Morning Posting.
- Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation update: Fiji 5.4 !More info here.
- Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.
- RED ALERT: Just in time for 2012 election, FCC preparing to launch stealth 'Fairness Doctrine'.(DougRoss).Yesterday, our broadcast industry tipster alerted us to a bizarre, FCC-directed national broadcast test (see "Exactly one year before the 2012 election, Obama FCC schedules first-ever nationwide test of emergency broadcast system").Today, Ten Mile Island gives us more ominous information:The FCC is expected to issue a proposal tomorrow (today) which will, if adopted, require broadcasters to provide much more detailed information and reports on the programming they air.Instead of quarterly 'Issues/Program Lists' (which already viewed as an unduly burdensome requirement and seldom if ever used by the public) the FCC is looking to have stations fill out a new and more complicated form which would be posted on the stations’ websites.The program reporting requirement would require a station to glean programming information based on two composite weeks per quarter (presumably selected by the FCC) and insert the results of their analysis into a form which would then be posted on the station website. In addition to the new programming information, all of the required data maintained in the station’s political file would also have to be posted on the website.Not only will the web site posting requirement be labor intensive (particularly for small market stations) but they will reveal any required programming postings and other filings which fail to meet the various filing deadlines for required information. The newly proposed rules would also provide easy access to opponents and protest groups to gather information for petitions to deny and complaints to challenge license renewals and any other applications filed by the stations.Our government masters will require us to be suitably engaged in social justice.In other words, just in time for the 2012 elections, the FCC will help accelerate license challenges against "uncooperative" radio stations: namely, those stations that feature conservative talk radio.Just before Barack Obama took his oath of office, Jim Boulet Jr. warned us that efforts like these are designed to supplant the Orwellian "Fairness Doctrine". It's not that progressives gave up trying to censor free speech when they dropped their push for "Fairness", it's that they're using more underhanded tactics to do so. Tactics like "localism": Remember that an FCC license is required for any radio or television station to legally operate in the United States. A single complaint from anyone can significantly hinder a station's license renewal process or even cost the station its FCC license entirely...
These random efforts could be far more effective at silencing conservatives if they could only be systematized and institutionalized. That is exactly what the FCC proposed on January 24th. Every radio and television station would be required to create:
[P]ermanent advisory boards comprised of local officials and other community leaders, to periodically advise them of local needs and issues, and seek comment on the matter. ...
To ensure that these discussions include representatives of all community elements, these boards would be made up of leaders of various segments of the community, including underserved groups.
The "community advisory board as permanent complaint department" model may well be based upon the 1995 revisions of the Community Reinvestment Act [that helped touch off the mortgage meltdown].
If you think this administration is simply going to let conservative pundits like Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh exercise their First Amendment rights without an ACORN-style fight, well, I've got a nice condo in Vegas I'd like to sell you.Hmmm.......Herr Doctor Joseph Goebbels would be proud of the Obama regime.Read the full story here.
- Alinsky to Obama to Occupiers.(AmSpectator).A president in his element.Civil unrest is President Barack Obama's crutch, his comfort zone, and his trump card. That's why he has encouraged the "Occupy Wall Street" protest and its progeny across the country, despite significant political dangers to him for doing so. Closer looks at Obama's career roots and at the protesters' behaviors help explain both why the protests are worrisome developments and why the president actually likes them.First, it helps to understand just how radical most of these protesters are -- and just how obscene. Clearly, they are mostly socialist or communist in orientation. And reports are rampant about the lewdness, vileness, and illegality that has marked the Wall Street "occupation" zone, including plenteous drugs, public nudity and sex, and defecation on police cars. A lot of this isn't free speech; it's open law-breaking.So why does Obama applaud it, when he repeatedly castigated Tea Party demonstrators who lawfully secured permits, usually behaved with remarkable decorum, and cleaned up after themselves?The answer is easy: This is Obama's milieu. This is how he was trained. As Ryan Lizza explained in a definitive piece in the New Republic -- a liberal magazine, not a right-wing/anti-Obama hit factory -- Obama's intellectual roots and career choices made him a student of, and later actually an instructor in, the particular mass-movement methods taught by the late, radical, Saul Alinsky. The sort of unrest seen in the anti-Wall Street movement comes directly out of Alinsky's secular bible called Rules for Radicals."The first step in community organization is community disorganization," wrote Alinsky. "The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization…. The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community…. When those prominent in the status quo turn and label you an 'agitator' they are completely correct, for that is, on one word, your