Thursday, June 04, 2009
http://chinaconfidential.blogspot.com/
North Korea Preparing Major Provocations
Early Warning.
China Confidential analysts confirm that North Korea is preparing to stage several major provocations between now and July 4.Hezbollah Likely to Control Lebanon
A Hezbollah-led coalition may expand its power in Lebanon’s June 7 parliamentary elections, helping the Iranian-backed Shiite group preserve a militia the U.S. has sought to disband.
Continue here.No Word on Fate of US Hostages in N. Korea
AP reports:North Korea stayed silent Friday about the fate of two U.S. journalists who were supposed to go on trial a day earlier on charges they entered the country illegally and engaged in "hostile acts" — allegations that could draw a 10-year sentence in a labor camp.
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV, were arrested March 17 near the North Korean border while on a reporting trip to China.
Their trial began in the communist country's highest court at a time of mounting tensions on the Korean peninsula following the regime's provocative May 25 nuclear test.
As the United Nations and Washington discussed how to punish the regime for its defiance, there were fears the women could become political pawns in the standoff with Pyongyang.Time Magazine Anoints a New 'Prophet'
Is he the Muslim-born messiah, or simply a "prophet?"
Click here for Time's incredible contribution to the Obama personality cult.Obama Validated Islamist Ideology
A gauge of the absurdity of an American president addressing "the Muslim world" was the difficulty in finding a venue for Thursday's speech. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak remains one of America's closest allies in the Muslim world, and the head of the most populous, important Arab state, and one that has a peace treaty with Israel. Egypt was the natural choice, but it called down criticism on Obama for validating a regime that suppresses political opposition. The opposition it suppresses most brutally comes from the Muslim Brotherhood (the Egyptian parent organization of which Hamas is the Palestinian branch), the first and still the most important Islamist organization.
By addressing the "Islamic world" from Cairo, Obama lends credibility to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and other advocates of political Islam who demand that Muslims be addressed globally and on religious terms - in contradistinction to nationalists such as Mubarak. Rather than buttress a loyal ally, Obama's speech undermines him on his home ground. That is a lose-lose proposition.
Click here to read the entire essay.Iran's Supreme Fascist: 'Muslims Hate America'
North Korea Uncovered, Thanks to Google Earth
This Google Earth project offers an extensive mapping of North Korea’s economic, cultural, political, and military infrastructures. Through the topic menu, users of this program have easy access to geographical information on North Korea’s agriculture projects, aviation facilities, communications, hospitals, hotels, energy infrastructure, financial services, leisure destinations, manufacturing facilities, markets, mines, religious locations, restaurants, schools, and transportation infrastructure. In addition to locations of economic interest, this map also displays anti-aircraft locations, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and Northern Line Limit Line (NLL), incarceration facilities, political monuments, political residencies, military bases, and nuclear facilities.
Continue here.Obama Expected to Equate Buchenwald and Dresden on Next Stop of World Apology Tour
What is also highly troubling about Obama’s imminent trip is not just his speech in Cairo but where he is going after that. For his next stop is Buchenwald – and straight after that, Dresden. Dresden? Why on earth Dresden of all places? One reason only, surely. The symbolism is unmistakeable – the site of the most controversial Allied bombing of World War Two. It looks horribly like Obama intends to make a symbolic statement of reproach for that event – just to go there makes the point, without even saying anything -- and even worse, to make some kind of equation with the slaughter at Buchenwald. One holocaust doesn't deserve another, would seem to be the unspoken message, would it not? Or to put it another way, if Jews defend themselves by military means, they turn into Nazis.
In the light of Iran’s genocidal threats against Israel and the nuclear weapons that Obama is giving it the time to assemble to make good those threats, such symbolism would be unspeakable – and another feather of western defeatism for a gloating Iran to stick in its cap.Obama Echoed Al Qaeda Calumnies
Marc Thiessen says President Obama "echoed Al-Qaeda’s calumnies ... and did so in a foreign land."
Click here for the analysis.
Nothing good will come from Obama's speech. It will embolden extremists and lead to an escalation of Islamist terrorism and political pressures on the United States and its allies, including Israel, Egypt, and Jordan--and European countries, including France, trying to resist Islamist demands for special rights and segregated spaces.
Obama has essentially given Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood a license to overthrow the country's aging, authoritarian president, Hosni Mubarak.Chavez Says He is to the Right of 'Comrade' Obama
Reuters reports:Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday that he and Cuban ally Fidel Castro risk being more conservative than U.S. President Barack Obama as Washington prepares to take control of General Motors Corp.
During one of Chavez's customary lectures on the "curse" of capitalism and the bonanzas of socialism, the Venezuelan leader made reference to GM's bankruptcy filing, which is expected to give the U.S. government a 60 percent stake in the 100-year-old former symbol of American might.
"Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right," Chavez joked on a live television broadcast.
During a decade in government, Chavez has nationalized most of Venezuela's key economic sectors, including multibillion dollar oil projects, often via joint ventures with the private sector that give the state a 60 percent controlling stake.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Iran's proxy is poised to take over Lebanon. Bloomberg reports:
An essay in Asia Times agrees with China Confidential: Obama's address to "the Muslim world" validates Islamist ideology.
Iran's top turbaned tyrant and supreme clerical fascist, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, didn't wait to issue a reply to President Obama's appeal. Click here.
Melanie Phillips looks forward to the next stop on the Obama world apology tour:
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