South Korean hostages, German plot, UK, Islamic extremism, Mother Theresa, Iranian human bombs and UNSC in Sudan

 More on the liberation of South Korean hostages: remember the guy who was killed by 10 shots and whose death was blamed on natural causes? Well, really it was not because of natural causes, it was because he did not submit himself to Allah.

The youth pastor who was leading the group of 23 South Korean aid volunteers in Afghanistan was killed for refusing to convert to Islam, the head pastor of the church revealed after the final 19 former hostages arrived home.

“Among the 19 hostages who returned on the second (of September), some were asked by the Taliban to convert and when they rejected, they were assaulted and severely beaten,” reported Park Eun-jo, pastor of the hostages’ home church, Saemmul Presbyterian Church in Bundang, just south of the South Korean capital Seoul.

“I heard from the hostages that they were threatened with death,” he added, according to Christian Today Korea. “Especially it is known that the reason Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu was murdered was because he refused the Taliban’s demand to convert.”

Infidels Are Cool » Blog Archive » Convert or Die: South Korean Pastor chose death

Is there anything wrong about this??? Well, yeah, have you considered that there is no video showing us the faces of these hostages during their kidnapping asking for release?

But hey, what do you know?? There are idiots -this time is Canadian, but intelligence is not a consequence of nationality so tomorrow it would be from other country- saying that this should be the signal for other countries to start negotiating with the Talibans.

The hostage agreement reached last week between the Taliban and South Korea has profound implications for all countries fighting in Afghanistan. It puts the lie to those, including the current Canadian government, who say it is impossible or counterproductive to strike a deal with the Islamist insurgents. Clearly South Korea found the talks quite productive.

Hey, the Talibans are going to be exultant because of the results of their actions… What a moron!!!

Hehe: at least, one of the kidnappers has had what he deserved. He was already preparing an assault on a police post.

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About the German plot: German police is searching for 10 more people, both inside Germany and abroad:

BERLIN (AFP) – German police have launched an international hunt for 10 accomplices of the three men held over a foiled Islamist plot to blow up airports and US installations in Germany, a top official said Thursday.

“Terrorist attacks need preparation. We are trying to identify all of those who were working in the shadows,” Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning told ARD television.

Police were searching for “the 10 people who were behind this” within Germany and abroad, he added.

 

The arrests were made at a vacation home, pictured, in Oberschledorn. The suspects had rented the house to store chemicals to make explosives, officials said, and were preparing to leave when security forces swooped in.

But there is more about the already detained:

Newspapers reported on Thursday that investigators believed Fritz Martin G. to have been the ringleader of the plotters.

He had been living in Neu-Ulm, a town in southern Germany seen as a hotbed of Islamist radicals, and was involved in a mosque there which German police have long believed to be a base for extremists planning attacks.

Investigators said an Islamic centre in nearby Ulm was among more than 30 places the police raided early Wednesday. Offices seized documents and computers they hope can point them to those who helped to organise and finance the well-advanced bomb plot.

The three main suspects, pictured in the press wearing blue prisoner overalls, appeared before an investigating judge in Karlsruhe in southwestern Germany on Wednesday.

The authorities have said the men gathered at their Sauerland hideaway on Sunday to start making bombs to use in “massive attacks” with the 12 drums of hydrogen peroxide (left) they had stashed in the garage. 

Sources close to the case told AFP the police were looking into the group’s plans to use military detonators to set off bombs because this could provide important clues in the investigation.

They also phoned British colleagues.

Several calls to British numbers are said to been made from mobile telephones linked to two of the men being questioned in Germany. One is said to have been a “known” number.

Remember that there were also 8 people detained in Denmark accused of preparing more Islamist terrorist attacks? Well:

“On August 31, 2007, the Islamist website {name removed}, hosted by SiteGenie LLC in Rochester, Minnesota, posted a document calling for “martyrdom [i.e., suicide] operations” in Denmark. The author, who identified himself as a member of Al-Qaeda, urged the Muslims not to forget the incident of the Danish cartoons, and promised the people of Denmark that the “brigades of martyrdom seekers are on their way… and will soon carry out blessed operations” in their country. He called on the Muslims to register on the site as candidates for these suicide operations.

Once again this means only one thing: they can go from one place to another and they can communicate to each other, very easily. And we are all menaced, whatever the policy our Governments make.

________________________________

Elder of Ziyon has an appaling story which happened in London. A woman enters a café in Edgware Road near Marble Arch and asks for a juice. She sits down and waits for it, noticing she is the only female customer. When the waitress brings it to her, she complaints because it was fermented and tells the woman it needed to be conserved in a refrigerator.

But the waitress answers “No– English”. So exasperated, she shouts:

Is there no-one working here who speaks English? This is Paddington – this is still a London neighbourhood.’
A well-dressed man came over and said ‘I speak English.’ I thought he was going to intervene on my behalf but instead came out with this astonishing observation:
‘You are a racist! You are a racist ape! Look at you– you are an ape!’[…] Shocked, I glared at him, but he had to finish things off : ‘You want them to speak Hebrew, don’t you?’

😯 This man has a problem with geography…

I got up from my seat and went over to him and at the top of my voice said I would be proud to speak Hebrew if I could, it being the language of the Torah and of an ancient culture going back six-thousand years. [Heh, imagine the face of the moron…:twisted: ].
He then embarked on a tirade at me about the ‘five million Indians’ slaughtered in genocide in America. [Of course, Muslims have never killed a poor fly in their whole history…]. Meanwhile, the men in the café were in various states of laughter at me, and exhibiting great admiration for him.
Believe it or not, the server had in the meantime brought me a fresh juice which I calmly drank with my very un-Hebrew ham and cheese sandwich, and then I left. I wandered over to the flower shop and found myself commiserating with what seemed to be two Englishwomen who lived in a permanent state of fear in a neighbourhood they had called their own for generations. They told me I must have been mad going into that shop, as ‘all the establishments in Edgware Road are off-limits to us now.’

😯 Not surprised then that the British are going abroad in something very similar to an stampede.

____________________________________

Once again all of these stories makes this come true:

ejem… I feel this is insulting for the poor pig…

 ___________________________________

NYT has run a story critisizing Mother Theresa, and feeling disgusted because normal US nationals know Calcutta not because of its beautiful buildings and educated middle class, but because of her. So what is the problem with her and the liberal media around the world?

As a doctor, I can only shake my head at those sophisticated critics that lament her hospices don’t meet the year 2000 standards of university hospitals. They ignore the question: If Mother Teresa’s hospice was not there, where would the people go? To other Indian hospices? To University hospitals, with private beds and gourmet meals?

… The rest off the criticisms similarly show a strange envy of the good. But why Mother Teresa? Why not slime American born Ram Dass and the Indian doctors and who helped wipe out small pox in India? Or slime Mother Wichiencharoen, a Buddhist nun, for her shelters in Bangkok?But we all know why, don’t we? The NYTimes doesn’t like Catholics.

It’s the sex stupid.

Mother Teresa opposed abortion and promoted chastity. How dare she impose her rigid Catholic morality on poor Hindus, (whose religion, by the way, also opposes abortion and promotes chastity).
But the editors of the NYTimes can’t have a rich American slime Mother Teresa, so they find an Indian born woman to do it.
So let’s destroy the reputation of Mother Teresa, and we won’t feel so guilty at our next cocktail party.

