Much more commercial radios are in danger of being closed than previously thought. 360, of a total number of 656, can be punished and shut by the new Hugo Chávez’s law.
Also, leaders from the opposition, who normally have gone into exile, opposition bloggers and Twitter (specially the hashtag #FreeMediaVe, which is a result, according to the “Bolivarian News Agency”, of the “media campaign from the far-right extremists” to “create terror” , although the Government has lost the battle in this social network, mainly because of the international audience it has) are being targeted. Alexis Marrero is being prosecuted by “inciting to kill Hugo Chávez, war propaganda and being against the presidency”, because (it’s widely supposed as they haven’t pointed out the real reasons for this prosecution) of his anti-Chávez blog (written in Spanish) and being a neighbourhood’s leader who has repeatedly demonstrated against Chávez.
I would like people like Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Naomi Campbell and others who have endorsed Chávez in the past, to speak about these measures. It’s interesting to note that Lee Barnes, head of English racist and xenophobe BNP party, has already said that “Chávez is on target here”, as English MSM are not favourable to their slanders (specially those about “Zionist propaganda” (you can just read his blog…). Just to underline where freedom and liberty stand for some people: you’re free as long as you say the same things I want you to say.
By the way, Alexis Marrero was arrested by Chávez’s thugs some weeks ago.
While Zapatero is worried about his sexual health, so much that he actually suffers lapsus linguae in the less appropriate moments, and Moratinos (Spanish FM) says that “not everything is going wrong” (thank God, we still are alive… ), Spanish people have other kind of worries. According to the last official statistics via Twitter, 75.2% of Spanish people are worried about their jobs and the possibility of losing them, while 54.4% are worried about financial difficulties.
Speaking about the divorce between the political elites and citizens…
Both Zapatero and Medvedev want Spain and Russia to be strategic partners (well, we can say safely that Putin wants it too) in several areas such as energy (which would mean Spain would buy their energy, as it looks like that Russia has a special plan to monopolise the access of energy to Europe), tourism (more Russian mobsters undoubtedly: the South of Spain, specially Málaga is full of them), infrastructures and transports.
The official meeting between Medvedev and Zapatero will take place tomorrow in Moncloa’s Palace (Official residence of the Spanish PM), where they are going to sign an “Statement of strategic association”. They will also analyse measures to fight economic crisis, possibilities of commercial relations and other bilateral matters, international political situation, energetic situation, UN reform, relationship between NATO and Russia and also between the latter and EU, regarding the next Spanish presidency.
It’s not Spanish King Juan Carlos the only person who asks Chávez to shut up. Now his doctors (via Twitter) have told him the same, though for other reasons. He says that it’s because of “the permanent use of the cannon I have here”.
And in good time, because after winning the referendum, he feels more secure and has ordered the invasion of the rice plantations because some business are ignoring price regulations imposed by the Government (what a photo! ).
He has also menaced US President Obama, cautioning the latter against “messing with him”. The reason? Obama accused him of not fighting against drug trafficking. Chávez has answered that there is only one country that is supporting drug trafficking, and that’s USA, whose President is Obama “although I doubt Obama governs at all”, he has added.
The Home Secretary came under fire last night for allowing a radical Lebanese propagandist with links to the extremist group Hezbollah to enter Britain for a national speaking tour.
The Conservatives urged Jacqui Smith to ban Ibrahim Moussawi from the UK, warning that he was “likely to foment extremism or promote violence”.
Mr Moussawi edits Hezbollah’s newspaper and is former political editor of the Iranian-backed group’s television station, which is banned in many countries including France, Spain and the U.S. where its output is seen as anti-Semitic.
He was recently barred from entering Ireland, where he was due to speak at anti-war meetings.
He is scheduled to appear at an event in London tonight organised by the Stop the War Coalition, with more events planned around the country over the coming week.
the Communities Secretary Hazel Blears delivered a major speech on the subject which, far from presaging a change in strategy, was a defence of the status quo. (…She) explained that the problem was not just al Qaeda but also people who did not support violence but the ‘political Islamisms’ whose extremist ideas helped promote that violence. So what was she going to do about them – the ‘political Islamists’ — was what we now needed to know.
But she didn’t tell us. Instead, she retreated to the old comfort zone of the ‘moderate majority’and the need to engage with and encourage the mainstream Muslim community so that violence would not take further root there.
