Hamas Mugs Journalists - Again

From CNN:

Violence erupted in and around Gaza on Saturday, as Hamas security forces roughed up demonstrators and journalists, and five people were wounded in cross-border fighting.

Security forces stormed the offices of international news organizations after the violent break-up of a small demonstration in Gaza City on Saturday, witnesses said. Journalists covering that event were roughed up, they said.

They raided the offices of CNN, Reuters and Japanese broadcaster NHK, all in the same building where international news operations are located.

Reuters bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories, Crispian Balmer, said one employee was beaten with an iron rod and another was threatened with being thrown out the window. He said a camera was confiscated but was later returned. A TV and a computer keyboard were destroyed by the security forces.

The forces forcibly entered the CNN office, demanding to see whether there was any television equipment and asking if anyone had been shooting video footage from the office.
NHK Jerusalem bureau chief Disuke Iijima said videotape had been confiscated.

And, surprisingly, from Ma'an:

A Palestinian journalist in the Gaza Strip said Saturday that she received threats of violence from Hamas authorities over her participation in demonstrations.

The journalist told Ma'an that Hamas police threatened her and her son if she wrote anything on Facebook or her blog about the pro-unity protests that have been dispersed violently throughout Gaza in recent days.

She said authorities sent the head of her family a text message saying, "We will kill her the next time she blogs against us or uses Facebook to organize anything ... If you won't do it, we'll do it for you."

The journalist, who requested anonymity due to fear of reprisal, said she was detained and that while in jail, police referenced her son by name and indirectly threatened to take action against him over her work.

"I deactivated my Facebook account and can't write anything on my blog" due to the threats against him, she told Ma'an by phone from Gaza, adding that Hamas security was following her.

Other journalists told Ma'an that authorities were taking unprecedented measures against press in the wake of the demonstrations. Cameras and recording equipment have been confiscated and data erased.

"The situation for journalists is really terrible; it's unbelievable," she said. "In the past they treated people from Fatah like this but now they are targeting ordinary civilians, including journalists."

She added: "This is the first time I'm afraid to use my name."

Interestingly, CNN and Reuters were silent when Hamas attacked other journalists only two days earlier.

Outside of press associations, I have yet to see any condemnation of Hamas for these acts.

Elder of Ziyon

Egypt Protest Degenerating into Supremacist ROT

The messages were troubling, and Islamic supremacists and their leftwing knob polishers set about to alter the narrative. Their objective is to turn this desire for political freedom into an anti-American, anti-Israel putsch.

Egyptians filled the streets in front of the office of the Consulate General of Egypt in Chicago shouting their support for the protesters back home. Also at the United Nations in New York there was a large rally. The people were carrying signs that said, “Down with Mubarak”, “Down with the Camp David Regime”, ‘Egypt is Free”, and “Egyptian Blood is our Blood”. (more here)

But if you look at the demonstrations in New York, Chicago and such........you will see the infiltrators trying to transform the movement into an ugly, Muslim supremacist, Jew-hating movement.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/files/egypt-intifada-1

Pessimism on What Happens Next in Egypt

Barry Rubin points out the numbers in the latest Pew poll to show that what's likely to follow the current riots in Egypt is - unfortunately - not a liberal democracy. At least not if the Egyptian people are asked what they want.

In Egypt, 30 percent like Hizballah (66 percent don't). 49 percent are favorable toward Hamas (48 percent are negative); and 20 percent smile (72 percent frown) at al-Qaida. Roughly speaking, one-fifth of Egyptians applaud the most extreme Islamist terrorist group, while around one-third back revolutionary Islamists abroad. This doesn't tell us what proportion of Egyptians want an Islamist government at home, but it is an indicator.

In Egypt, 82 percent want stoning for those who commit adultery; 77 percent would like to see whippings and hands cut off for robbery; and 84 percent favor the death penalty for any Muslim who changes his religion.

Asked if they supported "modernizers" or "Islamists" only 27 percent said modernizers while 59 percent said Islamists:

Is this meaningless? Last December 20 I wrote that these "horrifying figures in Egypt...one day might be cited to explain an Islamist revolution there....What this analysis also shows is that a future Islamist revolution in Egypt and Jordan is quite possible.

And in Jordan, the numbers look even worse.... (Thanks to Michael Totten for the idea, but your like to Barry's post is wrong!).

