India Accuses Iran’s ‘Guards’ of Terror Attack

(Tal Yehoshua-Koren

Israel news photo: Arutz Sheva)

The feared Iranian Revolutionary Guard was behind January’s terrorist attack on the wife of an Israeli diplomat in February, Indian police charged Monday.

India previously has agreed with Israel that Iranian terrorists were involved in the attack, but Monday’s report in the Times of India was the first time the Guards were named. A magnetic bomb destroyed the vehicle in which the woman, Tal Yehoshua Koren, was riding. She managed to escape with her life by noticing that an attack was taking place. She jumped out of the car as the bomb exploded and suffered serous injuries.
The investigation by New Delhi police sates that members of the Guards “discussed the plan to attack the Israeli diplomats in India and other countries with Indian journalist Side Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi in January 2011, after Iranian scientists had been attacked allegedly by the Israelis,” the newspaper reported.
Kazmi allegedly was in contact with the Guards for almost 10 years.
Sedaghatzadeh Masoud, the suspected leader of the terrorist cell, is thought to have planned the attacks on Israelis and Jews in Georgia and Bangkok.

via israelnationalnews.com

Now about all that gold India traded with Iran?

Reporter for Iranian news agency arrested for India bombing

(EOZ) From NDTV: An Indian journalist who allegedly works for an Iranian news agency has been arrested in Delhi for last month's bomb attack on an Israeli diplomatic vehicle in New Delhi. Israel has accused Iran of orchestrating the attack.

Syed Mohammed Kazmi, who is 50, was brought to a Delhi court today. He was sent to 20-day police custody. He has admitted to being part of the conspiracy, says the police. The police say its investigations show he had been in touch with a man on a motorcycle who planted the bomb using a magnetic on the car.
The police say it searched Kazmi's house over the past two days to gather evidence of his link to the February 13 attack, which wounded the diplomat's wife, her driver and two other people in a nearby car. Police did not say what evidence they found.
The blast came the same day a bomb was discovered on an Israeli diplomat's car in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The next day, three Iranians accidentally blew up their house in Thailand, and Israeli authorities said the similarity between their explosives and the two earlier bombs linked Iran to all three incidents.
Israel has accused Iran of waging a covert campaign of state terror and has threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

But if you read Al Jazeera, you know that it was a Zionist false flag operation. As it always is. (h/t Philtheman)

sigh...

Israeli Embassies Targeted in Terror Attacks in Georgia and India

(israellycool.com) In late January, an Iranian linked terror cell, which planned to target Israelis and Jews, was exposed in Azerbaijan. During his recent trip to the United States, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Israel was concerned that Hezbollah would provoke Israel through an attack in order to distract the world’s attention from Syria. A French intelligence report stated a similar belief. On Friday, a Senior official in Hezbollah said on Al-Manar TV that “Israel can never be calm. Hezbollah will avenge the murder of the blessed Mughniyeh even it takes 100 years.”
Yet, Sunday’s Israel Hayom reported that “An Israeli defense source told Israel Hayom that the defense establishment is not on any special alert” for the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh.
Today, Israeli missions in Georgia, and India were targeted in terrorist attacks.

An explosion tore through an Israeli diplomat’s car in the vicinity of the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, India, Monday. One woman was injured.
Initial details suggest that the injured woman is the wife of an Israeli diplomat for the Defense Ministry’s mission. The explosion apparently took place after she dropped of their children off at a local preschool. She suffered minor injuries and was rushed to a nearby medical center for treatment.

By Joji Philip Thomas

Explosives were also found near the Israeli Embassy building in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. The device was neutralized safely.

Ynet now reports that:

Indian media outlets reported that two bikers were tailing the car driven by the Israeli diplomat’s wife in New Delhi and that at one point one of them “hurled something at the car,” which exploded shortly after.

According to Yaakov Katz:

Neither of these appear to serve as the required Casus belli needed to initiate a war against Hezbollah, if it was the one behind the attacks.
On the other hand, Israel will have to consider the implication of ignoring the attacks and what that will do to the deterrence it has tried to create vis-à-vis Hezbollah following the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued the following statement on the attacks.

In recent months we have witnessed several attempts to attack Israeli citizens and Jews in several countries, including Azerbaijan, Thailand and others.  In each instance we succeeded in foiling the attacks in cooperation with local authorities.  Iran and its proxy Hezbollah were behind all of these attempted attacks.  Today we have witnessed two additional attempted terrorist attacks on innocent civilians, the first against an Israeli woman who was wounded in New Delhi and the second against a local employee of the Israeli Embassy in Georgia.  Iran is behind these attacks; it is the largest exporter of terrorism in the world.  The Government of Israel and the security services will continue to act together with local security forces against such acts of terrorism.  We will continue to take strong and systematic, yet patient, action against the international terrorism that originates in Iran.

India to pay for Iranian oil in gold, China likely to follow

What side are these Hindus on? RT with the bad news... we know what side Russia Today is on though. The Ron Paul side. WHORES!

