German terrorist plot, Jihad, China, Thompson runs, demonstrations on Muslim world, Chávez, scandal in F1 and Pavarotti

So, after 8 Islamist terrorists were arrested in Denmark (in 11 raided locations), now the target were US nationals in Germany:

THREE men arrested in Germany had formed a terror cell to carry out “massive” bomb attacks, among the biggest on German soil, authorities say. “They were planning massive attacks,” federal prosecutor Monika Harms told reporters today. She said the suspects had amassed vast amounts of the chemical needed to make the bombs used in the suicide attacks in London in 2005 which killed 56 people.

They planned to attack Frankfurt’s international airport along with the Ramstein Air Base, a key US military hub, Harms said. They also planned to hit and nightspots popular with Americans. “As possible targets for the attacks, the suspects named discotheques and pubs and airports frequented by Americans,” she said.

The trio had trained at camps in Pakistan run by the Islamic Jihad Union, and had formed a German cell of the group, officials said. They had procured some 700kg of hydrogen peroxide for making explosives. Officials said the 35-per cent solution of hydrogen peroxide, stored in a hideout, could have been mixed with other additives to produce a bomb with the explosive power of 550kg of TNT. “This would have enabled them to make bombs with more explosive power than the ones used in the London and Madrid bombings,” Joerg Ziercke, the head of Germany’s Federal Crime Office, told reporters.

Frankfurt airport terror plan ‘massive’ | Herald Sun

More about the plot in Yahoo.com:

The men — two German converts to Islam and a Turkish citizen who prosecutors said shared a “profound hatred of U.S. citizens” — allegedly obtained military-style detonators and enough chemicals to make bombs more powerful than those that killed 191 commuters in Madrid in 2004 and 52 in London in 2005.

[…] Security experts said the two purported plots are a reminder that Muslim extremists are not driven just by anger at the United States and its policies.

Islamic radicals “treat the whole Western world as their enemy,” said Tadeusz Wrobel, an analyst of military and security issues in Warsaw.

Bob Ayres, a former U.S. intelligence officer who is an analyst at Chatham House, a London think tank, said the radical ideology embraced by Islamic militants outweighs national loyalty, noting that many of those arrested in alleged European terror plots in recent years grew up here

A fourth man has been arrested in Lebanon in connection with the German plot to bomb trains and the Lebanese authorities have filed preliminary charges against another five Lebanese and a Syrian.

One of the three suspects (of this September’s plot) was arrested for spying on a U.S. military base in December but was released soon afterwards, federal police Chief Joerg Ziercke said. 😡

[…] German federal prosecutors in June charged a suspected mastermind behind a failed plot to bomb two passenger trains using bombs packed in suitcases last year which failed to explode because of faulty detonators.

Six Lebanese men are currently standing trial in Lebanon over the plot, which  targeted trains in western Germany.

[…] Germany’s elite GSG-9 anti-terrorist unit arrested two of the suspects at a vacation home in Oberschledorn, a town of some 900 people in central Germany, officials said. The third suspect fled out a bathroom window but was caught about 300 yards away, they said.

The suspects were taken before a judge in closed sessions Wednesday at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe and ordered held pending trial.

Prosecutors said the three — identified only as Fritz Martin G., 28; Adem Y., 28; and Daniel Martin S., 21 — first came to the attention of police when one or more of them carried out surveillance of U.S. military facilities in Hanau, near Frankfurt, in late 2006.

Officials said that during the first part of this year, the men acquired 12 containers of 35 percent hydrogen peroxide solution, which can be combined with other material to make explosives — as did the four London suicide bombers who blew up three subway cars and a bus on July 7, 2005.

In diluted form hydrogen peroxide is commonly used in hair coloring and as a disinfectant, but the more than 1,500 pounds obtained by the suspects could have made a bomb with the explosive power of some 1,200 pounds of dynamite, officials said.

😯 /irony on/ But no, you’re thinking very wrongly of these bastards peaceful and loving and caring guys. They perhaps wanted to begin a hairdresser’s business, so they needed a lot of hair coloring… /irony off/ 😈

But that is not the only news coming from Germany today:

German technology has made it into an Iranian nuclear power plant despite an export ban. Prosecutors are investigating the case and the German Foreign Ministry is concerned about the damage to Germany’s credibility.

Dmitry S. is one of those Russian businessmen with a knack for quick deals. A native Uzbek and Russian citizen, he has just completed a major deal in Moscow for beef shipments from Brazil. In his last deal, he supplied half of Siberia with CD players and TVs from Berlin.

But Dmitry S.’s deals are not always so trouble-free. A deal involving industrial equipment attracted the attention of prosecutors and customs investigators to S., who has been doing business in German for more than a decade. The electromagnetic brakes, switchgear, spring elements and special cables that the 46-year-old businessman bought up in Germany between 2001 and 2004 were bound for the Iranian nuclear power plant in Bushehr — a central project in the nuclear program of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Dmitry S. case has since evolved into more than just an ordinary criminal case. Indeed, it touches on highly sensitive international political issues. Proliferation experts working for German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier have shown a keen interest in the investigations by prosecutors in Potsdam, near Berlin. And this is not just because, once again, a number of German companies, working hand-in-hand with foreign dealmakers, are suspected of circumventing export bans.

This is marvellous, hein? And the control on weapons, on materials of double use (military and non-military) or their components, where it is???

And by the way, is there any liaison with Putin?

The case’s true political explosiveness lies in the structure of the business relationships it involved. The Potsdam prosecutors now believe that they can prove that Dmitry S. and his now-liquidated Berlin company, Vero Handels GmbH, were involved in the acquisition of illegal material from Germany on behalf of the partially state-controlled Russian nuclear company Atomstroiexport (ASE) — material intended for export to Iran. “It looks as if Putin’s nuclear firm deliberately violated German law,” says one investigator.

Hmm, this does not look any good. Chinese Army hacking computers AND Russian public corporations lying to the same hacked Government about deals with Iran… It puzzles me extremelly… 

Anyway, read this post by Debbie about the link between China, Russia and Iran.

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The Jihad’s objectives: Jihad demands the killings of infidels or their subjugation under Islamic law. Read it all.

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Anyway, in China they are very worried about the bath houses and massage parlours, because of the “growing sex trade“. But, well, they should be happy about it, because the abortions focused mainly on female fetuses (and infanticide on girls) have saved the Chinese environment. [Well, no, not really, China has one of the most poluted atmospheres in the world h/t China Digital Times…].

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And, at last, ex-Law and Order Fred Thompson is running. 😆 I would like to see the expression in Zapatero’s face if he wins… Dumb OX has written a very funny post about this. 😆

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The Hillary Clinton’s fundraiser, Mr. Hsu, has failed to appear in court after the Judge set him for bail reduction hearing. An extraordinary judicial decision, as Fausta notes, considering that he has been a fugitive from the law these last fifteen years:

Hsu turned himself in to authorities last week after more than 15 years on the run from a felony conviction of grand theft. He admitted to defrauding investors of $1 million in a bogus investment scam.

He failed to appear in court for sentencing on that 1991 conviction, a revelation that prompted high profile Democrats — including presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — to return thousands of dollars donated by Hsu.

Hmmm,  I would like to see what would have happened if this would have been made by any republican. You know, I haven’t seen this very underlined on Spanish press, but the Craig’s scandal… oh, yeah…

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Yemen: You could be punished by a slogan:

Demonstrations that began in May are continuing in Yemen as the regime takes increasingly repressive and violent measure to quell dissent.

Security forces made mass arrests of demonstrators, prompting more demonstrations. A new law criminalizes slogans. A newspaper is facing terrorism charges for reporting war news in the Sa’ada War. A top member of the Yemeni Socialist Party has been “seized” by security forces.

Interesting development. Normal people in Yemen -don’t think at first it’s the most developed society..- are demonstrating

demanding the release of more than 200 veterans and their sympathizers detained for protesting earlier this month, a police official said.

The protesters are mostly southern Yemeni veterans who lost their jobs after a defeat by northern forces in a civil war 13 years ago.

So, basically they have been jobless for 13 years because they lost a civil war. And now they are detained for demonstrating!! And when others protest that, they are also imprisoned!! 😯

Don’t know what happens today with the demonstrations:

Prominent Saudi reformist Abdullah Al Hamed and his brother brother have been ordered to appear in court on charges including inciting protests by women.

Wow, what a danger, eh? Women demonstrating… by themselves. Oops…

But the best is why they were demonstrating -well, trying to…-: because they want a man to be tried or released from prison. Charges? After the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, he was imprisoned for calling for a constitutional monarchy in Saudi Arabia!

Yes, that’s right. Saudi bombers spreading everywhere, but people calling for democracy are imprisoned on terrorist charges. Pfrrrrrrrrrrrtttttt!

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“Chávez is a danger for democracy“, Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa says. Link in Spanish.

