jewsyonkersislam # 660 war, terrorism...its universal

jewsyonkersislam # 660 war, terrorism...its universal

To begin with, Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese author of "The Art of War", noted that peace is another way of fighting a war / peace is war by other means.
Most of the articles reviewed, I have edited, but here is a Preface :

Below is a brief synopsis of the articles on which this is based. But here I discuss that band of land from 10 to 40 degrees north latitude (longitude ?) -especially in the eastern hamisphere- from Japan-Korea-China west to and through southern Europe and north Africa. Most of the people on the planet Earth live there and it is where most of our major world problems are, from overcrowding to terrorism to war...- especially with Islam. Why is this so ? Aside from excessive population on this declining planet Earth ? Natural selection, survival of the fittest at work...of individuals as well as of societies. And why is it so bad and getting worse daily ? Because we need 4 new planet Earths TODAY in order that everyone can enjoy the standard of living that we in the USA enjoy... yet everybody wants to live like us TODAY. And people (especially young men) are fighting -in ways they are taught- to achieve this standard of living...including as suicide bombers.
This band / swath of the planet Earth contains, in addition to those countries already mentioned, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Turkey... And there are Celtic genes in all of these people, genes more disposed to fighting, exploring, adventuring...than others (see my blog, jewsyonkersislamii-tc.blogspot.com). But, because of the excess feminist nonsense that our world is presently drowning in, all that energy is being uselessly expended on war, terrorism... rather than on finding new worlds for the human race to expand on. Feminist nonsense will kill us all in the very near future if things continue as they are.



China, U.S. reach broad consensus in strategic dialogue, space (wein the USA need to cooperate with China, Russia, Japan, India... to find and settle new Earths -or the human race will become extinct very shortly)
terrorism threat to the USA over next 5 years
East-West dialogue (arab...)
Asia and the global slump (which will leave millions of young men with nothing to do...except make trouble)
Hamas hits Israel with dozens of rockets (here, young men have nothing better to do... all to no good purpose)
Security and (or) defense ?
Taliban enforce Sharia across tribal region (Pakistan)
Pakistan's military doesn't want to fight -the terrorists or India
China civil war/extremist(terrorist) civil war ?, as edited
Pakistan/terrorists -as edited
Pakistan-India crisis -China too, as edited
India vs. Pakistan -and Iran, as edited
_______________________





China, U.S. reach broad consensus in strategic dialogue, space



China, U.S. reach broad consensus in strategic dialogue
Highlights
▲China and the United States reached broad consensus in their sixth strategic dialogue held Monday.
▲The meeting focused on how to keep the healthy momentum in the development of China-U.S. relations.
▲Negroponte reaffirmed that the United States will always stick to its one China policy.
China and the United States reached broad consensus on bilateral, regional and international issues in their sixth strategic dialogue held here Monday.
The meeting, co-chaired by visiting Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, focused on how to keep the healthy and stable momentum in the development of China-U.S. relations and how to enhance the two-way cooperation and coordination on regional and global issues.
Dai, who is paying a weeklong working visit to the United States for the dialogue, noted that this round of dialogue was taking place at an important time as the two countries are going to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations.
The past three decades, he said, has witnessed continued development of China-U.S. relations and the unceasing enrichment of the strategic foundation of bilateral ties.
Dai said that the link of common interests in bilateral relations has become increasingly firm while a new situation of mutual integration of interests has developed.
Dai noted that over recent years, the definition of China-U.S. relations has become more specific, that the global significance of China-U.S. relations has become more conspicuous, that the channel for dialogue between the two countries has been better unclogged, that the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries has become more extensive, and that the social basis for China-U.S. friendship has become firmer.
So far, China-U.S. relations have entered a crucial stage which serves as a link between past and future, and have faced both new challenges and news opportunities, he said.
Dai said the two sides should hold on to the general direction of relations of constructive cooperation with a strategic and long-term vision, strengthen high-level exchanges and dialogue to keep enhancing strategic mutual trust, properly handle the Taiwan issue to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, extend the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries with a developing vision and a open-minded way of thinking, strengthen the exchange of view and coordination between the two countries on major regional and international issues, properly handle any difference and sensitive issue between the two countries, and develop nongovernmental exchanges in an in-depth way.
Negroponte said the U.S. side is heartened by the development of U.S.-China relations in political, economic, cultural, educational and military aspects over the last three decades, which witnessed the establishment of sound contacts between the leadership of the two countries, the unprecedented vigorous two-way trade and commerce, the deepening exchange between the two peoples and fruitful cooperation on the international stage.
He noted that the U.S.-China relations have brought concrete benefits to the peoples of the two countries and people in the rest of the world as well, and more and more Americans now support the development of U.S.-China relations.
Negroponte said that U.S.-China relations, which have become one of the most important bilateral relations in the world, need to be steadily handled and be fostered with great care by both countries.
He reaffirmed that the United States will always stick to its one China policy.
Dai and Negroponte agreed that at a time when the world is undergoing a lot of profound changes, the two countries need to forge greater cooperation to jointly deal with the international financial crisis, climate change, terrorism, nonproliferation, energy security and other challenges, so as to promote global peace, stability and development.
They also agreed that since its creation three years ago, the China-U.S. strategic dialogue mechanism has become a platform for sound communications on in-depth, strategic and important issues in bilateral relations, and it has contributed to enhancing mutual under standing and strategic trust, promoting bilateral cooperation in all fields and accumulating valuable experience.
Both sides believe the two countries should make efforts to safeguard and develop the China-U.S. strategic dialogue mechanism and further top its potential to push forward China-U.S. relations.
The China-U.S. strategic dialogue mechanism was launched in August 2005 in accordance with consensus of the heads of state of the two countries.


Source: Xinhua

ENGAGING CHINA IN SPACE, ...ALWAYS NECESSARY, RUSSIA, INDIA, BRAZIL...AS WELLChina, U.S. reach broad consensus in strategic dialogue, space



China, U.S. reach broad consensus in strategic dialogue
Highlights
▲China and the United States reached broad consensus in their sixth strategic dialogue held Monday.
▲The meeting focused on how to keep the healthy momentum in the development of China-U.S. relations.
▲Negroponte reaffirmed that the United States will always stick to its one China policy.
China and the United States reached broad consensus on bilateral, regional and international issues in their sixth strategic dialogue held here Monday.
The meeting, co-chaired by visiting Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, focused on how to keep the healthy and stable momentum in the development of China-U.S. relations and how to enhance the two-way cooperation and coordination on regional and global issues.
Dai, who is paying a weeklong working visit to the United States for the dialogue, noted that this round of dialogue was taking place at an important time as the two countries are going to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations.
The past three decades, he said, has witnessed continued development of China-U.S. relations and the unceasing enrichment of the strategic foundation of bilateral ties.
Dai said that the link of common interests in bilateral relations has become increasingly firm while a new situation of mutual integration of interests has developed.
Dai noted that over recent years, the definition of China-U.S. relations has become more specific, that the global significance of China-U.S. relations has become more conspicuous, that the channel for dialogue between the two countries has been better unclogged, that the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries has become more extensive, and that the social basis for China-U.S. friendship has become firmer.
So far, China-U.S. relations have entered a crucial stage which serves as a link between past and future, and have faced both new challenges and news opportunities, he said.
Dai said the two sides should hold on to the general direction of relations of constructive cooperation with a strategic and long-term vision, strengthen high-level exchanges and dialogue to keep enhancing strategic mutual trust, properly handle the Taiwan issue to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, extend the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries with a developing vision and a open-minded way of thinking, strengthen the exchange of view and coordination between the two countries on major regional and international issues, properly handle any difference and sensitive issue between the two countries, and develop nongovernmental exchanges in an in-depth way.
Negroponte said the U.S. side is heartened by the development of U.S.-China relations in political, economic, cultural, educational and military aspects over the last three decades, which witnessed the establishment of sound contacts between the leadership of the two countries, the unprecedented vigorous two-way trade and commerce, the deepening exchange between the two peoples and fruitful cooperation on the international stage.
He noted that the U.S.-China relations have brought concrete benefits to the peoples of the two countries and people in the rest of the world as well, and more and more Americans now support the development of U.S.-China relations.
Negroponte said that U.S.-China relations, which have become one of the most important bilateral relations in the world, need to be steadily handled and be fostered with great care by both countries.
He reaffirmed that the United States will always stick to its one China policy.
Dai and Negroponte agreed that at a time when the world is undergoing a lot of profound changes, the two countries need to forge greater cooperation to jointly deal with the international financial crisis, climate change, terrorism, nonproliferation, energy security and other challenges, so as to promote global peace, stability and development.
They also agreed that since its creation three years ago, the China-U.S. strategic dialogue mechanism has become a platform for sound communications on in-depth, strategic and important issues in bilateral relations, and it has contributed to enhancing mutual under standing and strategic trust, promoting bilateral cooperation in all fields and accumulating valuable experience.
Both sides believe the two countries should make efforts to safeguard and develop the China-U.S. strategic dialogue mechanism and further top its potential to push forward China-U.S. relations.
The China-U.S. strategic dialogue mechanism was launched in August 2005 in accordance with consensus of the heads of state of the two countries.


