Hard to swallow?

How it was possible?  

Perhaps the contemporary art is transformed in a mere financial product where the artist/PR count more than the "product" itself. When musiciens work hard, year after year, sometimes to achieve very little, here, in the contemporary art world, relations - artists/gallerists/curators - and the arranged image of the artist - is whats make things move further. Little surprise if Damien Hirst is "the artist" in the city of the city... It still real great artists in the world today, so we can just to compare - but the point is how it was possible to someone like Hirst get where he is now: at Tate Modern. We can just to reduce it to the british art and to the british society - where two guys were able to make a huge business with Hirst's objects and collections of objects?

Anguish in Azerbaijan

Baku, set to host the Eurovision Song Contest in just over a month, is rapidly trying to become a modern city. To do so, it is forcibly removing residents from their homes to make way for slick new skyscrapers and other development projects. Those who try to stay bear the brunt of the government's wrath.

Web freedom faces greatest threat 

Threats range from governments trying to control citizens to the rise of Facebook and Apple-style 'walled gardens'.

As concerned global citizens, we urge you to immediately drop the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). Our democracy and civil liberties are under threat from the excessive and unnecessary Internet surveillance powers it grants.

Google says it increasingly fields requests from government agencies trying to use their power to suppress political opinions and other material they don't like. 

Rebellion in the Nuba Mountains *

ON MARCH 16th George Clooney, a film star, was arrested for picketing the Sudanese embassy in Washington, DC. His aim was to highlight the brutal campaign by Sudan’s government to suppress a rebellion in the Nuba Mountains, close to the border with newly independent South Sudan. * (and others)

Syrian regime accused

The UN has accused the Syrian regime of "crimes against humanity" – including the use of snipers against small children – and has drawn up a list of senior officials who should face investigation, reportedly including President Bashar al-Assad. guardian

Patients tortured by medical staff 

A video leaked from a military hospital in the embattled Syrian city of Homs has revealed horrific images of patients receiving torture, instead of treatment, by medical staff. alarabiya

A fleeing refugee tells Channel 4 News of "total genocide" and sexual violence allegedly committed by Syrian soldiers in and around the besieged city of Jisr al-Shughour. channel4

Assad is keeping his troops in the dark. To prevent them from defecting, the soldiers are deployed to new locations every few days, primarily in the sprawling, poor northern suburbs of the capital city -- with no mobile phones and no knowledge of where they are.

Russia, a longtime Assad ally, was giving Assad diplomatic cover to intensify his crackdown

The reports from Syria of the deliberate savagery of government forces as they shell, torture and shoot civilians from areas that have dared to protest against them is unbearable to read or to watch. In the city of Homs, families just like yours or mine are trapped in a city which is being shelled from early morning until darkness falls. Buildings are being obliterated as terrified inhabitants hide in cellars. There is no water or electricity and people are running out of medicines and food.

Certainly the massacre at Houla on Friday was horrible even by the standards of this conflict: more than 100 people killed, many of them young children. They join the estimated 13,000 Syrians who have died in the past 15 months, most at the hands of the regime.

Iran to execute five Ahwazis 

Iran has one of the highest rates of executions in the world. 

Putin's Mafia State

Sergei Magnitsky's mother vows to continue fight for justice.

The West must speak out against this thug - Economic growth based on gas and oil can no longer compensate for the lose of industry, education and dignity that comes from living in a mafia state. (Garry Kasparov in The Times)

Putin mingles with Berlusconi (Bunga-Bunga)

How did Vladimir Putin afford his £450,000 watch collection?

Putin's 'Luxurious Life' Set Out By Activists

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Ekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alehina – all members of the anarchic Pussy Riot punk band – have been in prison since March, held on charges of hooliganism which could eventually mean a seven-year sentence.

Ukraine Is Becoming Increasingly Authoritarian

Murder and power, Chinese style

The son of the premier Wen Jiabao, a supposed "liberal" opposed to Bo, has been linked to a dollars 100m investment fund, a story kept out of Chinese newspapers. Wen's wife is a lover of expensive jewellery. A secret US diplomatic cable, quoted by WikiLeaks, suggests influence is for sale by the Wen family.

President Hu Jintao's son has been linked to a controversial telecoms deal in Africa. When a young man died in a black Ferrari crash in Beijing last month, rumours soon had it that he was the illegitimate son of the politburo stalwart Jia Qinglin, who is said to have large property interests. And so it goes on.

Chang welcomes Bo’s downfall: “I think it’s a very good thing this guy fell because he was a huge promoter of Mao, and he did it in a very cynical way. This guy was portraying himself as an anti-corruption zealot. He was torturing people, executing people, for alleged gangsterism — true or not, these cases aren’t going through any legal process — and yet was himself very corrupt. He was one of the top guys, you can see how murky it is. Anyone who promotes the Mao era as the era most free of corruption, who knows Mao was responsible for the death of well over 70 million Chinese ... it makes my blood boil.”

Falun Gong practitioners have heard 610 Office, labor-camp, and prison staff repeat certain policies over and over: “Being beaten to death will count as suicide.” “Cremate the body immediately.” “Ruin their reputations, exhaust their finances, and destroy them physically.”

‘Partnership’ in which one partner robs the other

Joseph Stiglitz characterizes the Obama administration’s vast transfer of money and pubic debt to the banks as a “privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses. It is a ‘partnership’ in which one partner robs the other.” 

Prof. Bill Black describes banks as becoming criminogenic and innovating “control fraud.” globalresearch

Far away from funding industrial growth and development 

Banking has moved so far away from funding industrial growth and economic development that it now benefits primarily at the economy’s expense in a predator and extractive way, not by making productive loans. This is now the great problem confronting our time. Banks now lend mainly to other financial institutions, hedge funds, corporate raiders, insurance companies and real estate, and engage in their own speculation in foreign currency, interest-rate arbitrage, and computer-driven trading programs. Industrial firms bypass the banking system by financing new capital investment out of their own retained earnings, and meet their liquidity needs by issuing their own commercial paper directly. Yet to keep the bank casino winning, global bankers now want governments not only to bail them out but to enable them to renew their failed business plan – and to keep the present debts in place so that creditors will not have to take a loss. Michael Hudson

(Yes, this is very hard to swallow. It should not be saved)

New Labour imitated Mrs Thatcher in much of her rhetoric and some of her ideas. The trouble was that they learned only half the lesson. They confused the creation of wealth, of which she was a passionate advocate, with the wisdom of the wealthy, about which she was sceptical.

