As The Post’s Niha Masih reported from Srinagar, streets are no longer crowded with civilians but awash with India’s armed soldiers, and “instead of traffic jams at intersections, there are spools of concertina wire. People remain inside their homes with no telephone, Internet or cable TV service. No one has seen or heard from local political leaders, hundreds of whom are in detention. Of the more than 200 newspapers in the region, only five are publishing physical copies. Their websites are stuck at Aug. 5.”
Daily Archives: 18. August 2019
Government Repeals the European Communities Act 1972
Back in 2012, after thousands of Guido’s readers mandated for him to do so in an innovative crowd-sourcing of legislation, Douglas Carswell presented a bill to Repeal the European Communities Act 1972:
Now Boris has made it happen.
Die-hard Remainer Philip Hammond‘s camp is blamed for leaking Project Fear 2.0 dossier as its predictions of No Deal Brexit chaos on October 31 are dismissed as ‚not believable‘ and ‚scaremongering‘
Former Tory former cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson claimed the leak of documents on ‚Operation Yellowhammer‘ was an example of the ‚establishment‘ plot to ‚sow fear in people‘s minds‘.
In a joint statement, they said: ‚This Operation Yellowhammer leak is the version of what the contingency executive put together. We remember attending a briefing on privy council terms which they said was not worst case but reasonable worst case. Theresa May had asked for this to be done. It was obviously Project Fear dressed up.
Gibraltar turns down US request to seize Iranian tanker
But Gibraltar lifted the detention order last Thursday after Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said he had secured written assurances from Tehran that the cargo would not go to Syria.
Those assurances, in the form of diplomatic Notes Verbale from the Iranian government, were published last Thursday by Gibraltar as part of the legal notice lifting the detention order.
Iranischer Öltanker: Gibraltar lehnt Beschlagnahmung von „Grace 1“ ab
Die Regierung in Gibraltar teilte zudem mit, dass das Schiff abfahren dürfe. Es werde erwartet, dass der iranische Tanker in Kürze mit einer neuen Crew die Region verlässt.
Der Tanker wurde inzwischen in „Adrian Darya 1“ umbenannt. Das Schiff soll nun unter iranischer Flagge weiterfahren. Zuvor war es unter der Flagge Panamas gefahren.
Organisers say 1.7 million joined Hong Kong pro-democracy rally against police use of force, as protesters reiterate 5 demands
The Civil Human Rights Front reiterated the five demands of the anti-extradition law movement. They called for a full withdrawal of the controversial bill and a retraction of characterisation of protests as “riots.” They urged for the unconditional release of all arrested protesters, the formation of an independent commission of inquiry into all events since June, and demanded universal suffrage.
In summary: ? #Netanyahu‘s regime must fall for the sake of Jews and Palestinians alike. ?Netanyahu is merely a symptom of a bigger problem, the Israeli occupation which is undemocratic by nature.Its practices leak into Israel & make it look more like the West Bank than Berlin.
#לא_מפחדים_בואו
(17.08.2019)
Now in Petach Tikva: A thousand people are protesting police brutality and unlawful arrest of anti-corruption activists. Protests in Petch Tikva, where the AG Mendelblit lives occur weekly. Yesterday, activists were arrested for walking down the street.
@nytimesworld Please do a follow up on this story. Israeli police arrest people with no charges, trying to bully people from not protesting ( legally) in front of Attorney General of Israel, Dr. Mandelblit‘s home. Apparently by his influence. Brutal arrest of older people.
Four arrested, 3 detained during anti-corruption protests near AG’s home
Anti-corruption activists have been holding regular protests near Mandelblit’s home for years, demanding he indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the corruption cases into his affairs.
Israel: Gebote und Verbote
Bereits 2011 hatten Richter klargestellt, dass Frauen nicht gezwungen werden dürfen, in Bussen nur die hinteren Plätze einzunehmen. Allerdings ließen sie ein Schlupfloch offen, auf „freiwilliger Basis“ dürfe eine Geschlechtertrennung in öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln erfolgen.