SC&A writes:

We are not all Mother Teresa. That said, because we are not all Mother Teresa, we ought not diminish her status so that we might be her equal. The ability to reach within and bring the very best of who we are isn’t easy. If it were, we’d all be heroes.

We live in a world that trivializes goodness and and character. The virtues of money, sex and inflexibility are celebrated and extolled. ‘Take no prisoners’ has come to define not only political agendas, but moral ones as well. Success often means trading in values that might actualize the very best of who we are, for values that will clearly enslave us.

We do have the ability to reach that part of ourselves that is the best of ourselves and if we choose, we can make that self actualization as natural as breathing. Who we are won’t change- in fact, we can choose to reach out to our own unique potential and evolve into our best selves. Each of us has within our grasp, the opportunity to be our own expression of Mother Teresa.

Read it all: it’s really worth your time.

I have said around the world because in Spain it was El País (yes, you all know how much I love that newspaper) the liberal MSM which was worried about how on earth someone with doubts could be made saint… because she had lost her faith. 😯 Of course, what the article’s writer did not know is that Nowak -secretary of the Congregation for the Saints’ Cause- said: “It is a phenomenon which happens to every great mistic and spiritual teacher, as Saint Teresa of Jesus or Saint Juan de la Cruz, called spiritual night or senses’ night.  They are special periods of the spiritual life of the people who feel themselves abandoned by a God who they feel is very far from them“.

😈 Oh, yeah, but they are independent and objective. Yeah, without doubt…

And, while these liberal media are critisizing and diminishing her so much, the Feast the Missionaries of Charity have given in her honor and her tomb were full of people to mark the 10th anniversary of her death. In the ocassion, Sister Nirmala Joshi, her succesor as Head of the MofC, said:

Only those of an advanced level of spirituality” experience this, Sister Nirmala said, calling it a sign of being close to God. It is like being close “to the sun and so blinded by the brilliance,” she explained.

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Iranian 40.000 human bombs. See the video inside (in English). Is this what gender equality means for the Iranian aytollahs?

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Lastly, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he was “shocked and humbled” by a visit to a refugee camp in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region. Hmm, for someone who has been for so many years in the UN, saying that is errr, well, not very trustful… How on earth he did not know this? For a complete roundup of news regarding this, you can read Passion of the Present.

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UN probes ‘abuse’ in Ivory Coast

 

The United Nations is investigating allegations of widespread sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers serving in Ivory Coast. The UN said a unit of its contingent in Bouake, a northern rebel stronghold, had been confined to base. It would not give the nationalities of those troops under investigation. [Why so much secrets about this?]

Claims of sexual abuse have been made against UN troops on various missions, prompting ex-UN chief Kofi Annan to declare a “zero tolerance” policy.

“There have been crimes such as rape, paedophilia and human trafficking,” he said in December 2006, shortly before leaving office.

He said sexual exploitation and abuse were “utterly immoral” and at odds with the UN mission, and would be punished. Sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeeping personnel hit the headlines in 2004 after a UN report detailed widespread abuse in the DR Congo involving UN troops.

More than 300 members of UN peacekeeping missions around the world have been investigated for sexual exploitation and abuse since 2004, including some stationed in Congo, Cambodia and Haiti.

BBC NEWS | Africa | UN probes ‘abuse’ in Ivory Coast

You know, I am not going to say that every Un peacekeeper is an abuser -soemthing that a lo of people have said of the Catholic priests-.

But it would be good that, for a change, the same people who attack the Catholic Church about the children abuse, would also attack the UN about this. In the end, you only belong to the Catholic Church if you want, but all countries -and as a result their citizens- are contributing to UN missions, with money, material and, what is more important, with soldiers. The lack of information that has been provided is also a fault that could not be easily solved.

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Afghans: 62 Taliban, 45 civilians killed – Yahoo! News

 

An investigation into airstrikes that slammed into Afghan homes where Taliban fighters sought shelter found that 62 insurgents and 45 civilians were killed, two Afghan officials said Sunday.

An investigating team was sent to Helmand province’s Gereshk district, where fighting took place between insurgents and Western forces late Friday, said Dur Ali Shah, the mayor of Helmand province’s Gereshk district, and Mohammad Hussein Andewal, the provincial police chief.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force has acknowledged some civilians were killed in the southern battle but has said the death toll was nowhere near as high as Afghan officials have claimed.

Because of the battle site’s remote location, it was impossible to independently verify the casualty claims. Afghan officials said fighter jets and ground forces were still patrolling the region and that the fighting continued into Saturday.

Meanwhile, a suicide attacker on foot blew himself up near a convoy of British forces in Gereshk district on Sunday, wounding several Afghans, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said.

The battle on Friday began when Taliban fighters tried to ambush a joint U.S.-Afghan military convoy, then fled to Hyderabad village for cover, said Helmand provincial Police Chief Mohammad Hussein. Airstrikes then targeted the militants in the village.

Afghans: 62 Taliban, 45 civilians killed – Yahoo! News

From FOX.com.

Civilian deaths have infuriated Afghans. President Hamid Karzai has condemned the forces for carelessness and viewing Afghan lives as “cheap.” He also has blamed the Taliban for using civilians as human shields.

So what Pres. Karzai want forces to do? I know that it’s a very difficult decision to make but does he want the UN forces not to respond to attacks when the Taliban just uses normal people as human shields so they think the UN forces are a bunch of pussies who have “compassion”=frailty for militants?

It’s a tough problem to solve.

But at least, he recognises they took the people as human shields. Something which is not widely recognised.

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Islamic imperialism

h/t Confessions of a Closet Republican.

Also read the Project of the Muslim Brotherhood h/t Desde el Exilio and the Turkish Islamist party’s project for Europe h/t Free Thoughts.

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European Union renews its offer to Cuba and invites a Cuban delegation

After considering the state in which some political prisoners are in Cuba (for example, this same week we have known about Guido Sigler Amaya’s condition which is very grave but does not have any kind of medical support), we have known today that:

1. European Union FM are asking to renew the dialogue with Cuba. Only United Kingdom, the Checz Republic, Ireland or Belgium have opposed to it. In the text they include in the dialogue, subjects like political sphere, human rights, economical, scientific and cultural questions and “the support for a peaceful transition in Cuba“. They also maintain that the mutual relationship should be based on “reciprocity and no-discrimination“. Now, can someone tell me how on earth Europe was discriminating Cuba before? Not maintaining good relations with a dictator is not discriminating, it’s just a way to tell the world you oppose him firmly.
2. “Contrary to all the promises of reform issued last year, the proposal released today by Council President Luis Alfonso de Alba targets Israel for permanent indictment under a special agenda item: “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories,” which includes “Human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories”; and “Right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.” No other situation in the world is singled out — not genocide in Sudan, not child slavery in China, nor the persecution of democracy dissidents in Egypt and elsewhere. Moreover, the council will entrench its one-sided investigative mandate of “Israeli violations of international law”—the only one not subject to regular review after a set term—by renewing it “until the end of the occupation.” To sum up, the UN Human Rights Council is going to punish Israel but not Belarus, Cuba, China or Iran.