Labels: Cairo 25 January 2011, Egyptian riots, Politics, World Politics

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:14 AM

The Difference between Politics and Sedition

The administration may see a connection. But it’s a big leap from that to the president saying, “Let the Iranians have the bomb, because I don’t like what the Israeli government is doing about the Palestinian conflict.” It’s inconceivable.
Relationship with US
It’s very important; there’s no question about it. But the independence of the state of Israel is more important. To Israelis, anyway.
Now, the issues of settlements in Judea and Samaria, of Israel’s ability to defend itself, and of the conditions under which it can reach an accommodation with the Palestinians are of vital importance to the state of Israel. So I would expect that, if Israel and the U.S. are unable to resolve the disagreement on these issues, the US would defer to the Israeli point of view. But clearly that is not the position of this administration.
Moishe Ahrens
Hossein Askari believes that the Obama administration could impose sanctions on Iran that would bring the regime down within a year if it wanted to. The problem is that Obama doesn't want to bring down Iran's clerical regime.
Few banks would choose Iran over the US and any that did would charge so much to do business with Iranians that regime insiders would have a heart attack!
Cutting off the central bank and all Iranian financial institutions would basically increase the cost of Iranian imports because Tehran could not use letters of credit—instead, it would either have to resort to cash, literally in suitcases, to buy what it needs or rely on barter. The cost of trade would soar in time, crippling the Iranian economy and demonizing the regime.
The Obama administration could spark a panic by motivating Iranians, as well as expatriates residing in the United States and overseas, to liquidate their assets in Iran and to withdraw their money from the country.
Israel Matzav
Sedition: Crime of creating a revolt, disturbance, or violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow or destruction -- Brittanica Concise Dictionary
When the indictments against the Hutaree were unsealed last week, the S-word was right there, front and center, in Count One. The Justice Department accused them of "seditious conspiracy," charging that the defendants "did knowingly conspire, confederate, and agree with each other and other persons known and unknown...to levy war against the United States, and to prevent, hinder, and delay by force the execution of any United States law."
This is very serious stuff. But the Hutaree are getting nailed for sedition only because they crossed the line with inches to spare. They're by no means the only ones. Advocating, encouraging, and sanctioning sedition is the new norm on the conservative side.
We saw it again last Thursday, when the Guardians of the Free Republics -- a Sovereign Citizen group that believes that the oath of office taken by state governors is invalid under their twisted Bizarroland interpretation of the Constitution -- sent letters to most or all sitting state governors telling them to either a) take what they consider to be a legitimate oath of office; b) stand down; or c) or be removed "non-violently" within three days. The FBI, rightly, regards this as a potentially seditious threat against the governors.
These two events are a wake-up call for progressives. They're telling us that it's time to openly confront the fact that conservatives have spent the past 40 years systematically delegitimizing the very idea of US government.
AlterNet

Leftists Have the Attention Span of a Grape

In days passed at OEN, I would respond to late-breaking news. Since many editors waited five to seven days to publish my article, it was no longer fashionable. After I wrote on more lasting issues, I was lucky to make the Top 50 list for a few hours rarely with a headline.
Much of this reflects old-time newspaper writing. Today's headline wraps dead fish bones tomorrow. This practice has killed leftist politics for the past 40 years.
Almost every day FOX promotes a revelation that dominates every show for at least 24 hours. Before the left can respond, FOX is off on another tangent. If one of their fairy stories gains traction, it stands repetition pounded into viewers heads as an advertising commercial.
The Republicans elevate this trash into political rhetoric good enough to bash Democrats for weeks and maybe months. Then, the best lies [such as birther and deather] go on the shelf for use at a later time.
To counter this I subscribe to Brad Freidman's Blog and his consistent and long-lasting campaign against the right's weaknesses. For example, they support perpetual war, misogyny, US exceptionalism, selling US nuclear secrets to the enemy, ethnic cleansing, hanging gays, abusing children, infecting the general population with chemical agents, wire tapping, subversion, falsification of the public record, assassinating whistle blowers, torture, slavery, genocide, killing Muslims for Jesus, boiling dissidents in oil, euthanasia, kidnapping, sex slavery, heroin trafficking, adultery and numerous other departures from common human decency.
Instead of taking the right to task for these infractions, the left criticizes Obama's escalation of the war.

Food Distribution Problem Not Production

Southeast Asia

Mong Palatino, Global Voices

Prices of rice and other basic food items are increasing in the world. The global food price crisis is affecting millions, possibly billions of people. Food policies are challenged. Governments are imposing emergency measures to calm down their restless constituents. The Southeast Asian region, home to several emerging and developing economies, is also struggling to cope with the situation.

