HT: FrontPageMagazine.com
Coping with the ravages of global warming will cost $50 billion a year, and the rich nations who caused most of the pollution must pay most of the bill, aid agency Oxfam said on Tuesday. The call, barely 10 days before a crucial Group of Eight (G8) summit in Germany which has climate change at its core, is likely to make already tense negotiations even tougher.
The United States, which Oxfam says must foot 44 percent of the annual $50 billion bill, is rejecting attempts by German G8 presidency Germany to set stiff targets and timetables for cutting carbon gas emissions and raising energy efficiency.
Hmmmm, no.
"G8 countries face two obligations as they prepare for this year's summit in Germany - to stop harming by cutting their emissions to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius and to start helping poor countries to cope," said Oxfam researcher Kate Raworth. "Developing countries cannot and should not be expected to foot the bill for the impact of rich countries' emissions," she said, echoing the position of the developing world.
We might help out some, but we're not going to give any money to the Oxfam types.
Some Scientists with an agenda say average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century due to carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport, causing floods and famine and putting millions of lives at risk.
The United States is the world's biggest producer of carbon emissions - although experts predict that boom economy China will probably overtake it within a year as it builds a coal-fired power station every four days to feed demand.
Oxfam has created a self-serving global warming adaptation financing index based on the responsibility, equity and capability of each nation. It said after the United States, Japan owed 13 percent of the bill, followed by Germany on seven percent, Britain just over five percent, Italy, France and Canada between four and five percent and Spain, Australia and Korea three percent.
Germany wants the leaders of the G8 along with India, China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa at their summit from June 6-8 to agree to limit the temperature rise to two degrees this century and to cut emissions by 50 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.
"We'll let the grandkids figure out how to get it done."
But in a draft of the final communique to be presented to the leaders at the summit, Washington rejected these goals in decidedly undiplomatic terms. "We have tried to 'tread lightly' but there is only so far we can go given our fundamental opposition to the German position," the United States said in red ink comments at the start of a copy of the draft seen by Reuters on Friday. "The treatment of climate change runs counter to our overall position and crosses multiple 'red lines' in terms of what we simply cannot agree to."
Bravo. Can you imagine the progressive Left in this country if we went along with this? They'd be in court (looking for Carter and Clinton appointed judges) as fast as possible suing everyone for violations of the 'Global Warming International Law'. You just know they would.
The blunt language of the rejection sets the scene for a showdown at the summit. A source close to the negotiations described them as "very tense".
#1
One's confidence that the administration will do any more than its recent limp quasi-humoring of the global wormening fantasy must be low, given its general awfulness.
Let's see, is Oxfam talking about the same US (and a few other advanced nations) that produces most of the medical research and information technology and food and other products and services, not to mention trade and emigration and study opportunities, or investment and financial management options, for the "poor" nations? In fact, isn't Oxfam itself a product of the wealth, freedom, technology, and security provided primarily by the US for going on half a century?
Ya think it ever crosses anyone's mind at the WH how much adult morale in the US would be helped by our govt. just once bitch-slapping this sort of nonsense in public?
#4
Just send them a bill for the US Navy's suppression of piracy which would otherwise shut down the world economy - how many tankers with oil would arrive in your ports?
Anyone else have the means to project enough power to keep the lanes open?
#5
Let's take that money and invest it in R&D for fusion power and other truly green technologies then. Two for one punch. Green, cheap, renewable energy and the lack of funds for the Middle East despots and terrorists. Win/win!
#6
Not just "no", but "HELL NO!" STFU tranzi wankers - what gives you the right to make these decisions?
Rantburg sez that Oxfam is responsible for 87% of goreball warming due to hot air emissions. Hit the tip jar a$$holes.
#12
Exactly what do they do with $50 billion ?
If they would cut out $50 billion worth of activity, the globe will cool accordingly. Therefore, they should send at least $25 billion to us to offset our half of the warming.