My question is: what do these organizations, which supposedly are fighting for Human Rights, do to really support them?

I answer: nothing. They are only bashing democracies, where they know their pathetic speeches can have some effect in part of the population. But not doing so against the dictatorships where they are not going to receive anything but disdain and reproaches. And we do not want that from China, Saudi Arabia, Cuba or Iran, do we?

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Bomb in Afghan capital kills at least 35 – Yahoo! News

 Yesterday it was 4, today the number is 35.

An enormous bomb ripped through a police academy bus at Kabul’s busiest transportation hub Sunday, killing at least 35 people in the deadliest insurgent [as ever] attack in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

The thunderous explosion in Kabul, which sheared the metal sidings and roof off the bus, leaving only a charred skeleton, represented a leap in scale from previous Taliban or al-Qaida bombings here, raising the specter of an increase in Iraq-style attacks in Afghanistan.

In the country’s south, a roadside explosion killed three soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition and their Afghan interpreter. The brief statement about the blast in Kandahar province did not disclose the soldiers’ nationalities. The three deaths bring to 84 the number of U.S. or NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, including at least 40 Americans.

In the Kabul explosion, at least 35 people were killed, including 22 policemen, said Ahmed Zia Aftali, head of the city’s military hospital. A victim said the bus had been filled with police instructors.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said a Taliban suicide bomber. The claim by Ahmadi, who called an Associated Press reporter by satellite phone from an undisclosed location, claim could not be verified. If true, it would be the fifth suicide attack in Afghanistan in three days.

Bomb in Afghan capital kills at least 35 – Yahoo! News

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

35 Die As Bomb Rips Through Bus in Kabul
Washington Post – 4 hours ago
By RAHIM FAIEZ AP KABUL, Afghanistan — An enormous bomb ripped through a police academy bus at Kabul’s busiest transportation hub Sunday, killing at least 35 people in the deadliest insurgent attack in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001.
Afghan bomb attack against police bus kills 35 (3rd Roundup) Monsters and Critics.com
Kabul police bus blast kills 35 New Straits Times
Times Online – PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung) – Melbourne Herald Sun – Taipei Times
all 1,323 news articles » 

From M&C:

The foreign nationals were driving in another mini-bus and passing the area at the time of blast. They were working with Ashiana, an organization which provides accommodation and education for homeless children in the Afghan capital, police said.

[[En Español]]

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

Daimnation!: The root cause of the violence in Darfur

According to the new UN Secretary, it’s all about global warming [excerpts out of sequence]:Two decades ago, the rains in southern Sudan began to fail. According to U.N. statistics, average precipitation has declined some 40 percent since the early 1980s. Scientists at first considered this to be an unfortunate quirk of nature. But subsequent investigation found that it coincided with a rise in temperatures of the Indian Ocean, disrupting seasonal monsoons. This suggests that the drying of sub-Saharan Africa derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming.

It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought. Until then, Arab nomadic herders had lived amicably with settled farmers. A recent Atlantic Monthly article by Stephan Faris describes how black farmers would welcome herders as they crisscrossed the land, grazing their camels and sharing wells. But once the rains stopped, farmers fenced their land for fear it would be ruined by the passing herds. For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out. By 2003, it evolved into the full-fledged tragedy we witness today…

At this point, nothing surprises me about this man at all. But Darfur conflict is mainly an ethnic and religious conflict in which the Government, arming and unleashing the Janjaweed militias, has caused an ethnic and religious cleasing of, firstly, the non-Muslims (Christians and Animists) and of the Black Muslims, afterwards, when the first ones were virtually exterminated. Of course, the huge sea of oil under Darfurian soil has also have something to do with it, specially for China, who is aggresively exploiting it. Hmm, no more blood for petrol!! Eeh, no, it’s China, all for the people…

But of course, for Ban Ki-Moon, the most important reason of all, is the climate change induced, to some extent, by man. Of course, the extent of this man’s influence is not even measured…

Alex de Waal is one of the most important experts on the Horn of Africa: Chasing Ghosts: Alex de Waal on the rise and fall of militant Islam in the Horn of Africa (2005):

Khartoum had been saved from certain military defeat when its adversaries fell out among themselves. In May 1998, Eritrea and Ethiopia went to war over their disputed border, and a couple of months later Ugandan and Rwandan troops fought each other in the occupied Congolese city of Kisangani. As the attempt to found an Islamic state was running into the sand, so was the rival left-wing project of revolutionary militarism. The guerrillas-turned-governments in the four ‘frontline states’ were, like the Sudanese leaders, concerned only with staying in power.

This parallel is more than a neat coincidence. The radical Islamists and their regional enemies shared ideological fervour and organisational discipline. Both believed that enduring problems of state and society could be overcome by revolutionary change; and, as this failed, both reverted to simple power politics. Like other political creeds, jihadist Islamism is shaped by the contours of local politics – and sometimes it vanishes into the landscape.

The demise of grand ideology in the Horn did not mean the end of violence or militancy. Various ideologies have emerged from the ruins of the Islamic state project. Most are regional or tribal. In Darfur and Chad, Arab supremacism took over. Leaders of the infamous Janjawiid militia adhere to the philosophy of Qoreish, according to which the lineal descendants of the Prophet Muhammad and his Qoreish tribe are entitled to rule Muslim lands. This supposedly gives the Arabic-speaking Saharan Bedouin of the Juhayna confederation the right to dominate all the land between the Nile and Lake Chad. While US Special Forces chase a handful of jihadists in the mountains of the central Sahara, they have overlooked this vicious and archaic ideology, which has spread far more havoc just a few miles to the south.

Jihad in Sudan? What Jihad in Sudan? by Robert Spencer – HUMAN EVENTS

For a decade Khartoum has waged what the regime itself calls a jihad against Christians and tribalists in the South. A 1992 fatwa issued by a group of pro-Khartoum Sudanese imams declared: “An insurgent who was previously a Muslim is now an apostate and a non-Muslim is a non-believer standing as a bulwark against the spread of Islam, and Islam has granted the freedom of killing both of them.” This allowed for the murder of Christians and animists in the south; now it has been turned against the Muslims of Darfur, whose Islam doesn’t measure up to Khartoum’s hardline standards. Yet Annan has never acknowledged that what is going on in Sudan is a jihad. And this is just one manifestation of the by-now inescapable fact that the United Nations is damaged beyond repair. The Islamic states maintain an unbreakable solidarity. The only exception to their unwillingness to condemn other Muslim states came when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq attacked Kuwait.Meanwhile, the Europeans and Chinese have oil interests in Sudan that dovetail nicely at the UN with the Islamic bloc’s determination to repel any criticism. France, the most energetic opponent of UN sanctions against the Khartoum regime, is heavily invested in Sudan through its oil giant ElfTotal. 

The emperor has no clothes, but Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights and
Oxfam are still paying enthusiastic obeisance. A perusal of each of their websites demonstrates that they criticize the UN only with extreme reluctance and in the most muted tones. In a startling recrudescence of the old “white man’s burden” mentality, they tend to focus more anger at the United States and Western Europe for failing to stop killings than at the murderers themselves. And above all, they won’t describe the conflict as what it really is: a jihad, another example of the crying need for large-scale reform within Islam.

