Will the World End? Part 5 of 9

Every time Washington is threatened with annihilation, the authorities sponsor new peace initiatives. Who can forget the Cuban missile crisis?
For years we fiddled with various Cold War ruses to end the Red Menace. The Soviets collapsed under their own accord. The Chinese converted to capitalism eliminating them as a gross threat to our way of life. In fact, they are better at capitalist expansionism than we are.
To continue tension in Asia, we sided with Afghanistan against Russia by selling our nuclear secrets to Pakistan. They needed a decade to develop a meaningful nuclear capability. Since they consider India as the major threat, war between them could destroy the planet without American participation.
[As few as fifty detonations during the war between them could punch holes in the ionosphere. This would end planetary food production for ten years.]

Muslim Dad Murders Daughter for Going with Hindi

Muslim girl killed for love affair with Hindu Hindustan Times

A Muslim man has been arrested for killing his teenaged daughter who was in love with a Hindu youth from the same village, police said on Thursday. Mushtakeem, a resident of Mawaithakuran village, strangled his 18-year-old daughter Rehana Parveen after she insisted on marrying her lover Bhoora Prajapati, 21, police said.
Mushtakeem was arrested late on Wednesday after Parveen's body was recovered from their home. The village is in Moradabad district, some 300 km from Lucknow.

According to police, Prajapati and Parveen used to meet regularly in the fields on the outskirts of the village. But as Parveen had not been coming for the last few days, Prajapati approached police suspecting the girl could be in trouble.

Police raided Mushtakeem's house and recovered his daughter's body from a locked room.

"Preliminary investigations indicate it's a case of honour killing. The father has confessed to the crime," police inspector Ravi Kumar told reporters on Thursday.

"The father told us he committed the crime as he thought his daughter's marriage with the youth of a different community would bring a bad name to the family," he added.

According to police, besides the father, the girl's family members could also be involved in the crime.

India: Speaking of the Muslim Hordes

Over 2,000 violent Muslim mob attack police outpost in Jharkhand during Chhath celebrations

Mob attacks police outpost (hat tip Satya)

VISHVENDU JAIPURIAR

Hazaribagh, Nov. 13: A mob of over 2,000 attacked a police outpost here today, pelting stones and torching a DSP’s jeep, to protest against alleged inaction after Muslims complained about loudspeaker use during Chhath celebrations yesterday during the time of Friday prayers.

Five policemen of Pelawal police outpost were injured while 13 troublemakers have been arrested.

The mob gathered at the outpost around 10am after which DSP Naushad Alam and sub-divisional officer Binay Rai asked that 10 members of the group come in for talks.

While this was being negotiated and 10 chosen representatives were coming inside, the mob started pelting stones, forcing the senior officers to take shelter inside.

Sanjay Kumar, the DSP’s bodyguard, managed to escort the group inside. “But when I came out again, a huge boulder hit me on the chest. I fell down and lost consciousness,” Kumar said.

By then, policemen inside the outpost took position and began firing teargas shells. But, the mob had other ideas. As the police were using short-range shells, some of the agitators picked them up and lobbed them back at the outpost.

“We began suffocating inside and were, therefore, forced to come out,” said Arun Kumar Singh, one of the policemen firing the shells.

The police then started firing long range shells, which worked, and the mob began to recede. As many as 48 rounds were fired.

Alam’s driver, Binod Kumar, then tried to drive away using his boss’s jeep, but he was hit by a stone. The mob then beat him up and set fire to the jeep. But the SDO’s driver managed to speed away and save his vehicle.

Earlier, the mob had dragged out a policeman’s motorbike from the outpost and set it afire. Another bike belonging to a journalist, who was with officials inside the outpost, was also torched.

Musim Who Chopped Off Christian's Hand Wins Election

India: One of the Muslims accused in chopping off of Christian professor's hand over "blasphemy" wins local election from jail Jihadwatch

The prospects for a democracy to succeed in upholding human rights and a free society are ultimately only as good as the values that inform those who participate in it. An update on this story. "Kerala man accused of chopping hand wins poll," from the Press Trust of India, October 28 (thanks to GS):

Thiruvananthapuram: Contesting from prison, an accused in the sensational case of chopping off the hand of Thodupuzha Newman college lecturer TJ Joseph, has won from a block panchayat division in Ernakulam in the civic body elections.

Anas won from the Vanchinad division of Vazhakkulam block in Ernakulam district on a ticket of Socialist Democratic Party of India (SDPI), political arm of Popular Front of India (PFI), whose activists were allegedly behind the attack on Joseph for preparing a question paper containing blasphemous references to Prophet Mohammed.