He stated that [Chávez] has a “messianic vocation” and blamed his attitude on the petrodollars, which he uses in an irresponsible manner to spread his bolivarian phylosophy, de-stabilising a Hispanic-American democratic Governments“.

He also distinguished between the nearly-dictatorial (or fully-dictatorial as @€#€@# Castro’s brothers) and the democratic left in the area.

But Chávez maybe also a danger for another freedom (yeah, one more, looks impossible… but ): the freedom to name your children as you wish. Now they are going to obliged to choose between 100 names if a new law passes through Parliament. Yeah, I know some of the names are a little bit critizable:

Software searches of the voter registry find more than 60 people of voting age with the first name Hitler, including Hitler Adonys Rodríguez Crespo; eight Hochiminhs, among them Hochiminh Jesús Delgado Sierra; and six Eisenhowers, including Dwight Eisenhower Rojas Barboza.

Who can name Hitler to his son? I would be horrified…

But this measure is a little idiot. I mean, you can forbid that people name their children after famous people. But you cannot impose a list to choose from there.

Another thing is the discrimination this future law makes: the Indians and the foreigners are excluded from the measure. I understand about foreigners -they normally are ruled by the laws of their own country-. But Indians? What happens?? Are they different from the rest?

Then they would say that they have been discriminated and bla, bla, bla…. So, now they are discriminating the non-Indians. 😯

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A little bit of motor sport:  (in Spanish here)

It began innocuously enough with what looked like a patch of soap powder sprinkled across the floor below the two Ferraris awaiting Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa for this year’s Monaco grand prix. From this unlikely starting point it accelerated into arguably the biggest scandal in recent formula one history, possibly blighting Lewis Hamilton’s efforts to win his first British grand prix at Silverstone on Sunday [poor guy who has to ask for help to his daddy against Fernando Alonso… :twisted:, well, if you’re English, err, well, I’m Spanish, 😆], potentially jeopardising the careers of two respected engineers and forcing the McLaren-Mercedes team into such a humiliating corner that they offered up their world championship-leading MP4-22 to a detailed examination by the FIA ruling body in an effort to prove that no element stolen from Ferrari had been incorporated into its design.

The crisis reached its peak on Tuesday morning when Ferrari sacked their British engineer Nigel Stepney on suspicion of industrial espionage and a few hours later McLaren suspended their chief designer, Mike Coughlan, after hundreds of drawings and other technical data relating to this year’s Ferrari F2007 were allegedly found at his home in Surrey. It is understood that Coughlan acquiesced in the search and no legal compulsion had to be sought.

😯

(By the way, in Iran the racing Queen Sedigh has been banned from entering the stadium for the national competitons. What happens, ayatollahs? Do you think she was going to win again? Well, yes… 😡 ).

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Pavarotti has died.

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Beslan, China on hacking, 100th birthday for helicopters, Nike campaign, Ireland, Martyrs’ Monument, Iran and other items (+)

I forgot to write about the Beslan’s anniversary. So I’m linking to Pastorius’ post at IBA about it.

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.

RIP. And let’s see if Putin learns something…

Infidels are Cool has also another very good post on the subject.

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China denies hacking Pentagon’s computers:

“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?

(+) It appears that UK computers have also being hacked from China. What is happening here???

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This year helicopters are 100 years old. See the image gallery from CNETNews.com. The first helicopter was something like this:

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

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New Nike’s marketing campaign. “Being Spanish is not an excuse, it’s a responsibility“.

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…]

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Ireland to allow police to wear turbans?

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.

The Met, with its fourteen different minority pressure groups and its concessions to religious demands, is hardly a model to emulate either.

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. 👿

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from the Persecution Blog: the Martyr’s monument:

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.

Here is a photo of the monument:

1. See more photos of the monument here.

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More on Iran: Haleh Esfandiari leaves Iran. by Vicki. But as she says:

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.

From FFDB:

Iran President Ahmadinejad states he has “PROOF” that the United States will NOT attack Iran.

But, not to be seen as WEAK, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls the United States and West names – “drunken and arrogant” and says that Iran would never yield to Western pressure over its nuclear program.

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.

Ahmadinejad:

“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.”

😯

Do you remember Khatami shaking hands with a young lady in Italy and the following scandal? Well, he has a legal suite awaiting for him at court. 😀

And lastly, a link to laugh about Ahmadinejad:

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.

😆 Just read it all…

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Other interesting posts to read:

Terrorist attack hits Pakistan. by Sheik Yermami.

5000 new rifles, but no milk from Venezuela. by John Lilyea.

The Dying Soar of a Syphilitic Hunchback. by Scipio. About Russian situation. A very interesting post, really.

Danish police arrest suspected terrorists. by Astute Bloggers.

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. 😦 😡

Last but not least, to laugh a bit, read this post by Kate. 😆

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China’s influence spreads, Nebraska’s university affair, Lebanon’s Nahr El-Bahred, futures’ markets and Brian de Palma

As I have posted before, Chinese influence in the world is spreading, something that, with its present state about Human Rights, is far from good. From Yahoo:

For years, China’s booming economy touched daily life in the West most visibly through the “made-in-China” label on everything from clothes to computers. But now, economic growth is giving rise to something more that can’t be measured just by widgets and gadgets — a shift in China’s balance of power with the rest of the world.

China’s reach now extends from the Australian desert through the Sahara to the Amazonian jungle — and it’s those regions supplying goods for China, not just the other way around. China has stepped up its political and diplomatic presence, most notably in Africa, where it is funneling billions of dollars in aid. And it is increasingly shaping the lifestyle of people around the world, as the United States did before it, right down to the Mandarin-language courses being taught in schools from Argentina to Virginia.

China, like the United States, is also learning that global power cuts both ways. The backlash over tainted toothpaste and toxic pet food has been severe, as has the criticism over China’s support for regimes such Sudan’s.

To understand why China’s influence is increasingly pushing past its borders, just do the math.

When 1.3 billion people want something, the world feels it. And when those people in ever increasing numbers are joining a swelling middle class eager for a richer lifestyle, the world feels it even more.

If China’s growth continues, its consumer market will be the world’s second largest by 2015. The Chinese already eat 32 percent of the world’s rice, build with 47 percent of its cement and smoke one out of every three cigarettes.

Continue reading…

Related news.

China farmer Activist Arrested for Advocating “No Olympics, But Human Rights”.

China passes law censoring Disaster and Accidents Coverage.

Related posts:

Ban Ki-Moon: The main cause of Darfur problems is….

China launches Nigerian satellite.

Sudan, the UN ambassador, the rebels: why it is necessary a general denounce of the silence of the MSM on the Darfur crisis?

Chinese PM launches Africa tour

China’s oil policy

Chinese new arsenal

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More about Nebraska’s University affair:

Officials of the Omaha, Nebraska archdiocese are expressing a growing impatience with the Jesuit-run Creighton University, the Associated Press reports.
Although university officials this week cancelled plans for a campus lecture by Anne Lamott, a novelist who is an advocate of legal abortion and euthanasia, archdiocesan leaders remained unhappy with the direction of the university, the news service revealed in an August 31 report.
[…]In announcing a mutual agreement to cancel the lecture, Creighton had said that Lamott’s views on suicide and euthanasia had only recently come to the attention of school officials. But the novelist’s agent told Associated Press a quite different story, saying that the school had deliberately asked Lamott to avoid those issues during her lecture.

The lecture was cancelled thanks to blogpower! Je. 😆

There is another important initiative for the pro-life movement: a Mexican church has presented the Declaration of Human Rights of the Unborn:

The declaration, which contains ten principles that state that the unborn have the right to be recognized as individuals of the human race, will be delivered to the Mexican Congress in support of an amendment to the constitution.

Congresswoman Beatriz Garcia Reyes, who was present at the signing, said the initiative could bear “much fruit,” and she rejected the idea that such proposals to defend life should only occur when politically expedient. The unborn and their rights should always be defended, she added. She also called for legislative reform in order to define the unborn as an individual and a person under the law.

I like the idea, even if our establishment doesn’t.

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Even if looks like the Nahr El Bared’s crisis in Lebanon has ended, it is far from it. Last post from Blacksmiths of Lebanon shows us the hard reality:

They left booby-trapped TVs and radios on, so that when soldiers went to turn them off, they would explode… They also played recordings of crying babies, which lured soldiers into buildings and rooms which would then be detonated.

😯 😯 Yeah, I know than in love and in war nothing is forbidden (or something like that), but this… this is treacherous…

And:

Naharnet has just reported that

Prosecutor General Saeed Mirza on Thursday ordered police to launch an investigation into a video game about the storming of Premier Fouad Saniora’s government compound and the killing of all the ministers.

Sympathetic and peaceful the video game, eh???

Just read the entire post.

Last news are that the “Militant held camp has fallen to Lebanese Army“:

Hours after the army killed 32 militants and captured at least 15 others as they tried to break out of the Nahr el-Bared camp, only occasional gunfire could be heard inside.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the last stronghold of Fatah Islam militants fell later in the day to the army, which captured five wounded militants in their hideout.

