Many thanks to Mha Atma for this. From: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2010 8:08 PM Subject: World news from Foreign Policy in Focus
The following several short excerpts of articles are all very interesting, and all include links to the full article and at the bottom is the link to Foreign Policy in Focus which sends me these digests daily... Petraeus condemns Fla. church's plan to burn Korans David Nakamura and Javed Hamdard, Washington Post, September 7, 2010; 2:46 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090701595.html Kabul - Gen. David H. Petraeus on Tuesday denounced plans by a Florida church to burn copies of the Koran this weekend, saying the demonstration could "endanger troops" and damage the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems," Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in a statement. "Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community." [...] Habibullah, a religious leader who organized a protest Monday morning in eastern Kabul to decry the Florida church's plan, said throngs of angry men chanted, "Death to America!" and "Death to Obama!" He said some of the protesters pelted a passing U.S. military convoy with stones. "I stopped them," said Habibullah, who uses one name. "Otherwise they would have burned the convoy." The Dove World Outreach Center, a 50-member evangelical Christian church in Gainesville, Fla., announced plans to burn the Islamic holy books on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. At the Kabul protest, residents burned an effigy of Dove World pastor Terry Jones. "I am very concerned by the potential repercussions of the possible Koran burning," Petraeus said. "Even the rumor that it might take place has sparked demonstrations such as the one that took place in Kabul yesterday. Were the actual burning to take place, the safety of our soldiers and civilians would be put in jeopardy and accomplishment of the mission would be made more difficult." [...] In Florida, Jones rejected the warnings and said his church plans to go through with its "International Burn a Koran Day." [...] "Images of the burning of a Koran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan - and around the world - to inflame public opinion and incite violence," Petraeus said. "Such images could, in fact, be used as were the photos from [Abu Ghraib]. And this would, again, put our troopers and civilians in jeopardy and undermine our efforts to accomplish the critical mission here in Afghanistan." Petraeus referred to the prison in Iraq that gained notoriety when the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. guards was revealed in 2004. ---- U.S. Withholds Millions In Mexico Antidrug Aid Elisabeth Malkin and Randal C. Archibold, New York Times, September 3, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/world/americas/04mexico.html Mexico City - The United States will withhold about $26 million promised for Mexico's drug war because of concerns that the country has not done enough to protect its people from police and military abuse. It is the first time that the United States, citing human rights concerns, has held back a portion of the financing for Mexico under the Merida Initiative, a three-year-old, $1.4 billion effort to help Mexico and Central American nations fight drug trafficking organizations. Under the program, 15 percent of the money for Mexico is allotted on the condition that the country improve the accountability of the federal and local police; ensure civilian investigations and, if warranted, prosecutions of allegations of abuse by the police and the military; and ban testimony obtained through torture or other mistreatment. The State Department, in a report delivered to Congress on Friday, said it would release $36 million from earlier budgets. But it said it would withhold 15 percent of the $175 million allocated in the most recent budget. "No society can enjoy domestic peace and security without a functioning justice system supported by appropriately trained and equipped law enforcement and justice personnel who are respectful of human rights and rule of law," said a State Department spokesman, Harry Edwards. The State Department called on the Mexican Congress to pass legislation strengthening the authority of the country's national human rights commission and subjecting military service members accused of human rights abuses to civilian prosecution. [...] Nik Steinberg, Mexico researcher for Human Rights Watch, said, "Any withholding of funds would be a step in the right direction, but given the total impunity for military abuses and widespread cases of torture, none of the funds tied to human rights should be released." ---------- Baghdad to Damascus, a road with no way back Phil Sands, The National (UAE), September 01. 