Category: World News & Politics

Is King Fahd dead?

The Saudi government denies it and say that he’s in the hospital but in a stable condition and that tests are being run.

Anyway, I really doubt that.
When these kinds of news start breaking out, they seem to always turn out to be true.
It’s always just a case of the government trying to win some time to figure things out and stabilize things before officially announcing it.

We’ll wait and see…

So, Newsweek weren’t that wrong after all…

I wonder how he “broadly defines” mishandling the Quran?

In a 300-page annual report released today, Amnesty International state that human rights are in retreat worldwide and that the United States bears most responsibility.

All over the world governments are increasingly rolling back the rule of law, taking their cue from the U.S.-led war on terror, the report said.

“The USA as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behavior worldwide,” Secretary General Irene Khan said in the foreword to Amnesty International’s 2005 annual report.

“When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity,” she said.

“The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law,” Khan said.

She also noted Washington’s attempts to re-define torture, circumvent its own ban on the use of it as well as restrict the application of the Geneva convention.

The report also accused Israel of committing abuses that constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.
It criticised the Israeli use of Palestinians as human shields, extra-judicial killings, systematic house demolitions, torture, collective punishment and closures and deliberate killing of civilians.

Some 700 Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupying forces last year alone, an increase from the previous year’s figure of 600, according to the report. About 150 of these were children, many killed deliberately and unlawfully.

[More: Amnesty International, CNN, BBC News, Al Jazeera]

Labour politician and former UK environment minister Michael Meacher has slammed Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush for starting a war he says was to secure oil interests.

“The reason they attacked Iraq is nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, it was nothing to do with democracy in Iraq, it was nothing to do with the human rights abuses of Saddam Hussein.”

“It was principally, totally and comprehensively to do with oil, This was about assuming control over the Middle East and over Iraq, the second largest producer and also over Saudi Arabia next door.”

“It was about securing as much as possible of the remaining supplies of oil and also over the Caspian basin, which of course is Afghanistan.”

— Michael Meacher

I think we all already knew that.
The US government doesn’t care about the Iraqis or the people of the Middle East, all they’re after is the oil.

[Source: Al Jazeera]

All the talk today is about the photos of Saddam half-naked in only his underpants doing his washing in a prison cell.

The photos were published in the UK tabloid newspaper The Sun and then carried by the NY Post in the US.

The Sun is pointing to the US Military for a conspired release of the photos to humilate the Iraqi Insurgency. The US Military is denying it played an organized role in the release of the photos, saying it is aggressively investigating who leaked the photos.

I think this is disgusting and very low.
This kind of humiliation and degradation is unacceptable and illegal under Geneva Convention rules no matter who the person is and how many bad things he’s done.
The people behind this should be held accountable for their actions.

[More: CNN, BBC News, Hou-Hou Blog (FR)]

Everyone has heard of Newsweek’s May 9 story about the desecration of the Koran in Guantanamo bay that said American interrogators put copies of the Quran on toilets or in one case, flushed one down a toilet in an attempt to rattle suspects.

Newsweek’s article cited “sources” as saying a report from a military investigation into allegations of prisoner abuse revealed that interrogators, “in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Quran down a toilet.”

The article sparked massive anti-American riots in Afghanistan, Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan, Indonesia and elsewhere in the Muslim world last week.

In its May 23 issue, Newsweek reported that its senior government source had backed away from his initial story, saying he couldn’t remember if the toilet allegations were in the particular report from the investigation.

And after pressure from the Bush administration, Newsweek disavowed the whole story on Monday. And Newsweek’s Washington bureau chief, says the magazine is taking preventive action in the aftermath of the incident, going back to learn from the mistakes they made.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan acknowledged there are still other ongoing investigations into other reports of religious intolerance — including desecration of the Koran — by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.

What do I think?
Well, I think this whole story is most probably true, but that the US government has put so much pressure onto everyone involved to just break the whole thing down and invalidate it.

[Sources: CNN, Al Jazeera]

Uri Avnery and Gush Shalom group demonstrating. – A symbolic blood stain on the national flag. – More Photos by Rachel Avnery.

The car stopped for a moment. An elderly lady pushed her head out of the window and shouted; “Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Today is Holocaust Day, and you are demonstrating for Arabs?!”

“How can one demonstrate for Arabs, especially on Holocaust Day?
Well, it’s a good question. And there is a good answer.

The answer expresses one of the lessons to be drawn from the Holocaust, a lesson that should be raised like a banner on Holocaust Day:

– That decent persons must come to the aid of a persecuted minority.
– That loyalty to your country does not justify agreement with the occupation of another country and the oppression of another people.
– That you must not accept an ideology telling you that you belong to a master nation, to a superior race, to a chosen people – and that other people are inferior and subhuman.

… But Palestinians, and Arabs generally, are not considered full human beings…”

— Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery is a longtime Israeli peace activist. Since 1948 has advocated the setting up of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In 1974, Uri Avnery was the first Israeli to establish contact with PLO leadership. In 1982 he was the first Israeli ever to meet Yassir Arafat. He served 3 terms in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), and is the founder of Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc)

[Via: Je Blog]

Good news from Kuwait…

Congratulations to all Kuwaiti women and to Kuwait.
This is really great news.

A Senate committee has approved a $441.6 billion defense bill for fiscal 2006 that envisions spending an additional $50 billion next year for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Can you just imagine how much could be done towards making the world a better place with all that money?!
Instead it’s all being spent on war and destruction!!
More lives will be lost, more destruction, more hatred, more enemies, more more more in an endless cycle of mad violence.

The only winners behind this are those giant weapons manufacturers and the politicians they bribe and back.
It’s disgusting…