The Governor of the Bank of England ... launched a stinging attack on the culture of the industry he oversees, condemning bankers for high pay, immoral practices and providing shoddy service to customers.

Cummings ist der Dichter (1970)

Pierre Boulez conducting the Ensemble Intercontemporain and BBC Singers.

Theo Angelopoulos

Theodoros Angelopoulos (Θόδωρος Αγγελόπουλος) (27 April 1935 – 24 January 2012), popularly known as Theo Angelopoulos, was a Greek filmmaker...  
...
Angelopoulos, defined by Martin Scorsese as "a masterful filmmaker", has developed a unique cinematic vision, characterized by slightest movement, slightest change in distance, long takes, and complicated but carefully composed scenes, offering a hypnotic, sweeping, and profoundly emotional cinema. wikipedia

How much longer and how many deaths?

Dharamsala (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Chinese security forces have killed at least five Tibetans and injured another 40 on the second day of protests that have erupted in the prefecture of Kardze (Ganzi in Chinese), Sichuan Province. According to Tibetan sources, the police fired on demonstrators in Serthar (Seda, in Chinese), where martial law has been imposed. "The Tibetans - said a source - are confined to their homes and police fire on anyone who ventures into the streets."
...
Lobsang Sangay, Prime Minister of the Tibetan government in exile, has appealed to the international community to "intervene to halt renewed bloodshed." "How much longer - he said - and how many other tragic deaths are needed before the world take a firm moral stance? The silence of the international community sends a clear message to China: that its repressive and violent measures to contain the tensions in Tibetan areas are acceptable. "

So far, the United States has only expressed "serious concerns" about violence in Sichuan. Washington is preparing to receive the visit of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping in February. asianews


The third period begins with the first quarter of the 18th century, when Chinese suzerainty over Tibet was fully established and the last of the Tartar kings of the dynasty of Gushi Khan was killed by a General of the Jungar Tartars - an incident wich transferred the sovereignty of Tibet to the Dalai Lama, who was till then a mere hierarch of the Gelugpa Church. It is within this period that Tibet has enjoyed unprecedented peace under the benign sway of the boly Bodhisatvas, and its language has become the lingua franca of Higher Asia.

Sarat Chandra Das in An Tibetan-English Dictionary


Armenian Genocide

Historians say that 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman empire between 1915 and 1923, during a forced resettlement. "The overwhelming historical evidence demonstrates that what took place in 1915 was genocide," writes Henri Barkey, a Turkey scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, who nevertheless opposes the house resolution as a needless political manoeuvre.

The killings are considered one of the first instances of genocide in the 20th century. guardian

My "pro-Tibet" blog

Disgusting hypocrisy

The unwritten, if cynical, pact allowed radical clerics to orchestrate and encourage Islamist attacks abroad. Their brainwashing of young home-grown Muslims here was tolerated by the secret services in the hope there would be no attacks on targets in Britain. 


Mr. Blair

Tony Blair pays just £315,000 tax on an income of £12 million.
...
The former PM’s huge income derives from a dense corporate web unofficially known as Blair Inc. This complicated network of companies allows the full extent of the former PM’s income to remain hidden. Yahoo! Finance UK – Fri, Jan 20, 2012 20:54 GMT



We tend to forget

We tend to forget that its origin was in the implosion of a deregulated financial system, filled with murky financial engineering and with no relation to the productive economy.
...
a triumphant model of deregulated neoliberalism that began in the 1980s dominated until the 2008 crash. The same ideology is a majority view today in a Europe that has forgotten the origin of the crisis. guardian


ACTA - a global treaty 


Could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties -- even prison sentences -- against people they say have harmed their business.


Europe is deciding right now whether to ratify ACTA -- and without them, this global attack on Internet freedom will collapse. We know they have opposed ACTA before, but some members of Parliament are wavering -- let's give them the push they need to reject the treaty. Sign the petition -- we'll do a spectacular delivery in Brussels when we reach 500,000 signatures! avaaz

Gustav Leonhardt (May 30, 1928 - January 16, 2012)

A. Weissenberg (July 26, 1929 – January 8, 2012)

Bibi, Bhatti, Taseer, Younus

Asia Noreen (  (Urdu: آسیہ نو رین  better known as Asia (also spelled Aasiya) Bibi, Urdu: آسیہ بی بی, born c. 1971)  is a Pakistani Christian woman who was convicted of blasphemy by a Pakistani court, receiving a sentence of death by hanging. The verdict, which would need to be upheld by a superior court, has received worldwide attention. If executed, Noreen would be the first woman in Pakistan to be lawfully killed for blasphemy. 


Christian minister Shahbaz Bhatti and Pakistani government politician Salmaan Taseer were both killed for opposing the blasphemy laws. wikipedia



Pakistani acid attack victim Fakhra Younus had endured more than three dozen surgeries over more than a decade to repair her severely damaged face and body when she finally decided life was no longer worth living.  AP/yahoo



Afghan girl's 'horrifying abuse'

A video given to the BBC shows the extent of the injuries suffered by a 15 year-old Afghan child bride who was locked up and tortured by her husband.

The girl was left starving after being detained by him and his family for several months.

The case came to light this week when police rescued the teenager, Sahar Gul, who had been locked up in the basement of her in-laws' house.

Police say that she had had her nails and clumps of hair pulled out.

In addition they say she had chunks of flesh cut out with pliers. bbc


Indian girl sacrificed

The body of Lalita Tati was found in October one week after her family reported her missing.

“A seven-year-old girl was sacrificed by two persons superstitiously believing that the act would give a better harvest,” Narayan Das, the police chief of Bijapur district, told AFP by telephone.

The two men was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of killing the girl and offering her liver to the gods in a grisly tribal ceremony. Police said the men had confessed to the crime. dawn

Money, avarice and greed

"I used to think that the world was shaped by love. I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. It's shaped by money. Money, avarice and greed -- these are the three main constants."

"There was a promise of better international regulation. But this promise hasn't been kept, at least not until now. I certainly find fault with that."