(Afterwards) she appeared to be saying that the mainstream Muslim communities with whom the government was having all this dialogue actually had ‘extremist’ views. So while earlier she had been talking about the importance of engaging with moderates, now she seemed to be talking about the importance of engaging with extremists. And as she said, I do indeed think that such ‘engagement’ is ‘endorsement’; more importantly, truly moderate Muslims think so too and have repeatedly begged the government not to engage with extremists in the community because it emboldens them and undermines true moderates .
Yet with groups which display
an equivocal attitude on core values such as democracy, freedom of speech or respect towards women,
there would be ‘ limited engagement’. Did that include the Muslim Brothers, or Hizb ut Tahrir, or other groups who want to Islamise Britain? Because ‘engagement’ with such people is the current strategy, and the result is that radicalisation of Britain’s Muslims is going through the roof while the government is seen to cave into the threat of violence and dance to their tune. Witness, for example, the banning of the Dutch anti-Islamist politician Geert Wilders, who threatens no-one, while according to the Centre for Social Cohesionthe Hezbollah spokesman Dr Ibrahim el-Moussaoui is to be allowed into the country to teach a course on political Islam at the School of Oriental and African studies – a course apparently aimed at educating Government officials and the police.
So this guy, actually an extremer who has been chief political editor of a terrorist group’s TV is going to give a course to educate Government officials and the police.
The Female Artists’ Platform against the Gender’s Violence has reclaimed the consideration of Hamas as a “valid speaker” in the “fundamental” dialogue to get Middle East’s peace process back to order and remembered that the political party was elected by the Palestinian people “in a democratic way” in an “clear and transparent” elections, so they asked Spanish society to unite themselves to denounced the “genocide” that’s happened in the Gaza Strip.
The Platform’s President, singer Cristina del Valle, underlined the “importance” of the recent meeting thata Spanish represantative’s committee held with some exiled members of the Palestinian “resistence”. “We were the only country’s delegation which was there in those difficult moments”.
She also explained that a group of experts, artists, politicians and NGO’s representatives, among others, met last December with members of Al-Fatah, of the Islamic Jihad and of Hamas, who “treated them as friends”. “We held also for the first time contacts with women from the Jihad to transmit them the fight for their empowerment” because they are the “real rebuilders of life”.
“We also received a phone call from Moratinos stating his interest in the well-being of the delegation and in the rebuilding of the area”.
They have also stolen aid trucks for Gaza strip and weapons h/t DE:
Hamas has appropriated seven tons of weaponry and ammunition stored in UN warehouses in Gaza and intended to be destroyed by sappers, Israeli officials said Tuesday. Senior UN officials demanded the ordnance stockpile be returned immediately.
With the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead, Hamas and UN personnel amassed weapons and explosives – mainly unexploded tank shells – and moved them to a special warehouse guarded by Hamas security troops.
So, would you really consider this people as “valid speakers”, even if they had won an election?
Venezuelans have voted to lift limits on terms in office for elected officials, allowing President Hugo Chavez to stand for re-election.
With 94% of votes counted, 54% backed an end to term limits, a National Electoral Council official said.
Mr Chavez has said he needs to stay in office beyond the end of his second term in 2012 so he can secure what he calls Venezuela’s socialist revolution.
Critics say that would concentrate too much power in the presidency.
“The doors of the future are wide open,” Mr Chavez was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as shouting from the balcony of his Miraflores palace after the results were announced.
“In 2012 there will be presidential elections, and unless God decides otherwise, unless the people decide otherwise, this soldier is already a candidate.”
So, Spanish Government is going to ask Venezuelan Ambassador about the expulsion, but Elena Valenciano, Socialist responsible for Foreign Affairs has already said that “he did not fulfill the code of behaviour for international observers, because they are only charged with making a report after the elections but not prior to them“. So they can’t caution if there is a real danger to the impartiality of the elections, they can only speak when everything is done and nothing can be done about it.
Luis Herrero has stated after his expulsion that he was not as an “observer” but as an invited guest from the opposition, and, as such, with full capacity to give an opinion about what is happening there. He also added that no one from Spanish Embassy has gone to support Carlos Iturgáiz and the rest of PP’s MEPs who are also in Venezuela.