(CARL)In a bid to circumvent Western sanctions, India has agreed to purchase Iranian oil using gold instead of dollars, and China is likely to follow suit. Between the two of them, India and China account for 40% of Iranian oil sales. The EU, which agreed on Monday to gradually place an embargo on Iranian oil, accounts for 20% of Iranian oil sales. Let's go to the videotape.DEBKA adds (Hat Tip: Will): Iran's second largest customer after China, India purchases around $12 billion a year's worth of Iranian crude, or about 12 percent of its consumption. Delhi is to execute its transactions, according to our sources, through two state-owned banks: the Calcutta-based UCO Bank, whose board of directors is made up of Indian government and Reserve Bank of India representatives; and Halk Bankasi (Peoples Bank), Turkey's seventh largest bank which is owned by the government. An Indian delegation visited Tehran last week to discuss payment options in view of the new sanctions. The two sides were reported to have agreed that payment for the oil purchased would be partly in yen and partly in rupees. The switch to gold was kept dark. What could go wrong?

Hindustan Times calls on India to go public with Israel ties

(EOZ) From the Hindustan Times:

India and Israel is the bilateral relationship that dare not speak its name. If one were to go by New Delhi's official rhetoric, nothing has changed between the two countries. India continues to casually denounce Israel on the Palestinian issue, keeps mum when Iran or others promise to destroy the Jewish State, and still tends to vote against Israel in the United Nations or other multilateral fora. If one were to go by substance - security, trade and technology - there are few bilateral relations to match it in the world. Israel can be counted on to be the first or second largest provider of arms to India every year. Bilateral trade and investment runs into several billions of dollars on the civilian side. Israel, one of the great tech hubs of the world, is a close partner of India in software, pharmaceuticals and renewable energy. It says something about the trust that exists between the two countries that their closest links are in the most sensitive of areas: intelligence, counterterrorism, defence technology and even nuclear weaponry.
Bringing the public and private relationship with Israel in sync has been a particularly tortuous business with the UPA government. The government's first term was hostage to the ideological demands of the leftwing parties - the political formation most hostile to Israel. Half of its second term had to pass before New Delhi sent the foreign minister on a State visit. A prime ministerial or presidential visit, in either direction, continues to be the stuff of dreams - and solely because New Delhi has political nightmares at the thought. This is unbecoming of India: a constant and running act of hypocrisy by a country that sees itself as deserving of global influence and emulation. Israel has repeatedly stepped up to the plate when India is under threat, most notably during the Kargil crisis.
Some will shrug that this is the reality of India. But the evidence says this 'reality' is actually a bouquet of illusions. The most common claim is that a more public relationship will cause an eruption among the Muslim population. The truth is that an Indian Muslim is as pragmatic as the next one and has better things to worry about than the historical conflicts of the Levant. When politicians have raised the Israel-Palestine issue, they have come up empty-handed. The other claim is that India will lose standing with the Arab world. The opposite has proven to be the case: countries like Saudi Arabia sought to strengthen relations with India in part because the latter normalised relations with Israel. India's relations with Israel are spreading into other areas of existential importance to the country. Israel is a key partner in agriculture, and being the world's most-efficient liquid recycler, in water as well. If Israel becomes a major natural gas exporter in a few years, there will almost no missing links in the relationship. And the present official stance will lose any semblance of pragmatism and be merely a veil of the absurd.

I had asked Danny Ayalon about Israel's relations with India last month; he said they were "very good" but unfortunately didn't elaborate.

To quote Golda... what took so long?

Global Energy Use to Jump 53%

TRANSFORM!

Global energy use is expected to jump 53% by 2035, largely driven by strong demand from places like India and China, according to a report Monday.
Combined, developing nations currently use slightly more energy than those in the developed world, according to the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration. By 2035, they are expected to use double.
“Concerns about fiscal sustainability and financial turbulence suggest that economic recovery in the [developed] countries will not be accompanied by the higher growth rates associated with past recoveries,” the report said. “In contrast, growth remains high in many emerging economies, in part driven by strong capital inflows and high commodity prices.”
The 53% rise is slightly more than the 49% increase the agency predicted in last year’s report.
Accompanying the surge in energy use is a correspondingly large jump in greenhouse gas emissions. EIA sees energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rising 43% by 2035.
The projections, in the agency’s 2011 International Energy Outlook, are based on current policies. They could change substantially if countries like the United States and China passed stronger laws restricting carbon dioxide emissions.
Higher or lower energy price projections can also influence the report’s findings.
EIA assumed slightly lower oil prices in calculating this year’s report. The agency predicts oil prices to reach $108 per barrel in 2020 and $125 per barrel in 2035.
Last year EIA thought oil would be at $133 a barrel by 2035. EIA’s numbers do not include price increases attributed to the normal rise in inflation.
Fossil fuels will continue to be the dominant fuel choice in 2035, the agency predicts, with renewables constituting just 14% to the world’s overall energy consumption.
But that’s a substantial jump from renewable energy consumption in 2008, which stood at 10%. That growth rate makes renewables the fastest growing of all the energy sources, the report said.
The agency noted that most future renewable energy supply will continue to come from wind and hydropower. It did not include biofuels like ethanol as part of its renewable catalog, instead lumping it in with liquid fuels like oil.
EIA does not expect solar power to become a significant energy source by 2035. That runs counter to the opinion of solar power supporters who foresee rapidly declining prices for solar panels in the coming years.
The agency predicts nuclear power will go from about 5% of overall energy consumption in 2008 to about 7% in 2035. The vast majority of new nuclear plants are expected to be built in China. EIA did not factor in how last year’s nuclear disaster in Japan might impact nuclear power plant construction.
Natural gas continues to make up nearly a quarter of the world’s energy consumption, driven by increasing development of shale gas.
EIA projections for natural gas use by 2035 are 8% higher in this year’s report compared to last year’s, largely due to shale gas development.
Natural gas from shale, which is found in a different type of rock than most previous natural gas developments, has grown rapidly in recent years thanks to new drilling and extracting technology.
The technology involves cracking the shale rock with pressurized, water, sand and chemicals — a process knows as hydraulic fracturing, for “fracking” for short.
But the process has many people concerned over its effects on the groundwater, and shale gas development has been put on hold or stopped in some locations.
Despite the concerns, EIA predicts shale gas and other unconventional forms of natural gas will make up three quarters of U.S. natural gas production by 2035, up from about half today. Similar patterns are expected in China and Canada.
{CNN Money/Matzav.com }

