and psychological tortures in order to confess tofalse confessions about the allegations attached to them by statenewspapers.
I just can’t stand this millionaires who had no consideration of the real world. What a difference with this otherfilm. Really impressive. Plateau describes Iranian film Persepolis:
Persepolis is the poignant story of a young girl coming-of-age in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It is through the eyes of precocious and outspoken nine-year-old Marjane that we see a people’s hopes dashed as fundamentalists take power — forcing the veil on women and imprisoning thousands. Clever and fearless, she outsmarts the “social guardians” and discovers punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden. Yet when her uncle is senselessly executed and as bombs fall around Tehran in the Iran/Iraq war the daily fear that permeates life in Iran is palpable.
Police were sent to guard some stations after the violence, and there was calm during the day as motorists lined up to fill their tanks under the new restrictions.
The government had been warning for weeks that rationing was coming, but the announcement of its start just three hours before the plan took effect at midnight Tuesday startled people and sent them rushing to get one last fill-up.
The rationing is part of a government attempt to reduce the $10 billion it spends each year to import fuel that is then sold to Iranian drivers at less than cost, to keep prices low.
Iran is one of the world’s biggest oil producers, but it doesn’t have enough refineries, so it must import more than 50 percent of the gasoline its people use. The government says money saved from subsidies can go to building refineries, improving public transit and creating jobs.
But a hike in gas prices last month and now the rationing are feeding discontent with Ahmadinejad, who was elected in 2005 on a platform of helping the poor and fixing Iran’s ailing economy. His failure to do so has sparked widespread criticism.
“This man, Ahmadinejad, has damaged all things. The timing of the rationing is just one case,” said Reza Khorrami, a 27-year-old teacher who was among those lined up at one Tehran gas station late Tuesday.
The country’s police chief boasted that 150,000 people — a number far larger than usual — were detained in the annual spring sweep against any clothing considered not Islamic. More than 30 women’s rights advocates were arrested in one day in March, according to Human Rights Watch, five of whom have since been sentenced to prison terms of up to four years. They were charged with endangering national security for organizing an Internet campaign to collect more than a million signatures supporting the removal of all laws that discriminate against women.
Eight student leaders at Tehran’s Amir Kabir University, the site of one of the few public protests against Mr. Ahmadinejad, disappeared into Evin Prison starting in early May. Student newspapers had published articles suggesting that no humans were infallible, including the Prophet Muhammad and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The National Security Councilsent a stern three-page warning to all the country’s newspaper editors detailing banned topics, including the rise in gasoline prices or other economic woes like possible new international sanctions, negotiations with the United States over the future of Iraq, civil society movements and the Iranian-American arrests.
"In necessasariis, unitas; In dubiis, libertas; in omnibus, caritas" - St Augustine.
De nos jours plus que jamais, la force principale des mauvais c'est la faiblesse et la lâcheté des bons, et tout le nerf du règne de Satan réside dans la mollesse des chrétiens". Saint Pie X
"A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him." Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong (La Rouchefoucauld)
), now he is saying that he “is ready to go to Teheran”, if he was invited and to “give the necessary time” for the International Agency for Atomic Energy verifies if they are fulfilling the aggreements.
(In the case of Ahmi there are some very distinctive qualities, that’s true 
).
). Ahmadeni-jihad has also promised to get rid of the Infidel’s influence at University (wow, the infidels, uuuhhhhhhhh… 
) mobilising a special militia to ensure it (well, both the Infidel and the influence… 
) disappears:
), is a woman -very important fact- and is Black. 
Hmm, yeah, doh!! She is a liberated Western Black woman! What a danger!!! 
) they could be good sitcom actors… 
Spanish Pundit 
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