Popular Uprising in Iran Leads to Results

UK Times Online: Tens of thousands defy ban to march in Tehran in support of Mousavi

Tens of thousands of Iranian opposition activists have taken to the streets of Iran for a third day protesting against the disputed presidential election, defying a ban by the Interior Ministry.

Chanting crowds wearing green campaign colours greeted Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated candidate in Friday's disputed presidential elections, as he slowly moved through the streets on the back of a four-wheel drive car.

"Mousavi we support you! We will die but retrieve our votes!" shouted the crowds of thousands, young and old, who packed his route.

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New York Times: Khamenei Calls for Vote Inquiry Amid Calls for Calm

Mr. Moussavi met with the supreme leader on Sunday night, several news agencies quoted state television as reporting. Ayatollah Khamenei then asked that the powerful Guardian Council “precisely examine” Mr. Moussavi’s charges of irregularities, state media said.

The council will make its findings known in 10 days, according to the state media reports.

The ayatollah’s call appeared to be a shift in his position. Earlier, Mr. Khamenei had said the vote, which gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an overwhelming victory, had been fair.

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Slate Magazine: Events in Iran prove that even a little bit of democracy is a powerful thing.

Yes, this was a highly managed, deeply illiberal election, and it didn't even change the composition of the Iranian government: After all that, Ahmadinejad is still president. But the voting process did open a crack where none had existed before, the possibility of choice did inspire what had seemed to be a passive society to protest, and the campaign rallies allowed people to shout political slogans in front of the police without the police reacting. One could argue—and many Iranians do—that the poll was farcical. But Iran goes to show that a bad election is better than none at all.

What comes next? As I write, the Internet rumor mill says that Mousavi is under arrest. By next week, he may be president—or he may be in prison. But that, too, is the point: The impact of democracy—even halfway, tentative, incomplete democracy—is unpredictable. Which is, of course, why dictators try to control it in the first place.

China the New Mercantilist Power

While American and western powers are attempting money draining projects like nation building, and Global Warming prevention; the Chinese are gobbling up natural resources. Carl Mortished in The Times Online reports on the shopping spree:

This is the moment that China has been waiting for - global financial mayhem, commodity price weakness, governments in disarray and a war chest of $2trillion in foreign currency reserves. Recession has not distracted the officials who manage China's sovereign wealth funds. Half of China's oil is imported and the need will rise to two thirds by 2020. This is the time to buy cheap reserves of oil, gas, copper and iron ore and they are busy scooping up every spare tonne, ounce, barrel within reach.

In February China propped up the finances of Russia's debt-burdened oil exporters with $25billion in loans secured against 20 years of oil exports. China is promised 300,000 barrels per day and included in the deal is a new pipeline that will deliver crude to China's northern refineries. In the same week, China agreed a similar credit-for-oil deal with Brazil under which Petrobras, the Brazilian state oil company, would receive $10billion in loans in return for delivery of up to 100,000 barrels a day to Sinopec and 60,000 barrels per day to PetroChina.

Every day, by increments, the real power of the world shifts to the east.

Political Correctness Causing Harm

Here's a shocking and heartbreaking story from the Times of London. How girls and women are subject to abuse, even honor killings in some Muslim communities, in western countries like Britain. My imam father came after me with an axe

Hannah’s description in the book of the moment when her “community” discovered the “safe” home where she had fled after becoming an apostate is terrifying. A mob with her father at its head pounded and hammered at the door as she cowered upstairs hoping she could not be seen or heard. She heard her father shout through the letter box: “Filthy traitor! Betrayer of your faith! Cursed traitor! We’re going to rip your throat out! We’ll burn you alive!”

Does she still believe they would have killed her? “Yes, without a doubt. They had hammers and knives and axes.”

Why didn’t you call the police after-wards? “First, I didn’t think the police would believe me. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen in this country – or that’s what they’d think. Second, I didn’t believe I would get help or protection from the authorities.”

