The South African anc-led government continues to show solidarity with Iran even as the West grapples with trying to stop the Islamic Republic from becoming a nuclear threat. In late January, South Africa’s parliament speaker visited Iran, voicing support for its nuclear program and calling for an expansion of relations between Pretoria and Tehran. Iranian officials also expressed a desire to enhance ties in all areas with South Africa, and for South African investors to be more active in Iran’s economic projects.

South Africa’s Speaker of Parliament Max Sisulu met with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Larijani, in Tehran on January 23. According to the Tehran Times, Larijani said “that the South African parliament speaker’s trip to Iran can pave the way for the expansion of relations between the two countries in the political, economic and parliamentary spheres” (January 24).

Iran’s finance and economic affairs minister, Shamseddin Hosseini, said trade between Iran and South Africa, currently at $150 million, must increase. “He said that the two countries will soon hold a joint economic meeting and an Iranian delegation plans to visit South Africa to review financial venues” (ibid., January 26).

In calling for an expansion of ties between the two countries, the South African Parliament speaker said “that Iran’s Islamic Revolution inspired the South African people in their struggle against apartheid. Mr. Sisulu also criticized the U.S. for applying double standards toward Iran’s nuclear energy program while turning a blind eye toward Israel’s nuclear activities, and said South Africa supports Iran’s right to have a peaceful nuclear energy program” (ibid.). Sisulu reportedly referred to America’s policy on Iran’s nuclear program as an “arrogant one.”

Iran’s irib reported that Sisulu “called Iran … a civilized and powerful country with plenty of capacities for growth …. He described Iran [as] a friend of African countries, especially South Africa ….”

South African Member of Parliament Ian Davidson, chief whip of the opposition Democratic Alliance, released a statement yesterday, asking, “Why is South Africa’s Parliament courting Iran?” Davidson confirmed Sisulu’s visit to the Islamic Republic at the invitation of Larijani, pointing out:

The visit coincided almost exactly with Iran’s execution of two opposition activists, convicted of “trying to topple the Islamic establishment” after they were linked to protests that took place last June, following the disputed Iranian presidential election. …

The question is: Why is the speaker of South Africa’s Parliament visiting a country with such an appalling human rights record and, instead of speaking out against the obvious abuses, using it as a platform to attack the West? The answer is: because the anc, from Zimbabwe through to Iran, has always placed a country’s historic ties with its liberation cause above any other consideration; and so principle has been subverted by political solidarity and our international reputation on human rights reduced to nothing more than empty rhetoric and meaningless gestures.

Davidson notes that President Jacob Zuma is continuing the same policies as his predecessor Thabo Mbeki, who “ensured that South Africa’s international reputation as a champion of human rights was fundamentally tarnished by its approach to Zimbabwe and its conduct in the United Nations.”

South Africa has consistently sided with Arab and Muslim entities, and against American and Israeli interests, in the UN.  http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=6949.5466.0.0

        

Two convicted rapists are among 15 sex offenders that have gone missing from Greater Manchester.

Attif Hussain, 35, and Mamod Korbani, 32, vanished after they were released on licence.

Sex offenders are legally required to register their name, address and date of birth with the police. Failure to notify, or false notification, is an offence punishable by up to six months' imprisonment.

There are 1,812 registered sex offenders living in the community in Greater Manchester and 700 in local prisons. Of the 15 missing, ten are believed to be abroad.

All but three are wanted for failing to notify police of a change of address as a condition of signing the Sex Offenders Register. Their offences include sexual assault, indecent exposure, possession of indecent images of children, indecent assault and rape.

One was being sent for deportation when he assaulted a security guard and escaped. Another came from Pakistan as a student but after three days in the UK committed a sexual assault on a woman. He was sentenced to two weeks in prison but released after three days then disappeared.

If offenders inform police they are moving abroad they are allowed to go and intelligence is passed to the authorities in the other country. But the 10 who are believed to be outside the country have not informed the authorities they were leaving.

Police do unannounced checks on registered sex offenders to check they are living where they say they are, with whom they have contact, and if they have access to computers.