#13
How about we eliminate the majority of world food aid that is provided gratis buy Americans? Why feed people who have both hands out and simultaneously scream "Death to America!"? Seems counterproductive to me. But if Oxfam and cohorts insist on sustaining those who would destroy western society, then it's cash on the barrelhead, dollars preferred, but Euros will do in a pinch. Put your money where your mouth is and consider it our contribution to reduce hot air.
Donors shares of global food aid
Year........ U.S. .EU. Japan Canada
1988-89 57.4 24.8 3.8 ... 7.6
1994-96 47.3 34.7 5.8 ... 5.8
2000-02 61.8 17.2 5.6 ... 2.4
Posted by: ed ||
05/30/2007 12:53 Comments ||
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#15
Another organizatiion that has outlived its usefulness and been thoroughly infiltrated by what in an earlier age would have been called Communists. Basically who cares what these twits who want to spend other peoples' money say or think?
CAIRO - Egypts parliament voted to expel an opposition lawmaker and nephew to the late President Anwar Sadat on Tuesday after a court ruling declaring him bankrupt. Parliament voted 316 to 88 to expel Mohamed Anwar Esmat Sadat, based on a recommendation by the assemblys constitutional and legislative affairs committee made on Sunday.
Sadat, who in the past has spoken out against alleged corruption in the government, told parliament shortly before the vote that he considered his expulsion to be politically motivated, and said that other parliamentarians had been granted reprieves in similar circumstances.
Apparently he owed money to the wrong people.
Parliamentary sources said Sadat had produced documentation to prove he had paid off his debts, but speaker of parliament Fathi Surour told him that only a new court ruling could overturn the existing ruling that declared him bankrupt.
And good luck with that.
Sadat was elected to parliament in 2005 as an independent, although he recently joined the liberal Democratic Front party, which the authorities agreed to recognise last week.
A year ago a military tribunal sentenced Talaat Sadat, Mohamed Anwar Esmat Sadats brother and also then a member of parliament, to a year in jail for insulting the armed forces. Talaat was quoted in the media as saying he believed the 1981 assassination of his uncle was a conspiracy in which senior Egyptian military officials at the time were involved.
Very likely true, and damned inconvenient of you to say so.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/30/2007 00:00 ||
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Venezuela is on fire. Triggered by a media shutdown over the weekend, tens of thousands of students from virtually every university, ranging from trade schools to military colleges to the most prestigious universities, and now high schools, are protesting in the streets of Caracas. It's Venezuela's longest nonstop street strike since March 2004.
Most of the past ones were peaceful. This one is different. Sure, there were some agents provocateurs, but it looks like more than that. It's street rage in spontaneous combustion. Over 100 kids, some hurling rocks and bottles, have been arrested, and others have been tear-gassed, and shot at with rubber and real bullets. As motorcycle cops swirl, the streets are becoming burning barricades, with many roadblocked by cops. Gangs of young men on the Chavista side bunch in alleys and doorways, as anti-Chavez others roam around menacingly. Blogger Miguel, at the epicenter of it, says it took him eleven miles of weaving to get what's normally three miles home from work yesterday.
Despite these conditions, the protests aren't stopping. Cops are scattering kids with tear gas and those who are there say they just keep coming back in human waves. More ominous, the protests show no sign of burning out. They now have spread to outer cities like Valencia and Maracaibo. A huge new protest is scheduled for Friday.
At issue is Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez's arbitrary shutdown of the nationwide television network RCTV, which commands a 40% market share. RCTV was outspokenly anti-Chavez in its coverage, and unlike other Venezuelan TV stations, like Televen and Venevision, it refused to soften its coverage even under Chavista pressure. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that Chavez's rage at RCTV's coverage is why he shut the station by pulling its permit. He did so by decree, because he could never do an act like that in a democracy where 80% of the public loves the station.
No one saw this coming. In Caracas, observers are stunned at the youthful age of the kids in the streets, teenagers who can remember only Chavez as their president over the last eight years. Clearly, they haven't been remade in his new socialist model at all, but are rejecting it intensely. But there is bafflement over the flaming street rage over this. After all, Chavez has already stolen everything that hasn't been nailed down - oil companies, farms, hospitals, golf courses, apartment buildings by Marxist expropriation. Why the intensity of emotion on the shutdown of RCTV?