"And, above all, this regulation must also apply to an area that has been completely unregulated until now: hedge funds."

"We didn't want to touch certain deals, because they were too precarious, in terms of structure and image, even if we stood to make a lot of money with them." (Hilmar Kopper)

Kopper: The United States isn't my role model. If that was ever the case, it was after World War II, when we were slowly emerging from the Stone Age we had fought ourselves into. But I would neither want to live in America nor be a banker there.

SPIEGEL: Fifteen-trillion dollars in debts, a crumbling infrastructure, high unemployment, food stamps for one in five children ...

Kopper: ... and the Americans still want to spend even more money. I'm horrified when I look at the politics there, with all the backstabbing and squabbling in Washington.

SPIEGEL: Europe isn't any better off.

Kopper: I see a dollar crisis, but not a euro crisis. Europe has a debt problem, whereas the United States also has a problem with its balance of payments.

SPIEGEL: Can the euro still be saved?

Kopper: Of course. spiegel


Compare with the pensions of the portuguese bankers *

"I still receive a very small pension from the British government. I was a member of various boards of directors there, which meant I was automatically included in the social security system. It comes to about seven pounds a week." (Hilmar Kopper)

* politicians, public administrators, former members of the BdP (Bank of Portugal) and so on...


Portugal - the case study

How a small country whom got billions of the EU would fall on the bankruptcy? Surelly not because the pensions of the portuguese "oligarchy"... Of course they would be unbearable on the long run, but Portugal went to the bankruptcy right now. We should analyse the portuguese public investments since the 90's (§) and must realise that the official pedagogy is completely unfased with the real needs of the country. The Eurozone should look very carefully to Portugal before give the billions to the countries like Romenia ¤, Bulgary, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Czek Republic, Slovakia and Poland. (and look at Greece before to accept new members in the Eurozone)

(§) Firstly we going to realise that governments' members went to the board of private companies that got "very nice deals" wich ruined the financial wealth and the economy of the country. Secondly we going to see the same people first at "local power" or at bord of the public companies then as members of the governments and later as CEO's in the big private companies. This people are profissional politiciens whom got pensions called "gold pensions" (as former politiciens, as local governors, as public companies administrators or as public universities top teachers) and then they'd get huge salaries, bonuses and other little known rewards, at private firms. Also one of the main cancers of the portuguese economy are the big lawyers companies that intermediate all big public busineses. Those lawers big firms have always former, present or futur employees as elected members of the parliament (ironically called "the house of the democracy"...) where they elaborate the laws accordingly to the interests of their clients.

Thirdly: the profissional portuguese politicians transformed simple departments and sections of the ministeries and universities in Public Instituts. The Public Institut has a president, a board of directors, lots of secretaries and "specialists", and they are "independents" from the State! (as the Fondations and some private companies - whom get millions of the public money through special contracts and "concessions"). It was the way to get thousands of "nice jobs" for the "boys" and "girls" of the main portuguese political parties.

Also the portuguese universities professors' system is an aberration: the top professor teach six (sometimes less, sometimes nothing) hours weekly for more than 5000 euros/month salary (very "low" if you compare with the salary of a public portuguese administrator, but the university' teacher has loots of time and can also get a job as an administrator... if start to gets in the politics... or write very well payed "cientific" statements - this later depending on wich area him play). No one control them, there's no evaluation at all, and if there is any, its just a farse. No one ask them how many books wrote and how many articles did publish every year in specialized and recognised editions. It's like the farwest... They own an absolute power because they are considered the top of the knowledge. They may give for their "protegès" jobs like assistant teacher without any public announcement to envite others potential candidats to apply for the position. In Portugal are the tutors of the PhD's candidates whom do invite all the panel of PhD's jurors... And when they did (public announcement to envite others potential candidats - sometimes holding well reconised PhD's and post-PhD's - to apply), they composed the requirements to size the academic and profissional profile of their "boy" or "girl". It happned in almost all public portuguese instituitions. Some of the superior courses in Portugal do exist no because the needs of the country but because they are the safe net of some politicians whom are on/off in the universities and off/on in the political jobs. It's knowed that some important (in Portugal) faculties are dominated by secret societies, like the "franc-maçons" and the "Opus Dei" (right now the "portuguisches" war is between two different branches of the "maçons" each branch in each of the two main political parties...), because jobs in the public universities are in Portugal an excellent position and they want to keep it for their "brothers" and "sisters". The "Opus Dei" prefered to create their own private universities and banks (so, the BCP - the former "Opus Dei"s bank - has had to be bailled by the public money but the fomer two CEOs did get 30 and 10 million euros, respectively, more few hundred thousand euros a year, all their lives long...). Also the justice system is dominated by those "secret societies", so don't be surprised if almost all cases with top politiciens and bankers ended up in nothing  (BPP - Portuguese Private Bank - the president of this bank was so weel protected by the "socialist party" that it never went to the court; Cova da Beira; Freeport; Submarins - with the present minister of the foreign affairs, Paulo Portas, embroiled; Portucale - where a former minister of Paulo Portas' party was embroiled - namely - and w'll see whats happend with "Face Oculta", where former prime-minister, José Sócrates, is embroiled, as he's in "Cova da Beira" and "Freeport" cases as well;  BPN's case - a bank created by a member of the 90's government of today's Republic President, then prime-minister: the total "deal" w'd be about 9 thousand million euros - nine thousand million euros - of the public money "discharged into the air" to save the "rotten thing" -  it's hard to understand why Mr. José Sócrates decided to save it when everybody knowed that BPN is a case for the Police not to the government, as the BPP's - at least... So, another bank, wich CEO is also a former minister of the 90's from the present government's party got the BPN - just to shutdown the brand and to get all the facilities - per 40 million euros, a bit more if it generate a pre-determined amount of profits during the next 5 years...  To understanding the aberration of the "portuguese something system" you must to compare for exemple the average of  the price for housing in Portugal with the so-called "minimum wage" - 480 euros/month - and you'll realise that Portugal is neither an European nor an "eurozone" country - despite it is! -  but a country where the "boys & girls" of the "system" managing the place and the public money as if it was their farm and their own money.  Now, with the "crisis", it's getting worst, I mind -> as usual in Portugal it still going very nice for the "boys and girls" of the "system" but a bloody hell for the "normal" people and regular tax payers.

