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/begin my translation [Teheran Report] 'Turbaned Dictatorship' Ignores Economic Hardship Despite high oil price and galloping inflation, power struggles are the order of the day "The government will be toppled in a month or two..." ominous rumors swirling Teheran/Qom(Iran) = Lee Tae-hoon About two hours of drive to the south west of Teheran is Qom, the cradle of 1979 Islamic Revolution, and the religious city of supreme authority. A woman with thick eye makeup, wearing Armani sunglasses, and her hairs colored in yellow and silver, passes by 'Khojeye Elmieh(sp?)' Islamic seminary building, where Khomeini, the father of Iranian Revolution(1902~1989) once...

As I was 'channel surfing' at my grandmother's house in San Juan this past weekend, I came upon TeleSUR, the new Hugo Chavez T.V. venture, live from Caracas. The programming I saw -- after enduring a cooking show featuring how to make 'arepas', the equivalent in Venezuela of 'pancakes' -- started with anti-U.S., anti-'Imperialists', anti-Bush, et.al. from their news proogramming dept. and then, in the entertainment dept., a segment featuring a musician named Rene Calle 13, who basically told the audience: "F*ck George Bush, he's the worse president ever". Here in the U.S. we have Al Jazeera and other international...

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class -- social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies -- arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism). Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted...

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada. In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is the United Nations of the sports world. Politically correct to the point of self-parody, it lectures developed countries on ethics, then ignores real human rights transgressions in developing nations. Full of Western delegates who are condescending internationalists and Third World delegates who are the cronies or failed siblings of dictators, the IOC exists mainly so that its members can jet about the world holding lavish meetings at posh hotels. Given the environment in which he operates, then, it is somewhat surprising that IOC president Jacques Rogge would go as far as he did on...

HAVANA - President Raul Castro's government is allowing ordinary Cubans to have cell phones. The luxury was previously reserved for those who worked for foreign firms or held key posts with the communist-run state. Friday's decree officially lifts a major restriction on daily life in Cuba.

Russian secret services have foiled an attack on President Vladimir Putin close to Red Square, it has been claimed. A man with a sniper rifle and Kalashnikov assault gun was found and detained in a rented apartment overlooking Moscow's St Basil's Cathedral, on March 2, the day of the Presidential election in Russia. Mr Putin and his president-elect, Dmitry Medvedev, appeared under the cathedral for a late-night pop concert once early results indicated that Mr Medvedev would win a landslide. The popular Tvoi Den newspaper, which broke the story, claimed that both men could have been killed from the flat...

One of the largest markets in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, is in flames and at least one police car has been burnt as angry monks and Tibetans clash with police today. The surge of violence follows almost a week of demonstrations by lamas from monasteries around the Tibetan capital, who have been demanding greater freedom of religion before the Olympic Games as well as independence for the deeply Buddhist Himalayan region.

Love with the perfect dictator In the liberal breast beats a strange passion for normalizing What's wrong with this picture? "Saying he is no longer healthy enough to hold office, Cuban leader Fidel Castro has announced he will not seek re-election after 49 years in power" — the Miami Herald. Hmm. Castro didn't really have to "seek" re-election, did he? He's a — what's the word? Oh, yeah — "dictator." If he "seeks" re-election, he's pretty much guaranteed to find it — assuming for the purposes of argument you can be "re-elected" if you've never been freely or fairly elected...

This Monday, Moshe Feiglin spoke at a Tel Aviv demonstration for human rights in China. In his speech to the diverse crowd, Moshe said as follows: "As a Jew, I am embarrassed by the fact that the State of Israel ignores the horrible crimes being committed in China. We must all remember that the crimes of the German nation during World War II and the horrifying holocaust that it perpetrated against our brethren were preceded by broad international legitimacy given to Hitler's regime - at the Berlin Olympics. When the Israeli delegation will march at the opening of the Beijing...