DOJ Advises Gibson Guitar to Export Labor to Madagascar

Gibson Guitar Corp... [ran] ...afoul of U.S. authorities over allegedly illegal imports of wood. Though no charges have been filed, Gibson factories have been raided twice, most recently last week, by federal agents who say ebony exported from India to Gibson was "fraudulently" labeled to conceal a contravention of Indian export law. Federal agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shut down the Gibson Guitar factory in Memphis Aug. 24 to serve search warrants. Henry Juszkiewicz, chief executive officer of the closely held company, said in an interview that a broker probably made a mistake in labeling the goods but that the sale was legal and approved by Indian authorities. Gibson's predicament, which raises concerns for musical instrument makers and other importers of wood, illustrates the pitfalls of complying with U.S. law while dealing with middlemen in faraway countries whose legal systems can be murky. The law ensnaring Gibson is the Lacey Act of 1900, originally passed to regulate trade in bird feathers used for hats and amended in 2008 to cover wood and other plant products. It requires companies to make detailed disclosures about wood imports and bars the purchase of goods exported in violation of a foreign country's laws. Leonard Krause, a consultant in Eugene, Ore., who advises companies on complying with the Lacey Act, is telling clients they should hire lawyers in countries where they obtain products. "How many people know the statutes in India?" Mr. Krause said. "The net effect is that it raises everybody's cost of doing business." Federal agents first raided Gibson factories in November 2009 and were back again Aug. 24, seizing guitars, wood and electronic records. Gene Nix, a wood product engineer at Gibson, was questioned by agents after the first raid and told he could face five years in jail. "Can you imagine a federal agent saying, 'You're going to jail for five years' and what you do is sort wood in the factory?" said Mr. Juszkiewicz, recounting the incident. "I think that's way over the top." Gibson employees, he said, are being "treated like drug criminals." By JAMES R. HAGERTY and KRIS MAHER [MORE] from WSJ

The Gibson Guitar saga has taken a sinister turn. It seems that the Department of Justice wasn’t satisfied with merely raiding the law abiding factories of Gibson Guitar with armed agents, shutting down their operation costing them millions, and leaving the American company in the dark as to how to proceed without going out of business. Now, according to CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, agents of the United States government are bluntly informing them that they’d be better off shipping their manufacturing labor overseas. In an interview with KMJ AM’s “The Chris Daniel Show,” Juszkiewicz revealed some startling information. [MORE] via REDSTATE

Bollywood in Israel?

Namitha in Israel?
...maybe?

...Eight leaders of the Indian film industry spent this week in Israel, scouting out locations and speaking to local counterparts about ideas for films with storylines that bring characters to Israel.

Pakistani Actress Defies Mullah Accusing Her of Immoral Behavior on an Indian Reality TV Show

States: Mullahs Are Raping Children in Mosques.......

Interviewer: There is an allegation against you, made by a segment of Pakistani society, that you brought dishonor upon Pakistani culture by going to India. Your dresses and your actions, as well as your interactions with people there, did not represent the ideological foundations of Pakistan, its culture, or its people.

[...]

Veena Malik: Look, these allegations are baseless, because according to the format of the "Big Boss" show, celebrities – not only from Pakistan, but from all over the world, including Hollywood – participate in this show. It is not a cultural variety show, which promotes a certain culture, or a religious show, where one is allowed to promote one's religion.

[...]

Pakistani religious scholar Mufti Abdul Qavi: If she does not have pangs of conscience because of what she did, then I would tell her to awaken her conscience. No one in Pakistan can look at her pictures in the presence of their daughters. I don't think that her son will like to look at his mother's picture in the future, in her presence or in the presence of his father or brother.

[...]

Veena Malik: If you want to do something for the glory of Islam, you have plenty of opportunities. What are the politicians doing? Bribery, robbery, theft, and killing in the name of Islam. There are many things to talk about. Why Veena Malik?

[...]

There are many other things for you to deal with. There are Islamic clerics who rape the children they teach in their mosques, and so much more.

[...]

Mufti Sahab, there are many things in your community that need to be rectified, so please correct them. Veena Malik and the entertainment industry are much further down on the list.

Mufti Abdul Qavi: Respected Veena Malik Sahiba, I told you earlier that you are my sister, and there is no need to get so emotional. Every person plays a role.

Veena Malik: If there are immoral people in the show business, there may also be immoral people among the clerics... Mufti Sahab, I remember when you once called a woman "shameless." If you are indeed spreading the Islam of the Prophet, peace be upon him, then you should know that the Prophet would stand up out of respect whenever a woman walked in. He never called them "shameless."

You should begin by reforming your own home, and only then ask me to do the same. I am a Muslim, and I have done many good deeds. You have to listen to me to learn about them.

[...]

I gave love to everyone, just to show that these people do not represent Pakistanis... Those people whose passports turn out to be Pakistani, when a terror attack takes place... There are also Pakistanis like us, who enjoy entertainment, fun, and love.