Celebratory gunfire erupted in nearby villages as soon as the news spread. Dozens of residents took to the streets of Mohammara, waving Lebanese flags and honking their horns as troop convoys poured into the area with soldiers flashing victory signs.

The army, which said it lost five soldiers in the recent violence, was not ready to formally declare an end to fighting in the camp, large parts of which have been destroyed by army bombardments in the months long siege. The military said three soldiers were killed in Sunday’s fighting and two on Saturday, raising to 158 the total number of troops killed in the conflict.

A military statement early Sunday said troops were attacking the remaining militant strongholds inside Nahr el-Bared and “chasing the fugitives outside the camp” who had staged “a desperate attempt to flee.” It called on Lebanese citizens to inform the nearest army patrol of any suspected militants in their area, but gave no specifics on casualties except saying “a large number” had been killed or captured.

We will see what happens next here.

You can read more in Tears for Lebanon.

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Futures’ markets are following the same evolution than they had before 9-11. Is this a sign of something? h/t Barcepundit. Pastorius has written a very clear post at IBA about the matter.

The blogosphere and options trading desks have been rife with speculation about these trades, which are unusually large bets that the market will make a huge move in the next month. Some entity, or entities, has taken a large position on extremely deep in the money S&P 500 options, both puts and calls, that won’t pay off unless the market undergoes an extremely large price move between now and the options’ expiration on Sept. 21.

Fast forward to the present day, and we have the same type of trading that took place in the days that preceded the 9/11 attacks – but on a larger scale. Nearly $1 billion of “put options” have been purchased, basically betting that Standard and Poor’s 500 index will fall significantly by the third Friday in September. A large number of these options have also been purchased calling for 50% decline by September 21, 2007. For example, a 5% drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average would be the current equivalent of about 670 points. A decline of 11% would equal about 1,470 points in today’s market. Obviously, larger drops, such as a 50% decline, would cause an unprecedented market collapse. Money would be made for the purchaser(s) of the put options – but the same purchaser(s) stand to lose over $1 BILLION in the investment if the market remains relatively static through September 21, 2007.

And let’s see: we have the real state lending problems…

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Lastly, you can read about the new film of Brian de Palma by Roger L. Simon:

Meanwhile, what used to take a lot of my time has a way of encroaching on my present reality. Apparently, someone I used to know…Brian DePalma… may have resurrected his career, seemingly scoring a hit at the Venice Film Festival with his new film “Redacted.” The subject is a particularly gruesome real-life rape case, concerning a 14-year old Iraqi girl raped by US servicemen who also murdered her family.

Now I don’t know the details of this case. (Some of the servicemen involved have been given long sentences and it sounds truly hideous.) Yet, according to Reuters, the film is halfway between documentary and fiction. This to me is a highly suspect form, especially when based on recent events (2006), which are more verifiable than most. You would think the truth would be enough.

But what interests me more is Brian’s selection of material and his intention, as he states it, to stop the war. “The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war,” he said.

That is why I am sick of generalizations. We cannot make one lonely incident as if it were what has been happening every day. And that is why I can’t stand people who are not balanced enough in their judgement, not seeing both what is good and what is bad, and then trying to make others think like them. You know, Brian de Palma, it’s very sad for me but I only have seen two of your films (The untouchables of Elliot Ness, a very good film, very different from this one , and Mission: Impossible, -though better than the two sequels: in the second, they totally messed up the Sevilla’s Easter processions and the Valencia’s Fallas, which have nothing to do- [I had mistaken the second for the first 😳 😀 ]). And really, with this kind of marvellous introduction of good judgement and balanced statements, I’m also not going to see this. Cause as lawhawk writes, you cannot make us going to the cinema:

Director Brian DePalma has unveiled his latest movie, which is nothing less than a character assassination of all US troops based on a heinous criminal acts by a unit of US soldiers. Those soldiers have been tried and convicted for their crimes by the US military, but DePalma sees no problem with using the incident to further his anti-war, anti-military, and anti-US views. [and anti-common sense… that is the worst of all…].

That’s completely within his perogative. He can produce any movie he wants – he just can’t make you go see it.

I have no interest in seeing the movie. I only wonder why he didn’t bother to make a movie showing what al Qaeda was doing to Iraqis on a daily basis – the kidnappings, mass murders, and the beheadings. Are those not sufficient to churn stomachs, or was the international audience going to salivate more over an anti-war/anti-US movie than one that shows the true evil of al Qaeda and might actually justify a continued US presence in Iraq to eradicate the al Qaeda operating there?

Showing what al Qaeda was doing to Iraqis? And then some people call me “innocent”… Well, lawhawk, with all due respect, that is to be candid. Hollywood’s doing a good film blaming the real people who are to blame? No, of course not: they could be a terrorist target! Just imagine George Clooney or similar feeling himself really hunted by those militants, freedom fighters and men of peace. Huh! Of course not.

By the way, that thing about the international audience: the 16 Spanish films who have raised more money, have raised less than Spiderman in Spain. But the Spanish Government is going to make Spanish taxpayers pay € 85 millions to produce the usual garbage: pro-communism, against the Catholic Church and the right-wingers and about the Spanish Civil War (of course, all the right-wingers were warmongers, genocidal types and sadistic killers, while the commumists-socialists were peaceful, art-loving types, who could not kill a fly… 👿 ). But they are not considering the 10 million people who voted PP on 2004, some of then did not agree (and do not agree) with Iraqi war but certainly do not agree either with the MSM about the coverage there.

So, when the film-makers are going to consider that there are other people to see international films? Without considering that this is not something new of this year, but has been the normal situation for a lot of years. And of course, if you have to choose between Lord of the Rings saga and some crap with the subject considered above, the decision is simple. Specially with the prices the cinema halls have these days… 😈

[Oh, and the Spanish film which raised more money was a film of animation “Pérez, el ratoncito de tus sueños” –Pérez, the mouse of your dreams-. There is a legend told to children in Spain: each time a little boy loses one of his first teeth, he/she must put it under his pillow. And the little mouse Pérez will come and give him a coin. So, you see, nothing political, just a pleasure to see…].
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Now playing: Dolores O’Riordan – October
via FoxyTunes

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Opium in Afghanistan, HR group sues Yahoo over China, Italy, Spain, Islamism, Turkey, terrorism, Greek fires (+), Israel and Pastorius’ reflections

As I wrote some months ago:

Opium production in Afghanistan has soared to record levels, with an increase on last year of more than a third, the United Nations has said.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime report says the amount of opium produced there has doubled in the last two years. It says Helmand province is now the biggest single drug-producing area in the world, surpassing whole countries such as Colombia. Afghanistan now accounts for more than 93% of the world’s opiates.

Despite billions of dollars of aid and tens of thousands of international troops, the report says 193,000 hectares of opium poppies are being grown in Afghanistan.

[…] The report says growing opium poppies is now closely linked to the insurgency and the instability in the south. And what is to be done? The report recommends more determined efforts to bring that security. It urges the government to get tough on corruption, which it says is driving the drugs trade and it lists poor governance, a weak judiciary and failing eradication programmes for these new frightening record levels.

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World Organization for Human Rights has sued Yahoo! over its policy in China: Look at Yahoo!’s hypocrisy:

Yahoo is being sued by the World Organization for Human Rights for sharing information about its users with the Chinese government. The information has led to the arrests of writers and dissidents. One journalist cited in the case was tracked down and jailed for 10 years for subversion after Yahoo passed on his e-mail and IP address to officials.

In its 40-page response to the lawsuit, filed with a federal court in San Francisco, Yahoo acknowledged releasing information to the Chinese government. But it argued that there was little connection between the information the firm gave and the ensuing arrests and imprisonment of its users.

[…] But Morton Sklar of the World Organization for Human Rights said the company had failed to meet its ethical responsibilities. “Even if it was lawful in China, that does not take away from Yahoo’s obligation to follow not just Chinese law, but US law and international legal standards as well, when they do business abroad,” he said.

Barely, Yahoo! claims this is a merely political case. 😡

At the same time, Angela Merkel reminds China the West would like to see progress on freedom of the press and Human Rights’ matters (where it has not progressed really):

“The world will be looking at China to a greater extent than it has in past years,” Merkel said. “And people will also be looking at how China presents itself in terms of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”

Chinese critics of Beijing welcomed Merkel’s remarks.

“Unlike her predecessor Gerhard Schröder, Angela Merkel does not run and hide from this topic,” former university professor and dissident Liu Xiaobo told Deutsche Welle. “She tells it like it is. The pressure she’s put on the Chinese government has already had significant effect.”

Well done, Merkel!

It’s logical, by the way, Merkel’s position. Looks like that the Chinese Government has hacked Merckel’s chancellery and three other Berlin ministries h/t Barcepundit.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, discovered the hacking operation in May, the magazine reported in its new edition, published Monday.

