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Saturday, November 19, 2011
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the fugitive son of Libya's deceased former dictator, has been arrested in southern Libya, according to officials from the country's new government.
Libyan state TV reported that Saif has arrived in captivity and unhurt at an army base in the town of Zintan, 90 miles south-west of Tripoli.
Muammar Gaddafi's second and highest-profile son was captured along with several bodyguards by fighters near the town of Obari in Libya's southern desert, said the interim justice minister and other officials.
Saif was said to be in good health, according to the justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi.
"We have arrested Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in [the] Obari area," the minister told Reuters.
Saif was captured near the southern city of Sabha with two aides trying to smuggle him out to neighbouring Niger, militia commander Bashir al-Tayeleb said. » | Chris Stephen in Tripoli and David Batty | Saturday, November 19, 2011
Photo of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi »
Spokesman of the Ha’eal district, Sheikh Motlab al-Nabet said the committee has the right to stop a women whose eyes seem “tempting” and order her to cover them immediately.
Saudi women are already forced to wear a loose black dress and to cover their hair and in some areas, their face, while in public or face fines or sometimes worse, including public lashings.
The announcement came days after the Saudi newspaper al-Watan reported that a Saudi man was admitted to a hospital after a fight with a member of the committee when he ordered his wife to cover her eyes. The husband was then stabbed twice in the hand. » | Manar Ammar | Wednesday, November 16, 2011
HT: Always On Watch »
Women are objects in many conservatives’ views. Things that can be owned and used for a man’s pleasure when he desires and when he wants. This is why we have seen the growth of polygamy, the shoving aside of a woman’s ability to choose her life’s goals, and the unending “debate” over the causes of sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Whether we agree that one’s body should be a form of protest – which so many of Egypt’s liberals disagree with – is irrelevant. The reality is that Mahdy has been able, with her body, [to] debunk all myths of Egyptian liberalism. Her naked image, which has seen over one million hits, has shown that Egypt is not ready for free expression.
Liberal activists online lamented that the 20-year-old university student has “ruined” her life, is “young and doesn’t know what she has done.” But in an inherently conservative society, Mahdy has created something only the truly revolutionary in today’s world can do: showing the hypocrisy of the so-called freedom fighters for expression.
In the ultra-male dominated society of Egypt, women are too often told what they should put on their bodies. Wear the veil, wear loose clothes, don’t wear this, don’t wear that, and so on. Mahdy has shown that nobody has a right to tell her, or other women for that matter, what is appropriate for a woman. Her body is her own and she can do what she likes with it, and that includes putting nothing over top it and publishing it online. It’s her right. Read on and comment » | Joseph Mayton | Thursday, November 17, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Britain will have to abandon the pound and join the single currency “faster than people think”, Germany’s finance minister has said.
Wolfgang Schäuble said that, despite the current crisis in the eurozone, the euro will ultimately emerge as the common currency of the entire European Union. He said he “respects” Britain’s decision to keep the pound, but insisted that the survival and eventual stabilisation of the euro will convince non-members to join the currency club. “This may happen more quickly than some people in the British Isles currently believe,” he added.
Mr Schäuble also said Germany will stand firm on its call for a financial transaction tax that Britain believes would badly harm the City of London. » | Bruno Waterfield, in Brussels and Christopher Hope in Berlin | Friday, November 18, 2011
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An anti-British backlash gathered pace in Germany yesterday as David Cameron and Angela Merkel struggled to disguise the gulf between them on how to tackle the eurozone crisis.
The Prime Minister returned from talks in Berlin with the German leader having made little progress in agreeing emergency action to stop the financial contagion spreading.
Tensions were inflamed after a close ally of Ms Merkel predicted Britain would eventually adopt the euro.
The German media joined the clamour, with the mass-circulation newspaper Bild questioning whether it might be better for Britain to leave the European Union altogether.
Behind the leaders' smiles at a joint press conference yesterday, they acknowledged fundamental differences remained on three key issues: » | Nigel Morris and Tony Paterson | Saturday, November 20, 2011
Related articles here, here, here, here, here, and here
He is the new flavour of the moment in the race for the Republicans' presidential nomination, but former Speaker Newt Gingrich is discovering what many of his rivals know well already. No sooner do you bob to the top of the popularity polls than a tempest of media scrutiny and investigation threatens to push you back under again.
