Category: World News & Politics

Help Evacuate Tunisians In Lebanon

Our fellow Tunisian blogger and friend Zied, who’s currently stranded in Beirut, appeals to the Tunisian government to help evacuate Tunisians in Lebanon and get them home safely.

All countries are currently evacuating or planning to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon, and he wishes that Tunisia would take steps to do the same too.

He asks for the government to organize through the embassy and it’s contacts with the neighbouring countries ways to get Tunisians out of Lebanon and onto flights back to Tunisia.

His post is a cry for help, and I would like to pass on this message too, hoping someone will read it and do something for our Tunisian brothers and sisters in Lebanon.

Our hearts and minds remain with our Lebanese brothers and sisters, may God stand with you all and protect you.

On The Verge Of War

Over these past couple of days, I’ve been following the news coming out of the Middle East, and it just makes me more and more dissapointed in mankind and in this world we’re living in today.

We’re on the verge of a war, if it hasn’t already started; rockets, bombs, sieges, people dying, lives ruined, buildings up in flames, ashes of what was; a sick appetite for destruction that is never satisfied.

Media on both sides spinning off stories, biased to this side or the other, propaganda and hot air; the truth as always gets lost in between, just like the innocent lives it concerns.
In a few days nobody will remember why all this started, but the death and destruction will continue.

Irresponsible speeches, stupid actions and unrealistic decisions taken by incompetent people who shouldn’t be making them, pulling the region and the world deeper into chaos and darkness.

So called super powers pouring gasoline onto the fire, spreading it for their own filthy reasons and well-known hidden agendas, planning to further dominate the world through their unfairness and empty arrogance.

The world watches on, another story unfolds, as if in a fairy tale in a land far and way, in a time that is not ours; yet it’s close, it’s around the corner, it’s real, as real as the smoke and fire devouring lives, as true as the blood of the innocent being murdered; Still the world watches without a reaction.

We’re on the verge of yet another war in this world of wars; it’s not the first and it’s certainly not the last; peace stands no chance with the likes of men who rule the world today; God save us all.

Bombers And Baskets

Journalist: “Monsieur Ben M’Hidi, don’t you think it’s a bit cowardly to use women’s baskets and handbags to carry explosive devices that kill so many innocent people?”

Ben M’Hidi: “And doesn’t it seem to you even more cowardly to drop napalm bombs on defenseless villages, so that there are a thousand times more innocent victims? Of course, if we had your airplanes it would be a lot easier for us. Give us your bombers, and you can have our baskets.”

— Dialogue from The Battle of Algiers, dir. Gillo Pontecorvo (1965).

[Via: Lawrence of Cyberia]

Zimbabwe Introduces $100,000 Note

Sad news from Zimbabwe…

Zimbabwe is introducing a bank note worth 100,000 Zimbabwe dollars, to help consumers as inflation exceeds 1,000%.

The note will be worth about $1 at the official exchange rate, but only $0.30 on the informal market.

The 50,000 Zimbabwe dollar bill, introduced only four months ago, is not enough to buy a loaf of bread.

Zimbabwe is suffering from shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency. In April, inflation passed 1,000% per annum for the first time.

[Source: BBC News]

News like this truly breaks my heart.
I remember a beautiful, great, stable, ever flourishing Zimbabwe from my childhood, and then I see its state today, and it really saddens me.
What a big big shame.

[Via: The Emirates Economist]

Egyptian Blogger Arrested; Free Alaa

Egyptian Blogger Alaa Abdel Fatah has been arrested alongside 10 others while peacefully demonstrating in support of the independence of the Judiciary in Egypt and the release of previous demonstrators who were detained 2 weeks earlier.

Alaa and those arrested with him are now arrested for 15 days “pending investigation”, which could be renewed indefinitely if the state so wishes.

Currently there are about 48 detained, 6 of them are bloggers, and 3 of them are women.

Being the most famous of the captured bloggers, a ‘Free Alaa‘ campaign has been started to amount pressure to release Alaa and those with him.

Supporters of the campaign have also launched a Google bombing campaign by linking the word Egypt to the Free Alaa campaign, in order to raise awareness of the issue internationally.

For more information and ways to help, check out the Free Alaa Campaign.

The Madness of Zionism

“I am not a psychologist, but I think that everyone who lives with the contradictions of Zionism condemns himself to protracted madness. It’s impossible to live like this. It’s impossible to live with such a tremendous wrong. It’s impossible to live with such conflicting moral criteria. When I see not only the settlements and the occupation and the suppression, but now also the insane wall that the Israelis are trying to hide behind, I have to conclude that there is something very deep here in our attitude to the indigenous people of this land that drives us out of our minds.

There is something gigantic here that doesn’t allow us truly to recognize the Palestinians, that doesn’t allow us to make peace with them. And that something has to do with the fact that even before the return of the land and the houses and the money, the settlers’ first act of expiation toward the natives of this land must be to restore to them their dignity, their memory, their justness

European Union Punishing Palestinians For Democracy

“It’s not acceptable to punish the Palestinian people. We cannot say to the Palestinians: ‘it’s good being democratic and at the same time we punish you’. The EU must find a mechanism to get aid to the people…”

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority

After the US, the European Union moves to stop payments to the Hamas-led government in Palestine.

So, yeah, it’s good to be democratic as long as you choose who they want you to choose. Simple.

[Source: The Guardian]
[More: EU observer]
[Via: Je Blog]

Arabs & US Democracy

”The war to ‘democratise’ Iraq was the most valuable gift the American administration has ever given the dictator regimes in the Arab world. It is a practical example of what democracy means as seen by the Americans. Arab nations see the war in Iraq as an exercise to secure oil supplies from the region and to destroy an Arab country for the best interests of Israel.”

— Bourhan Ghalioun, Director of the Centre for Contemporary Oriental Studies at the Sorbonne University.

[Via: Je Blog]