Category Archives: Global Politics

Trump Supporter Who Punched Protester: Next Time, We Might Have To Kill Him | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Donald Trump is dangerous for America. But what does the US media do? Continue to give him a platform to spread his hate. These people are wicked beyond description. If a black Presidential candidate was saying the things Trump says and had violence to break out, he/she would have BEEN shut down. But #whiteprivilege.

Source: Trump Supporter Who Punched Protester: Next Time, We Might Have To Kill Him | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Mr. President, Its outright Racism. | Groundviews

The government of Sri Lanka needs to safeguard the interests, cultural and religious practices of the Muslims that do not contravene with the constitution or the laws of the country. Failure to do so would be an injustice to a community that has stood by the Sri Lankan State throughout history, contributing to the economy and prosperity of all Sri Lankans. Let us unite in defending the rights of every citizen in this nation of ours and not be misled by the racist agenda of a few.

Source: Mr. President, Its outright Racism. | Groundviews

Mattea Kramer: Killing Someone Else’s Beloved – Guernica

Once in a while a drone operator comes forward to reveal the emotional and psychic burden of passing 12-hour shifts in a windowless bunker on an Air Force base, killing by keystroke for a living. One serviceman’s six years on the job began when he was 21 years old and included a moment when he glimpsed a tiny figure dart around the side of a house in Afghanistan that was the target of a missile already on its way. In terror, he demanded of his co-pilot, “Did that look like a child to you?” Feverishly, he began tapping messages to ask the mission’s remote observer — an intelligence staffer at another location — if there was a child present. He’ll never know the answer. Moments later, the missile struck the house, leveling it. That particular drone operator has since left the military. After his resignation, he spent a bitterly cold winter in his home state of Montana getting blackout drunk and sleeping in a public playground in his government-issued sleeping bag. Someone else has, of course, taken his seat at that console and continues to receive kill orders from above. Meanwhile Donald Trump and most of the other Republican candidates have been competing over who can most successfully obliterate combatants as well as civilians. (Ted Cruz’s comment about carpet-bombing ISIS until we find out “if sand can glow in the dark” has practically become a catchphrase.) But it’s not just the Republicans. Every single major candidate from both parties has plans to maintain some version of Washington’s increasingly far-flung drone campaigns. In other words, a program that originated under President George W. Bush as a crucial part of his “global war on terror,” and that was further institutionalized and ramped up under President Obama, will soon be bequeathed to a new president-elect. When you think about it that way, election 2016 isn’t so much a vote to select the leader of the planet’s last superpower as it is a tournament to decide who will next step into the Oval Office and have the chance to play god. Who will get your support as the best candidate to continue killing the loved ones of others? Go to the polls, America.

Source: Mattea Kramer: Killing Someone Else’s Beloved – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

On Women’s Day: IOF kidnap high profile activist, mother of six, Manal Tamimi – PNN

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on Tuesday overnight have kidnapped iconic activist against the Wall and settlements, and mother of six, Manal Tamimi (43) from her home in Al-Nabi Saleh village near Ramallah. On the International Women’s Day, 8th of March, at 1:30 AM, dozens of soldiers stormed Manal’s home, raided it and detained her family in one room, while female Israeli soldiers have taken Manal to another room in the house, thoroughly inspected her, then kidnapped her. Manal’s husband, Bilal Tamimi (50) said that a few hours after the arrest, the family knew that Manal was taken to Benyamin Israeli police center near Ramallah, calling it “the Israeli gift to the Palestinian women on women’s day.” Manal’s lawyer, Gabi Lasky, said that Tamimi went through investigation at the police center, and has asked for a hearing session to take place as soon as possible to know the charges held against her.