Russia, island of stability, may save the world from global crisis 24.01.2008 Source: Pravda.Ru URL: http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/103625-russia_crisis-0 Russia’s Minister for Finance, Aleksey Kudrin, released a sensational statement Wednesday. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Russian minister offered to mitigate the world credit crisis with the help of Russia’s reserves. Kudrin stated that Russia was an “island of stability in the sea of the world crisis.” “Investors will continue to invest billions of dollars in the rising Russian economy. Stock market crises and their consequences will not be utterly negative for us,” Kudrin said. “Our country managed to achieve...

Changing light bulbs not enough: Gore From correspondents in Davos January 25, 2008 05:23am Article from: Reuters CLIMATE campaigner Al Gore overnight urged world policymakers to change laws "not just light bulbs" in tackling global warming, and a UN official said world market turmoil must not be allowed to delay action. An annual meeting of world political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, this year has scheduled a record number of sessions and workshops on global warming. But a sharp downturn on markets and fears of recession have dominated discussion. "If we get distracted by the aberrations that you see...

Dictatorships have gotten good at keeping democracy at bay. It wasn't supposed to be this way. Ten years ago the autocrat was an endangered species. According to the conventional wisdom, authoritarian regimes were incapable of adjusting to a world of globalization and global civil society. Autocrats recognized the need to exploit the economic benefits of globalization, but how could they keep out intrusive NGOs and censor the Internet? Policymakers also jumped on this bandwagon. Soon after George W. Bush delivered his second inaugural address, his administration exulted in a wave of democratic uprisings. By the spring of 2005, "color" revolutions...

Hunched and inscrutable, President Robert Mugabe was forced to listen as Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, took him to task for "damaging Africa's image" around the world. The Zimbabwean leader faced the attack during the opening session of a European Union summit with African leaders in Lisbon.

BOGOTA, Colombia, -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday used a four-letter expletive to dismiss the opposition victory in Sunday's referendum and pledged to press forward with plans to approve constitutional changes that would expand his power in one of the world's leading oil producing-countries. Chavez's remarks, made on television programs broadcast in Venezuela, represent a sharp turn from his magnanimous comments Monday after voters narrowly blocked 69 constitutional changes in a national vote... "We didn't lose anything. Prepare yourself because a new offensive will come with a proposed reform -- that one, or transformed, or simplified," he said. ...He...

An entire continent is sliding unremarked into dictatorship. That continent is South America, traditionally treated by the British press as a byword for dullness. In a famous competition among sub-editors at The Times to find the most boring headline, the winner, by a comfortable margin, was "Small earthquake in Chile: not many dead". Well, a tremor is now pulsing through the entire region, throwing down parliament after parliament. Please, before your eye skips on to the next article, pause to consider how swiftly, and with what enthusiasm, constitutional government can be overturned. Ten years ago, every country in South America,...

The biggest political story recently in the Spanish-speaking world has been a confrontation in Chile between the king of Spain and President Hugo Chavez, a democratically-elected Venezuelan demagogue who will soon try to circumvent his country's constitution to become dictator for life. Mr. Chavez also has become the mouthpiece of a small axis of Latin American leaders...who advocate Marxist socialism and virulent anti-Americanism... ...Chavez kept on with his harangue until a man seated next to Mr. Zapatero leaned forward, pointed his finger at Mr. Chavez, and said "Why don't you shut up?" This man was the Spanish head of state,...

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran's supreme leader said the country's political establishment should be open to criticism, following a rare protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, state radio reported on Wednesday. "We should be wary of the day when our young people in universities do not have the motivation to raise questions, issues and demands," Ali Khamenei told a group of students and political activists on Tuesday night. "If sometimes we have said there should be no opposition to the country's officials, this does not mean there should be no criticism," Khamenei said. "This applies to the leadership too." Khamenei's comments came...

