Cats and Dogs
Labels: Saudi Arabia
Commentary on the Politics, History and Culture of the Middle East and Central Asia, by Brian Ulrich
Labels: Saudi Arabia
"The Kuwait government has acknowledged that abuses by some employers were responsible for a strike by Asian workers and vowed to stamp out such violations, the official news agency Kuna reported on Thursday.
"'The most notable violations were delayed payments to workers, lack of suitable housing and pay deductions,' Kuna quoted Justice Minister Hussain Al Huraiti as saying...
"The government reached an agreement with the workers on Monday to end a three-day strike which turned violent when some workers overturned cars and ransacked offices before being dispersed by police.
"The strike in the country came against a backdrop of soaring inflation, which exceeded 11 per cent in April and May...
"Labour Minister Bader Al Duwaila said on Wednesday his ministry would recommend raising minimum monthly wages after the strikes to 40 dinars (about Dh555) from the current level which a business executive said was 30 dinars (about Dh416)."
Labels: Kuwait
Labels: Turkey
"Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday that he has decided not to contend in the Kadima primary election and would resign as soon as the new party leader was chosen, due to the criminal investigations that have embroiled him in recent months.
"'I have decided I won't run in the Kadima movement primaries, nor do I intend to intervene in the elections,' Olmert said in an official statement to the public from his official residence in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening.
"'When a new [Kadima party] chairman is chosen, I will resign as prime minister to permit them to put together a new government swiftly and effectively,' he added. The prime minister has been under official investigation in recent months over allegations of corruption in his former capacities as Jerusalem mayor and trade minister."
Labels: Israel
"Saif al-Islam Qadhafi, the son of Libyan ruler Muammar Qadhafi, has promised those responsible for the 1996 massacre of as many as 1,200 Islamist prisoners will be brought to trial (Reuters, July 24; Libyan Jamahiriya Broadcasting Corporation, July 26). Apparently part of ongoing reform efforts in Libya, the announcement still came as a surprise, with few believing the taboo subject would ever be reopened so long as the Qadhafi regime was in power. The Libyan president acknowledged in 2004 that some killings had taken place in the notorious prison but his son now says that “genuine” preliminary investigations have been completed and the case will now proceed to the state prosecutor’s office before going to trial. According to Saif al-Islam: 'Disproportionate force was used in the case of Abu Salim. Mistakes have been made in handling the case… The trial will follow a fair process and those found guilty will be punished. The trial will be open to the public.'
"The announcement, which was broadcast live on state television, came before an assembly of prosecutors, government officials and leading members of Libya’s internal and external security agencies."
Labels: Libya
"As part of its commitment to provide public access to information, the Manlius Library offers access to the Internet. While the Internet can be a valuable source of local, national and international information which expands the scope of resources available to our users, it is an unregulated medium that changes constantly and unpredictably. Information found on the Internet may be inaccurate, incomplete, outdated or offensive to some individuals.
"The Manlius Library does not monitor and has no control over the information accessed through the Internet and assumes responsibility only for the information provided on its home pages. Library patrons use Internet resources at their own risk and discretion."
Labels: Miscellaneous
Labels: United Arab Emirates
Labels: Iran
"Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, the representative Hazara (Shia Muslim) in the parliament has been on a hunger strikes almost a week in order to get attention of the government and stop killing his innocent people.
"Kabul government sent police forces to stop the Kuchis but in this video you can see the kuchi-armed groups dressed in Taliban style are walking in front of National Police. Why the police forces cannot take their weapons? What is so special for the kuchies to be armed while the rest of the ethnicities are disarmed?
"The Kuchis have been busy killing animals, student boys with their school backpacks, older men and women, raping girls of Hazara people in Behsood villages.
"The Afghan National TV has been censoring the condition as well as not broadcasting single news, because the Minster of Cultur & Information is a nationalist Pashtun who wants to protect his Kochi brothers. .
"Karzai himself who is also related to Kochi tribes keeps client and allows them to do whatever they want in Hazara Land instead of solving the problems as a President of the country. President Karzai who is thinking of to win next Presidential Election, uses the power of Western countries and NATO forces supporting his Pashtun Nationalistic ideologies and terrorizing the non-Pashtun ethnicities.
"A month before President Karzai warned Pakistani government to stop Al Qaeda entering the borders and he added that it’s my responsibility to take care of Pashtuns people, no matter what country they lives. Karzai as a President of a multiethnic country, is allowed to talk in such a manner? America wants to stop the terrorists by going to Pakistani borders but Karzai wants to take advantage of this circumstance establish a greater Pashtunistan in two sides of the borders."
Labels: Afghanistan, Taliban
Labels: Miscellaneous
"But several protests have been held recently in the capital, Dushanbe, as well as in cities like Kulob, Panjakent, and Khorog. In one case, the appointment of a local official prompted a rally.
"'People are not afraid of the government's retaliation anymore,' says 22-year-old Safar, from the eastern Badakhshan region. 'What else can happen to us? With a university diploma in my pocket, I have to work like a slave in Russia, because I don't have any -- literally any -- job opportunities in Tajikistan. The situation can't possibly get any worse than this.'
"The attitudes of many Tajiks appear to have shifted recently, with skyrocketing food prices and energy shortages that left people freezing to death in their homes during the coldest winter in living memory."