Source: Xinhua

ENGAGING CHINA IN SPACE, ...ALWAYS NECESSARY, RUSSIA, INDIA, BRAZIL...AS WELL


terrorism threat to the USA over next 5 years

WASHINGTON – The terrorism threat to the United States over the next five years will be driven by instability in the Middle East and Africa, persistent challenges to border security and increasing Internet savvy, says a new intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press.
Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks are considered the most dangerous threats that could be carried out against the U.S. But those threats are also the most unlikely because it is so difficult for al-Qaida and similar groups to acquire the materials needed to carry out such plots, according to the internal Homeland Security Threat Assessment for the years 2008-2013.
The al-Qaida terrorist network continues to focus on U.S. attack targets vulnerable to massive economic losses, casualties and political "turmoil," the assessment said.
Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction remains "the highest priority at the federal level." Speaking to reporters on Dec. 3, Chertoff explained that more people, such as terrorists, will learn how to make dirty bombs, biological and chemical weapons. "The other side (co-opt "the other side"...and destroy those who make problems hindering survival of the human race) is going to continue to learn more about doing things," he said.
Marked "for official use only," the report does not specify its audience, but the assessments typically go to law enforcement, intelligence officials and the private sector. When determining threats, intelligence officials consider loss of life, economic and psychological consequences.
Intelligence officials also predict that in the next five years, terrorists will try to conduct a destructive biological attack. Officials are concerned about the possibility of infections to thousands of U.S. citizens, overwhelming regional health care systems(co-opt "the other side"...and destroy those who make problems hindering survival of the human race) .
There could also be dire economic impacts caused by workers' illnesses and deaths. Officials are most concerned about biological agents stolen from labs or other storage facilities, such as anthrax.
"The threat of terrorism and the threat of extremist ideologies has not abated," Chertoff said in his year-end address on Dec. 18. "This threat has not evaporated, and we can't turn the page on it."
These high-consequence threats are not the only kind of challenges that will confront the U.S. over the next five years.
Terrorists will continue to try to evade U.S. border security measures and place operatives inside the mainland to carry out attacks, the 38-page assessment said. It also said that they may pose as refugees or asylum seekers or try to exploit foreign travel channels such as the visa waiver program, which allows citizens of 34 countries to enter the U.S. without visas.
Long waits for immigration and more restrictive European refugee and asylum programs will cause more foreigners to try to enter the U.S. illegally. Increasing numbers of Iraqis are expected to migrate to the U.S. in the next five years; and refugees from Somalia and Sudan could increase because of conflicts in those countries, the assessment said.
Because there is a proposed cap of 12,000 refugees from Africa, officials expect more will try to enter the U.S. illegally as well. Officials predict the same scenario for refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Intelligence officials predict the pool of radical Islamists within the U.S. will increase over the next five years due partly to the ease of online recruiting means. Officials foresee "a wave of young, self-identified Muslim 'terrorist wannabes' who aspire to carry out violent acts."
The U.S. has already seen some examples of these homegrown terrorists. Recently five Muslim immigrants were convicted of plotting to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix in a case the government said demonstrated its post-Sept. 11 determination to stop terrorist attacks in the planning stages.
The Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah does not have a known history of fomenting attacks inside the U.S., but that could change if there is some kind of "triggering" event, the Homeland assessment cautions.
A 2008 Interagency Intelligence Committee on Terrorism assessment said that Hezbollah members based in the U.S. do local fundraising through charity projects and criminal activity, like money laundering, smuggling, drug trafficking, fraud and extortion, according to the homeland security assessment.
In addition, the cyber terror threat is expected to increase over the next five years, as hacking tools become more sophisticated and available. "Youthful, Internet-savvy extremists might apply their online acumen to conduct cyber attacks rather than offer themselves up as operatives to conduct physical attacks," according to the assessment.
Currently, Islamic terrorists, including al-Qaida, would like to conduct cyber attacks, but they lack the capability to do so, the assessment said. The large-scale attacks that are on al-Qaida's wishlist — such as disrupting a major city's water or power systems — require sophisticated cyber capabilities that the terrorist group does not (yet) possess.
But al-Qaida has the capability (money) to hire sophisticated hackers to carry out these kinds of attacks, the assessment said. And federal officials believe that in the next three to five years, al-Qaida could direct or inspire cyber attacks that target the U.S. economy.
Counterterrorism expert Frank Cilluffo says the typical cyber attack would not achieve al-Qaida's main goal of inflicting mass devastation with its resulting widespread media coverage. However, al-Qaida is likely to continue to rely on the Internet to spread its message, said Cilluffo, who runs the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University.
Officials also predict that domestic terrorists in the forms of radical animal rights and environmental extremists will become more adept with explosives and increase their use of arson attacks(Whats the matter with the world ? See my blog, jewsyonkersislamiii-tc.blogspot.com)
Dialogue of cultures
East-West dialogue is meaningless while inequalities in power skew the balance between the two sides, writes Hassan Nafaa*
Efforts to hold an intercultural dialogue between Arabs and Europeans have been going on for some time now. Endless seminars and conferences were held. The latest of those was the "Intercultural Encounters on the Shores of the Mediterranean, the Alchemy of an Uninterrupted Dialogue", held in the Paris UNESCO headquarters on 4-5 December 2008. The event was part of the Arabia Plan, coordinated by Oman's UNESCO delegate Moussa bin Jaafar.
For myself, I am not sure we can discuss the dialogue of cultures in isolation of the existing structures of powe (but what are they and why are they ?). This is what I said in a paper I presented at the abovementioned conference. Can such a dialogue be fruitful while power is so unevenly distributed in today's world (Who's fault is that ? Why is it so? And what can be done about it ?) ?
In my attempt to answer that question, I suggest that we look into four phases of cultural interaction between Arabs and Europeans. The first phase is when the balance of power was tilted in the Arabs' favour during the Middle Ages. The second phase is when the balance of power was in Europe's favour, from the Renaissance through colonialist times. The third phase is that of national liberation movements, at a time when the international system was mainly bipolar. The fourth phase is that of the post-Cold War era, when the US tried via globalisation to make the world its playground (Whoa, we in the USA are stupid, dominated as we are by feminist nonsense [ for further on this, see my blog,
jewsyonkersislamiii-tc.blogspot.com], but I submit that world conditions are more responsible for the West's rise than any personal or national actors ).
Let's discuss the first phase. In the Middle Ages -- that is, from the rise of Islam in the seventh century until the Ottoman conquests of the 16th century -- Arab civilisation was predominant. The Islamic empire, encompassing parts of the northern Mediterranean, had no equal (neither wrong nor right). The interaction between Arabs and Europeans in this phase was not always peaceful. Conflict and frictions were common. But the overall balance of power was tilted in the Arabs' favour, even during the Crusades. The Crusaders came in nine waves, all with the support of the church, aiming to seize Jerusalem and roll back the forces of Islam. It wasn't until the Egyptians captured Louis IX, the king of France who was leading the seventh Crusade in person, that the Crusades lost steam (Celtic mercenaries probably formed a good part of Egypt's army).
During the Crusades, the Arabs and Europeans seemed equal on cultural and political terms. But this was mostly an illusion. The Arabs were significantly ahead and the Europeans had much to learn from Arab and Muslim scientists (who had also learned from the Greeks). Historians agree that interaction between the Arabs and Europe happened across three channels: Andalusia, Sicily and the Crusades. Arab knowledge moved on from Sicily to Italy, from Andalusia to Spain, and onward to France and the rest of Europe. During the Crusades, the Europeans copied, and stole, what they could of the rich Arab (yes but also was Greek...) heritage. It is common knowledge that Europe rediscovered Greek heritage through Arabic translation. Arab scholars were not just copying the knowledge they received, but invented new fields of knowledge, such as algebra (true). They brought sophistication to the much older disciplines of medicine, engineering, astronomy and surgery. Arab books in medicine, engineering, and astronomy were an essential read in major European universities until the middle of the 17th century. Cultural interaction that prevailed in Andalusia under Arab rule remains a unique model of tolerance to this day (Really ?).
As Europe was taking its first steps into the Renaissance, the Ottomans pushed into east and central Europe. But by that time, the shoe was on the other foot. The Ottomans were not bringing revival to Europe. Europe was embarking on a period of discovery that culminated in the industrial revolution.
Europe had learned a useful lesson from the Crusades. It learned, in particular, that head-on confrontation with Muslims is bound to be costly. Therefore, Europe started changing its methods, replacing armies with missionaries (!!!). Admittedly, the missionaries gave a boost to education in the Arab world. But they also paved the way for the "Orientalists" who were too soon to act as the intellectual spearhead for colonisation.
Europe waited for the right time to strike at the Ottoman Empire. Since then, it did all it could to preclude the rise of a strong Arab or Muslim power in the region. In the 19th century, European powers sided with Istanbul in an effort to clip the rising power of Mohamed Ali, Egypt's ambitious ruler. A moderniser and visionary, Mohamed Ali sent numerous scientific missions to Europe. His grandson, Ismail, came close to giving the country a full-fledged democratic system. But Europe didn't like that. Determined to stamp out any attempt at modernisation in the region, Europe ousted Ismail, replacing him with his son -- the despotic Tawfiq.
Europe played on the differences between the Arabs and the Turks (and the Iranians, the Turkmen, the Mongols, the Kirghiz....), hoping to weaken both. During World War I, it encouraged the Arabs to rise in revolt against the Turks. Then it deceived the Arabs and divided their countries into protectorates in the Sykes- Picot Agreement of 1916. One can safely state that much of British and European support to the Zionist project is the desire to preclude the creation of a strong Arab or Islamic nation (and the Arabs would do the same).
Then national liberation became the fashion. With Europe in tatters following two world wars in quick succession, and with two major powers coming into existence outside Europe, national liberation movements saw their chance. Through a variety of peaceful and violent means, national liberation movements managed to obtain political independence, if only in name. The elites that came to power in the Arab world had every desire to modernise their countries, and they certainly sent students to study abroad and did much to expand the scope of education. But those elites failed to address some of the structural problems caused by the colonial period, such as economic dependency and the question of national identity (the real problem is the fact that most Middle Eastern countries are barren deserts, having only oil and huge "surplus" populations).
As the conflict with Israel dragged on, military juntas found their way to power in one Arab country after another. Consequently, Arab nations found themselves caught between tyranny at home and foreign ambitions abroad, which put a brake on the pace of modernisation and reform. To make things worse, the best minds of Arab countries decided to stay and work in the West -- the so-called "brain drain".
Following the end of the Cold War, the US tried to bring the entire world under its domination, using the forces of globalisation to spread its values and way of life. The Arab world, with its extraordinary geographical location, immense oil resources and political weakness, was particularly vulnerable, especially after 9/11 when the neocons of the Bush administration waged an extensive bid to control the region. The consequences were tragic. The war on Iraq claimed more than a million dead and many others wounded and displaced. The unjust blockade on the Palestinians is still in place.
I find it difficult to speak about a cultural dialogue between the Arabs and the Europeans while the balance of power between the two is so tilted. One cannot promote interaction and dialogue when domination is the name of the game. Dialogue should take place among equals. Dialogue should take place among those who believe that each culture has something to offer. A true inter-cultural dialogue is only possible in a multilateral and even-handed global system. Until such a system exists, dialogue is unlikely to bear fruit (nor will such happen while the human race is stuck on the planet Earth).
* The writer is secretary-general of the Arab Thought Forum, Amman, Jordan


Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2008

Making nice in Asia during a global slump

By MICHAEL RICHARDSON
Special to The Japan Times
SINGAPORE — Global financial dislocation and the economic slump are putting Asian regional cooperation to the test. They also appear to be shaping somewhat different responses in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia. The latter, which formed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations way back in 1967, has a big head start in institutionalizing collaboration and recently signed a charter that makes the group a legal entity for the first time. Northeast Asia has no organization equivalent to ASEAN. But that may change if relations among China, Japan and South Korea continue to improve and the wider six-nation talks, chaired by China, succeed in persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear-weapons program and focus instead on economic development and poverty alleviation. These are big "ifs," given the historical and territorial conflicts that bedevil ties among Northeast Asian economies.

Still, China, Japan and South Korea took a significant step forward in improving relations at their first-ever three-way summit in Fukuoka, Japan, on Dec. 13. (They agreed to make it an annual event.) Leaders of the big three have been getting together fairly regularly since 1999, but only on the fringes of other meetings, usually the annual ASEAN summit. Given the barely veiled rivalry between them, it has suited the Northeast Asian trio to let ASEAN take the initiative in wider community building in the region. ASEAN's scope for leadership in regional initiatives may be constrained if tripartite cooperation in Northeast Asia continues to improve. The potential clout of China, Japan and South Korea far outweighs that of Southeast Asia. Together the trio accounts for 75 percent of East Asian economic output and nearly 17 percent of global GDP. Pulling together, instead of apart, would give them enormous influence in shaping the region. The initial sinews of such regional cooperation are financial. When ASEAN was formed, the emphasis was on political dialogue and foreign policy coordination to pacify the region and increase its heft in dealing with outsiders. Perhaps because times are different now, China, Japan and South Korea have decided to use an alternative building block, one that enables them to put underlying tensions to one side and deal with practical problems of common concern — stabilizing currencies and stimulating economic growth in the region. Shortly before their summit began, Japan and China expanded bilateral currency swap arrangements with South Korea. This gave Seoul, which has been hit by the financial crisis, the equivalent of up to $48 billion in extra funds to draw on, if necessary, to defend its currency. Heads of the three countries central banks are to meet regularly to discuss monetary policy and coordinate where it is in their interest to do so. At their meeting, the three leaders called for an early agreement to increase the capital available to the Asian Development Bank, so it can offer more loans and technical assistance to developing countries in the region affected by the current turmoil. They also reiterated their commitment to work with ASEAN members to hasten expansion of the so-called Chiang Mai Initiative — a patchwork of 16 bilateral currency swap arrangements worth around $80 billion that was launched in 2000 but has never been used. The intention is to integrate this network and raise the amount available to at least $120 billion, perhaps leading to the establishment of an Asian version of the International Monetary Fund. Last May, ASEAN members and their partners China, Japan and South Korea, known as ASEAN Plus 3, agreed to "multilateralize" the enlarged reserve pool. Terms and conditions for using these funds are now being hammered out by officials and an accord is to be finalized next year. Among them, the ASEAN-Plus-3 economies have well over $3 trillion in official foreign currency reserves. Progress in developing a financial buffer for the region was due to have been discussed at the annual ASEAN summit in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, in mid-December. But Thailand, the current chair of ASEAN, postponed the meeting because of recent political instability(!!!!). The summit has been rescheduled for Feb. 24-26. Although the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea agreed at their summit to work more closely together to cushion the effects of the global financial crisis and tighten ties on a wide range of other challenges, their target for economic integration is less ambitious than ASEAN's, at least for the moment. ASEAN aims to establish by 2015 a single market and production base that is highly competitive and has a free flow of goods, services and investment, with facilitated movement of labor and a freer flow of capital than now. By contrast, the Northeast Asian trio are only at the stage of making joint studies on the feasibility of trilateral free trade, investment and business facilitation agreements. Yet, having some competition between Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia as they pursue these goals might hasten progress and prevent backsliding. That would be a plus for Asian integration.
Michael Richardson is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies, Singapore.

Defiant Hamas hits Israel with dozens of rockets

*


GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Palestinian militants sent a deadly barrage of missiles flying deep into Israel on Monday, demonstrating that Hamas still had firepower three days into Israel's punishing air offensive in Gaza. Three Israelis were killed and two seriously wounded. Palestinian health officials put the three-day death toll in Gaza at 364; the U.N. said the total included at least 62 civilians. In Monday's attacks, Israel focused its bombing on the houses of Hamas field operatives in a campaign meant to tear at the roots of the extremist group ruling Gaza. Israel's defense minister promised a "war to the bitter end against Hamas" and allied militants. Intensified rocket strikes by Gaza militants, which triggered the Israeli offensive, have revealed the expanding range of missiles that are making larger cities farther inside Israel vulnerable. In a barrage Monday night, a missile crashed into a bus stop in Ashdod, 23 miles from the Gaza Strip. A woman died and two others were wounded, one seriously — the first casualties in the city of 190,000 residents. Another Israeli was killed and one seriously wounded by a rocket strike in the Negev desert community of Nahal Oz, closer to the Gaza border. Earlier, a missile killed a construction worker in the city of Ashkelon. In all, four Israelis were dead since the Gaza offensive began Saturday, bringing to 19 the number of people killed in attacks from Gaza since the beginning of the year. The targets chosen by Israel on Monday pointed to an intention to chip away at Hamas' foundation. Israeli aircraft staged five separate strikes on the houses of field operatives, though there was no confirmation that any of them were killed. A grainy video taken by an Israeli drone airplane showed several men loading a pickup truck with what the Israeli military said were medium-range Grad rockets. Moments later, a big explosion from an Israeli missile strike envelops the image. One Israeli attack targeted a house in the Jebaliya refugee camp, killing seven people, but the Hamas activist was not there, Hamas security and relatives said. Another hit the Jebaliya home of Abdel-Karim Jaber, a Hamas political figure who is a senior administrator at Gaza's Islamic University. He was not at home and it wasn't immediately clear if anyone was hurt in the strike. In another air assault, an Islamic Jihad commander was killed as he was walking near his house, said Abu Hamza, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad's military wing. Israel's airstrikes on more than 320 sites since midday Saturday reduced dozens of buildings to rubble, overwhelmed hospitals with wounded and filled Gaza's deserted streets with smoke and fire. The military said Israeli naval vessels had also bombarded targets from the sea. On Monday, aircraft pulverized a house next to the home of Hamas Premier Ismail Haniyeh, a security compound and a five-story building at a university closely linked to the Islamic group — all symbols of Hamas strength in the coastal territory it has ruled since June 2007. Israel's offensive has rattled the Middle East and capitals around the world, triggering street protests and fiery speeches by adversaries of Israel like the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the day's biggest outpouring of anger, tens of thousands of Hezbollah's supporters stood in a pouring rain in a Beirut square to condemn Israel. Stone-throwing clashes broke out in about a half-dozen spots in the Palestinians' West Bank territory as well as in several Arab-populated areas inside Israel. Israeli police and soldiers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at rioting youths(!!!), but it did not appear anyone was injured. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Israel's offensive as excessive(???) and demanded an immediate cease-fire. He said key international and regional players — including foreign ministers of the Arab League nations holding an emergency meeting Wednesday — must "act swiftly and decisively to bring an early end to this impasse (I agree)." The U.S. government said it was "vigorously engaged" in trying to restore a cease-fire. White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe defended the Israeli response, but added that the Bush administration was urging Israel to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza. With Israeli troops and tanks massing on the Gaza border, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told parliament he wanted to strike a devastating blow against Hamas. However, later he indicated a ground assault was not inevitable, issuing a warning that he was giving Hamas a last chance to halt its rocket fire. Short of reoccupying Gaza, however, it was unlikely any amount of Israeli firepower could completely snuff out militant rocket attacks. Past operations all failed to do so. The Cabinet's decision over the weekend to call up 6,500 reserve soldiers could be a pressure tactic. Military experts noted no full combat units had been mobilized and said Israel would need at least 10,000 soldiers for a full-scale invasion. For the first time, Israel also hit one of a series of tunnels prepared by Hamas along the border with Israel for use in attacks on invading ground troops, several Israeli TV networks said. One tunnel was packed with explosives and several militants inside were killed, Channel 1 said. Most of those killed in three days of airstrikes were Hamas members. A Hamas police spokesman, Ehab Ghussen, said 180 members of Hamas security forces were among the dea (young men, naturally). But the U.N. agency in charge of Palestinian refugees expressed concern about civilian casualties. A rise in civilian casualties could intensify international pressure on Israel to end the offensive (that is the problem). In New York, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said his agency had not been able to determine a precise number of civilian casualties, but knew of at least 62 women and children killed. He said 1,400 people had been injured. Eight children under the age of 17 were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes Sunday night, Palestinian medics said. Holmes said he was very worried about a shortage of humanitarian supplies in Gaza. "Because of the effective blockade that's been in place for many months now, and because of the increasing tightening of this blockade in recent weeks around Gaza, stocks of vital items are either very low or nonexistent, and that's particularly the case, for example, with wheat flour," he said. Israel opened one of Gaza's border crossings Monday to allow several ambulances and 62 trucks carrying medical supplies and food to cross. "Obviously these supplies are better than nothing, but they remain wholly inadequate," Holmes said, saying that his agency needed 100 truckloads of flour every day to meet needs (giveaways ? why are such necessary ?). In Gaza, some families left their apartments next to institutions linked to Hamas, fearing they could be targeted. Suad Abu Wadi, 42, kept her six children close to her on mattresses in her Gaza City living room. Her husband sat with them, chain-smoking. Abu Wadi said he had not said a word since seeing their neighbor carrying the body of his child, killed in an airstrike Saturday. Gaza's nine hospitals were overwhelmed. Dr. Moaiya Hassanain, who keeps a record for the Gaza Health Ministry, said 364 Palestinians had died and more than 1,400 wounded. Some of the injured were being taken to private clinics and even homes, he said. Egyptian officials said ambulances were ferrying wounded Gazans to hospitals in Egypt from Gaza's Rafah border crossing. Tariq al-Mahlawi, Egypt's deputy health minister, said 32 patients had been brought in by nightfall and that 500 beds were ready to treat Palestinians. Around mid-afternoon, ambulances ferried the wounded from Gaza toward the crossing in the border town of Rafah, where over a dozen Egyptian ambulances waited to take over the casualties. Despite Israel's battering attacks, sirens warning of incoming rockets sent Israelis scrambling for cover throughout the day as more than 40 rockets and mortar rounds rained down. Israeli security officials warned that the militants' rockets are powerful enough now to reach Beersheba, a major city 30 miles from Gaza. Mazal Ivgi, a 62-year-old resident of Beersheba, said she had prepared a bomb shelter. "In the meantime we don't really believe it's going to happen, but when the first boom comes people...
Security and Defense: Ready, aim... wait a minute
By YAAKOV KATZ