Source: On Women’s Day: IOF kidnap high profile activist, mother of six, Manal Tamimi – PNN

′Erdogan wants to silence all opposition media′ | Europe | DW.COM | 08.03.2016

For Dundar, Turkey’s government is leading the country down a road that leads ever further toward authoritarian rule. The European Union, he says, is easing the way. Watch video01:34 Black

Watch video01:34 Black day for democracy in Turkey

“The attitude and stance of Europe is a great concern,” Dundar said. “The refugee crisis is clearly very serious but I’m afraid the EU is accepting Turkey’s abuses of basic rights and press crackdowns because of it – they are engaged quite comfortably in dirty bargaining on this.” “Europe should not be surrendering its fundamental values and condoning abuses of human rights in Turkey because of the refugee crisis.” Now, Dundar is recuperating ahead of his trial. Perhaps fittingly, it will be a closed hearing. Asked whether, in light of the state takeover of Zaman, he fears for the future of his newspaper Dundar responded: “Nothing would be a surprise anymore, but somehow I don’t think so. For me, however, Erdogan will do his best to put me away.”

Source: ′Erdogan wants to silence all opposition media′ | Europe | DW.COM | 08.03.2016

Being Jerusalemite : A Jordanian Refugee in Israel | nadiaharhash

{Dehumanization Plus!}

But as if there is a curse following the Palestinian being, she sent me an hour later a photo with her new residency written on it: “A Jordanian refugee in Israel”. She tried at the beginning or rationalize with them saying that this was wrong. She is not a Jordanian refugee in Israel. They insisted she was. She was trying to explain to them that she was Jerusalemite. She tried or explains her status and they insisted she was lying and that she was a refugee. Somehow, apparently, together with the crisis of refugees she was a cause of threat as an assumed refugee. Actually a confirmed refugee after that new residency that gave the employee a reason to panic and consider her a potential threat, to a level where she forced her to leave, and when my daughter refused insisting that this was a mistake, they called the police or get her out. The woman was telling her: You are a liar. You are a refugee. This is not even a passport that you are carrying “. My daughter called me crying, trying to get out the whole feeling of humiliation she got experienced being dragged out of a place by the police in front of people watching her in what felt like a public humiliation act. She was questioning something else: “ Am I a Jordanian refugee?” the whole thing made her question her own identity. What she knows as basic rights. All those laws that define her special status as a person living under occupation with a special status. A status that the international law, with a country likes France that secures the status quo of Jerusalem that secures the status of Jerusalemites. While we spend our lives carrying a nationality that is not ours. Living in our country as “immigrants”, moving around with a document that is not a passport that calls on a state of panic each time we check through borders. And then an employee who decided to carry on the Zionist vision of Israel with Jerusalem as the unified capital with the no dignified, some day extinct people, also forces us on new definitions. Did this woman decide a law? Or was it her own idea? This is a question that the French government should answer .

Source: Being Jerusalemite : A Jordanian Refugee in Israel | nadiaharhash

Agenzia Fides News : Murder in Yemen

Regarding the responsibility for the massacre, the Vicar for Northern Arabia warns not to heed the manipulations of persons who aim to criminalise Islam indistinctly as a whole: “To kill in the name of God” Ballin tells Fides “is something terrible which no genuine Muslim can accept. Those who commit similar inhuman crimes are individuals dominated by and ideology which unbalances the human person”. Often, vicissitudes of Christian martyrdom intersect in a mysterious manner, historic convulsions fomented by clashes for power: “These outbreaks of violence” the Comboni Bishop continues “must also be seen in connection with unbalance produced in the area by the lifting of sanctions on Iran , which has now become more powerful and open. To blame is also the race to lower the price of oil and the battle for hegemony in the region, between Arabia anxious to maintain its Wahabit Empire and Iran anxious to reestablish the Persian Empire”. Pope Francis described the massacre in Aden “senseless and diabolic violence”, and in a message issued through his Secretary of State cardinal Pietro Parolin he prayed that the sacrifice of the sisters and their friends and helpers “will awaken consciences, lead to a change of hearts and inspire all parties involved to lay down their weapons and turn to the path of dialogue”. There is still no information on the plight or whereabouts of Salesian Father Tom Uzhunnanil, who was in the assaulted residence. “It would seem he has been abducted, but this has yet to be confirmed ” said official Salesian sources. In the meantime a statement issued by the al Qaida network in the Arabian peninsula and taken up by Arab media denied any involvement of the Jihadist group in the massacre in the Care Home in Aden.