For want of a better title more or less sums up the problem in the region:

“The biggest problem with our rising rice prices is that it’s more a distribution error than a problem with the rice yields. It’s more about politics than it is about agriculture…What’s probably going to happen though is an even higher rise in rice prices. The thing about a necessary product is that when price goes up, people buy more. And since they’re spending more on rice, they’ll spend less on the things that accompany that rice.”

Even Singapore, one of Asia's richest countries, is now scrambling to offer cheap food prices as reported by Singapore News Alternative.

Rice exporting nations are also gripped with panic. Thanh Nien cites that “Rice fever runs hot in several Vietnam provinces.” Details are Sketchy is worried because nearly half a million kids in Cambodia are expected to start missing meals in the coming weeks as a result of the rising cost of rice.

Vuthasurf describes the mood in Phnom Penh:

“The rice price is remarkably increasing in Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh residents have been buying and stocking rice. All type of rice price is increasing too fast and making Cambodian people worried. The price of rice is going up across the nation by more than 20 percent, comparing to the previous year. Rising the rice price is helping the farmers but it is hitting badly the poor such as garment workers, teachers, civil servants who have low-income.”

But Cambodia’s government is optimistic that rice production will improve. Im Sokthy explains:

“Cambodia has about two million hectare of land for rice production. Its existing irrigation system can cover 30 percent of the land. It can expand to three million hectares for rice production. Adding to this, Cambodia could cultivate about two to three times per year on the same land areas. Based on this, it is seen that Cambodia has huge potential to become the world's largest rice exporting country.”

Youthful Insight notes the anomaly in policymaking in Indonesia, which may be applicable as well to other countries:

“On one side the government must keep inflation and food price low enough so its does not hurt the poor. But on the other side the government must maintain a reasonable high price to give incentive to farmers to increase their production and increase rural welfare. Is there any policy to achieve both objectives above? Yes! Give high subsidy to the farmers like what the developed countries are doing. But the problem is our government does not have the money to do it.

“Cheap food price is good for poor urban, whose main sources of income are the service and manufacturing sectors. But bad for rural poor whose main source of income is agriculture sector. Lower food price means lower income and also lower welfare for rural area. The government sacrifices the rural for the sake of the urban. Why? Because urban poor is more attractive politically than rural poor.”

New Mandala mentions the ongoing debate in Thailand about the extent to which farmers will benefit from high rice prices. Thailand Crisis is surprised to hear the Thai Prime Minister exhorting the people to eat less so that Thailand can export more rice.

The Malaysian quotes a politician who is asking the Malaysian government to stop the space mission program so that the money can be used to develop Sabah as a food producing state.

Filipino journalist Ricky Carandang points to another reason for the rising food prices:

“Yes, there are real supply and demand factors driving up rice prices, but one must concede that a big chunk of the increases in the prices of oil, gold, and rice, are due to speculation on the international commodities markets.”

Lengua et Pluma blames the economic policies of the Philippine president:

“The government is quick to blame the traders, when it hides on the background its policies that pave the way for cartel operations and the declining rice production in the country. This crisis that has brought about the overdependence on the importation of food, and an agriculture that is geared mainly towards the production of raw materials for export, has put on the forefront the long-running problems that beset our agriculture and farmers –lack of irrigation, lack of subsidy on the production of our farmers, land use and crop conversion, and the monopoly of land by a few land owners and transnational corporations, to name a few.”

Local Freakonomics hopes the Brunei government will continue subsidizing the price of basic food items:

“While I don’t expect the government to subsidize all food but I do expect some food price subsidies/food security packages are being planned for Brunei’s staple food (in addition to rice and sugar) such as cooking oil, flour, milk, eggs, chicken.”

Diplomacy Might Work in America

“I also know that real change has never been easy, and it won't be easy this time either. The status quo in Washington will fight harder than they ever have to divide us and distract us with ads and attacks from now until November.” Barack Obama

Karl Rove’s Newsweek article offers much sage advice to Obama especially this tidbit.

5. Stop the attacks. They undermine your claim to a post-partisan new politics. You soared when you seemed above politics, lost altitude when you did what you criticize. Attacks are momentarily satisfying but ultimately corrode your appeal.

McCain: The GOP nominee-in-waiting rapped his Democratic rival for opposing his idea to suspend the tax on fuel during the summer, a proposal that McCain believes will particularly help low-income people who usually have older cars that guzzle more gas.

"Obviously Sen. Obama does not understand that this would be a nice thing for Americans, and the special interests should not be dictating this policy."

The Arizona senator deflected questions about his record on the Bush administration's tax cuts _ he initially opposed them but now supports. Huff Post