[...]

via eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com
Incredible. I hope she survives.
From MEMRI:

sddf

India – Cricket World Champions

Whatay match it turned out to be after the underwhelming semi-final with Pakistan. After conceding 274 runs and getting down to 31/2 with both Sehwag and Tendulkar back in the pavilion, people had started losing hope of ever winning the World Cup in their lifetime. But fans on Twitter kept the hopes alive and India’s much-vaunted batting lineup finally came good as Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, and most importantly, the Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni saw India home safely. MS Dhoni finished the match in grand style by lofting Kulasekara for a huge six to set off celebrations all over India.
It took 28 years but in the end, it was worth the wait. This World Cup compared to the others had been especially exciting with great performances mostly involving Ireland, Bangladesh, and England. Taylor’s blitzkrieg against Pakistan was also a sight to behold but in the end, it was India that remained consistent and won the day. Shabash, India.
via ipatrix.com

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

SLAVERY, RAPE, SLAUGHTER of MAIDS

SLAVERY - RAPE & ABUSE - MODERN DAY REALITIES FOR MIDDLE EAST MAIDS
While browsing the web, yesterday, I viewed the Arab Times online site and came across several news articles about the rape and abuse of maids in Kuwait. I was surprised at the cluster of cases so I searched the web for more information and was nearly knocked off my chair when I realized the enormous extent of the huge numbers of foreign maids suffering abuse at the hands of their Middle East "sponsors". To use the term "maid" is a misnomer - these women (and boys) are nothing more than modern day SLAVES. Slaves to be abused, raped, tortured, maimed, and killed.

Many of these maids come into the Middle East (particularly Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon) from Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia - smaller numbers come from India and Bangladesh. Saudi Arabia has the largest number of these imported domestics estimated at 200,000 in 2004. These maids are seen as inferiors to their Middle Eastern masters and many countries do not even recognize them as being covered by labor laws - including minimum wage:

"The plight of domestic workers in Lebanon rose to the spotlight during the summer of 2006, when Israel launched a thirty-four-day military offensive on Lebanon. In Arabic, the term "Abed" is used to denote a "black" person or "slave" and the word is sometimes heard in reference to Africans or Sri Lankans. Non-Arab Afro-Asian migrants in Lebanon are physically looked upon as inferior due to their positions as servants. These workers remain excluded under Article 6 of Lebanese labour laws and are often victims of abuse by both employers and agencies." LINK
The vast majority of these women are seeking an opportunity to earn money and send remittances back to their families -
".......Philippines, where the economy relies heavily on remittances from nearly eight million Filipinos working overseas. Of that eight million, about 73,000 work in Kuwait. Some 60,000 are women employed mainly as maids and earning less than $200 a month on average, labor groups say.
Some of these woman do quickly realize the danger and manage to escape in a few days. But, many of the remaining "servants" are left in a living nightmare.
---------------------------------------
Over 17 deaths of Madagascan maids last year in Lebanon
Madagascar flies home maids abused in Lebanon

Indonesians protesting against a maid killing in Saudi Arabia where her body was dumped in a bin by her employers
ANTANANARIVO (AFP)
            
Madagascar's government early Thursday flew home 86 women domestic workers from Lebanon who had been subjected to abuse amid concerns over the deaths of 17 Madagascan maids in the past year.
Population Minister Nadine Ramaroson said at Antananarivo airport as she welcomed the women that most of them "had run away from their employers."
"Their return home was negotiated by the Madagascan consul in Lebanon after either the women themselves or their families asked for them to be repatriated," Ramaroson said.
The government decided to charter a plane after numerous cases of abuse were reported. The Population Ministry received more than 600 repatriation requests from maids or their families.

The Union of Qualified Domestic Workers (SPDTS), a non-governmental organization that helps the victims and their families, says that in the past year alone 17 Madagascan maids in Lebanon died from abuse suffered at the hands of their employers.
"There have been a lot of deaths," Prime Minister Camille Vital said. "That's why the government has decided to repatriate those who wanted to come home. The government is paying for this repatriation."
On their arrival at the airport the young women were met by social workers from SPDTS and by staff from different ministries tasked with providing medical care and counseling.
"My boss used to hit me and didn't give me my salary. I'm very, very happy to be back home," said 25-year-old Leonie.
Another woman who gave her name as Augustine said: "The friend with whom I ran away from my boss wasn't able to get on the plane at the last minute. I'm really worried about her. She's not in good shape."
More than 7,000 Madagascans work in Lebanon, according to SPDTS. In 2010 around 500 of them came home before the end of their contract.

via 9-11domorethenneverforget-stopislam.blogspot.com

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Hot Love Gets Dad Cooked for Sex With Muslim Woman

Dalit set afire after son elopes with Muslim girl

NAMAKKAL: A 61-year-old dalit man was burnt to death in Periyapatti village of Namakkal district after his son eloped with a Muslim girl of the same village.
Nallayan's son Sekhar (27) was in love with Gulzar (21) and couple allegedly eloped recently. At 3pm on Monday, when Nallayan was working in a shop in Periyapatti, Gulzar's father Shahjahan went there and called out to him. An argument ensued, followed by a scuffle during which Shahjahan allegedly poured petrol over Nallayan. He then lit his cigarette lighter, setting fire to Nallayan who suffered serious burn injuries. Although he was admitted to the Namakkal government hospital, Nallayan died later, police said.
Nallayan's daughter Shanthi said Shahjahan and his relatives had threatened her family members soon after Sekar eloped with Gulzar. Nallayan had pleaded with Shahjahan to give him two days to search for his son

via timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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U.N. - India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia propose Internet NWO in wake of Wikileaks. BAD IDEA!