If the intimations of senior government officials are to be believed, the IDF is poised to embark on an assault against Hamas the like of which has not been seen since the Muslim extremists captured Gaza from Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah in June 2007.
This week saw a relentless barrage of rockets and mortars slamming into homes and fields in southern Israel. More and more Israeli cities are now in range of enemy gunners. Even backbiting Israeli politicians who would rather concentrate on the February 10 Knesset elections find themselves obliged to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities to the citizenry. The security cabinet appears to have determined - belatedly - that Israel can no longer tolerate the continued attacks.
We ask: What took so long?
HAMAS is the lord of Gaza and widely popular to boot. Fully expecting to supplant Abbas's PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," it wishes to be treated accordingly.
So what if it has rejected out of hand the international community's demand that the Palestinian leadership be committed to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations including the road map? The Islamists expect that their violent behavior - and exploitation of Palestinian "suffering" - will in due course compel the Quartet to modify its shaky principles.
Hamas is even ready to throw Egyptian mediators a bone: It will agree to another temporary cease-fire with the hated Zionists in return for an uninterrupted flow of goods and supplies through Israeli and Egyptian crossing points. Of course, its industrial-scale smuggling of weapons via tunnels beneath the Philadelphi Corridor must proceed unmolested. Access to the sea must also be assured.
Most crucially, Hamas reserves the unfettered right to use every centimeter of its territory - especially areas adjacent to Israel's border - to lay the groundwork for the next phase of its unyielding confrontation with "the Zionist enemy."
Hamas is galled when the IDF interdicts tunnels being dug for future operations against Israel, or when our air force kills gunmen just as they are planting improvised explosive devices along the border fence. Over the horizon, Hamas looks to the day when it can compel Israel to allow it to operate with impunity against Fatah in the West Bank.
IN THE face of this Palestinian obduracy and the likelihood it will be met by international appeasement, Jerusalem must decide on a single, unwavering public diplomacy message. In the face of outlandish demands to "lift the siege" and "end collective punishment," Israel's mantra needs to be: "Hamas must be stopped. Gilad Schalit must be freed."
As a matter of grand strategy, Israel must not tolerate a hostile entity anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Hamas cannot be allowed to metastasize into a second Hizbullah.
Israel's immediate objective must be to make it impossible for Hamas to
govern in Gaza. Yet the choice is not between a massive land invasion and paralysis. The proper method of fighting Hamas is a methodical elimination of its political and military command and control. Concurrently, IDF artillery need to shoot back at the sources of enemy fire.
Gaza has a border with Egypt and Cairo has lately invited those who want to send supplies to Gaza to use its Rafah crossing. But the crossing points from Israel into Gaza must be kept closed for the duration of the battle.
Though the political campaign here is in full swing, we expect worthy politicians to put country first. Absent a strong home front, Ehud Olmert's lame-duck government and fragmented coalition will be unable to withstand the predictable international pressure to halt operations prematurely.
Once begun, Israel's battle against Hamas must be terminated only when the Islamists lose their governing capacity. This may set the stage for Western-trained Fatah forces to reenter the Strip.
Any resort to force by the IDF raises the possibility of unintended consequences. Israel's home front could be hit hard. Hizbullah could launch diversionary attacks. The Arab street in non-belligerent countries could roil. If enemy non-combatants are killed, nasty media coverage is certain.
We may express regret; but we must not apologize. Whatever happens, we must be resolute: Hamas must be stopped.


Taliban enforce Sharia across tribal region
29 Dec 2008, 0107 hrs IST, PTI


ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Taliban have announced that they will enforce Sharia or Islamic law across the northwestern Aurakzai tribal region and banned women from visiting markets.
The Taliban recently announced the enforcement of Sharia in the lower regions of Aurakzai Agency, almost a week after similar measures were imposed in upper parts of the semi-autonomous region.
The militants are using loudspeakers in mosques to announce their decree and are asking people to bring their problems to “Taliban Islamic courts”, which have been set up in Mashti Meela and Feroze Khel. These problems will be resolved according to Islamic law, the Daily Times reported.
The Taliban have banned women from visiting markets and imposed a complete ban on TVs, CDs and video centres in Aurakzai Agency. Women can visit markets for medical treatment but only if they are accompanied by a male elder.


Why Pakistan's military is gun shy
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - The attack on Mumbai on November 26 by Pakistan-linked militants opens a similar opportunity for India to what happened to Washington after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The US was able to further its regional designs with global support and was able to coerce Islamabad into cracking down on its own strategic partner, the Taliban in Afghanistan.

New Delhi also now has the international community on its side, but Pakistan is in a very different position from where it was seven years ago, and the new political and military leaders are not in a


position to take similar steps to those of their predecessors.

In a new round of international pressure following the Mumbai attack, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, arrived in Pakistan this week to meet with senior Pakistani officials. The chief of Interpol was also scheduled to visit Islamabad on Tuesday to discuss the mechanism for the arrest and interrogation of wanted people such as Zakiur Rahman, the chief of the Lashka-e-Toiba (LET), which was connected to the militants who attacked Mumbai; Maulana Masood Azhar of the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammed and former Mumbai underworld kingpin Dawood Ibrahim.

India is reported to have mobilized forces near the Rajasthan-Sindh Pakistani border areas and Pakistani intelligence sources have talked of possible surgical strikes on militant bases in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in Lahore, at the central offices of the Jamaatut Dawa, which this month was declared by the United Nations Security Council a front for the LET, which is banned as a terror group. The Pakistan Air Force has been placed on red alert.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, both in public statements and private meetings, urged Pakistan to understand the gravity of the current situation and to take immediate steps to stop terrorists from using its soil for attacking others. The US warned Pakistan that in the absence of appropriate steps, it would be hard for the US to prevent Delhi from carrying out strikes inside Pakistan in retaliation for the Mumbai attack in which 10 militants held the city hostage for three days and killed 175 people, including top police officials.

In a speech at Washington's Council on Foreign Relations, Rice said what Pakistan had done so far to catch those responsible for the attacks in Mumbai was not enough. "You need to deal with the terrorism problem," she said when asked what her message was to Pakistan. "And it's not enough to say these are non-state actors. If they’re operating from Pakistani territory, then they have to be dealt with."

According to reports, Islamabad has assured Indian leaders and international leaders such as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown that it is ready to take all steps demanded by the world community to avoid a war.

All the same, actions speak louder than words and the prevailing opinion in Western capitals and in New Delhi is that Pakistan will not undertake any real crackdown on militants.

This view is reinforced by the contradictory statements of Pakistani officials. On December 7, Pakistani authorities issued a statement that Azhar, the founder of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, had been placed under house arrested at his Bahawalpur residence in Punjab. But on December 17, first the Pakistan envoy to New Delhi and then Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi stunned everybody by saying that Azhar was at large and not in Pakistan.

Azhar, a firebrand orator in favor of jihad although he has never been a combatant, was arrested in India in 1994 over his connections with the Kashmiri separatist group Harkatul Mujahideen. In December 1999, Azhar was freed along with separatist guerrillas Mushtaq Zargar and Omar Shiekh (the abductor of US reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002) by the Indian government in exchange for passengers on the hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 that was held hostage in Kandahar, Afghanistan, under Taliban control.

In 2000, Azhar, claimed by Pakistan to have never entered Pakistan, announced the formation of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, at a press briefing at the Karachi Press Club, along with the now slain Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai. Jaish was banned in 2002 under US pressure, but Azhar remained close to the Pakistani establishment, mainly because he refused to support al-Qaeda against the Pakistan military.

Following the Mumbai attack, Delhi has demanded that Azhar, along with others such as Dawood, be handed over. This was refused by Pakistan, which said Azhar was a Pakistani national and had never been tried by Indian authorities. Then came the surprise announcement that he was not even in Pakistan.