Whose prophet?

Joseph was then fired in addition to being maimed.

Anas, now in judicial custody and lodged in the Viyyur central jail in connection with the case, won from the division defeating the nearest UDF candidate by a margin of more than 1,000 votes, while the LDF candidate came third.

The accused, who contested the seat after getting permission of the local court, could neither campaign for the poll nor cast his vote. Anas is the 47th accused in the case.

Jihad Watch

Muslims Cut Off Hands of Christian Professor

India: Muslims chop off hands of Christian professor who put "defamatory" question on exam Jihadwatch

The use of amputation, though it differs slightly from exact Qur'anic prescriptions (are we thus to understand it has "nothing to do with Islam?"), suggests Qur'an 5:33: "The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom."

"Jihadi's [sic] chopped hands of Malayalam Professor - 'Crusaders' get the taste of 'Jihad'," from Haindava Keralam, July 4 (thanks to GS):

THODUPUZHA: Christians in Kerala now started getting the true taste of Jihad . Five Jihadi fanatics today chopped of the hands of Malayalam Professor.

A Malayalam professor T J Joseph of the Newman College, who is under suspension for preparing a defamatory question for an exam paper, was attacked by a gang of five men at Muvatupuzha when he was coming back from church.

His crime - A question prepared by the professor for a Exam was offensive to Jihadis.

Government Action - Government who never misses a point to score when it comes to the matter of winning Jihadi hearts suspended the Professor.

Jihadi's who have scant regard to rule of the land decided to impose Sharia punishment to this professor. Professor Joseph and his family were attacked by Jihadi's today when he was coming back from Church after attending Sunday mass.

Repeated warnings of Hindu organisations in Kerala about the growth of Jihadi fanatics in Kerala were repeatedly brushed aside by so called 'Secular Soceity' [sic] as the propaganda of Hindu Communalists.
Atlas Shrugs

You Might Consider Moving to India

India lacks "the food stamp program, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or anything else that does good for NON-SUPER RICH Crooks or the "middle class", or the poor, disabled, elderly AND children "COSTING TOO MUCH".
Reply:
Every day my friend left her Mumbai mansion to attend college. Sometimes, her driver had to stop at the front gate to remove the bodies of those who had come there to die. She was upset she might not get to school on time.
About 200 millions Indians have joined the modern economy. They live well by any standard. The other 1.2 billions are in dire straits.
America without safety nets would become a much crueler nation similar to India.

Bush Coup Scenario

A Bush/Cheney Coup Is Possible
Since I haven't heard from Lyndon LaRouche after 1983, I thought he was dead. I watched the coverage of the siege on NDTV 18/3. It was realistic and utterly chaotic. Totally unlike the World Trade Center tragedy, they lacked a string of 'witnesses' who mouthed the Administration line.
I can't imagine the Brits being involved in this. They are too class conscious to murder tourists in posh hotels. The Mossad would have notified the Jews in the Chabad House to steer clear that day. The Americans are too much in love with their high tech toys to limit themselves to 300 dead. If a nuclear war begins, it will point directly at the USA. Nobody else hates Pakistan AND India enough to set up a nuclear war between them.
After the attack on Iran failed to materialize, the Republicans rushed to bail out the financial interests before the GOP scuttled the ship of state. As they did not want to get lynched before they left town, they lowered the gas prices. I thought they kept control of the MSM simply to keep from sinking below the radar. However, the estimate of Pakistani A-bombs has risen from 4 to 150 in the past few months.
Bush could attack India with a number of suitcase bombs, blame it on Pakistan and retaliate with the US Navy. He could declare Martial Law. Backed by the US Military patrolling our streets, he could remain POTUS for some time.

Skyrocketing Food Prices

'Haiti, Congo, and the politics of hunger'

by Jennifer Brea

Skyrocketing food prices have already sparked riots in Haiti, Egypt and Mozambique this month as a worsening crisis not only threatens to leave thousands vulnerable to starvation, but will test weak and ineffective governments in poor countries around the world.

Two francophone bloggers, one Haitian, one Congolese, respond, but rather than blame the proximate cause--subsidies for biofuels in rich countries--they criticize the politics and the politicians who left their countries this vulnerable to begin with. They write that the riots of these last few weeks and the riots to come, like the crisis itself, are symptomatic of deeper problems that cannot be solved by the simple magic of foreign aid.