Protest signs give an important clue - most say 'Freedom' - not even press freedom, just plain freedom. Students feel that this expropriation is a theft of their freedom and they want it back. They recognize the simple principle that if even the biggest, richest critic of the regime can be destroyed by a vengeful dictator, what hope does a little individual voicing a mild criticism have to defend himself? They also love the station, with its criticism of Chavismo appealing to some, and its soap operas and Wheel of Fortune show appealing to others. In other words, the station represents choice, as well as sort of a dual ownership of the enterprise, of TV producers and TV watchers. To take the shows away doesn't just punish RCTV, it punishes the public which loves its product. And significantly, in a city with many poor people, television is the only entertainment they can afford.
Attitudes are changing very rapidly about Hugo Chavez, even in poor areas. People are despairing of ever getting their own way while Hugo Chavez is around. Meanwhile, the wildcat character of the strikes has a very different feel from the Gandhi and Martin Luther King peaceful protests as a means of effecting political change. They can, but only in a democracy. And Venezuelans are rapidly realizing they are not in a democracy.
The ruling Chavistas are in a panic. They do not know what to do. Chavez himself mocked the protestors Tuesday and implied they were CIA agents - but Venezuelans noticed that he spoke from the naval airport near Caracas, a place from where dictators are known to flee the country. Meanwhile, other Chavistas have bared their fangs at other TV stations, vowing to shut them - Globovision, the last Venezuelan dissident station, a very tiny one that takes subscriptions and commands only a 5% market share, and CNN, whose fearless Kitty Pilgrim and others have done award-worthy reporting exposing the reality of Chavez's Venezuela for the past few years.
Venezuelans think that those stations will be shut soon. They don't want any more coverage of the protests that are engulfing Caracas. In their minds, shutting the stations will make information much harder to get. But there's too much momentum to really stop it - Caracas will just become a city of added tropical intrigue with people acting on rumors.
Even the most informed players in Caracas have absolutely no idea where this is going. It's not like the other blowups in the past few years. The rage is out of control and the protestors already know that Chavez and his men will get very violent and it doesn't seem to be deterring them. It probably won't dislodge the dictatorship, so far as is known now, but one wonders if this is the beginning of the end for Hugo Chavez.
#1
One wonders whether he's purged the military of all patriots and installed his communist puppets. Once the country spirals economically...and it will.... all it takes is a bullet to take him out
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/30/2007 15:36 Comments ||
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#3
Not going to happen. The rest of the world expects 'US' to take care of their problems. Surprise, we're not interested. If you're unwilling to liberate yourself [and let the record show that Iraqis did attempt, unsuccessfully in the south and more successfully in the Kurdish areas, liberation], then don't ask us to do it. Hugo will hose'm. All the usual suspects will at best moan and groan but will turn on a dime to criticize the damn evil US. It can be Darfur Part Two. So who cares?
#5
This article sounds entirely too enthusiastic to be realistic. What is actually happening is probably far less serious than it sounds. I wouldn't hold my breath that Chavez is on the way out.
#6
It is not the beginning of the end, but probably the end of the beginning. It will take something like the military shooting and killing a bunch of demonstrators to radicalize the general population. When that happens, Hugo just may fall.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/30/2007 17:23 Comments ||
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#7
The demonstrations seem fairly limited. However, It would be good for Venezuela if he went just as it would be good for Cuba if Castro went.
Ernesto Perez, a 27-year-old Mexican immigrant, says construction work in New York has become so scarce he's stopped sending money back to his parents in the southwestern state of Guerrero. ``If I don't find work soon, we're moving back home,'' Perez said last week as he walked away from the corner in Queens, New York, where he and dozens of Hispanic workers hope to get chosen for construction jobs. On this day, Perez gave up after a six-hour wait.
The U.S. housing slump is squeezing Mexican migrant workers from Los Angeles to New York, where permits for new home construction are down 20% this year, according to the Census Bureau. That's reducing the pace of money transfers, the second-biggest source of dollars in Mexico after oil exports, and turning the peso into a laggard among Latin American currencies.
