Archives

Strange times, my friends...strange times

In the NWFP (North West Frontier Province) of Pakistan, a male suicide bomber dressed in a Burqa has killed 15 people.

On the Internet, Australian Lebanese designer Ahiida is selling Dynamic Sportwear and Swimwear for Today's Muslim Female. (TMF as I shall always call them forevermore). The Burqinis (TM) says Ahiida are chlorine resistant and water repellant.

I hope this new sartorial choice for the TMF's- repels much more than water-and has a special feature to repel those poor misogynistic Muslim men we hear so much about.

For all my god fearing Muslim sisters 'JIHADA's'- Ahiida has a SALE right now-she is giving us discounts so that we may swim freely on our rocky beaches in Gaza, and not have to worry about the bombs and bombshells from the Israeli 'Defence Forces'.

Who would you vote for as President of the World?
It’s got to be someone who’s going to inspire me so it’s probably going to be an actor and I would say someone like Brad Pitt or maybe even David Beckham, I think he’d be pretty good. It’s not going to be a politician because if it’s a world president then the world has to be at peace, we have to have one huge global world, there’s no conflict, no differences any more – so someone who is going to be an iconic figure that we can all look up to and admire – who is it at the moment that we admire most in the world? It’s not politicians, it is film stars, the people who feature in the magazines and probably the biggest one of those at the moment is David Beckham.

Who would you vote for as President of the World?
I would vote for noone as a president of the world. One of the advantages of democracy is that there are many of them.

For president of the world I would vote for no one. I don’t believe that there should be a president of the world. I think one of the advantage of democracy in the world is that there are loads of them. Basically I believe that the smaller the entity the better function of the democracy.

What is democracy for you?
Democracy for me is what it is for everyone else, a system where people can select their leader and decide what issues matter to them.

Its not been too long since the Jamia Hafsa brigade sheathed in Burqa's and armed with their weapons and Quran's tried to dictate morality to the Islamabadi elite.

Everyone knows how the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) fiasco ended for my namesake-President Musharraf. As an Indian
Muslim I am often in a Pakistan state of mind. Events in my neighbours' country, which is a mirror in so many ways of my own (and yet not) are always paramount in my mind.

Filmmaker Alex Gibney, who made the Why Democracy? film Taxi to the Dark Side (about murder, torture and abuse in US-run prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba) wrote the following in response to today's New York Times report on the existence of a secret Justice Department memo endorsing extreme forms of interrogation of detainees.

The President and the Vice President of the United States appear to have an unquenchable thirst for cruelty. The proof is that their political myrmidons in the Department of Justice and in the office of the Vice President have gone to extraordinary and unprecedented lengths to make coercive interrogation and torture the official policy of the United States of America.

Today, an extraordinary article appeared in the New York Times, which revealed the existence of secret documents that chronicle the ruthless and indefatigable efforts of a small group of men inside the Department of Justice to maintain the ability of US personnel to continue to engage in torture or - if that word offends - a policy of intentional cruelty toward prisoners.

We asked all sorts of people -- authors, athletes, movie stars, politicians, thinkers, workers, dreamers -- ten tough questions aboutdemocracy. We will publish many of the answers on this page, with new ones every day. Be sure to tell us what you think in the forums.

Who would you vote for as President of the World?
I would, of course, vote for me – I would be the best President the world has ever had, and then the world would have the benefit of a really good-looking President, my God I’m good looking.

An article on the BBC website has revealed that several Iraqi bloggers have been forced to leave the country. A few have left out their own will citing the increasing violence as the motivating factor.

Here is a list of some of the bloggers:

• City called Hell - Where date palms grow - daily account of a personal vision of Bagdhad
• Neurotic Iraqi Wife - Newlywed works and lives in Bagdhads Green Zone and blogs about her every day life.
  
• Nabils Blog - 19year old Iraqui Nablis blogs from Jordan.
• Days of My Life - "Talk about daily life of a teenage girl in Iraq, and days of suffer and success. My nick name will be Sunshine."
• A Star from Mosul - 19 year old student "Aunt Najma" from Mosul blogs about her life in Iraq, family holidays and her first year in university.
• Last of Iraqis - 25 years old dentist lives in Baghdad and is afraid that Iraqis are going to extinct soon. "so I made this blog wishing that I can make a difference or even share my grief with the whole world and give them an idea about what's happening here from the point of view of a civilian living in the war zone not from the politicians nor people who gets their benefits from the conditions."
• 24 Steps to Liberty - Iraqi student of journalism blogs from Berkeley, California.

The Home of the Brave?

Not quite, as we who engage find out, on a daily basis.

From a rather expected and mainstream news source comes this-

Secret US endorsement of severe interrogations

As reported by Burma Digest David Miliband said this about the situation in Burma:

"Human rights and democracy in Myanmar are not optional extras that would be nice to have; they are integral to creating the kind of stable regime that everybody wants to see. I hope that the recent presence in Myanmar of UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari will help jump-start this process. He has our full support."

You can read the full statement: Myanmar: Asean nations have vital role.