Posts Tagged ‘International’
Friday, March 25th, 2011
President Obama now seems to support a no-fly zone over Libya, but another US military intervention can only bring ruin
Much to his detriment, President Obama has been sitting on the fence regarding the Libyan civil war. The president should have had the courage of his convictions to say that although his sympathies and the sympathies of the American people are with those Libyans who desire freedom, human rights and democracy, this is a fight that only Libyans can win. Unfortunately, if Thursday’s statement from US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice is any indication, Obama has caved to misguided and poorly thought-out arguments for direct intervention.
It is not in the national interest of the United States to institute a no-fly zone. Although a former administration official criticised the president for prioritising oil over human rights, this is not about oil; it is about sensibility and moral hazard. Many of the same people championing intervention in Libya – Senators Lieberman, Kerry and McCain, to name but three – also advocated for the Iraq war. Remember how that turned out? They thought that intervention would be as easy as apple pie; nothing could go wrong, they argued.
Read more at the Guardian.
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Thursday, March 24th, 2011
(Reuters) – Only 17 percent of Americans see President Barack Obama as a strong and decisive military leader, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after the United States and its allies began bombing Libya.
Nearly half of those polled view Obama as a cautious and consultative commander-in-chief and more than a third see him as indecisive in military matters.
Obama was widely criticized in 2009 for his months-long consultations with senior aides and military chiefs on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. Critics called it dithering, but he said such a big decision required careful deliberation. He eventually dispatched 30,000 more troops.
But Obama is facing mounting discontent among opposition Republicans and from within his own Democratic Party over the fuzzy aims of the U.S.-led mission in Libya and the lack of a clearly spelled-out exit strategy for U.S. forces.
If the Libya mission becomes a foreign policy mess, mixed with perceptions Obama is a weak military leader, it could spell trouble for him in the 2012 presidential election.
Read more at Reuters
SEE ALSO: Williams TEA Party
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Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
This quote was translated into English from an article appearing in the Czech Republic as published in the Prager Zeitung of 28 April 2010.
“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”
Wiki Answers
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Thursday, March 17th, 2011
(Reuters) – The U.S. military took new steps to shield personnel from radiation spread by Japan’s crippled nuclear plant on Tuesday, redirecting arriving warships to safer waters and telling some forces to limit time outdoors.
Here are the latest details from the Pentagon on the mobilization of American forces to aid Japan after its devastating tsunami and earthquake.
All times are local to Japan.
WHERE IS RADIATION BEING DETECTED?
* Two U.S. naval bases detected above normal levels of radiation: the Yokosuka Naval Base, located about 200 miles south of the plant, and the Naval Air Facility Atsugi, which is about 150 miles from the plant.
* Rear Admiral Richard Wren, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Japan, said the additional radiation exposure for the past 12 hours at the two bases was about 20 millirem, less than one month’s exposure to naturally occurring background radiation. He is recommending personnel and their families limit outdoor activity and shut down external ventilation systems.
* A day after saying 17 Americans on helicopter missions had been exposed to a month’s worth of normal radiation, the Navy acknowledged several more crew members had been similarly exposed to low levels of radiation. But it said there was no risk to their health and that operations would continue.
Read more: Reuters.
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Thursday, March 10th, 2011
Individuals are not special by virtue of their “species membership,” he said, but become “persons” and worthy of protection because they possess certain “ethically salient properties” such as the ability to experience pain or pleasure, self-consciousness, and rationality.
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 9, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-abortion activists sought, unsuccessfully, to disrupt a debate on abortion at Dalhousie University Tuesday night by ripping down ads, setting off stink-bombs, and covering the ceiling with helium balloons featuring pro-abortion slogans. In the end, they even turned on the pro-abortion speaker.
Representing the pro-life side of the debate was Stephanie Gray, co-founder and executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform. Facing Gray was Dr. Mark Mercer, chairperson of the philosophy department at Halifax’s St. Mary’s University, who has in the past won the ire of pro-abortion activists for defending the rights of pro-lifers to express their opinions on university campuses.
While Gray argued that the unborn should be protected in law because abortion is the violent killing of innocent human life, Mercer argued that there is nothing ethically troubling about abortion, at one point suggesting that a baby isn’t a “person” until around 18 months of age.
Read more at Life Site News
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Monday, March 7th, 2011
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Forces allied with the Somali government have repelled Islamist militants from two towns near the Kenyan border in a string of recent victories, Somali officials said on Monday.
President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, was quick to take credit, even though most of the fighting has been done by militias loosely aligned with Somalia’s transitional government or African Union peacekeepers. In the past few weeks, heavily armed peacekeepers have taken back several neighborhoods here, in Somalia’s capital, from the Shabab, a radical Islamist insurgent group. On Sunday and Monday, government-allied militias drove the Shabab out of Luq and El Wak, both in southern Somalia near Kenya.
“Al Shabab is on the verge of collapse,” boasted Sheik Sharif, at a news conference on Monday. “We shall also sweep them from Mogadishu. Our enemies have suffered a great loss, it is obvious they will run away from many towns.”
Read more at New York Times
SEE ALSO: CBS News, Washington Post
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Saturday, February 19th, 2011
My addition: If this does not show the sickness of the American mainstream media, I don’t know what does. When they are willing to sacrifice a reporter on the alter of multiculturalism, there is a real problem in the medium that Thomas Jefferson sought to protect.