function -- to agitate to the point of conflict."Alinsky hardly was squeamish about using filth to get his way. "If your organization is too tiny even for noise, stink up the place." Later, he gave a fictitious but oh-so-literal example of one way to do it: He suggested that protesters gorge on beans before occupying a public building so that their -- uh, their natural emissions -- would literally create a stench. "In a fight almost anything goes," he wrote. "It almost reaches the point where you stop to apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt." Alinsky openly and exuberantly belittled the notion of ethics. All that mattered, he said, was whether your side is losing or winning. Only afterwards do you try to find an excuse for your illicit behavior: "The tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that you do what you can with what you have and [then] clothe it with moral garments."To be clear, nobody suggests Obama is personally orchestrating the various "Occupy" demonstrations. Then again, he doesn't need to. The Occupiers are receiving financial help or organizational muscle from many of his associates or major supporters, including several union bosses of the sort who just weeks ago pledged to "take these [SOBs] out" of commission. Despite Obama's eloquent words earlier this year demanding milder rhetoric and more carefully calibrated political actions, he has not uttered a peep in admonishment of the increasingly virulent language, not to mention lawless actions such as attempting to physically "take over" public buildings.Critics have noted that the protesters often can't even define what they are protesting, or that their "issues" are such a diverse hodgepodge as to be unintelligible. Again, this is straight from Alinsky's playbook. The organizer, he wrote, "should search for and use the wrong reasons to achieve the right goals. He should be able, with skill and calculation, to use irrationality in his attempts to progress to a rational world. For a variety of reasons the organizer must develop multiple issues…. Multiple issues mean constant action and life."What Obama particularly likes about this disruptive movement is that its only universally acknowledged target is the one he himself provided: Wall Street. He's the one who repeatedly gave the marching order against corporate bogeymen. As Alinsky wrote in his most famous rule of all: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." This is exactly what Obama himself tried to do as a community organizer in Chicago. It is what he has done every step of the way as campaigner and as president, always finding someone to blame or be against: George W. Bush, greedy corporations, millionaires, Republican congressmen, or people who "cling to guns or religion."The problem with Saul Alinsky -- and for the protesters who still, knowingly or unknowingly, do his work -- was that nothing was sacred. Rules for Radicals is, in Alinsky's own words, officially dedicated to "the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer."Alinsky seemed to mean the dedication to be funny. But it's no laughing matter, and neither are protests that violate common decency.Read the full story here.
- GOP senators urge hearings on Iraq withdrawal.(Politico).Twelve members of the Senate Armed Services Committee — 11 Republicans and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut — have asked the committee’s chairman, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), to hold hearings on President Barack Obama’s announcement that all U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of this year.In a letter released Thursday, the senators said the administration has sent conflicting signals on whether any troops would remain in Iraq. While Obama’s announcement “apparently ends negotiations between the United States and the Government of Iraq on a long-term training and stability force of sufficient size to protect both U.S. and Iraqi enduring national security interests,” the letter noted that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has also said the U.S. will continue talks with the Iraqis.“Given the president’s announcement that all U.S. military forces will be withdrawn by the end of the year, our committee should take the lead on establishing the public record on the administration’s plan and ensuring Congress’s rigorous oversight of this consequential decision,” the senators wrote.The only GOP senator on the committee who did not sign the letter was Susan Collins of Maine.Levin’s office declined comment on the request.Obama’s announcement Friday came after efforts to negotiate a new security agreement were bogged down over the question of whether any U.S. troops who remained would have immunity from local prosecution — something Iraqi officials refused to grant and U.S. officials said was a deal-breaker. The discussions centered around whether several thousand U.S. troops would remain as trainers under a new deal to replace a 2008 agreement that expires Dec. 31.Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other GOP senators, along with Lieberman, already were concerned that the number of troops likely to remain under a new deal was too low to defend U.S. interests in Iraq. McCain called the withdrawal “a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime, which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.”The White House portrayed the move as the fulfillment of Obama’s campaign promise to end the Iraq War. But it also reflected the realities of Iraqi politics. Key supporters of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government — particularly the Iranian-backed cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — opposed any new deal in which U.S. troops would remain.Hmmmm......After a General called 'the Little Corporal' and a Corporal playing General now a Community Organiser as 'Supreme commander'?Read the full story here.