But then Mr Gingrich, who was Speaker of the House for much of Bill Clinton's span in the White House, is – as he likes to remind all of us often – wiser than any of the other runners for the nomination, and is a historian. He therefore cannot be too surprised. "Everything is legitimate," he told reporters this week. "This is the presidency."
As Herman Cain, the former pizza tycoon, has faded after allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women, so Mr Gingrich has risen, and he is now in high orbit alongside Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts. A new Fox television poll released yesterday put him at 23 per cent, against 22 per cent for Mr Romney and 15 per cent for Mr Cain.
His is a space ship heavily stacked with baggage, however, some of which Republican voters, who begin choosing their nominee in Iowa in just 45 days, may have trouble overlooking. The latest has to do with the very lucrative relationship he struck after retiring from Congress in 1999 with Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage lending agency that conservatives have long excoriated for helping create the housing bubble and its collapse. » | David Usborne | Friday, November 18, 2011
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Friday, November 18, 2011
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THE GUARDIAN: By posing naked, Aliaa Mahdy has brilliantly challenged the misogyny and sexual hypocrisy of Egypt's leaders
When a woman is the sum total of her headscarf and hymen – that is, what's on her head and what is between her legs – then nakedness and sex become weapons of political resistance. You can witness how nudity sears through layers of hypocrisy and repression by following Aliaa Mahdy, a 20-year-old Egyptian who lit the fuse of that double-H bombwhen she posted a nude photograph of herself on her blog last week.
It was in Egypt, after all, that the ruling military junta stripped women of both headscarves (detained female activists were made to strip) and hymens when it subjected them to "virginity tests" last March, by which a soldier inserted two fingers into their vaginal opening. What are the military's "virginity tests", but a cheap tactic to humiliate and silence? When sexual assault parades as a test of the "honour" of virginity, then posing in your parents' home in nothing but stockings, red shoes and a red hair clip is an attack towards all patriarchs out there.
Supporters and detractors quickly lined up to comment on her blog, where the counter for pageviews outpaces a pendulum many times over. Far from the immature naïf some have tried to paint her as being, Mahdy knows exactly where it hurts – and kicks. She wrote:
"Put on trial the artists' models who posed nude for art schools until the early 70s, hide the art books and destroy the nude statues of antiquity, then undress and stand before a mirror and burn your bodies that you despise to forever rid yourselves of your sexual hangups before you direct your humiliation and chauvinism and dare to try to deny me my freedom of expression".She might have been born 10 years into Hosni Mubarak's rule, but Mahdy understands the way personal freedoms have steadily shrunk in Egypt. The double whammy of military rule – in place since 1952 – along with the growing influence of Islamism, ensured that. Mubarak would fill jails with Islamists, but would fight their ideas not by giving civil and personal liberties room to express themselves, but through conservative clerics employed by the state. When the only two sides fighting are conservative – even if one of them is just conservative in appearance – then everyone loses. And women don't just lose; they're also used as cheap ammunition.
Witness the ultra-conservative Salafi party's use of female candidates on their list: it looks good when you have female candidates; you can tell the feminists who decry your misogynistic ideology to shut up. But the said candidates have no face, and no voice. On election pamphlets, a rose represented one Salafi female candidate – and soon after, the rose was replaced by a picture of the candidate's husband. There are reports that if Salafi women win parliamentary seats, their husbands or a male guardians will speak on their behalf because Salafis consider a woman's voice to be sinful. » | Mona Eltahawy | Friday, November 18, 2011
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London/Berlin - Im Englischen klingt das sehr hübsch: "We agreed to disagree" sagt man, wenn zwei Konfliktparteien ergebnislos auseinander gegangen sind, aber weiterhin im Dialog an den Differenzen arbeiten wollen.
Genau so ist es Angela Merkel undDavid Cameron am Freitag in Berlin ergangen: Die deutsche Regierungschefin und Großbritanniens Premier haben sich im Kanzleramt an einen Tisch gesetzt, über den Zustand der EU und die Euro-Krise gesprochen und notwendige Konsequenzen erörtert. Dabei wurde abermals klar, dass sich für sie unterschiedliche Handlungsaufforderungen ergeben. Also lautete die Botschaft bei der anschließenden Pressekonferenz: Deutschland und Großbritannien brauchen einander, genau wie Europa und die Insel, man schätzt sich - aber die Differenzen bleiben ungelöst.