2010 http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100902/FOREIGN/709019903/1042/rss Following the 2003 invasion, a tidal wave of Iraqis left their country, the numbers rising as the violence steadily worsened. The figures have long been disputed, but the United Nations estimates that some two million escaped to neighbouring Syria and Jordan alone, making it the largest Middle East migration in 50 years. ] According to the UN, 40 per cent of Iraq's professional families fled the country, forced out by kidnappings and intercommunal warfare. Sunni Arabs from Baghdad made up a significant proportion of those arriving in Syria, but there were Shiites, too, along with Christians and a plethora of other minorities. Although tens of thousands of Iraqis have voluntarily returned home since the worst of the violence in 2006 and 2007, about 1.5 million still live abroad, the UN says. In June, the number of resettlement applications for Iraqis filed by the UN refugee agency surpassed 100,000. Antonio Guterres, the UN's high commissioner for refugees, came to Damascus to mark the occasion and to remind the world that, while the Americans might be winding down their war, the refugee crisis is far from over. He appealed to the international community for help and said it was too early and too unsafe for Iraqis to be told to return. In fact, the flow of Iraqis into Syria continues, a testament to the scope of the continuing troubles. Up to 6,000 cross the border each day, some on business, some on holiday and some - usually from Baghdad, Mosul or Diyala - running away from violence, UN officials say. The vast majority do not register as refugees, but many do. Between March and June the UN in Syria added more than 8,000 new cases to its list of almost 166,000. Many of the new arrivals had tried to cling on at home but now said they had little option but to leave. "I waited until after the elections because I thought things would get better but they're getting worse again," said Umm Omar, 30, an English literature student and mother of two who arrived in Syria in July. She has registered as a UN refugee, hoping, in what is effectively a lottery, to win resettlement in Europe. Determined not to abandon her home, Umm Omar had weathered the storm of violence in Baghdad when it peaked in 2006 but said the time had come to give up on Iraq entirely. "It was a combination of things that made me finally decide," she explained. "The security is worse than they say it is. There are no public services, no jobs. You can't drink the water. There's no electricity and the politicians are only interested in themselves. There is only so much you can tolerate. "In Iraq, we live like animals, not human beings. You eat and work and try to stay alive. I want more than that for my son and my daughter. If I were alone, I'd stay - I don't want to be weak or run away from things - but for their sakes, we have left and we are not going back." ------ Anti-Israel economic boycotts are gaining speed The sums involved are not large, but their international significance is huge. Boycotts by governments gives a boost to boycotts by non-government bodies around the world. Nehemia Shtrasler, Ha'aretz, 05.09.10 http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/business/anti-israel-economic-boycotts- are-gaining-speed-1.312210 The entire week was marked by boycotts. It began with a few dozen theater people boycotting the new culture center in Ariel, and continued with a group of authors and artists publishing a statement of support on behalf of those theater people. Then a group of 150 lecturers from various universities announced they would not teach at Ariel College or take part in any cultural events in the territories. Naturally, all that spurred a flurry of responses, including threats of counter-sanctions. That was all at the local level. There's another boycott, an international one, that's gaining momentum - an economic boycott. Last week the Chilean parliament decided to adopt the boycott of Israeli products made in the settlements, at the behest of the Palestinian Authority, which imposed a boycott on such products several months ago. In September 2009, Norway's finance minister announced that a major government pension fund was selling its shares in Elbit Systems because of that company's role in building the separation fence. In March, a major Swedish investment fund said it would eschew Elbit Systems shares on the same grounds. Last month the Norwegian pension fund announced that it was selling its holdings in Africa Israel and in its subsidiary Danya Cebus because of their involvement in constructing settlements in the occupied territories. The sums involved are not large, but their international significance is huge. Boycotts by governments gives a boost to boycotts by non-government bodies around the world. Human-rights organizations in Europe are essentially running campaigns to boycott Israeli products. They are demonstrating at supermarkets, brandishing signs against Israeli goods. Worker organizations, with millions of members, send circulars to their people calling on them to forgo Israeli products. I talked with farmers who say there are retail chains in Europe no longer prepared to buy Israeli products. The same is true for a chain in Washington. The world is changing before our eyes. Five years ago the anti-Israel movement may have been marginal. Now it is growing into an economic problem. Until now boycott organizers had been on the far left. They have a new ally: Islamic organizations that have strengthened greatly throughout Europe in the past two decades. The upshot is a red and green alliance with a significant power base. The red side has a name for championing human rights, while the green side has money. Their union is what led to the success of the Turkish flotilla. -------- Mideast crisis looms over Israeli settlements Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press, September 5, 2010 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/09/05/AR2010090500829.html Ramallah, West Bank - Just days after Mideast peace talks began in Washington, the first major crisis is already looming: Israel hinted Sunday it will ease restrictions on building in West Bank settlements, while the Palestinian president warned he'll quit the talks if Israel resumes construction. Israel's 10-month-old slowdown on new building in settlements expires Sept. 