Birds of a feather
Human rights campaigners have orgainsed a protest outside the Bahraini embassy in London to raise their voices against the invitation of 'Bahraini tyrant' to a Diamond Jubilee event.
Human rights activists are outraged that the King of Bahrain will lunch with the Queen at Windsor Castle - after his regime was accused of a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners.
Protestors say the guest list at today's special Jubilee lunch features a range of foreign monarchs who have been widely condemned for their human rights records, or their extravagant lifestyles.
Among the guests sitting down with the Queen is the King of Bahrain, where demonstrations calling for more democratic involvement in the country's government were violently suppressed, with the help of Saudi troops. At least fifty people have been killed in the tiny Persian Gulf island nation since February last year.
File photo shows weapons seized by Syrian security in Homs, which belong to armed groups.
The Lebanese army has seized a consignment of weapons and explosives near the Syrian border, apparently destined for armed gangs fighting against the Damascus government.
According to Lebanese sources, the weapons were seized after the army intercepted a pickup truck in the village of Joura in the border region of Masharih al-Qaa late on Thursday.
One gunman was killed and a Lebanese soldier was injured in the exchange of fire between the two sides.
Lebanese troops also discovered a car laden with explosives in the southern city of Sidon.
Several people have been arrested in connection with the incidents.
Years of intense lobbying is paying off for Maryam Rajavi as the MEK is about to be all but recognised by the US government as the legitimate government of Iran
The Obama administration is moving to remove an Iranian opposition group from the State Department's terrorism list, say officials briefed on the talks, in an action that could further poison Washington's relations with Tehran at a time of renewed diplomatic efforts to curtail Iran's nuclear program.
The exile organization, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MeK, was originally named as a terrorist entity 15 years ago for its alleged role in assassinating U.S. citizens in the years before the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and for allying with Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein against Tehran.
The MeK has engaged in an aggressive legal and lobbying campaign in Washington over the past two years to win its removal from the State Department's list. The terrorism designation, which has been in place since 1997, freezes the MeK's assets inside the U.S. and prevents the exile group from fundraising.
The international community has eased its condemnation of Iran following recent negotiations between Tehran and six other nations in Istanbul, Turkey. While the participating parties agreed to further discussions on May 23, 2012 in Baghdad, both Israel and the West have given no indication of easing the strict regime of sanctions imposed on Tehran. Following claims of the Iranian leadership that it pursues civil nuclear capabilities to generate electricity and fuel for medical reactors (allowing Tehran to divert its primary oil reserves to export markets) [1], Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a religious prohibition on nuclear weapons in Iran [2]. During recent discussions, Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili emphasized Iran's right to a civil nuclear program, as guaranteed under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [3]. Although Tel Aviv possess between 75 to 400 nuclear warheads, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak insists that all of Iran's uranium enriched to 20% be moved to a "trusted" neighboring country [4].
For more than 30 years, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People's Mujahedeen, has survived and operated on the margins of history and the slivers of land that Saddam Hussein and French governments have proffered it. During the 1970's, while it was still an underground Iranian political movement, you could encounter some of its members on the streets of New York, waving pictures of torture victims of the shah's regime. In the 80's and 90's, after its leaders fled Iran, you could see them raising money and petitioning on university campuses around the United States, pumping photographs in the air of women mangled and tortured by the Islamic regime in Tehran. By then, they were also showing off other photographs, photographs that were in some ways more attention-grabbing: Iranian women in military uniforms who brandished guns, drove tanks and were ready to overthrow the Iranian government. Led by a charismatic husband-and-wife duo, Maryam and Massoud Rajavi, the Mujahedeen had transformed itself into the only army in the world with a commander corps composed mostly of women.
Robert Kelley, former chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
Former inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency Robert Kelley says the
IAEA includes rumors in its reports about Iran's nuclear energy program.
Kelley said that the November report of the IAEA and its appendix on the alleged military aspect of Iran's nuclear energy program was shocking since it was full of outdated information.
He said that anyone who followed Iran's nuclear energy program and the related reports could figure out that the November report contained old information.
He said that the report
only covered information up until 2003 when CIA announced that Iran had stopped its alleged military nuclear program.
The former IAEA inspector said that the report was also very biased as it only selected and highlighted those explanations that were to the detriment of Iran although it contained other explanations as well that could be given for a subject in question.
© GonzaloLira BlogspotDon't be fooled - it's flexible at the top.
A lot of people - and I am one of them - claim that personal and business freedoms are being eroded as never before. They show as evidence the roll-back of civil liberties, the over-regulation of business, the insistence on "compliance" by the various security agencies of every little rule, no matter how trivial - in short, the over-regulation of American life.
They are right: The U.S. government is guilty of over-regulating individuals and businesses - egregiously so.
