With thanks to a friend from Sweden for alerting me to this dramatic video.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
MÉTRO MONTRÉAL: PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire - Le président Barack Obama s'est fait offensif pour soutenir son projet de réforme de la protection sociale mardi, priant une foule de citoyens acquis à sa cause de ne pas écouter ceux qui cherchent à "effrayer et égarer le peuple américain".
"Parmi toutes les techniques visant à vous effrayer, il y en a une vraiment effrayante, c'est de ne rien faire" a argumenté le président devant des partisans réunis dans un lycée du New Hampshire. >>> The Associated Press | Mardi 11 Août 2009
WELT ONLINE: Barack Obama ist empört über die Art und Weise, wie seine geplante Gesundheitsreform teilweise kritisiert wird. Gegner der Reform würden suggerieren, er wolle bei älteren kranken Menschen "den Stecker rausziehen" lassen, so Obama. Solche Gerüchte dienten lediglich dazu, den Menschen Angst zu machen.
Wegen des wachsenden Widerstands gegen die geplante Gesundheitsreform hat US-Präsident Barack Obama seinen politischen Gegnern unfaire Methoden vorgeworfen.
Die Reformgegner setzten bewusst auf „Angstmacherei“ und versuchten, die Bürger durch die gezielte Irreführung zu verunsichern, sagte Obama auf einem Bürgerforum in Portsmouth im Bundesstaat New Hampshire: „Sie schaffen ein Gespenst, das es in Wirklichkeit nicht gibt.“ >>> AFP/cn | Dienstag, 11. August 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Members of Take it Easy Hospital, Iran's leading underground rock band, have applied for political asylum in Britain after one of the group was arrested following the disputed presidential election.
Four members of the Indie band were interviewed by the Home Office on Monday after submitting applications to remain in the UK.
"If I go back to Iran I will be arrested automatically because the authorities known [sic] what I have been doing," Ash Koosha, the lead singer told The Daily Telegraph. "Since the election things have got a lot worse. There is no hope in Iran for doing what I do.
"If we have any concerts or play our music in Iran, then we will get arrested."
As a woman, vocalist Negar Haghaghi would not be allowed to perform in public in Iran. Two other members, Pooya Koosha and Kabeh Ayati, have also applied for sanctuary in the UK.
A fifth member of the band was arrested in July when mass demonstrations filled the streets of the large cities. Protesters were attacked and detained while attempting to overturn the result of the election, which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by a large majority. The band member has not been heard from since. >>> Damien McElroy and Benjamin Allen | Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
BBC: The Jeddah offices of a Lebanon-based TV station which broadcast an interview with a Saudi man boasting about his sexual conquests have been closed.
Saudi Arabian authorities said the offices had been shut by order of the country's deputy prime minister.
The 32-year-old Saudi man's interview shocked conservative Saudi society, prompting calls for him to be punished.
Mazen Abdul Jawad talked about his sexual conquests and how he picks up women in the kingdom.
A spokesman at the information ministry confirmed the decision to close the offices of the LBC TV station in the kingdom's commercial capital.
"It was because of the interview with Mazen Abdul Jawad," Abdul Rahman al-Hazzaa said, according to AFP news agency.
Discreet society
Saudi media say officials are considering whether to charge Mr Abdul Jawad over the interview, which appeared on a programme called Red Lines and challenged Saudi taboos.
The Saudi daily newspaper al-Watan said authorities had also closed other offices of the channel, which is mainly owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
Pre-marital sex is illegal in Saudi Arabia and Mr Abdul Jawad could face imprisonment or flogging.
Saudi Arabia is not only the most conservative society in the Arab world, it is also the most discreet.
If people break its strict Islamic code they face punishment - lashes or imprisonment for drinking or non-marital sex.
These rules are flouted by locals as well as expatriates, correspondents say, but almost everyone who breaks the rules keeps quiet about it and hopes they will not be found out. [Source: BBC] | Sunday, August 09, 2009
Related:
Saudi Man 'Faces Death' Over TV Sex Boast >>> The Sunday Telegraph | Sunday, August 02, 2009
Saudi Sex Boasts Man Apologises >>> BBC | Monday, July 27, 2009
DIE PRESSE: Auf einem Plakat der Berliner CDU sind Kanzlerin Merkel und Bundestagskandidatin Lengsfeld mit tiefem Ausschnitt zu sehen. Der dazugehörige Slogan: "Wir haben mehr zu bieten". In der Wahlkampfzentrale ist man empört.
Ein Wahl-Plakat der eigenen Partei sorgt in der deutschen CDU für Aufregung. Die Berliner Kandidatin Vera Lengsfeld wirbt für die Bundestagswahl mit einem Bild, das sie und Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel mit tiefem Dekolleté zeigt. Darunter ist der Slogan "Wir haben mehr zu bieten" zu lesen.