26, leaving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a tough choice. If he extends the freeze, he risks breaking up his hardline coalition. If he lifts the restrictions, he risks getting blamed for derailing negotiations and disrupting President Barack Obama's Mideast peace efforts soon after they began. Under intense U.S. pressure, Israel imposed restrictions on most West Bank settlement construction last November in a bid to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. He has not yet said what he will do when the slowdown expires. The Palestinians view a continued curb on settlement construction - even if it falls short of a complete freeze - as the true test of Netanyahu's intentions. Abbas told a group of PLO activists in Libya late Saturday that anything but an extension of the current slowdown is unacceptable. "If the (Israeli) government extends the Israeli decision to stop the settlements, we will continue the negotiations, and if it doesn't extend, we will leave these negotiations," Abbas said. [...] Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak signaled Sunday it's unlikely the freeze will be extended in its current form. "I don't think it will remain, and we're looking for a way to ensure that this will not harm the continuation of the talks," Barak told Israel Army Radio. [...] One proposal being considered is to keep most restrictions in place, and only allow construction on a limited scale, with personal approval by Barak or Netanyahu, said Israeli officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the idea has not yet been presented. Aides to Abbas and Netanyahu are to discuss the plan before the leaders meet for a second time, the officials said. [...] Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft bombed three Gaza smuggling tunnels late Saturday in retaliation for two Hamas shooting attacks that killed four Israelis in the West Bank last week. The airstrikes killed two Palestinians and wounded a third. Two more Palestinians were missing. ------ Afghanistan's dirty little secret Joel Brinkley, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, August 29, 2010 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/28/INF21F2Q9H.DTL Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand." All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed. For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it. "Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42- year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy." Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan's most important tribe. For centuries, the nation's leaders have been Pashtun. [...] In Kandahar, population about 500,000, and other towns, dance parties are a popular, often weekly, pastime. Young boys dress up as girls, wearing makeup and bells on their feet, and dance for a dozen or more leering middle-aged men who throw money at them and then take them home. A recent State Department report called "dancing boys" a "widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape." So, why are American and NATO forces fighting and dying to defend tens of thousands of proud pedophiles, certainly more per capita than any other place on Earth? And how did Afghanistan become the pedophilia capital of Asia? Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law. Women are simply unapproachable. Afghan men cannot talk to an unrelated woman until after proposing marriage. Before then, they can't even look at a woman, except perhaps her feet. Otherwise she is covered, head to ankle. "How can you fall in love if you can't see her face," 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. "We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful." Even after marriage, many men keep their boys, suggesting a loveless life at home. A favored Afghan expression goes: "Women are for children, boys are for pleasure." Fundamentalist imams, exaggerating a biblical passage on menstruation, teach that women are "unclean" and therefore distasteful. One married man even asked Cardinalli's team "how his wife could become pregnant," her report said. When that was explained, he "reacted with disgust" and asked, "How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean?" That helps explain why women are hidden away - and stoned to death if they are perceived to have misbehaved. Islamic law also forbids homosexuality. But the pedophiles explain that away. It's not homosexuality, they aver, because they aren't in love with their boys. [...] ------- Just Foreign Policy News September 7, 2010 Just Foreign Policy News on the Web: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/701 [To receive just the Summary and a link to the web version, you can use this webform: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/switchdailynews] -- You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, option D (occasional emails and up to 3 emails/day). To be removed, or to switch options (option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know! If someone forwarded you this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to [email protected] and tell us which option you'd like. For more info on Earth Action Network go to www.earthactionnetwork.org and for more info about Mha Atma see www.drmhaatma.com. "To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places (and there are so many) where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don¹t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." ---Howard Zinn ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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