Vladimir Putin has finally solved the intrigue of who will be Russia’s most powerful man should he obey the constitution and stand down as president next year. He will. The president’s address to Monday’s congress of the dominant United Russia party appeared to be handwritten, in large script in a spiral-bound notebook, and Mr Putin scribbled changes up to the last moment. But his speech, met with jubilation in the sunlit atrium of a conference centre near the Kremlin, carried the clear message that he intends to remain Russia’s key decision maker for years to come. Less clear is in...

The monks have vowed to continue their action Lorries with loudspeakers have been driving through Burma's main city of Rangoon warning residents to stop anti-government protests.The broadcasts threatened that "action will be taken against those who violate this order". But hundreds of monks and civilians defied the threats and began fresh protests at the Shwedagon pagoda. On Monday, there were protests in at least 25 towns, with tens of thousands of people marching in Rangoon. Several military trucks are now parked near Shwedagon pagoda, which has been the focus of the protests. Eyewitnesses said several hundred monks gathered at...

Nothing but an announcement on Fox at this time.

Can anyone control the forces the Russian president has unleashed? A couple of weeks back, while news readers were averting their gaze from photographs of a shirtless Vladimir Putin fishing in Siberia, two videos circulating on the Internet laid bare a different, much more chilling, portion of the Russian body politic. The first was a crude bit of agitprop thought to originate with the Nashi, a Kremlin-funded youth movement loyal to Putin whose work involves denouncing the president's critics as fascists, homosexuals or foreign-controlled traitors. The eight-minute clip, which eventually found its way to YouTube, was ostensibly meant to persuade...

The Peace Racket Bruce Bawer An anti-Western movement touts dictators, advocates appeasement—and gains momentum. If you want peace, prepare for war.” Thus counseled Roman general Flavius Vegetius Renatus over 1,600 years ago. Nine centuries before that, Sun Tzu offered essentially the same advice, and it’s to him that Vegetius’s line is attributed at the beginning of a film that I saw recently at Oslo’s Nobel Peace Center. Yet the film cites this ancient wisdom only to reject it. After serving up a perverse potted history of the cold war, the thrust of which is that the peace movement brought down...

Smokers have already been banned from New York bars and restaurants, and soon they could be prohibited from lighting up in cars carrying minors, an idea giving added fuel to critics who say the city has become a nanny state. A City Council member of Queens who is chairman of the council's Environmental Protection Committee, James Gennaro, said he is planning to introduce the smoking bill next week. "I am just seeking every opportunity I can to denormalize smoking and to try to put it out of the reach of kids," Mr. Gennaro said. "I've lost family members to lung...

Seems the president wants the option to takeover the entire federal government in case another disaster hits the US. I do not see why the entire federal government needs to be taken over in case one part of the country is hit by a crisis? Look at this one "(b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions" This could mean anything. This one right here is really weird "(6) The President shall lead the activities of the...

http://geocities.com/arabmuslimlobby/index.html/1 Anti Freedom anti Catholics anti Semitic Hugo Chavez paid for & backed by ARAB LOBBY Chavez forging his own links / Venezuelan president makes arms ..."The Arabs have appreciated Chavez's declarations of support, and the Arab League has promised to lobby in behalf of Venezuela in the United Nations." http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/23/MNG18K43KL1.DTL President Chavez and Archbishop Porras spar punches in return bouthttp://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=74748 Critical foreigners will be expelled: Chavezhttp://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070019909 Defector: Chavez gave money to Al Qaedahttp://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30350 Chavez on Al Jazeerahttp://thebosun.wordpress.com/2006/08/07/venezuelan-president-chavez-on-al-ja... Al Arabyia Supports Chavezhttp://www.sandmonkey.org/2006/12/08/al-arabiya-supports-chavez/ The Chavez Regime: Fostering Anti-Semitism and Supporting Radical ..."In that Zionist, criminal and terrorist state, the Arabs who...