Well, Sarkozy has apparently changed the French ideas in this respect, firstly, calling for a Chinese intervention in the crisis, something very dificult to achieve considering the Chinese practices in Sudan. And secondly, by making Darfur, one of his priorities.

[En español]

Technorati Tags: Darfur, Ban Ki-Moon, climate change, UN, Arab supremacism, Jihad, Sudan, Horn of Africa

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Suicide bomber kills 4 in Afghan capital

Suicide bomber kills 4 in Afghan capital – Houston Chronicle

Earthtimes.org

Suicide bomber kills 4 in Afghan capital
Houston Chronicle – 40 minutes ago
By RAHIM FAIEZ AP Writer © 2007 AP KABUL, Afghanistan – A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of American contract workers and military personnel in the Afghan capital on Saturday, killing at least four civilians, officials said.

Maj. Sheldon Smith, a U.S. spokesman for troops training Afghan
police and army soldiers, said American contract workers and military
personnel were in the convoy. A spokesman at the U.S. base at Bagram
said workers with DynCorp, who are helping train Afghan police, were
attacked.

Smith said the coalition “never intentionally
endangers the lives of innocent Afghan civilians” but that the Taliban
routinely and intentionally uses explosive devices in heavily populated
areas.

Taliban spokesmen have warned Afghan civilians to
avoid military convoys, but suicide bombings commonly kill or wound far
more civilians than military targets — a fact NATO repeatedly points
out.

The Amerian soldier in a Humvee “mistakenly” opened
fire on the crowd after the suicide attack, killing one civilian and
wounding three, said Zalmai Khan, deputy Kabul police chief.

Afterward, a crowd of 50 to 100 people gathered, with some chanting “Death to America” and jabbing their arms at police.

One
man in the crowd, Atta Mohammad, said the civilian killed by the U.S.
soldier was just trying to buy credit for his cell phone. “Nobody among
us was doing anything wrong,” Mohammad said.

“They are against us, they are against Afghans,” said another, Abdul Rahim.

Look at the logic eh? A suicide bomber kills four civilians at least. Totally intentionally. A soldier after the attack kills mistakenly 1 and hurts 3. And the crowd doe snot chant “death to the Talibans, they are against us“, but “Death to America, they are against us“. Isn’t life wonderful…
Suicide Bomber Kills 4 Bystanders in Afghanistan New York Times
US convoy targeted by suicide bomber in Afghanistan KOLD-TV
Monsters and Critics.com – People’s Daily Online – Voice of America – Gulf Times
all 364 news articles

technorati tags:Afghanistan, Taliban, terrorism, USA, UN, OTAN, international_peace_missions

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China and North Korea: more violations of Human Rights

China is not respecting the Refugees’ Statute UN Convention h/t Aquiles [in Spanish]. As North Korea is not precisely heaven on earth, they try to escape from their countries to the neighbouring ones as I have already being treating here. The phenomenon is on the rise as the North Koreans want to leave in the past the chronic food shortages and political oppression.

The entry into South Korea is really hard to achieve mainly because of the de-militarized zone and because the North Korean beaches are closed.

So this poor people only have another possible way of fleeing: entering China. And what China does with them? Chinese authorities send them back to North Korea:

Now those returned by China are often sentenced to prison for several years, and repeat offenders or Christians can be sent with their entire families to labor camps for life.

Some North Koreans told me that their government now holds regular sentencing rallies, at which the punishments are publicly announced — or in extreme cases, such as those who became Christian evangelists while in China, the accused are executed in front of the crowd by firing squad.

North Korea would not be a poor country -as it is- if it would not be because of its Government, who is now spending UN Funds to buy property in France, Britain and Canada. Even the UN has conceeded North Korea has violated UN rules:

About $3 million in United Nations money intended to help impoverished North Koreans was diverted by the Pyongyang government toward the purchase of property in France, the United Kingdom and Canada, according to a confidential State Department account of witness reports and internal business records. Millions more, the department reported, went to a North Korean institution linked to a bank alleged to handle arms deals.

Ban Ki-Moon as ever kissing the ass of North Korean Kim Il Sung (something which is not new):

Ban said a follow-up visit to North Korea is required in order to get more detailed information. But the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has already rejected such a visit, and critics of the UN said they doubted it would happen. 

Of course, a visit. That’s what i call a truly good solution. And what is going to do Kim Il-Sung? To present documents accusing him of diverting money?

And do you know who have also behaved like China with North Korean refugees?

SEOUL: In 1999, a group of seven North Koreans fleeing their country was intercepted in Russia. The Russian authorities, rejecting appeals from the United Nations and human rights groups, sent them to China. China returned them to North Korea.

In the ensuing uproar in South Korea over the government’s failure to rescue them, the foreign minister had to step down. And then, the seven were largely forgotten. Those who remember them may have recalled their frightened faces on Russian television, where they said they feared death if sent back to their Communist homeland.

Now, two of them have escaped again and arrived in South Korea, contradicting what the North Korean government told United Nations officials about the group’s fate – that most had been returned to their homes and jobs. One brought with him accounts of life and death at North Korea’s infamous prison camp No. 15, known to the outside world as Yodok.

“Until the last minute, until the Russians blindfolded us, loaded us into a truck and handed us over to the Chinese at a border bridge on Dec. 31, 1999, we believed the United Nations could save us,” said Kim Eun Chul, now 27, in an interview. “We were naive about real-world politics.”

At least five of the seven languished in Yodok, where inmates toiled 15 hours or more a day on rations meager even by the standards of the impoverished North for such deeds as criticizing the government

or fleeing the country because of famine, Kim said.

[…] Moscow said it was honoring its border treaty with Beijing, and Beijing said it was doing the same with Pyongyang. Pyongyang accused Seoul of trying to kidnap its citizens.

Read all the article.

Jang Ho Young -right- was one of a group who fled North Korea, but was returned and jailed at Yodok, a prison camp. [Photographs by NKHR]

The pressure is so great that North Koreans are now fleeing on boat to Japan (here, here and here). Japanese authorities have doubted if the 4 were spies (they had wristwatches, an important amount of fuel and the younger son was having methamphetamines to keep him awake and to be able to manage the jobs) although there are other considerations which lead to consider them only as refugees. South Korea has accepted them and Japan will transfer them there.

North Korea has also used political prisoners from a concentration camp to prepare for its underground nuclear test h/t One Free Korea.

But that is not at all interesting for China.