On the other hand, a lot of
other people - and I am one of them too - claim that certain persons and corporations act lawlessly as never before. They show as evidence the abuses of power of those in leadership - be it business, government, the military, or the intelligence/security aparatus - and they insist that something has to be done about it, some regulations have to be imposed.
They are right too: The U.S. government is just as guilty of under-regulating certain individuals and businesses as it is of over-regulating other people and businesses.
Obvious question: How can they both be right? How can it be that a few people, a few businesses, a few institutions are getting away with murder - in some cases literally - while most of us are under a crippling yoke of excessive, dishonest, petty and trivial rules and regulations that either serve no purpose, or actively pervert the welfare of our society?
Simple answer: Structural Pliancy.
Let me explain.
Gordon Gekko, the infamously cutthroat capitalist and lead character in Oliver Stone's
Wall Street, captured the heady years of the 1980s with a
single, indelible line:
Greed is good. Today, it is Edward Conard, a friend and former colleague of Mitt Romney's at the private equity firm Bain Capital, who has offered a new mantra for the 1%, a
cri de coeur for the Gekkos of the twenty-first century:
Inequality is good.
In his new book
Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong, Conard argues that gaping income inequality is an indication of a healthy economy, not a sick one. The more unequal we are, Conard
told the
New York Times Magazine, the better off we all will be. Why? Because economies grow and thrive when smart people devise solutions to our thorniest problems by inventing or perfecting goods and services. Conard singled out a group of twentysomethings sitting at a Manhattan coffee shop one afternoon, deriding them as lazy "art-history majors." Those people should be out creating businesses and taking risks, he insisted, because that's how societies prosper. And the way to encourage that risk-taking is the promise of obscene wealth for those who succeed (and, implicitly, dismal poverty for those who don't).
How obscene should that wealth be? In 2008, the top 1%
commanded 21% of all income in America. Conard says our society would improve if only that figure were doubled.
Comment: It is not just the fact that governments and companies are preying upon the poor for profit that should raise alarm. Not just the increasing harshness of penalties and restrictions imposed upon those already living in near impossible conditions. Nor the ever tightening noose of control used to entrap them. Oppressive as that all is, there is more to consider here.
What is perhaps more alarming is the way that America's poorest are being portrayed by politicians and the media to the rest of society. The author nearly had it with "being poor itself is not yet a crime", yet the poor are increasingly depicted as lazy, unworthy of help or consideration. We are encouraged to believe that they all commit crimes, are undeserving of our help or concern and are wholly responsible for their own plight.
The more government 'cracks down' on the poorest, creates 'criminals' of them via a predatory system and highlights those 'crimes' to the rest of the population, the more it propagates the idea of an entire criminal class. In other words, the crackdown is about the propaganda benefit to the psychopathic power structure, making a profit while they're at it is just a perk.
And the aim of all this? To justify inequality, to deflect attention from the monumental crimes of a tiny 'elite' by criminalizing the trivial. To erase any doubts or concerns the public may harbor about the poorest in society - even to encourage fear, hatred, anger and suspicion, to make them 'other'.
It's a distorted view of reality, created by psychopaths, propagated by authoritarians and their followers with the aim of making others think as they do and see as they do. To make an inhumane, uncaring, unjust system acceptable, and to make you think that that is justified, needed, 'normal'.
There's a war on for your mind.
YnetThu, 17 May 2012 16:48 UTC
© unknown
Israel is ranked third among nations perceived as having a negative influence on the world, the BBC's annual poll shows, indicating further decline in the Jewish state's global image.
Only Iran and Pakistan did worse than Israel in the survey.
The poll, undertaken between December 2011 and February 2012, encompassed 24,090 respondents worldwide. Iran took the unflattering top spot, again, with 55% of respondents saying is has a negative influence on the world. Pakistan ranked second (51%), with Israel and North Korea tied for third place (50%).
Last year, 47% of poll respondents said Israel had a negative effect on the world.
© Uriel Sinai/GETTY IMAGES
Should the United States put solving Israel's budget problems ahead of its own?
When it comes to defense spending, it appears that the United States already is.
Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, will meet Thursday in Washington with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to finalize a deal in which the United States will provide
an additional $680 million to Israel over three years. The money is meant to help pay for procuring three or four new batteries and interceptors for Israel's Iron Dome short-range rocket defense program. The funds may also be used for the systems after their deployment, according to the report of the House Armed Services Committee on the fiscal 2013 Defense Authorization bill.
The Iron Dome funds, already in legislation before Congress, will be
on top of the $3.1 billion in military aid grants being provided to Israel in 2013 and every year thereafter through 2017. That deal is part of a 10-year memorandum of understanding agreed to in 2007 during the George W. Bush presidency.
Comment: Most US leaders have no clue what they are about to unleash. Some undoubtedly do. This is a calculated move that brings the US and Iran significantly close to war:
Target Iran: America and Israel to Officially Unleash MEK Terrorist Cult