"Vladimir Bukovksy, the 63-year old former Soviet dissident, fears that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. In a speech he delivered in Brussels last week Mr Bukovsky called the EU a “monster” that must be destroyed, the sooner the better, before it develops into a fullfledged totalitarian state. ... Hence, we have now been warned. Meanwhile they are introducing more and more ideology. The Soviet Union used to be a state run by ideology. Today’s ideology of the European Union is social-democratic, statist, and a big part of it is also political correctness. I...

The Communist government of North Korea has stepped up the number of public executions of cell phone users and those who circulate outside information in the country. Under that nation’s laws, citizens are prohibited from communicating with the outside world. “The peace and happiness of the Korean people must not be disturbed through the transmission of unauthorized information,” said Wee Fat, Minister of Happiness and Tranquility for the government. “All that we need to know will be told to us by our great leader, Kim Il Jong.” Wee defended the severity of the punishment saying it was “necessary to stamp...

In an essay entitled "You will never have Cuba" published by the Cuban Communist Party's newspaper Granma Monday, Castro stated that U.S. efforts to overthrow him and seize power of the country will never materialize. The 80-year-old leader reportedly continues to suffer from ill-health and has not been seen in public since last July. His manifesto, however, was signed Sunday afternoon, and he made clear in his statement that Cuba would not only retain its anti-U.S. stance, but it would also continue to follow the communist model of economic growth. "From one year to the next the standard of living...

CEI's 'Send Your Underwear to the Undersecretary' Campaign Goes *Virtual* Faster Relief for People Tired of 'Regulatory Wedgie' by CEI Staff June 18, 2007 Washington, D.C., June 18, 2007— CEI’s campaign against the U.S. Department of Energy’s disastrous washing machine efficiency rules has gone virtual. Rather than physically mailing underwear to the Undersecretary of Energy, the public can now email “virtual underwear” from CEI’s website with a few mouse clicks. This makes it far easier for those fed up with poor-performing washers to register their protests with the agency. This is the latest salvo in CEI’s campaign against the DoE...

CARACAS, Venezuela -- A student movement that has swept across Venezuela is posing a strong challenge to President Hugo Chávez's drive to extinguish independent power centers in the universities and media. Although Mr. Chávez continues to have a firm grip on the government, the student protests have demonstrated a broad uneasiness with his efforts to dominate Venezuelan society. Mr. Chávez's approval ratings have fallen and suspicion of his intentions has grown among Venezuelans. He also hasn't responded to the protests in a way that resonates with the public...Instead, he has threatened to use violence to put down the demonstrations.... Since...

Compulsory waltzing will be added to the Chinese national curriculum in September under a new campaign to reduce childhood obesity. From the start of the new school year, teachers across the country will be expected to put hundreds of millions of pupils through their paces every day, the state-run China Daily said today. In preparation, a team of pioneering ballroom and folk instructors started training this month and video demonstrations of the mandatory breaktime routines have been filmed for DVD distribution to regional education departments. Seven dance steps will be introduced into the new, five-minute, daily exercise regimen. Primary school...

Search engine giant Google has slammed Sweden's proposed wiretapping legislation as illiberal and incompatible with Western democracy. Speaking on a visit to Sweden on Tuesday, the company's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, warned that Google would rule out making any major investments in Sweden should the controversial bill become law. "We have contacted Swedish authorities to give our view of the proposal and we have made it clear that we will never place any servers inside Sweden's borders if the proposal goes through," Fleischer told Internet World. The proposal, which would allow the National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets Radioanstalt -...