- Rep. Joe Walsh to Eric Holder: You better resign immediately, buddy.(HotAir).It was faint at first, but it grows ever louder, this cry for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) today became the fourth Congressman to explicitly call for Holder to take responsibility for the lethally reckless Operation Fast and Furious and to voluntarily leave his post because of his presumed authorization of the program. Walsh’s behest follows similar requests from Reps. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.).Walsh today sent a harshly-worded letter to Holder, in which he asked Holder to “resign immediately and issue an apology to the American people [he has] failed to serve.” Walsh also took Holder to task for his stonewalling of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Fast and Furious.But the most memorable portion of the letter came, not at the beginning, when Walsh lambasted Holder’s understanding of his job, nor at the end, when he called for Holder’s resignation. It came in the middle, when Walsh delved into the seemingly-obvious-but-not-yet-confirmed motivation for the program:
Your Department has made an enormous error in judgment. It instructed federally-licensed firearms dealers to illegally sell at least 2,000 guns that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) intended to be trafficked to drug cartels in Mexico. The results of this error in judgment have implicated the United States in well over one hundred deadly crimes and the deaths of two federal agents.
This not only raises serious questions about your ability to serve as the head of the Justice Department, but also begs the question of why an anti-gun Administration would knowingly force licensed firearms dealers to sell guns to violent criminals. I raise this because Operation Fast and Furious — if the facts of this case had not come to light — would have been used by this Administration as another false argument to attack law-abiding American gun owners.
The American people deserve to know if your Department had any intent to link the legal purchase of firearms here in the U.S. to crimes committed near our southern border. Operation Fast and Furious funneled firearms legally purchased at gun shops in the U.S. to known criminal syndicates to prove these syndicates have access to legal purchased weapons. This is a deliberate attempt to vilify and attack the millions of gun owners in America who value our Second Amendment and have never broken the law.Walsh’s posited explanation appears to be the only plausible one. Why else would the administration authorize the program — then fail to follow up to catch the criminals the program was purportedly designed to catch? Had ATF made any kind of legitimate attempt to track the weapons — had they not allowed the guns to so completely disappear into the hands of violent criminals — it might have been believable that the administration sought to use the program to disrupt the power of Mexican drug cartels.Yet, Walsh’s explanation is not a fun one to believe. It’s sickening to think anyone in the administration would really be so rash and so ideologically driven as to risk the nearly inevitable results of this program — the deaths that did, in fact, result — just to prove the point that legally purchased weapons show up at violent crime scenes, just to suggest the government ought to make it harder to legally purchase guns in the first place. It’s even more terrifying to think someone as high up as Holder would be.Walsh and the rest are brave to call for Holder’s resignation — but they definitely should. Walsh isn’t afraid to take the matter to the president, either.“If [Holder] fails to [resign], I would ask that President Obama dismiss him immediately,” Walsh said today.Then again, Obama has stood by Holder through all kinds of nonsense, so no real reason exists to believe he won’t stand by him now — unless F&F somehow becomes well-known enough to threaten his reelection.Hmmm...........GunWalker:'One of these days these boots will walk all over you'?Read the full story here.
- Obama on Leno: As nation's pain deepens, president plays TV talk-show quipster.(BaltimoreSun).By David Zurawik.Almost midnight in America ...As citizens camp out on the streets of American cities to try and express their anger and frustration at the way the country and his administration have failed them, President Obama goes on TV to trade scripted quips with the always-safe Jay Leno.But first, he hops into San Francisco on Air Force One to pick up a cool million at a campaign fund raiser.A few months into Obama's presidency, I wrote two things about his media behavior that have only become more pronounced in recent months.
The first: When the going gets tough, the president goes on TV.
The second: The Obama White House has more contempt for the press and less respect for freedom of information and expression than any administration since that of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.