What complicates the situation is the lack of unity between the civilian government in Islamabad and the military. The government managed to get the international community to support it by having the Jamaatut Dawa declared a front for the LET to justify a crackdown on the organization against the will of the army. (See Pakistan's military takes a big hit Asia Times Online, December 13.)

But the military establishment, which has been humiliated over the past seven years, has good reasons not to back the government.

The problems started after September 11, when the US forced the then-military government of president General Pervez Musharraf to abandon the Taliban. Up to 2001, Afghanistan had virtually been a fifth Pakistani province for which Pakistan arranged day-to-day expenditures. Even the communications network was run by the Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation Limited.

By 2003, Pakistan had been forced to send the army into the restive tribal areas bordering Afghanistan to crack down on al-Qaeda and militants, in breach of its agreements with the tribes.

In 2004, Pakistan was forced to shut militant camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and to accept India's fencing of the Line of Control that separates the two Kashmirs. As a result, militant operations into India-administered Kashmir were badly interrupted.
When Pakistan changed its Afghan policy, Musharraf, who was also chief of army staff, informed all jihadi organizations that the policy was necessary to preserve Pakistan's interests in Kashmir. However, when the Kashmir policy changed and operations started in the tribal areas, the jihadi organizations reacted.

By 2005, all the big names in the LET had left the Kashmiri camps and taken up in the North and South Waziristan tribal areas. The same happened with Jaish and other organizations. The most respected name of the Kashmiri struggle, Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, the commander of Harkatul Jihad al-Islami, also moved to Waziristan.

This was the beginning of serious problems for Pakistan and also resulted in a change in the dynamics of the Afghan war. Trained by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence's India cell, these disgruntled militants caused havoc in Afghanistan and played a significant role in bringing the latest guerrilla tactics to Afghanistan. They also introduced major changes in the fighting techniques of the tribal militants against the Pakistani forces.

By 2006, the Taliban had regrouped and launched the spring offensive that paved the way for significant advances over the next two years. At the same time, militants escalated their activities in Pakistan and forced Pakistan into virtual neutrality in the US-led "war on terror".

An unprecedented number of attacks were carried out on Pakistani security forces in 2007 and by February 2008 suicide attacks in Pakistan outnumbered those in Iraq. Militants carried out dozens of attacks on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) supply lines from Karachi, virtually bringing them to a halt. According to Strategic Forecasting, a Texas-based private intelligence entity: "Pakistan remains the single-most important logistics route for the Afghan campaign. This is not by accident. It is by far the quickest and most efficient overland route to the open ocean."

In this situation, the only peaceful place in Pakistan is Punjab, the largest province and the seat of government. But this peace can only be ensured through central Punjabi jihadi leaders like Hafiz Muhammad Saeed of the LET and southern Punjabi jihadi leader Azhar. Azhar has influence in the jihadi networks in Punjab and he convinced jihadis, after a wave of suicide attacks in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, to go to Afghanistan and spare Punjab.

The highly demoralized Pakistan army(!!!) has failed in the tribal areas and in the Swat Valley(!!!) it has had to solicit peace accords. Opening up a new front in Punjab, which could spread to the port city of Karachi - the financial lifeline of the country - would be a disaster.

This explains the military's resistance to the government push to go full out against militancy, a move that would also compromise NATO's lifeline to Afghanistan.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

China's great migration wrenched back by crisis

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Buzz Up


CHENGDU, China (Reuters) – The biggest migration in human history has gone into reverse.
China's ocean of blue-collar workers is streaming back to the country's farming hinterland, bringing thwarted aspirations and rising discontent in tow as their city jobs, their paths out of poverty, fall victim to the global economic crisis.
( The prelude to Chinese civil wars ?)
Train K192 is a daily conduit of the reversing flow.
Every afternoon it pulls into Chengdu, capital of populous Sichuan province, after a 31-hour trip from Guangzhou (I spent a lot of time in Hong Kong and its neighbor, Guangzou.... a few years back), center of China's once-thriving export heartland. Hundreds of weary passengers, some of whom stand through the entire journey because seats are sold out, straggle into the grey light of the Chengdu winter and an uncertain future(!!!!).
"Lots of factories have closed. Mine shut about three months ago. There was nothing to do, so I came home," said Wu Hao, 21, sporting a stylish striped sweater and a sleek metal suitcase.
After a year spent making circuit boards in Guangzhou, he was heading back to his family's patch of farmland, a full month before the Chinese new year when he would usually visit home.
Officials estimate that more than 10 million(!!!!) migrant laborers have already returned to the countryside as thousands of companies have been dragged under by weak global demand for everything from clothes to cars.
The government, always concerned about social instability(!!!), is now on high alert, fearful of the consequences of a huge mass of jobless, disappointed, rootless young men(key ingredients of war and terrorism).
Beijing has urged firms to avoid cutting jobs despite falling profits, and many bosses have obliged by retaining workers but giving them unpaid leave.
"Sales were really bad and the boss just kept giving us holidays. We had 15 days off last month," said Tan Jun, who also clambered off train K192 in Chengdu. "Next year I won't go back."
With an impish smile, Tan looked more like a student than the factory hand he had been for a drug company in Dongguan, an industrial city next to Guangzhou.
"MENACE TO STABILITY"
Over the past three decades, about 130 million people have left China's countryside for the smokestacks, assembly lines and construction sites of cities.
That migration, described as the world's biggest ever by the United Nations, has underpinned the country's heady growth and also given its poorest citizens a share of the spoils, as urban residents' incomes are much higher than farmers'.
Known as China's "floating population," laborers rarely settle permanently where they work -- effectively prohibited from doing so by residency rules -- and return in droves to their hometowns for the Chinese lunar new year.
State media have put the best possible gloss on the in-bound tide of migrants under way: they are simply returning home early, one month ahead of the Year of the Ox which begins on January 26.
But China is heading into uncharted territory and the picture could deteriorate quickly. Many economists forecast growth next year of less than 7.5 percent, the country's lowest since 1990 and a level that would swell the ranks of the jobless.
"The redistribution of wealth through theft and robbery(fascinating way of putting it, similar to Robin Hood) could dramatically increase and menaces to social stability will grow," Zhou Tianyong, a leading Communist Party scholar, wrote this month in a newspaper issued by a state think-tank.
Workers and officials alike hope the migration reversal is only temporary, but the numbers are too vast to ignore. The social security ministry says 10 percent of all migrants have already gone back to the countryside.
NEW ECONOMY?
China, in the short term at least, is pinning its hopes on a smooth absorption of the returnees.
"We expect that there will be a big change early next year, probably in March or April," said Wang Min, a director at the Yuhui Labor Market in Chengdu. "A lot of people will stay here in Sichuan to look for work and not go to other provinces."
If so, they could be redrawing China's economic map.
Coastal provinces have long been the wealthiest in China and the main destination for migrants. But they have borne the brunt of falling exports, while the country's poorer hinterland is more closely tied to domestic fortunes that could rise on the back of a hefty government stimulus spending.
"We are seeing quite a few good, talented people come our way from Guangdong, people with business experience and skills," said Wei Chengyi, manager at Chengdu Doulton Trading Co., which sells ceramic filters. "It's a big help for us."
Unveiling its rural policy priorities for next year, the government said on Sunday that it will encourage unemployed people who return home to start their own businesses. Officials in Chongqing and Henan, two big sources of migrants, have already pledged to lend seed money.
Reconstruction after the devastating earthquake centered on Sichuan this year has also created a huge need for labor that will sop up some of the floating population.
"I'm not worried. There are still places you can find a job. And when you've got a lot of friends, it's quite easy," said Long Zhaojun, who had spent nearly four years in coastal factories.
Just off the train in Chengdu, Long said he would stay in the bustling city of 10 million for a while to hunt for jobs and have some fun. He was in no rush to return to his farming village.

