Society's Child

Egyptian protesters attend Friday prayers during a rally in Tahrir square, Cairo, Egypt, Friday, April 20, 2012. Tens of thousands of protesters packed Cairo's downtown Tahrir Square on Friday in the biggest demonstration in months against the ruling military, aimed at stepping up pressure on the generals to hand over power to civilians and bar ex-regime members from running in upcoming presidential elections
Islamists and liberals turned out together in force for the protest to show the widespread anger at the military over the country's political chaos ahead of the first presidential elections since the fall of Hosni Mubarak more than a year ago. The confusion has raised suspicions the generals ruling since Mubarak's ouster are manipulating the process to preserve their power, ensure the victory of a pro-military candidate and prevent reform.
"Down with military rule," protesters in Tahrir chanted, and banners draped around the sprawling plaza denounced candidates seen as "feloul," or "remnants" from Mubarak's regime.
Liberals and youth groups called for all factions to agree on an antimilitary "revolution" candidate in the presidential vote, but the powerful Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists - who have their own ambitions in the race - refused to sign on.
Obama's comments followed Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's Holocaust Memorial Day address at Yad Vashem where he stated that Israel's "enemies tried to bury the Jewish future but our future was born again in the land of our forefathers, here we built a base, and a new beginning of freedom, and hope and action."
Netanyahu, as usual, was almost correct. The 'Jewish future' was indeed born again after the holocaust just to introduce total misery, racism, expansionism, oppression, death and carnage to the entire Middle East. The so-called 'Jewish State' has managed, in just a few decades, to locate itself as the primary threat to world peace. With the Jewish State and its lobbies pushing for a war against Iran, there is little room for doubt- Israel is driven by a suicidal inclination in the spirit of Biblical Samson. Yet, being a nuclear super power, Israel's potential self-inflicted tragedy may as well put an end to the world, as we know it.
Jose Diogo, who spent two years in Lisbon working as a technical advisor at a meat company, was one who fled at the beginning of Portugal's debt crisis in 2009, and has no regrets.
"I lived in Lisbon and decided to go back home to the interior to grab the opportunity of exploring the land my father owned," Mr Diogo said on the porch at his stone farm house, looking out over apple orchards and grazing fields for his 30 cows.
Far from discouraging people like Mr Diogo, the government is trying to get others to follow in his footsteps.

The Government may not like smoking, but - like drinking - it remains perfectly legal. For how much longer though?
These two categories do not necessarily align with the laws of the land, but the law is a flexible instrument these days, enforced only where the authorities concerned choose to enforce it.
So if you want to harm your health by taking illegal drugs, be pleased to go ahead. If heroin is your poison, Whitehall ministries have in recent years established needle exchanges to help you with the required equipment and shooting galleries which have provided junkies with the finest ingredients to feed their habit.
You can claim state sickness benefits on the grounds that you are incapacitated because of your drug addiction, and around 50,000 people do so. This is not merely tolerance of harmful and criminal behaviour, it is rewarding it.
Alcohol is bit trickier, because a lot of voters don't like the way town and city centres have become theme parks for loutishness and violence at the weekends. The chosen response of Coalition ministers is to propose increasing the price of the cheapest alcohol - something that will punish the law-abiding poor but do nothing to curb the riotous Friday-night crowds in the stand-up drinking barns.

Bahrain security forces fire teargas at protesters during clashes near the site where the body of Salah Abbas was found.
Bahrain's Formula One grand prix will go ahead despite a growing international outcry about the staging of the race in the Gulf state that intensified on Saturdayfollowing the discovery of the body of a protester allegedly abducted from a village by security forces.
According to the opposition party Wefaq, the body of 36-year-old Salah Abbas Habib Musa, a father of five, was found on a rooftop in the Shia village of Shakhoura the day before the race.
With dozens of armoured personnel carriers guarding the main route to the circuit, the decision by F1 and the Sunni minority royal family to push ahead with the event - partly to help convince the world of Bahrain's return to normality - appeared to be degenerating into a human rights and PR catastrophe.
With less than 24 hours before France goes to the polls in the first round of voting, authorities have issued threats of legal action against anyone who intends to flout a ban on the publication of exit polls.
In France, exit polls - which are taken as an accurate reflection of the election result - are available shortly after 6pm when voting stations close in small towns and villages across the country.
But under current rules, French media are barred from publishing the surveys or even partial results until 8pm, the time when voting stations in big cities like Paris and Marseille officially shut.
If there is a widespread breach of the ban, France could even face the possibility of the elections being annulled as candidates have the right to call for a revote if they feel electors have been unduly swayed by the leaks.
The blast occurred at Mitsui Chemicals' Iwakuni-Ohtake facility in the Yamaguchi prefecture.
The explosion hit the adhesive plant shortly after 2 a.m. local time. A 22-year-old worker was killed and 11 others were injured.
The blast broke windows of about 270 buildings, including nearby houses. The hands and heads of six people were cut by broken glass.
The crash, involving an inter-city train and a local stopping service, happened near Sloterdijk, to the west of the capital, at around 4.30pm.
A police spokesman, Ed Kraszewski, told Amsterdam's AT5 news station that the spaciousness of the carriages on one of the trains may have contributed to injuries.
"We assume many people were thrown around the train by the crash - against walls, seats and other people," he said.
He added that some of the victims had broken bones and neck injuries.
One of the trains was serving the cities of Den Helder and Nijmegen. The other ran between Amsterdam and Uitgeest, a railway official said.
Hundreds of thousands of people living along the US Gulf Coast have hung their economic lives on lawsuits against BP.
Fishermen, in particular, are seeing their way of life threatened with extinction - both from lack of an adequate legal settlement and collapsing fisheries.
One of these people, Greg Perez, an oyster fisherman in the village of Yscloskey, Louisiana, has seen a 75 per cent decrease in the amount of oysters he has been able to catch.
"Since the spill, business has been bad," he said. "Sales and productivity are down, our state oyster grounds are gone, and we are investing personal money to rebuild oyster reefs, but so far it's not working."
Perez, like so many Gulf Coast commercial fisherman, has been fishing all his life. He said those who fish for crab and shrimp are "in trouble too", and he is suing BP for property damage for destroying his oyster reefs, as well as for his business' loss of income.
People like Perez make it possible for Louisiana to provide 40 percent of all the seafood caught in the continental US.
But Louisiana's seafood industry, valued at about $2.3bn, is now fighting for its life.









Comment: To understand the mentality of the organizers of Formula One races, see also:
Tyrants of Formula One racing: Hitler supporter billionaire Bernie Ecclestone and Fascist Scion Max Mosley
Formula One's fascism fetish should not surprise anyone