Meanwhile, López Istúriz, another PP’s MEP, considers that the statements made by Elena Valenciano “belongs really to a political komissar”, and that the measure they should have taken was “to write a protest note, not the expulsion, if they felt offended by his words”.
Zapatero’s Government (again) places itself with tyrants…
In the last Garzon’s judicial operation (jan 20th) against alleged Al-Qaeda collaborators, a Pakistani named Abdul Razzaq Sadiq was detained. It has been discovered he is Executive Secretary’s of the Catalan Socialist Party (the branch of Zapatero’s party in Catalonia) in the Catalonian city Ciutat Vella. Interior Ministry’s press release published his surnames changed, so no one could guess who he really was. In all police’s documents, his surnames were in right order, so the change was made only afterwards in the Interior Ministry’s press release.
Three days after, they were freed by a Garzón’s resolution, which said that he didn’t have proofs which could link them with the terrorist group’s financing scheme. But they had been accused of sending illegally money to Pakistan.
This case makes me think: why some people are detained and only three days after the judge “discovers” that there was no reason for that arrest? It’s ridiculous. All were freed. Spanish police rarely messes up in these cases as they have truly good experience in dealing with terrorist thugs. So why on earth did this happen? Yes, I know that “people are innocent till proven guilty”, but isn’t this a kind of “rare” thing to arrest several people on these so grave charges to free them only three days after?
Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, interviewed himself yesterday (on Monday) with the President of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani, to whom he offered Spanish Government’s cooperation to bring their foreign relations back to normal.
After referring both of them to the new age of relationships with USA, the Minister told Larijani, who was visiting Spain after the Security Conference in Munich, about the oportunity Iran has to play a constructive role in international relations ( ).
Lariyani called USA to begin “clearly and evidently” a true dialogue, while saying his country is not going to “negotiate by the sake of negotiating, but to arrive to a definitive conclusion“.
“Spain is ready to act as a bridge in building conference in relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the European Union by using all its potential,” Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero told visiting Iranian Majlis speaker Ali Larijani on Monday.
Zapatero also stressed that Madrid is fully prepared to develop constructive cooperation with the Iran in all areas.
The Spanish socialist leader also called for efforts to help stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan and launch an effective campaign against terrorism and drug trafficking.
The two sides also discussed bilateral ties including energy cooperation.
Spain will “welcome” any idea which would lead to “constructive dialogue” between Iran and the 27-nation European bloc, the prime minister noted.
Turning to Palestine, the Spanish prime minister said, “All should make efforts for Palestinian unity.”
For his part, Larijani said, “The return of calm to Palestine is mainly dependent on opening all border crossings into Gaza and involving all Palestinians groups in negotiations”. “No group should be excluded”… (No, not even Hamas, how playful this Iranian, eh? )
The verdict refers to defense arguments put forward by Shirin Ebadi, Mohammad Seifzadeh, Nasreen Sotudeh and Nemat Ahmadi (who represented the four bloggers individually) as “unconvincing defense by attorneys” and announces that in accordance with “defendants’ confessions” and “evidence presented in the case” the following verdicts are issued for the four defendants: first defendant Javad Gholam Tamimi is sentenced to 3 years and 3 months in prison and 10 lashes for “membership in illegal groups,” “treason against country,” “propaganda against regime” and “spreading lies;” second defendant Shahram Rafizadeh is sentenced to 9 months in prison and 20 lashes for “membership in illegal groups,” “propaganda against regime,” “spreading lies” and “disrupting public order;”third defendant Rouzbeh Mir Ebrahimi is sentenced to 2 years and 2 days in prison and 84 lashes for “membership in illegal groups,” “propaganda against regime,” “insulting supreme leader,” “spreading lies” and “disrupting public order;” and fourth defendant Omid Memarian is sentenced to 2.5 years in prison, 10 lashes and 500 thousand Tomans in fines for “membership in illegal groups,” “participation in illegal groups,” “propaganda against regime,” “spreading lies” and “possession of playing cards,” which the judge refers to as “gambling tools.”
This fortnight’s poll: priorities in the fight against Islamism
Fareed Zakaria says we don't have to be very worried by the Talibans as they don't advocate Global Jihad. Do you agree? Vote in this fortnight's poll!!
Bookmark/share a post
), Spanish people have other kind of worries. According to the 
).
).
)
Entries (RSS)