Haitian blogger Natifnatal wrote an angry, heartbreaking post as she watched events in Haiti unfolding from thousands of miles away, in Abu Dhabi, which she suggests is a sort of self-imposed exile. It's called "When politicians serve hunger to score points."

These last few weeks, Haiti has returned to the front pages. As far away as you are, the news pulls you in, the images shake you, your throat chokes with embarrassment, and you burn with anger. You are, in effect, angry at the way in which your country is reduced in the press: to , destroying the few shops operating in a country that has not functioned in a long time. You are angry because it is impossible to respond to the reactions of foreigners who are watching like you and who understand nothing. Should I begin with 1492, talking about discovery, slavery, and the prosperity of the ex-Pearl of the Antilles, of the struggle for independence, of Toussaint Louverture? Or should I tell about the degradation that has punctuated our daily lives since 1804: occupation, dictatorship, massacres, the allure of democracy with Aristide that gave way to demogoguery, and then end with the kidnappings, coups d'etat, poverty, indigence, and the hopelessness that haunts us daily. For
those who don't even know the basics can present the equation: hunger + poverty + rising prices=demonstrations + the Prime Minister's resignation + violence, and argue that an increase in food aid would suffice to reduce hunger.

But those of you who know Haiti, who still breathe her air in spite of the distance between you, who still cry silently when you have a parent on the telephone, you know that the situation is far from that simple. You know that these demonstrations are not innocent, that there is an invisible hand behind these acts of violence, that these so-called demands are not the result of accident, that the dismissal of the Prime Minister or cash payments won't change much, and that the rioters are nothing more than pawns in the skilled hands of the maniacs in power.

Because you know the cold truth, and you are sick of it. You have run away from the political machinations, you have broken your ties with Haiti, you have resigned yourself to you condition of being "stateless," these moments are enough to make your pulse race, your heartbeat go irregular, to make you want to pull out your hair, to curse destiny, and prove to you, for the umpteenth time, that you were right to leave.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Musengeshi Katata at Forum Realisance, watching events in Haiti and Egypt, writes a post called, "Today, Haiti. Tomorrow, the world."

Katata touches on the relationship between the current food crisis, the ecological devastation of the planet, energy demand, biofuels, and how India and China, developing rapidly and without the latest in energy-saving technologies, are coming to Africa in search of natural resources.

He asks "Why is Africa so slow to understand that it's only going to get more difficult [to develop] in the future?" and predicts that "the next few years will be bad, so bad that we will ask ourselves if Hell is African" because "rich countries will, as they always have, place the heavy weight of this intensifying crisis on the shoulders of poor countries" [Fr]

But in the end, Katata puts most of the responsibility on African elites themselves, predicting that "many incapable governments and puppet regimes are going to implode" in the coming years unless they recognize their own self-interest lies with protecting the interests of their people.

...the Tsunami, as one of our Internet brothers wrote, will soon reach Africa with, as the World Bank has predicted, the inevitable revolts and famines. How can we present things to our black and African elites so that they will understand that they are asleep at the helm, that their view of things is disastrous and detrimental to their own well-being and future? Must Africans and their descendants continue to let themselves be run by the West, and to fail to see what threatens to happen, after decades and decades of the vicissitudes of chronic need and poverty? It's enough to ask, do blacks refuse to think and draw useful conclusions or are they just incapable?

All of those countries who live off foreign aid, all those under the aid and false promises of the industrialized countries who have not developed their own domestic agriculture will come to know, in the years that follow, hard years of bitterness. The economic crisis that we have known since what will soon be 30 years will intensify and eat away at the meager means of all the poor countries. And those who hope or believe that foreign aid can help ease the situation are fooling themselves yet again: this help, although a salve, is at the same time actually a poison, and in spite of the misery and the poverty, a stepped-up effort cannot make up for this type of shortfall in the future. Because, let's be honest, aid corrupts and enables deceptive appearances; that's what often stops people, as we know, from seeing [the forest for the trees], from seeing the problem as it is and remedying it as wisely as possible...

You may view the latest post at

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/04/18/haiti-congo-and-the-politics-of-hunger/

An Exile Returns to Tibet

Mayank Sufi Austen talks to a young Tibetan; who went back to Lhasa and says;

"I was a foreigner in my homeland. I didn't know Chinese and it was everywhere. In restaurants, menus would be written in Chinese and I would ask stewards what was what. I would pass by the city's only theater that screened Hollywood films, dubbed only in Chinese. It was difficult to make out things. I was lost."

Global Voices