These troubling tendencies have only become more acute as Obama's popularity plummets, the nation's economic woes deepen and the 2012 election draws near.As for contempt for the press, check out this story from San Francisco Tuesday about local reporters being barred from pool coverage of the $7,500 a plate campaign fund raiser.When I first compared Obama to Nixon in early 2009 for his lack of respect for the role of a free press in a democracy, I caught holy hell.Well, now others are saying much the same.And check out this scripted video exchange about GOP challengers between Obama and his NBC straight man, Leno.I used to be merely annoyed by the way some of my colleagues in the press who were so savvy on so many other political matters fell for such phony TV scripted interplay designed to let the president score political points and reach a mass audience free and clear with his message.But, you know what, with all the pain that so many millions of Americans are experiencing these days, it is way past annoying. It's outrageous for our president to be playing these calculated, dippy, little TV games when so many of us are in such need of real leadership.We have no shortage of airbrushed, phony-talking, TV talk-show guests in this country. In fact, they grow like weeds in our media-saturated soil.What we need is someone to make an honest, committed, passionate effort to try and lead us out of this darkness. Bouncing from crosscountry fund raisers to TV appearances with yuk-yuk, fawning courtiers like Jay Leno is how you take care of your own political career, not the nation you were elected to serve.I can't wait for the college basketball season to start so I can see our president focusing his attention on working those brackets and showing off his jump shot on CBS and ESPN.Am I wrong to think media critics should be watchdogs, too, trying to explain to citizens the ways in which our elected leaders are using media as a political tool.Hmmm.......Snake oil salesmen....you know one when you see one.Read and see (video) the full story here.
- Jordan’s King Abdallah on how no one trusts Obama’s government.(DailyCaller).Earlier this week, The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth interviewed King Abdallah of Jordan. Here’s how King Abdallah responded to Weymouth’s question, “Do you and other leaders in this area believe you cannot rely on the U.S.?”“I think everybody is wary of dealing with the West. … Looking at how quickly people turned their backs on [Egyptian President Husni] Mubarak, I would say that most people are going to try and go their own way. I think there is going to be less coordination with the West and therefore a chance of more misunderstandings.”This is devastating. I’m not shocked he thinks that way, but I am shocked that he says so openly. That’s how far things have gone. Jordan is now turning to Saudi Arabia for protection.For more than 40 years, Jordan has been the most consistent ally of the United States in the Arab world. Yet the king can no longer trust the White House. The Obama administration dumped Mubarak, and it might dump him too.Because no one in the Middle East trusts the U.S., no one will stick his neck out on behalf of U.S. interests or requests. Moreover, they are going their own way. While Washington officials extol Islamist forces or things that benefit them in Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia and Turkey, they don’t seem to care at all about Israel, Jordan or Saudi Arabia, the scattered survivors of recent developments and Obama’s pro-Islamist policies.This also partly explains Iraq’s lack of interest in a continued U.S. troop presence. Likewise, the Afghan government knows that it cannot depend on a U.S. government that is not only withdrawing its troops but has subverted the Kabul regime, proven powerless in dealing with Pakistan and openly talks of political negotiations with the Taliban and even al Qaida-linked terrorist groups (the Haqqani Network).The longstanding U.S. policy of allying with moderate Arab monarchies and nationalist regimes has been undone by the Obama administration. When the king of Jordan openly complains about it, you know that U.S. credibility among pro-Western Arabs is pretty close to zero.Read the full story here.
- Report: Grapel deal includes several US F-16's for Egypt.(Ynet).The Palestinian Maan news agency reported Thursday that the United States has agreed to sell Egypt several F-16 fighter jets in order to facilitate the release of Israeli-American Ilan Grapel. Israel had opposed similar sales in the past. Grapel, who was arrested in June on espionage charges, is slated to be released later on Thursday. Israel will release 25 Egyptian prisoners in return.Maan quoted General Sameh Sayf al-Yazal as saying that Washington was instrumental in negotiation the 27-year-old's release, and helped Egypt "get the best possible deal for Grapel's release."Grapel, who at some point faced charges of espionage, sedition and attempted arson, will be debriefed by defense officials once he arrives in Israel, after which he is expected to fly back to the United States.The deal was sanctioned by the High Court, which rejected several petitions asking the deal be suspended until further review.According to several Egyptian websites, the Grapel deal may also pave the way for the release of Ouda Tarabin, an Israeli Bedouin who is currently serving a 15 year sentence in Egypt. Tarabin was convicted of espionage in 2000 by a military court that triad him in absentia.Hmmmm.....Poor excuse to arm The Muslim Brotherhood even more, Abram's tanks and F16's , why not throw in a submarine while he's at it?Merry Christmas ....Muslim brotherhood from Barry With love?Read the full story here.