The Chinese government has vehemently denied the report, with the Chinese Embassy in Berlin describing the accusation of state-controlled hacking as “irresponsible speculation without a shred of evidence.”

But Prime Minister Wen Jiabao assured Merkel that measures would be taken to “rule out hacking attacks.” During a news conference in Beijing on Monday, Merkel didn’t comment on the specific allegation but said it was important that “common rules of the game” were observed in a globalised economy.

Well, there has been reports before about industrial spying on Canada, also vehemently denied by China. And on Australia, where they have targeted exiled dissidents.

So worried about foreign lands and yet China is searching for 8 kgs of “missing” uranium. Take a little more care about things which are really dangerous and stop targeting dissidents and foreign governments… 😡

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In Italy, a mother pregnant of two daughters, went to a clinic to see the state of both fetuses. In the clinic, she was informed that one of them has Down Syndrome so she asks for the abortion of that fetus. In the operation, the fetuses change places and the healthy one is finished. After that, she asked again for the abortion of the unhealthy one, which was done by injecting a solution of digoxine. This method which causes a cardiac stop, is used only in grown-up fetuses, while in this case, they were in the 30th week of pregnancy. The scandal in Italy is great. For a link in English, click here.

Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano has already condemned the abortion of the twins:

L’Osservatore Romano reported: “Two girls have died, assassinated as a consequence of selective abortion. A radical decision has brought about another abortion, that of the little sister that still had life.” No one “has the right to eliminate another life. No person has the right to take the position of God. Not for any motive.”

But that’s not all. In Spain, as I wrote days before, there is a “problem“: doctors working in public health system are not practising abortions as they think it’s a matter of conscience and have objected. Some leftist MSM -specially world-known as very objective El País– began saying that people had a lot of problems to get themselves an abortion, with statements like: “They told me abortion was a crime“, “Leny and Fátima had succeeded in achieving their right (¿? Really didn’t know that was a right) to have an abortion in private clinics paid with public money” or “I had to go to have it to another Autonomous Community“.

There are three causes for legal abortion in Spain: rape, grave illnesses of the fetus or grave danger for the physical or psychological health of the mother. More than 98% of all the abortion held in Spain use this last cause.

So the Spanish Ombudsman, Enrique Múgica, has begun an investigation about the “great difficulties to have a free-willing interruption of pregnancy practised in the public health system“. He also asks to “adopt the pertinent measures to let the users have the guarantee the attention in the Community of residence and in the main hospitals of the National Health System“. So how are they going to do that? Are they going to hire pro-abortion doctors? Or are they going to make pro-life ones make abortions against their conscience and will? I really have a bad feeling about this…

Meanwhile, the Spanish Schools’ Council has passed a resolution by which the State can educate the children on affective-sexual matters without any consentment from parents ( 😯 ). But at the same time, “it rejected to include Cervantes in the minimum required to pass Literature, the Catholic Kings in History and the inversion of €1000 millions in the infants’ education from o-3 years-old (which was in the PSOE’s electoral program) and to liberalise the prices of the books (as stated in the Law passed in the terms requested in this respect from the Culture’s Ministry)”.

Regarding immigration, Zapatero denies it (hmm…) but French Prime Minister maintains that he is totally repented from the immigrants’ regularization.

Zapatero spoke yesterday about the statements of French PM, François Fillon, about the content of the summit between both of them last July in Madrid, to contradict his ally and ask for an immediate rectification which has not happened and most probably, won’t in the future. Fillon has stated that Zapatero admitted then that the regularization of more than 600.000 immigrants in 2005 was an error of which he repented “bitterly” and that he won’t make more in the future (repentance and modification of behaviour: we’re on the right track! Eehh, no, not quite). The President contradicted yesterday French PM, insisting on all the good things that his policy of open borders have brought and said that France was going to “make things clear because it was all probably a bad interpretation”. Sources near Fillon assured EL MUNDO that «there hasn’t been nor there is going to be any rectification in any way». The more similar to tinging his words, was some statements made by the entourage of the French PM, according to which Fillon understands that Zapatero supported the policy of “papers for all” because “he had no options… because of circumstances” (there is always another option, even if it’s very difficult or harder to follow. And in this case, there is). It is not clear if Zapatero has or hasn’t a communication problem or of interpreters when he has to speak about his analysis and compromises over immigration, as Zaplana (PP, center-right) laughed about yesterday, but it is clear that the President puts at risk again the diplomatic relations between France and Spain, because of the massive regularization which affected all Europe because of its awful “calling” effect.

Look here, I do not know who is responsible for this misunterstanding. But if he is not a total idiot -and I don’t think he is, he is just convinced he is going to save Spain from fascism (¡!), yeah I know…-, he knows he was stupid enough to let a lot of immigrants without any kind of control (not even medical, and there are illnesses which did not existed in Spain, which have appeared afterwards). Border control is not a characteristic of being a fascist, it’s just a consequence of common sense. Does Spain need immigrants? I really don’t know, but it’s possible. But what is certain is that we need some kind of immigrants, not every immigrant in the world. Ergo, select them according to the needs here and their qualifications -if we need truck drivers and the people who come are cookers, they are going to be jobless… with all the dangers that implies-. So, please, stop blaming others for your own bad policies’ results, move your ass and begin working on something more profitable than in denying what it’s clear as clean water: it was a HUGE ERROR.

[A friend of mine told me: With all my heart aching, I have to acknowledge that I trust more Fillon than Zapatero… Ejem].

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Christianity’s greatest menace:

Christians around the world suffer daily because of their faith, and it seems the persecution is intensifying.

CBN News looks at the top two offenders– North Korea and Saudi Arabia.

Countries that persecute Christians usually fall into two camps: those with communist governments and those where Islam as the dominant religion.

That is: where there is no freedom, no respect for Human Rights…

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Looks like that Chávez has bought both the military and the Majors from… Evo’s paradise:

One of the accomplices of Hugo Chávez, the head of one ghost Ministry of all that Venezuela has nowadays, has stated to Venezuelan press that Hugo Chávez’s regime has given $6 millions to pay Bolivian military. Meanwhile, the sheepy Bolivian President, Evo Morales, has been photograpphed while giving money checks to Bolivian majors who are Venezuelan friends. The shameless says: “Chávez gave me the money to give it away“.

They do not refer to woodcutters. I wonder if this has something to do with it h/t Kate. 😈

But Chávez wants also to infiltrate himself in other weak South-American democracies, like Ecuador or Paraguay. In the latter, the so-called “Yearly operative Planning of the Foreign Relations Ministry of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” (wow, what a name 😯 ), reveals that he wants to give “Bolivarian indoctrination” to Armed Forces, energetic firms, students and peasants; even it speaks of the recruitment of young doctors from rural areas.

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USA and Europe: Another terrorist attack inevitable. h/t Extreme Centre: Newsweek interviews Redd, Head of the US National counterterrorism center. An excerpt:

Tell us about the threat that emerged earlier this year.
We’ve got this intelligence threat; we’re pretty certain we know what’s going on. We don’t have all the tactical details about it, [but] in some ways it’s not unlike the U.K. aviation threat last year. So we know there is a threat out there. The question is what do we do about it? And the response was, we stood up an interagency task force under NCTC leadership. So you have all the players you would expect: FBI, CIA, DHS, DIA, DoD, the operators—the military side comes into that—participating in an integrated plan, but integrated in a much more granular and tactical way than we’ve ever done before. This is my 40th year in government service, 36 in uniform and almost four as a civilian. This is revolutionary stuff, and it is affecting the way we do business.

Earlier this summer, there was talk that people were picking up chatter that reminded them of the summer before 9/11. The Germans basically said this is like pre-9/11. They said, “We are very worried.” What do you make of this?
We have very strong indicators that Al Qaeda is planning to attack the West and is likely to [try to] attack, and we are pretty sure about that. We know some of the precursors from—

Attack Europe?
Well, they would like to come West, and they would like to come as far West as they can. What we don’t know is…if it’s going to be Mark Hosenball, and he’s coming in on Flight 727 out of Karachi, he’s stopping in Frankfurt, and he’s coming on through with his European Union passport, and he’s coming into New York, and he’s going to do something. I mean, we don’t have that kind of tactical detail. What we do have, though, is a couple of threads that indicate, you know, some very tactical stuff, and that’s what—you know, that’s what you’re seeing bits and pieces of, and I really can’t go much more into it.

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Yesterday I wrote about Abdulah Gül’s being named new Turkish President. Today I read dissapointing news from French PM Sarkozy:

If this essential inquiry on the future of our Union is undertaken by the 27 member nations, France will not oppose the negotiations between the EU and Turkey that are to take place in the months and years to come,” said the French president addressing the 15th Conference of Ambassadors.
These new discussions must, he stressed, “be compatible with the two visions of future relations between Europe and Turkey, i.e., membership in the EU, or as close an association as possible.”