Basically we can tell that Portugal has an "something system", but we cannot tell that Portugal has a democratic system. And now - thanks to all that people in the portuguese "top jobs" - the "something portuguese system" (or The Paradise of the Corrupts) went bankrupt (but the "boys and girls" of the "system" still getting the public money as usual they do).

¤ my question on Romenia is: why it should remain in EU as we know very well the level of the endemic corruption and violence on women? (Balkan countries are "a problem" and Greece is just one of them)

Of course if we look at violence on the women, in Portugal (Spain is that better? Perhaps... In Catalunia... In the Basque Country...), we are going to realise that the portuguese are the taliban of the Eurozone. So, the portuguese needs a foreign military occupation -- of course not from Spain -- to stops those portuguese murders and torturers, because the portuguese "justice system" and policial action - shortened by the portuguese criminal laws and its portuguese magistrates' interpretation - simply does not work.

Of course this matter is not that simple... What's' happend with the portuguese? Why they do prefer kill their women instead of their corrupt politicians, magistrates and all the others whom ruined the country? There's some very intrincated staff to be analysed by lacanian thinkers and I wouldn't do it. Anyway, what's happend in Portugal - not only at this level - is something terrible and  unacceptable, and definitely does not going to be fixed from inside. It should be fixed by the EU, the Eurozone, or both, or the Eurozone in tandem with the OCDE or other "neutral" international organization.

Here we can see that Chile, for example, is substantially less corrupt than Portugal. The consistently responsibles of the absolutely rotten portuguese situation are the portuguese magistrates, who cleaned up in the court - or before the court - lots of corrupt big businesses, many of them in a "normal" country would configure huge crimes against the State and the "people". (Bulgaria is corrupt as Panama's, Romenia as China's, Greece as Colombia's, Serbia as Jamaica's...)

Here, no suprise, we can realise that portuguese are the unhappiest in the world after the chinese and the hungarian. Casa Pia' scandal was probably the tip of the iceberg of the portuguese regular aberrations.

In this "developed" and "warm" country people dead by cold! You just need to compare the minumum wage (485 euros/month) with the price of the electricity (and everything) in Portugal to realise for this country the important are politicians, "great" lawers and "great" administrators' salaries. "Normal" people can just get cold. Portugal is a Mafia State where the killings are made in a subtle way...

Since EU gave billions to Portugal during more than 30 years without any effective control, the EU (and the germans)  are co-responsible for the portuguese present situation. We tend to forget that Portugal is a territory of the European Union.*  Payed by the Eurozone to transform itself in a "civilized" place to be... Eurozone should care the portuguese (the spanish and the italians - I don't talk on Greece because Greece is the "edge case") as their magistrates (italian magistrates excluded, I should point out), their "great" administrators" and their "great" lawyers are just corrupt & craps.

* if we like to talk about "something" we should talk on Eurozone, not on the EU with some hypocrites whom just want to destroy the Euro.

A Dictator's Dream

Azerbaijan will play host to this year's Eurovision Song Contest. In the run-up to Europe's largest television event, the authoritarian regime has launched a campaign to improve its image. German PR experts, lobbyists and politicians across the spectrum are playing a role in those efforts. spiegel.de/international


 Unrest is being crushed 

 Bullets, beatings and Blair's brutal friend in Kazakhstan "This is the Kazakh oil town of Zhanaozen, where clashes between security forces and protesters this month have left 15 people dead." independent.co.uk


 Blair Inc's 'baffling' increase in earnings

 The accounts reveal that the company received "remuneration of £9,837,000 in connection with management services" from a limited liability partnership ultimately controlled by Blair. In the previous year Windrush Ventures Limited received £5.2m in remuneration for providing management services. Exactly what sort of management services are provided, and how the company derives its income, are impossible to determine as the accounts do not go into detail. Blair is legitimately taking advantage of laws allowing him to limit what his companies and partnerships must disclose. "It is baffling; these accounts make remarkably little sense," said accountancy expert Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK, a firm that scrutinises company finances. "This limited disclosure is not within the spirit of the law. " guardian.co.uk

Sakineh could be hanged

According to Sharifi, an investigation has been launched to determine whether it is legally and religiously possible to go ahead with the hanging instead of stoning. "As soon as the result of the investigation is obtained, we will carry out the sentence," he said in quotes carried by the semi-official Isna news agency. guardian

Note: "Seven people have been stoned to death in Iran since 2006 and at least 14 are currently facing death by stoning, according to the NGO Iran Human Rights."

Corruption in the arms trade

The arms trade accounts for almost 40 per cent of corruption in all world trade. newint.org

Chinese dissident jailed for 10 years

A Chinese court jailed a veteran dissident who organised a pro-democracy activist network for 10 years today for inciting subversion, his wife said.

The stiff sentence come near the end of a year in which the Chinese government has used various means to silence dissent, from lengthy imprisonment to months of disappearances, in a crackdown aimed at preventing Arab Spring-style uprisings. independent


Whose miracle?

It is impossible to say just how many rural peasants have made this move in the past decade but estimates run from between 200 and 300 million people. This latter would be a population greater than that of the entire US. Even by official acknowledgement 20 million a year are leaving the land. It is commonplace to see these young migrants, with their worldly goods about them, crowded into train stations trying to catch a night’s sleep between bus and train connections that will carry them to the ‘promised land’ of Shanghai or the Special Economic Zone of Guangdong (adjacent to Hong Kong).
...
The payment of bribes is chronic. Some of the incidents are gradually seeping into the Chinese press as journalists push the limits of the permissible. They include stories of outright slave labour, such as the case of people kidnapped from the countryside to work in the Shanxi brick kilns. The stories provoked an official investigation that found 53,035 people illegally employed. According to Li Datong, who used to write for the China Youth Daily; ‘The investigation uncovered cases of people being kidnapped, of restriction of personal freedom, of forced labour, of child labour, and abuse and even murder of workers.’ newint.org


Tibet's cry for help

Days ago, Palden Choetso walked out of her nunnery, covered herself in petrol and set herself on fire while pleading for a 'free Tibet'. Minutes later she died. In the past month, nine monks and nuns have self-immolated to protest a growing Chinese crackdown on the peaceful Tibetan people.