Labels: Tajikistan
"A Palestinian bulldozer driver went on a rampage in downtown Jerusalem on Tuesday, wounding at least 16 people, just weeks after a similar attack in the capital left three dead.
"The driver was identified as a 22-year-old resident of East Jerusalem who held an Israeli ID card. Police sealed off possible escape routes into the predominantly Arab area of Jerusalem and were searching for two suspects who fled the scene, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said...
"The copycat attack occurred on the corner of Keren Hayesdod and King David streets in downtown Jerusalem, down the road from the hotel where U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama was to be staying later in the day."
Labels: Israel
"Consider McCain's strategy, which is all bound up with Iraq.
"All understand it is a given that the war is unpopular and that the vast majority of Americans want out as soon as possible. The big of wiggle room is just what's 'possible.' McCain has invested his entire campaign in support for the purportedly nascent Iraqi democracy al Maliki represents and the claim that Obama's support for a timetable for withdrawal irresponsibly risks losing the gains we've achieved and giving Iraq back to al Qaeda.
"Here, with a brush of the hand and in so many words, al Maliki says, 'No, we're good.'
Labels: Iraq, U.S. Politics
"Maliki, speaking to the German magazine Der Spiegel, said, 'U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.' In other words, the head of the Iraqi government endorsed the Obama plan -- both its timetable and its timing -- by name. That's huge. And it's the culmination of a weeks-long effort by the Maliki government to drive their desire for a timetable for withdrawal into the American political conversation. But though they've repeatedly expressed their preference for a timetable for withdrawal, this is the first time they've explicitly supported the plan of one candidate or another.
"Fundamentally, Maliki's comment is evidence of what the Iraqi government sees as the primary impediment to their government attaining real legitimacy: Us. The American occupation is hugely unpopular, and if Iraq is to truly stabilize, its government needs to be seen as independent from the occupiers and opposed to their continued presence. McCain needs to either come out with a new Iraq plan featuring a withdrawal component tomorrow, or explain why he believes America should fight for continued military dominance in Iraq over the objections of the American people, the Iraqi people, and the Iraqi government."
Labels: Iraq, U.S. Politics
"Israeli military officials have identified Hamas's civilian infrastructure in the West Bank as a major source of the Islamic group's popularity, and have begun raiding and shutting down these institutions in cities like Hebron, Nablus and Qalqilyah.
"Last week, troops focused their efforts in Nablus, raiding the city hall and confiscating computers. They also stormed into a shopping mall and posted closure notices on the shop windows. A girls' school and a medical centre were shut down in the city, and a charitable association had its computers impounded and documents seized.
"This policy, officials say, is meant to deny the Islamic group, which is committed to Israel's destruction, the ability to use these institutions as a pipeline by which money is channelled to finance attacks on the Jewish state. But the main goal of this campaign is to stem Hamas's growing popularity in the West Bank, and ensure it does not seize control of the area as it did in Gaza a year ago, when its forces vanquished the more moderate Fatah movement headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas...
"In recent months, the army has also closed down an orphanage, a bakery and other institutions in Hebron, which Israel believes are associated with Hamas. In Gaza, meanwhile, Israel and the Islamic group are observing a truce, but this does not pertain to the West Bank where the Israeli military operates freely."
"On April 22, 1979, Kuntar's terror cell reached the shore of Nahariya in a rubber dinghy; they shot at a police car and killed an Israeli police officer. At midnight they broke into the Haran family home, and abducted the father, Danny, and his four-year-old daughter, Einat. The mother, Smadar, the two-year-old daughter Yael, and a neighbor hid in a bedroom crawlspace.
"The terrorists took the hostages towards the shore and, when they encountered law enforcement officers and IDF soldiers, Samir Kuntar shot Danny Haran at close range and cold-bloodedly slaughtered Einat by bashing her skull against a rock with the butt of his rifle. In the hiding place at the Haran home, baby Yael suffocated to death from her mother’s attempts to keep her quiet so the terrorists would not find them."
"One may argue that his pending release by Israel is something of a political victory for Hezbollah, as Amal Saad-Ghorayeb does, but it is simultaneously a moral defeat for Hezbollah. This man was not a victim, but a bona fide terrorist. He is not like those Lebanese seized, reprehensibly, by Israel in years past to be held for years as bargaining chips, or those Lebanese jailed by Israel for fighting to liberate their country. Whether Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Muslim, there should be not doubt about the distinction being made here. The fact that Hezbollah has made his release a centerpiece of its policy, and that his release was a rationale for the infamous operation of July 12, 2006, undermines whatever moral claim the group might otherwise make."
"The source of the programs is Iran's state-run Sahar TV, whose efforts to broadcast to Azerbaijan in Azerbaijani often overpower domestic signals. They have even been said to reach as far as Baku, about 240 kilometers from the border.
"Much of Sahar's programming deals with religion, leading critics to suggest that the broadcasts are part of a wider effort to export the ideals of the Iranian Revolution. Some of those same detractors accuse Tehran of employing a 'soft power' assault to unduly influence the Azerbaijani public -- or even undermine indigenous culture or tradition.
"The situation has prompted a hostile reaction from Azerbaijan, which last year suspended the licenses of all foreign television broadcasters. Baku claims Iran's broadcasts are illegal and takes issue with the frequent criticism of its government for its political and economic ties to the West."
Labels: Azerbaijan, Iran
Labels: Hizb ut-Tahrir, Palestine
Labels: Miscellaneous
Labels: Miscellaneous