French blogger Tiberge writes commenting this:

It isn’t clear what Nicolas Sarkozy means by a “close association”, but it is clear that he accepts Turkey as much more than a trading partner or a tourist attraction. A close association implies an alliance, with attendant loyalties and military implications.

With Islamist Gül in the Presidency? Uuuuuuuuuuuyyyyyyyyy, Sarko….

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More about Greek fires: from NYT:

“Up the hill, workers were preparing the grave for Athanasia Karta-Paraskevopoulou, a 35-year-old teacher, and the four children she shielded as the flames closed in on them: Angeliki, 15; Maria, 12; Anastassia, about 10; and Constantinos, 5. They had been on vacation from Athens”.

Requiescat in Pace. She was brave enough and she died to protect these children, while they were waiting for rescue. Unluckily, it ended in a very sad way.

And it is more worrying as:

The danger had by no means passed. In the village of Grillos, just over a ridge from here on the western peninsula, a couple who own a restaurant watched in tears as flames advanced from three directions while fire trucks spewed water in the flames’ path.

“All we need is one of those,” said one owner, Iannis Drakopoulos, 72, as a Russian plane carrying an industrial-sized water bucket passed. “If he dropped it here, it would all have been fine.”

In Artemida and here in Makistos, the flames were already out, and Monday was instead a day for tallying the damage and preparing to bury the dead.

[…] The descriptions from people who saw it were the same: flames moving at an unimaginable rate and no one apart from the police to help.

[…] The fire reportedly came over a ridge first to Makistos, a village of 60 homes. Antonios Kokkaliaris, 80, a farmer, said he had been reading his newspaper, underlining parts he liked, when he heard the bell in St. John’s church ring. “I went out and I saw the flames before me and people running,” he said. He could not leave, he said, because his wife, Koula, 82, is severely disabled. “I told her, ‘Stay put, we’re going to fight this out.’ I grabbed onto the hose and I started dousing left, right and center.”

The town emptied, with only him, a herdsman and Mr. Dimopoulos with his wine staying behind. Mr. Kokkaliaris managed to douse his home, and two next door, well enough that the fires howled past, leaving his house intact.

But when it was over, he did not feel relief.

“I was disappointed, honestly,” he said, “because not only was there no one to help me, there was no one in sight. ‘Am I just standing here alone? What happened to all my townspeople? What is the purpose of life if I am all alone?’ ”

I can only say: 😯 A brave old man.

But we continue:

The region normally produces 10,000 tons of oil, but nearly all the olive trees are now destroyed, along with countless livelihoods. Charred donkeys and chickens litter ruined farms.

“This village is literally wiped out,” Ms. Bammi said. “It’s not just those who have been killed. Those who are left have no fields to work in, no olive trees. They have nothing to look forward to.”

It is already a tragedy. And if finally it’s proved they did that with mobile phones, well, the punishment for these bastards must be … great.

More from the Astute Bloggers:

DAY 4 of deadly fires: Fires rage in Greece as SEVEN PEOPLE CHARGED WITH ARSON.
They remain nameless. Why? Those depraved savages set a country on fire, the public deserves to know no matter who it is. I have searched all news sources. Any Atlas readers have a clue?

Well, can it be because they can be charged with terrorism? I really don’t know. Seems strange to me too.

(+) If you want to read a magnificent post about the political consequences of the Greek fires, just go over to Cassandra’s blog.

The other usual suspects in the EU are exploiting the crisis to call for more integrated emergency cooperation, in other words: continued deepening of federal structures. Strangely, among the first countries to send fire-fighters and airplanes were Israel and Switzerland; both countries aren’t EU members.

The press from hell continues: “‘The village of Artimeta in the Peloponnese has become known as the ‘crematorium’, says the BBC’s Malcolm Brabant who is in the village near the town of Olympia.” I have serious doubts about this piece of atheist cynicism! Considering the fact that Greece is 96% Orthodox, a Christian denomination prescribing interment, I ‘d be surpised if most Greeks even know what a crematorium is, as the first is still to be build; it’s highly unlikely that local Greeks would describe a much loved village in such terms!

😯

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Chaim writes that “More than 5000 Kassam rockets have been fired at Israeli targets from the Gaza Strip which Israel abandoned to the PLO two years ago, the Sharon government brutally throwing thousands of Jews out of their homes“. Very critical of Olmert as ever:

Israel’s government, as any other government, has an obligation to defend its people. As long as Ehud Allmerde and his cohorts are running at the top they are going to do little more than a few symbolic gestures to make it look like they are defending Israelis. Rather, they seem obsessed with appeasement. Obsessed with a policy that invariably has failed miserably time and again. They seem intent on giving everything up to the terrorists, little realizing that the more they give, the less they get and the more is demanded!

Olmert spoke on Tuesday 28th with Mahmoud Abbas to “agree on measures against terrorism“. As I linked yesterday, this policy is not going to bring them any good.

Meanwhile, Israeli leaders are building themselves shelters to protect them in case of attack. Everyday’s tale…

Also, on related news, the Israeli government’s tourism ministry has reached an agreement to cooperate with the Vatican’s new charter-flight service for pilgrimages to the Holy Land, the Ynetnews agency has reported.

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And now for the thinking post of the day. Pastorius has written it -the scene of Patton is priceless-:

[…] you have to ask yourselves, do you want a world which is ruled by men, or by women?
Hmm???
Obviously, rationality is not arbitrated by force.

Read it all. It’s worth it. (Chauvinist males: this post is not very recommended for you 😈 ).

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North Korea, Iraq’s PM Maliki vs H. Clinton, Rosa Regás on Chávez, Egypt, Greek fires were a terrorist attack?, Turkey, Afghanistan and "Modestly Yours" blog (+)

There has been 600 people killed or dissapeared in North Korea as a result of the floods. There are also thousands of hurt people.

Iraq’s PM Maliki vs. H. Clinton:

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.

Bernard Kouchner had also advised him to resign. But he has said France is ready to make an apology about this:

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.

America should finish what it started.

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…

In Egypt the dictatorship creeps each day to a more frightening stand h/t Desde El Exilio:

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.

More about Iranian Government’s savages, go and see the photos that Stephania has posted.

Al Fatah uses now the Lion King to attack Hamas. And Disney still says nothing about this.

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… 😈

A very interesting post: On “racial” profiling:

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).

An update about the fires: From Infidels are Cool, I reach this post from a Greek blogger:

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.

More here by Pastorius.

How affects Jewish self-criticism to the actual view of International affairs:

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.

Private clinics are profiting from abortions in Spain:

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“.

Gül has been elected Turkish President. Oh, my!!! 😦 He was elected in the third round as was predicted some weeks ago. The Turkish military has spoken: Secularism is under attack:

“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“.

Read also this post by Angel: A planned Ar-abic-themed public school in Brooklyn has prompted polarized reactions. Critics warned Monday that students could be “indoctrinated” with radical Is-lamic beliefs and supporters called such statements “racist”.

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. 😆

Looks like Sarkozy is menacing Iran: Either Iran suspends the uranium enrichment or will be bombed! Well, this is unexpected… Will be continued!

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World’s going nuts, Pro-lifer attacked, India’s sex-selective abortions and new terrorist attack, Moroccan Islamists,Children’s forced work in Haiti, Iranian new bombs, religious persecution in China and Uzbekistan, Musharraf, H. Clinton’s on terrorism and some Catholic news

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.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com’s Crime Center.

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.

FOXNews.com – Cops: Tape Shows at Least 10 Witnesses Ignoring Minnesota Woman’s Cries for Help During Sexual Assault – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

“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… 😡

And father of 7-Year-Old Boy accused of biting Son’s Toes. He bited his son “hard enough to cause deep bruising and crack his toenails“. My goodness, the world is going nuts… 😡

From Life Site.Net:

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.

In India, sex-selective abortions are rocketing. The reason?

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.

About children abuse: Kids forced into domestic servitude in Haiti:

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.

More news from Iran: as ever not very promising:

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.

In China they continue with their magnificent view of Human Rights:

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”.

More worrying news for Musharraf:

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.”

In Brussels they are forbidding Sept 11th’s demonstration against Islamic terrorism, and yet they are letting a Pro-Hizbullah group’s demonstration:

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…

Hillary Clinton’s remarks about terrorism are just very similar to the ones made by James Clayburn about Iraq:

“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.

Ten people arrested in Russia over Politovskaya’s death.

70% of Iraqi suicide terrorists are Saudis. And Iraqis protest about this:

More photos on the link.

And now for some Catholic news:

Pope Benedict XVI explains last Sunday’s Gospel:

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”.

As a result of the stress and lack of tranquility of modern life:

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! 😆

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British hospital throwing aborted babies to the rubbish incinerator; Two Spanish Pro-life Organizations menaced

From The Daily Mail (via CUANAS):

One of the country’s leading hospitals is throwing aborted babies into the same incinerator used for rubbish to save only £18.50 each time, it has emerged.

Addenbrooke’s Hospital, in Cambridge, said it was no longer able to afford the dignified disposal at a local crematorium of foetuses from unwanted pregnancies.