These tragic acts are a desperate cry for help. Machine gun-toting Chinese security forces are beating and disappearing monks, laying siege to monasteries, and even killing elderly people defending them -- all in an effort to suppress Tibetan rights. China severely restricts access to the region. But if we can get key governments to send diplomats in and expose this growing brutality, we could save lives.

We have to act fast -- this horrific situation is spiraling out of control behind a censorship curtain. Over and over we have seen that when diplomats themselves bear witness to atrocities, they are motivated to act, and increase political pressure. avaaz.org

My pro-Tibet's blog

Vaclav Havel dies age 75

Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who turned to politics to help peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia, has died at the age of 75. independent

Ours british allies *

IMF-EU loan in doubt after Britain refuses to lend £25bn

* (surely?!)


One trillion euros baby

Klaas Knot, head of the Dutch Central Bank and an ECB board member, suggested that it was European leaders who need to make the next move. He said that the debt crisis could be solved if the euro zone would boost its financial rescue fund to €1 trillion.
...
There were, however, at least a couple of bright spots this week. For one, a Spanish bond offering came off much better than expected, with interest rates down over recent weeks. And Russia has indicated a willingness to pay €10 billion into an International Monetary Fund plan to prop up the euro. Weidmann had threatened not to participate if there was no help from outside of the euro zone. spiegel


Divisions in eurozone over ECB bond-buying

In the interview he said: “It is the fundamental arrangement of this currency union that it does not allow the monetary funding of sovereign debt by the ECB. Without these rules, there would be no economic and currency union.”

So far the ECB has bought €210bn (£176bn) of state debt. The controversial move has been supported by the UK, France and the USA, but opposed by Germany. The reasons behind Mr Stark’s resignation go some way to revealing how deep the opposition to monetary intervention runs.
...
However, he added: “It’s the immediate crisis that must be addressed. That means a credible plan for the bond markets on the risks of sovereign insolvency.

“Institutional reform may or may not help for the longer term, but it won’t alleviate the immediate crisis. If not addressed, it has the potential to provoke a crisis of Western capitalism.” telegraph

Note: The End of the History?

Rogues and thieves have become billionaires

This handful of attendants and Media continue to convince us that the falsification of the vote in favor of the party of crooks and thieves is a necessary condition for the existence of hot tap water and cheap mortgages. navalny.livejournal.com


Censorship Tendencies

The murders of journalists in Russia, the jailing of bloggers in China, and the crackdown on the media in Iran regularly remind us that freedom of expression is under duress, even in an era of expanding global communications. rferl.org

Go to Twentyvoices

Wave of self-immolation

Chinese oppression leads Buddhist monks to resort to desperate protest. independent

My pro-Tibet's blog

Saudi Woman Beheaded for 'Witchcraft'

A Saudi woman was beheaded after being convicted of practicing "witchcraft and sorcery," according to the Saudi Interior Ministry, at least the second such execution for sorcery this year.

The woman, Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar, was executed in the northern Saudi province of al-Jawf on Monday.


In the meantime...

The £2million heist ($3,099,000) was the royal family's "holiday spending money" set aside for its visit to London on June 24.

Basically pocket money...

Britain & EU

The Failure of a Forced Marriage


What would really happen?

Interestingly enough, German bank Deutsche Bank is the single largest employer in the financial services sector in London. If we are no longer part of the EU – with no influence over future financial regulation in the currency bloc – will big banks want to be based in London? uk.finance.yahoo


To defend one of the prime culprits

It is known that Vince Cable, the business secretary, and Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, were less eager to see the UK sacrifice its role in Europe to defend a deregulated City of London, one of the prime culprits for the credit crunch. guardian


The European Union dropped the hypocrisy

The European Union on Thursday night dropped the hypocrisy. No longer is harmony the overriding goal. That, though, means that Great Britain may no longer have a place at the table. spiegel


For your own sake and for ours

Prophecies of doom are mounting as the euro zone hurtles deeper into crisis, and the world pins its hopes on Germany to solve it. The country has been thrust into a leadership role it has avoided for decades, isolating Berlin from its partners, say commentators. Poland's foreign minister has implored the country to save the euro "for your own sake and for ours." spiegel

Note: mainly for ours...


Economic and political union

A monetary union, a currency, needs an economic and political union to walk properly. The markets were targeting that weakness in the euro's construction. But Barroso also delivered a message that went to the emotional core of the European project. Born in the aftermath of war, ruin and destitution, surely the European project could cope with an army of bond traders, however powerful. guardian

Note 1: '"What's the alternative?" asks one senior EU official. "We have seen democracies outstripped by the markets, which have forced decisions on elected governments. So that democratic freedom has been curtailed. How do you respond? Do you let that continue, or do you move towards stronger economic governance? And which is more legitimate, the rule of the markets or economic governance by representative institutions in which governments have a say?"'

Note 2: "People are ready to change when they understand there is no alternative."


Believe it or not *

Believe it or not, but Greece, with a population of 11 million and economy a sixth the size of the United Kingdom, is one of the most important factors for the global economy right now.

It was the source of Europe's sovereign debt crisis after it was revealed more than two years ago that the southern European nation had borrowed more than double what it could afford to pay back.

Combine that with a problematic tax system - reports suggest there are more Porsche Cayennes in Greece than people who declare to the tax authorities earnings over €50,000 - and you can see how its fragile debt dynamics came crashing down. yahoo/forex

* Greece is a failed state because the corruption. And Italy? *

* (and Portugal? Where its despotic and corrupt "elite" - public or private, usually "mix" - take anything and everything from the public domain and from the public treasury!)

Blair and Andrew's mutual interest

The Duke of York is not alone in his fondness for Kazakhstan, the country whose president’s son-in-law bought his hideous house, Sunninghill, for £3 million above the asking price.

The gold-digger Tony Blair’s globetrotting also took him to the door of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the long-time ruler of Kazakhstan, back in 2008.
...
The U.S. State Department has made the following observations about Kazakhstan: ‘Severe limits on ability to change their government; detainee and prisoner torture and other abuse; unhealthy prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of an independent judiciary; restrictions on freedom of speech, pervasive corruption, especially in law enforcement and the judicial system; discrimination and violence against women; trafficking in persons.’ dailymail


Underground Great Wall

The Chinese have called it their “Underground Great Wall” — a vast network of tunnels designed to hide their country’s increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear arsenal. yahoo/WP


Will WW III be between the U.S. and China?