Related news:

1. “Slaves” rescued from China firm. Many workers had extensive burns from the hot bricks -they were obliged to carry them even they have not been properly cooled-. Eight workers were so traumatised by their experiences that they were only able to remember their names. The labourers had to work unpaid for 20 hours at a time, and were only given bread and water in return. The brickworks, in the poor inland province of Shanxi, is owned by the son of the local Communist Party secretary.  […] the rescued workers had been duped into working at the factory. Once there, they faced a harsh regime. One man was even reported to have been beaten to death with a hammer, because he did not work fast enough. When police raided the brickworks they discovered foul-smelling workers who had been wearing the same clothes for a year. […] Local people said the brickworks, near Linfen, would have been closed down a long time ago had it not been for the protection of the party secretary. In Spanish in El Mundo. In a whole year, they couldn’t get out of the brickworks. They were also obliged to walk barefoot in the oven. Even the existence of a Chinese civil registry, which controls the movements of all Chinese, has not stopped the peasants from migrating to other areas. They are foreigners in their own country and become illegal workers, accepting jobs for 60€/month and no contract, security or right to protest.
2. Well, do you know what is Le Monde worried about? The attacks against French Marks in China multiply: Milk bottles for children and feeding bottles, mineral water Evian and seafood are the targets of denigrating campaigns in the MSM. More than 118 tons of Evian’s mineral water have been blocked, Feb 2007, in the customs duty in Shangai, because of an alleged “very high level of bacteries“. And they continue: “Must we long for the time when China was asleep? When it is awaken, it has a apetite that makes anyone feel anxious”. Hmm, life is good. The only problems with China are related with our firms… But French products are not the only ones who have faced this kind of blocking. Also US products. I wonder if Spanish products have faced something similar…
3. China has increased its trade with North Korea, despite nuclear conflict and missile launching -again on Jun, 7th-. Or thanks to it? h/t NoKorea Economy Watch.
4. From China e-Lobby: Chen Yonglin talks about Communist espionage and the Long Arm of Lawlessness in Canada: The former Communist consular official who defected to Australia in 2005 “brought with him a portfolio of Chinese documents” (Toronto Star, h/t Between Heaven and Earth) detailing Communist China’s espionage network in Australia, and in particular its targeting of exiled dissidents and other anti-Communists (dubbed “The Long Arm of Lawlessness” by yours truly). Chen further ” says that Canada likely has a comparable amount (of Communist spying) within its borders” (Globe and Mail, h/t BH&E).Human rights activist sentenced in Beijing; family and lawyer still know nothing about it: The cadres were so determined to send Hua Huiqi to jail that they refused to let his family or his attorney into the courtroom for the sentence (Epoch Times). Hua was arrested for “accompanying his mother who tried to hand-deliver materials of complaint letters to representatives of the ‘two conferences (i.e. the National People’s Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference).'” His mother is serving a two-year jail term.

More about NKorea Human Rights, here.

China has put economy before environment (more here: 16 out of 20 of the more polluted cities are Chinese). But if there is something very surprising is:

Ma, however, stressed that the bulk of responsibility for battling climate change still lay with industrialized countries, which “are in a better position to cap emissions.”

He said they also have the obligation to provide financial and technical support to developing nations — like China — whose “overriding priority at the moment is still economic development and poverty eradication.”

And the result of Chinese policies: From Phastidio.Net:

Prosecutors have charged environmental activist Wu Lihong with extortion from industrial plants that he accused of polluting Taihu Lake in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, state media said on Wednesday. The prosecutors in Jiangsu’s Yixing city accused Wu, who was once nominated as one of China’s top 10 environmentalists, of extorting 55,000 yuan (6,875 dollars) by threatening to expose the plants’ pollution, the official Xinhua news agency said. The agency quoted prosecutors as saying Wu’s diary listed “blackmail targets and showed amounts of money he had planned to extort from each factory or enterprise.”

The Yixing court had not set a date for the trial of Wu, 39, who had fought for years against the pollution of Taihu.
Water supplies from the lake had to be cut to 2 million people in nearby Wuxi city in late May because excessive pollution had promoted the growth of a pungent blue-green algae.

Sent to Open Trackbacks to: 123 beta, A Blog for All, Blue Star Chronicles, Dumb Ox, Pirate’s Cove, The Amboy Times, Woman Honor Thyself.

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As UN approves the creation of a special tribunal to try suspects, Hezbulah and Syria take positions

The United Nations Security Council has approved the creation of a special tribunal to try suspects in the killing of Rafiq Hariri, Lebanon’s former prime minister.

UN sets up tribunal over Hariri killing

Reuters – Syria could spark trouble in Lebanon in response to a U.N. Security Council vote to set up a tribunal to try the killers of Rafik al-Hariri, the former prime minister’s son said on Thursday.

Syria may trouble Lebanon after U.N. vote: Hariri (Reuters)

But the situation turns out to be ridiculous when you see that both Hezbullah and Syria have accused the new tribunal of violate the Lebanese sovereignty, when even the Lebanon Government have asked twice for the existence of the tribunal.

Today also another Lebanese soldier has been killed, with shots coming from inside of the camp.

Christian Science Monitor reports that inside the camp the population is turning over the Islamists. The subtitle says blames the recent battles between Lebanese police and Fatah al-Islam for the anger of the residents. But you continue reading you see that is not exactly true:

Tripoli, a traditionally conservative Sunni Muslim city, has long been fertile ground for the growth of Islamic radicalism. And analysts and religious leaders here say that dozens of foreign militants – many of them veterans of the war in Iraq – have relocated to Tripoli in recent months, some of them joining Fatah al-Islam, a new Al Qaeda-linked faction bottled up in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, 10 miles to the north.

The presence of foreign fighters and the week-long battles between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam are giving rise to concerns that groups inspired by Al Qaeda are seeking to take advantage of Lebanon’s political turmoil to establish a foothold here.

“I used to say that there was no Al Qaeda in Lebanon. And I believed that until last week. Now I am convinced that Al Qaeda is here in Tripoli and northern Lebanon,” says Sheikh Omar Bakri, a cleric who runs a religious library in the Abi Samra district of Tripoli.

So, how many time the preparation of this has taken Al-Qaeda?

In line with this, yesterday was arrested a high-rank member of Al-Qaeda in a Beirut hotel:

According to this reliable source, this very dangerous terrorist had illegaly crossed into Lebanon from Syria overland. He had come over the weekend to coordinate with Fatah al Islam militants currently barricaded in the Nahr el Bared Refugee Camp and battling the Lebanese Army.

Go over and read it all (You can also read Gateway Pundit). It’s worth to see another reason why Syria considers illegal the Tribunal…

Just to see how unhappy Lebanese are with UN resolution, Jim aka Gateway Pundit posts this photo:

Young Lebanese men dance to celebrate the U.N. resolution on the Rafik Hariri tribunal in the predominantly Sunni area of Tariq el-Jadidah in downtown Beirut, Lebanon Wednesday, May 30, 2007. Supporters of slain former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri cheered and wept — and some even danced in the streets — late Wednesday to celebrate the U.N. Security Council approval of the international tribunal to prosecute suspects in his killing. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

You can also check Chaim’s Blog:

Mahmoud Khalil Taha, 85, who fled the Nahr el-Bared camp in the morning, is checked by a nurse on his arrival at a school turned center for the displaced in Bedawi refugee camp where many residents of the besieged Nahr el-Bared refugee camp have sought shelter, near the city of Tripoli in Lebanon – Tuesday, May 29, 2007
(Photo from: Yahoo)

 

Related posts:

1. Lebanon vs. AlQaeda and Fatah al Islam (II).
2. Lebanon vs. AlQaeda and Fatah al islam (I).

Etiquetas de del.icio.us: Lebanon, Syria, UN, Hariri, Hariri’s assasination

Etiquetas de Technorati: Lebanon, Syria, UN, Hariri, Hariri’s assasination

[En Español].