Instead, they are being burnt in the hospital’s main incinerator – which is normally used for rubbish and clinical waste.

The revelation sparked anger and distress among church leaders and pro-life groups, as well as women whose pregnancies were terminated at the hospital. (READ MORE)

Adosinda (link en español) wrote some days ago that violent acts had taken place against pro-life Associations. After leftist newspaper El Pais attacked AVA (Abortion Victims’ Association), which tries to help women who have had an abortion, now this same asociation has received letters menacing them with death. They have even tried to hack their web page. Also, some unkown fellows entered the Pro-life Association in Valencia, twice in recent times.

Traducción -del artículo en inglés que no tiene desperdicio-: Uno de los mejores hospitales [del Reino Unido] está tirando bebés al mismo incinerador que usa para eliminar la basura para ahorrar dieciocho libras y media de cada vez, según se ha sabido. El Hospital Addenbrooke, en Cambridge, dijo que no podía pagar un destino digno en el crematorio local para los fetos de embarazos no deseados. Por tanto, y en vez de ello, los están quemando en el crematorio del hospital, que se usa para eliminar la basura y los desechos clínicos. La revelación ha levantado críticas desde líderes de la Iglesia y grupos pro-vida, así como de mujeres que abortaron en el hospital.

Technorati : AVA, Abortion, Great Britain, Pro-life, Spain
Del.icio.us : AVA, Abortion, Great Britain, Pro-life, Spain
Ice Rocket : AVA, Abortion, Great Britain, Pro-life, Spain

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Two campaigns

I have added this blog to two campaigns that are so necessary nowadays.

The first is about denouncing the present state of Human Rights’ abuses in China. Human Rights Watch has launched a campaign denouncing that, whatever the Chinese political elite wants the rest of the world to know, they are even harrassing more the freedom activists and the overall state of Human Rights is even worse than some years before. So if you agree with this campaign, go to this page and insert the logo in your blog. For more information, go here.

The second one is promoting a campaign to boycott Indonesian products, after the persecution Chrsitians are suffering there. I found it in a blog called “Persecuted Christians in Indonesia” (Thanks to Ajopringue for pointing to this blog). In a country were 1 out of ten muslims are supporters of Jihad (approx. 18.7 millions), this is really necessary. So:

Hay dos nuevas campañas importantes en la blogosfera internacional: la primera se refiere a China. La ONG Human Rights Watch está denunciando que, a pesar de las promesas realizadas por la élite política china, todavía están amenazando a los activistas pro-libertad y derechos humanos y que el estado general de los Derechos Humanos es peor ahora que hace unos años. Así que, si estás de acuerdo en dar la voz sobre lo que está pasando en China, ve aquí y pon el logo en tu blog.

La segunda es sobre Indonesia, país mayoritariamente musulmán que ahora está llevando a cabo una campaña de persecución de los infieles, en su mayoría cristianos. Ajopringue, en el link de arriba, enlaza al blog “los infieles persguidos en Indonesia“, en el que la encontré. Este último es un blog de obligada lectura sobre lo que está pasando en Indonesia.

technorati tags: Human+Rights+Watch,, China,, Human+Rights,, Indonesia,, Chistian+persecution,, persecuted+Christians,, Olympics+in+Beijing

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Death penalty buses in China (Update)

Sky News (HT/ Atlas Shrugs) has released a shocking video about the new way to execute prisoners: Chinese authorities are using buses to kill prisoners sentenced to death with letal injections. This way it is much easier to remove the prisoners’ organs, contributing thus to the flourishing of the transplant’ s market in China, as I have written here before. The use of torture to obtain confessions is also widespread. And the prisoners’ name, even if they are found innocent after the execution, is not cleared.

There are very few people confronting the system. In the video we can see one of the few lawyers defending the prisoners: he tells the reporter that 99,99% of all the people accused of crimes punished with death penalty, are condemned. After the interview, the lawyer was detained, and nobody knows what ha happened to him.

UPDATE: Flagrant Labour links to Chinese International Organ Transplant which says:

Although the procedure to select a donor is very strict,, the transplant operation will be terminated if the doctor discovers that there is something wrong with the donor’s organ . If this happens, the patient will have the option to be offered another organ donor and have the operation again in one week.

Un vídeo de Sky News revela la nueva forma de ejecutar prisioneros: la autoridades chinas han puesto en servicio unos autocares en los que los condenados a muerte son ejecutados mediante la inyección letal. De esta forma es mucho más fácil retirar los órganos a los prisioneros, lo que contribuye al florecimiento del mercado de transplantes en China, como ya he señalado antes en este blog (links arriba). El uso de tortura para obtener confesiones está muy extendido. Y si resulta que el condenado a muerte era inocente, no se considera que hubo error alguno por parte de las autoridades.

Muy pocas personas se enfrentan al sistema. En el vídeo, entrevistan a uno de los pocos abogados que defiende a los prisioneros: le cuenta al reportero que el 99,99% de los acusados de un crimen castigado con la muerte, son condenados. Después de la entrevista, el abogado fue detenido y nadie sabe cuál es su paradero actual.

Según la Organización China de Transplantes de órganos, “aunque nuestro procedimiento para seleccionar un donante es muy estricto, la operación de transplante será interrumpida si el doctor descubre que el órgano del donante está dañado. Si esto ocurre, el paciente tendrá la oportunidad de que se le ofrezca el órgano de otro donante y una nueva operación en una semana”

Technorati tags: China, death penalty, Sky News

del.icio.us tags: China, death penalty, Sky News

Sent to Open Trackbacks in Blue Star Chronicles, Dumb Ox.

Others blogging about this same topic: RightVoices, Conservative Blog Therapy, Clarity and Resolve, The Asylum, HotAir, Politburó Diktat, BelchSpeak, OldWarDogs, The Asylum Pundits, The Autopsy, nimne, Leatherneckm31.

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Chinese mother forced to have an abortion because she is not married

Thanks to Vox galliae and I Like your Style I have known of Wang Liping , a Chinese aged 25, who was forced to have an abortion when he was 7-month pregnant because she is not married! The Police of Familiar Planning has caught and driven her to a hospital to make her have an abortion.

Wang Liping lives in a suburb of Zhengzhou City, Henan Province. She became pregnant in November 2004. Because her boyfriend could not afford a wedding, they did not get married right away. She is the oldest sibling in her family, and her parents were excited about having grandchildren. Without a marriage certificate, however, she could not receive a government permit to give birth.

At about 6 p.m. on May 31, 2005, Wang was stopped on the street by a group of people who identified themselves as staff members from the township family planning office. They forced her into their car and took her in turn to the town clinic, an air force hospital, and Tangli Clinic. All three institutions refused to abort her fetus. At about 11 p.m., they took her to Laoyachen Clinic.

Without her consent or any pre-operation tests, the staff from the family planning office and several doctors and nurses held her arms and pushed her to the ground. She screamed for help. They also beat her, stripped off her pants, and injected a syringe of drugs into her abdominal area. She was then taken to a patient room and tied to the bed.

Wang Liping said, “I was both shocked and scared, and lost all strength to fight back. My calls for help were unanswered. I could not believe such a brutal, horrid thing was happening to me.”

She said that at about 3 a.m. on June 2, after violent pains, the infant was born. The infant cried for a few minutes and then became silent and motionless. At that time, no hospital staff was around to help her. Deeply fearful, she shouted for a while before a yawning nurse appeared.

Wang said, “Could you check on my baby?” The nurse walked over to the bed, looked at the baby, and said, “The baby is already dead.” She then tossed the body aside.

Wang was so shocked by the news that she fainted. When she woke up in the morning, a doctor was standing by her bed and asked her to pay a fee to handle the baby’s remains.

When Wang said that she had no money, the doctor put the body in a plastic bag, put it on her bed and said, “If you have no money, it’s easy, just take the body and handle it yourself.”

Note: According to articles circulating on some Chinese web sites, some restaurants cook aborted fetuses and sell them as a tonic.

Well, I am SHOCKED and DISGUSTED, whatever a commenter in this blog thinks about this.

Tags: China, Pro-Life issues

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The odysee of life

First go here to see the video called “The Odysee of life” -I cannot include it myself because wordpress.com does not let you include Daily Motion videos-.

When you finish play the button and see this video:

Founded here.

Impressive, ¿eh?

 

Tags: Pro-Life issues

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Statute's reform approved in Catalonian referendum (UPDATED)

Yesterday, the reform of Catalonian Statute passed the last of its obstacles qith a referendum in Catalonia. The results are 73% of the people who voted, voted in favor of it. 21%, against. Less than 50% went to vote. The media have treated it this way:

a) Spanish Media:

La Razón -right- : The majority of the Catalonian people do not back the Statute. Zapatero says he has all the democratic strength and an ample majority. PSOE accusses PP of delegitimising the referendum and of leaving the democratic way , regarding Rajoy’s declaration in which he asked Zapatero to stop the process, taking into account the low participation.