The country imprisons Nobel prizewinners such as the political activist and writer Liu Xiaobo, steals intellectual property and technological know-how from every nation with which it does business and strives to deny its people access to information through internet censorship.

The people of Tibet suffer relentless persecution from their Chinese occupiers, while Western leaders who meet the Dalai Lama are snubbed in consequence.

Other Asian nations are appalled by China’s campaign to dominate the Western Pacific. Japan’s fears of Chinese-North Korean behaviour are becoming so acute that the country might even abandon decades of eschewing nuclear weapons, to create a deterrent. dailymail


My small contribuition to the Tibetan People and Culture

"Chop the head of the snake"

Israel is not alone in talking about military action against Iran. Among the state department documents disclosed by WikiLeaks was one in Saudi Arabia called for action to chop what it called "the head of the snake". guardian

Note: we should look at how the iranian opposition as completely smashed by the regime.

Offices Of Charlie Hebdo Destroyed

According to a slew of international news wire stories this morning, the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were destroyed in the early hours of Wednesday by a petrol bomb. This comes on the day they released their latest issue re-named "Sharia Hebdo" and featuring the Prophet Muhammed on the cover announcing punishment for everyone not laughing. The insides feature an editorial written by Muhammed in much the same vein. In a PR move yesterday, the magazine named the Prophet the magazine's editor-in-chief for that issue. comicsreporter

It’s a fucking outrage!

Letter from a Cairo cell

After Egypt's revolution, I never expected to be back in Mubarak's jails. I have been locked up, again on a set of flimsy charges, five years after imprisonment for supporting the judiciary. guardian

Crimes against the humanity

"Based on available information, the special advisers consider that the scale and gravity of the violations indicate a serious possibility that crimes against humanity may have been committed and continue to be committed in Syria," the advisers said in a statement. haaretz


Assad's crackdown killed more than 3,500

More than 3,500 people have been killed in Syria's crackdown on protesters, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as the military pressed its campaign to put down resistance against President Bashar Assad's rule in the city of Homs. haaretz


Arab League votes to suspend Syria if doesn't end violence

President Bashar al-Assad given ultimatum to rein in his troops or face economic and political sanctions. guardian

Note: a bit late, isn't?

Merkel and Sarkozy are right about a Tobin tax

Some taxes have a large distortionary effect on economic activity — with a financial transactions tax, the worry is that investment activity will be curtailed– and others have a much smaller effect. Some taxes can even make markets work better, e.g. taxes that force firms to internalize pollution costs and other externalities improves the decisions firms make. From society’s point of view, they are more, not less efficient. Thus, in designing a tax system, we should look for taxes that provide the most revenue at the least cost.

So is a financial transactions tax a highly distortionary, costly tax? The answer is no. The tax would discourage short-term speculative activity, but much of this activity provides little social value. It pushes money around among winners and losers, and traders like it for that reason, but if this activity is discouraged through taxation it would have little effect on long-term investment decisions by firms. For example, one thing this would discourage is high frequency computer trading to exploit minute differences in prices. Does it really matter for long-term investment if these differences persist for a few seconds or minutes more?

In fact, there’s even an argument that this tax will improve the efficiency of financial markets. The late economist James Tobin, the originator of the tax, argued that speculative activity causes harmful fluctuations in financial markets. For example, pursuit of speculative gains can cause firms to increase leverage, and if a financial crisis hits it can be very disruptive to the economy when firm are forced to unwind that leverage quickly. That wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the costs fell only on those making the decision to take on so much leverage. But, unfortunately, as we have seen in this crisis, the costs can be very large and spread beyond the firms and individuals making the decision to take on so much risk. Thus, just as with pollution there are externalities — costs that fall on the innocent — and to the extent that a transactions tax forces firms to internalize the costs of their decisions, it improves rather than hinders the efficiency of financial markets.

There is one potential problem however: the ability to avoid the tax by moving activity elsewhere. But I don’t see this as a huge worry. Trading is mostly carried out on centralized exchanges, so keeping track of the transactions and taxing them isn’t that hard (the UK has had a tax on stocks for some time, and that hasn’t driven all activity elsewhere). Nevertheless, if the U.S. were to follow suit, as I think it should — it could raise hundreds of billions a year in revenue with minimal distortions — that would help to prevent evasive activity.

A financial transactions tax raises considerable revenue with minimal distortions to long-run investment activity; there’s even an argument that it improves efficiency by forcing firms to pay the full cost of their speculative activity. In addition, it helps to insulate the economy from the fallout when there is a financial crisis. Mark Thoma in blogs.reuters.com

Nelson Freire gives an electrifying performance of the Liszt sonata in B minor at the University of Maryland in 1982

Liszt

Franz Liszt (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher. Liszt became renowned throughout Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age and perhaps the greatest pianist of all time. He was also a well-known composer, piano teacher, and conductor who contributed significantly to the modern development of the art. He was a benefactor to other composers, including Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg and Alexander Borodin. wikipedia

Beijing: A Tibetan nun has set herself on fire in western China, the latest in a series of self-immolations among the region's Buddhist clergy, an advocacy group said Tuesday. In a separate incident, security forces shot two Tibetans during a protest outside a police station, London-based Free Tibet reported. The two incidents could not immediately be independently confirmed Tuesday, although tensions have been high across the region since widespread anti-government protests in 2008. Communist government officials gave no comment when contacted.

Free Tibet said the nun, 20-year-old Tenzin Wangmo, died after setting herself on fire Monday outside Dechen Chokorling nunnery in Sichuan province's Aba prefecture where a number of other self-immolations have taken place this year. The group said she chanted slogans as she set herself alight calling for greater religious freedom and the return of Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama.

The two men shot Sunday in Sichuan's Garze prefecture, identified as Dawa and Druklo, were taken away by area residents and their conditions were unknown, Free Tibet said. Many Tibetans use just one name. Although there is no tradition of self-immolation as a form of protest in Tibetan society, a total of nine monks and nuns have set themselves on fire since March in what are considered desperate acts to draw attention to repression of Tibetan Buddhism. newsbullet

Stop Syria's horror hospitals

The Syrian regime has reached a new low -- its death squads are using ambulances and hospitals to lure and kill wounded protesters. But Russia, Syria's key backer and arms supplier, could bring an end to this carnage.