Geschlechtertrennungen gibt es immer häufiger in Israel – sei es bei der Armee, an Universitäten oder bei Veranstaltungen.
Israel‘s Attorney General Is Allowing the Gender-segregation Tsunami to Sweep Over
In recent years, gender segregation and discrimination against women have been expanding into various aspects of public life. This is seen on army bases where women are marginalized; on academic campuses where female “modesty supervisors” check the length of skirts; in the civil service, which has cadet courses for men only; in funeral ceremonies, where women cannot mourn or stand with their families; in signposts forbidding women to walk on certain sidewalks, while men police their clothing, applying ever harsher modesty rules, occasionally with curses and spitting. Bus drivers refuse to let on a female passenger in shorts, or don’t allow women to board, claiming there’s “room for men only.”
This is merely a partial list. The struggle for woman’s place in public – and for Israeli society – is in full force.
In Netanyahu’s Israel, Democracy Is Dying in Broad Daylight
(13.08.2019)
Ominous pre-election right-wing purges inspired by Trump‘s brazenness have been met with apathy and impotence on the center-left
Reading #MyPalestinianSitty is making prouder by the minute of @RashidaTlaib. The once invisible Palestinians now have a human face. What many of us have worked a generation to accomplish has happened overnight because one brave Palestinian woman stood tall & demanded justice
#MyPalestinianSitty was my best friend. She was born in Yaffa, Palestine in 1927. She was forced to flee in 1948 & took her children to Lebanon as refugees. She passed this last April. I will go to Yaffa soon & bring sand back to her grave to honor her ❤️
#MyPalestinianSitty is the warmest soul you could ever meet. My first best friend. When I was a little girl I’d beg to have sleep overs with her. She would let me carefully brush her hair until I eventually fell asleep. On her wedding day, Cairo family photo and no context smile.
This is #MyPalestinianSitty she fled palestine with her four children in 1967 and crossed the jordan river. every day I fight for her, my rock and the reason I am who I am.
Both my grandmothers in full color. One is older than the state of Israel and the other can whoop your ass in any card game. #mypalestiniansitty
#MyPalestinianSitty was born before the nakba in 1926. Only love and joy in her heart. I miss her dearly.
#MyPalestinianSitty was born in Yaffa. She was expelled from Palestine in ‘48 at the age of 11. Never went back to school because they always thought they’d go home tomorrow, next week, next month.
#MyPalestinianSitty is trending and I am overcome with emotions realizing how we are finally humanizing one of the world’s most dehumanized peoples.
Israel‘s ‚humanitarian‘ offer to Tlaib made me cringe. Here‘s why
Rep. Omar, I am also a naturalized U.S. citizen. I am an Israeli-American. I was born in Haifa, and my young parents, determined to study in the United States, took me and my sister to Los Angeles, where I was raised. At age 5, I helped my parents learn the Pledge of Allegiance when they took their oath of citizenship. Your experience speaks deeply to me as someone who feels at home in America and is proud of its traditions of welcoming the stranger, and who has an eye toward how the U.S. can use its power to lift others up, at home and abroad. I’m so sorry we won’t be able to meet because your travel was banned by the country that I now call home.
It Matters If Americans Call Afghanistan a Defeat
Following the Vietnam War, a narrative developed among the U.S.-military officer corps that civilian leaders had stabbed military leaders in the back by cutting a deal to withdraw U.S. troops, rather than allowing them to win. A broader literature suggests that a “stabbed in the back” narrative is a common cultural response among militaries that have failed to achieve their wartime goals.
Killing of leader’s brother will not derail peace talks: Taliban
Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada was not in the mosque near Quetta when a bomb went off but his younger brother, Hafiz Ahmadullah, was leading Friday prayers and was among four people killed, several Taliban officials have said. There was no claim of responsibility for the blast that came after both Taliban and US officials have reported progress in talks on an agreement centered on a US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in exchange for a Taliban security guarantee.