- Obama wants to sell helicopters from US arsenal to Turkey.(IsraelMatzav).There's just one small problem: Congress is holding up the deal because of Turkey's behavior toward Israel. Under the administration's plan, the Marines would get two new, late-model Textron Inc Bell AH-1Z SuperCobras in exchange for the three AH-1W aircraft that would be transferred to Ankara from current inventory, a congressional official said.The officials declined to be identified because of the matter's sensitivity and because they were not authorized to speak on the record. The idea to take weapons from the U.S. arsenal was rare, they said.The proposal has been held up amid lawmakers' questions about increasingly distant relations between Muslim-majority Turkey and Israel, a key U.S. ally, among other matters.The AH-1W has sold previously for about $10 million. Turkey bought 10 of them in the 1990s. The larger, twin-engine AH-IZ may sell for about $30 million, according to industry sources.Under the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, the executive branch must provide 15 days' formal notice to Congress before going ahead with significant arms transfers to a NATO partner. It was not immediately clear when such notice might take place, with informal congressional consultations continuing.The source of the Z helicopters is not clear to me. I think it means that Congress would allow the Marines to use the money received from Turkey to purchase the Z helicopters.Turkey has more than 20 earlier models of the Cobra family, all produced by Bell Helicopter Textron. These earlier attack helicopters, however, have single engines and their performances are very limited compared to those of the AH-1Ws.Bell Helicopter Textron began production of the AH-1Z, the latest member of the Cobra family, in recent years and delivered the first batch to the U.S. Marine Corps in January. Turkey’s efforts to obtain more attack helicopters have been continuing since the late 1990s. Bell Helicopter Textron won Turkey’s first tender with the AH-1Z in 2002, but the U.S. company and the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM), Turkey’s procurement agency, were unable to agree on the gunship’s features and price for three years.As a result, SSM cancelled tender contracts and opened a new bidding process, which was boycotted by U.S. manufacturers. Eventually, Turkey selected the Italian AgustaWestland’s T-129, a Turkish version of the A-129 Mangusta International, over South Africa’s Denel, maker of the AH-2 Rooivalk.Presently, AgustaWestland and Turkish Aerospace Industries, its Turkish partner, are manufacturing a total of 59 T-129s, worth billions of dollars, for the Turkish Army. The first deliveries are scheduled for late next year while the gunship is expected to enter service in the Turkish Army in 2013.“The Super Cobra matter is another reason why the relations between Turkey and Israel should be warm. Otherwise, any pro-Israeli senator may kill it,” said one Turkish defense analyst.Hmmm........Reuters mentions $10 Million a piece, there of them would be $30Million, so why is Hurriyet talking about $75Million for the choppers, unless different or more choppers are being sold under the nose of Congress?Read the fulll story here.
- Turkey - Journalists under pressure, RSF.(Firat).Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said that pressure is mounting on journalists in Turkey as the fight against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) intensifies. As well as a spate of trials and cases of prolonged detention, journalists are now the target of government directives. Journalists who cover Kurdish issues critically continue to be accused of supporting the separatists by officials who cite the war on terror as their overriding imperative. And concern is growing that the government is trying to control coverage of its offensive.The Turkish judicial system continues to treat the publication of interviews with PKK members as terrorist propaganda, even if they are accompanied by commentary that stops far short of praising the PKK.Nese Düzel, a journalist with the liberal daily Taraf, and his editor, Adnan Demir, for example, are being prosecuted for two April 2010 reports containing interviews with former PKK leaders Zübeyir Aydar and Remzi Kartal. A prosecutor asked an Istanbul court on 14 October to sentence them to seven and a half years in prison. The next hearing in their trial is to be held on 9 December.Prosecutors at the same court are preparing to try the journalist Ertugrul Mavioglu over a report in Radikal in October 2010 that contained an interview with Murat Karayilan, one of the leaders of the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK), regarded as PKK’s urban wing.A seven-and-a-half-year sentence has also been requested for Recep Okuyucu, Taraf’s correspondent in the southeastern province of Batman and editor of the local newspaper Batman Medya. The prosecutor’s office in the nearby city of Diyarbakir claims that he connected 53,848 times to the Firat News Agency website (www.firatnews.org), which the authorities have blocked because they accuse it of relaying PKK propaganda. Okuyucu’s defence is that, as a journalist, he has to check a wide range of websites every day.Tayyip Temel, a columnist and former managing editor of the Kurdish-language daily Azadiya Welat, was detained and taken into custody on 4 October in Diyarbakir. He was