Scenic Pakistani valley falls to Taliban militants

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Taliban militants are beheading and burning their way through Pakistan's picturesque Swat Valley, and residents say the insurgents now control most of the mountainous region far from the lawless tribal areas where jihadists thrive. The deteriorating situation in the former tourist haven comes despite an army offensive that began in 2007 and an attempted peace deal. It is especially worrisome to Pakistani officials because the valley lies outside the areas where al-Qaida and Taliban militants have traditionally operated and where the military is staging a separate offensive. "You can't imagine how bad it is," said Muzaffar ul-Mulk, a federal lawmaker whose home in Swat was attacked by bomb-toting assailants in mid-December, weeks after he left. "It's worse day by day." The Taliban activity in northwest Pakistan also comes as the country shifts forces east to the Indian border because of tensions over last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, potentially giving insurgents more space to maneuver along the Afghan frontier. Militants began preying on Swat's lush mountain ranges about two years ago, and it is now too dangerous for foreign and Pakistani journalists to visit. Interviews with residents, lawmakers and officials who have fled the region paint a dire picture. A suicide blast killed 40 people Sunday at a polling station in Buner, an area bordering Swat that had been relatively peaceful. The attack underscored fears that even so-called "settled" regions presumptively under government control are increasingly unsafe. The 3,500-square-mile Swat Valley lies less than 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad. A senior government official said he feared there could be a spillover effect if the government lost control of Swat and allowed the insurgency to infect other areas. Like nearly everyone interviewed, the official requested anonymity for fear of reprisal by militants. Officials estimate that up to a third of Swat's 1.5 million people have left the area. Salah-ud-Din, who oversees relief efforts in Swat for the International Committee of the Red Cross, estimated that 80 percent of the valley is now under Taliban control. Swat's militants are led by Maulana Fazlullah, a cleric who rose to prominence through radio broadcasts demanding the imposition of a harsh brand of Islamic law. His appeal tapped into widespread frustration with the area's inefficient judicial system.(most people know what's right, religions worldwide codify such and can be self-policing -unlike too secular, selfish, feminist governments like those in the West...) Most of the insurgents are easy to spot with long hair, beards, rifles, camouflage vests and running shoes. They number at most 2,000, according to people who were interviewed. In some places, just a handful of insurgents can control a village. They rule by fear: beheading government sympathizers, blowing up bridges and demanding women wear all-encompassing burqa (women are sacrosanct..., in truth controlling everything although, being cyclical and naturally confused and confusing, they are unable to do anything with it, except to make matters overly shallow, inefficient...- as in the West). They have also set up a parallel administration with courts, taxes, patrols and checkpoints, according to lawmakers and officials. And they are suspected of burning scores of girls' schools. In mid-December, Taliban fighters killed a young member of a Sufi-influenced Muslim group who had tried to raise a militia against them. The militants later dug up Pir Samiullah's corpse and hung it for two days in a village square — partly to prove to his followers that he was not a superhuman saint, a security official said on condition of anonymity. A lawmaker and the senior Swat government official said business and landowners had been told to give two-thirds of their income to the militants. Some local media reported last week that the militants have pronounced a ban on female education effective in mid-January. Several people interviewed said the regional government made a mistake in May when it struck a peace deal with the militants. The agreement fell apart within two months but let the insurgents regroup. The Swat insurgency also includes Afghan and other fighters from outside the valley, security officials said. Any movement of Pakistani troops from the Swat Valley and tribal areas to the Indian border will concern the United States and other Western countries, which want Pakistan to focus on the al-Qaida threat near Afghanistan. On Friday, Pakistani intelligence officials said thousands of troops were being shifted toward the border with India, which blames Pakistani militants for terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month that killed 164 people. But there has been no sign yet of a major buildup near India. "The terrorists' aim in Mumbai was precisely this — to get the Pakistani army to withdraw from the western border and mount operations on the east," said Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and author who has written extensively about militancy in the region. "The terrorists are not going to be sitting still. They are not going to be adhering to any sort of cease-fire while the army takes on the Indian threat. They are going to occupy the vacuum the army will create." Residents and officials from the Swat Valley were critical of the army offensive there, saying troops appeared to be confined to their posts and often killed civilians when firing artillery at suspected militant targets. The military has deployed some 100,000 troops through the northwest. A government official familiar with security issues estimated that some 10,000 paramilitary and army troops had killed 300 to 400 militants in Swat since 2007, while about 130 troops were killed. Authorities have not released details of civilian casualties, and it was unclear if they were even being tallied. The official, who insisted on anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, disputed assertions that militants had overrun the valley, but said a spotty supply line was hampering operations. He said the army had to man some Swat police stations because the police force there had been decimated by desertions(!!!) and(as a result of) militant killings. A Swat militant boasted that "we are doing our activities wherever we want, and the army is confined to their living places." "They cannot move independently like us," said the man, who was reached over the phone and gave his name as Muzaffarul Haq. He claimed the Swat militants had no al-Qaida or foreign connections, but that they supported all groups that shared the goal of imposing(?!?) Islamic law (which is what -and is it working / will it work to accomplish what the militants really want ?). "With the grace of Allah, there is no dearth of funds, weapons or rations," he said. "Our women are providing cooked food for those who are struggling in Allah's path (which is what ?). Our children are getting prepared for jihad (what kind of "jihad"...and for what Allah-approved purpose)."


Pakistan urges "de-escalation" with India

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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan and India should reduce tension inflamed by last month's militant attacks in Mumbai and resume a peace dialogue, Pakistani military chiefs told a visiting Chinese official on Monday. India has blamed Pakistan-based militants for the assault on Mumbai in which 179 people were killed, reviving old hostilities between the nuclear-armed rivals and raising fears of conflict. Indian and Pakistani military officials held an unscheduled hotline call on the weekend as China's Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei arrived in Pakistan to ease tension between the neighbors. The Chinese minister met military chiefs and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Monday. The chairman of Pakistan's joint chiefs of staff committee, General Tariq Majid, reiterated Pakistan's commitment to regional peace and cooperation, the military said. "(He) emphasized the need for avoidance of provocative belligerent posturing, initiation of reciprocal measures for immediate de-escalation and earliest resumption of the peace dialogue," the military quoted Majid as telling He. India has put a "pause" on a five-year peace process. Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani "highlighted the need to de-escalate and avoid conflict in the interest of peace and security," it said. The South Asian neighbors both tested nuclear weapons in 1998. They have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 and came to the brink of a fourth after gunmen attacked the Indian parliament in December 2001. Although most analysts say war is very unlikely, international unease is growing and the United States has urged both sides not to further raise tension. Senior military officials from India and Pakistan held an unscheduled conversation on a hotline at the weekend, said a Pakistani security officer, who declined to be identified. The two countries' directors general of military operations talk every Tuesday, but spoke at the weekend because of "the current situation," said the officer. He did not give details. Pakistan has condemned the Mumbai attacks and has denied any state role, blaming "non-state actors." India, the United States and Britain have blamed the attacks on Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), set up by Pakistani security agencies in the late 1980s to fight Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region. The group was banned in Pakistan in 2002. "ABSOLUTE RUBBISH" Since the attacks, Pakistan has detained scores of militants, including several top leaders, and shut offices and frozen the assets of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity group, which the United Nations says is a front for the LeT. India is demanding Pakistan dismantle what it calls the infrastructure of terrorism. The Chinese minister expressed concern over the escalation of tension and emphasized the need for resolving issues through dialogue and cooperation, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said. "Mr. He Yafei said that conflict was not the solution of the problem as it will only strengthen the hands of terrorists and extremists," it said. He was due to travel to India later on Monday, a government official said. As tension has increased, Pakistan has canceled army leave and shifted some troops from its western border with Afghanistan. Pakistani military spokesmen have denied any build-up of troops on the eastern border with India, but a security official said some troops had been moved to that border. Pakistani military officials have declined to say how many troops had been moved off the Afghan border, where 100,000 soldiers had been fighting al Qaeda and Taliban militants, saying only "limited numbers" were involved. One military official, who declined to be identified, described as "absolute rubbish" a report that 20,000 soldiers had been withdrawn from the western border and moved east. The movement of Pakistani troops off the Afghan border is likely to cause alarm in the United States, which does not want to see Pakistan distracted from the battle against militants.


India vs. Pakistan -and Iran, as edited

ISLAMABAD (DAWN) -- Iran has joined diplomatic efforts to defuse tension between India and Pakistan.
Tehran believes that the two countries needed to take steps for restoring each other’s confidence for resolving the standoff.
“Our diplomacy has become very active to defuse the tension. Iranian authorities will not desist from going to any length to help normalize India-Pakistan relations,” Iranian Ambassador Mashallah Shakeri told Dawn on Saturday.
He said Iran could not remain indifferent to the situation in its periphery.
The tense situation between the two countries, he noted, was a result of years of mistrust (and deeds).
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi while he was on vacation in Multan.
Shakeri also met Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and the two had a telephonic discussion on the issue.
Iran, however, has decided to remain neutral in the situation and is said to have indicated to Pakistan that it would remain engaged with both India and Pakistan.
Ambassador Shakeri said Iran would have to take into account India’s concerns, see Pakistan’s point of view and try to bridge the gulf between them. “Taking sides wouldn’t help (sooo true : "truth" is a narrative and facts are infinitely elastic).”
Speaking on Energy Minister Parviz Fattah’s two-day visit to Pakistan starting on Monday, the ambassador said he would be emphasizing on his Pakistani interlocutors that Iran was ready to supply electricity as soon as Pakistan signed the power purchase agreement and made available the required transmission infrastructure (and paid its bills ; but wars are bad for business).
Pakistan had last year signed an MoU for importing 1,100MW of electricity from Iran.
Both the countries are undertaking feasibility studies and experts believe that the signing of agreement between the two would be possible in six months.
The Iranian energy minister will also be reiterating Tehran’s interest in investing in Pakistan’s energy sector, particularly in hydel and thermal power generation.
An Iranian firm is already working on two power projects in Pakistan having a generation capacity of 130 MW.
Shakeri said Iran produced 50,000 MW of electricity, which it would like to share with Pakistan.

jewsyonkersislam # 659 stories/fairy tales & / vs reality

jewsyonkersislam # 659 stories/fairy tales & / vs reality

Words for the wise :

In a fantasy / fairy tale world, all can be "good", just the way we EACH like it. As children, we are each closer to the 'eternal' present from which we came and to which we shall return on our deaths. And that is why children -and women- so love fairy tales, for the 'eternal' present / the world of 'happy' endings and 'happily ever after', is individually good for EACH of us -and actualized in fairy tales.
But, in our world today -as always, we do not live in the 'eternal' present, but in a world with a past, a future and a particular 'temporal' present where we have to work to survive, so ALL of us can survive. And we must survive before we can engage in the business of becoming contented, before we can dream of fairy tale worlds. But today's world is suffused with an excess of feminist nonsense that is leading the human race to extinction -in the very near future.
So we have to become more focused on survival and totally destroy ALL feminist nonsense. Below are some stories that illustrate such.

Developing to sustain(edited by me)


'Realist' "fantasy" in world affairs (presuming that you know what other people want/will settle for)

The pursuit of happy endings (We need such tales, but as we grow up, we must realize that we cant really pursue "happiness" -because happiness is about the past and the future and we want to be happy now, in the present. No, we must learn that the only thing we can "pursue" is contentment -and out of that, happiness can come.)
__________________


Dec 25, 2008
Developing to sustain(edited by me)
By EHUD ZION WALDOKS
...