One of those missing is rapist Attif Hussain, 35. He was sentenced to 12 years for rape and kidnapping in Oldham in 1996.  He was released in 2003 on licence to a hostel. But his licence was revoked after he was convicted of shoplifting and theft.

In 2004 he was released again on licence. His period of licence ended in November 2008. A month later an allegation of serious sexual assault was made against him but police have so far not been able to trace him. http://www.theasiannews.co.uk/news/s/1191864_hunt_for_sex_beasts_who_have_disappeared_

  

          LAHORE: A female schoolteacher tortured a student of grade 2 to death for not bringing her notebook in a government-run school in the village Jhukkay of Layyah district, a private TV channel reported on Thursday. After receiving an application from Muhammad Arif, the father of the victim Nazia, the local police station registered a case against the Iqbal Ara and arrested her in a murder case, the channel reported. Layyah District Police Officer Muhammad Saleem told the channel that the police shifted the body of the victim to the district hospital for a post-mortem. Stern action would be taken against the teacher if it’s proven that she tortured the student, he added. Having received serious injuries in her head and other parts of the body, the 10-year-old student died after two days of remaining unconscious. daily times monitor    http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\02\05\story_5-2-2010_pg7_10

       

Islamabad (AsiaNews) - Because of the threats posed by the powerful Lahore Bar Association – an umbrella organization of city lawyers - no Christian or Muslim lawyer is ready to take on the defence in the murder of 12 year-old Shazia Bashir, it was reported yesterday by The Pakistani Christian association that deals with legal assistance.  

The girl, of Christian faith, died on Jan. 23 as a result of violence - even sexual – at the hands of her employer, a wealthy and powerful Muslim lawyer in Lahore. The alleged murderess, Chaudhry Mohammad Naeem, is a former president of the Lahore High Court Bar Association. The girl, just 12 years old, had worked as a maid in the home of Naeem in the last six months.

The Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) denounces that access to the courtroom where the court hearings were held against the accused was denied, because a group of Muslim lawyers (pictured) 'prevented' entry. The association is fighting - for free - for the rights of the poorest and marginalized groups has been  threatened by  thousands of lawyers - friends of the murderer - that promise to burn alive anyone who wants to represent the victim in court. "  

M. Joseph Francis, director of Claas, asked members of civil society, political and religious leaders to rise up and take steps to "condemn this new form of terrorism" by lawyers who "should ensure justice." The Pakistani newspaper The News reported that on Feb. 4, the police conducted the accused to the courts amid "tight security. And, as usual, officials prevented journalists and relatives of victims to come into the hall for "security reasons".  

Shazia Bashir's family could not access the court not once but three times, a strange fact, regarding the judiciary in Pakistan. Police officials explain that it would "not be possible" to prevent clashes and violence, where "Shazia's relatives and representatives of minorities to enter the courtroom."  

Meanwhile Ashgar Ali, heading the investigation, requested the accused appear before the courts and an extension of the terms of custody for six days. The magistrate added that the murder weapon has not yet been recovered and the accused could provide the names of accomplices, who participated in the torture and murder of the 12 year old Christian girl. The court, however, has only partly accepted the request, ruling only four days in jail.  http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Lahore,-Muslim-lawyers-will-burn-alive-anyone-who-defends-murdered-12-year-old-Christian-17559.html

                                                                                                                                                       

The tortures included laying a man naked on a freezing cement floor, forcing his legs apart, and then an interrogator stepping on his testicles, applying increasing pressure until the confession surfaced. Imagine the consequences of no surfacing confession. Indeed, many people refused to confess to a crime they did not commit.

Daughters and sons were raped in front of their fathers and mothers — for the sake of extracting “confessions.”

These are just some of the delicacies that the Stalinist machinery inflicted on its citizenry in the hope of bringing socialism into earthly incarnation. Alexander Solzhenitsyn has shared much of this horror with us in his Gulag Archipelago — a work, mystifyingly enough, that I had never heard mentioned, except with a few exceptions, by one professor in a lecture or seminar in my entire eleven years studying Cold War history in academia. It was a work that I never saw, again with a few exceptions, on any academic syllabus — and many of my courses concerned Soviet history and American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union.