questioned for 15 hours by special prosecutors, who also questioned 35 other people suspected of belonging to the KCK.Charges were finally presented at the end of September against two journalists with the pro-Kurdish news agency Diha (Dicle Haber Ajansi) – Kadri Kaya, its Diyarbakir bureau chief, and Erdogan Alkan, its Batman correspondent – who have been held since 15 April and will appear in court for the first time on 2 November in Diyarbakir.They are facing a possible 20-year jail sentence on charges of collaborating with the PKK and publishing propaganda on its behalf in their coverage of Kurdish demonstrations and Turkish army operations. Alkan is also accused in connection with his coverage of the trial of a “village guard” (member of a militia that supports the army) on a charge of sexually abusing a minor in Batman. According to prosecutors, his coverage aimed to “denigrate the security forces in society’s eyes.”Diha’s correspondent in Mersin, Aydin Yildiz, was arrested on 1 October as he was leaving the headquarters of the pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Gündem. He was transferred to Gaziantep for questioning and then placed in detention, as was Özgür Gündem editor Kazim Seker, who was arrested on 4 October in Istanbul.The newspaper’s publisher, Eren Keskin, who is also a lawyer, was meanwhile given a warning by the Istanbul bar association for referring to “Kurdistan” in a lecture she gave in 2004. The warning was issued following a May 2010 decision by Turkey’s highest court of appeal upholding the 10-month suspended prison sentence and fine of 3,000 lira (1,200 euros) that she had received from a court in the southeastern city of Urfa.In an interview for Radikal on 11 October, the minister in charge of negotiations with the European Union, Egemen Bagis, said that the government was concerned about the judicial system’s excessive use of pre-trial detention and that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had asked officials to look at how it was used in Europe and to draft recommendations.“Limiting the use of pre-trial detention has long been one of our leading recommendations to the Turkish authorities,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We hail this initiative by the government, which could mark a turning point. The promises must now be followed by action, action that affects all of Turkey’s regions.”After 10 months in pre-trial detention, Emine Altinkaya, a Diha reporter in Ankara, was released at the end of September pending trial. She was arrested on 27 November 2010 while covering a demonstration in the capital.Two Diha correspondents in Istanbul, Safiye Alagas and Olcay Kizilpinar, are also due to be tried soon on charges of collaborating with the PKK. They were arrested during a march on 30 July that was organized by Sirri Süreyya Önder, the candidate of a legal pro-Kurdish party, the BDP. Cameras, mobile phones, SIM cards, USB flash drives and a laptop were confiscated from them at the time of their arrest and are still being held as prosecution evidence.Several Turkish journalists’ organizations have voiced strong criticism of Prime Minister Erdogan’s meeting with national media owners and executives on 21 October, at which Erdogan urged journalists to show restraint in their coverage of the conflict, to take account of its consequences and to avoid relaying PKK propaganda.Even more disturbing is the communiqué that five leading Turkish news agencies – AA, AHT, ANKA, CIHAN and IHA – issued jointly on 24 October announcing that, “Common principles have been adopted concerning the coverage of terrorist incidents.”They said they had undertaken to “take account of public order (...) keep a distance from interpretations that encourage fear, chaos hostility, panic or intimidation (...) not include propaganda for illegal organizations” and, above all, to “comply with the publication bans issued by the competent authorities.” The communiqué also said: “Account will be taken of social utility and solidarity when selecting reports and photos for transmission to subscribers.”“We had hoped that the era of government directives telling the media how to cover the most sensitive subjects was long over in Turkey,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The very vaguely formulated undertaking by the leading news agencies to toe the official line now poses a serious threat to freedom of information. Will these agencies, whose job is to provide content to all the media, willingly participate in a news blackout? Minimizing the scale of human losses or choosing not to report certain operations will just increase mistrust of the media. Complete and objective coverage of developments in eastern Turkey is an essential precondition for reaching a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue.”Reporters Without Borders also voiced concerns about the security agreement which France and Turkey signed on 7 October and which, according to French interior minister Claude Guéant, “goes much further than the agreements that France usually signs in the security domain.”“We hope that the French authorities will be much more discriminating that their Turkish counterparts as regards combating terrorism,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge them not to be sucked in by Ankara’s indiscriminate and repressive approach, which causes many collateral victims, including journalists.”Read the full story here.