" Duke University professor James Reynolds presented as a hypothetical to explain land degradation leading to desertification in a specific area.
Reynolds spoke to The Jerusalem Post last week at the second desertification conference held at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research on the Sde Boker campus, where he was the keynote speaker.
"They say they can diagnose desertification from satellite images, but you can never talk about the subject without talking about the people(!!!)," he insisted.
Reynolds was among a group of scientists who recently created a new paradigm(!!!) for categorizing and understanding desertification. It is a cross between sociology and hard science - where people's choices and conditions are as important as the changes taking place in the land they farm.
Desertification is one of the environmental problems which affects the most people - roughly two billion of the earth's population live in dryland areas, most of them poor. It is a global phenomenon which the UN says has affected 10 percent to 20% of all drylands and is increasing. Desertification has been defined by the UN as "land degradation in arid, semiarid and dry subhumid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities." Land degradation has been defined as "as the reduction or loss of the biological or economic productivity of drylands." Both definitions are open to interpretation and strict classification standards do not yet exist.
The most heavily hit areas are sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, but the phenomenon exists on all continents except Antarctica. Conflicting opinions as to the effect of desertification on climate change and vice versa abound. On the one hand, trees, grass and other plant life represent some of the biggest carbon storage systems on the planet, according to the UN's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report (MA). One-quarter of all organic carbon and all inorganic carbon is stored in plants. The more plant life that disappears, the more carbon is released into the atmosphere, thus greatly contributing to global warming. According to the MA, an estimated 300 million tons of carbon is released into the atmosphere each year as a result of desertification (about 4% of the total carbon released into the atmosphere). It is as still unclear, however, what role climate change plays in desertification. While climate change has reduced rainfall in many places - like Israel - some plants might respond better to all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They might actually become more water efficient, the MA postulated, and flourish even with less water.
Amid this massive global blight, Israel has a rather special role. While "making the desert bloom" has been a Zionist clarion call since David Ben-Gurion, it also represents a singular environmental success. Blooming, in this case, means turning land plagued by soil erosion and scarce water resources into vast tracts of arable land. Water and ecological management, as well as learning from one's mistakes, turned large parts of the Negev into farmland. It is one of the few success stories worldwide, according to conference organizer and BGU professor Alon Tal, who represents Israel at the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
While Tal has bemoaned the lack of monetary support and technology transfer to help Africans(!!!) fight desertification, he noted in a recent article that Israeli side events at the UNCCD gatherings were always heavily attended and the promotional material eagerly snatched up.
FROM DECEMBER 14 to 17, BGU hosted the largest ever academic conference on desertification, a follow-up to its first conference two years ago. This time more than 350 people from 55 countries attended in the heart of the Israeli desert. The purpose of the conference was to present the latest research on the subject, share ideas and arrange for technology transfer. There were more than 100 representatives of African nations; panels and sessions featured speakers from around the world as well as Israeli experts like Hebrew University professor Uriel Safriel, who was integral in compiling the UN's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report "Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Desertification Synthesis" in 2005. It remains the definitive scientific description of the situation.
Conferences such as this one are crucial for enabling the spread of knowledge to tackle the problem. For desertification has another property somewhat uncommon in large-scale environmental predicaments - it can be prevented and even solved (short-term only). With the right resources and planning, at the first signs of a problem, the effect on the land can be mitigated and ameliorated. Even with moderate damage, the degradation process can often be reversed.
"You have to see whether they've crossed a threshold," Reynolds told the Post. "Depending upon how bad it's gotten will determine whether the problem can be dealt with on a local, national or international level."
Reynolds said his model, the Dahlem Desertification Paradigm, did not represent new ideas, but rather the combination of old ideas in a new light had yielded important new insights.
"When talking about desertification, you can't just talk about land degradation. Those are all things that don't affect humans if no one happens to be living there. You have to include the people. Historically, the two were very distinct fields of research. You have to try to understand the people and the land," he said.
When diagnosing the problem, there are slow variables and fast variables, he explained. Slow variables are things like soil fertility and cultural ties (and water is a key point -its running out). Fast variables include how much corn there was this harvest, how much rain they got. The fast variables do not have anything to do with land degradation, he said.
It's not just about how many new fissures there are in the gully, it's about people's decisions; it's not about poverty, it's about economic choices, he insisted.
"For example, more and more young men are moving(!!!) from Latin America(!!!) to the United States(!!!). They're very conscientious and send money back to their families," Reynolds said, but there is no one farming the land. There is no younger generation to replace the older one. Without a younger generation, the local environmental knowledge from the old people is not passed down either.
In Africa(!!!), forced(!!!) migrations are also causing the loss of local knowledge, he said. So it's not necessarily mismanagement, but people's economic choices which are leading to desertification.
There hasn't been any institutional knowledge creation among those who study the phenomenon either, Reynolds said. "In the past, every case of land degradation or desertification was the 'first' time. We're trying to keep memory in the system."
WHILE THERE is some sense that in the First World being environmentally friendly is a "nice" thing, the overwhelming impression when talking to experts from the Third World is that it is essential. The profligate lifestyles in the Western world just aren't a possibility in the Third World( that's why we have very little time left to find new Earths).
"In India, it's not possible for everyone to have a house with air-conditioning and a car," Suhasini Ayer-Guigan, an architect who was invited and sponsored to attend the conference and give a lecture on green architecture noted. She(!!!) lectured on solar passive architecture which utilizes natural light but reduces heat and glare - a distinct problem in hot India(!!!). "There are 1.1 billion people in an area one-sixth the size of the US. That's 24 times the density. We don't have wate(!!!), energy(!!!) or money(!!!). A very small percentage are actually getting rich in India. Seventy-seven percent of the people are involved in agriculture. Most are not educated. While there is free education, there isn't enough to meet demand," she said. "How do you make sure people have a future(!!!)? How do you make people think differently about sewage and how it is produced?"(We need several new planet Earths NOW !!!) Phelire Nkhoma is an agricultural coordinator for the Millennium Villages Project in Malawi. She and 27 others in the program came to Israel for a month of training. She and two of her colleagues, a water coordinator and a community facilitator, were very excited about coming to the conference.
"The expectation is so big. We have come to learn. Water management is very crucial when it comes to food production. In normal cases, small farmers produce most of the food for the country. We are trying to make these farms food secure and sustain production," she said.
There were numerous difficulties for the small farmer, she said. High prices of imports, droughts and pest outbreaks were some of them.
"Technology poses a big challenge for us," she added.
There is still much work to be done to try and understand and thereby prevent and rehabilitate degraded land. Codified measuring systems are needed. However, conferences such as BGU's provide a serious forum for potential answers - and conceivably offer a ray of sunshine through the dust.








CAROLINE GLICK
Dec 25, 2008
Column One: The 'realist' fantasy
(heavily edited by me)