Source: Agenzia Fides News

Pope: ′We can speak of an Arab invasion′ of Europe | News | DW.COM | 04.03.2016 And the good that will result…

“How many invasions has Europe experienced in the course of its history? It has always been able to overcome them; moving forward and finding itself better through the exchange between cultures,” the pope said, in an apparent reference to Europe’s Renaissance, which was partially fostered through the preservation of Greek philosophical works by Muslim scholars in Spain and elsewhere in the Arab world. EU member states have struggled to form a comprehensive strategy to handle an influx of asylum seekers and migrants – many from war-torn countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa – that saw more than 1 million people arriving in the 28-nation bloc in 2015. Ex-Soviet satellite states, including Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, have told Brussels that they refuse to take in more asylum seekers under an EU plan to relocate refugees according to a quota system. “Sometimes I wonder where you’ll find a [French Foreign Minister Robert] Schumann or [German Chancellor Konrad] Adenauer, these great founders of the European Union,” the pope said. Countering populism, extremism The pope responded to the rise of far-right populism in Europe, which has given way to such movements as Germany’s “anti-Islamization” PEGIDA as well as anti-immigrant political parties, by stating that ideologies are the “poison of politics.” “When a country closes itself to a healthy notion of politics, it ends up being a prisoner hostage to ideological colonization. Ideologies are the poison of politics. You have the right be right or left. But ideology takes away freedom. “If you want to avoid everyone turning towards extremes, you must nurture friendship and the pursuit of the common good, beyond political affiliations.” Francis also announced that the Vatican is preparing a meeting with officials from al-Azhar University in Cairo, known as the Muslim world’s most prominent institution of Sunni thought.

Source: Pope: ′We can speak of an Arab invasion′ of Europe | News | DW.COM | 04.03.2016

Despotic Erdoğan seizes control of leading daily – Reporters Without Borders

True to form, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today orchestrated an Istanbul court decision to place Zaman, a leading daily newspaper that supports the opposition Gülen movement, under state control. “The Turkish presidential office’s interference in the media has reached a new level,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “It is absolutely illegitimate and intolerable that Erdoğan has used the judicial system to take control of a great newspaper in order to eliminate the Gülen community’s political base. “This ideological and unlawful operation shows how Erdoğan is now moving from authoritarianism to all-out despotism. Not content with throwing journalists in prison for ‘supporting terrorism’ or having them sentenced to pay heavy fines for ‘insulting the ‘head of state,’ he is now going further by taking control of Turkey’s biggest opposition newspaper.” With a print run of more than 600,000, Zaman supports the religious movement led by Fethullah Gülen, who was closely allied with Erdoğan until they fell out in 2012. Since then, the authorities have been suspending the licences of pro-Gülen media outlets and have been bringing charges against their journalists.

Source: Despotic Erdoğan seizes control of leading daily – Reporters Without Borders

Middle East – Gulf States declare Lebanon’s Hezbollah a terrorist group – France 24

{US and NATO needs more than a 10-foot pole to distance themselves from Saudi-led war against Shia}

Wednesday’s move against Hezbollah reflects deeper regional divisions between Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia and Shiite powerhouse Iran, Hezbollah’s patron. Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic relations with Iran earlier this year after protesters angry over the kingdom’s execution of influential Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr set fire to the Saudi Embassy and another diplomatic mission inside Iran. Saudi Arabia in 2014 designated a Saudi affiliate of Hezbollah a terrorist group along with the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida, Yemen’s Shiite Houthis and other groups. The GCC announcement came a few hours after a televised speech by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in which he harshly criticized Saudi Arabia for punitive measures that targeted Lebanon recently, including the halt in aid and Gulf travel warnings. He repeated his accusations that Saudi Arabia was directly responsible for some of the car bombings in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq and denounced Saudi “massacres” in Yemen. “Who gives Saudi Arabia the right to punish Lebanon and its army and Lebanese people living in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf just because Hezbollah is speaking out? We urge Riyadh to settle accounts with Hezbollah and not all the Lebanese,” he said. He also accused Saudi Arabia of seeking to cause strife between Sunnis and Shiites everywhere in the world and said its execution of al-Nimr in January came in that context.

Source: Middle East – Gulf States declare Lebanon’s Hezbollah a terrorist group – France 24