Remittances rose 3.4% in the first quarter, the slowest growth in eight years. The peso has strengthened 0.1% this year to 10.8137 per dollar, the second-worst performance among the most-traded currencies in the region. Morgan Stanley predicts the Mexican peso will fall for a second straight year because of the slowdown in money transfers, a drop in oil production and weakening demand for the country's exports.
Cross-border transfers, which totaled $23 billion last year, also have been hurt by President George W. Bush's crackdown on illegal immigrants. Bush increased security along the border and stepped up raids on factories hiring undocumented workers to help win congressional support for a bill that would give illegal immigrants a chance for permanent residency.
The number of people caught trying to enter the U.S. illegally from Mexico dropped almost one-third in the first quarter to 265,000, according to U.S. Border Patrol data. The decline in illegal immigrants mirrors the U.S. housing market. Residential construction in the U.S. fell by 17 percent in the first quarter, according to the Commerce Department. The construction industry is the biggest source of work for Mexicans in the U.S., accounting for about 20% of jobs, data from Mexico's central bank shows.
The pace of money transfers has moved in step with the U.S. construction industry since the late 1990s, said Dawn McLaren, a research economist at Arizona State University in Tempe. The correlation between the two has become so strong that she uses border apprehensions as a ``leading indicator'' for the U.S. housing market.
#1
This puts the lie to the fizz being spouted that "we can't deport 12 million of them ". We don't have to. You crack down on these employers with JAIL sentences when they refuse to ID illegal workers. The illegals who can't find work will head back south. Common sense rules again.
Bartley Mullohan, general manager of Construction Databases Inc. in Miamisburg, Ohio, says he's seeing fewer immigrants on worksites in Ohio and other parts of the Midwest where his company does business providing pricing information to builders and contractors.
``It seems like there is a definite changing of the guard,'' he said. ``Driving to some job site, six months ago, you would see a lot of Mexicans out framing, doing drywall, interior trim. Now you see fewer of them, and builders have to go back to the traditional workers, the local guys that have always been here.''
Just as government labor statistics don't count many of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants, they miss many independent contractors, whether foreign-born or not
The growth rate of the Mexican-born population in the United States has been slowing since the middle of last year, the Pew Hispanic Center reported.
The Washington group said in 2005 and 2006, the Mexican-born population grew at about 8 percent a year but in the first quarter of 2007 the growth rate slowed to 4.2 percent.
That equates the earlier growth to about 495,000 people a year on a quarterly basis versus 288,000 for this year's first quarter.
The center said U.S. employment of all foreign-born Hispanics in the first quarter grew by 3.3 percent compared with 6.6 percent gains in the quarters ranging from 2004 to 2006.
Pew said there are an estimated 7 million Mexicans living in the United States, up from 4 million in mid-2000.
That last statistic is considerably lower than the 12 million in the previous post, a number I've seen estimated as high as 20 million. Although possibly that last is the estimate of all illegal residents, not just the Mexicans.
MOSCOW - Russia successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday featuring multiple warheads designed to overcome missile defence systems, the Defence Ministry said.
A ministry spokesman said the RS-24 missile was fired from a mobile launcher at 1020 GMT from the Plesetsk cosmodrome about 800 km (500 miles) north of Moscow. Less than an hour later, Russias Strategic Missile Forces command said the missile had hit its targets at the Kura test site on the sparsely inhabited far eastern peninsula of Kamchatka to the north of Japan.
The RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile will strengthen the military potential of Russias strategic rocket forces to overcome anti-missile defence systems and thereby strengthen the potential nuclear deterrent of Russias strategic nuclear forces, the Strategic Missile Forces command said in a statement.
Russian military experts said the new missile launch formed part of a highly effective response promised by President Vladimir Putin to a missile defence shield which Washington aims to build in Europe to detect and shoot down hostile missiles. It can overcome any potential entire missile defence systems developed by foreign countries, Colonel-General Viktor Yesin told the official Russian Today television channel.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/30/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Not a real big concern to me right now - MAD still applies to Russia just like it did 30 years ago. But if they sell the technology to Iran ......