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Lebanon vs Al-Qaeda and Fatah al Islam (II)

This post could also be titled as BBC Watch, because it is very funny how they write about the situation in the refugee camp:

Thousands of people have used a night-time lull in fighting between troops and Islamist militants to flee a refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

Palestinians in Nahr al-Bared had been trapped for three days as Lebanese army troops exchanged fire with Fatah al-Islam fighters holed up in the camp.

At least 50 soldiers and militants have died. The civilian toll is unknown.

UN head of humanitarian affairs John Holmes appealed to the warring sides to allow aid supplies into the camp.

He said it was outrageous that a relief convoy which had entered the camp on Tuesday had been forced to turn back after shells exploded near its vehicles.

There are two very interesting things in this part of the news:

1. the Islamist terrorists are called militants and fighters, as if they were some kind of wonderful saviors. As I posted yesterday, the people are turning these terrorists affable murderers to the authorities. They are there ONLY because the troops are not allowed inside the camp and are using Palestinian refugees as human shields. I make the same question as yesterday: Why this is not told by BBC? -yesterday it was Yahoo!-Reuters-.
2. And the second is even more outrageous: the aid supplies were bombed by the fighters who were trying that the Palestinians did not get out of the camp. They even did not want the evacuation of the wounded.

From Beirut to the Beltway has written about the last events in Lebanon (h/t Blacksmiths of Lebanon):

The Lebanese army is acting to “finish off” the terrorists in the Nahr El Bared refugee camp, after receiving a green light Monday from the Lebanese cabinet, and political cover from the Palestinian factions, who are now concerned about the civilian death toll. The army is now reportedly moving into the camp and arresting some of the terrorists.

[…] According to As-Safir, an ISF investigation into a bank robbery accidentally led the police to an apartment in Tripoli that members of Fatah al-Islam used as a base. The Islamists reacted to the police operation by attacking a Lebanese army post near the Nahr El Bared refugee camp, slaughtering 17 Lebanese army soldiers in their sleep, and ambushing others on leave in Qalamoun and Koura. The terrorists’ weapon of choice: suicide attacks. As-Safir said the ISF and the Army intelligence had been monitoring the movements of Fatah al-Islam for months. They succeeded in apprehending over a dozen members, but the camp was off limits to them.

The terrorist group, implicated in a terrorist attack last February, and reportedly charged with killing politicians and attacking UNIFIL troops, as well as killing “crusaders and Zionists”, had been trying to extend its zone of influence to the international highway connecting Lebanon to Syria. The group often clashed with other Palestinian factions, especially Fatah, which accused it at various points in time of being controlled by Syrian intelligence. There have been attempts by local camp leaders to hand over suspects in the Ain Alaq bombings to the Lebanese authorities, but these attempts failed.

Read all the post. Nothing to do with BBC coverage…

Finally the UN and Red Cross convoys have entered and they keep on being shot by terrorists militants. There are 4 dead.

And attention to this comment:

Beirut mood report: Today the traffic was very light, people are scared, they fear leaving home and not coming back, there’s a tense mood in the air. It was calm. People noticed a change in the tonality of the Palestinian parties, this caused fears, yesterday the Palestinian parties said they want to end the terrorist group, but today rallies were held in the camps against the government of Saniora and the Leb army. The word on the street is that Damascus put enormous pressure on Palestinians especially Hamas to change the tonality of their statements…God Help Lebanon

Hmm, not surprising. These terrorists militants have been killing Palestinians (even using them as human shields!!) and, instead of confronting them, they are confronting the Lebanese army…

And this other one about the Fatah al-Islam leader asking and obtaining help from Syria.

You can go and read the comments. They are very interesting.

Global Voices Online has a roundup on Lebanese bloggers and their view on the situation. Read all of them. There are opinions of all sorts. 😉

Here there is more about the Aschrafief bombing.

The American Thinker writes about the leader of the group:

al-Abssi was sentenced to death along with al-Zarqawi in Jordan for assassinating the United States diplomat Laurence Foley, he was freed from a Syrian jail where he had spent three years for plotting terrorist attacks there. Released last fall, he made his way immediately to the northern Lebanese refugee camp Nahr el-Bared where he began to recruit not only Palestinians but also Arab fighters and jihadists from as far away as Chechnya.

A very good and peaceful guy. A true alliancetor [Zapatero’s registered trade mark 🙂 ]

More in Good neighbours Blog. h/t Extreme Centre.org.

And last news are that… UN condemns Lebanon for disproportionate response. Hmm, no mention to the human shields also, a very important thing, because if someone is shooting you from behind a woman, what would you do? And what would you do if that same someone is shooting to other civilians from behind the same woman?

Blaming the troops for that is very easy, but from my point of view is not the solution. The first condemnation -and the most important one- should be given to the terrorists and their blackmail of innocent civilians. But the UN Secretary General does a good work on considering the Lebanese Army equal to the terrorists. I am not the least surprised. I have had a very bad opinion of Ban Ki-Moon since he was elected and I knew his position of Kim Il Jong. Appeasement in full extent…

(UPDATE): You can also see the video Chaim links. Attention to Abbas’s permission to enter the camp…

Previous post: Lebanon vs. Al-Qaeda and Fatah al-Islam.

del.icio.us tags: Lebanon, Al-Qaeda, Fatar- al-Islamism, Palestine, UN, Ban Ki-Moon, refugee camp

Technorati tags: Lebanon, Al-Qaeda, Fatar- al-Islamism, Palestine, UN, Ban Ki-Moon, refugee camp

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Islamic bycicles: the new strategy of Iran

Well, our beloved Ahmadinejad said that in Iran, “women’s rights are more respected than men’s“. That is why they are now issuing an “Islamic bycicle” for women:

 

Iran will make “Islamic bycicles for women, thought to hide the feminine forms by a cabin which would cover half of the body.
“This project will promote the practice of sport by women”, said Elaheh Sofali, one of the women who are responsible of the project”, according to the Government’s newspaper.
Faezeh Hachémi, daughter of ax-Iranian President Rafsandjani, ex-responsible of the women’s Olympic sport, tried to develop cycling between women in the 90’s, but this decision did not have the hoped success because of the opposition of the conservative religious bodies.

Conservative? I guess the culprit is Aznar, again…

Kamangir has more about this, including this photo:
At the same time, the Iranian regime continues to crackdown on the feminist movement in Iran with no aid from feminists throughout the world.

 

Despite the constant harassment of its members, the Iranian feminist movement is growing and is alarming the government,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. “The Internet is now a battle-ground between these women, who are just demanding the same rights as men, and a regime that remains as rigid as ever.”The series of arrests are an indication that the small progress that had been made under the former reformist president Mohammad Khatami is now being rolled back by his successor, the hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, since he was elected in 2005.

The Iranian police are also ramping up their inspections of women to ensure they are adhering to the Islamic dress code. The annual spring offensive to make sure women are covering up enough has been particularly strict this year. And the government in Tehran is now drafting a law to limit female students to half the places in college, instead of the 65 percent they currently occupy.

At the same time, Iran can be as close as 12 months away to gaining the ability to produce the nuclear bomb.

Iran has also jailed an Iranian-American journalist who converted from Islam to Judaism and also a top blogger, who is accused of … being a spy!