- Related - Germany lifts RojTv broadcasting ban.(Firat).The Federal Court in Leipzig, on the basis of the decision issued before by the European Court of Justice has lifted the broadcasting ban on RojTv that has been prevented to broadcast within the German territory. German Federal Court of Justice finalized the case of Roj TV by lifting the ban on the channel’s publications and activities within the borders of the country. While the Federal Court in Leipzig ruled the decision on the basis of the decision made earlier by the European Court of Justice, the court concluded that Roj TV didn’t instigate hate and grudge among peoples, as argued by prosecution, noting that the prosecution’s ban on the contrary was against the brotherhood of peoples. The European Court of Justice ruled on September 22 that the closure of Roj TV could only be ruled by the Danish authorities responsible for the supervision of broadcast. The Interior Minister of Germany also banned the activities of Roj TV and linked Mesopotamia Broadcast Company in 2008 on the grounds of “preparing programs contrary to the harmonization among peoples”. The ban was followed by the suspension of activities by Kurdish production company Wiko GmBH studios raided for providing program to Roj TV. While Roj TV objected to the decision in an appeal to the Federal Court, the court asked the European Court of Justice for opinion.Read the full story here.
- Turkey - Savagery on 24 bodies claimed to be of HPG guerillas.(Firat). Demanding to see the 24 bodies at Malatya Hospital, BDP, IHD and MEYADER delegations were only shown photos of the unidentified bodies. “Violence isn’t enough to tell what was applied on those bodies. I am ashamed of humanity”, said Bitlis MP Hüsamettin Zenderlioğlu who told that the bodies were all burnt and fractionated. While a delegation of BDP, IHD and MEYADER executives met with the Public Prosecutor of Malatya where the bodies are held at Forensic Medicine Institute since October 24, the Prosecutor argued that the bodies-12 men, 11 women and one other with the foot part alone- belonged to HPG guerillas who allegedly lost their lives in Çukurca (Çelê) district of Hakkari. Giving information about the meeting with the Prosecutor, Bitlis MP Hüsamettin Zenderlioğlu stated that the Prosecutor refused to give the identity information of the casualties who-he claimed-weren’t carrying identity cards. Commenting this argument as implausible, Zenderlioğlu remarked that autopsy isn’t allowed on unidentified bodies. Having difficulty in expressing the view of photos shown to them and families of two guerillas, Zenderlioğlu remarked that the bodies, dressed in military uniforms, were entirely burnt and fractionated. “I can’t find a word to express how a person can do this to another”, said Zenderlioğlu and noted that they called BDP Co-Chair Gültan Kışanak with the intention of meeting the Minister of Justice concerning the issue.Hmmm.....The laws of War.The killing of captives and abuse of corpses are war crimes. Regarding the treatment of dead bodies:
Rule 115. The dead must be disposed of in a respectful manner and their graves respected and properly maintained. [IAC/NIAC].Read the full story here.
- Austrian Judge: Europe Will Be the Battlefield for New Religious Wars.(IVE).There is an astonishing article about Islam in "Kriminalpolizei", an Austrian magazine for professionals from various branches involved in dealing with criminality: police, judges, academics, etc. It is written by Alfred Ellinger, founder of the "Vereinigung österreichischer Kriminalisten" [Association of Austrian Criminologists], which publishes the magazine. Ellinger is also a criminal judge and vice-president of the Eisenstadt Regional Court. Titled "Between Dialogue and Jihad", the article goes over the doctrines and history of Islam with unusual candour. It concludes with a resounding wake-up call for Europe.Let us indulge in no illusions. Europe will be the battlefield for a major struggle between the order of Islam and its enemies. 40% of the population in Arab countries is under 14 years of age. 15 million Muslims are already living in Europe today and the ageing of Europe is unmissable. The Muslim threat was beaten back in Castile, Southern France and, finally, in front of Vienna. But today the border between Europe and the Islamic world is porous, and the threat to Europe is clear. ...If Europe does not very quickly abandon its utterly failed immigration policy, the vision of a "multicultural society" and a misguided tolerance in dealing with hate-filled Islamists, the constantly repeated calls for "dialogue" and "tolerance" will lead to undreamt-of problems and new politically-motivated wars of religion in our cities.Read the full story here.
- Pope benedict's Naivety towards the Evidence from the Assisi Gathering.(IVE).Pope Greets Other Religious Leaders at Assisi Gathering.Although the Pope's private views are known to be very different, in its official policy the Vatican continues to display the same old naivety and self-deceit about the threat Muslim immigration poses to Europe.
Today, the Pope hosts an interfaith dialogue "for peace" in Assisi.