El Mundo includes a summary of the reactions about the Statute:

• La Vanguardia -Catalan right-: Zapatero points out the great support and does not consider important the low turnout.
• El Periódico de Cataluña -Catalan left-: A hard Yes of half Catalonia and insists that no one can doubt about the legitimacy of the Statute.
• El Mundo -center-: The great majority of the Catalans do not back the Statute’s change.
• El País -left-: Catalonia gives a massive yes, with a participation near 50%.
• ABC -in transition-: Only one out of three Catalans support Zapatero in this vote.

El Mundo also reports that PSOE and PP are accusing one another of the lack of success of this referendum. Rajoy has said that with the referendum of the Statute, Zapatero has had a serious failure.

El Semanal Digital -right; digital paper-: Catalans have made a vote of censorship to their politicians. Zapatero and Maragall fail the exam before the Catalans in the Statute’s vote.

Telecinco -left, Berlusoni TV in Spain-: Catalonia passes clearly the Statute despite the low turnout.

Antena 3 -right-: Yes to the Statute with low turnout.

Libertad Digital-right-: Only one out of three Catalans supported the Statute. A minority supports the referendum without consensus that conditions both Spain and Catalonia. Rajoy regrets Zapatero remains in a wrong position despite the bad result.

b) International Media:

BBC: Catalonia endorses autonomy plan. Only mentions the turnout inside the news. But says:

Catalonia will get more control over airports, ports and immigration.[…] But given the low turnout, it is uncertain how strong a mandate the new charter will have, the BBC’s Danny Wood in Barcelona reports.

CNN: Catalonians vote for more Autonomy.

(I have to add CNN is allied in Spain with PRISA, a holding which support PSOE, and which owns “El Pais”, among other Spanish and international media).

Le Figaro: Catalonia provides herself of new powers. The news also say: “Catalonia, the more attractive of all Spanish regions, will be able now to issue job licences or to impose Catalan to foreigners. (well, to foreigners and to people from other Spanish regions”.

Le Monde: The Catalan voters support largely the new statute of autonomy. (Le Monde is associated with El Pais).

c) Blogs:

Ajopringue: Nobody cares about the Statute. It is not boicott, is coherence (defending Spanish other nationals’ boycott to Catalonian products).

Batiburrillo: A referendum to feel shame.

Cartas y artículos: The Statute does not dazzle the Catalans.

David Millan: La Catalogne vote “oui”.

El PSOE utilizará tu “Sí” contra España: Great victory of “Yes. Goodbye, Spain.

Es la libertad de expresión, idiotas: The failure of the Statute.

Etimologías: Results of the Catalonian Statute.

El rincón de la libertad: We have an Statute and a break between the Catalonian politicians.

Foro Liberal: The fools’ conspiration has succeeded.

La Druida Anti-ZP: A bad day for a country called Spain.

Labore Solis: Not caring about the Statute, not caring about ZP.

Movimiento Anti-ZP: Only a 37% supported the Statute.

Noches confusas en el siglo XXI: Zapatero won.

As a conclusion, I can only say that the low turnout is only one of the worrying things of this vote. More than half of the population is just bored of politicians who only want to carry on with their agendas without considering the real needs of the people of Spain, in general, and of Catalonia, in particular. Immigration, economy, unemployment, low competitivity, etc, can only be some of the problems that people sense now that exist but are not interesting to Spanish political ellite. Political parties must know that they exist -and are paid- because of the citizens and the needs of the citizens, not the other way round. And episodes like the fall of the Carmel’s quarter (Barcelona)-in which the machines to make the tunnels for the underground made the ground fall, because contractors had not invested the money they were given but simply paid politicians illegal quantities- are significant. Today a part of the people who lose their homes in that “terrible accident” are homeless and living in hotels. The Catalan Government offered them low compensations for the loss of their homes. Here is a video -there are more in youtube, but this is sums up the others- about the state of the Carmelo quarter today:

As you can see, the quarter’s state is miserable in 16th June 2006, 16 months after the catastrophe.

The second one, from my point of view, is that the attacks on politicians opposed to the Statute have been normal as I wrote here, here and here. I do not understand why if someone is just pacific and democratic has to insult and, in some cases, even slap and injure people who have another points of view.

Lastly, and in moral/ethical terms, the regulation of the abortion and euthanasia are, at least, disgusting:

“All persons have the right to live with dignity their process of death”

“The public powers must see that the free decision of the women is foremost in all cases which may affect her dignity, integrity, andphysical and mental welfare, especially regarding her own body and hersexual and reproductive health.”

In fact that is a call for both euthanasia and free abortion.

Also disgusting is the fact -as noted before- that Catalonia has some powers that Constitution says are from the State as immigration and ports and airports when they are f general interest.

UPDATE: Barcepundit has commented the Statute. I am going to underline two of the paragraphs of his post:

To begin with, it’s a statute that doesn’t fully respect thelinguistic rights by Spanish-speaking people (about 50% of thepopulation): the affirmative action in favor of Catalan, which madesense right after the Franco dictatorship (during which the languagewas removed from the official sphere, though not forbidden, as Kaleboelreminds apropos a lousy article in the Guardian), has been dramatically expanded(if shops and business were now fined for not using Catalan with theircustomers and internal paperwork, just wait when the new laws areenforced; and there’s not a single public school where non-Catalanspeaking parents -people coming in from the rest of Spain, or foreignimmigrant- can send their child to so that they’re taught in Spanish).One can argue that it doesn’t make that much sense after 27 years ofpolicies favoring it. In fact, this is probably why the statue won’t beeffective immediately, if opponents go through what they announced:that they’d appeal to the Constitutional Court, which can only be doneafter the referendum.

But besides what the defenders of Spain’sunity were saying, there were other arguments for opposition: first, bysecessionists who think that this new statute, and the new powers itgrants, are still not enough. They want the whole independence fromSpain. And there were also people -like yours truly- concerned not bythe fact that Spanish regions have more powers (I’ve always thoughtthat the closer they are to the governed, the better), but by the factthat this new statute is extremely interventionist, much more than thecurrent one. It was developed by a coalition of center-left and leftistparties who, in the immortal words of the Gipper, “believe every day isApril 15” (well, actually here it’s June 30, but you get the point);who are proponents of the nanny state and who want to regulate anythingthat moves.

I have to add there is a father, Carmelo Ortega, who has made a hunger strike to ask for Spanish-speaking classes for his daughter in Catalonia. During the firss night he did in the San Jaime Square some people intended to force him to leave. Others menaced him by mail.

UPDATE 2: Actually, there are shops who have been fined because the tickets were in Spanish.

technorati tags:Spain, Statute+of+Catalonia, Zapatero, Carmelo+Ortega

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Some thoughts on abortion

– Since there is another person involved (id est the baby), it is incorrect to talk of abortion as a woman’s rights issue and trumpet legal abortion as an “achievement” such as women’s suffrage.

– Since there is another person involved, it’s incorrect to talk of abortion as something belonging to the right of privacy. (Having a mole removed would be a case of right of privacy)

– Arguing that it’s OK to kill a baby within the first trimester because it’s not very developed early on is ludicrous. The same argument could be made defending killing 2 year olds because they are not as far developed as 10 year olds.

– Arguing that it’s better to kill a baby than give birth to an unwanted child is the ultimate hubris. First of all, thousands of parents are waiting to adopt a baby. Secondly, who made you God? Deciding which life is worth living and which is not is something the Nazis did.

– Imagine if there were a society like NARAL that advocated the killing of 5 year olds. Same difference, 3 months, 5 years, entirely arbitrary. They’d be on death row.

– Calling it a fetus instead of a baby to make one feel better is disingenuous, shameful and indicative of a certain feeling of guilt. Dehumanizing human life in order to make killing less objectionable is exactly what the Nazis did.

The Cafeteria Is Closed:

I would not be able to sum up what I think in a better way.

technorati tags:Pro-life, Pro-life+reflexions

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South Korea new war-toys and North Korea unbearable situation

Astate-run defense development institution is to unveil upgradedunmannedmilitary vehicles today as part of the country’s militaryrobot project,officials said.

The new XAV models, developed by theAgency for DefenseDevelopment, are equipped with a more advanced speedsystem than thoseinitially released last year, Choi Chang-gon, a headof systemdevelopment bureau at ADD, told reporters.

They are remote controlled and can conduct self-controlled driving, Choi said.

Aftera series of test runs, the XAV vehicles will be furtherupgraded between2013 and 2020 ahead of being deployed for defenseoperations, he said.

The unmanned robotics weapon system features two models according to function: surveillance and combat.

Thesurveillance XAV is a 1.2-ton vehicle designed toreconnoiter and patrolin the field. It can run at a maximum 30kilometers per hour. Thebattery-propelled vehicle is equipped with a5.56-millimeter machine gun.