This weekend, Hugo Chavez clamped down on Venezuela's media, sparking protests in Caracas that were quickly met with violence by the police... Gustavo Coronel, author of the recent Cato Institute study "Corruption, Mismanagement, and Abuse of Power in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela," comments: "Hugo Chavez's recent actions -- including his increasing control over the Orinoco oil fields without prompt or clear compensation to foreign operators, the recent takeovers of CANTV, the Caracas Electricity Company, and Venezuela's largest telephone company, the denial of a government broadcasting permit to opposition TV station Radio Caracas TV and concurrent confiscation of the station's equipment --...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Hours after President Hugo Chavez shut down Venezuela's main opposition broadcaster, his government demanded an investigation of news network Globovision on Monday for allegedly inciting an assassination attempt on the leftist leader. Chavez took Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, off the air at midnight on Sunday and replaced it with a state-run channel to promote his socialist programs. The move sparked international condemnation and accusations from the opposition that he was undermining democracy in the OPEC nation. Protests over the closure of RCTV, Venezuela's oldest private channel, simmered in several Venezuelan cities on Monday. In some locations,...

Less than fifteen years after the last Soviet troops pulled out of the Baltic States, a new survey has shown that young Swedes are still in the dark about the fate of its neighbours behind the Iron Curtain. A poll carried out by Demoskop on behalf of the Organization for Information on Communism (Föreningen för upplysning om kommunismen - UOK) found that 90 percent of Swedes between the ages of 15 and 20 had never heard of the Gulag. This can be contrasted with the 95 percent who knew of Auschwitz. "Unfortunately we were not at all surprised by the...

Uh-oh. Don’t look now, but somebody who wants to be President forgot to take their medicine. It remains uncertain as to whether the failure to follow the prescription will be politically costly. But the Senator formerly known as Hillary Rodham Clinton seems to be caught in another little conflict, and this one could be a problem with, shall we say, “the faithful.” By “the faithful,” I mean the left-wing contingency within the Democratic Party that long ago abandoned any historic, western understanding of the relationship between the human person and the earth (an understanding that is so commonplace for most...

BATON ROUGE - State Attorney General Charles Foti's office has delayed until this morning release of its opinion on the question of whether former U.S. Sen. John Breaux is eligible to run for governor. After saying the opinion would be released on Thursday, the AG's office came back with the delay.

SACRAMENTO — People who refuse to obtain health insurance could be tracked down by the state or a private contractor, enrolled in a plan and fined until they pay their premiums under one proposal Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is considering as part of his vision for covering all Californians. The proposal, which administration aides said was one of many the governor was considering, was presented at a meeting Tuesday with representatives from insurers, hospitals, doctors, business groups and consumer advocates. It drew immediate criticism from critics of the central tenet of Schwarzenegger's healthcare approach, which is to require all Californians...

Call it the Robin Hood approach to global warming. California drivers who buy new Hummers, Ford Expeditions and other big vehicles that emit high levels of greenhouse gases would pay a fee of up to $2,500. And drivers who buy more fuel-efficient cars - like the Toyota Prius or Ford Focus - would receive rebates of up to $2,500, straight from the gas-guzzlers' pockets. That's the provocative proposal from a Silicon Valley legislator whose "Clean Car Discount" bill is gaining momentum, sending car dealers into a tizzy and sparking passions among motorists. Why? It's the first time California has considered...

Mr Mugabe said the violence had been started by the MDC Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe has said Western critics of his rule can "go hang", in response to accusations of mistreatment of opposition leaders.Mr Mugabe said the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had triggered violence which led to arrests and alleged beatings of its leaders. Western countries are considering extending sanctions against Zimbabwean officials in response to the violence. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is still in hospital. When they criticise the government when it tries to prevent violence and punish perpetrators of that violence we take the position...

Planning and Democracy Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. As such it is by no means infallible or certain. When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitably destroy itself. It would be impossible for any mind to comprehend the infinite variety of different needs of different people which compete for the available resources and to attach a definite weight to each. We can unfortunately not indefinitely extend the sphere of common action and still leave the individual free in his own sphere. That planning creates a situation which...