In der Wahlkampfzentrale findet man das nicht gerade lustig. "Das war nicht mit uns abgestimmt", sagte ein Sprecher am Montag. Auch Merkel habe von der Kampagne nichts gewusst.>>> Red. | Dienstag, 11. August 2009
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Warns of Rising Casualties
The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the insurgency's spiritual home.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that means U.S. casualties, already running at record levels, will remain high for months to come.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the commander offered a preview of the strategic assessment he is to deliver to Washington later this month, saying the troop shifts are designed to better protect Afghan civilians from rising levels of Taliban violence and intimidation. The coming redeployments are the clearest manifestation to date of Gen. McChrystal's strategy for Afghanistan, which puts a premium on safeguarding the Afghan population rather than hunting down militants.
Gen. McChrystal said the Taliban are moving beyond their traditional strongholds in southern Afghanistan to threaten formerly stable areas in the north and west.
The militants are mounting sophisticated attacks that combine roadside bombs with ambushes by small teams of heavily armed militants, causing significant numbers of U.S. fatalities, he said. July was the bloodiest month of the war for American and British forces, and 12 more American troops have already been killed in August.
"It's a very aggressive enemy right now," Gen. McChrystal said in the interview Saturday at his office in a fortified NATO compound in Kabul. "We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work." >>> Yochi J. Dreazen in Kabul and Peter Spiegel in Washington | Monday, August 10, 2009
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: BAGNOLET, France -- Youths rampaged overnight through a suburban Paris housing project, torching eight cars and a bus in a second night of violence prompted by a teenager's death, officials said Tuesday.
Overall, however, tensions appeared to be subsiding in the town of Bagnolet, with less damage than the night before.
Nine people were detained in the unrest early Tuesday, said regional administration spokeswoman Samira Amrouche.
She said the situation was "relatively calm" compared to the previous night, when 29 cars were burned and young people hurled Molotov cocktails at police.
The anger erupted when an 18-year-old pizza deliverer died in a motorcycle crash after fleeing a police check Sunday night. The unrest that night prompted police to send about 40 vans of riot officers to the housing project Monday night.
A helicopter beamed a spotlight into the area early Tuesday as bands of youth taunted police in a cat-and-mouse game typical of suburban unrest in France. Group of youths set street fires and hurled stones and other objects at police.
After daybreak, residents took stock of the destruction. A Moroccan tourist bus, its Arabic lettering mostly charred off, stood beneath an overpass, little more than a tangle of metal seat frames. Pigeons picked through scraps from burned garbage cans. >>> Associated Press | Tuesday, August 11, 2009
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: POLÉMIQUE | Le ministère iranien des Affaires étrangères à proposé à la France d’accorder une liberté conditionnelle à Clotilde Reiss, à condition qu’elle réside à l’ambassade de France à Téhéran jusqu’à la fin de son procès
"Notre vice-ministre des Affaires étrangères a donné un engagement au pouvoir judiciaire iranien pour que cette demoiselle, jusqu’à la fin de son procès et à condition que le gouvernement et l’ambassadeur de France à Téhéran accepte et s’y engage officiellement, réside à l’ambassade de France à Téhéran jusqu’à ce que le processus judiciaire arrive à son terme", a déclaré M. Miraboutalebi sur RFI. "Elle pourra bénéficier d’une liberté conditionnelle. Jusqu’à maintenant on n’a pas eu de réponse de la part de l’ambassadeur de France."
"Nous sommes en train d’essayer de créer des conditions favorables pour Clotilde Reiss", a-t-il ajouté, tout en insistant sur le fait que "c’est le juge qui décide de la longueur du procès".
La jeune Française est "allée en Iran avec un visa d’un mois et finalement s’est retrouvée sur place pendant cinq mois, alors même que son visa avait expiré depuis longtemps", a-t-il par ailleurs affirmé. "Cette demoiselle a préféré enseigner la langue française pendant quinze jours au milieu des manifestants et au milieu de l’agitation, donc il y a un certain nombre de chefs d’accusation à son encontre". >>> AP | Mardi 11 Août 2009
HAARETZ: Counterterrorism unit warning of planned attacks during the upcoming Jewish holiday period.
Israel on Tuesday issued a travel warning for its nationals visting the Sinai peninsula in Egypt, advising them to leave the area immediately.
The warning came from the government's counterterrorism unit. The unit warned Israelis of planned attacks during the upcoming Jewish holiday period, which begins with Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), at sundown on September 18.
The announcement mentioned tensions along the northern border of Sinai with the Gaza Strip, as well as recent threats from Hezbollah to strike at Israelis. >>> Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent | Tuesday, August 11, 2009
THE WASHINGTON TIMES: Cashing in on 'No, he can't'
In the political paraphernalia department, "Yes, we can" is becoming "No, he can't."
