Welcome to Sott.net
Wed, 07 Jun 2023
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Stop

Netherlands Freezes Ties After Iran Hangs Dutch Woman

Hiedeh Farmani
Agence France-Presse
Sun, 30 Jan 2011 11:42 UTC
Zahra Bahrami
© unknown
Zahra Bahrami
The Netherlands has frozen contacts with Iran after Tehran hanged an Iranian-Dutch woman for drug smuggling, having initially arrested her for taking part in anti-government protests.

Zahra Bahrami's execution Saturday brings the total number of people hanged in Iran so far this year to 66 -- on average more than two a day -- according to an AFP tally based on media reports.

"A drug trafficker named Zahra Bahrami, daughter of Ali, was hanged early on Saturday morning after she was convicted of selling and possessing drugs," the Tehran prosecutor's office said.

Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal "was profoundly shocked by the news, he called it an act committed by a barbarous regime," foreign ministry spokesman Bengt van Loosdrecht told AFP.

"The Netherlands has decided to freeze all contacts with Iran" after obtaining confirmation of Bahrami's execution from Iran's ambassador to the Netherlands Kazem Gharib Abadi, the ministry spokesman said.

"This concerns all official contacts between diplomats and civil servants," he added.

Bahrami, a 46-year-old Iranian-born naturalised Dutch citizen, was reportedly arrested in December 2009 after joining a protest against the government while visiting relatives in the Islamic republic.
      Read More...
Radar

Sudanese police clash with students in Khartoum

Khaled Abdelaziz
Reuters
Sun, 30 Jan 2011 16:45 UTC
Image
© Theodora
Khartoum - Sudanese police beat and arrested students on Sunday as hundreds protested throughout the capital demanding the government resign, inspired by a popular uprising in neighbouring Egypt.

Armed riot police broke up groups of young Sudanese demonstrating in central Khartoum and surrounded the entrances of four universities in the capital, firing teargas and beating students at three of them.

Some 500 young people also protested in the city of el-Obeid in North Kordofan in the west of the country.

Police beat students with batons as they chanted anti-government slogans such as "we are ready to die for Sudan" and "revolution, revolution until victory."

Groups have emerged on social networking sites calling themselves "Youth for Change" and "The Spark," since the uprisings in nearby Tunisia and close ally Egypt this month.

"Youth for Change" has attracted more than 15,000 members.
      Read More...
Bad Guys

Caught on camera: Cruel UK carer who ate so many of Alzheimer's sufferer's meals that her patient, 70, became malnourished


The Daily Mail
Tue, 25 Jan 2011 13:50 UTC
A carer who ate meals that were meant for an old woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease has been sacked from her job, it was revealed today.

Patricia Young, 54, greedily ate the hot food - including celery soup, mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts - in front of helpless Ivy McCluskey, 70.

The hungry pensioner went without meals and was put to bed at night with her stomach rumbling.

Image
© PA
Not full yet: Young follows the potatoes by eating Mrs McCluskey's celery soup from a tray in the pensioner's home
Image
© Unknown
Shocking: Carer Patricia Young, 54, eats mashed potatoes that were supposed to be for Ivy McCluskey
      Read More...
Stormtrooper

Republican Congressman Proposes Tracking Freedom of Information Act Requests

Eric Lipton
New York Times
Sun, 30 Jan 2011 12:00 UTC
Image
© Tim Sloan/Agence France-Presse — Getty
Darrell Issa of California.
Washington - Representative Darrell Issa calls it a way to promote transparency: a request for the names of hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, business executives, journalists and others who have requested copies of federal government documents in recent years.

Mr. Issa, a California Republican and the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, says he wants to make sure agencies respond in a timely fashion to Freedom of Information Act requests and do not delay them out of political considerations.

But his extraordinary request worries some civil libertarians. It "just seems sort of creepy that one person in the government could track who is looking into what and what kinds of questions they are asking," said David Cuillier, a University of Arizona journalism professor and chairman of the Freedom of Information Committee at the Society of Professional Journalists. "It is an easy way to target people who he might think are up to no good."
      Read More...
Megaphone

US: Frances Fox Piven defies death threats after taunts by anchorman Glenn Beck

Paul Harris
The Observer
Sun, 30 Jan 2011 07:33 UTC
Image

Socialist academic Frances Fox Piven has been relentlessly targeted by Glenn Beck as a threat to the American way of life.
Leftwing academic speaks out amid hate campaign led by Fox News host Glenn Beck

Frances Fox Piven is not going into hiding. Not yet.

The 78-year-old leftwing academic is the latest hate figure for Fox News host Glenn Beck and his legion of fans. While she has decided to shrug off the inevitable death threats that have followed, she is well aware of the problem. "I don't know if I am scared, but I am worried," she told the Observer as she sat in a bar on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

"At the start I thought it was funny, but now I know that is dangerous... their paranoia works better when they can imagine a devil. Now that devil is me."

