Traffickers caught in ItalyAs reported by
the New York Times, the Italian police accuses more than 2000 foreigners accross Italy of human trafficking. Certain groups of foreigners are exploiting other groups; both women and children are being exploited either sexually or in sweatshops.
Arrests have been made and interrogations are on their way.
Trafficking is just one of the problems Italy faces, as thousands try to reach its shores. For a long time Italy because of its long coasts has been a major target of immigration - mainly illegal. The size of this case, however, highlights the scope of the situation better than anything that happened for a long time.
Egyptian police routinely tortures suspectsThe case of the Eguptian bus driver
Imad al-Kabir has finally made it to the
news exposing a pattern much larger than the case of one man however important. The bus driver, who intervened in an argument between the police and another civilian in a Cairo parking lot, was sentenced to prison for resisting a police officer. The fact that he was humiliated and physically assaulted by the police was not even mentioned. Police themselves shot a video of the brutality and in order to further humiliate the suspect circulated it to other parties.
Apparently police brutality in Egypt is so common as to amount to a known phenomenon, however, not discussed. The case of al-Kabir only became known because a blogger posted the video of his humiliation into his blog.
Now finally Human Rights Watch has picked up the case. Hopefully public pressure will have some effect in this and many other Egyptian prisoners' cases.
Parental control needed for child surfersDo parents know what their kids are up to when surfing the web? Apparently not since there is so much talk of children running the risk of meeting on-line predators and worse whilst out there. Parents may not be aware that anyone can pretend to be of any age on a networking site or chat room. It is easy for predator adults to meet unsuspecting kids on-line.
As resported by
BBC, a popular on-line networking site has now come up with a partial solution that limits the age of how old people can be and still contact younger surfers. But is this really a solution? If anyone can lie about their age, then the program is good for nothing.
The only solution is parental control and information. To rely on programs is just a part of a wider trend to leave the kids to be the responsibility of their school, their friends or finally to leave the kids to their own devices. That doesn't work. Ultimately a parent is responsible for her/his kids and that includes the web. No program can displace parental responsibility.
Affirmative action - too much is too much, says Sweden's Supreme CourtThe case has been dragging on for years already making
headlines in Sweden. Basicly, two Swedisn women with better grades were rejected from studying at the Law Faculty of Sweden's Uppsala University as less qualified foreign citizens took their places. The women took the case initially to the local court. All of the courts from local to Surpreme found in the women's favour. Uppsala University will finally have to pay the fines and accept the decision.
Is too much affirmative action too much affirmative? Will be interesting to see what are the long-term consequences of the precedent setting ruling, which could apply to many areas.
Carter Center advisers resign as protestAs a protest against Carter's one-sidedness, as expressed in his book "Palestine:Peace not Apartheid", forteen advisers of the Carter Center have resigned.
More on this issue at
CNN's web site.
Saudi women must get their rightsFinally a member of the Saudi Royals has spoken out for the women of that society. When it comes to Saudi women, what we best remember is the famous execution of a princess. ATV aired a
drama documentary on the true story of Princess Mishaal and her lover - both executed, as a result of their love. The film was first shown in 1980 despite Saudi protests and threats. It showed a very ugly side of the Muslim society - the intolerant, hostile and anti-woman side.
Now Princess Adeelah has spoken out. Although her
Rania El-Baz being taken to the hospital after her husband nearly killed her. Saudi Arabia was schocked by the images and a wide discussion on domestic violence was started. Domestic violence whose victims are women and children, of course. By some estimates 3 in 10 Saudi women are victims of domestic abuse.
Hopefully Princess Adeelah's views are not only her own but widely shared in the family she represents.
Russia selling missiles to IranAs
reported with concern all over the world, Russia has sold anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran. As commented by Russian officials, they are willing to continue sales in future. All of this has been confirmed by Russian officials, including the Foreign Minister Sergei Ivanov. Although the UN has banned selling of nuclear technology to Iran, no mention has been made of conventional weapons.
Although no mention has been made of conventional weapons, what kind of message is being sent to Iran by selling any weapons at all as long as their nuclear intetions are feared? Is this a new Russian way of showing that it is still a world power? May be.
Unfortunately there is another may be. May be the day is not far ahead Russia together with other countries will be threatened by Iran.
Tehran Conference even criticized in the Arab mediaThe infamous Holocaust denial conference took place in Tehran on December 11-12. Afterwards even Arab columnists condemned the conference's organizers and participants, calling them hate-mongers and "distorters of historical fact." These columnists argued that the conference was not an academic event but an opportunity to spread hateful ideas. The Iranian claim that Westerners needed this opportunity to express themselves was dismissed - in Iran there is no freedom of speech.
Even in Iran itself, the Baztab website, published a highly critical view of the event.
MEMRI has translated these
items that I recommend to see.
Reading the translations, it is striking to see how morally clear some of these writers are and comparing their freedom of expression with that of European writers, how brave too. Suddenly it seems that not enough condemnation was expressed by European intellectuals and influential writers at the time of the event.
Genocide in DarfurGenocide has been going on in Darfur already for some time. Everyone on this globe is familiar with the facts; everyone has heard about Sudan's burning situation. So why doesn't anyone seem to be taking action? Why is the situation permitted to continue, as it is? Why has Sudan not become the focus of media attention? Why despite General Secretary Annan's personal attention, the UN as an organization is largely ignoring the problem?
It seems, as Evelyn Gordon argued in an article at the
Jerusalem Post, that we have a problem because Sudan is an unpopular cause, and no single country can be finger-printed for direct national interests in that area. For political, and possibly military action to be taken, very vital interests of a country would have to be at stake. For UN to be involved, those interests would have to be strong indeed. For UN genocide is not enough of a reason to rally its member states. Second, public pressure for any action at all is non-existing. UN and member states would act if public pressure existed but it doesn't because the media is not active enough. UN and world media are inactive together in this one.
Strange considering that much less threatening conflicts can garner huge media attention and condemnations by the General Assembly.
Sadly in the case of Darfur, both the world body and world media seem to have taken the road of inaction and silence. Nothing will be happening anytime soon unless people themselves around the world see this hypocrisy.
EU's sissy reactionEU including the former Finnish Presidency that just ended reacted in the predictable way to Saddam's death. EU is against death penalty in general, that's it.
Isn't this insulting to Shias, to Kurds and all the others who suffered under Saddam's government? Shouldn't there be a distinction between penalties meted out to dictators and mass murderers compared with petty criminals? What punishment would have been suitable to Saddam and others of his ilk?
Would EU's current leadership have let Hitler walk free?
I hope not.
Jailed blogger of EgyptReferring to my earlier item on the jailed Egyptian blogger
Kareem Amer, I recommed an excellent
article by
Dalia Ziada and
Jesse Sage.
And pls sign the petition...
Carter's book - an anti-Israel pattern emergesIt cannot be said that many were surprised by Carter's latest book (see my previous posting).
His liberal leftist views are well-known and his anti-Israeli tendencies should therefore have been clear before the appearance of his book. Still, based on facts as
reported by
Neal Shearer, who headed the Justice Department's Nazi Prosecution Office in the late 80's, Carter's bias is more shocking than anyone could have anticipated. According to Shearer, in a case of a known Nazi war criminal's impending prosecution Carter personally intervened appealing on behalf of the man's family on humanitarian grounds.
What should we then think of this former president being allowed to participate in anything related to Israel, Arabs and the peace process? If he doesn't have moral clarity in issues that are completely clear to so many of us, perhaps he'd better devote himself to other matters altogether and leave the Middle East to its own devices?