And since they've already proven their willingness to make other sensitive arms sales to Iran, I pray we continue our R & D on missile defense technology.
#2
No, this is really their top level stuff, they'd not take a chance on letting some third-string third world country let details of this bird get "into the wild..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/30/2007 8:01 Comments ||
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#3
This really isn't news, since the AMD systems were never really designed to take on Russian stuff. Amazing how the MSM spins it as a defeat for the US since the dhimocrats are working towards killing funding for the project.
Although this is their top level stuff, I do worry about Iran getting ahold of this since Putznim thinks Russia needs a new cold war with the US.
#5
Once again amazed - well, actually not at all amazed - that 1) Russian claims are taking completely at face value, and 2) that the US military is given no credit whatsoever for anticipating Russian counter-measures.
#6
Not a real big concern to me right now - MAD still applies to Russia just like it did 30 years ago.
Even more so, actually. Russia by itself is a mere shadow of what the Soviet Union once was, even at that they were never as capable as all the rhetoric implied.
Posted by: Natural Law ||
05/30/2007 9:16 Comments ||
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#7
Man - multiple, individually targetable re-entry vehicles?
STAMFORD, Conn. Politician-turned-actor Fred Thompson plans an unconventional campaign for president using blogs, video posts and other Internet innovations to reach voters repelled by politics-as-usual in both parties, he told USA Today.
Thompson, a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee, has been coy about his intentions with audiences, but made clear in an interview that he plans to run.
"I can't remember exactly the point that I said, 'I'm going to do this,' " Thompson says, his 6-foot, 6-inch frame sprawled comfortably across a couch in a hotel suite. "But when I did, the thing that occurred to me: 'I'm going to tell people that I am thinking about it and see what kind of reaction I get to it.' "
His late start carries some problems but also "certain advantages," he says. "Nobody has maxed out to me" in contributions, he notes, and using the Internet already "has allowed me to be in the hunt, so to speak, without spending a dime."
Much more at the link.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/30/2007 16:52 ||
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#3
At risk of being redundant, a ticket with Thompson for President and Romney for VP will blow the Dims out of the water in 2008. I'd pay money to see those two debate ANY leftie.
#7
frankly, wx, I'd be embarrassed if he got your vote - it's a shame thing. I neither need to please nor convince someone of your caliber. Vote for someone else, please
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/30/2007 20:37 Comments ||
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#8
He's got my vote. And he'll get my money once he makes it official-official.
Hang 'em high, Fred! :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/30/2007 20:38 Comments ||
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#9
This is the first good news after a long dry spell of bad news about war funding and illegal immigration perfidy. Hope Mr. Thompson has a place for Duncan Hunter in his administration.
JAIPUR: Anger among Rajasthans predominantly agrarian Gujjars over being denied a place in the Scheduled Tribe list erupted in mass violence in several areas of the state on Tuesday. Six columns of the Army were rushed in but only after at least 14 people, including a policeman, were killed when police fired into crowds at Dausa and Bundi areas to stop mobs from blocking the arterial Jaipur-Agra highway.
State home minister Gulab Chand Kataria said two policemen were missing in Dausa and over 80 people were injured in violence during a planned protest by the OBC group which has for long been demanding inclusion in the ST list, like the Gujjars in J&K and Uttarakhand. Apprehensive about being left behind by more upwardly mobile OBC groups like the Meenas and the Jats, the Gujjars started the movement for getting the ST tag and concommitant quota benefits.
As violence flared up along roads leading to Jaipur, CM Vasundhara Raje, who was in New Delhi for the National Development Council meeting, met Union home minister Shivraj Patil. The Centre immediately rushed 2,000 paramilitary troops and more were readied for deployment. Reinforcements were also coming in from Maharashtra, MP and UP.