Hannah had good reason for this doubt. When, at school, she had finally summoned the courage to tell a teacher that her father had been beating her (she couldn’t bring herself to reveal the sexual abuse), the social services sent out a social worker from her own community. He chose not to believe Hannah and, in effect, shopped her to her father, who gave her the most brutal beating of her life. When she later confronted the social worker, he said: “It’s not right to betray your community.”

Hannah blames what is sometimes called political correctness for this debacle: “My teachers had thought they were doing the right thing, they thought it showed ‘cultural sensitivity’ by bringing in someone from my own community to ‘help’, but it was the worst thing they could have done to me. This happens a lot.

You get so many examples of this. When they were considering Sharia courts in Ontario, it was Muslim women who were the main opponents to it. The bumbling politically correct white guys are so afraid to offend somebody, they can't even admit that women get treated unfairly under the Sharia.

Hollywood White Hat Germans

With the new Tom Cruise (gag) movie Valkyrie, bringing attention to the anti-Hitler movement, the question begs: How heroic were Claus von Stauffenberg and other Nazi conspirators? A TimesOnline book review is skeptical:

There is, of course, a less flattering interpretation of Boeselager's story - which is that though, no doubt, knowledge of the wartime atrocities committed by the Nazis played a part in the decision to kill Hitler, the fundamental reason why Boeselager and his comrades wanted the Führer dead in 1943 was because Germany was losing the war. Pragmatism was more important than principle.

The sense of moral murkiness in Valkyrie is reinforced by the examination of Germans Against Hitler, written by Hans Mommsen, that grand old man of German academia. In this collection of disparate scholarly essays on the resistance movement, Mommsen demonstrates that many of those involved in the attempt on Hitler's life had decidedly dodgy pasts. Or as he says: “We have no alternative but to admit that a considerable number of those who played an active part in the July plot, and in many cases lost their lives as a result, had previously participated in the war of racial extermination, or had at least approved of it for quite a time, and in some cases actively supported it.”
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Kershaw also pulls no punches when he describes the views held early in the war by the “heroic” Stauffenberg: “He was contemptuous of the Polish people, approved of the colonisation of the country, and was enthusiastic about the German victory. He was still more jubilant after the stunning successes in the western campaign.” You don't need to be a fortune teller to predict that those sentiments won't appear in the film.

Plain and simple, they wanted to dispose of der Führer for strategic not moral reasons. The war was being lost mainly because Hitler had disastrously taken over strategic command of the armed forces from the generals, and was severely bungling the campaign.

Toothless Atheist Bus Advertisments

In Britain, they've done a fund-raiser and will have signs on the side of buses saying: "There's probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy your life" (Story here)

Dr Dawkins, speaking at the launch in Central London, said he would have rather not had the word "probably" in the advertisement. He said the existence of God was about as likely as that of the tooth fairy.

Nobody cares. He's quibbling over the word "probably." If he really wanted to be controversial, he'd think about other words. If they substituted "God" for "Allah", we would have a true fury on hand. They won't of course, so who gives a damn about this? Even practicing Christians are used to this sort of open disbelief/ridicule.

Mysterious North Korea

Eagle-eyed readers of the Times Online noticed that there was something suspicious about a recently released picture of Kim Jong Il

In a bid to end speculation that Kim Jong Il had suffered a stroke, North Korean officials released a new picture of the “Dear Leader” in apparently good health. But is the image genuine?

A Times Online reader with an eye for detail has pointed out that there is something shady about the shadows in the picture.

A close inspection of the photograph published yesterday by the Korean Central News Agency suggests that the shadow cast by Mr Kim is very different to those cast by the soldiers standing alongside him.

If you look at the photo close-ups they have you can see the image of him is superimposed. Hopefully Kim is seriously ill and will pass away. Surely the next guy in line won't be this insane? I'd sure like to see this pointless Orwellian state open up to the world.