Both of my grandfathers were exterminated by Stalinist terror. Both of my parents, Yuri and Marina Glazov, were dissidents in the former Soviet Union. They risked their lives for freedom; they stood up against Soviet totalitarianism. They barely escaped the gulag, a fortune many of our friends and relatives did not share. I come from a system where a myriad of the closest people to my family simply disappeared, where relatives and family friends died under interrogation and torture for their beliefs — or for simply nothing at all.

Now try to imagine me sitting in the company of left-wing “intellectuals” in the West who think they are oppressed. This is my lifelong experience. I remember one radical feminist, whom I sat next to in a graduate student lounge, lecturing me sternly about how women in the West are oppressed because they wear bikinis on beaches; with a reprimanding tone, she explained to me that this represented the way capitalism objectifies women, marginalizes them from spheres of power, and metaphorically decapitates them as human beings. I remember asking her what she thought of female genital mutilation and honor killings in the Muslim world. To this I received a stone-cold silence and a frightening hateful stare, a stare with which I have become accustomed: I would be confined to a gulag or a psychiatric hospital if this particular individual had the power to place me there. This would be done for the good of society of course. My question was heresy: she could not, naturally, admit that evil adversarial cultures and ideologies existed — under which women truly suffer real oppression — for if she did, then she would have to sacrifice her entire worldview and personal identity.

Another colleague of mine, with great moral indignation and personal angst, once complained to me about how we are being “attacked” by Pepsi commercials. “By trying to tell us that we are not cool if we don’t drink Pepsi,” he agonized, “the capitalist machinery practices the politics of exclusion. By trying to pretend it offers us choice, it actually negates choice.”

My mom’s father was executed by the Soviet secret police. He did not have the luxury of being oppressed by Pepsi commercials.   My family’s nightmarish experience in the Soviet Union was followed by a providential escape from totalitarian hell. We were among the lucky ones, the ones who got away. The United States gave us a safe and protected home — a home of unbelievable material well-being (in comparison to Soviet starvation) and human liberty. I will never forget the awe I felt experiencing my first taste of freedom, even as a young five-year-old boy who wasn’t completely sure what it was. My parents could now, for the first time, speak out without fear of brutal repercussions in defense of Soviet citizens who were being persecuted for their political and/or religious beliefs. For the first time, we lived without the dread to which I had been accustomed throughout my young life. ( PLEASE READ IT ALL )     http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/thank-you-glenn-beck-for-exposing-communisms-evils/2/

        Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatens U.S. security through his relationship with the terrorist group Hezbollah, says Luis Fleischman a professor at Florida Atlantic University.

“Chavez promotes a relationship with Hezbollah,” Fleischman told Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella. “Drug trafficking is going on across all of Central America. Chavez promotes this activity to destabilize countries friendly to the U.S.”  The more anarchy that Chavez creates, the more difficulty he poses to U.S. security, says the professor of political science and sociology.

“Hezbollah has relationships with drug trafficking cartels. The cartels know exactly how to bring the drugs into the southern border of the U.S. These routes have been used not only by Hezbollah, but also by Al Qaeda to penetrate the U.S.”

So the threat is imminent, Fleischman says. “If this situation doesn’t stop, the northern part of Latin America is going to end up in a situation similar to Afghanistan, where you don’t have state control over the territory.”

That means warlords connected to the drug business will be in control, he says. “Islamic groups can use those routes that drug cartels paved to enter the U.S. and do a lot of harm.”

As for the Chavez regime, it’s clearly illegitimate, having violated human rights, repressed freedom of the press and taken power in possibly corrupt elections.

“It’s a totalitarian state,” Fleischman said.

“There is chaos in the street. Politics is corrupt. People live in fear. The aggressive discourse of President Chavez: all this is very intimidating.”
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/chavez-venezuela-threat-growing/2010/02/04/id/349014

           A regional war may well be approaching. The actions and statements of Iran and its Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian proxies over the past week or so indicate that this is what Israel's enemies are gunning for. In preparing for this growing threat, Israel's leaders need to consider more than just the military challenges it faces. They must consider the political actors at home and abroad that limit the IDF's ability to fight to victory and develop strategies for neutralizing those actors.