Doctor diplomacy Cuban doctors should be able to go where they want. U.S. foreign policy shouldn't push them there. It's a symptom of Cuba's claustrophobia — both political and economical — that thousands of its health workers leapt at the chance to work in Venezuela's most frightening slums. These professionals saw little choice. For decades, President Fidel Castro has dispatched physicians to poorer countries as a form of diplomacy. If the political pressure to go weren't enough, the need to earn more than $15 monthly in Cuba often sufficed. In Venezuela, however, Cuba's "doctor diplomacy" looks more like horse-trading than...

Gov. Rick Perry's chief of staff met with key aides about a new vaccine to prevent cervical cancer on the same day its manufacturer donated money to his campaign, documents obtained by The Associated Press show. Texas became the first state to require the vaccine against human papillomavirus earlier this month when Perry issued an executive order requiring it for girls entering sixth grade. Lawmakers are considering overriding the measure. A calendar for chief of staff Deirdre Delisi obtained under Texas' open records laws shows she met with the governor's budget director and three members of his office for an...

Virtue and Terror, by Maximilien Robespierre (Verso, 160 pp., $14.95) and On Practice and Contradiction, by Mao Zedong (Verso, 160 pp., $14.95) These two books appear in a new series, “Revolutions,” published by Verso, a well-known British firm specializing in radical leftist gobbledygook. The books come with introductions by Slavoj Žižek, a Slovenian psychoanalyst and social theorist, who assaults both the English language and the intelligence of those who actually manage to figure out what he’s saying. If you think that’s harsh, here’s a representative Žižekian sentence: “The claim that the people does exist is the basic axiom of ‘totalitarianism,’...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has carried out a radical government reshuffle a year before he is due to step down in a surprise move aimed at safeguarding his political legacy. Judging by Mr Putin's appointments, post-Putin Russia will look very much like it does today and be run by a man with a similar background and worldview. The reshuffle, that took Russia's political élite by surprise, promoted Sergei Ivanov, the Defence Minister, a man whose CV looks remarkably similar to Mr Putin's, to the influential position of First Deputy Prime Minister. Mr Ivanov, a former KGB spy, is well...

Joe Kennedy Fires Back Letter to Florida Rep. Connie Mack Over Chavez Oil TV Ad Monday , February 12, 2007 FC1 ADVERTISEMENTClick here to find out more! WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Joe Kennedy fired off a letter Monday in response to a Florida congressman's calls for him to stop airing television commercials that heap praise on Venezuela for its providing discounted heating oil to low-income U.S. households. "If your moral indignation requires that we not accept the discount oil to distribute to our most vulnerable families, then that same high moral standard should require that you not drive your car...

Meat has become a rare commodity in Venezuelan supermarkets. Government price controls have driven all but the least palatable scraps, like chicken feet, from the marketplace. President Hugo Chavez blamed the food supply problems on unscrupulous capitalists. “These greedy pigs insist they must make a profit if they are to be able to serve their customers,” Chavez said. “They defy my decree that need must take precedence over profit. Their pleas that they cannot afford to take the losses will not turn me away from my determination to bring socialism to my country.” “We will confiscate every business, we will...

AUSTIN, Texas - Bypassing the Legislature, Republican Gov. Rick Perry signed an order Friday making Texas the first state to require that schoolgirls get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. By issuing an executive order, Perry apparently sidesteps opposition in the Legislature from conservatives and parents' rights groups who fear such a requirement would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way parents raise their children.

Immigration: Leftists tout Hugo Chavez's trip down the socialist road as "reform" that rights past wrongs. What they never notice is that as property is confiscated and freedoms evaporate, talented Venezuelans are fleeing. In 2005, over 10,000 Venezuelans sought permanent residence in the U.S., more than twice as many as who sought admission to the U.S. in 1999, when Chavez first took office. Of these, about a tenth were people fleeing political persecution for asylum. As Chavez confiscates productive farms, sends red-shirted political rabble to take over apartments, shuts down TV stations, restricts government jobs and services to his friends,...