Deadly blast rips through wedding in Afghanistan, killing 63 people
The Afghan Taliban denied any responsibility for the attack, with spokesman Zabiullah Mojahid saying they condemn the suicide attack on civilians.
The venue is in western Kabul, an area home to many of Afghanistan‘s Shiite Hazara minority. It is also near the Darul Aman palace, where President Ashraf Ghani is expected to celebrate Afghan Independence Day on Monday.
Afghanistan wedding hall blast: more than 60 killed, 180 injured
Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, said on Sunday the Taliban could not escape blame for the “barbaric” suicide bomb attack.
“The Taliban cannot absolve themselves of blame for they provide platform for terrorists,” Ghani said in a post on Twitter.
Just completed a very good meeting on Afghanistan. Many on the opposite side of this 19 year war, and us, are looking to make a deal – if possible!
(16.08.2019)
Trump Gets Update From Aides on Afghan Peace Plan With Troop Pullout Possible
President Donald Trump was briefed on Friday by top national security advisers on the status of negotiations with the Taliban on a US troop pullout from Afghanistan and the potential for a political settlement between the warring sides.
There was no indication that any conclusions were reached at the session, which took place in a secure conference room at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
BLAIR-FACED LIARS: Defiant Boris Johnson to tell Germany and France ‘MPs will not stop Brexit’ after EU talks with Tony Blair
DEFIANT Boris Johnson will meet the leaders of Germany and France this week with a stark message: MPs won’t stop Brexit.
The PM will use a two-day trip to the continent to insist the referendum result will not be delayed again beyond October 31.
Biarritz (F) ist bereit für den G7-Gipfel
Die Regierungschefs der G7-Staaten treffen sich Ende August in der französischen Küstenstadt Biarritz. Es wird gemunkelt, dass am Treffen über Technologie, Handel und den Internationalen Währungsfonds gesprochen wird.
Boris Johnson set to meet Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron as Brexit showdown looms
Boris Johnson will hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel next week ahead of the G7 summit in Biarritz.
Project Fear 2.0? ANOTHER leaked No Deal Brexit dossier predicts fuel, food and medicine shortages, port chaos and Irish border disruption on Oct 31 as Boris Johnson vows to crash out the EU if necessary
– A secret Whitehall dossier outlines possible pandemonium in a No Deal Brexit
– Operation Yellowhammer casts a dark shadow over proposed October 31 exit
– Hard border in Ireland, fuel, medicine and food shortages are anticipated
– News comes as Boris Johnson prepares to meet EU leaders at the G7 this week
Cripes! Boris’s Brexit script is left in a pub by a ‘drunk’ official revealing the PM is primed to tackle ‘tricky’ topics of Northern Ireland, citizens’ rights and no deal
And thanks to a boozy civil servant leaving a stash of Brexit papers in a Westminster pub, The Mail on Sunday can reveal the full extent of Mr Johnson’s rigid new regime.
An eight-page document entitled ‘Core Brexit Brief’ and prepared specifically for Mr Johnson by Whitehall spin doctors and policy advisers was found abandoned in The Feathers public house, in the heart of Westminster.
Russia backs India, says J&K move ‚carried out within framework of Constitution‘
(10.08.2019)
NEW DELHI: Russia has endorsed India‘s move of abrogating Article 370 and bifurcating the state of Jammu & Kashmir, saying the exercise was „carried out within the framework of the Constitution of the Republic of India.“
In response to questions from the media, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday said: „Moscow expects that India and Pakistan will not allow aggravation of the situation in the region due to the change by Delhi in the status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Whether Art 370 abrogation was right or not is debatable. A life changing decision being forced upon Kashmiris sans consultation is unfair, undemocratic. 8 million Kashmiris locked up, cut off from the world, starved & being blinded by pellet guns should OUTRAGE every human being
Harvard alum write to PM Modi, ask him to release Shah Faesal, other leaders
Members of student, faculty and alumni of the prestigious Harvard University have written a letter to the Government of India, asking it to reconsider the detention of Shah Faesal on Wednesday in Srinagar.