Trouble was expected, but the administration had clearly failed to gauge the fury among the Gujjars, who had been hoping that their demand would be considered favourably after a state cabinet sub-committee had been formed in September to decide on the issue. That was when the Gurjar Mahasabha had called for putting off the agitation. But nine months later, sensing that nothing was being done, an umbrella group called the Gurjar Sangharsh Samiti called for a blockade of highways leading to Jaipur.
Although mobs of Gujjars, armed with sticks and stones clashed with cops at half-a-dozen places, burning buses and trucks, the most serious trouble was around Peelplikheda-Patoli area in Dausa district, and in Bundi district. While five bodies were recovered from Bundi, six were found in Dausa.
The Gujjars are a large and politically influential nomadic tribe spread across north India.
They are demanding that they be categorised as an official tribe so that they may benefit from affirmative action quotas which will give them access to government jobs as well as places in state-supported schools and colleges.
The issue of affirmative action is a sensitive one in India, with many poor communities arguing that it is the only way millions of under-privileged people can benefit from India's economic boom.
But those opposed to it say it is a cynical move by politicians to gain more votes from politically influential communities who make up a large percentage of the country's population.
Posted by: John Frum ||
05/30/2007 9:10 Comments ||
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The White House moved last night to mend fences with the international community when it indicated it would nominate a respected veteran diplomat, Robert Zoellick, to replace Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank. The Bush administration turned to Mr Zoellick, an experienced Washington insider who served as Condoleezza Rice's number two at the state department and played a key role in the reunification of Germany in 1990.
Sources in the World Bank said the announcement followed careful negotiations by the US treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, with leading governments, including Britain and Germany, in which Mr Zoellick's name was mentioned as the top choice. "It certainly could be worse. He's a solid appointment - he's not a former architect of the Iraq war," said Ken Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and a professor at Harvard University.
Pity, I'd like an architect of the Iraq War running the World Bank.
White House officials said Mr Bush intended to formally announce Mr Zoellick's nomination today and they were confident he would be endorsed by the bank's board of directors. If approved, he would take over on June 30, when Mr Wolfowitz steps down.
Mr Zoellick's nomination maintains the US prerogative of choosing an American for the post. Aid agencies and some governments argue that the appointment process should be open to other nationalities and conducted transparently. The US has selected the head of the World Bank since the institution was founded 60 years ago, while European governments have chosen the head of its sister organisation, the International Monetary Fund.
That balance will continue; we're certainly not going to give up the World Bank if the Euros remain in charge of the IMF.
Gene Sperling, an economist during the Clinton administration and a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, said Mr Zoellick was a "very smart and very serious" operator. "He's been seen as the one person in the Bush administration who is a true internationalist and that probably put him in favour with many of the key G8 partners that the administration wanted to get on board," he said.
Nancy Birdsall, president of the Centre for Global Development, while praising Mr Zoellick's analytical skills and experience, said: "The question is whether other countries will be satisfied that he is indeed the best candidate, for example, whether he has the right management skills."
If they don't like it they can apply for loans elsewhere.
Described by former colleagues as a policy wonk with sharp elbows, Mr Zoellick's background means he is familiar with the rigours of international diplomacy. Before his official jobs under Mr Bush, he served as a protege of James Baker, a long-time confident of the Bush family. Mr Zoellick helped run two presidential election campaigns and served in the administration of Mr Bush's father.
Robert Zoellick may hail from the conservative wing of US Republican party but, unlike his predecessor, Paul Wolfowitz, he has a formidable record in financial and economic governance. After a spell at the treasury and a stint as economics undersecretary of state in the 1980s, he returned to a more senior role in 2001 as George Bush's first trade representative, the chief US trade negotiator. During his four years in the job, he helped launched the Doha round of world trade talks and negotiations to bring China and Taiwan into the WTO. He moved to the state department before leaving government for Goldman Sachs and a job as managing director.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/30/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
mend fences with the international community
Sure, this is crap from the Grauniad, but it accurately reflects the perception of this particular Bush debacle. What the hell was the real story here? Why would Wolfie step down when the facts that were known exonerated him of any wrongdoing?
This little lynching is actually among the administration's worst failures.