Anti-Obama memorabilia -- from T-shirts to bumper stickers to buttons -- is increasingly emerging in the marketplace as the president's economic and health care policies polarize supporters and detractors.
While "Mama for Obama" was a popular slogan during the 2008 election cycle, that design has been retooled with angry and fickle disenchantment: "To the Mama for Obama -- thanks for the tax hike." The "Audacity of Hope," the title of Mr. Obama's popular book, has been replaced by the "Audacity of Hype."
"It really started peaking about a month ago," said Amy Maniatis, vice president of marketing at the online seller Cafepress.com.
"You see it as a direct response to some of the promising messages that happened a year ago. Whereas we had the campaign of Obama centered around hope, and it was a very optimistic message, now they're asking: 'How's that hopey-changey thing going?' "
The Cafepress.com store, a cultural barometer of sorts for political and social expression, offers about 3 million Obama products, she said, but now is up to about 1 million that are "anti-Obama-oriented," reflecting a "significant shift in the last couple of months than what was the trend a year ago." >>> Andrea Billups | Tuesday, August 11, 2009
TIME: Not a single fan showed up Aug. 7 for the opening match of Iran's avidly followed football season. After the government caught wind of plans by protesters to bring the street demonstrations into the 100,000-seat national stadium, authorities decided to have the two rival teams from Tehran and Isfahan play to an empty house rather than risk yet another embarrassing show of green and chants of "Death to the dictators."
In recent days, despite the regime's heavy-handed efforts to stifle the resistance, public demonstrations have become more decentralized and frequent as protesters become increasingly bold and defiant. This shift in mood — from despondency in late June after the Basij fired on protesters following the June 12 presidential election, to a renewed sense of optimism — signals that the vocal opposition movement will not be going away anytime soon. "It's the national duty of every single man and woman to go to the streets," said a university student protester in her mid-20s. "This is far from over."
According to interviews with a half-dozen protesters, their objective appears to have evolved beyond reclaiming the votes for Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the disputed election. The aim is now to attack the very legitimacy of the theocracy. The immediate triggers for street protests, however, vary and are often tied to significant dates; for instance, in the past week demonstrators marched to protest the inauguration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a second term, to object to the renewed mass trial of political dissidents and, on another occasion, simply to take advantage of a religious holiday when many devout Basij members would be in mosques.
The most dramatic protests came July 30, when thousands turned out to commemorate the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old woman whose death was captured on video and seen around the world. Because the two centers of protest were at opposite ends of the sprawling capital, security forces were spread too thin and could not quell the crowds in many neighborhoods; protesters began chanting "Death to Khamenei," a phrase almost no one dared utter in previous protests. >>> TIME Staff | Tuesday, August 11, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Hillary Clinton tells student off for asking about Bill: Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has snapped at a Congolese university student after, as she heard it, he asked what her husband thought about an international financial matter. >>>
TIMES ONLINE: The Burmese democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been sentenced to a further 18 months of house arrest for receiving an eccentric American wellwisher in the home where she was being detained.
The court in Rangoon’s Insein Prison sentenced Ms Suu Kyi to three years hard labour, but it was immediately commuted to a year and a half under house arrest by the leader of Burma’s military dictatorship, Senior General Than Shwe. John Yettaw, the American whose late-night swim to her lakeside home led to her trial, received a seven-year sentence with hard labour.
The sentence will take Ms Suu Kyi out of the running for the elections which the Burmese junta has promised to hold next year, and will confirm many of its opponents in their suspicion that the charges against her were politically motivated to eliminate the symbol of the country’s long suppressed democracy movement.
Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won an overwhelming victory in the last election in 1990, a result that was never accepted by the junta.
The verdict had been delayed without explanation for 11 days, and there had been suspicions that it might be postponed again after Mr Yettaw was admitted to hospital last week after suffering epileptic seizures.
According to her lawyers, Ms Suu Kyi had been anticipating a guilty verdict, and had assembled a library of books to see her through a long prison sentence. Burma has more than 2,000 political prisoners and almost all received no more than perfunctory consideration from the courts, which predictably yield to the wishes of the military dictatorship. >>> Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor | Tuesday, August 11, 2009
leJDD.fr: Nicolas Sarkozy condamne le verdict "brutal et injuste", qui touche l'opposante birmane Aung San Suu Kyi, condamné mardi à 18 mois de prison. "Les autorités birmanes confirment par cette décision inique leur choix d'ignorer les messages pressants de la communauté internationale", estime l'Élysée dans un communiqué publié mardi. Le chef de l'Etat appelle l'Union européenne à réagir rapidement "par l'adoption de nouvelles sanctions dirigées contre le régime birman, qui doivent viser tout particulièrement les ressources dont il profite directement dans le domaine de l'exploitation du bois et des rubis", poursuit le texte. [Source: leJDD.fr] Mardi 11 Août 2009
BRISBANE TIMES: The opportunity to earn up to triple his normal salary proved as irresistible to Darren Hoare as it has to thousands of other former soldiers.
