Category: International Affairs,

Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro taunts United States, Donald Trump as opposition leaders detained 

On By peanutgallerynhIn The Americas,Leave a comment

Allies of two Venezuelan opposition leaders say Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma have been taken by authorities from the homes where they were under house arrest.

…Lopez was detained three years after protests against President Nicolas Maduro’s government and sentenced to more than a decade in prison on charges that include inciting protesters to violence. He was released last month to serve the rest of his term under house arrest. Ledezma, a former Caracas mayor, was also detained in 2015 and has been under house arrest.

…Maduro said Monday evening that he had no intention of deviating from his plans to rewrite the constitution and go after a string of enemies, from independent Venezuelan news channels to gunmen he claimed were sent by neighboring Colombia to disrupt the vote as part of an international conspiracy led by the man he calls “Emperor Donald Trump.”

Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro taunts United States, Donald Trump over sanctions as opposition leaders detained – CBS News

what a clusterfuck of chaos the Cheeto is making even worse….

The Berlin mosque breaking Islamic taboos

On By peanutgallerynhIn Europe,, Religion,4 Comments

A mosque in the German capital allows men and women to mix at prayer and welcomes gay people.

…”Our mosque is open for everybody,” says mosque founder Seyran Ates, a German Turkish-born lawyer and women’s rights activist.

“And we mean that really seriously: everybody, every lifestyle. We are not God. We don’t decide who’s a good or a bad Muslim. Anybody can come through this door – whether you are heterosexual or homosexual, we don’t care, it’s not our right to ask.”

…”To those who are Muslim and believe you can’t be gay or an emancipated woman at the same time as being Muslim, I would say: you can’t be homophobic, misogynistic, Judeophobic and pretend to be Muslim,” he replies.

“Because Islam means being at peace with yourself and others. So that would be an oxymoron, it would be a contradiction.”

…Miriam, who is leading a study group on how to recite the Koran. She patiently explains the correct pronunciation of the verses to Laqa, a man from Pakistan who has lived in Berlin for 28 years.

She tells me that the main point of the mosque is tolerance of each other’s view of Islam. I ask her whether she has different views to those of Ms Ates.

“That’s an easy one,” she laughs, pointing to her head.

“I wear the headscarf and she interprets that in a different way….”

This is the origin of our religion, adds Laqa. “We are all equal, whatever you look like, or whatever colour skin you have, whether you’re gay or lesbian,” he says. “I can’t know whether they have a better connection to God than me. Why should I judge that? I can’t. I shouldn’t.”

The Berlin mosque breaking Islamic taboos – BBC News

Very cool.

Geopolitical Information Blockades: A New Norm? 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Middle East,, Religion,Leave a comment

This is not the first time relations among the Persian Gulf neighbors have chilled, and indeed the Saudi-led bloc has made past calls for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera, a news network often critical of their foreign policies, to be taken down. This summer, states blocked their citizens from accessing the news site outright and, in a rare move, authorities in each state publically announced their information campaign against Qatar, admitting to a practice that might have once left them named and shamed.

The campaign against Qatar is not the only context in which Middle Eastern blocs filter information based on geopolitical fault lines, either. For example, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE all block websites affiliated with Iran and Hezbollah, and Oman joins Saudi Arabia and the UAE in blocking sites connected to both Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood. The researchers also found that “tensions have led to increased filtering in the past year” as geopolitical conflicts—including civil wars in Syria and Yemen—have exacerbated regional rivalries.

Unlike the publicly-recognized Qatar campaign, much of the filtering efforts in the region are not justified on a political basis or as part of a larger foreign policy. Instead they are rationalized on social or faith-based grounds; however, these motivations often coincide with political motivations for censorship. This is especially true in regions where conflicts are largely religious or sectarian in nature—for example, several Arab states block Shiite content, and Iran blocks Sunni content. Political censorship is therefore shrouded in religious or cultural explanations.

Geopolitical Information Blockades: A New Norm? | Council on Foreign Relations

hmmmm

Israel to shut Al Jazeera offices and revoke journalists’ credentials

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Middle East,Leave a comment

Israel’s communications minister has said he wants to shut down pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera in the country.  Ayoob Kara, of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, said Sunday he wants the news network’s press cards revoked and has asked cable providers to block their transmissions. He said he wants them banned altogether. No timetable for the measures was given.  Kara said the station is used by militant groups to “incite” violence. 

Israel to shut Al Jazeera offices and revoke journalists’ credentials | The Independent

Seriously? Fuck you, Israel.