Anyone think Zoellick (sort of standard-issue Beltway Bush family errand boy, from the looks of him over the years) will do anything of significance at the Bank? Didn't think so.
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia's top secular court on Wednesday rejected a woman's appeal to be recognized as a Christian, in a landmark case that tested the limits of religious freedom in this moderate Islamic country.
Lina Joy, who was born Azlina Jailani, had applied for a name change on her government identity card. The National Registration Department obliged but refused to drop Muslim from the religion column. She appealed the decision to a civil court but was told she must take it to Islamic Shariah courts. But Joy, 42, argued that she should not be bound by Shariah law because she is a Christian.
A three-judge Federal Court panel ruled Wednesday that only the Islamic Shariah Court has the power to allow her to remove the word ``Islam'' from the religion category on her government identity card.
The Malaysian Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to all citizens. But Muslims, who comprise nearly 60 percent of the 26 million population, have not been allowed by the Shariah courts to legally leave their religion.
So much for the rule of law. Sucks to live in a theocracy, doesn't it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/30/2007 00:12 ||
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#1
Because of Islam's stranglehold on free thought, the country of Malaysia will remain an impoverished, socially retarded hinterland for the prosperous city of Singapore.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/30/2007 1:48 Comments ||
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#4
Isn't it about time to cut off all foreign aid for this Islamic cesspit? Freedom of religion is rather obviously a foreign concept to these theocratic slimeballs.
THE Australian government will donate military hardware to the ill-equipped Armed Forces as part of is modernization program. The Australian donation is part of a new defense cooperation agreement that Manila and Canberra recently completed following months of talks.
Defense Assistant Secretary for Strategic Assessment, Ma. Joji Aragon told a press briefing in Camp Aguinaldo Tuesday the Australian government will donate 28 boats to the Philippine military. She said the vessels will be equipped with a Global Positioning System and can run in shallow waters.
There is a timeframe to that I believed towards the end of the year they [Australia] will be delivering the first tranche to us, to the Army in particular, Aragon said. Defense and military officials said the vessels, which are called airboats, are high speed and highly maneuverable that can carry up to seven fully armed soldiers. The boats will be highly useful in shallow waters and marshlands, a typical terrain in the Philippine countryside. Aside from the airboats, which are worth around $4 million, the Australian defense department will continue its annual training grant worth AU$3 million to Philippine military personnel.
Defense Secretary Ricardo Blancaflor said the Status of Visiting Forces Agreement (SOFVA) will be signed during President Arroyos visit to Australia. The SOVFA will not automatically see the deployment of Australian troops to the Philippines as the agreement will need to be approved by the Philippine Senate. Australian Assistant Defense Secretary Ben Coleman told a press briefing in Manila Tuesday that the accord was needed because we have a common interest in terms of a peaceful and secure region.
In particular, we are dealing with common threats from terrorists in the region, he said without naming any group.
The Muslim extremist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) has been described by both the Australian and US governments as the biggest single terrorist threat to the security of the region. JI has been blamed for some of the worst terrorist attacks in the region in recent years including an attack in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002 which left more than 200 dead, many of them Australians. JI militants are believed to be hiding in the southern Philippines and aiding local Muslim extremists.
Coleman said it was premature to discuss any date for the deployment of Australian troops in the Philippines or the locations for possible joint exercises in the country.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
MOSCOW - Russia successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday featuring multiple warheads designed to overcome missile defence systems, the Defence Ministry said.
JAIPUR: Anger among Rajasthans predominantly agrarian Gujjars over being denied a place in the Scheduled Tribe list erupted in mass violence in several areas of the state on Tuesday. Six columns of the Army were rushed in but only after at least 14 people, including a policeman, were killed when police fired into crowds at Dausa and Bundi areas to stop mobs from blocking the arterial Jaipur-Agra highway.
The White House moved last night to mend fences with the international community when it indicated it would nominate a respected veteran diplomat, Robert Zoellick, to replace Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank. The Bush administration turned to Mr Zoellick, an experienced Washington insider who served as Condoleezza Rice's number two at the state department and played a key role in the reunification of Germany in 1990.