Vor allem bei der Finanztransaktionsteuer geht es nicht voran: Merkel ist dafür, Cameron dagegen. Klipp und klar.
Wie sich die beiden dennoch umschmeichelten, ist zweifellos ein gutes Signal für Europa und die Märkte. Weil es dafür spricht, dass im Verhältnis zwischen London und Berlin kein grundsätzlicher Bruch entstanden ist. "Was wollen die Engländer eigentlich noch in der EU?" fragte am Freitag die "Bild"-Zeitung an prominenter Stelle. Cameron gab im Kanzleramt die Antwort: Der gemeinsame Binnenmarkt innerhalb der Union sei für sein Land von zentraler Bedeutung, sagte er - "und wir haben ein Interesse an einem starken Euro". Merkel wiederum lobte die Briten als engen Partner. » | Von Florian Gathmann und Carsten Volkery | Freitag 18. November 2011
Rote Lackschuhe, Nylonstrümpfe, eine Schleife im Haar. Mehr trägt Alia Magda al-Mahdi, 20, Studentin der Kunst- und Medienwissenschaften, nicht auf dem Foto, das in ihrem Heimatland Ägypten ein Tabu gebrochen hat. Ihre provokante Aktion hat ihr Drohungen, aber auch Solidaritätsbekundungen beschert - und die ohnehin gereizte politische Stimmung gut eine Woche vor dem Start der Parlamentswahlen weiter angeheizt.
Das Foto hat die Studentin der Amerikanischen Universität in Kairo in ihrem Blog veröffentlicht, gemeinsam mit weiteren Aktbildern. Eines zeigt einen nackten Mann mit Gitarre und dann wieder Mahdi mit gelben Balken vor Augen, Mund und Scham. Die Rechtecke stünden für "die Zensur unseres Wissens, Ausdrucks und Sexualität", kommentiert sie in dem Blog, das sie mit "Tagebuch einer Rebellin" betitelt hat. Sie wehre sich "gegen eine Gesellschaft von Gewalt, Rassismus, Sexismus, sexueller Belästigung und Heuchelei" - mit einem Aktporträt, das sie nach eigenen Angaben vor Monaten im Haus ihrer Eltern aufgenommen hat.
Für europäische Verhältnisse wirkt das eher altmodisch als revolutionär. Doch in der konservativen ägyptischen Gesellschaft, wo sich Paare in der Öffentlichkeit nicht küssen dürfen und Frauen auf der Straße nicht einmal ihre nackten Arme zeigen, hat die Aufnahme eine Lawine der Entrüstung losgetreten. » | son/dop/AP | Freitag 18. November 2011
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In his most detailed public comments on the controversial move, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols warned against the proposal to “annexe the territory of marriage” for same-sex couples and “weaken” an institution at the heart of society.
He also expressed some support for the activists camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral, saying that protest can help start important debates, but added that they needed to make their demands clearer.
And in response to the current scandals involving abuse committed by Catholic clergy, the Archbishop of Westminster admitted that the Church’s response to victims has been “inadequate”.
His comments highlight the fact that the Prime Minister will face strong opposition from traditional religious groups over the next year, despite receiving praise for his commitment to allow full marriage for same-sex couples for the first time.
Homosexuals have been allowed to enter into civil partnerships since 2005, giving them the same legal rights as heterosexuals.
From next month [they] will be able to hold the ceremonies in places of worship, providing the governing body of the faith group agrees. » | Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Editor | Friday, November 18, 2011
LE FIGARO: Les chefs des gouvernements allemand et britannique ont émis des signaux différents vendredi sur la manière de résoudre la crise de la dette dans la zone euro. Ils ont reconnu ne pas avoir réussi à rapprocher leurs positions concernant l'introduction d'une taxe sur les transactions financières en Europe.