There are two governments that can influence Russia -- Turkey and Germany -- both of them support the Syrian democracy protesters and have strong ties with Russia. If we call on them to act now, they could weigh in behind mounting regional pressure and push Russian President Medvedev to stop propping up this brutal regime and help urgent global action.

Syria's horror hospitals are the latest in a string of unspeakable crimes against peaceful protesters. So far, Russia has faced little condemnation for its complicity in these atrocities, but we can change that. Let's build a massive petition to Merkel and Erdogan now to speak out and work with the Arab League to stop the brutality. Sign now, and share this with everyone -- it will be delivered to their Foreign Ministries this week. avaaz

24 dead after Coptic church protest

At least 24 people have been killed and more than 200 wounded in the worst violence since Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February. bbc

IRAN

The constitution states that Islam is the official state religion, and the doctrine followed is that of Ja'afari (Twelver) Shiism. The constitution provides that "other Islamic denominations are to be accorded full respect," while the country's pre-Islamic religious groups -- Zoroastrians, Christians, and Jews -- are recognized as "protected" religious minorities. The fourth article of the constitution states that all laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria an official interpretation of Sharia (Islamic Law).
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Government rhetoric and actions created a threatening atmosphere for nearly all non-Shia religious groups, most notably for Bahais, as well as Sufi Muslims, evangelical Christians, Jews, and Shia groups that do not share the government's official religious views. Reports of government imprisonment, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination based on religious beliefs continued during the reporting period. Bahai religious groups reportedarbitrary arrest and prolonged detention, expulsions from universities, and confiscation of property.

During the reporting period government-controlled broadcast and print media intensified negative campaigns against religious minorities, particularly the Bahais. All non-Shia religious minorities suffered varying degrees of officially sanctioned discrimination, particularly in the areas of employment, education, and housing. scribd


Iranian actress sentenced to 90 lashes

An Iranian actress has been sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in prison for starring in a film that shows artistic repression in the country, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Marzieh Vafamehr was arrested in July and received her sentence at the weekend.

In the 2009 film, ‘My Tehran for Sale’, Vafamehr plays an actress whose work is banned by authorities and is forced to lead a secret life to express herself artistically.

Vafamehr often appears with a shaved head and no headscarf, and there are scenes of drug use in the film, according to Iranian opposition website kalameh.com. yahoo


Court upholds sentence against Jafar Panahi

TEHRAN: A Tehran appeals court has upheld a six-year jail sentence and 20-year filmmaking and travel ban against international award-winning Iranian director Jafar Panahi, his family told AFP on Saturday.

The verdict, handed down around two weeks ago, has not yet been carried out, the family said.

The government-run newspaper Iran confirmed the ruling in its Saturday edition, saying: "The charges he was sentenced for are acting against national security and propaganda against the regime." thenews

Italy's inconclusive justice

There's barely one iconic crime from the post-war years that has persuaded the country that, yes, justice has been done: the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini, the Ustica crash, the Bologna railway station bombing, the Piazza Fontana atrocity, the Monster of Florence murders, the murder of Luigi Calabresi, the "caso Cogne" … none has ever been satisfactorily, convincingly resolved. Instead the country seems to split into innocentisti and colpevolisti (those who believe in the innocence or guilt of the accused) and the heated debates continue for decades. guardian

Note: in Portugal my teacher Padre Max was killed (April 2 - 1976) by a sofisticated (for the 70's) bomb engine and no one was found guilty. It was the Right (of course) - because they never accepted a priest of the catholic church to be in an far-left political party - but the Right had very known faces.

Empathic Dialogue

“It is time for us to greet each other not only as a standard salutation but should be meant as a sincere prayer, recognition and respect of faith, and manifestation of a person’s religious identity. Say assalamu’alaikum (peace be with you) to Muslims. Say shalom (peace) to Christians. Say namo Buddhaya (I pay homage to the Buddha) or namaste (I bow to you) to followers of Buddhism. Say om swastiastu (May We be Under His Protection) to Hindus. And the same goes for the believers of other faiths.” islamlib

Youcef Nadarkhani Refuses to Recant

Yousef is from Rasht, Gilan. He is pastor for a network of Christian house churches. He is married to Fatemah Pasindedih, and they have two children, ages 8 and 6.

Yousef was first imprisoned in December 2006, on the charges of apostasy from and evangelism to Muslims. He was released two weeks later, without being charged.

In 2009, Yousef discovered a recent change in Iranian educational policy that forced all students, including his children, to read from the Qur'an. After Youcef heard about this change, he went to the school and protested, based on the fact that the Iranian constitution guarantees freedom to practice religion. His protest was reported to the police, who arrested him and placed him before a tribunal on October 12, 2009, on charges of protesting.

The charges were later changed to apostasy and evangelism, the same charges he was initially arrested under in 2006. On September 21–22, 2010, Youcef appeared before the 11th Chamber of The Assize Court of the province of Gilan and sentenced to death for the charge of apostasy. Yousef's lawyer, Nasser Sarbaz, claims there were numerous procedural errors during Yousef's trial.

After conviction Youcef was transferred to a prison for political prisoners, and denied all access to his family and attorney. The delivery of Youcef's written verdict was delayed by Iran's security officials. Christians believe the delay in execution is an attempt by Iran's secret police to force Youcef to recant Christianity. wikipedia

Crackdown on tax evaders

19.45 Britain and Germany have signed deals with Switzerland to get at funds hidden there by their citizens and extract tax. Now Italy's Senate has urged its government to do the same.