But the most outstanding measure of idiocy in Iran is that they are also arresting DOGS!! (here). And they are also confiscating cars for carrying the dog inside h/t Gateway Pundit.

Norwegian-Iranian Mamand Mamandy had a brutal meeting with police after drinking two beers while on holiday in Iran. He was sentenced to 130 lashes. This is the result:Hmm, yes,

Lastly, men and women will be separated at hospitals. h/t Stefania.

Iranian health minister Kamran Bagheri Lamkarani has presented a reform under which men and women would be divided in public hospitals under a new moralization campaign which kicked off last month. Under the new provisions, women would be treated only by female doctors and nurses and male patients would only be in contact with medics of the same gender. This follows a rigid interpretation of Sharia law which forbids physical contact between men and women.A major problem with this change is the higher number of male medics compared to women, although 67 percent of medical students in Iran are today women. However, the ministry has said the change could be gradual.

Related news:
Iran and the US will be meeting on May 28th about Iraq. Of course, Iran is not going to negotiate: Khamenei has said that it is void and that they are going “to remind the Americans of their responsibilities“. Read also “Why is Iran so quiet?” and see the photo in the post, regarding the peaceful intentions of Iran. Flap’s blog has another view on the subject.
An interesting video of an Iranian military parade.
The crisis of the Afghan illegal immigrants and refugees in Iran and Pakistan continues: experts consider that the return of 3 million people to Afghanistan can be disastrous. I ask myself: while the most part are good people who fled from Soviet war first and then from Taliban rule, how many of them are Talibans who are “pushed” now into Afghanistan to fight the UN mission?

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UN accuses Sudan over weapons

Sudan has used disguised aircraft to fly weapons into Darfur in violation of UN resolutions, the UN alleges.

The Sudanese government has been accused of violating a UN arms embargo by flying weapons into Darfur in breach of UN Security Council resolutions.

A UN report says Sudan painted aircraft white to make them look like UN planes.

Sudan’s envoy to the UN, Abdel Mahmood Abdel Haleem, said the allegations were “a lie” and that military assets were simply being moved around the country.

The US and the UK will later begin talks with other Security Council members on a new resolution on Darfur.

Abdel Mahmood Abdel Haleem told the BBC: “According to the comprehensive peace agreement signed [after the civil war in the South] between the Sudan government and the SPLM, we have to move our military assets and aircraft and all assets from the South to other regions in the country”.

Link to UN accuses Sudan over weapons

And, as a result, Bush threatens Sudan (with more sanctions):

President Bush warned Sudan’s president on Wednesday that he has one last chance to stop violence in Darfur or else the United States will impose sanctions and consider other punitive options.

Bush said he has decided to give U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon more time to pursue diplomacy with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir but made clear in a speech at the U.S. Holocaust Museum that his patience is limited.

“President Bashir should take the last chance by responding to the secretary general’s efforts and to meet the just demands of the international community,” Bush said.

Link to End Darfur violence or face sanctions, Bush tells Sudan

More here.

But do you think that this makes Bush look innocent of the genocide? NO:

A new full-page national advertising campaign from a prominent advocacy organization points a sharp finger at the Bush administration in efforts to end the ongoing genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.

The time for stalling has passed; the time for action has come,” the ad reads in bold print, quoting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Sept. 27, 2006, remarks to the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa. The ad from SaveDarfur.org notes that Rice’s comments were seven months ago, and says: “It takes more than talk to stop a genocide.”

The ad acknowledges that Sudan President Omar al-Bashir has broken promises, but then says Bush administration diplomacy “has not even slowed that genocide.”

The ad calls for a ban on Sudanese oil imports, the implementation of a no-fly zone, full funding for the U.S. share of peacekeeping and humanitarian aid and assistance in the prosecution of the case before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Link to Advocacy Group Blames Bush For Not Stopping Genocide

The question to ask is: what has been done by Europe for example? Eeh, let me guess… NOTHING. I would like this type of ads to begin blaming Europe also -and mainly-, for not trying to stop it -and except Blair and lately Merkel, no one has said nothing about Darfur- and European MSM, who are very worried about harming Iran but do not report anything about Sudan.

___________________________

Sudan ha usado aviones “disfrazados” para mover tropas y municiones hacia la frontera de Darfur. Este movimiento, que estaba prohibido por el acuerdo del alto al fuego suscrito con el apoyo de la ONU, ha sido, sin embargo, negado por el gobierno sudanés, diciendo que “sólo estamos moviendo tropas” (o sea, lo han reconocido). Según el enviado sudanés “tenemos que mover las fuerzas militares hacia otros lugares de Sudán“. Pero, ¿teneis que hacerlo en aviones sudaneses pintados como si fueran de la ONU? Me da que no…

De modo que Bush ha amenazado con imponer sanciones más duras a Sudán con el apoyo de la ONU.

Pero al final todo sigue igual: ¿quién es el culpable del genocidio sudanés? ¿El Presidente sudanés Omar al-Bashid? No. ¿los Janjaweed? No, esos son unos pacíficos monjes cuyas armas se encuentran en el camino de la cabeza, tronco o extremidades de algún campesino muy poco pacífico…

El culpable es … 1, 2, 3, responda otra vez… BUSH. La organización -izquierdista- SaveDarfur.org ha dicho que el culpable es Bush porque no ha hecho nada para detener el genocidio.

Curioso que estos, que son los mismos que luego vienen a Uropa y se deshacen con los uropeos de izquierdas ni siquiera critiquen al establishment europeo que no se ha pronunciado prácticamente nunca sobre la realidad de Darfur y, muchísimo menos ha denunciado lo que allí ha ocurrido y está ocurriendo.

 

del.icio.us tags: Darfur, Bush, SaveDarfur.org, USA, Sudan, UN, Ban ki-Moon

Technorati tags: Darfur, Bush, SaveDarfur.org, USA, Sudan, UN, Ban ki-Moon

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And they discover this now…

Well, this was one of things that has worried me more since the first time about Iran. And being the Middle East a very unstable part of the world -perhaps the most- this is more than worrying. If they have used chemical weapons in the past in the wars between them, why are they going to refrain from using nuclear power? Those countries are among the ones which respect less -in fact, which do not respect at all- Human Rights.



Eye on Iran, Rivals Pursuing Nuclear Power – New York Times

Turkey is preparing for its first atomic plant. And Egypt has announced plans to build one on its Mediterranean coast. In all, roughly a dozen states in the region have recently turned to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna for help in starting their own nuclear programs. While interest in nuclear energy is rising globally, it is unusually strong in the Middle East.

“The rules have changed,” King Abdullah II of Jordan recently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Everybody’s going for nuclear programs.”

The Middle East states say they only want atomic power. Some probably do. But United States government and private analysts say they believe that the rush of activity is also intended to counter the threat of a nuclear Iran.

By nature, the underlying technologies of nuclear power can make electricity or, with more effort, warheads, as nations have demonstrated over the decades by turning ostensibly civilian programs into sources of bomb fuel. Iran’s uneasy neighbors, analysts say, may be positioning themselves to do the same.

“One danger of Iran going nuclear has always been that it might provoke others,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, an arms analysis group in London. “So when you see the development of nuclear power elsewhere in the region, it’s a cause for some concern.”