In light of the Wikileaks disclosures, a group of countries, led by Brazil, is pushing for the United Nations to regulate the internet (Hat Tip: Instapundit).

At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks.
The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for a "takeover" of the internet.
India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia appeared to favour a new possible over-arching inter-government body.

What could go wrong?

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to harmonise global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet.
Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil.
At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks.
The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for a "takeover" of the internet.
India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia appeared to favour a new possible over-arching inter-government body.
However, Australia, US, UK, Belgium and Canada and attending business and community representatives argued there were risks in forming yet another working group that might isolate itself from the industry, community users and the general public.
"My concern is that if we were to make a move to form a governmental-only body then that would send a very strong signal to civil society that their valuable contribution was not required or was not being looked for," an un-named Australian representative told the meeting.
Debate on the creation of a new inter-governmental body stemmed from a UN Economic and Social Council resolution 2010/2 of 19 July.
The resolution invited the UN Secretary-General "to convene open and inclusive consultations involving all Member States and all other stakeholders with a view to assisting the process towards enhanced cooperation in order to enable Governments on an equal footing to carry out their roles and responsibilities in respect of international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet but not of the day-to-day technical and operational matters that do not impact upon those issues."
Much debate concerned the meaning of "enhanced cooperation" and whether a new inter-governmental body was required. Participants also debated the roles of existing organisations - such as the Internet Governance Forum, ICANN and the ITU.
The IGF - an organisation that informs the UN but makes no decisions - is running close to the end of a five-year mandate, due to expire at the end of the year.
The likes of ISOC, ICANN and more recently the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) have recently expressed concerns [PDF] that a working panel to decide on the future of the IGF has been limited to representatives from member-states.
"Australia is a very strong supporter of the Internet Governance Forum," the unidentified Australian UN representative said at the New York meeting this week. "That is very much due to the multi-stake-holder approach of the IGF. It is an inclusive process."
Australia's Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy said that Australian Government welcomed the resolution of the Second Committee of the United Nation General Assembly (UNGA) to extend the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) for a further five years.
The DBCDE said it would like to see the organisation retain an open and participatory membership.
"Australia has always supported the participation of civil society and the private sector in the IGF and regards their participation as being integral to the IGF's success," a spokesman told iTnews.

via itnews.com.au

Flickr’d
On the first full day of Julian Assange’s release from imprisonment, we now learn that some members of the United Nations want to introduce some sort of worldwide Internet regulation. That’s nice. But don’t worry: this isn’t a “takeover,” or anything scary like that. It’s simply to ensure that we never see something like Wikileaks ever again. A bit late for that, no?
All of this went down on Wednesday, with Brazil’s UN delegation proposing “global standards” that would, in effect, regulate the Internet.
The proposal in the obtuse verbiage of the UN would:

convene open and inclusive consultations involving all Member States and all other stakeholders with a view to assisting the process towards enhanced cooperation in order to enable Governments on an equal footing to carry out their roles and responsibilities in respect of international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet but not of the day-to-day technical and operational matters that do not impact upon those issues.

I seem to recall Brazil throwing up another Internet-related stink a few years ago vis-à-vis the .xxx top-level domain. A sort of, “We can’t have a dot x x x because that will encourage the proliferation of pornography.”
As if the Internet isn’t already swarming with pornography.

via crunchgear.com

encouraging cooperation between nations should be the job of the UN. this stuff about taking over is what scares me

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Mumbai Charles

Prince Charles recently visited a Mumbai shantytown and praised its "sustainability" in which residents recycle their waste and build their own homes out of whatever materials come to hand. There is of course a word for this form of "sustainability", it's called grinding poverty.

In 1984, Orwell depicted the rise of the ultimate totalitarian state as being organized by socialists determined to end class warfare by permanently removing all social mobility. The society of Oceania is characterized by a ruthless hostility toward the remnants of the Middle Class or the Outer Party, who exist only to be cogs in the bureaucratic machinery of terror, constantly spied on and at risk of torture and death. The vast majority of the population are Proles, lower class workers who are denied education or any chance at advancement. They exist to serve as worker or soldiers. That is the vision that the repressive left has had for too long. A small elite ruling over a vast impoverished working class. Orwell saw the danger of that vision being translated into an actual system, creating another tyranny with a vast gap between the upper and lower classes.

Environmentalists already helped outsource countless jobs to China, where environmental standards are far worse. Witness the air quality in Beijing. And China has no intention of signing on to any initiatives that will handicap its industry in any way. If environmentalists genuinely cared about the environment, they would be working to reverse the flow of manufacturing jobs back to the United States by compromising on realistic standards and regulations that would protect against pollution that endangers humans and permanently destroys natural environments, without enabling businesses to still be competitive. Instead environmentalists have doubled down on a fraudulent global warming threat, and are treating "carbon" as a pollutant. It's hard to envision this as anything more than a bullet in the head for the last remains of what was once a great manufacturing sector.

via sultanknish.blogspot.com

noahdavidsimon's posterous

State Department Sabotaging the US-Indian Alliance?