By CAROLINE GLICK








Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seems to have noticed.
On Tuesday, Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Shari'a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, it legalizes crucifixion.
Hamas's endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time it renewed its jihad. Here, too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn't feel neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday, Hamas lobbed a mortar shell at the Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas.
While Hamas joyously renewed its jihad against Jews and Christians, its overlords in Iran also basked in jihadist triumphalism. The source of Teheran's sense of ascendancy this week was Britain's Channel 4 network's decision to request that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give a special Christmas Day address to the British people. Ahmadinejad's speech was supposed to be a response to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional Christmas Day address to her subjects. That is, Channel 4 presented his message as a reasonable counterpoint to the Christmas greetings of the head of the Church of England.
Channel 4 (feminist, gay, lesbian, transgender...nonsense) justified its move by proclaiming that it was providing a public service. As a spokesman told The Jerusalem Post, "We're offering [Ahmadinejad] the chance to speak for himself, which people in the West don't often get the chance to see."
While that sounds reasonable, the fact is that Westerners see Ahmadinejad speaking for himself all the time. They saw him at the UN two years in a row as he called for the countries of the world to submit to Islam; claimed that Iran's nuclear weapons program is divinely inspired; and castigated Jews as subhuman menaces to humanity. They saw him gather leading anti-Semites from all over the world at his Holocaust denial conference. They heard him speak in his own words when he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
And of course, over the years Ahmadinejad has often communicated directly to the British people. For instance, in 2007 he received unlimited airtime on UK television as he paraded kidnapped British sailors and marines in front of television cameras; forced them to make videotaped "confessions" of their "crime" of entering Iranian territorial waters; and compelled them to grovel at his knee and thank him for "forgiving" them (pride, honor...there can be problems if they are wrongly manipulated -especially with the feminists, gays, lesbians, transgenders....in the ascendency in the West)
The British people listened to Ahmadinejad as he condemned Britain as a warmongering nation after its leaders had surrendered Basra to Iranian proxies. They heard him - speaking in his own voice - when he announced that in a gesture of Islamic mercy, he was freeing their humiliated sailors and marines in honor of Muhammad's birthday and Easter, and then called on all Britons to convert to Islam.
Yet as far as Channel 4 is concerned, Ahmadinejad is still an unknown quantity for most Britons. So they asked him to address the nation on Christmas. And not surprisingly, in his address, he attacked their way of life and co-opted (so we in the West must co-opt him -and Islam) their Jewish savior, Jesus, saying, "If Christ was on earth today, undoubtedly he would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers (and Iran isn't trying to be so as well ?)."
He then reiterated his call for non-Muslims to convert to Islam saying, "The solution to today's problems can be found in a return to the call of the divine prophets."
THE FACT of the matter is that Channel 4 is right. There is a great deal of ignorance in the West about what the likes of Ahmadinejad and his colleagues in Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas stand for. But this isn't their fault. They tell us every day that they seek the destruction of the Jews and the domination of the West in the name of Islam. And every day they take actions that they believe advance their goals.
The reason that the West remains ignorant of the views and goals of the likes of Hamas and Iran is not that the latter have hidden their views and goals. It is because the leading political leaders and foreign policy practitioners in the West refuse to listen to them and deny the significance of their actions.
As far as the West's leaders are concerned, Iran and its allies are unimportant. They are not actors, but objects. As far as the West's leading foreign policy "experts" and decision-makers are concerned, the only true actors on the global stage are Western powers. They alone have the power to shape reality and the world. Oddly enough, this dominant political philosophy, which is based on denying the existence of non-Western actors on the world stage, is referred to as political "realism."
The "realist" view was given clear expression this week by one of the "realist" clique's most prominent members. In an op-ed published Tuesday in Canada's Globe and Mail titled, "We must talk Iran out of the bomb," Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, argued that given the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran and the dangers of a US or Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear installations, the incoming Obama administration must hold direct negotiations with the mullahs to convince them to end their nuclear weapons program.
In making this argument, Haass ignores the fact that this has been the Bush administration's policy for the past five years. He also ignores the fact that President George W. Bush adopted this policy at the urging of Haass's "realist" colleagues and at the urging of Haass himself.
Moreover, Haass bizarrely contends that in negotiating with the mullahs, the Obama administration should offer Iran the same package of economic and political payoffs that the Bush administration and the EU have been offering, and Teheran has been rejecting, since 2003.
Even more disturbingly, Haass ignores the fact that Teheran made its greatest leaps forward in its uranium enrichment capabilities while it was engaged in these talks with the West.
So in making his recommendation to the Obama administration - which has already announced its intention to negotiate with the mullahs - Haass has chosen to ignore Iran's statements, its actions, and known facts about the West's inability to steer it from its course of war by showering it with pay-offs.
Haass and his colleagues in the US, Europe and on the Israeli Left are similarly unwilling to pay attention to Hamas. In an article in the current edition of Foreign Affairs, Haass and his colleague Martin Indyk from the Brookings Institute call on the Obama administration to either ignore Hamas, or, if it abides by a cease-fire with Israel, they suggest that the Obama administration should support a joint Hamas-Fatah government and "authorize low-level contact between US officials and Hamas." The fact that Hamas itself is wholly dedicated to Israel's destruction and Islamic global domination is irrelevant.
Similarly, Haass and Indyk assume that Damascus can be appeased into abandoning its support for Hizbullah and Hamas, and its strategic alliance with Iran. Syrian President Bashar Assad's views of how his interests are best served are unimportant. Both Assad's statements of eternal friendship with Iran and his active involvement in Iran's war effort against the US and its allies in Israel, Iraq and Lebanon are meaningless. The "realists" know what he really wants.
MUSLIMS AREN'T the only ones whose views and actions are dismissed as irrelevant by these foreign policy wise men. The "realists" ignore just about every non-Western actor. Take Iran's principal Asian ally, North Korea, for example.
This week North Korea's official news agency threatened to destroy South Korea in a "sea of fire," and "reduce everything treacherous and anti-reunification to debris and build an independent, reunified country on it," if any country dares to attack its nuclear installations.
North Korea made its threat two weeks after Kim Jung Il's regime disengaged from its fraudulent disarmament talks with the Bush administration. Those talks - the brainchild of foreign policy "realists" Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill - were based on the "realist" belief that the US can appease North Korea into giving up its nuclear arsenal. (That would be the same nuclear arsenal that the North Koreans built while engaged in fraudulent disarmament talks with the Clinton administration.) After Pyongyang agreed in February 2007 to eventually come clean on its plutonium installations (but not its uranium enrichment programs), and to account for its nuclear arsenal (but not for its proliferation activities), Rice convinced President Bush to remove North Korea from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terror and to end its subjection to the US's Trading with the Enemy Act this past October. And then, after securing those massive US concessions, on December 11 Pyongyang renounced its commitments, walked away from the table and now threatens to destroy South Korea if anyone takes any action against it. North Korea's behavior is of no interest to the "realists," however. As far as they are concerned, the US has no option other than to continue the failed appeasement policy that has enabled North Korea to develop and proliferate nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. As the Council on Foreign Relations' Gary Samore said, "I think we're sort of condemned to that process, because we don't really have any alternative."
Samore and his colleagues believe there are no other options because all other options involve placing responsibility for contending with North Korea on non-Western powers like China, South Korea and Japan. More radically, they involve holding North Korea accountable for its actions and making it pay a price for its poor behavior.
As the "realists" claim that the US has no option other than their failed appeasement policies, back in the real world, this week military officials from the US's Pacific Command warned that North Korea may supply Iran with intercontinental ballistic missiles. These warnings are credible given that North Korea has been the primary supplier of ballistic missiles and missile technology to Iran and Syria and has played a major role in both countries' nuclear weapons programs.
Defending Channel 4's invitation to Ahmadinejad, Dorothy Byrne, the network's head of news and current affairs, said, "As the leader of one of the most powerful states in the Middle East, President Ahmadinejad's views are enormously influential. As we approach a critical time in international relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative world view."
When you think about it, broadcasting Ahmadinejad really would have been a public service if Byrne or any of the delusional "realists" calling the shots were remotely interested in listening to what he has to say. But they aren't. So far from a public service for Britain, it was a service for those who, unbeknownst to most Britons, are dedicated to destroying their country


Dec 25, 2008
The pursuit of happy endings
(We need such tales, but as we grow up, we must realize that we cant really pursue "happiness" -because happiness is about the past and the future and we want to be happy now, in the present. No, we must learn that the only thing we can "pursue" is contentment -and out of that, happiness can come.)

By ABIGAIL KLEIN




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Leaves from the Garden of Eden
By Howard Schwartz
Oxford University Press
525 pages;
$34.95

In the title story of this compendium, an orphaned stable boy named Hayim dies and later appears to his former employer, Shepsel, in a dream. Hayim promises to bring leaves from Eden that can cure any illness. Shepsel awakens to find the fragrant leaves scattered on his bed. He boils them with water and takes the tea to his ailing daughter, who is miraculously healed. Soon she marries and bears a son she names Hayim.
Like the other folktales gathered here by Howard Schwartz, Leaves has universal Cinderella elements of magical miracles that confer happily-ever-after status on those who deserve it and despair of it. "Most Jewish folktales follow the recognizable models of world folklore," Schwartz writes.
A National Jewish Book Award winner and editor of four previous collections of Jewish lore, Schwartz divides this volume into fairy tales, folktales, supernatural tales and mystical tales. He assigns deep cultural significance to these often formulaic(!!!) yarns about princesses, kabbalists, dybbuks and wise peasants.
"The stories people tell not only serve as bearers of their tradition but also reveal a great deal about them, especially their fantasies and fears," he writes.
What sets them apart from the Brothers Grimm(!!!) and makes them "Jewish" are their setting(culturally specific) in time and place (Shabbat or Pessah, for example, in a synagogue or the mystical city of Safed), characters (patriarch, prophet, Israelite king, noted rabbi or simple Jew) or instructional message in keeping with Jewish teachings. Some of the fairy-tale story lines are versions of popular legends, Judaicized through the use of Jewish characters and infused with Jewish ( Different from traditional Western values ?) family values. These stories often conclude not with the wedding of the prince and princess but with the birth of their first child (that is the key...but not in America, the West). The rabbi's daughter Kohava, who falls into a coma when a jealous queen steals her magic necklace and is saved by the handsome prince? Sleeping Beauty. The long-haired daughter of King Solomon sent to live in a tower to prove that nothing can thwart God's matchmaking efforts? Rapunzel, of course. The Turkish tale of a tiny girl sent by the prophet Elijah to brighten the life of a poor widow? Thumbelina, no doubt. And the mountain full of gold treasure, accessible only to a penniless yingele with a magic oud? Clearly Aladdin (formulaic with commmon themes -worldwide).
Yet many others are uniquely Jewish. "The Enchanted Journey" stars Rabbi Adam, who causes a gentile king to have a vision that transforms him into a great protector of his Jewish subjects. "The Sabbath Lion" is a version of the well-known "Yosef Mokir Shabbat" about a pious youngster whose refusal to desecrate Shabbat is rewarded with the companionship of a kindly lion during an arduous journey. Supernatural tales featuring the demon Lilith and mystical tales about Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai draw on Talmudic sources (Golem ?).
Some of the stories reveal subtleties of the eras(!!!) in which they arose. "The Homunculus of Maimonides," for example, casts the staunch rationalist in an unlikely role reminiscent of the Maharal of Prague or Dr. Frankenstein. Schwartz notes that although folktales "are not the usual mode of expression for... religious conflict," this one "must be considered to be a folk expression of the controversy that raged at several periods... over the writings and teachings of Maimonides."
Beyond the obvious and hidden worth of each individual(!!!) story, there is much to be said for Schwartz's preservation and presentation of the corpus.
For one thing, the stories reflect the great breadth of the exilic experience. They have origins as old as fifth-century Babylon and hail from 22 lands, although the majority can be traced to 19th-century Eastern Europe. Poignantly, too, they illustrate how a persecuted people maintained hope for happy endings through millennia of darkness.
Jewish folklore was transmitted mainly orally until the last century, when Jewish ethnologists such as S. Ansky and Dov Noy, head of the Israel Folktale Archives, began methodically cataloguing the stories. Schwartz has built admirably upon their efforts.
Regrettably, the work is marred by a number of typos and errors that should have been caught in production. For instance, in "A Palace of Bird Beaks," "hoopoe" is misspelled three times as "hoopee." And although not technically a mistake, the use of the term "Palestine" as a source for several early legends carries a faintly political connotation and results in the absence of "Israel" - even "ancient Israel" - as a category in the countries-of-origin appendix.
The book's greatest assets are its "Sources and Commentaries" section and its appendices. The stories are explained and categorized by source (for example, the midrash), by "cycle" (for instance, stories about Abraham or the Kotzker Rebbe), by country of origin and by specialized tale types (ghost stories, journey sagas). Looking for tales about demon marriages or angel encounters, magic spells or epic quests? They're all right here, and then some.