Some analysts ask why Arab states in the Persian Gulf, which hold nearly half the world’s oil reserves, would want to shoulder the high costs and obligations of a temperamental form of energy. They reply that they must invest in the future, for the day when the flow of oil dries up.

But with Shiite Iran increasingly ascendant in the region, Sunni countries have alluded to other motives. Officials from 21 governments in and around the Middle East warned at a meeting of Arab leaders in March that Iran’s drive for atomic technology could result in the beginning of “a grave and destructive nuclear arms race in the region.”

Remember that Morocco has voiced its intention for going nuclear.



Tigerhawk looks on this subject. Also Right Truth, NoisyRoom.Net,Town Commons, and Clarity and Resolve.



And who is amid all the Muslim would-be nuclear countries?

More in IHT.

___________________________

 

La carrera de Irán hacia ser una potencia nuclear produce, a su vez, el deseo de los países de alrededor de seguile. Turquía o Marruecos así lo han hecho así como Arabia Saudí, en casi todos los casos ayudados o prometiendo la ayuda necesaria Rusia.

La decisión de producir energía nuclear ha sido cuestionada por analistas y diversos países que ven bastante extraño que las mayores productores de petróleo y gas precisen este tipo de energía.

El rey de Jordania, Abdullah II, reconoció a la revista israelí Haaretz que las cosas habían cambiado y que todos estaban buscando la energía nuclear.

Related news:

Editor’s Note – A Disarming Election: Iran and Syria lead the U.N. Disarmament Commission

On April 9, 2007 there was a United Nations believe-it-or-not moment extraordinaire. At the same time that Iran’s President Ahmadinejad declared his country was now capable of industrial-scale uranium enrichment, the U.N. reelected Iran as a vice chairman of the U.N. Disarmament Commission.



Yes Ripley, the very U.N. body charged with promoting nuclear nonproliferation installed in a senior position the state that the Security Council recently declared violated its nonproliferation resolutions.

Iran announces “industrial” nuclear fuel work – Yahoo! News

Iran announced on Monday it had begun industrial-scale nuclear fuel production in a fresh snub to the U.N. Security Council, which has imposed two rounds of sanctions on it for refusing to halt such work.

The announcement marks a shift from experimental atomic fuel work involving a few hundred centrifuges used for enriching uranium to a process that will involve thousands of machines. Western nations fear this will bring Tehran closer to what they say is its aim of building atomic bombs.

Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, insists it only wants the fuel for generating electricity so it can export more of its oil and gas.

Gateway Pundit and Sweetness and Light commented about this.

__________________

En español: Florentino Portero: Irán, más cerca de la bomba.

Un Irán nuclear representa un grave problema que no siempre somos capaces de valorar. La violación del Tratado de No proliferación por Corea del Norte e Irán a un coste diplomático y económico asumible es la señal que algunos otros están esperando para dar el paso. El régimen de no proliferación funciona mediante un doble mecanismo de persuasión y disuasión. Si el segundo elemento falla todo se viene abajo. Los países vecinos de los nuevos socios del club nuclear se sentirán forzados ellos también a dar el paso, con el objetivo de establecer un principio de disuasión o, si se prefiere, para restablecer el equilibrio. Egipto, Turquía o Arabia Saudí no podrán quedarse de brazos cruzados. El actual rearme japonés y su renovada alianza militar con Estados Unidos no pueden entenderse sin tener en cuenta el programa nuclear y de misiles norcoreano. Si fracasamos en Irán y Corea del Norte el régimen general de no proliferación entrará en crisis, lo que nos abocará a un entorno donde un conflicto nuclear será más probable que en la actualidad. El trabajo de años tratando de hacer un mundo más seguro quedará convertido en papel.

Que un estado como Irán, que nos ha declarado su hostilidad por mucho que no queramos enterarnos, acceda a la bomba nuclear implica que debemos establecer nuevos mecanismos estratégicos: disuasión nuclear y escudos antimisiles. La disuasión tiene un valor limitado cuando la otra parte está dispuesta al martirio y ese puede, en un momento dado, ser el caso de Irán. Lo esencial, por lo tanto, es dotarse de un escudo antimisiles capaz de explosionar la cabeza nuclear enemiga cuando se encuentre en las capas superiores de la atmósfera. No hace falta decir que, aunque el problema se veía venir desde hace mucho tiempo, lo único que hemos hecho los europeos es criticar las iniciativas norteamericanas. De ahí que ahora volvamos, una vez más, a depender de sus capacidades militares y de su buena voluntad. Más carnaza para el resentimiento.

En Oriente Medio el efecto será mucho más directo, favoreciendo el intento de los ayatolás chiíes por hacerse con el liderazgo en el Islam y dando cobertura a sus actividades terroristas -Hizbolá, Hamás…- y desestabilizadoras -Líbano, Palestina, Irak…-

“The only thing Europeans have done is to critisize US. So now we are going to depend once more on their military capacity and their good will. More fuel for resentment”. (Florentino Portero, Spanish analist for GEES). Ejem…



Similar idea in CUANAS.



But now looks like that several US Senators have met with Iranian UN ambassador because US Dems wanted to talk with Iran.



Winds of Change.NET: (Thirty) Two Short Articles About Iran

it’s difficult for me to sit down and accept the authoritay of someone who is a Senior Fellow at the Council of Foreign relations and author of ‘Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic’ when he tells me that Iran is an unstoppable force in the Middle East and doesn’t deal with the reasons why Iran may either be a hollow power – or why it may be motivated to be aggressive within a specific window of time. If this is what the leading experts are doing – heaven help us all.

Bushehr power plant to be inaugurated in Nov 2007: Russia – Irna



At a Glance | Deutsche Welle |

Iran seeks bids for two nuclear reactors Iran says its launching tenders for the construction of two new nuclear power plants in the southern city of Bushehr, where Russia is currently helping to build a nuclear power reactor. The Iranian leadership has unveiled plans for a network of power plants with a capacity of 20,000 Megawatts by 2020.

Also Reuters.



More in MNM.

ExtremeCentre.org » L’Iran persiste et signe ..:

Tehran Times: “A Country That Has… Uranium Enrichment Is Only One Step Away from Producing Nuclear Weapons; This Step Is Not a Scientific or a Technical [One] – But a Matter of Political Decision”

O Insurgente » Blog Archive » Coisas peculiares e fascinantes da democracia persa

While Iran’s international opponents have been distracted by the row over the country’s nuclear programme and the British naval hostages, Teheran has taken the opportunity to tackle reformers targeted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since he came to power.

As part of a wider crackdown, Iran’s parliament has also passed laws enabling security organisations – including the Revolutionary Guard, which was responsible for kidnapping the 15 Britons – to detain suspects for months for the purposes of interrogation.

Technorati Tags: Iran, nuclear crisis, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Ahmadinejad,

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Un Human Rights Commission

Some days ago I wrote that some countries suspected of HR abuses want to dismantle the UNHR Council. You have to see this video [in English]:

Faced with compelling reports from around the world of torture, persecution, and violence against women, what has the Council pronounced, and what has it decided?

Nothing. Its response has been silence. Its response has been indifference. Its response has been criminal.

More in the link.

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Para los lectores en español, Luis lo ha traducido. ;D.

Technorati : UNCHR, UNCHR Council

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