After India gained its independence from Britain in 1947, many Americans expected it would be a generally friendly power. After all, the US had constantly pressured London to give up its colonial empire; and was also a nation that had gained its independence from Britain, so it seemed so it seemed natural that the great new sub-continental democracy would look to America as a potential friend and partner.
India is no longer, as V.S. Naipaul put it, "A Wounded Civilization." It is now, in spite of continuing problems with poverty, unmistakably a great power. Thanks to the combination of a liberated entrepreneurial spirit and an abundance of scientific and technological talent, its economy is growing at a solid rate, and managing to do so while India remains a vibrant and thriving non-Western democracy.
For the US, this means that India will become a formidable economic competitor, but more importantly, it will become a valuable partner. Already the US has taken a few small steps towards this goal, but a variety of obstacles still exists -- most notably, the US International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which cover a huge swath of 'Dual Use" items, and which have crippled US technology exports for decades.
Making matters worse is an apparent US policy of denying visas to men and women associated with India's Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). Since there is, naturally, considerable overlap between that organization and the Indian government's civil science and technology institutions, this policy tends to cripple US efforts to work with India both on civil and military projects. It looks like a textbook case of one part of the US government sabotaging the programs of their colleagues -- and this problem all seems to be happening inside the State Department.
Misunderstandings go back to World War II. George Orwell described how, in London in 1942, "a well known Indian nationalist" addressed "a number of American newspaper correspondents who, if handled tactfully, might cable back to America a sympathetic account of the Congress Party's case. They had come there with fairly open minds. Within about ten minutes the Indian had converted all of them into ardent supporters of the British government, because instead of sticking to his subject he launched into an anti-British tirade quite obviously founded on spite and an inferiority complex." For decades after independence, the emotional aftereffects of British rule remained a powerful driving force in Indian politics. What is only now just being understood by Indian historians, most notably Narendra Singh Sarila in his 2005 book, "The Shadow of the Great Game," was how skillfully a few British, Russian and Indian individuals were able to turn these anti-British feelings into anti-American ones.
The talent was carefully nurtured throughout India's socialist period; but without many local opportunities, these highly trained scientists and engineers simply emigrated to places where they were more appreciated. Now, thanks to the reforms that began in the early 1990s, these elite individuals are staying at home. If things continue as they are, in the near future India will make steady progress towards becoming one of the world's major centers of science and technology.
A year ago, Secretary if State Hillary Clinton and the Indian Foreign Minister ,S.M. Krishna, stated that ".. it was agreed that the agenda and the initiatives in the bilateral High Technology Cooperation Dialogue should continue with the objective of facilitating smoother trade in high technology between the two economies, reflecting the present strategic nature of the India- US relationship." -- a partnership nowhere better symbolized, in spite of problems, than by the cooperation between the US's NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
The ISRO launched the Chandrayaan Moon Probe in October 2008, using India's Polar Space Launch Vehicle; and included among its suite of instruments a US Synthetic Aperture Radar, called the Mini SAR, a critical tool that helped the spacecraft to make its historic discovery of a large amount of water on the Moon. From a political standpoint , the mission showed that in spite of the legal and bureaucratic obstacles, the two nations could work effectively together on a technologically difficult project.
The Indian military, which had traditionally looked to Russia and Europe for its major weaponry, has recently been buying more and more from Israel, and, most significantly, from the US. By the end of this year, they will receive their first C-130J transports; and they are in negotiations to buy the larger and more capable C-17 to supplement or replace their Russian made IL-76s. India has also purchased an old US Navy amphibious warfare ship, which gives their Navy a useful bit of experience with US naval hardware.
The Indian Air Force is also holding a competition to buy a new fighter, The US F-16 and F-18 are in the running, as are French, Swedish and Russian aircraft. No decision is expected until sometime next year, if then: Indian military procurement procedures are at least as frustrating and complex as US ones. The visa situation just adds to the difficulties.
In early 2009, the US State Department blundered badly when it temporarily denied India an export permit for a GE-made gas turbine engine for one of its warships. These turbines have been widely exported all over the world; in 1979, the Carter administration even agreed to sell the turbines to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. For the US to refuse to sell something to a democracy like India -- that it had been willing to sell to the Iraqi Dictator -- was a foolish gesture, based either on spite or ignorance. The decision was quickly reversed, but the incident left a sour taste in the mouths of many influential Indians.
In spite of these ups and downs, and in spite of the legitimate fears of New Delhi's leadership that the Obama administration does not see India as a major partner -- the way the Clinton and Bush administrations did -- the long term relationship is solid. Geopolitical and economic contexts are driving the two sides closer together; and as neither India nor the US can change the facts of geography, the two large, democratic nations on opposite sides of the world need one another.
India needs America to militate against the threats that surround it, and it needs access to the US market for its products. Although America needs India for similar reasons, no formal alliance is needed: Indian politicians opposed to the relationship would be able to stir up trouble, and both sides could find themselves locked for years in painful and petty negotiations.
Today both nations largely understand that ending the long estrangement has been a blessing for all concerned. As the partnership deepens, there is one valuable lesson that America could probably learn from India: strategic patience with friends.

via hudson-ny.org

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India experience with Islam resembles Israel

What in India’s history, and in Narain Kataria’s personal story, brought him to form an intellectual defense organization?  For one thing, he has a master’s degree in history from an Indian university, so he knows the long-term problem.

He narrated to me that Muslim invaders had been attacking India for a couple of hundred years.  Muslim rule started in the 10th century.  It took the invaders about 300 years to conquer Afghanistan, once part of India.

The clever invaders discovered that Indian armies depended on their king.  Muslim forces concentrated their archers against the Indian king.  Once he fell, his army disintegrated.  The Muslims then were able t

o corner and slay the Hindu soldiers individually. The widows committed suicide, rather than let the Muslims violate them.