The latest developments are menacing. Last Saturday Iran's unelected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened to open up a new round of hostilities on February 11. Then Wednesday Iran launched a new missile into space. Israeli and US missile experts claim that the missile launch signals that Iran is developing intercontinental ballistic missiles and building the capacity to launch nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles.

Following the missile launch, Syria's President and Foreign Minister issued incendiary comments threatening Israel with war. Notably they did so the same day the US informed Syria of its intention to send an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in five years.

Hamas for its part sent barrels of explosives drifting to the Israeli coastline - exposing new ways it can kill us. And Fatah for its part decided to kiss Hamas's ring this week. Senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath's obsequious visit to Gaza Wednesday was a graphic demonstration of Hamas's preeminence in Palestinian society.  

Then there is Hizbullah. In a speech on January 15, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah pledged that the next war will "change the face of the region." This may not be an exaggeration. It isn't simply that under the blind-eye of UN peacekeepers Hizbullah has replenished and expanded its arsenal to include long-range missiles. It isn't simply that in the three and half years since the war Hizbullah has taken control over the Lebanese government. Hizbullah has also build up a formidable ground force. In the event of war, these forces may be deployed as an expeditionary force inside of northern Israel.

And if the precedent of former MK Azmi Bishara - who fled Israel after learning that he was about to be indicted for serving as a Hizbullah agent in the 2006 war - is any indication of Hizbullah's modus operandi, Israel may also face the specter of Israeli Arab fifth columnists assisting Hizbullah forces inside the country.

Assuming for the moment that the IDF and the government are prepared to contend with these mounting military threats, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his colleagues must take the necessary steps to withstand and minimize the effectiveness of the far-Left's expected political warfare against Israel. As the past decade has made clear, the aim of that warfare is to delegitimize Israel's right to defend itself in order to make it impossible for Israel to pursue the war to military and political victory.

As in the military arena, so in the political arena, Israel's foes have grown from nuisances into strategic threats over the past decade. The UN-sponsored Goldstone report, which effectively denies Israel's right to defend itself and criminalizes Israel's military efforts to secure its citizenry and its territory is evidence of the gravity of the threat Israel faces as our leaders plan for the coming war.

On this latter plane, the past week has been an eventful and hopeful one. The latest developments offer guidance for how the government must proceed as the winds of war blow ever stronger. Late last week the Zionist student movement Im Tirzu published a detailed report demonstrating that 16 anti-Zionist organizations funded by the post-Zionist New Israel Fund worked hand in glove with the UN Human Rights Council and Richard Goldstone to bring about the establishment of the Goldstone committee and give credibility to its allegations that Israel committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead. According to the Im Tirtzu report, 92 percent of Israeli allegations that Israel committed war crimes in its campaign against Hamas came from these 16 NIF-funded organizations.

Im Tirtzu's report was prominently covered by Ma'ariv last weekend. The media coverage provoked calls in the Knesset this week to investigate the NIF and its operational arms in Israel both through regular committee hearings and perhaps through a parliamentary investigative panel.  ( THE REST )    http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0210/glick020510.php3

       

Death reopens debate over 'honour' killings in Turkey, which account for half of all the country's murders.

Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an "honour" killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys.

The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.

Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from an informant, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its website.

The girl had previously been reported missing.

The informant told the police she had been killed following a family "council" meeting.

Her father and grandfather are said to have been arrested and held in custody pending trial. It is unclear whether they have been charged. The girl's mother was arrested but was later released.

Media reports said the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter – one of nine children – had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex.

A postmortem examination revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried. Her body showed no signs of bruising.

The discovery will reopen the emotive debate in Turkey about "honour" killings, which are particularly prevalent in the impoverished south-east.

Official figures have indicated that more than 200 such killings take place each year, accounting for around half of all murders in Turkey.   http://www.stophonourkillings.com/?q=node/4272

   

I'm going to start today with a little pop quiz: What did Iran do this week?