The0.9-ton combat XAV can operate at a maximum 45 kilometersper hour andhas a gasoline engine. The vehicle is for use on thefrontline with5.56-millimeter machine guns.

Military unveils robot vehicles

And

The Navy yesterday launched the nation’s first 1,800-ton classsubmarine, which is part of a 1.27 trillion won ($1.3 billion) projectto build six next-generation submarines by 2009.

The Type 214 submarine has been jointly developed by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. and Germany’s Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft AG.

The submarine is equipped with advanced systems including air independent propulsion (AIP) and flank array sonar (FAS).

With AIP, it can perform deep-sea operations for two weeks, much longerthan the Navy’s current Type 209 submarines’ three days. AIP can extendthe underwater operation period of the diesel-powered submarines tofive to six times longer than that of conventional submarines.

The 65.3-meter-long, 6.3-meter-wide submarine is armed withtorpedoes, antiwarship guided missiles as well as mines. Accommodating40 crew members, it can do a maximum 20 knots (37 kilometers) per hour.It will be deployed for naval operation in 2007.

Navy Launches 1.800 tons-sub

But this is not a surprise if we think the neighbour they have on the North. N-Korea is just going to proof a missile that could hit USA (HT Fausta’s Blog):

The Japanese and South Korean press reported in late May that U.S. spysatellites had picked up indications that North Korea was preparing totest launch a Taepo Dong II ballistic missile capable of carrying anuclear warhead. TNRhas confirmed that the United States has detected significant activityat a North Korean missile test site and that the administration is veryconcerned that Pyongyang is preparing a launch. What’s more, some U.S.intelligence analysts warn that the North Koreans may test athree-stage rocket capable of striking the western United States.”Suffice it to say, it’s got people’s attention,” says one StateDepartment official.

According to two U.S. government officials, the United States has begunan intensive consultation with allies in order to prepare a response,which could include further sanctions, if North Korea goes ahead with atest launch. The Japanese press has reported that the United States andJapan have dispatched reconnaissance aircraft to monitor a possibletest and the Japanese have sent a destroyer to the Sea of Japan capableof tracking the missile. North Korea has not fired a ballistic missilesince 1998, when, without warning, it lobbed a missile over Japan intothe Pacific, a move which drew widespread international condemnation.U.S. government sources said that the activity observed at the NorthKorean test site is the most significant since the 1998 test.

But not only that:

• North Korea has the world’s third largest stock of chemical weapons.
• Included in the arsenal is mustard gas, phosgene, sarin and V-agents.
• Pyongyang also has an active biological weapons program.
• Its inventory is believed to include anthrax, botulism, cholera, hemorrhagic fever, plague, smallpox, typhoid and yellow fever.

And of course the nuclear program.

Missiles shown during a military parade in the capitalcity of Pyongyang: North Korea already has missiles that can strikeJapan. (Der Spiegel)

But nevertheless:

Famine is a reality.

On another occasion during North Korea’s tour forthe American media, a woman was seen crouching in one of Pyongyang’smany public parks, pulling grass and placing it onto a handkerchief. Aforeign aid worker who has spent time in North Korea calls it a commonscene: She says people forage the city parks for edible grasses andplants to supplement their diets. The worker says it happens even inthis showcase city where the shelves appear well stocked and where onlythose especially loyal to the Communist Party are allowed to live.

Gerald Bourke, a U.N. World Food Program official visitingPyongyang, says North Korean claims that the country is approachingself-sufficiency, are not true. He says 37 percent of North Koreanchildren are chronically malnourished, while one-third of nursingmothers are undernourished or anemic. He predicts disaster if aidagencies like his are expelled.

“Certainly, with those high levels of malnutrition, if WFP were notthere to provide the sort of supplementary foods, the special foodsthat, for example, young children need, that pregnant and nursing womenneed, it could be very serious because many of those people are livingon the edge, a very precarious existence,” said Mr. Bourke. “Foodinsecurity is very widespread. There is and will be a very substantialneed next year and beyond.”

More information about North Korea and starvation here. This is just horrible. Yes, I know it is not a modern link but the reality they are living now comes from long ago and should be known.

North Korea ((HT Hyscience) is a country where the differences between people are enormous, where there are a sybaritic upper class who flourishes in sharp contrast to reports of impoverished working class and where people are divided into three castes!.

It is difficult for foreign observers to see whattheir everyday lives are like. People are forbidden to inviteforeigners to their homes. All international aid workers and diplomatsinterviewed in Pyongyang said they have never seen the inside of localresidents’ homes.

And more:

Also on the hospital tour was a stop at thenursery, where a nurse proudly shows off a set of triplets. Multiplebirths are a special source of pride in North Korea, where thegovernment encourages women of the loyal class to give birth to nine ormore children – all presumed to be future soldiers in Kim Jong Il’smillion-man army.

The scene is a stunning contrast to refugees’ tales of the NorthKorea they know, where women of the hostile class are forced to haveabortions at prison camps. This, they say, is part of Mr. Kim’s drivefor ethnic and ideological purity.

Specially important is the fact that new born children with physical disabilities are killed at birth and quickly buried, according to a physician who defected from the country. The practice is encouraged by the State as a way of purifying the masses and eliminating people who might be considered “different”.

The Guardian in 2004 also reported that there were gas chambers in which terrific human experiments are being made.

‘I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas anddying in the gas chamber,’ he said. ‘The parents, son and and adaughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very lastmoment they tried to save kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.’

Hyukhas drawn detailed diagrams of the gas chamber he saw. He said: ‘Theglass chamber is sealed airtight. It is 3.5 metres wide, 3m long and2.2m high_ [There] is the injection tube going through the unit.Normally, a family sticks together and individual prisoners standseparately around the corners. Scientists observe the entire processfrom above, through the glass.’

[…] His testimony is backed up by Soon Ok-lee, who was imprisoned forseven years. ‘An officer ordered me to select 50 healthy femaleprisoners,’ she said. ‘One of the guards handed me a basket full ofsoaked cabbage, told me not to eat it but to give it to the 50 women. Igave them out and heard a scream from those who had eaten them. Theywere all screaming and vomiting blood. All who ate the cabbage leavesstarted violently vomiting blood and screaming with pain. It was hell.In less than 20 minutes they were quite dead.’

Defectors havesmuggled out documents that appear to reveal how methodical thechemical experiments were. One stamped ‘top secret’ and ‘transferletter’ is dated February 2002. The name of the victim was Lin Hun-hwa.He was 39. The text reads: ‘The above person is transferred from …camp number 22 for the purpose of human experimentation of liquid gasfor chemical weapons.’

And here a biography of Kim Il Song II, communist dictator of North Korea.

moreinteresting to North Korea was the fact that a man in Pakistan who wasbuilding the ultimate weapon seemed willing to pass on his know-how.Abdul Qadir Khan saw himself as a sort of “Robin Hood of the nuclearage,” who was interested in helping Islamic states and Third Worldcountries acquire something that would enable them to stand up to theBig Five (United States, Soviet Union, China, Great Britain andFrance). He also happened to be a man who was very receptive tomonetary gifts.
Incidentally, the gifted Pakistani nuclear scientist acquired hisexpertise in Berlin and in the Netherlands, where in 1983 he wassentenced in absentia to four years in prison for industrial espionage,but was acquitted in 1985 on a technicality.
A black market of horror developed around Khan and his RawalpindiResearch Laboratory; its extent has yet to be fully clarified, and italso involved German “dealers of death.” In addition to the hostcountry, this nuclear bazaar revolves around three countries: Iran,Libya and North Korea.
Western intelligence experts are now certain that Pakistan and NorthKorea already began entering into secret deals by the late 1980s. Theysay that Khan’s role was to supply key components for building nuclearbombs: high-speed centrifuges (which Khan allegedly transported inPakistani government aircraft on more than a dozen trips to NorthKorea), construction plans and other components used in the uraniumenrichment process. In return, the North Koreans supplied Pakistan withprototypes of their Nodong medium-range missile (with a range of 1,500kilometers), which can be fitted with nuclear warheads.

More on the N.Korean famine on Reuters.

Of course, the thing gets a little more complicated if we consider the people who are interested in N-Korean plutonium.

Other interesting blog posts:

• News from North Korea.

technorati tags:Korea, Nuclear, crisis, famine, repression, dictatorship, UN, Hapan, USA

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The most stupid reason to justify an abortion

Bush made me do it. Ehh, well, not literally, but let me explain.

I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we're starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm.

Bush was there and has hidden her diafragm, surely. Look here, you Mrs, Bush can be wrong sometimes, but I am sure he is not meddling in the sex life of the average US citizen!

We have to ask her where she got the degree, not to let anyone go there… It must be a very bad University for letting, someone like that, to have a degree!

Others treating this issue: Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Junkyardblog, Ramblings GOP soccer mom, Inoperable Terran, The Corner, Right Wing Nut House, Villainous Company.

Note: Have changed the title, because the stupid thing is to justify an abortion, not having it.

Tags: Pro-Life issues, USA

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