The move would be the latest step in a crackdown on tax evaders in Italy, which saw an advertising campaign launched in August labeling them "parasites on society" that cost €100 billion a year. telegraph


The End of Offshore Banking

The recent actions by the US Justice Department and the IRS against the UBS highlight the increasing pressure on the so called offshore banking model. Private Banks in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Austria, Singapore, and many Caribbean jurisdictions are well known for managing money which has left the home country of his owner without taxation. banking


Greed at the highest levels of Wall Street

NEW YORK (AP) — A former board member of Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble surrendered Wednesday after a federal indictment was unsealed accusing him of acting as "the illegal eyes and ears in the boardroom" for a friend who was already convicted in the biggest insider trading case in history. The case, built partially on use of wiretaps for the first time in insider trading, stands to offer unprecedented insight into allegations of greed at the highest levels of Wall Street. yahoo/AP

Action is needed

Credit markets are gumming up again, business and consumer confidence is falling off a cliff, and there is a growing sense of panic over Europe’s apparent inability to act. The damage caused by a rogue trader at the Swiss banking giant UBS (NYSEArca: DJCI - news) has added to the impression of a wholly dysfunctional, out-of-control financial system. yahoo/telegraph


Divide and Rescue

Chancellor Angela Merkel has always rejected a two-track Europe. But with the euro crisis persisting, Berlin is now considering far-reaching new powers for the Euro Group - to the detriment of the European Commission. spiegel

Note: there's no way with types like grecs and corrupts as the portuguese politicians, the "great" portuguese administrators, a huge slice of the portuguese lawyers & solicitors and some magistrates are. Have to choose between maniacs (like the Germans) or corrupts (like the Portuguese) is the main evidence of how patetic Europe is. Austrians are - perhaps - more maniacs than Germans? Perhaps...

But the question is: why the UE gave so many money for that "mediterranean" and "balcanic" countries, without a tight control? In fact it was a bit perverse because the UE knowed that even if the money w'd go trought the corrupt channels it w'd finish in european cars and european goods, wich did increase the German and French (the British in some way) industries. So German and France (England in some way) are  responsibles for the "mediterranean" and "balcanic" caos, corruption and bankruptcy and should fix it.

(Even if the British are not europeans. They are... "liberals"... But still accountables.)

(Romanians, and some others, are corrupts, mafious and violents. Wich criteria has had the European Comission, and Mr. Barroso, to lead them inside the EU?)

Crossing the Tibetan plateau (2010)

Evicted from home

DETROIT (AP) — A 101-year-old woman was evicted from the southwest Detroit home where she lived for nearly six decades after her 65-year-old son failed to pay the mortgage. yahoo/AP

Richard William Hamilton

24 February 1922 – 13 September 2011

Was a British painter and collage artist. His 1956 collage, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, is considered by critics and historians to be one of the early works of pop art. wikipedia

Opposition activists brutally treated

The BN (National Front) government, dominated by UMNO (United Malay National Organisation), is going all out, including by using repression and intimidation, to strengthen its position in the next general election expected soon - either this year or early next year. It was alarmed by the unprecedented victories in the 2008 general election of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Coalition) which denied them their two-thirds majority after almost four decades in power. In that election, the Pakatan Rakyat capitalised on the momentum created by the rallies organised by BERSIH (Coalition for Fair and Clean Elections), which demanded clean and fair elections, and by HINDRAF (Hindu Rights Action Force) which demanded rights for the Indian minority in November 2007, to weaken BN support. Now, to suppress similar attempts, BN is going all out to stop a repeat of the same process, in order to continuously sustain its more than 50 years in power since independence from British rule in 1957. chinaworker

Note: very, very interesting. How about human rights and freedom of speech in China?


Fear of false accusations and blackmail

In China, an elderly man falls, bleeds from the head, but no one stops to help him. The case becomes a cause celebre. Online surveys indicate that most people would not help for fear of false accusations and blackmail. asianews

Asia Bibi

In June 2009, Asia Noreen, a farm hand from the village of Ittan Wali in Sheikhupura District, was asked to fetch water; she complied, but some of her Muslim fellow workers refused to drink the water as they considered Christians to be "unclean". Apparently some arguments ensued. There had already been a running feud between Noreen and a neighbour about some property damage. Later some coworkers complained to a cleric that Noreen made derogatory comments about Prophet Muhammad. A mob came to her house, beating her and members of her family before she was rescued by the police. However, the police initiated an investigation about her remarks, resulting in her arrest and prosecution under Section 295 C of the Pakistan Penal Code. She spent more than a year in jail. In November 2010 Muhammed Naveed Iqbal, judge at the court of Sheikhupura, Punjab, sentenced her to death by hanging. Additionally, a fine of an equivalent of $1,100 was imposed. wikipedia

Note: that people dosn't deserve any help. That people should be let to their "karma".


Muslims oppose 'religion-neutral flag' proposal

Ivica Petrusic, vice president of immigrant association Secondos Plus suggests dropping the cross from the Swiss flag and adopting a different flag instead. "The Swiss cross no longer suits today's multicultural Switzerland," says Petrusic. Instead, Petrusic suggests using the green, red and yellow flag of the short-lived Helvetic Republic (1799)

Petrusic says he himself is Christian, but he does not think a Christian symbol should be used in a country with so many atheists and people who profess other religions. He says the cross does not represent the religious and cultural diversity in Switzerland today.

His proposal met with broad opposition. Hisham Maizar, head of Federation of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland said the proposal for a religion-neutral flag was counter-productive. "We don't have any demands to upend the ancient traditions of other countries." islamineurope

Note: this is probably a (funny) joke. Since then the immigrants can change the flag of the countries did accept them?

Al-Qaeda links

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime. telegraph

Islam and democracy

“OF COURSE they say nice things these days,” says a Lebanese woman, a sophisticated Sunni Muslim in her 50s, gliding between English, French and Arabic. “They know who they’re talking to. But you cannot trust them—absolutely not.” economist


Dreaming of a caliphate

The Koran mandates flogging for unlawful sex, and a strongly held tradition ascribes to Muhammad the view that adulterers should be stoned to death. Over inheritance, the Koran is also specific—a daughter is entitled to have half as much as a son—and the various legal schools of Islam are even more so, setting out with absolute precision the entitlement of each distant relative. economist

Are Political Suicides Needed?

The situation can only get worse, since nobody's interests align. The Greeks want more time to meet their budget targets without having to make more cuts that would cause more public angst. The Germans, whose opinions arguably matter the most since they have the financial ammo, are already in a huff with German Chancellor Angela Merkel about expanding the eurozone's bailout fund. More pushback from Greece about meeting its current austerity measures only fuels the fire. The ECB, meanwhile, is struggling to salvage its cherished reputation after vacuuming up billions of dollars in dodgy European sovereign debt, so more slack from its camp is also a tall order. And dinky Finland is making a fuss by demanding collateral for any more cash it forks over to Greece. curiouscapitalist