Lors d'une conférence de presse à Berlin, le Premier ministre britannique David Cameron a estimé qu'il fallait un pare-feu crédible à la zone euro et que le bloc monétaire devait utiliser toutes ses institutions pour lutter contre la crise. La chancelière allemande a au contraire prôné une approche "pas à pas". » | avec Reuters | vendredi 18 novembre 2011
THE HUFFINGTON POST: Eurozone Crisis: David Cameron Admits He And Angela Merkel 'Don't Agree On Everything' After Meeting In Berlin – David Cameron attempted to play down tensions with Angela Merkel in a joint press conference on Friday, but the two leaders admitted there had not been any progress on a European-wide financial transaction tax. ¶ "We've had very good discussions between very good friends", the prime minister said. "There are many things where we are in absolute agreement - on the importance of the single market, on the need for budget discipline, on the need for all countries to deal with their debt and their deficit. This is where we are in absolute agreement... we share the same plan." ¶ Merkel is frustrated with Cameron and George Osborne for resisting calls for a Europe-wide financial transaction tax, which the UK say will hit the City of London hardest. » | Huffington Post UK | Friday, November 18, 2011
«Protéger la démocratie et le transfert du pouvoir». Tel était le thème de la manifestation organisée vendredi par une quarantaine d'associations et partis politiques. A quelques jours des élections législatives du 28 novembre, l'appel a été entendu par les Egyptiens. Ils étaient au moins 50.000, peut-être plus, venus de tout le pays, à manifester sur la place Tahrir, au Caire. » | Par lefigaro.fr | vendredi 18 novembre 2011
Almost exactly a year ago, the Queen hosted a state dinner for one of the world’s more colourful couples, the portly Emir of Qatar and his spectacularly attired wife, Sheikha Mozah. I wrote at the time that there were two interesting things about their tiny country, which few Britons could pinpoint on a map and even fewer pronounce properly. One was banal: it was very rich. The second struck me as odd, but it was what a number of people had told me: one diplomat said, “Everyone suddenly seems to hate Qatar.”
In the intervening 12 months, the emirate has become much better known. Its jets have flown alongside our own over Libya. It has showered largesse on pro-democracy movements, even as its pet television station, Al Jazeera, publicised their revolutions. At home, the Emir announced the statelet’s first elections. Yet the dislike has only got worse. What has the poor old nouveau riche country done?
I’m not just talking about winning the right to host the World Cup in 2022 back in December – although the subsequent abuse of its culture, temperature, and manner of victory did, in retrospect, set the tone. Even though football fans never went so far as to burn the Qatari flag, that is what a lot of Arabs have been doing. At first, it was because they were paid to: dictators such as Colonel Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak, seeing the Qatari hand in the revolutions that were bringing their reigns to an end, got out the bovver boys. But now there are protests in democratic Tunisia against Qatar’s interference in its politics, while in Libya, even those who have most cause to be grateful are complaining. Read on and comment » | Richard Spencer | Thursday, November 17, 2011
The Chinese government has declared that the long-running dispute should be off-limits at talks to be held on Saturday, which will be attended by Mr Obama, China's Premier Wen Jiabao and 16 other nations including several with claims over the waterway.
But Mr Obama said the gathering, held this year on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, "can be the premier arena for us to be able to work together on a wide range of issues - maritime security or non-proliferation".
The president has irritated China with a drive to enhance the US role as a regional power, positioning Marines in northern Australia and pushing for a potentially transformational trans-Pacific trade pact.
Beijing sees the initiatives as intruding into its own sphere of influence, with the dispute over the South China Sea putting the two major world powers' differences into stark focus.
On Friday, Wen again warned against interference by "external forces" in the wrangle. » | Telegraph’s Foreign Staff | Friday, November 18, 2011
My comment:
Obama is playing with fire. Two of the dumbest things he did this week were telling the world that the US is not afraid of China, and then going to Australia and advertising the fact that the US was going to expand its military in the region to protect the Australians from the Chinese. Is there no end to this man's cack-handedness? Is there no end to his naïveté? Is there no end to his lack of understanding?
If the US is truly not afraid of China, it is worrying, because it should be. Meddling in the region which is traditionally China's sphere of influence will lead to no good place. Is Obama trying to set the stage for the third world war, or what?
This is troubling indeed! – © Mark
This comment also appears here.
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THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: AAP – The Chinese premier has warned against external interference in a dispute over the South China Sea, fuelled by Australia's new military pact with the US, as world leaders prepare to discuss the issue in Bali.
The meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) will widen on Saturday into the East Asia Summit, which also takes in Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and, for the first time, the US and Russia.
But while existing priority areas of finance, education, environment, disaster management and health will feature in discussions, an increasingly tense dispute over sovereign rights in the South China Sea is set to steal much of the focus.
Maritime security is not formally on the summit's agenda, but it is expected to be discussed in a retreat session under what has been called "an exchange of ideas on regional and international issues".