Shah Faesal was sent back from Delhi airport on Tuesday to Srinagar and he was later detained under the Public Safety Act.
Russia backs India at UN closed door session on Kashmir contrary to reports
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov clearly told Qureshi during their telephone call on Wednesday that it does not favour open UNSC session on Kashmir and the Russian mission in New York went along with closed session contrary to some reports that Moscow supported Beijing and asked for an open session, informed sources told ET. These reports are not incorrect, sources stressed.
“Public message of Russia was consistent from beginning. Also Russia supported no statement on the Kashmir issue at the UN,” sources said.
Did India take down Pakistan 14-1 at United Nations Security Council?
For India, the fact that no country agreed to the ChinaPakistan effort to force a formal meeting, the fact that the informal meeting had no minutes, no votes or show of hands, no resolution, no statements, and no outcome, showed the duo was isolated and was cause for satisfaction. Diplomats pointed out that barring China, not one among the 14 other UNSC members came out to speak on the matter.
UN Security Council has its first meeting on Kashmir in decades — and fails to agree on a statement
A 90-minute private debate among Security Council members on Kashmir is notable. Asked whether the Council had left the Kashmir issue alone for too long, Russia‘s deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy, told CNN, „Well I was born in 1971.“
„Sometimes it‘s best to not touch on every issue,“ he added.
The curfew, crackdown & impending genocide of Kashmiris in IOK is unfolding exactly acc to RSS ideology inspired by Nazi ideology. Attempt is to change demography of Kashmir through ethnic cleansing. Question is: Will the world watch & appease as they did Hitler at Munich?
(11.08.2019)
A new Holocaust in the making in Kashmir
Kashmiris have not yet forgotten that in August – November, 1947, RSS colluded with the Hindu Maharajah of Kashmir to perpetrate the horrific genocide and exodus of Jammu, whereby hundreds of thousands of Muslims were massacred and an estimated half a million forcibly displaced. This reduced the region’s Muslim majority to a minority. This time, RSS is working through BJP, its political wing, to complete its original mission of ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Muslims. The genocide is being substituted by settler colonialism, but the objectives remain the same.
India Plans Big Detention Camps for Migrants. Muslims Are Afraid.
More than four million people in India, mostly Muslims, are at risk of being declared foreign migrants as the government pushes a hard-line Hindu nationalist agenda that has challenged the country’s pluralist traditions and aims to redefine what it means to be Indian.
‚Democracy Has Plunged to a New Low‘: Gandhi Peace Foundation on Kashmir
Having listened to the debates on Kashmir in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, the Prime Minister’s address to the nation, and having watched subsequent developments in Kashmir, we as citizens of India inspired by the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi feel compelled to state that the government has pushed the country into a blind alley. The gun that was used to silence Kashmir is now being used as a telescope through which to see Kashmir. This is shameful, unfortunate and ominous for India.
A whole state has vanished from the map in broad daylight. The Indian Union had 28 states, now it has 27. This is not a magic show, where a magician shows us, we know, something unreal and illusory. Here we are witnessing something cruel, ugly, undemocratic and seemingly irreversible. It reveals the poverty of our democratic politics.
‘Nineteen Eighty-Four is now a policing manual’
„The police had 30 tweets of mine. I asked the officer, ‘What’s the worst one you’ve got? Which one comes closest to the edge of being dangerously criminal?’ He said, ‘Well, there is this limerick’. I replied to say that I hadn’t written any limericks. He said, ‘No, but you have retweeted a limerick’. He read it to me, and I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me’. It wasn’t even a limerick. It was a lyric from a feminist song. He told me I had to stop doing this. I asked again if I had done anything wrong. And that is when he said the immortal line: ‘I need to check your thinking.’ „