Over the past few years, these ex-servicemen regularly farewelled family and friends to fight in the private armies securing the deadly streets of Iraq.
Mr Hoare, a former RAAF airman and father of three from Willowbank, west of Brisbane, was killed on Sunday, one of two contractors allegedly shot during an argument with a fellow mercenary.
The deaths have once again cast a shadow on the fast-growing private security industry.
British newspaper The Times estimates there are 132,610 contractors working in Iraq for 32 security companies from the US and UK.
The contractors tend to be men with military backgrounds, who have traded in their uniforms to become guns for hire.
They are paid upwards of $1000 a day by private companies, governments or aid groups to act as bodyguards for VIPs or dignitaries and guard facilities. >>> Scott Casey | Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Marina Fanouraki, a Greek woman accused of setting fire to British holidaymaker Stuart Feltham after he allegedly groped her in a bar has formally pressed charges of sexual harassment against him, it has been disclosed.
Miss Fanouraki, 26, is charged with seriously wounding Mr Feltham, 20, following claims that she doused him in alcohol and set him alight in the Cretan resort of Malia.
Miss Fanouraki was due to go on trial on Monday, however the case was postponed after Mr Feltham's legal team requested more time to gather evidence.
However, her lawyer, Nikos Maniadakis, said that the brunette has now formally laid charges against Mr Feltham of attempted sexual assault, molestation and personal insults.
She claims that she only threw a sambuca drink over Mr Feltham after he drunkenly fondled her, and that he subsequently caught fire when he lit a cigarette.
Mr Maniadakis said: "We not only want Miss Fanouraki to be acquitted, but we also want the misbehaving British tourist to be punished.
"After all, Marina is the real victim of attack and humiliation and she is the one who needs to have her honour restored in society." The incident took place in early hours of Tuesday morning in the Electra bar on the infamous Malia "Strip", whose numerous bars and nigthclubs attract thousands of young Britons every summer.
Mr Feltham, a plumber from Swindon, Wilts, alleges that Miss Fanouraki set him alight in a "completely unprovoked attack". >>> Murray Wardrop in Crete | Monday, August 10, 2009
THE INDEPENDENT: A British tourist allegedly set on fire by a Greek woman who accused him of sexually harassing her during a night out today insisted he did nothing to provoke the attack.
Stuart Feltham, of Swindon, Wiltshire, was due to testify against 26-year-old student Marina Fanouraki, who is accused of throwing sambuca on him and lighting it in a bar on Crete.
But the 20-year-old plumber flew home on Sunday night because he feared vigilante-style reprisals, according to his father Ian.
Fanouraki was charged last week after turning herself in to police in the resort of Malia.
She admits pouring the drink over Mr Feltham, claiming she did so after he made inappropriate advances to her. But she denies setting fire to him. >>> Rosamond Hutt and James Woodward, Press Association | Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Related:
'Hero' Greek Woman Sets Fire to Drunken Briton's Genitals >>> Paul Anast in Athens | Thursday, August 06, 2009
THE INDEPENDENT: Country divided by call to republish Hitler's anti-semitic autobiography
Germany's Central Council of Jews has taken the unprecedented step of backing a proposal to republish Adolf Hitler's infamous autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf, which has been strictly outlawed in the country since the end of the Second World War.
Although many German Jews still oppose reissuing Hitler's anti-Semitic work, Stephan Kramer, the general secretary of the country's leading Jewish organisation, supports a new scholarly edition of the work designed to inform future generations of the evils of Nazism.
"It makes sense and is important to publish an edition of Mein Kampf with an academic commentary," Mr Kramer said. "A historically critical edition needs to be prepared today to prevent neo-Nazis profiting from it."
However the southern state of Bavaria, which holds the rights to the book, remains strongly opposed to the idea. "We won't lift the ban as it may play straight into the hands of the far right," said a spokesman for the Bavarian government. "Prohibition is highly regarded by Jewish groups and we mean to keep it that way," he said.
Several German academics, including the historian Jürgen Faulenbach, also oppose republishing the work and insist that it does little to throw light on the Nazi era. "The book does not provide any important answers to questions about how the Nazi regime was possible," he said. "It only contains the polarising views of the author. To lift a 60 year old ban on Mein Kampf would be problematic."
Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, which means "My Struggle", in 1924 while serving a four-year term in a Bavarian prison. The book contains the Nazi leader's well-known views on racial purity, and demonstrates his hatred of communism and the Jews. It also hints at his long term plans for the Holocaust. >>> Tony Paterson in Berlin | Monday, August 10, 2009
The Independent leading article: Publish and let Hitler be damned >>> | Monday, August 10, 2009
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