We have elaborate literary and epigraphic evidence from the works of renowned Islamic Historians and inscriptions on numerous mosques all over India which glorify the barbarism and savagery perpetrated on Hindus by Islamic rulers. In addition to thousands of temples vandalized, looted and desecrated by Muslims, Islamists also destroyed three magnificent Hindu temples built in the name of Lord Shiva at Benaras, Lord Rama at Ayodhya and Lord Krishna at Mathura, and erected lofty mosques over them to humiliate Hindus. (Lord Shiva, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna are considered as an incarnation of God in Hindu pantheon.)

Example from the cited source:  "The Amir marched out toward Lamghan [in Afghanistan but then part of India], which is a city celebrated for its great strength and abounding wealth.  He conquered it and set fire to the places in its vicinity which were inhabited by infidels, and demolishing idol temples, he established Islam in them.  He marched and captured other cities and killed the polluted wretches, destroying the idolaters and gratifying the Musulmans."  The sources elaborate upon the great wealth of India, before the Islamic conquest.

Kataria says, “Hindus want their temples back.  The media does not report their sense of having been wronged, but instead, as wronging the Muslims.”

[Muslims likewise took over St. Sophia Church, one of Christianity’s primary cathedrals, in Constantinople.  Muslim conquerors built a mosque over, and now also under, the Hebrew’s Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  Then they claim that no other religion’s holy sites had been there.]

In 1947, the Hindus did not seek partition.  The Muslims insisted on it by a 99% majority within their faith.  Nevertheless, many stayed in India and doubled their population there.  By contrast, Pakistan has been ousting non-Muslims.  Thus the Muslims keep Pakistan exclusively Muslim but keep India not exclusively Hindu.  “It is like having one’s cake and eating it, too.”

What India experienced, so has Israel.  The first partition of Palestine led to an exclusively Arab state, Jordan, and another area, for a Jewish state but with a Muslim majority.  The Muslims attempted to drive the Jews out of that other area, but in the effort, fled, leaving a Jewish majority.

Now the State Dept. and Arabs propose another partition into an exclusively Arab state under jihadist rule and a Jewish state having many restive Muslims.  Restive, as when Arabs chant, “The Galilee is Arab!”

Kataria had lived in the one-third of India that the Muslims acquired during India’s partition at the same time that the UN recommended partition of the remaining area of the Palestine Mandate after Jordan was emancipated from it.  Kataria is from the Sind region.  He was among the 10 million Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists that the Muslims of Pakistan, in collusion with the Pakistani army, drove into India.  He feels fortunate not to be among the 10 million driven into the ground.  The world took no notice.

According to Kataria, Hindus comprised 20% of Pakistan’s population in 1947.  Now it’s 2%.  “The Hindus suffered the brunt of the violence during partition, because, Kataria says, “Hindus were not thinking in terms of enemies, whereas the Muslims were organized to kill.”

“Nearly two million Hindus are still held as slaves in southern Pakistan.  In Bangladesh 20 million are missing.”

via examiner.com

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Why Does the American Left Fear the Rise of India?