By Michael Graham
Thursday, February 17, 2011 – Updated 2 days ago
Dateline — Egypt:
“[60 Minutes] correspondent Lara Logan was repeatedly sexually assaulted by thugs yelling, ‘Jew! Jew!’ as she covered the chaotic fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo’s main square Friday.”
Powerful reporting on an important story. Two problems: It didn’t run until yesterday, and CBS didn’t run it. The quote is from the New York Post. And it was The Wall Street Journal that reported “the separation and assault lasted roughly 20 to 30 minutes.”
But CBS? They sat on their own story. For five days, as reporters reveled amid giddy celebrations in Tahrir Square, and as President Obama praised President Obama’s handling of the Egyptian crisis, CBS reported nothing.
Read more at the Boston Herald
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Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
“CBS Evening News” anchor Katie Couric instead found the protests against a new Islamic Center set to be built near Ground Zero to be more newsworthy, labeling the “seething hatred” against Muslims in America as one of the “most disturbing stories to surface this year” on her New Year’s Eve Internet show.
At least 65 Christians have been killed in attacks across the Muslim world in recent months, sparking sharp criticism from human rights groups that charge the U.S. government and media aren’t doing nearly enough to speak out against the violence.
A shooting in Egypt last month that killed a Christian man and injured five Christian women was just the latest in the series of attacks, several of which occurred around the holiday season: A New Year’s bombing at a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, Egypt, killed 23 people and injured more than 100; Christmas Eve blasts in Nigeria killed at least 32 — just part of a night of terror across the country that saw three other churches attacked and six worshipers killed; six perished in a Christmas Day Catholic Church bombing on the island of Jolo, in the Philippines; and a string of New Year’s Eve bombings in Iraq left two dead and at least 13 wounded.
Read more at FOX News
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Monday, February 14th, 2011
Egypt’s deposed president, Hosni Mubarak, went into a full coma on Saturday night at his residence in the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, an Egyptian newspaper reported on Monday, quoting well-informed sources.
Mubarak and his family moved to Sharm al-Sheikh on Thursday night following his final speech, in which he handed over executive authority to former Vice-President Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s al-Masry al-Youm reported.
DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)
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Monday, February 14th, 2011
By Ali Shuaib and Salah Sarrar
TRIPOLI, Feb 13 (Reuters) – Palestinian refugees should capitalise on the wave of popular revolts in the Middle East by massing peacefully on the borders of Israel until it gives in to their demands, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Sunday.
Gaddafi is respected in many parts of the Arab world for his uncompromising criticism of Israel and Arab leaders who have dealings with the Jewish state, though some people in the region dismiss his initiatives as unrealistic.
He was giving his first major speech since a popular uprising in neighbouring Egypt forced President Hosni Mubarak to resign, an event which electrified the Arab world and prompted speculation that other Arab governments could also be toppled.
“Fleets of boats should take Palestinians … and wait by the Palestinian shores until the problem is resolved,” Gaddafi was shown saying on state television. “This is a time of popular revolutions.”
“We need to create a problem for the world. This is not a declaration of war. This is a call for peace,” he said in a speech given to mark the birthday of the Prophet Mohamed, a holy day in the Islamic calendar.
He also said: “All Arab states which have relations with Israel are cowardly regimes.”
Palestinians have long demanded that refugees who fled or were forced to leave in the war of Israel’s creation in 1948 should be allowed to return, along with their descendants.
Israel says any resettlement of Palestinian refugees must occur outside of its borders.
Reuters
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Monday, February 14th, 2011
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: February 14, 2011
LONDON — Three days after Hosni Mubarak resigned the Egyptian presidency, the British government announced on Monday that it would consult with its European allies on a request from the new authorities in Egypt to freeze the assets of “several former officials” in the Mubarak government.
William Hague, the foreign secretary, did not name the officials in his statement to the House of Commons, nor did he indicate whether Mr. Mubarak or members of his family were among them. But he confirmed Monday that Britain was ready to act on the request after a review of the issue at a meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels that was scheduled to continue on Tuesday.
“We will of course cooperate with this request, working with our European and other international partners, as we have done in the case of Tunisia,” Mr. Hague said. “If there is any evidence of illegality or misuse of state assets, we will take firm and prompt action.”
New York Times
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Monday, February 14th, 2011
Gates of Vienna
BBC News
The ruling was made by a new panel of judges appointed after the initial trial collapsed in October when Mr Wilders complained of bias against him.
Mr Wilders’ lawyer will now be given a chance to set out the objections he made at the start of the initial trial.
One of the judges told the court on Monday that if the objections were successful, “the case will be closed”.
BBC News
SEE ALSO: Gates of Vienna
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Monday, February 14th, 2011
The trial of an Afghan man who is facing execution for converting to Christianity is illegal and must be stopped, said the religious liberty representative of the world’s largest evangelical body.
Godfrey Yogarajah, executive director of the World Evangelical Alliance’s Religious Liberty Commission, argues that the trial of convert Said Musa, 45, breaks at least three provisions of Afghanistan’s 2004 Constitution.
According to Article 130 of the country’s Constitution, courts can rely on Sharia law only within the limits of the Constitution and only if the “pending” case does not relate to any provisions in the Constitution or any other law.
A case qualifies as “pending” if it is registered under law. But Yogarajah points out that apostasy is not a crime recognized by the Afghan Constitution or any other statutory law.
“Article 27 of the Constitution says that no person shall be pursued, arrested or detained for an act that is not considered a crime,” said Yogarajah in a statement Saturday. “So under what statutory law was Musa arrested?”
Read more at The Christian Post
SEE ALSO: Continental News, Christian Today, American Spectator
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