How the Nazis Made Art Fascist 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Europe,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

German and Italian officials believed that modern states had the sacred duty to defend national art against the degenerative force of global cosmopolitanism. …Against vulgar American consumerism, laissez-faire capitalism, liberal democracy, and the threat of revolutionary Bolshevism, Nazi–fascist leaders offered an alternative framework for European society: spiritual rather than materialistic, organic and traditional rather than abstract and cosmopolitan, overseen by strong and racially pure states. Promoting these racist and anti-Semitic ideas, institutions like the Permanent Council and the Venice Film Festival also modeled a new style of global cooperation: a “totalitarian international” in which ethnic and racial differences were not transcended but rather proclaimed, celebrated, and deepened.

Schemes like these make one’s skin crawl. But the Nazi–fascist way of thinking about European culture found wide appeal, and it’s worth understanding why.

…New technologies had transformed the nature of work and the structure of politics, women enjoyed greater economic and sexual independence than ever before, and the continent was in thrall to American goods and the alluring spirit of mass consumption. Bedrock bourgeois values appeared to be under siege on every front—an impression worsened by a string of devastating economic crises that had erased middle-class savings and eroded livelihoods.

…It was Mussolini, after all, who had called cinema “the strongest weapon” of any political movement.

…inviting several thousand delegates to Berlin for a massive European film conference. The Nazis welcomed their guests with the formal trimmings of interwar diplomacy: dinners and flags and receptions; working sessions at the legislature and the opera house; tours of nearby film studios and the Reich Film Archive; and a formal ball presided over by a tuxedo-clad Goebbels. The event culminated with the creation of the Nazi-led International Film Chamber, a new venture formally announced several months later in Venice—during the Film Festival. Moviegoers then fêted the foreign premiere of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, an exemplar of Nazi ideology and a masterpiece of modern propaganda.

How the Nazis Made Art Fascist | New Republic

hmmm

Kenyan election IT head Chris Msando found dead 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Africa,Leave a comment

Chris Msando was in charge of the [computerized] voting system in next week’s election.

“There was no doubt he was tortured and murdered,” said the commission’s chairperson, Wafula Chebukati.

Tension is high as the presidential election is expected to be a close race between incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta and long-time opponent Raila Odinga.

Kenyan election IT head Chris Msando found dead – BBC News

hmmmm

Israeli Authorities Arrest Antiquities Dealers In Connection With Hobby Lobby Scandal

On By peanutgallerynhIn Middle East,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Religion,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

Israel’s Antiquities Authority says the dealers, arrested early Sunday morning, were involved in sales of antiquities to Hobby Lobby — including items that U.S. authorities determined were smuggled.

Israeli Authorities Arrest Antiquities Dealers In Connection With Hobby Lobby Scandal : Parallels : NPR

hmmmm

Taibbi: What Does Russiagate Look Like to Russians? 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Central Northern Asia and The Caucasus,, Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

Russia isn’t as strong as we think, but they do have nukes – which is why beating the war drum is a mistake.

..Americans surely helped usher in the oligarch era by guiding Russia through its warped privatization process. In some expat circles back then, you found Americans who believed that by creating a cadre of super-wealthy Russians, we would create a social class that would be pre-motivated to beat back a communist revival.

This may have prevented a backslide into communism, but a by-product was accelerating a descent into gangsterism and oligarchy.

…What most Americans don’t understand is that the Putin regime at least in part was a reaction to exactly this kind of Western meddling.

….The Yeltsin regime, which incidentally also saw wide-scale assassinations of journalists and other human rights abuses, was widely understood to be a pseudo-puppet state, beholden to the West.

The conceit of the Putin regime, on the other hand, was that while Putin was a gangster, he was at least the Russians’ own gangster.

…Russia believes the U.S. reneged on the “leapfrog” deal by seeking to add the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Georgia and even Ukraine to the NATO alliance.

To Russia, American denunciations of Russian adventurism in Crimea and eastern Ukraine seem absurd, when all they see is NATO leapfrogging its way ever-closer to their borders.

…For all the fears about Trump being a Manchurian Candidate bent on destroying America from within, the far more likely nightmare endgame involves our political establishment egging the moron Trump into a shooting war as a means of proving his not-puppetness.

Taibbi: What Does Russiagate Look Like to Russians? – Rolling Stone

hmmmm

Why didn’t Japan’s First Lady speak to Trump?

On By peanutgallerynhIn East Asia,Leave a comment

Japan woke up on Friday morning to intense scrutiny of its First Lady’s proficiency in English.

Why didn’t Japan’s First Lady speak to Trump? – BBC News

I’ve seen all sorts of snarky articles suggesting that Akie Abe chose to pretend that she couldn’t speak English to avoid Trump. Does that really seen plausible to so many people that an otherwise polished and professional woman would play bitchy little games like she was a member of the Trump family?

…Or is it more reasonable to surmise that she had little to say to Trump and so he arrogantly assumed that she couldn’t speak English?

Seriously?