For the past three weeks Beck has relentlessly targeted Piven via his television and radio shows as a threat to the American way of life, seizing on an essay that she and her late husband wrote in 1966 as a sort of blueprint for bringing down the American economy.

Called The Weight of the Poor, it advocated signing up so many poor people for welfare payments that the cost would force the government to bring in a policy of a guaranteed income. For Piven, a committed voice of the left, known in academic circles but little recognised outside them, it was just one publication in a lifetime dedicated to political activism and theorising.
      Read More...
Pistol

UK businessmen charged in 'AK-47 conspiracy' by the world's biggest arms dealer!

Jamie Doward
The Observer
Sun, 30 Jan 2011 07:28 UTC
Image

Gary Hyde is accused of trying to break the US arms embargo on China.
US court papers allege that three directors of UK firms tried to break embargo by selling thousands of Chinese assault rifle parts

The shadowy world of Britain's arms dealers has been thrust into the spotlight after the directors of two companies based in York and Kent were charged with conspiring to illegally export to the US hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition for AK-47 assault rifles in breach of an American embargo.

Court documents filed in the US claim that British businessman Gary Hyde and his associate Karl Kleber fraudulently imported more than 5,000 Chinese-produced AK-47 drum magazines into the US from the UK via Germany.

The alleged deal backfired, however, after US agents received a tip-off that the drums, each of which holds 75 rounds, had come from China, the subject of a US import ban on weapons.

The complex nature of the alleged deal, made via a multitude of companies based in several countries, provides a rare insight into the byzantine world of international arms brokers, which critics maintain is insufficiently monitored by western governments. "It's a deeply alarming case that demonstrates yet again why arms brokering, small arms and ammunition trafficking must be at the heart of efforts to secure a new global arms trade treaty," said Oliver Sprague, UK arms programme director at Amnesty International.
      Read More...
Pistol

Azeri embassy staff killed in Egypt by unknown assailants


Press TV
Sun, 30 Jan 2011 06:34 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Demonstrators shout anti-Mubarak slogans during a protest at the Egyptian embassy in London January 29, 2011.
An Azerbaijani embassy worker has been killed in Egypt as the country is gripped by six days of bloody protests against the government of President Hosni Mubarak.

The man, who worked as an accountant at the Cairo embassy, was killed Saturday evening as he was returning home from work, an Azerbaijani foreign ministry spokesman told AFP on Sunday.

He could provide no further detail, although other reports said that the man had died of a gunshot wound.

In Egypt, the popular uprising against the government of Mubarak is continuing.
      Read More...
Pharoah

Exodus: Saudi to evacuate citizens from Egypt


Press TV
Sun, 30 Jan 2011 06:24 UTC
Image
© AP
Saudi Arabia is prepared to send airplanes to evacuate its citizens from Egypt as anti-government protests escalated across the North African country.

Saudi Arabia along with, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan organized 10 additional flights to evacuate their citizens, officials at Cairo International Airport said.

Earlier in the day, the US Embassy issued a travel warning for its citizens to leave Egypt as soon as possible.

So far, more than 100 people have been killed across Egypt in demonstrations which started on Tuesday and are being continued for the sixth day.
      Read More...
No Entry

Egypt shuts down al-Jazeera operations

Ian Black
The Guardian
Sun, 30 Jan 2011 06:22 UTC
Image
© Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
Al-Jazeera journalists gather at the channel's bureau in Cairo today. Egypt has ordered a shutdown of al-Jazeera's operations, the country's state broadcaster said.
Egypt today shut down the operations of the Arabic satellite TV channel al-Jazeera, blaming it for encouraging the country's uprising - and demonstrating that the repressive powers of central government are still functioning.

The state-run Mena news agency reported that the information ministry had ordered "suspension of operations of al-Jazeera, cancelling of its licenses and withdrawing accreditation to all its staff, as of today".

The Egyptian government has never made a secret of its dislike for the channel, but the final straw may have been an interview it broadcast yesterday with the popular cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who called on the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, to leave the country immediately.

Al-Jazeera has faced interference with its communications from Egypt since Friday.
      Read More...
Footprints

Israel evacuates envoys' families in Egypt


Sydney Morning Herald
Sun, 30 Jan 2011 06:17 UTC
Image
Israel repatriated families of its diplomats in Egypt on Saturday in response to the unprecedented street protests in the Arab state with which it has a 1979 peace deal.

"A special aircraft brought back to Israel on Saturday the families of diplomats and other official envoys, as well as about 40 Israelis on private visits to Cairo who wished to leave," said foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

The Israeli ambassador to Egypt remains in the country.

Israel on Saturday kept a low profile over the unfolding events in Egypt, where protesters have pressed for the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak, fearful of being accused of interfering.

But a senior official expressed concern over the possible fall of Mubarak.
      Read More...
Revolt! T-shirts