China and four ASEAN countries - Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam - have staked territorial claims over the crucial sea lane, which handles more than a third of the world's seaborne trade and half its traffic in oil and gas.
The expected "exchange of ideas" on the long-running dispute comes after the issue was fuelled this week by the announcement that the US will use Australia as a base for an increased military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, viewed as a hedge against China's growing influence. » | Karlis Salna, AAP South-East Asia Correspondent | Friday, November 18, 2011
SPIEGEL ONLINE: China weist USA in die Schranken: Die USA wollen ihre Präsenz im Pazifik ausbauen, jetzt kommt die Replik aus China. Die Amerikaner müssten die Interessen der Volksrepublik respektieren, verlangt Premierminister Wen mit ungewöhnlich deutlichen Worten - und stellt klar: In Südostasien dürften "fremde Staaten" keinen Einfluss nehmen. ¶ Peking/Washington/Bali - Bis hier und nicht weiter: China reagiert scharf auf denStrategiewechsel der USA im Südchinesischen Meer. Peking respektiere zwar die "berechtigten Interessen" der Amerikaner in Ostasien, hieß es in einer Mitteilung des Außenministeriums. Doch im Gegenzug werde erwartet, dass Washington auch die Interessen Chinas berücksichtige, stellte der Sprecher Liu Weimin klar. » | als/Reuters/dpa | Freitag 18. November 2011
Volker Kauder is now a famous man in Great Britain -- but that doesn't necessarily mean the senior Christian Democrat is popular on the other side of the North Sea.
"Just looking for their own advantage and not being prepared to contribute -- that cannot be the message we accept from the British," Kauder said at the conference of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Leipzig on Tuesday, in reference to British opposition to a European Union-wide financial transaction tax favored by Germany. Although the United Kingdom is not in the common currency zone, as a member of the EU itself it "also carries a responsibility for the success of Europe," Kauder said.
With his remarks, Kauder has managed to wake the slumbering British media beast. '"Controversial claim from Merkel ally that EU countries all follow Berlin's lead -- and Britain should fall into line" was how the headline in the tabloid Daily Mail interpreted his remarks. Kauder's word will certainly cause trouble in the UK, especially among euroskeptic members of the Conservatives. The Times [£] [sic] newspaper is already writing of a clash between London and Berlin. » | dsk -- with wires | Wednesday, November 16, 2011
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David Cameron will be warned that he risks creating an unstoppable momentum behind a "two-speed Europe", which would be dominated by France and Germany, if Britain demands too many concessions during the eurozone crisis.
In a series of meetings in Berlin and Brussels, the prime minister will be advised that Britain should table modest proposals next year when EU leaders embark on a small treaty revision to underpin the euro.
Cameron will have breakfast in Brussels with José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission. He will then meet Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European council, before flying to Berlin to meet Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
Merkel, who said earlier this week that the eurozone crisis showed the need to create a political union in Europe, is pressing fellow EU leaders to agree to a narrow and quick revision of the Lisbon treaty. This is designed to place tougher fiscal rules for the eurozone on a legal footing.
Der Spiegel reported that Berlin would like the European Court of Justice to take action against eurozone members that break the rules. A six-page German foreign ministry paper, published by Der Spiegel this week, calls for "a ('small') convention that is precisely limited in terms of content" to present proposals "rapidly". These would then be agreed by all 27 members of the EU.
Merkel warned the prime minister at an emergency European council meeting in Brussels on 23 October that she would reluctantly have to side with France if Britain overplayed its hand in the negotiations. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, wants a treaty to be agreed among the 17 members of the eurozone, excluding Britain and the other nine EU members outside the single currency. » | Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent | Thursday, November 17, 2011
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The six-page memo, by the German foreign office, argues that Europe’s economic powerhouses should be able to intervene in how beleaguered eurozone countries are run.
The confidential blueprint sets out Germany’s plan to tackle the eurozone debt crisis by creating a “stability union” that will be “immediately followed by moves “on the way towards a political union”.
It will prompt fears that Germany’s euro crisis plans could result in a European super-state with spending and tax plans set in Brussels.
The proposals urge that the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a eurozone bailout fund that will be established by the end of next year, should be transformed into a version of the International Monetary Fund for the EU.
The European Monetary Fund (EMF) would be able to take full fiscal control of a failing country, including taking countries into receivership. Read on and comment » | Bruno Waterfield, in Brussels | Thursday, November 17, 2011
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