Roughly 200 spiritual leaders are expected to take part in the Assisi event. Christians are scheduled to include Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, leader of the Anglican Communion; and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, “first among equals” in the Orthodox world. Leaders from the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Zoroastrian, Confucian, Baha’i and Taoist traditions will participate, along with indigenous religions from Africa, Latin America and Asia.The Muslims include Prince Ghazi Bin Talal of Jordan, who will sit next to Benedict at lunch. Ghazi is a leader in interfaith dialogue, and was among the signatories to a letter from Muslim leaders to Benedict after his controversial September 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany, which some took as linking the Prophet Muhammad with violence.
Source: National Catholic Reporter
Al-Azhar university, the leading religious authority within Sunni Islam (the overwhelmingly dominant strain of Islam in the world), has declined to attend however. It is still miffed by the Pope having had the audacity to speak out about the murder of Christian Copts in Egypt last year.In a signal of ongoing challenges in the Catholic/Muslim relationship, the Al-Azhar University and Mosque complex in Cairo, Egypt, sometimes referred to as “the Vatican of the Sunni world,” has reportedly declined to send a representative. Al-Azhar announced in January that it was breaking off dialogue with the Vatican after a speech in which Benedict called for greater protection for Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, which some saw as interference in the country’s internal affairs.
Source: National Catholic Reporter
Complaining about the murder of Christians is interference in the country's internal affairs! That really ought to be a sign to the Vatican that this whole interfaith dialogue thing isn't going to work out. But no. It seems the Vatican now officially regards mass Muslim immigration into Europe as a good thing - seeing it as "An Opportunity For The "New Evangelisation". De-Evangelisation followed by Mohammedanisation is much more likely.Hmmm......."With Age comes wisdom but in many cases it also leads to blindness."Read the full story here.
- The Netherlands - Kurds ask for protection from Turks.(IIE).About 40 Kurdish organizations asked the Turkish community Thursday to respect them. They also ask the authorities to proetc the Kurdish population and to take judicial steps against "any form of aggression by Turkish rioters"."We respect the Dutch state and its legal system, and ask the Turkish community and the Turkish organizations in the Netherlands to respect the fundamental rights of association, assembly and freedom of expression of every citizen, as well as the Kurds in the Netherlands."Ever since the Kurdish separatist movement PKK cilled 24 Turkish soldiers last week, tensions increased also between Kurds and Turks in the Netherlands. An anti-PKK demonstration in Amsterdam Sunday got out of hand when a group of Turks - ultra-nationalists according to insiders - attacked a Kurdish center, resulting in injured and vandalism.Read the full story here.
- Report: Hizbullah Preparing Military Arsenal to Occupy Galilee.(DocsTalk).Hizbullah is preparing its military arsenal and fighters to launch an operation to occupy the Galilee area in Israel, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Thursday.The party’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s on February 16 sent “military notification… declaring that preparations to occupy the Galilee is ongoing,” a source close to Hizbullah told the daily.“Hizbullah began preparing after the 2006 war for any new confrontation with the enemy,” the source said. Nasrallah called on the Resistance fighters in a speech on February 16 to stand ready to occupy the Galilee area should another war "be imposed on Lebanon," in a response to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s threats to invade Lebanon once again.Al-Akhbar daily also reported that Nasrallah has warned that Tel Aviv will be the first target in any war Israel decides to launch against Lebanon.Security sources told the daily that “the resistance leadership was secretly on high alert after receiving reports that Israel will probably launch a war on Lebanon.”“Obtained information confirmed these reports, showing that it was supposed to take place in August, however, changes occurred at the last minute,” the source said.Sources told al-Joumhouria that the “resistances’ military preparations are ongoing.”According to information obtained by the daily, a delegation from Hizbullah military experts visited areas in Bekaa and the South to check on the resistances’ positions, while 727 fighters from Hizbullah finished their military training in Tehran.“Israel will be surprised by attacks from within the Israeli towns via the Palestinian resistance cells,” sources told the daily.They added that “the battles will be on the Israeli grounds; therefore targeting the Galilee is a definite option.”The sources didn’t rule out Syria’s participation in the war “especially if the interior situation deteriorated further more.”Iran’s Fars news Agency reported that Syrian President Bashar Assad has warned that he would “set fire" to the Middle East if foreign forces launched a military strike on his country and would ask for Hizbullah’s help to attack Israel.The party, established nearly 30 years ago to confront Israel's occupation of south Lebanon, fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006.Israel and Syria are technically at war, but their frontier had been calm since the war in 1973, when Israel repelled a Syrian assault to recapture the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.Read the full story here.