You might have answered that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Iran will deliver a "telling blow" to global powers on February 11 (the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution). Yes, he did do that. But that's not the latest.

This week Iran successfully launched a rocket into space. The media yawned. The only thing they found interesting about the launch was that the rocket had a rat, two turtles and a worm on board. But they don't look any further than that.

But technically, if Iran can send a missile up into space and have it explode, it could shut down our electronics; that would do more damage to us than any conventional bomb ever could. Imagine the chaos if an EMP bomb took all of our computers, phones, TVs, lights and flipped them off? America would be out of business.

Look, they don't have the power to do this yet, but why would Iran want to do that? Hasn't President Obama's new approach to foreign policy mended all the wounds?

In March of last year, Obama called for "engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect" with Iran.

Mutual respect? Really? 

The only reason you would even consider talking to Ahmadinejad is because you don't understand who he really is. He's called America the "Great Satan" and also said our friends in Israel must be "wiped off the map."

The media yawns when Ahmadinejad runs off with the mouth because — so far — that's all he's done; talk. They've been trained to ignore him: He's the boy who cried wolf. They don't think he's serious. But that's because they haven't bothered to look into what he believes.

There's another thing that Ahmadinejad says that no one pays attention to. I mean, how many times have you heard the media say: Aren't you concerned about Glenn Beck's language? That you with your tea party sign might cause some kind of global catastrophe. But the guy that wants to vaporize Israel, they don't put any importance on that — you need to watch this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IRANIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the universe, and peace and blessings upon our masters and prophet Mohammed and his pure household and his noble companions. Oh, God, hasten the arrival of Imam al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory, and make us his followers and those who attest to his rightfulness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

"Hasten the return of Imam al-Mahdi." What's he talking about? He's talking about the 12th Imam. He's a "12er." What is that? If journalists weren't so busy trying to land jobs with the Obama administration (14 to be exact), they'd look into that.

The "12ers" believe that the Mahdi, or 12th Imam, will soon return. This is end times, stuff. They are different than most Muslims because they believe that the return needs to be hastened. It's not a good idea to hasten the return of the Chosen One, because to do that, the world has to be in chaos, carnage and even genocide — so the Messiah comes and brings peace.

"12ers" are so dangerous that at one point the Ayatollah Khomeini banned them.

So when President Ahmadinejad says he wants to vaporize Israel, he's not just trying to trick people; it's not a power bluff. He thinks he's fulfilling prophesy by doing that. He thinks he's the John the Baptist for the coming of the Messiah. 

Christians believe that the antichrist is a person; "12ers" believe we — the U.S. — are the antichrist. The "12ers" believe they have to wash the world in blood to hasten the return of the promised one. And when the Mahdi comes, he will set up a global government in Babylon with one religion and they will kill non-believers.

Let's try reversing it: Think of Christians how Rosie O'Donnell thinks of Christians. Abortion doctor killing nut-jobs who think the antichrist is roaming the Earth right now — "radical" Christians. Let's let her explain:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSIE O'DONNELL: Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Got it? Dangerous! Now, imagine those crazy Christians are running a country and think the antichrist is alive. And they are sure of who he is and they want to hasten the return of Jesus. And they are currently engaged in a new nuclear program and they are launching missiles every other month; do you think Rosie might be worried?

The other volatile piece of this puzzle is Israel. Think of this if you are a leader in Israel. Iran wants to wipe you off the map. Can you blame Israel for being a little sensitive on rhetoric like this? I mean, they literally had a regime try to kill every single Jewish person on the planet. It's not exactly a far fetched idea.

Now you have some guy, who not only believes in the Mahdi but he believes there will be a global government and he has to destroy America and Israel.

To that, add this: Whose side were the Iranians on back in World War II? Oh, the right, Germany's side.

Did you know that one of guys who helped mold Ahmadinejad's beliefs was German philosopher Martin Heidegger who was a big intellectual and also an anti-Semite and anti-American.   ( THE REST )     http://www.glenbeck.com/