This is the Left? Obama and Hilary Clinton are giving the shaft to the most populous third world countries merely because the majority aren't Muslim. These people are our friends. They behave and we award the Jihad instead of the real needy poor. India has shown us that they deserve to advance into an industrial revolution and yet Clinton and Obama would prefer to mend ties to totalitarian regimes that show nothing but hostility. how is this prudent? Just goes to show that Obama is not so much a progressive that is concerned with the global poor as he is interested in furthering the interests of the Muslim world. How does shafting a friend like India work as prudent foreign policy. It is merely bias.
The American relationship with the republic of India is heading in the wrong direction. Given recent history, where strong and positive U.S.-Indo relations were in full bloom, this is especially disconcerting. President George W. Bush’s administration, long maligned as arrogantly unilateralist, solidified a close bilateral partnership — friendship, even — with the rising South Asian power. Bush saw India as a natural ally: the world’s largest multiethnic democracy, looking at its place in the world at the turn of this century through much the same prism our own ancestors looked through in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As Harvard historian Sugata Bose observed, the strengthening of ties between India and the United States “may turn out to be the most significant foreign policy achievement of the Bush administration.”
Under President Barack Obama, however, those ties are in moderate though steady and not insignificant decline. Since Obama’s inauguration, our relationship with India has begun to erode. To its credit, the Obama administration authorized a $2.1 billion arms sale with New Delhi last year. But there is more — there should be more — to the American-Indian friendship than signing off on a Boeing contract with the Indian defense ministry.
For instance, trends in trade are worrisome. Whereas in 2008 the United States exported $17.6 billion worth of goods to India, by 2009 that figure had dropped by more than $1 billion. Some of this is due to the recession, but consider: from 2001 through 2008, imports from India to the United States had gone up by $2 or $3 billion annually, culminating in $24 and $25.7 billion worth of goods imported in 2007 and 2008. That figure plummeted by $4.6 billion in 2009. During Bush’s tenure, protectionist economic policies were done away with. Outsourcing, that dirty word, was embraced. The United States became India’s largest investment partner; foreign direct investment in petroleum exploration, infrastructure, mining, telecommunications, and other good things accounted for much of all investment into India.
The free trade policies agreed upon by President Bush and Prime Minister Singh liberated markets and destroyed barriers in agriculture, textiles, iron, steel, coffee, tea, information technology, pharmaceuticals, and more — and as a consequence, helped develop the rise of India’s first genuine middle class in history. According to the National Council for Applied Economic Research, there are approximately 220 million “aspiring” Indians — a “consumer class” — living in households earning between $2,000 and $4,400 per year, who can now afford to buy niceties and luxuries. Some estimates have India’s middle class even larger. This was not the case fifteen or even ten years ago.
And when a caveat in this relationship deemed less beneficial to the United States arose, President Bush still kept things in long-term perspective so as not to denigrate our newfound camaraderie with India. When American food prices skyrocketed in 2008, Bush attributed it to India’s progress and implored Americans to place developments into a broader context: “Their middle class is larger than our entire population,” Bush said. “And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high and that causes the price to go up.”
Today, President Obama sounds markedly different about India. He has employed populist oratory, criticizing “a tax code that says you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York.” Such language has increased anxieties in New Delhi. “We are already witnessing signs of protectionism in the world’s biggest economy,” the Indian external affairs minister was quoted as saying, proclaiming that “we will need to argue against this trend at the international [forums].” Just one month into Obama’s presidency, India was prepared to present its grievances with the new administration’s protectionist policies to the World Trade Organization.
The Obama-Reid-Pelosi trio eagerly canceled the highly successful H-1B visa program, which was designed to encourage U.S. companies to hire Indian IT services (as well as tens of thousands of Indian engineers at a time of talent shortages). Congress barred U.S. corporations with bailout dollars from hiring foreign workers. This sparked largely overlooked outrage across India’s polity. “This is just irrational protectionism. … It makes no economic sense at all,” said the deputy chairman of India’s Planning Commission. Opposition leaders called for boycotts of U.S. companies. “If these policies hurt Indians abroad,” said heavyweight politician Praveen Togadia, “then we have to take steps to hurt American companies in India.” In just a few short weeks, during the Bush-to-Obama transition, U.S.-Indo relations had gone from having never been better to tense and laced with rhetorical rancor.
For those of us who view India as an invaluable future ally, these are disturbing developments. Not unsurprisingly, as trade between the two countries deteriorates, so too do other arenas. Our current disregard of India is risking nothing short of causing “great damage … to the foundations underlying the geostrategic partnership” itself, in the words of National Interest columnist J. Peter Pham. When President Obama seemed to blame India over the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan, India’s national security advisor promptly said Obama was “barking up the wrong tree.”
Additionally, Secretary of State Clinton skipped a visit to New Delhi during her maiden voyage to South Asia, stoking concerns that the new administration was putting India on the back burner (opting instead to prioritize relations with an ascendant China). As former U.S. ambassador to India Robert D. Blackwill phrased it, “China today appears … to be on a substantially higher plane in U.S. diplomacy than India, which seems to have been downgraded in the administration’s calculations.” Validating this view, India was not mentioned even once in the Obama administration’s official foreign policy agenda. The world’s largest democracy, more than one billion people — ignored.
This antagonism towards New Delhi is not merely an Obama phenomenon; the American left itself has expressed its unease with a powerful India for quite some time. It was in 1998, after all, when President Bill Clinton imposed sanctions on India for conducting underground nuclear tests — treating an ally and proud democracy as if it were a rogue enemy and brutal tyranny. President Bush, on the other hand, lifted those sanctions in 2001 and signed a historic civilian nuclear agreement with India in 2006, whereby the U.S. would share nuclear reactors and fuel with Prime Minister Singh’s government.
Why is there such a disparity of views on India between conservatives and liberals in these states united? Not all members of the left, of course, hold a hostile opinion of India (Christopher Hitchens comes to mind). But by and large, the American left seems to consider India the “biggest pain in Asia,” in the words of Barbara Crossette, a writer at Foreign Policy. Crossette criticizes India for not adhering to international accords which infringe upon a democracy’s sovereign right to control its nuclear destiny, as well as climate change treaties which would destroy India’s growth — some of the very reasons American conservatives respect India. The left is wary of India for the same reasons it remains wary of Israel: both democracies are fiercely nationalistic and unapologetically defend themselves against the “downtrodden” “other,” i.e., Islamic lunatics.
The American left simply prefers to play hardball with allies than with adversaries. Recall President Carter’s handling of Iran: the allied shah was condemned as an autocrat; the enemy Khomeini, a “holy man.” For Carter, our anticommunist allies were violators of human rights first, second, and third; the Soviets, murderers of tens of millions, were benign enough for Carter to proclaim Americans had an “inordinate fear of communism.”
Contemporaneously, the left’s is a world where dictatorial Venezuela is to be apologized for, democratic Colombia economically punished; where the fascists and racists and bus-bombers in Palestine are “misunderstood” and the democrats in Israel are Nazi brownshirts incarnate. Anti-American terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Lebanon are euphemized as “guerrillas,” whereas pro-American militiamen are castigated as “warlords” — and on and on it goes.
Embroiling the Indians in such amoral nonsense would threaten not only our present rapport with India, but also what could potentially become the most significant American alliance with another country this century — an alliance rooted in a commonality of values, genuine companionship and affection for one another, and solidarity against the totalitarian evils of the world. The United States should welcome India’s rise. We’re largely the reason it’s occurring.


N.M. Guariglia is a foreign policy analyst and columnist who writes on Islam and Middle Eastern geopolitics. He is a contributing editor for Family Security Matters and blogs at WorldThreats.com. He can be reached at nickguar@gmail.com

via pajamasmedia.com